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Species lower vs. upper case proposals
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20120304182901im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/ba/Red_x.svg/20px-Red_x.svg.png)
Original proposal (both versions)
Here's a copy of the original proposal, both versions, so it stays with this thread fork for reference and isn't just archived:
Wrapping this up: We clearly have a consensus to move forward | ||||||||
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Enough time has passed and the discussion has slowed enough that we can take stock of what's emerged and move forward. There is a clear consensus to do so.
That sentence encapsulates what this debate is about; ornithology is a red herring. This is not a facetious example; those are in fact the "official" or most widely recognized common names of all four of those species. It's crucial that we understand what kind of a "Wikipedia is written by blithering morons" Pandora's box is already open. If you think this is silly or exaggerated, go spend a few hours reading animal articles and come back and report how many you find with exactly that kind of capitalization (I used Przewalski's horse as an example in the MOS text because it was one of the many I have rescued from this nonsense). See the history of lion for people editwarring for the capitalization of "Lions". Yes, really. See the similar fight at bottlenose dolphin and (importantly) the squabble over whether or not to make bottlenose dolphin be about the species, since renamed common bottlenose dolphin, and Bottlenose Dolphin about the genus! I couldn't make this stuff up. People were actually going to disambiguate by capitalization (notably in exactly the opposite direction as the birds project - they were going to capitalize the group, not the specific species)! Enough is way more than enough at this point. WP:Manual of Style exists for three main reasons:
MOS has dismally failed at all three of these goals on this matter, despite having a clear consensus against capitalization of animal common names since at least 2008 (language saying so has been semi-stable since then; versions that did so predated this stability, several times, and debate at WP:VPP in 2007 strongly suggested that virtually everyone was on board but birds.) There appears to be no further question or debate that this failure has occurred, that MOS needs to address the points raised, that all of them are valid, and that the solution need to be consistently applied across all the relevant guidelines (in compatible, not identical wording). MOS's role here is to set a default, note the existence of debate about a possible exception without endorsing it, and discourage others from starting more conflicts by capitalizing elsewhere. MOS has no WP:ARBCOM-like role to play as arbiter of the birds-related dispute.
I intend to replace this with one of the following two alternatives, based on a review of all of the above, and returning to the...
Consensus was arrived at on every one of these points, if not their exact wording. All of these are addressed in both versions of the proposed wording, to the extent that they need to be in WP:MOS itself (we can drill down into details in sub-guidelines). E.g., the zebras example covers the fact that we mean this applies to larger groups as well as species, without us having to say it explicitly. I've underlined the difference between the versions:
(I got rid of the awkward "do not have each word capitalized" wording, and changed it to refer to "lower case" instead of "capitalization" or "upper case" because we should advise for a positive not against a negative when possible, just as a matter of good writing. There is no link to WP:BIRDS, because we do not want to seem blamey or attacking, nor, conversely, do we want to give the impression that WikiProjects can barge in and demand exceptions all over the place. This is about avoiding conflict, not elevating project "authority" or assigning "blame". Also, "species" is an important distinction with regard to the the birds thing, and cannot be lost, or the passage will misrepresent WP:BIRDS's actual position.) These each cover all of the points that were identified as needed coverage and on which there is a clear consensus (yes, there is a clear consensus that the WP:BIRDS preference is controversial, just not on whether to use that specific word. I prefer the first version ("controversial" vs. "no Wikipedia-wide consensus"), because it actually represents the truth that in seven years of the debate virtually everyone but one WikiProject have agreed that "Johnson had a Rock Pigeon" is not how we write an encyclopedia. Saying there "isn't a Wikipedia-wide consensus" about what WP:BIRDS is doing is wishy-washy spindoctoring. Worse yet, it not-so-subtly suggests other projects should rise up and demand exceptions for whatever pet peeve they have. The evidence I've compiled strongly suggests that the WP:BIRDS exception is in fact one of the most controversial ideas on the entire system for years. Meanwhile, the editor who labeled "controversial" a "boo-word" and objected to it has simply abandoned the discussion, without ever explaining why they felt that way about it; I don't feel a strong need to concede to arguments that are undefended by their proponents. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 16:18, 4 February 2012 (UTC) |
This was followed by a poll, a canvassed false poll, and lots of argumentation, which is archived under WT:Manual of Style/Archive 128#Species capitalization points. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 23:02, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
Another compromise text: Mention guidance
Write common (vernacular) names in lowercase except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, but Przewalski's horse). Capitalizing the common names of bird species is established practice within Wikiproject Birds (Harpy Eagle). This is in accordance with specialist guidance but has been repeatedly disputed on Wikipedia, where it conflicts with general-audience guidance. Do not de-capitalize ornithology articles within WP:BIRDS without first establishing consensus. Use lowercase for all other articles outside of WP:BIRDS. All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common names (The Golden Eagle preys on Mountain Hare/The golden eagle preys on mountain hare). Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.
- Reflects changes made after KimVL and SMC responded.
- So it's a bit long but it establishes that 1. the WP:BIRDS editors aren't following their own whims 2. neither are the opponents of capitalization 3. editors should not de-capitalize WP:BIRDS articles just for the heck of it 4. editors should not copy WP:BIRDS style on articles outside of WP:BIRDS 4. the MoS does not expressly endorse capitalization (implied) and 5. it links to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS without banging it over anyone's head.
- If need be, we could add "the specialist guidance of ornithological articles and bird books." The only reason I've left it out is length. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:06, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
- support. I think this is clear. It describes the conflict in neutral terms and it does not point fingers to which group has it wrong. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 17:44, 7 February 2012 (UTC)
- No problem with fix. I would suggest changing: "All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common names" to All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common bird names". and remove the example. Maountain hare is lowercase, no reason to make that caps.-- Kim van der Linde at venus 02:29, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I like this modified wording. Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:06, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Support with minor tweak: It shouldn't say "within" or "outside" WP:BIRDS, which is not a container, and the project does not control the articles anyway as a matter of policy. It should read "Do not de-capitalize common names in ornithology articles without first establishing consensus. Use lower case for other categories of articles." This also clarifies here what WP:BIRDS has said many times, that it does not expect the convention to be followed for mentions of birds outside ornithology articles. With a tweak like that, I'm all thumbs up and everyone can be happy! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:29, 7 February 2012 (UTC) Post-tweak: Just support! Yay! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC) Update: I would continue to support, if the language were removed calling for "Mountain Hare" in ornithology articles; Jojalozzo, below, is correct that we capitalize different things for different reasons, and a strong argument can be made that capitalizing birds but not other animals in birds articles is such a case. I remain neutral on that question. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC) See new comment, below. There's a serious inconsistency problem that would appear to require an obsessive amount of geekiness to remember and apply, and that's not an acceptable imposition on our editors. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support. This is absolutely fine. Sabine's Sunbird talk 00:19, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support - although the "internally consistent" part bugs me a bit; "Mountain Hare" wouldn't be used even in ornithological articles. But if that's what it takes I won't whale the deceased equine with the long straight implement. ;) - The Bushranger One ping only 01:33, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose per Bushranger the part that says "All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common names (The Golden Eagle preys on Mountain Hare/The golden eagle preys on mountain hare)." This implication that species other than birds might be capitalized is not intended, is it? I'll support if this is fixed. Dicklyon (talk) 01:40, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose - Please replace "All articles should be internally consistent with respect to the capitalization of common names (The Golden Eagle preys on Mountain Hare/The golden eagle preys on mountain hare)" with something like "Capitalize only common names of birds (but not other fauna) in ornithological articles. Do not capitalize common names of birds in non-ornithological articles. (The Golden Eagle preys on the mountain hare/Predators of the mountain hare include the golden eagle.)" [Note: we'll want to repair the Mountain Hare page if we're to use this example.] Jojalozzo 02:51, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Per four years of MOS saying not to capitalize species common names, it should be fixed anyway. :-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:56, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
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- So ornithology journals are concerned that people will confuse the white-throated sparrow with any sparrow that has a white throat but not the mountain hare with any hare that lives on a mountain? I've got my qualms about this. Intra-article consistency, unlike caps vs. lowercase, is a central principle of the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
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- We need to remember that links work. The first time a prey animal like mountain hare gets mentioned, it would be linked, and unless people's brains liquify between paragraphs, they're not suddenly going to interpret a later unlinked mention as "any hare that lives on a mountain". In any cases of possible ambiguity, just rewrite to avoid like we always do: "the mountain hare species". I'm a big fan of consistency within the same article, but Jojalozzo has a point. And it's far more important to stop the disease-like spread of total nonsense capitalization practices like "Lion" and "Pallas's Cat" than to demand that editors of birds articles to capitalize prey animals. Even if we absolutely wanted both, I'd happily sacrifice the latter to get the former, because it's a 1000× more in-your-face problem for the readership that lc mouse names in UC eagle articles. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:54, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Absolutely. Intra-article consistency should be first principle. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- So why did MOS long endorse "U.S." even in the same article as "UK" and "PRC"? Sometimes intra-article consistency is less important that editorial peace, and site-wide consistency. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:15, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- We up-case some terms and down-case others for various reasons. Just because we allow up-casing of bird names in an article doesn't mean it's inconsistent if we don't up-case every other common name in the article. Here we're saying "ornithology articles up-case common names of birds", not "ornithology articles up-case common names of all fauna". Within an ornithology article all common names of birds are consistently up-cased and all common names of other fauna are consistently down-cased. Jojalozzo 14:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Jojalozzo, you can make a case for it not being bad, but it is quite literally inconsistent. I'm pretty sure that all of us know that the English language isn't always logical, but this shoots down the idea that bird names are capitalized to prevent confusion. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Jojalozzo, if you saying that it is the case that "Within an ornithology article all common names of birds are consistently up-cased and all common names of other fauna are consistently down-cased" then you're just wrong. This may be true of some articles but not others.
- If you are saying that it should be the case then it makes no sense. All arguments in favour of upcasing bird names are equally good arguments for upcasing other kinds of name. Birds are not the only group where there are authoritative lists of capitalized English names; the only thing that is special is that there is a higher degree of internationalization in the case of birds. SMcCandlish would clearly be right to say that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS would apply if WP:BIRDS members were claiming that ornithology articles should be treated quite differently from every other kind of article. (Shock, horror! I just agreed with SMcCandlish!) Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Where are my smelling salts? heh. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 07:11, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- All arguments in favour of upcasing bird names are equally good arguments for upcasing other kinds of name.—Well, no, the argument that the specialist journals/etc typically have style guides recommending uppercase doesn't seem to apply to other kinds of names, does it? I tried to bring this up at PRIMATES but nobody had much of an answer. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- The WP:BIRDS claim is actually far more specific, when its proponents clearly articulate it. It's that the International Ornithological Committee (IOC) has issued a uniform, "official" list of the common names of birds, for universal use in English, and apparently just about everyone's buying it. There isn't a comparable global standard like this for any other taxonomic group. As I've said before, I don't think this means WP needs to capitalize bird names, but it's a different argument than, say, lepidopterist editors could make, which would probably be what some lepidoptery journal article submission style guidelines demand, and what they're used to seeing in a bunch of insect field guides. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:51, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
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- So ornithology journals are concerned that people will confuse the white-throated sparrow with any sparrow that has a white throat but not the mountain hare with any hare that lives on a mountain? I've got my qualms about this. Intra-article consistency, unlike caps vs. lowercase, is a central principle of the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:39, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support Thanks to Kim and SMc for moving this on Jimfbleak - talk to me? 07:15, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose This is another attempt to make WP:BIRDS special; it ignores all the other areas where capitalization of common names is the norm (e.g. lepidoptera) or widespread (e.g. plants). I do not accept that "it conflicts with general-audience guidance". I do not accept that it would be right at present to de-capitalize articles outside the field of ornithology where there are reasons for capitalizing (e.g. Australian plants). I feel very strongly that this is a highly reprehensible attempt at a "fix" which satisfies two interest groups (those who really want all common names to be in lower case and those members of WP:BIRDS who want all bird names in capitals) at the expense of the wider Wikipedia community. If anything is LOCALCONSENSUS this is. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:20, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Regarding the idea that MOS itself is becoming a local consensus: Maybe it's just time we set up an RfC here on the species caps issue, and direct WP:CD (via Template:Centralized discussion) and WP:VPP to the RfC when it gets going. That should be more than enough site-wide attention. If not we can even see about adding it for a while to MediaWiki:Watchlist-details and MediaWiki:Sitenotice. Various RfCs and VPP discussions have happened over the years, piecemeal, but the kind broadly-advertised centralized discussion that needs to take place hasn't happened.
On the other bits: Can you cite any general-audience guidance – a style guide, encyclopedia, dictionary, writing textbook, magazine or newspaper stylebook, or other non-specialist (i.e. non-field-specific – not animals- or plants-specific) work – in which it is recommended that bird (or other organism) common names should be capitalized? If there are not a preponderance of such works (there's not; previous debates about this have spent large amounts of time examining this question), then the practice certainly "conflicts with general-audience guidance", and it's crucial that MOS say so, or it will effectively be taking ArbCom's role and arbitrating in favor of WP:BIRDS and telling all critics of the WP:BIRDS capitalization scheme that the debate is over; not MOS's role.
Is there an international body that has published a standardized list of official, consistent-worldwide names of plants or lepidoptera which includes capitalization as a requirement of adherence to the standard? That is the "special" argument WP:BIRDS makes. I do not agree, as many do not agree, that this is a strong enough rationale for MOS to endorse the practice, because it's still geeky, specialist typographic weirdness for specialist publications, but it has been a strong enough rationale to generate 7 years of entrenched, WP:BATTLEGROUNDish debate about bird capitalization, a debate which remains unresolved. Thus MOS would note the dispute, albeit in weaker wording than I originally proposed, and advise editors to work around it until it it someday is resolved. This is actually standard operating procedure for MOS and its subpages. There is no comparable system-wide dispute about moths or ferns.
MOS is a prescriptive document like all style guides, which means picking a choice between one option and another (or several others) and applying it for consistency. This also means that those who prefer the option, or one of the options, not chosen aren't going to be entirely happy with the result, but their happiness is secondary to the good of the encyclopedia, including both a consistent reader experience and reduction of raging editwars between editors. This is all true of everything MOS recommends. MOS isn't saying WP:BIRDS is special, it's saying WP:BIRDS is claiming it is special, there's a debate about that, it's not MOS's job to arbitrate that dispute, but it is MOS's job to set a standard to follow when people fight frequently over a style matter, which is the case with organism caps generally. The MOS standard is "don't capitalize species common names", since virtually zero other general works do so (WP doesn't care if specialist works do), and it MOS has said so since 2008. For four years the "no-caps" default here has been uncontroversial. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:44, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- I can only repeat that it's not true that "For four years the 'no-caps' default here has been uncontroversial." It hasn't been argued about here, maybe, but it's been argued about elsewhere, and people just didn't bother with what the MOS said until you tried to change subpages as part of "synchronizing". Before that, it was deliberately ignored by many editors – and that's not what "uncontroversial" means. Uncontroversial guidance in the MOS tends to be followed or else failure to follow uncontroversial guidance quickly gets corrected without edit wars. This is not true of the capitalization of English names. If you don't believe me, try "correcting" the capitalization of common names in an article about an Australian plant, like a Banksia (and, no, I'm not recommending this!). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Let's switch terms, so this stops being about birds or even animals. Let's say WP:STARWARS notes that (I'm making this up), "Planet", "Starship", "Star", and various other terms are almost always capitalized in Star Wars novels and guidebooks and George Lucas's own manuscripts and official statements by LucasArts, etc., etc., but not in normal English. They decide it should be done in Star Wars articles "because that's what the reliable sources do" and change all the relevant articles to do this. Others don't agree with it and point to MoS. WP:STARWARS writes up their own WP:LOCALCONSENSUS guideline, and deliberately ignores MOS rather than seek consensus that what the project is doing makes sense in a general-purpose encyclopedia. That's what I see happening, if you just change the topic back. Refusing to participate in consensus-forming process at MOS means neither that MOS hasn't come to a consensus nor that said consensus somehow doesn't represent a WP-wide view. Claiming that something at MOS is controversial but doing nothing to change it indicates an illusory "controversy". But WP:IAR exists for a reason. The fact that some editors, including groups of them in projects, sometimes ignore MOS and other "rules" doesn't mean that the rule doesn't exist or is bad, only that some people feel a need to ignore it. Policy sanctions this, and life goes on. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- I can only repeat that it's not true that "For four years the 'no-caps' default here has been uncontroversial." It hasn't been argued about here, maybe, but it's been argued about elsewhere, and people just didn't bother with what the MOS said until you tried to change subpages as part of "synchronizing". Before that, it was deliberately ignored by many editors – and that's not what "uncontroversial" means. Uncontroversial guidance in the MOS tends to be followed or else failure to follow uncontroversial guidance quickly gets corrected without edit wars. This is not true of the capitalization of English names. If you don't believe me, try "correcting" the capitalization of common names in an article about an Australian plant, like a Banksia (and, no, I'm not recommending this!). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Regarding the idea that MOS itself is becoming a local consensus: Maybe it's just time we set up an RfC here on the species caps issue, and direct WP:CD (via Template:Centralized discussion) and WP:VPP to the RfC when it gets going. That should be more than enough site-wide attention. If not we can even see about adding it for a while to MediaWiki:Watchlist-details and MediaWiki:Sitenotice. Various RfCs and VPP discussions have happened over the years, piecemeal, but the kind broadly-advertised centralized discussion that needs to take place hasn't happened.
- Support with small change I agree with Dickylon and Bushranger. Natureguy1980 (talk) 20:35, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Comment: Resolved There's still a lot of latent inconsistency here. I noticed on a bird article that its unofficial common name were capitalized, despite the birds project's main rationale for capitalization being that it's because the IOC publishes an "official", consistent, world-wide, universally accepted list of codified bird common names in English, and this makes them "special" (it doesn't, but I'm willing to pretend it does as a matter of compromise). I just confirmed at WT:BIRDS yesterday that they also want to capitalize the unofficial ones. It doesn't even seem to matter how parochial they might be. Yet the don't, apparently, want to capitalize prey/predator non-bird common names in the same article. That's too inconsistent and weird. Either IOC names get capitalized because they're allegedly special and nothing else does because they're not, or everything gets capitalized in orn. articles for intra-article consistency. It cannot be some unholy mishmash that no one is ever going to remember. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:45, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Not that I expect it to make a speck of difference to SMcCandlish, but in the interest of explaining it to anyone else who might be reading, the WP:BIRDS project capitalizes any bird name which was at some point on an official taxonomic list. So Red-throated Loon and Red-throated Diver are capitalized, but "peg-billed loon" and "cape brace" (which were never "official" names) are not. And before I get any snotty comments, I'm sorry if I'm using the wrong type of quotation marks — which is apparently something else a number of editors are having words about! MeegsC | Talk 22:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's not the answer you gave at WT:BIRDS, so you needn't be snarky about it: "I believe the project's capitalization rules suggest that all bird names be capitalized in the same way as official IOC names are — i.e. title case. That's certainly how I've interpreted things. MeegsC | Talk 02:44, 10 February 2012 (UTC)"[1]. I'm not asking you questions for my own entertainment; it's a legit question that needs a clear answer. I see that since then some other birds project members are starting to chime in with what you're saying here now (which makes more sense to me). I think that would kind of lean things toward "don't capitalize non-bird species", too, rather than "capitalize or lower-case all species consistently in the same article", which seems to be the main sticking point with this proposal (Peter coxhead's more general objection also noted). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, good point and well made. I wasn't thinking about regional folk names such as "cape brace" and "peg-billed loon" as proper bird names, so hadn't considered them when I answered your initial question at WP:BIRD. My mistake. When others raised that point on the WP:BIRDS talk page, I realized that I had overlooked them. Since none of that discussion's responses (only your synthesis) had been transferred to this page, I thought I would try to explain the "inconsistent and weird" (as you termed it) way some bird articles display names. Your comment "It doesn't even seem to matter how parochial they are." is certainly not uniformly correct, at least in articles that have been worked on recently by project members. MeegsC | Talk 02:34, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- Right, and thanks for clarifying and sorry if I misinterpreted. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 04:03, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, good point and well made. I wasn't thinking about regional folk names such as "cape brace" and "peg-billed loon" as proper bird names, so hadn't considered them when I answered your initial question at WP:BIRD. My mistake. When others raised that point on the WP:BIRDS talk page, I realized that I had overlooked them. Since none of that discussion's responses (only your synthesis) had been transferred to this page, I thought I would try to explain the "inconsistent and weird" (as you termed it) way some bird articles display names. Your comment "It doesn't even seem to matter how parochial they are." is certainly not uniformly correct, at least in articles that have been worked on recently by project members. MeegsC | Talk 02:34, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's not the answer you gave at WT:BIRDS, so you needn't be snarky about it: "I believe the project's capitalization rules suggest that all bird names be capitalized in the same way as official IOC names are — i.e. title case. That's certainly how I've interpreted things. MeegsC | Talk 02:44, 10 February 2012 (UTC)"[1]. I'm not asking you questions for my own entertainment; it's a legit question that needs a clear answer. I see that since then some other birds project members are starting to chime in with what you're saying here now (which makes more sense to me). I think that would kind of lean things toward "don't capitalize non-bird species", too, rather than "capitalize or lower-case all species consistently in the same article", which seems to be the main sticking point with this proposal (Peter coxhead's more general objection also noted). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:32, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- Not that I expect it to make a speck of difference to SMcCandlish, but in the interest of explaining it to anyone else who might be reading, the WP:BIRDS project capitalizes any bird name which was at some point on an official taxonomic list. So Red-throated Loon and Red-throated Diver are capitalized, but "peg-billed loon" and "cape brace" (which were never "official" names) are not. And before I get any snotty comments, I'm sorry if I'm using the wrong type of quotation marks — which is apparently something else a number of editors are having words about! MeegsC | Talk 22:17, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- Comment: WP:BIRDS folks appear, in the main, to favor not capitalizing even non-official common names (i.e. well-attested folk names) of birds, nor predator/prey non-bird species mentioned in bird articles. So, that would appear to agree with Jojalozzo's (and, FWIW, the now-absent KimvdLinde's) change suggestion, and disagree with Darkfrog24's and Peter coxhead's position for intra-article consistency being paramount. Not sure that changes anyone's position, but that appears to be the breakdown right now. I'm okay with either result, because my concern is more about the immediately reader-irritating cases that have randomly appeared all over the place like "Mountain Dog" and "Bottlenose Dolphin" and "Lion". — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 04:03, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
The other other solution
Peter coxhead noticed and seemed to like this, but I think everyone else missed it in the shuffle. An archive page back, I proposed an obvious win-win solution, that works on pages of all kinds, biological and otherwise. It is the normal WP practice of listing alternative names and their sources. See, e.g., heroin, which lists the "official" name diacetylmorphine and its source, as well as the name in British medicine, diamorphine, and a source for that, while keeping the article at the common, plain-English name. WP:COMMONNAME has barely been mentioned in this entire debate, but is actually important here, since it's already been proven, in many former editions of his debate, that capitalization of common names of species of anything is virtually unknown outside of specialist sources, and thus is not common, by definition. The proposed solution would also solve the lepidoptery and regional botany caps questions, too.
- The proposal
MOS would not state any alleged exception, disputed or otherwise, for birds (or anything else), just use lower case, because this is what virtually all reliable generalist sources do. We'd follow MOS in title and in prose in bird articles, like we do for every other kind of article, but give any reliably sourced capitalized form and its source as an alternative, among others, if any, just like we would for any other kind of article.
Typical (but fictitious) examples (added to avoid any confusion that a "list of alternative capitalizations" is the idea):
The frumious bandersnatch (Banderesnatium frumiosus) is a bandersnatch of the Jabberwocky family, native to the forests of Serendip. In cryptozoological literature, especially of the International Society of Cryptozoology,[1] it is often capitalized Frumious Bandersnatch.
and
The red-faced warbler (Scientificus nameus), also known as the crimson-faced warbler[1] in some areas, is a whatever of the Whichever family. The official International Ornithological Congress name for the species is Red-faced Warbler.[2] Its range extends from ... blah blah blah. The red-faced warbler's primary habitat is blah blah blah.
(Note lower case in that last sentence). This exact solution has worked perfectly well in other articles of all kinds, with nearly zero strife.
For birds, it also has the WP:NPOV benefit of not preferring one ornithological organization's capitalization scheme over another's, when they conflict. (Yes, most readers here are probably unaware of it, but the ornithological authorities do not actually even entirely agree on how to capitalize!)
Unusual bird example:
The red-faced warbler (Scientificus nameus), also known as the crimson-faced warbler[1] in some areas, is a whatever of the Whichever family. The official International Ornithological Congress name for the species is Red-faced Warbler,[3] while the American Ornithologists' Union prefers the variant Red-Faced Warbler.[4] Its range extends from ... blah blah blah. The red-faced warbler's primary habitat is blah blah blah.
— SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support, as nominator: I firmly predict that an RfC will arrive at precisely this solution, since it's completely normal practice to note alternative spellings and their sources instead of fighting over the matter for 7 years straight. (Just or the record, my proposing this as a potential solution does not strike my support of the one immediately above as a possibility if consensus leans in that direction, but this proposal is my actual strong preference.) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:08, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Clarification: I'm trying to think outside the us vs. them box. Instead of saying "Dammit, WP:BIRDS, stop this capitalization stuff, it's ungrammatical", we can just use and source the capitalization, including the variations (and there are variations – the issue has come up at WT:BIRDS several times) as alt. names in the lead. No policy needs to change, no guideline needs to change, WP:BIRDS gets to keep and improve the information for the readers about the fact that the common names are capitalized in the bird lit. Basically nothing changes other than over-capitalization in the titles and article prose is slowly massaged away as people bother to get around to it. The "win-win" isn't "WP:BIRDS and 'capitalization warriors'", illusory camps that would no longer be relevant. The winners would be readers, who would get better information and also not have a convention thrown in their faces, sentence after sentence, that will confuse and irritate many of them, and editors, who will finally have consistent guidance to follow and an end to seven years of telling each other in faintly politer terms to go screw themselves. The more entrenched members of the birds project will still hate this idea, because it means giving up capitalization in titles and most of the prose, but the rationales for going this route are solidly based in policy, and I'd bet if you could get them to speak up on it, many members (there are over 100, and we usually hear from 4-8 of them) a large number would agree this makes sense and, for their project be a great burden of distracting and stressful strife off their shoulders. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 22:26, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Both "sides" make comments about what is confusing to readers, but do we have any evidence on this? Not that I've seen. I think that lower-casing English names is sometimes (but far from always) more confusing to readers; SMcCandlish thinks that capitalizing English names is (?always) confusing to readers. (What irritates either of us is irrelevant, although doubtless irritation helps to motivate us both to discuss it!) Does it really confuse readers of this Canadian web page to see "Long-tailed Vole" instead of "long-tailed vole"? I doubt it, but I would certainly be persuaded by solid evidence. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- The various threads, at WT:BIRDS and elsewhere, that in one exact wording or another, ask "why on earth are you capitalizing this?" are a strong indication that it's confusing, otherwise the question would never need to be asked. But confusion is only part of the issue. Outright irritation (i.e. distraction of the reader from their use of the encyclopedia) is a major part. If it weren't either confusing, annoying or both to a large number of readers, it would not have become a seven year protracted debate of nearly everyone who has expressed an opinion on the matter being against the capitalization except one project, even in biology (save a few ichthyologists and botanists, whose projects don't really seem to care). All the other projects like WP:CETACEANS that experimented with capitalization, because some of their sources used it, abandoned it pretty rapidly, because they saw the ill will that it generated from the readership and less importantly from the broader editorship. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- When I was new to Wikipedia, I absolutely found the capitalization of common names of bird species confusing. I didn't understand why it had been done or where else it was supposed to be done. —David Levy 15:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- The evidence of seven years is that a minuscule fraction of Wikipedia readers find the capitalization of bird names so confusing, annoying, or both that they try to get it changed. There is no evidence that it's confusing to large numbers of readers.
- Oddly enough, somebody recently posted something at alt.usage.english in which he capitalized the names of the bird species I mentioned. I asked people's opinions on the capitalization; nobody was against it, and one person was for it for the usual reason of clarity. A.u.e. doesn't represent typical readers of the 'pedia, but it is a place where people feel totally free to express their language peeves (and to argue against others' peeves). I've never seen any irritation expressed there or elsewhere, spontaneously or when I tried to elicit opinions, except here. Without further evidence, my impression is that most people don't care (unless they see a mention of common sandpipers and realize that they can't tell whether they're Common Sandpipers). I think we should save the claims of how many people dislike capitalization of species names till we have good evidence, if we ever do. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 18:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- 1. I wasn't confused as to the terms' meanings (and I doubt that anyone is). I was confused as to why the practice (which I hadn't encountered previously) was in use. It seemed downright strange (and still does), presumably because I'm not a bird enthusiast.
- 2. Are you aware of how rare it is for users to try to get anything changed? The overwhelmingly common reaction is to assume that things are done a certain way for a good reason and emulate conventions indiscriminately (including where they aren't intended to be applied). This is why editors frequently insert bold-face titles where they don't belong and create articles with names like "Cornelius Schindleplat (Canadian pianist)" when no other "Cornelius Schindleplat" article exists. People simply copy what they see (without asking questions).
- 3. You point to a lack of confusion caused by the capitalization, while simultaneously asserting that it prevents confusion.
- Let's assume that people would mistake a mention of "common sandpipers" (referring to sandpiper species that are common) with one of "Common Sandpipers". Do you have any evidence that your preferred orthography prevents this confusion from arising among most of Wikipedia's readers, relatively few of whom are bird enthusiasts? ("Oh, it says Common Sandpiper, so it must refer to the species Actitis hypoleucos, not to common sandpipers in general.")
- As I noted previously, if anything, our adherence to this convention probably reduces overall clarity by encouraging editors' reliance upon it to draw the intended distinction. In a non-specialist publication (whose readers are unlikely to pick up on such a visual cue), it's far more helpful to simply avoid referring to "common sandpipers" in the generic sense. —David Levy 07:33, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- 1. Yes, I understood that and was even going to point it out, but it didn't seem relevant to what I was saying. You don't have to be a bird enthusiast, by the way, but you do have to be a nature enthusiast. Some field guides, Web sites, and the like on other natural-history subjects capitalize (as people keep reminding us), so wildflower enthusiasts who look at a bird article here are quite likely to know what's going on.
- 2. I admit I haven't looked at other controversies. On the other hand, we don't know how many people would complain if we didn't capitalize bird names.
- 3. My only evidence is that I've occasionally been confused when reading things that don't capitalize species names. However, I don't know of any evidence that the use of any punctuation or capitalization conventions helps with clarity. We go by the obvious arguments for such things—for instance, without the comma or dash after a parenthetical phrase, readers don't know where the phrase stops—although a great many writers don't follow such rules, which strongly suggests that a great many readers don't notice them. The same sort of argument holds for capitalization of species names.
- You say that relative few of our readers are bird enthusiasts. But of course (without evidence) such readers are overrepresented among readers of bird articles. And it's not that few; people interested in birds are a substantial minority of Americans, even more of Americans literate enough to read Wikipedia. Also, as I said above, other nature enthusiasts are also likely to understand the convention, and they too will be overrepresented. We don't have any firm evidence on how many readers find capitalization useful and how many find it confusing or annoying, but I suspect the former outnumber the latter by a sizable factor, since I think the vast majority of people who don't know the convention don't care.
- Finally, avoiding any phrase that is or might appear to be a species name would be fairly difficult, it seems to me, and it still wouldn't help, because readers wouldn't know we were doing it. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 16:29, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- I should add that I don't have numbers for countries other than the U.S., which is why I just mentioned America above, but I think there are a good number of people in Britain, at least, who know the capitalization convention. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 16:33, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- Both "sides" make comments about what is confusing to readers, but do we have any evidence on this? Not that I've seen. I think that lower-casing English names is sometimes (but far from always) more confusing to readers; SMcCandlish thinks that capitalizing English names is (?always) confusing to readers. (What irritates either of us is irrelevant, although doubtless irritation helps to motivate us both to discuss it!) Does it really confuse readers of this Canadian web page to see "Long-tailed Vole" instead of "long-tailed vole"? I doubt it, but I would certainly be persuaded by solid evidence. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:25, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
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- 1. The fact that you have to be an enthusiast of anything "to know what's going on" is half of the problem. (The other half being blind emulation of the capitalization all over the place, e.g. Lion and Mountain Dog and anything else alive.) Whether it's possible there are more of these specialists on one side of the pond isn't really important.
- 2. I firmly predict that near-zero people who are not members of WP:BIRDS would complain and that the majority of the over-100 members of that project would not complain. They're here to write articles and don't care much about nit-picks. They mostly know that insistence on using a specialist style like that in a generalist work like this is an extremist position being pushed by around a dozen or fewer editors at that project. All ornithologists and birders know full well that no one capitalizes outside of such publications – it's all lower case all the time in newspapers, encyclopedias, dictionaries, non-birds-specific magazines, style guides, etc., etc., etc. They're entirely used to it, and the all the histrionics about this are just WP:DRAMA for its own sake.
- 3. The idea that it's a confusion preventative has never been very well supported. Bird field guides do it because it makes the name stand out (i.e. it is Use of Capitals for Emphasis) when someone's trying to quickly identify something before it flies away. Not applicable here. Ornithology journals do it for political reasons (to push the IOC names vs. the more regional variants) – not applicable here, and then some – and because their prose is excessively dense, clipped and technical (i.e., it's the only kind of writing where someone might not try using plainer language to write around the problem) – not applicable here. Since day one the fact that it's easy to write around the problem ("the Mexican jay is one of many jays of Mexico" not "the Mexican Jay" is one of many Mexican jays", which would just be recklessly bad writing) has been pointed out by someone, often several someones, virtually every time the debate comes up. Yet proponents of capitalization never address it at all, just pretend it wasn't said, that there are no arguments to address, that only a nut or a hater would disagree with them. This has been going on for seven years now. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- 1. The numbers of people in different countries is relevant only because I didn't want to give offense by appearing to consider only one country.
- If we capitalize, some people (a large number) will understand immediately whether a phrase refers to a species or not. If we don't capitalize, no one will. I think helping some people is better than helping none.
- 2. Please be civil. I doubt anyone is engaging in drama for its own sake. I've certainly noticed that non-bird sources don't capitalize (hence this story about how "young Little Blue Heron" got edited in a campus newspaper to "young little blue heron" and then to "young blue heron", which you may have seen from me before), but we should go with the convention that helps some readers, not the one that provides no help to anyone. Also, I beg leave to doubt your prediction.
- 3. As I said, you can write so you never use any phrase that readers might mistake for a species name, though I think it would be rather difficult. However, the reader doesn't know you're doing it. Eventually, very astute readers may realize, "Every time I see something here that could be a species name, it is. Probably all the many people who write bird articles here are adhering to that, so I'll count on it from now on." It takes much less time and much less astuteness for a non-enthusiast to notice that species names are being capitalized, starting with the first sentence of every bird article.
- As I also said, we have no less evidence that capitalization helps than that other style conventions help. Common sense says it will help some people, though probably the majority DGAF, and that strikes me as a good-enough argument for both capitalizing bird names and hyphenating compound modifiers.
- Do you have any basis for your claims about people's reasons for capitalizing? Audubon, for instance, capitalized species names in Birds of North America; it wasn't a field guide and he wrote the non-technical parts in a leisurely, not clipped, style. As far as I know, the regional authorities capitalized before the IOC project started (in 1990). If you have any evidence for your conspiracy theory about the IOC, feel free to just say you do, without specifying it, if it's confidential. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:53, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
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1. Re: "If we capitalize, some people (a large number) will understand immediately whether a phrase refers to a species or not"... You and other project members have been asked by at least 3 different parties to the current debate to support this assertion, and asserters of it have been asked to do so for seven years. No one outside your project seems to be buying this. Quite a number of us are of the opinion that it causes more confusion than it solves, because it explicitly relies upon the idea that the capitalization will be immediately recognized by readers as a form of disambiguation, when there is nothing at all to suggest this is true. As for the lack of disambiguation allegedly caused by not capitalization, this too has been covered again and again and again (though recycling the debate seems to be the point. If all you can come up with is the "young little blue heron" story, you're not convincing anyone, since that was simply an obvious case of bad writing and careless editing of bad writing.
2. One project member was certainly engaging in drama for its own sake; see above for links demonstrating that any time she doesn't get her way she engages in a fit of public psychodramatics, and histrionically "quits Wikipedia" for a few days or a month or whatever, with various flaming insults on the way out. I'd be half surprised if she wasn't the direct inspiration of the page at WP:DIVA, since it describes her behavior with exacting accuracy. That was incivil and I retract it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 22:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC) See also the "we should go on an editing strike!" WP:POINTy pulpit pounding at WT:WikiProject Birds#strike. Would you like more examples? Civlility does not require pretense that negative behaviors aren't happening. Civility != lovey-dovey mollycoddling. Anyway, the notion that "the convention helps some readers" seems to exist in your head divorced entirely from the concept that it not only fails to help others, it un-helps them. You would not be seeing more than half a decade of strife about this if it wasn't controversial. Controvery means people disagree. People don't disagree because they are insane or stupid, they do so because they find problems with something, and the problems affect them. Please stop dismissing everyone who disagees with you on this as if they "just don't understand". It's getting unbelievably tiresome. We really, really, really do understand, and we don't agree with you.
3. "As I said, you can write so you never use any phrase that readers might mistake for a species name" - Huh? That's never been anyone's goal. It's the opposite; you write so you never use a species name in a way that is likely to be confused with a general description. The most common ways to do this are to prefix "the" in front of such a name, follow it with a binomial, link it, and/or follow it with a clarification (cf. the usual example of "The Mexican jay is only one of many jays native to Mexico"); once this has been done once in the article, it generally needn't be done again (no one is going to suddenly forget while reading Mexican jay that that phrase means the species not "random jay bird that happens to be in Mexico"; our readers are not utter imbeciles). "The reader doesn't know you're doing it" - which is also true of capitalization. To all readers who aren't birdwatchers, it simply looks like ungrammatical writing, a widespread problem on Wikipedia. Our readers do expect to see Bad Capitalization and mislplelled worrds and ungood grammarses because WP has a huge load of such errors. Our readers emphatically do not expect to see weird style rules that no one would ever encounter outside an ornithology journal or bird field guide, and when they do run into it, it simply looks like more clean up work needs to be done. (And many of us think they're right...). Your blind faith that people notice bird capitalization other than a momentary annoyance, astutely perceive that it is used in a predictable pattern and psychically zoom in on your intentions for doing it is unreasonable. It's a combination of tunnel vision and dangerously blind optimism.
See many, many previous debates about this. People with may more patience than I possess have spent oodles of time, on both sides, digging up sources. I'm not going to repeat that herculean effort (I've been catalog[u]ing these debates at the page I just linked so specially so this would be unnecessary). John James Audubon (1785–1851) was writing in a time period when capitalization of common nouns for emphasis (or even simply because they were nouns, by comparison with/influence of German practice) was still common in English. It didn't start massively dying out until the late 1800s to early 1900s, after Fowler & Fowler's The King's English and the elder Folwer's Modern English Usage, followed fairly shortly by Strunk & White in The Elements of Style dumping on the practice, on both sides of the Atlantic. No one cares what "regional authorities" on anything are doing. Wikipedia is not a regional birds book, or beholden to them. Your own project has been sharply critical of the regional "authorities" and the nomenclatural chaos they caused, so it doesn't seem appropriate to try to cite them as authoritative here.
I don't know what conspiracy theory you refer to. It doesn't take believe in a conspiracy to note that a project has gone off the rails and can't see past its own incredibly narrow interests. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:16, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- In keeping with MeegsC's and your suggestion, which I fully sympathize with, I'm not going to answer most of that. However, I should say something about my accusation of incivility, which referred to this: "All ornithologists and birders know full well that no one capitalizes outside of such publications – it's all lower case all the time in newspapers, encyclopedias, dictionaries, non-birds-specific magazines, style guides, etc., etc., etc. They're entirely used to it, and the all the histrionics about this are just WP:DRAMA for its own sake." I thought, but didn't say I thought, that you were referring to all support of capitalization by ornithologists and birders as "histrionics" that was "drama for its own sake". This would apply to those of use who aren't histrionic about it, and would have been uncivil. Judging by your response to me, though, I now think you meant, "All ornithologists and birders are used to it, and when some of those who support capitalization are histrionic, they're engaging in drama for its own sake." This is still a bit insulting, since they may be engaging in drama for what they believe is a good reason rather than for the sake of drama, but it's nowhere near as bad as what I thought you meant. So I think I misinterpreted what you wrote, and I apologize for accusing you on that basis.
Incidentally, I too wish one person wouldn't quit so often and I too think a strike would be a bad idea, but I don't see either of them as "drama for its own sake". People get upset on both sides. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 18:14, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Fair enough, and having stepped back and worked on other things for a while and come back, I concede that my temper got a bit heated and I should have been more civil. I'm a firm believer that reasonable people can disagree. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 22:43, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- OPPOSE For all the above mentioned reasons. -- Kim van der Linde at venus 21:10, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Such as? Several archives of text is WP:TLDR to know what specific objections you may be raising. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:16, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Stop playing games. You are not new to the discussion and you know the arguments. It is a win-LOOSE solution!-- Kim van der Linde at venus 21:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm playing no games. You raise a large number of invalid arguments at every turn. I'm asking you to provide one or two clear, reasoned ones that have not already been addressed as fallacious. Your "oppose" doesn't really mean anything if you don't. Let's make it easy: On what basis do you object to the idea that it is typical Wikipedia practice to name articles according to WP:COMMONNAME? On what basis do you object to the idea that it is normal Wikipedia practice to list sourced alternative names in the WP:LEAD of the article? On what basis do you object to the idea that it is normal WP practice to cite reliable sources for facts, such as alt. names? On what basis do you object to the idea that it is normal WP practice to represent conflicting views found in reliable sources instead of favoring one, such as favoring a particular capitalization scheme by one taxonomic authority that is disputed by another? I'm really interested what your rationales could be. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- <sigh> Kim claims to have left Wikipedia again, as she did before on 13 October 2011 (click redlink for deletion history) and again on 17 January 2012. Sad if true, and I hope she comes back; I don't have to agree with someone or their debate tactics to appreciate the good article work they do. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:06, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- From my (and I suspect her) point of view, this new "compromise" is a power grab, and goes back on a faithful compromise, so I'm not surprised that she's very upset. I would be, too, if I felt I'd been had. Natureguy1980 (talk) 20:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
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- SMcCandlish, I failed to see where you said, "Just or the record, my proposing this as a potential solution does not strike my support of the one immediately above as a possibility if consensus leans in that direction, but this proposal is my actual strong preference." Please accept my apologies for jumping to conclusions. Natureguy1980 (talk) 20:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- No worries! — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- SMcCandlish, I failed to see where you said, "Just or the record, my proposing this as a potential solution does not strike my support of the one immediately above as a possibility if consensus leans in that direction, but this proposal is my actual strong preference." Please accept my apologies for jumping to conclusions. Natureguy1980 (talk) 20:38, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
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- From my (and I suspect her) point of view, this new "compromise" is a power grab, and goes back on a faithful compromise, so I'm not surprised that she's very upset. I would be, too, if I felt I'd been had. Natureguy1980 (talk) 20:27, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- <sigh> Kim claims to have left Wikipedia again, as she did before on 13 October 2011 (click redlink for deletion history) and again on 17 January 2012. Sad if true, and I hope she comes back; I don't have to agree with someone or their debate tactics to appreciate the good article work they do. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:06, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm playing no games. You raise a large number of invalid arguments at every turn. I'm asking you to provide one or two clear, reasoned ones that have not already been addressed as fallacious. Your "oppose" doesn't really mean anything if you don't. Let's make it easy: On what basis do you object to the idea that it is typical Wikipedia practice to name articles according to WP:COMMONNAME? On what basis do you object to the idea that it is normal Wikipedia practice to list sourced alternative names in the WP:LEAD of the article? On what basis do you object to the idea that it is normal WP practice to cite reliable sources for facts, such as alt. names? On what basis do you object to the idea that it is normal WP practice to represent conflicting views found in reliable sources instead of favoring one, such as favoring a particular capitalization scheme by one taxonomic authority that is disputed by another? I'm really interested what your rationales could be. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:30, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Stop playing games. You are not new to the discussion and you know the arguments. It is a win-LOOSE solution!-- Kim van der Linde at venus 21:21, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support as it conforms to the policy of practical consensus - it's what we do everywhere else. I think this one has the best chance in an RfC. I'd like to see proposed wording. Jojalozzo 21:38, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Something like:
Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, gray wolf, but Przewalski's horse). Reliably sourced, alternative capitalization forms should be mentioned in the
introductionlead section. - ? Jojalozzo 15:30, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Sure. I'd probably go with "in the lead section", though. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Something like:
- Provisional support. For article content, I think it is the best balance of full use of reliable sources and adherence to generalist styles, and I have long been a proponent of a more general solution to providing and referencing multiple common names. My concern is with the article title. If we are maintaining the capitalization of the reliable sources, that capitalization should also be preserved in the article title. And since most bird articles are titled with names that are capitalized in authoritative sources, it seems to me that we should preserve that.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:43, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose for the lead, but is good to clarify what is called what in taxonomy/naming sections. The version above looks really really user unfriendly. We sometimes distinguish if a common name diverges from an official name, however in all bird cases, an abbreviated common name is ambiguous, so I suspect there is no situation where there is an unambiguous and hence exact common name which diverges from the official name - actually my mistake, there is precisely one species - Great Northern Loon, whose official name is an unholy amalgam of British and US preferences....so there is one species this is a good option for but not the other 9000 +. It also goes contra to pages such as Myocardial infarction Casliber (talk · contribs) 04:36, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose. For one reason, I don't see any reason to list variant capitalizations. Readers may need to know that their "turkey buzzard" is our "Turkey Vulture", or even that their (and my) "Gunnison Sage-Grouse" is our "Gunnison Grouse", and we should give sources for such things, but readers don't need to be told that "marsh warbler" is the same as "Marsh Warbler" (when the former refers to a distinct species). The other reason(s) will have to wait till I'm awake tomorrow. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 06:12, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
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- It's not really a matter of creating a "list" of variant capitalizations (just mentioning both variants in the rare cases this is needed) – I've clarified to the wording of the example text – but rather informing the reader encyclopedically that while we don't capitalize nouns like this in general English writing, some organizations do so in some contexts, in which it should not be interpreted as "wrong". This is what the reason for the wording was at the revised domestic short-haired cat, where it gives the "Domestic Shorthair" pseudo-breed name that some of the cat fancier organizations use exclusively, and this forestalls any further edit-warring and article-title-warring. Successfully. We have to remember that even though you edit a lot of bird articles and I edit a lot of cat articles, the average user may come and read one of them, and will never know there is even an organization much less one with a convention, and so on, unless the article tells them this. Links are cheap. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Sorry to be unclear. I meant that I see no reason ever to mention that any word is sometimes capitalized and sometimes not, because if readers see the same word with a case choice they're not used to, they'll have no trouble figuring out that it refers to the same thing.
- My other reason for opposing this suggestion is that I favor capitalization for clarity and because the IOC and other authorities recommend it and use it. Mentioning the capitalization and then using lower case doesn't help with those. As Kim said, it's win-lose.
- If there really are a large number of people who will think the capitalization is wrong, a way around it would be something like this violation of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:BIRDS policy:
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Cardellina rubrifrons is a warbler with a red face found in New Mexico and less important places.[1] The official International Ornithological Congress name for the species is Red-faced Warbler,[2] and it's also known as the Embarrassed Warbler.[2] Jerry thinks the Red-faced Warbler is pretty cool-looking, but he knows a birder who thinks it's one of the ugliest species around. Blah blah blah...
- Okay, but Wikipedia isn't about winning. Please see my "Clarification" post immediately under my "support as nominator". The win-win is editors and readers generally, not "caps warriors" and "an entrenched stubborn project", to factions that need not even exist any longer under this proposal. I understand that you won't be happy with an proposal that doesn't call for capitalization of common names of bird species in both titles and running prose, but this proposal isn't quite what you think it is, because its predicated ensuring that readers understand that specialist literature does capitalization, even if WP, as a generalist encyclopedia, wouldn't. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- It's not really a matter of creating a "list" of variant capitalizations (just mentioning both variants in the rare cases this is needed) – I've clarified to the wording of the example text – but rather informing the reader encyclopedically that while we don't capitalize nouns like this in general English writing, some organizations do so in some contexts, in which it should not be interpreted as "wrong". This is what the reason for the wording was at the revised domestic short-haired cat, where it gives the "Domestic Shorthair" pseudo-breed name that some of the cat fancier organizations use exclusively, and this forestalls any further edit-warring and article-title-warring. Successfully. We have to remember that even though you edit a lot of bird articles and I edit a lot of cat articles, the average user may come and read one of them, and will never know there is even an organization much less one with a convention, and so on, unless the article tells them this. Links are cheap. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Factual nitpick (is this where these go?): The IOC and the AOU both capitalize as Red-faced Warbler. There may be some names in which they capitalize the second element of a hyphenated compound differently, but I don't know what. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 06:21, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- There are, and I don't know what either. It's geeky detailia that's been the subject of plenty of discussion, multiple times, at WT:BIRDS. I wasn't intending to imply that every single example of "foo-bar baz" is written "Foo-bar Baz" by one org, but "Foo-Bar Baz" by another, just that there are cases where this is true, following some nerdy rule that evidently even the project members have a hard time following. It's also evidentiary that the notion that the "there's one birds standard and everyone in the world follows it exactly, and Wikipedians who oppose using it here are ignorant, meddling assholes" message continually projected by certain members of the WP:BIRDS project is fallacious and they know it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Maybe somebody was unclear about this, but I think we've said that we picked one of the possible standards (after considerable discussion). —JerryFriedman (Talk) 18:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- Right, and that's part of why I'm proposing that variants be sourced instead of hidden. It's a disservice to readers for WP:BIRDS to essentially hide a reliably sourced off-WP nomenclature clash, just to make their own front look more united and uniform than it really is. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- Sheesh. No such thought has ever crossed my mind, and I doubt it's crossed anyone else's. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 06:00, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Right, and that's part of why I'm proposing that variants be sourced instead of hidden. It's a disservice to readers for WP:BIRDS to essentially hide a reliably sourced off-WP nomenclature clash, just to make their own front look more united and uniform than it really is. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:57, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- Maybe somebody was unclear about this, but I think we've said that we picked one of the possible standards (after considerable discussion). —JerryFriedman (Talk) 18:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- There are, and I don't know what either. It's geeky detailia that's been the subject of plenty of discussion, multiple times, at WT:BIRDS. I wasn't intending to imply that every single example of "foo-bar baz" is written "Foo-bar Baz" by one org, but "Foo-Bar Baz" by another, just that there are cases where this is true, following some nerdy rule that evidently even the project members have a hard time following. It's also evidentiary that the notion that the "there's one birds standard and everyone in the world follows it exactly, and Wikipedians who oppose using it here are ignorant, meddling assholes" message continually projected by certain members of the WP:BIRDS project is fallacious and they know it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Provisional support. Firstly I applaud all genuine attempts to reach a compromise on this issue, which this is. I agree with Curtis Clark's position. All common names should be sourced; where there are reliable sources of common names which capitalize this should be reported, regardless of the kind of organism. If a consensus could be reached on this proposal, I would then be willing to support lower-case in the text. However, the article title should be based on a very reliable source (to ensure it is as stable as possible). The capitalization of this source should be preserved in the title – redirects will take care of alternatives. Unfortunately it looks as though we shall reach the same conclusion as before: there simply is no consensus at present for a single agreed style on the capitalization of common names, either in titles or in text, nor for any compromise between these styles. I regret this, but there's no point in pretending otherwise. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:11, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
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- It's gaining enough complete and partial support from both random passers-by and previous debate participants, despite the canvassing that brought a pile of WP:BIRDS editors to this page to stack the polls, that I have little doubt it would find broad consensus in a site-wide RfC promoted via WP:CD and the Pump. Someone else should file that one; I've been attacked so many times on a personal level over this issue that noise-makers would simply use the fact that I started the RfC as a distraction point. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:32, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support. Acknowledging specialist practice in the lead while using general English in the title and text would be best. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:03, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- support
Oppose—This is too much. Putting different names in the lede is one thing, but lists of capitalization variants is excessive. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:08, 9 February 2012 (UTC)- That's not the point at all; there would only be one (and only where the term is capitalized by some major reliable source, like a taxonomic authority), except in the apparently rare case where the major authorities disagree on the details. There would never be a "list". I updated the example text to demonstrate. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Fair enough; those examples don't look so bad—I support. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:38, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's not the point at all; there would only be one (and only where the term is capitalized by some major reliable source, like a taxonomic authority), except in the apparently rare case where the major authorities disagree on the details. There would never be a "list". I updated the example text to demonstrate. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:45, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support. This is a truly sane compromise that would improve articles by making them more informative. It should satisfy anyone whose attitude isn't "my way or nothing". —David Levy 15:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose Strongly The initial compromise created by the two at-odds users was fine, but needed a tweak in my opinion. This is not a compromise at all. Natureguy1980 (talk) 20:26, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Fuller proposal
- The reason why I have only given partial support is that SMcCandlish's proposal is not the full proposal which Curtis Clark made and which he has explained again here. This proposal is (my comments in parentheses):
- The orthography of reliable sources would be used in lists and article titles. (For birds, this would at present indicate mostly the use of capitalized versions in these contexts; for other organisms, it would depend on the sources, which in turn is likely to depend on the countries involved. Re-directs with alternative capitalizations would always be used, so there would never be a difficult in finding an article for this reason.)
- All English names would be sourced and presented in the orthography used in the source. (Clearly no sensible editor is going to repeat a name just because one source capitalizes it and one doesn't.)
- In running text, the lower case style would always be used.
- I personally would like to see an RfC on this proposal in full; SMcCandlish's version is rather one-sided because it omits the first point. If there is little support for the full proposal – because it's too much of a compromise for either "side" – then the right conclusion is that there is no reachable consensus at present. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:49, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I've been away from this debate for a while. I'm pleased to see that you're willing to support a compromise, but I must stress yet again that "reliable source" ≠ "specialist source". Most reliable sources use the lowercase convention for common names of bird species.
- General sources unquestionably are less useful than specialist sources on matters of fact (e.g. breeding and migratory behaviors), but this is purely a matter of style. I see no reason to treat the title differently than we treat the main text.
- As SMcCandlish noted, you're seeing a mixed reaction in a discussion whose participants are heavily skewed. In a full-scale RfC (hopefully drawing something resembling a cross-section of the Wikipedia community), I suspect that the use of lowercase titles would be widely preferred. —David Levy 15:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- Regardless, an RfC would need to present several proposals, not further polarize debate with a false "support this proposal or nothing" dichotomy. I can sound entrenched, as can, for example, WP:BIRDS, but their most outspoken pro-caps member and I were happy to compromise on one of the solutions proposed above (it just didn't get much support from others). The point being, there's no hurry, and it's better to have a flexible RfC. Controversial stuff often takes multiple RfCs or poll, narrowing options down from a broad original range. As for Peter coxhead's proposal, it would be better than the current situation of chaos and bickering, but I can't think of anywhere else that we use a different capitalization convention for the title that we do for the prose, so I expect this would meet a lot of resistance. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- The assertion that, "Most reliable sources use the lowercase convention for common names of bird species" may be true on the whole, but the information they provide on birds, for the most part, is not reliable. Why should an encyclopedia based on facts, then, care what they have to say? The following is certainly true: "Most reliable sources on birds use the uppercase convention for common names of bird species." Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- That is why we must listen to specialist sources for reliable facts about birds and to generalist sources for reliable guidance on how to write. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia; it should present information the way an encyclopedia does. I agree with David L on this one. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- (ec)That is almost certainly not true; I must not be understanding you because I can't see how this is supposed to make any sense. By "reliable sources" I meant sources reliable about birds. eg, this article from Science or any of countless other results that lowercase "bald eagle" in a search for that term on Google Scholar. Would you claim that this is not a reliable source of information about birds? Of course not; its reliability is on par with any bird journal that capitalizes. Now, even if your assertion were true instead of being, as I suspect, demonstrably false, the answer to your question "Why should an encyclopedia based on facts, then, care what they have to say?" is that we should probably give more weight to style guides (I'm including them in "they") than to ornithology journals when it comes to style. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:30, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- You're totally right. I only have about 16 years of experience with reliable bird sources. I have no idea what I'm talking about. Good point. Natureguy1980 (talk) 03:15, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's a lot more experience with birds than most of us have, and if I had a feather to identify I would be sure to ask you. Of course it might (or might not, I'm not taking sides) make sense to have one style convention for an ornithology journal, another for other journals, another for an encyclopedia, and another for children's books (Look at the birdie!) When you said "Most reliable sources on birds use the uppercase convention ...", is the Science article linked above an example of what you meant? Art LaPella (talk) 04:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- No. The article linked to above is, in my experience, in the minority (which does not capitalize). I did not say they don't exist; I said they were not in the majority. Natureguy1980 (talk) 06:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- Do you feel that Science, which appears to write all species vernacular names in lowercase, ought to make an exception for birds and only uppercase bird names? Or ought it uppercase all vernacular names? Or do you think it is fine for Science to do what it does? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:15, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- No. The article linked to above is, in my experience, in the minority (which does not capitalize). I did not say they don't exist; I said they were not in the majority. Natureguy1980 (talk) 06:04, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's a lot more experience with birds than most of us have, and if I had a feather to identify I would be sure to ask you. Of course it might (or might not, I'm not taking sides) make sense to have one style convention for an ornithology journal, another for other journals, another for an encyclopedia, and another for children's books (Look at the birdie!) When you said "Most reliable sources on birds use the uppercase convention ...", is the Science article linked above an example of what you meant? Art LaPella (talk) 04:35, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- You're totally right. I only have about 16 years of experience with reliable bird sources. I have no idea what I'm talking about. Good point. Natureguy1980 (talk) 03:15, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- Matters of fact and matters of style are two different things. Neither of the two styles under discussion is wrong, irrespective of which happens to accompany a majority of our sources. One style is used more commonly by specialist publications, while the other is used more commonly by general publications. Wikipedia is a general publication.
- We routinely draw facts from various sources without copying their styles. For example, we might obtain factual information about an American automobile from a British motoring magazine. That doesn't mean that we use British English in our article (apart from direct quotations). And in a hypothetical scenario in which every English-language specialist publication covering automobiles were British, we still wouldn't do that.
- There simply is no meaningful link between factual information and the style in which it's presented. A fact about the Tufted Titmouse is equally true of the tufted titmouse. —David Levy 06:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- The assertion that, "Most reliable sources use the lowercase convention for common names of bird species" may be true on the whole, but the information they provide on birds, for the most part, is not reliable. Why should an encyclopedia based on facts, then, care what they have to say? The following is certainly true: "Most reliable sources on birds use the uppercase convention for common names of bird species." Natureguy1980 (talk) 21:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- Regardless, an RfC would need to present several proposals, not further polarize debate with a false "support this proposal or nothing" dichotomy. I can sound entrenched, as can, for example, WP:BIRDS, but their most outspoken pro-caps member and I were happy to compromise on one of the solutions proposed above (it just didn't get much support from others). The point being, there's no hurry, and it's better to have a flexible RfC. Controversial stuff often takes multiple RfCs or poll, narrowing options down from a broad original range. As for Peter coxhead's proposal, it would be better than the current situation of chaos and bickering, but I can't think of anywhere else that we use a different capitalization convention for the title that we do for the prose, so I expect this would meet a lot of resistance. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 15:50, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
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I think that '"reliable source" ≠ "specialist source"' is, as a general statement independent of this controversy, insane. And I think if ornithologists were content to use scientific names, this wouldn't be an issue (not even generalist sources want to lowercase mimus polyglottos). And I also wonder about the opinion that the orthography of reliable sources is always mutable, although I suppose I shouldn't, since there was a bit of a kerfuffle about insisting on capitalizing the name of a living person who prefers her name to be lowercase. If Northern Mockingbird were a trademark, could it keep its orthography in the same way that iPhone has?
I've already stated my opinions in response to Kim on my talk page. I'll say again that the issue is bigger than birds, since even plant names are capitalized in some national and regional lists. I hope we all agree that, independent of orthography, it's a Good ThingTM to reference names in reliable sources. I see the issue boiling down to two questions: Should Wikipedia specify capitalization for organism names in running text? and, Should Wikipedia always change the capitalization of organism names taken from reliable sources in order to meet the MoS?--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:51, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think that '"reliable source" ≠ "specialist source"' is, as a general statement independent of this controversy, insane.
- So only specialist sources are reliable? Such organizations as the Associated Press, Reuters, ABC News, BBC News, CBS News, CNN, NBC News, the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post and Time aren't reliable sources? —David Levy 06:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think we're using "≠" differently. I took it to mean "never equal to" rather than "are intersecting sets".--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:17, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, we're using it to mean "not equal to", which is how it's most often used. I've never heard this symbol defined as either "never equal to" (a concept I don't think even arises in math) or "are intersecting sets". It's the same thing as "!=" in computer science. If these symbols are confusing people it might be better to use plain English: "Reliable sources" and "specialist sources" are not equivalent, because specialist sources are not reliable about everything (depending on the field, e.g. aromatherapy and ghost hunting, they may not be reliable in any way about much of anything), and in particular are not style guides for writing for a general audience; meanwhile many reliable sources are not specialized, including those that MOS most relies upon for grammar/style issues. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- When does != mean "sometimes equal to"? Lacking an example, I'd have to say that "not" in this circumstance = "never". At any rate, "reliable source" != "specialist source" is insane, because it states that there will be no reliable source which is also a specialist source.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- As SMcCandlish noted, I meant "is not equal to", and I was referring to the terminology (hence the quotation marks).
- Some editors have continually used the phrase "reliable sources" to mean "specialist sources (and no others)". My point is that the two terms aren't synonymous; general sources can be reliable too. I wasn't suggesting that specialist sources can't be reliable (which would be downright silly).
- My apologies for the confusion. —David Levy 03:05, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, I guess we need to drop the "!=" a.k.a. "≠" thing. I guess if you are not a math geek, a programmer or a philosophy major, it is an anti-intuitive way to approach it. It literally never occurred to me that someone might interpret "is not equal to" as "is never equal to", but stepping back I can see how that might happen. And it did happen and the debate got confused instead of clearer. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:49, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- When does != mean "sometimes equal to"? Lacking an example, I'd have to say that "not" in this circumstance = "never". At any rate, "reliable source" != "specialist source" is insane, because it states that there will be no reliable source which is also a specialist source.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, we're using it to mean "not equal to", which is how it's most often used. I've never heard this symbol defined as either "never equal to" (a concept I don't think even arises in math) or "are intersecting sets". It's the same thing as "!=" in computer science. If these symbols are confusing people it might be better to use plain English: "Reliable sources" and "specialist sources" are not equivalent, because specialist sources are not reliable about everything (depending on the field, e.g. aromatherapy and ghost hunting, they may not be reliable in any way about much of anything), and in particular are not style guides for writing for a general audience; meanwhile many reliable sources are not specialized, including those that MOS most relies upon for grammar/style issues. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:47, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think we're using "≠" differently. I took it to mean "never equal to" rather than "are intersecting sets".--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:17, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- If Northern Mockingbird were a trademark, could it keep its orthography in the same way that iPhone has?
- If it were a proper noun (as "iPhone" is), absolutely. —David Levy 06:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- Many have claimed that bird names, being names of species rather than individual birds, are proper nouns. This of course makes capitalization in running text even more confusing.--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:17, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- Except that very few people have actually advanced that extreme view, and even WP:BIRDS members with a good understanding of grammar disagree with the notion (see for example one of them doing so in the most immediate archive of this page). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:39, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- The failure of ornithologists to argue this is IMO the weakest part of their argument, since it then becomes merely an affectation.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- It's absolutely an affectation. It's no different from a doctor saying "myocardial infarction" instead of "heart attack", outside of a medical discussion, just because he can and likes to sound smart and doctorish. Ornithologists' jargonistic style has no place in a general work. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:04, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- The failure of ornithologists to argue this is IMO the weakest part of their argument, since it then becomes merely an affectation.--Curtis Clark (talk) 02:25, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Except that very few people have actually advanced that extreme view, and even WP:BIRDS members with a good understanding of grammar disagree with the notion (see for example one of them doing so in the most immediate archive of this page). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:39, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- Many have claimed that bird names, being names of species rather than individual birds, are proper nouns. This of course makes capitalization in running text even more confusing.--Curtis Clark (talk) 15:17, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- I see the issue boiling down to two questions: Should Wikipedia specify capitalization for organism names in running text? and, Should Wikipedia always change the capitalization of organism names taken from reliable sources in order to meet the MoS?
- Most reliable sources use the lowercase convention for common names of bird species. —David Levy 06:46, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- No, they do not. It's always hard to count, but reliable secondary sources of facts about birds, i.e. what SMcCandlish calls "specialist" sources, other than scientific journals, largely use the titlecase convention, just as reliable secondary sources of facts about British and Australian plants also largely use the titlecase convention. The issue is different (and importantly so): should Wikipedia editors always change the typography of English names to match a Wikipedia standard or should they follow their sources? The proposal here is a compromise between these two: namely that when first reporting a sourced common name or when using it as an article title they should use the orthography of the source; otherwise in running text they should use a lowercase Wikipedia standard. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- I didn't refer to "reliable secondary sources of facts about birds". I simply wrote "reliable sources".
- As noted above, matters of fact and matters of style are two different things. A reliable source of facts about a particular subject is not necessarily a reliable source of style advice suitable for a general publication (such as Wikipedia) and vice versa. —David Levy 03:05, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- In a debate as polarized as this one, it's important for all participants, I think, to try to be very precise. If you meant "reliable sources for style", then you should have written this not just "reliable sources" which is ambiguous. This difference goes to the heart of the debate and should not be obscured. The facts are that for some countries and groups of species, reliable sources of information about those species capitalize English names, whereas many reliable sources of style guidance for general writing advise not capitalizing English names. Which reliable sources should be followed is a large part of the disagreement. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I didn't mean "reliable sources for style". I meant "reliable sources" (encompassing both general and specialist publications). Among reliable sources that mention common names of bird species, most use the lowercase convention.
- My point, as noted previously, is that "reliable source" doesn't mean "specialist source". (Both specialist sources and general sources can be reliable.) I was responding to your statement that "the orthography of reliable sources would be used in lists and article titles."
- If you meant "reliable sources for bird facts", you should have written this, not just "reliable sources", which is ambiguous. This difference goes to the heart of the debate and should not be obscured. —David Levy 20:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- In a debate as polarized as this one, it's important for all participants, I think, to try to be very precise. If you meant "reliable sources for style", then you should have written this not just "reliable sources" which is ambiguous. This difference goes to the heart of the debate and should not be obscured. The facts are that for some countries and groups of species, reliable sources of information about those species capitalize English names, whereas many reliable sources of style guidance for general writing advise not capitalizing English names. Which reliable sources should be followed is a large part of the disagreement. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I support a different version of the proposed compromise. As SMcCandlish wrote, "I can't think of anywhere else that we use a different capitalization convention for the title than we do for the prose", and I don't understand how this makes sense. Conversely, it makes perfect sense to state in the lead that a certain styling of the subject's name is used by a particular notable organization. That's factual and informative. —David Levy 03:05, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Backing off the title issue (which is often a contentious subject even independent of orthography), what is the downside to reproducing (in the lede, say) the capitalization of a reliable source for a name, if the reliable source makes a point of capitalizing? We have learned from a number of editors in the UK and Australia that plants there also have "official" names, which are capitalized. One could make the point that saying Mimus polyglottos is the "northern mockingbird", and referencing the AOU, which actually calls it "Northern Mockingbird", would be at best original research and at worst misrepresentation.--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
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- One could make that point, Curtis, but one would be wrong. Changing the capitalization style isn't quite as bland as changing, say, the font, but it is something that even non-language-nerd readers will understand to be a matter of style. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- So you're saying that "Hela" instead of "HeLa" and "homo sapiens" instead of "Homo sapiens" are stylistic matters?--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm saying that "Harpy Eagle" vs "harpy eagle" is stylistic. Writing "homo sapiens" without the capital H is just wrong. With "Harpy Eagle"/"harpy eagle" we have two sets of style guides that are in conflict with each other. Are there any reputable style guides that require "Hela" or "homo sapiens"? Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:40, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- So you're saying that "Hela" instead of "HeLa" and "homo sapiens" instead of "Homo sapiens" are stylistic matters?--Curtis Clark (talk) 16:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- One could make that point, Curtis, but one would be wrong. Changing the capitalization style isn't quite as bland as changing, say, the font, but it is something that even non-language-nerd readers will understand to be a matter of style. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:41, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Backing off the title issue (which is often a contentious subject even independent of orthography), what is the downside to reproducing (in the lede, say) the capitalization of a reliable source for a name, if the reliable source makes a point of capitalizing?
- I see no downside and strongly support the idea. As stated above, I believe that it makes perfect sense to include such information in the lead. —David Levy 05:35, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I follow the suggestion, but I don't think capitalization should be discussed in the lead in most cases. Maybe in a footnote to the lead, or in a paragraph at the end that readers can find with the ToC. The lead is for the most important information, and I doubt that capitalization is important for many readers.
- If it were in a footnote, would it look something like this?
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The Red-faced Warbler1 (Cardellina rubifrons) is..."
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1[IOC ref. here.] The IOC capitalizes its English names for bird species to avoid confusion.
- Or this, when there's a difference?
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The American Golden Plover1 or American Golden-Plover2 (Pluvialis dominica) is...
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1[IOC ref. here.] The IOC capitalizes its English names for bird species to avoid confusion.
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2[AOU ref. here.]
- This would be a very big job, though maybe a bot could do some of it. Sourcing names in the lead is something I haven't seen much of here. If it should be adopted at all, maybe it should be adopted throughout Wikipedia. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 06:45, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- We routinely mention alternative names/spellings/styling in articles' leads.
- The basic idea behind the proposal is to style the bird's common name in lowercase throughout most of the article while clearly acknowledging (and attributing) the capitalized variant:
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The blue jay (Cyanocitta cristata; IOC name: Blue Jay) is a passerine bird...
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- Backing off the title issue (which is often a contentious subject even independent of orthography), what is the downside to reproducing (in the lede, say) the capitalization of a reliable source for a name, if the reliable source makes a point of capitalizing? We have learned from a number of editors in the UK and Australia that plants there also have "official" names, which are capitalized. One could make the point that saying Mimus polyglottos is the "northern mockingbird", and referencing the AOU, which actually calls it "Northern Mockingbird", would be at best original research and at worst misrepresentation.--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:22, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- No, they do not. It's always hard to count, but reliable secondary sources of facts about birds, i.e. what SMcCandlish calls "specialist" sources, other than scientific journals, largely use the titlecase convention, just as reliable secondary sources of facts about British and Australian plants also largely use the titlecase convention. The issue is different (and importantly so): should Wikipedia editors always change the typography of English names to match a Wikipedia standard or should they follow their sources? The proposal here is a compromise between these two: namely that when first reporting a sourced common name or when using it as an article title they should use the orthography of the source; otherwise in running text they should use a lowercase Wikipedia standard. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:10, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
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- The above, of course, is merely an example. We wouldn't necessarily use that exact format. —David Levy 07:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Just to make the point, which it seems has to be made over and over again, that the "fuller proposal" is not just about birds as some people seem to think. Whenever there are 'official' lists of common names which capitalize (e.g. British plants, British lepidoptera, British fungi, Australian plants, birds, etc.) these forms would be used in the places specified in the proposal in the orthography of the source (and referenced). The "fuller proposal" is clear that only in running text would the Wikipedia lowercase style be used regardless of the orthography of the source. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:58, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks, David, that helps. I'm afraid I still have all my objections, including that the running text is exactly where you need the capitals. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 19:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- As I (and others) have commented, most readers are unaware of the fact that "Mexian Jay" means something different from "Mexian jay" in our articles. (You've acknowledged that "you do have to be a nature enthusiast ... to know what's going on.")
- If anything, our adherence to this convention probably reduces overall clarity by encouraging editors' reliance upon it to draw the intended distinction. In a non-specialist publication (whose readers are unlikely to pick up on such a visual cue), it's far more helpful to simply avoid referring to "Mexican jays" in the generic sense. —David Levy 20:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- The above, of course, is merely an example. We wouldn't necessarily use that exact format. —David Levy 07:09, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
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- What is a compromise? The "fuller proposal" is deliberately a compromise. It will only work (i.e. stand a good chance of acceptance by both "sides") if it contains elements disliked by both. That's the nature of a compromise. Relegating capitalized English names to footnotes isn't a compromise. Never using capitalized English names in titles isn't a compromise. The question is whether both "sides" are or are not willing to accept a compromise that would produce a uniform style at the cost of not getting everything they want. The fuller proposal is not what I would want (I favour treating capitalization of English names like ENGVAR and allowing articles to differ, but be internally consistent). But I'm willing to support the fuller proposal and implement it in articles for the sake of Wikipedia as a whole. What I'm not willing to do is to accept a so-called compromise which isn't; if it doesn't hurt a bit, it's not a compromise. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:14, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
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- It's not a compromise for me; I strongly favor accurate referencing, and oppose capitalization of common names in running text. So maybe you should oppose it. :-) --Curtis Clark (talk) 16:51, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
- I reject the premise that our goal is to equally satisfy/dissatisfy both "sides". Wikipedia isn't about us; it's written for the benefit of readers.
- I oppose the "fuller proposal" on the basis that titling an article in a manner inconsistent with the running prose would be peculiar and inconsistent with the rest of the encyclopedia. It seems like a random anomaly devised for no reason other than to make the solution "hurt a bit" for editors outside WikiProject Birds (with no consideration of what makes sense to readers). —David Levy 20:06, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I'm not sure it's quite as inconsistent as you suggest. For example, titles that need disambiguating, like Herreria (plant), are different from those used in the text. Although Wikipedia restricts capitalization to the first word of a title, capitalizing all significant words in a title is very common elsewhere, so readers are quite used to it. I don't suggest it in order to make the solution hurt a bit; that would be silly. I suggest it in the compromise because there is a good reason to make the title of a page as definitive as is possible. I would personally prefer Latin names (as WP:PLANTS does), but if English names are to be used, they should where possible be taken from authoritative sources, and should then use the orthography of that source. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not sure it's quite as inconsistent as you suggest. For example, titles that need disambiguating, like Herreria (plant), are different from those used in the text.
- That isn't comparable; the parenthetical "plant" isn't presented as part of the subject's name.
- Obviously, we don't always use an article's exact title in running prose, but I know of know subject area in which the portion of the title comprising the subject's name appears in running prose with different orthography (apart from the title's mandatory uppercase first letter).
- Although Wikipedia restricts capitalization to the first word of a title, capitalizing all significant words in a title is very common elsewhere, so readers are quite used to it.
- But that isn't our convention. Readers likely will either find the internal inconsistency strange and unprofessional or mistakenly emulate the title-case usage in other articles' titles. (This error already is common among inexperienced editors, even without the confusing examples that you advocate).
- I don't suggest it in order to make the solution hurt a bit; that would be silly.
- It was you who stated that "if it doesn't hurt a bit, it's not a compromise" (in explaining why you object to the version of the proposal not including title-case titles).
- I see absolutely no material distinction between the title and the running prose, so this comes across as an attempt to enable each "side" to "win" one of them (thereby treating the articles as our personal battlegrounds instead of collaborations created for the benefit of readers).
- I suggest it in the compromise because there is a good reason to make the title of a page as definitive as is possible.
- If the style in question were "definitive", there would be no need for any compromise.
- Specialist publications favor one convention, while general publications favor another. As has been discussed, there's no dispute that the former usually are the best sources on matters of fact (e.g. birds' breeding and migratory behaviors), but that doesn't make them more reliable on matters of style. (Likewise, if a reliable source happens to be written in particular English variety, we don't necessarily copy that style when utilizing the factual information contained therein.)
- Setting aside that argument, what material distinction exists between an article's title and its running prose? Why, in your view, is it important for the former to be "definitive" while the latter isn't? This seems entirely arbitrary.
- I would personally prefer Latin names (as WP:PLANTS does), but if English names are to be used, they should where possible be taken from authoritative sources, and should then use the orthography of that source.
- Where specialist and general style conventions directly conflict, specialist sources aren't authoritative on matters of general style. —David Levy 19:11, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not sure it's quite as inconsistent as you suggest. For example, titles that need disambiguating, like Herreria (plant), are different from those used in the text. Although Wikipedia restricts capitalization to the first word of a title, capitalizing all significant words in a title is very common elsewhere, so readers are quite used to it. I don't suggest it in order to make the solution hurt a bit; that would be silly. I suggest it in the compromise because there is a good reason to make the title of a page as definitive as is possible. I would personally prefer Latin names (as WP:PLANTS does), but if English names are to be used, they should where possible be taken from authoritative sources, and should then use the orthography of that source. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- So how do others, especially Peter, feel about not including title in the proposal, but leaving the rest?--Curtis Clark (talk) 04:16, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- As I've answered David Levy above, I think there are good reasons to use precisely the form used in an authoritative source as the title of the page; any number of orthographic variants can be used as redirects. Another reason for keeping the source orthography is that it's not always easy to alter it without provoking disputes. I'm not a birder, so bird names don't spring to mind, but there are examples among the BSBI English names for plants, and I'm sure there must be comparable bird examples. Helleborus × hyridus is called by the BSBI "Hybrid Lenten-rose"; as a title would this be "Hybrid Lenten-rose" or "Hybrid lenten-rose"? Clematis cirrhosa is called "Early Virgin's-bower"; I think as a title this would be "Early Virgin's-bower", because the Virgin Mary is meant, but this is perhaps arguable. What about "Ragged-Robin"? I guess it would remain the same as a title; the BSBI's use of a capital after the hyphen shows that a name is intended. (But in running text "ragged-Robin" looks very silly to me.) Would "Scarce Londonpride" stay the same? I'm not sure about "Perfoliate Alexanders"; the plural suggests that the name isn't meant, but the etymology disagrees. And so on. (All of which shows why using Latin names is far, far better!) Peter coxhead (talk) 13:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- As I've answered David Levy above, I think there are good reasons to use precisely the form used in an authoritative source as the title of the page;
- As I've responded above, where specialist and general style conventions directly conflict, specialist sources aren't authoritative on matters of general style.
- I also see absolutely no material distinction between the title and the running prose.
- any number of orthographic variants can be used as redirects.
- That's a given (regardless of which is used in the actual title).
- Another reason for keeping the source orthography is that it's not always easy to alter it without provoking disputes.
- If such difficulties exist, we'll need to address them within the running prose anyway, so no disputes will be prevented. Again, I'm simply not seeing a material distinction. —David Levy 19:11, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- As I've answered David Levy above, I think there are good reasons to use precisely the form used in an authoritative source as the title of the page; any number of orthographic variants can be used as redirects. Another reason for keeping the source orthography is that it's not always easy to alter it without provoking disputes. I'm not a birder, so bird names don't spring to mind, but there are examples among the BSBI English names for plants, and I'm sure there must be comparable bird examples. Helleborus × hyridus is called by the BSBI "Hybrid Lenten-rose"; as a title would this be "Hybrid Lenten-rose" or "Hybrid lenten-rose"? Clematis cirrhosa is called "Early Virgin's-bower"; I think as a title this would be "Early Virgin's-bower", because the Virgin Mary is meant, but this is perhaps arguable. What about "Ragged-Robin"? I guess it would remain the same as a title; the BSBI's use of a capital after the hyphen shows that a name is intended. (But in running text "ragged-Robin" looks very silly to me.) Would "Scarce Londonpride" stay the same? I'm not sure about "Perfoliate Alexanders"; the plural suggests that the name isn't meant, but the etymology disagrees. And so on. (All of which shows why using Latin names is far, far better!) Peter coxhead (talk) 13:28, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Since I believe that plant articles (and bird articles, for that matter) should almost always be at the scientific name, the examples that Peter gave are unimportant to me. We could have saved a lot ot trouble by insisting that bird articles be at the scientific name. :-) --Curtis Clark (talk) 03:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Though non-optimal, that would be preferable to continuing to capitalize common names all over the place. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, I'd obviously support this suggestion, which in my view is optimal. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:21, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- I can't track all the history of this dispute and I apologize for asking for a review of what is clearly very old ground. Under what standard practice guideline would a scientific name title be an improvement over "the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources"? Jojalozzo 00:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Outside of a small number of really common species, most species have either multiple common names (especially if they are widespread) or no common name at all (some of these may have invented English names that are in no more common use than the scientific names). For birds, scientific names and "official" "common" names are ordinarily in a 1:1 correspondence, but are sadly not interchangeable in practice, because the scientific names are deprecated even by many ornithologists. My suggestion to use scientific names for bird articles was somewhat in jest, because I suspect it would be opposed by most of the bird editors.--Curtis Clark (talk) 03:00, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- I can't track all the history of this dispute and I apologize for asking for a review of what is clearly very old ground. Under what standard practice guideline would a scientific name title be an improvement over "the name that is most frequently used to refer to the subject in English-language reliable sources"? Jojalozzo 00:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, I'd obviously support this suggestion, which in my view is optimal. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:21, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Though non-optimal, that would be preferable to continuing to capitalize common names all over the place. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- @David Levy: there is a material distinction between changing the content of an article and changing its title. Titles need to be as stable as possible since they have links to them (not just inside Wikipedia). Redirects are not the full answer because of the need to fix double redirects which are caused by some name changes. Content doesn't have such links and is therefore entirely "private" to an article. Further, although in my view it's irrational, the bitterest disputes are often about article titles. I would like to ensure that titles change as little as possible and are disputed as little as possible. Using precisely the orthography of an authoritative source is one way to achieve this. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:21, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Given that nearly zero authoritative sources on English usage for a general audience support the capitalization of common names of species, and only specialist publications capitalize them (sometimes, and not even all that consistently in detail), I think we'd have to settle on lower case. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:29, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ok, suppose there were to be a consensus on "lower case". How would we decide on mapping the orthography of the "official" bird names to "lower case"? It really isn't as straightforward as it seems, because English names of species, birds or otherwise, contain many words ultimately derived from proper names. Sometimes these are still clearly proper names, but sometimes they seem no longer to be felt to be proper names (e.g. "jackdaw" but ?"Jack snipe"; "robin", etymologically from "Robin Redbreast" itself from "redbreast", etc.). My point is that if there is an "official" list complete with orthography then there's no problem; once there is the need to transform these names then disputes arise. Of course, as the discussion with David Levy makes clear, this problem also arises in running text, but I continue to believe that it's not as serious there because article contents are "private" whereas article titles are "public". Peter coxhead (talk) 09:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Wouldn't it be decided in the same way as capitalizing non-biological words like "antiquity", "yo-yo" and "baroque", after consulting dictionaries, Google Books etc.? Art LaPella (talk) 19:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- One problem is that the English names of species aren't usually in dictionaries, and many are too rare in books to be statistically significant. And what happens if a Google search shows that the majority of uses are the fully capitalized form? Why rely on searches to decide how to convert an official title case form to a lower case form but not to keep as title case? For a birds example, look at this Google ngram result: compare "Jack Snipe" and "jack snipe". Peter coxhead (talk) 19:32, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- And I simply don't understand this argument. —David Levy 01:29, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Wouldn't it be decided in the same way as capitalizing non-biological words like "antiquity", "yo-yo" and "baroque", after consulting dictionaries, Google Books etc.? Art LaPella (talk) 19:09, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ok, suppose there were to be a consensus on "lower case". How would we decide on mapping the orthography of the "official" bird names to "lower case"? It really isn't as straightforward as it seems, because English names of species, birds or otherwise, contain many words ultimately derived from proper names. Sometimes these are still clearly proper names, but sometimes they seem no longer to be felt to be proper names (e.g. "jackdaw" but ?"Jack snipe"; "robin", etymologically from "Robin Redbreast" itself from "redbreast", etc.). My point is that if there is an "official" list complete with orthography then there's no problem; once there is the need to transform these names then disputes arise. Of course, as the discussion with David Levy makes clear, this problem also arises in running text, but I continue to believe that it's not as serious there because article contents are "private" whereas article titles are "public". Peter coxhead (talk) 09:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Titles need to be as stable as possible since they have links to them (not just inside Wikipedia). Redirects are not the full answer because of the need to fix double redirects which are caused by some name changes.
- You're citing a problem that arises strictly through carelessness. When the task of renaming a page is carried out properly, double redirects are repaired almost immediately. (Otherwise, a bot takes care of them shortly thereafter.)
- Your argument, if valid, would preclude all renaming (a normal part of Wikipedia).
- Further, although in my view it's irrational, the bitterest disputes are often about article titles. I would like to ensure that titles change as little as possible and are disputed as little as possible.
- Most such disputes also affect mentions of the subjects in running prose. I find it extremely unlikely that changing those while retaining the existing article titles (thereby creating a strange mishmash seen nowhere else in the encyclopedia) would result in fewer disputes.
- Using precisely the orthography of an authoritative source is one way to achieve this.
- See SMcCandlish's response above. —David Levy 22:47, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Given that nearly zero authoritative sources on English usage for a general audience support the capitalization of common names of species, and only specialist publications capitalize them (sometimes, and not even all that consistently in detail), I think we'd have to settle on lower case. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:29, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Since I believe that plant articles (and bird articles, for that matter) should almost always be at the scientific name, the examples that Peter gave are unimportant to me. We could have saved a lot ot trouble by insisting that bird articles be at the scientific name. :-) --Curtis Clark (talk) 03:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
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I apologize for being behind the curve in this discussion. Are we willing to live with the frequent title changes and RMs by new editors for articles where the orthography in the title doesn't match the running text? Jojalozzo 00:41, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well there are title changes and disputes now; I'm not sure that they would increase. If this proposal had consensus (which it clearly doesn't at present), then the MOS and its subpages would explain the policy and I can't see that things would be worse, although they wouldn't be better.
- Here's my summary of the discussion as I see it. There are two self-consistent positions:
- Adopt a Wikipedia-wide style for the orthography of English names of species; the balance of style guide sources at present is clearly in favour of this being the lower-case style.
- Use the style for the orthography of English names of species found in the reliable sources of facts about those species.
- (One other position is put forward, namely to treat bird names as a special case, but I find the case for this wholly unconvincing, and sometimes supported by people for what seem to me to be bad reasons. Thus some of those who really support (1) sometimes appear to me to be willing to accept this position for the present because in the long run it will be easier to overturn, e.g. because it is fairly obviously WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.)
- Looking at all the discussions here and elsewhere convinces me that there is no consensus as to which of these positions to adopt, although supporters of (1) disagree.
- I think it was worth floating a genuine compromise between (1) and (2), but I suspect that it won't find any more consensus than (1) or (2). So the status quo will continue: the great majority of articles about some groups (e.g. birds, lepidoptera) will continue to use title case; articles about some other groups (e.g. plants, fungi) will use both styles; most articles about the rest will use lower case. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:50, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Here's my summary of the discussion as I see it. There are two self-consistent positions:
- 1. Adopt a Wikipedia-wide style for the orthography of English names of species; the balance of style guide sources at present is clearly in favour of this being the lower-case style.
- 2. Use the style for the orthography of English names of species found in the reliable sources of facts about those species.
- That's an accurate summary. (I'll note that among those who favor option 1, there appears to be little or no objection to the idea of documenting option 2's orthography in the lead.)
- I agree that both positions are self-consistent. However, option 2 is inconsistent with Wikipedia's general conventions. I don't recall the specifics, but I believe that SMcCandlish cited examples of other terminology capitalized by specialist sources (a convention to which we usually don't adhere when it conflicts with general usage).
- (One other position is put forward, namely to treat bird names as a special case, but I find the case for this wholly unconvincing, and sometimes supported by people for what seem to me to be bad reasons. Thus some of those who really support (1) sometimes appear to me to be willing to accept this position for the present because in the long run it will be easier to overturn, e.g. because it is fairly obviously WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.)
- Another reason is that a few editors from WikiProject Birds go out of their way to ensure that mere discussion of change is a harrowing experience (e.g. by repeating the same straw man arguments ad nauseam, hurling accusations of bad faith motives, and threatening to leave Wikipedia). Bowing to their demands (by excluding bird articles from the equation, at least for the time being) often seems like the only feasible means of circumventing the stonewalling.
- Looking at all the discussions here and elsewhere convinces me that there is no consensus as to which of these positions to adopt, although supporters of (1) disagree.
- The matter has yet to be addressed by anything close to cross-section of Wikipedians; WikiProject Birds has been greatly overrepresented. (I mean this purely from a statistical standpoint, not as an insult.)
- Of course, it makes sense to attempt to devise a mutually acceptable compromise before initiating an RfC. It's unfortunate that some editors regard any compromise as unacceptable (to the extent that one claims to have retired in disgust).
- I think it was worth floating a genuine compromise between (1) and (2), but I suspect that it won't find any more consensus than (1) or (2).
- If two persons were to disagree on whether to paint a house red or blue, painting the left half red and the right half blue would be an even compromise. In my view, that's analogous to this proposal.
- So the status quo will continue
- ...until such time as an RfC leads to a different determination. As noted above, it's in everyone's best interests to pursue progress beforehand. —David Levy 01:29, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- So, RfC then? — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 03:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Conclusion
Many parties believe this is going to have to be the subject of an RfC to see any further resolution. None of the major competing proposals gained consensus. I'm told at least 1 person is already working on an RfC. A broader one, on general vs. specialist sources as reliable for encyclopedic style matters, has also been suggested (at a discussion about dog breed names at WT:MOSCAPS). I would propose that any such RfC be held here at WT:MOS because it's the top-level style guideline, from which are derived the sub-guidelines and (where they touch on style matters) also the naming conventions. This page is also widely watched; over 1400 editors have the main MOS page individually watchlisted[2] (this is more than WP:NPOV, WP:NOR, WP:RS, WP:CONSENSUS, WP:AT [I mean the real pages, not these shortcuts], and many other crucial policies and guidelines, about equal that of WP:Verifiability, and not much less than WP:Notability, the chief source of debate on the entire system. Subpages like WP:MOSCAPS (154 watchers[3]) are places where few ever tread.
- Some clear consensus did emerge
- Many, including supporters of capitalization, have strongly objected to wording using the term "exception", e.g. "As a general exception to this rule...", because it implies that there is something uniquely special about WP:WikiProject Birds, and/or that it wrongly implies that WikiProjects get to make up whatever rules they like about anything and that MOS is bound to honor any such divergence.
- No one has, that I recall, seriously proposed that WP:CONSENSUS should not be mentioned, as long as the guideline's wording looks anything like what it does now, and many have insisted on it.
- Opinion has been sharply divided, even among WP:BIRDS members, on whether or not the project as such should be mentioned in the passage, as long as the guideline's wording still mentions birds explicitly. The language mostly stable for the last near-month has not done so, and no one's head asplode.
- The suggestion that further exceptions should be included (lepidoptery was mentioned) never reached any consensus, and looking at WP:FAUNA, WP:MOSCAPS and other pages that have tried to address the "common name caps" issue, it becomes immediately clear that projects on butterflies, and on plants and so forth never reached internal consensus on it, while most others (cetaceans, primates, fish, etc.) that got into the debate independently concluded to use lower case, before MOS proper said so.
- This strongly suggests that MOS should not list further WP:IAR exceptions, and as has been clear throughout the entire debate has only done so with birds because it's been a 7-year long WP:BATTLEGROUND issue (i.e. peace is more useful here than "winning", for either "side", and there are actually at least 3 "sides", maybe as many as 5 depending on how you view various proposals and suggestions).
- No one has seriously challenged the fact that MOS has had a "don't capitalize" default since 2008, and that this has been stable. The criticism that MOS is just a local consensus itself and everyone ignores it is contradicted by how much people debate even minor changes here, and how massively watchlisted it is. Four years of stability is clear demonstration of consensus, so if MOS critics want to press this point, they'll have to do so in the upcoming RfC. They have no consensus to radically alter the MOS section on organism names.
- MOS updated to reflect this
I've updated (as of this writing; no idea if it will be reverted or not) the text of the MOS section to read "Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, gray wolf, but Przewalski's horse). Some editors prefer to capitalize the official common names of birds (Golden Eagle) in ornithological articles; the style should not be applied to other categories. Use a consistent style for common names within an article. Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles." It includes a link to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.
I believe these changes represent the clear consensus points that have been reached, and not misrepresent anything.
- The "essential points to cover" were addressed by the discussion and the above update
This appears to (sometimes marginally) address all seven of the points that were identified as being essential to cover:
- The default is to begin each word in common (vernacular) names with lower case
- except were proper names appear in them.
- This applies to all common names, not just species (families, types, etc.)
- Some editors prefer to capitalize bird common names in ornithology articles (only).
- That remains controversial (a.k.a. there is no site-wide consensus that this is an acceptable practice, a.k.a. this is not consistently regarded as correct a.k.a. this is not endorsed by MOS, etc.)
- and should not be used outside such articles, even for birds.
- Only one capitalization style should be used in any given article.
Point #4 is the marginally-addressed one, and is only covered by a link to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS; this is much weaker than a majority of non-WP:BIRDS editors want, but should be good enough to keep the peace for a while.
- Steps toward synching the guidelines
Over the last couple of days, I've also made "gentle" changes to MOS:CAPS and WP:FAUNA to make them more consistent with each other and MOS proper, my original goal. I don't know if they'll stick for now, but I've gone to much greater lengths than usual to explain and justify these tweaks, step by step, so hopefully they will not be controversial. A major part of this cleanup has been to ensure that they remain based in guidelines and policies and site-wide consensus, instead of wildly deferring to misc. wikiproject postings as if they were authoritative, and to be more descriptive instead of exhortatory with regard to what projects are doing, as well as removing irrelevant non sequiturs about which projects "haven't come to a consensus" on it (no one cares; MOS has had a clear consensus on LC as a default for years).
Hopefully these observations are not controversial and some of the heat can dissipate. I honestly hope that the RfC is broader than "should species common names be capitalized", since the exact same "we must do what specialist sources do, even on grammar and style matters" meme comes up in many other places.
— SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 04:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Update: I've taken a stab at improving WP:WikiProject Birds#Bird names and article titles in a sandboxed draft at Wikipedia:WikiProject Birds/naming sandbox. The nature of the changes are explained at WT:WikiProject Birds#"Bird names and article titles" overhaul. Any input would be welcome. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 13:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
MOS sub-guidelines: Independent and can contradict MOS?
As noted above, at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters some editors at that page feel that it is a wholly separate guideline with its own WP:CONSENSUS that isn't a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS.
More importantly, I believe that the larger issue of whether MOS sub-guidelines are fully independent guidelines or simply MOS sections that have been moved to /subpages because MOS was getting long, is serious and broad enough that it should be discussed here, not at any particular subpage, where it will get archived and forgotten. The fact that no one remembered in four years to update WP:MOSCAPS to agree with WP:MOS is evidence enough that this would happen. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- Not independent: My view on this is strongly that MoS subpages are not at all separate guidelines, but are sections of MOS that happen to have URLs without "#" in them, nothing more. This was certainly the intent in creating them, not to say "MOS doesn't care about this issue any more, let's create a page for people to create new, competing rules about this to override MOS." It's an invitation to anarchy to suppose otherwise, especially given that we know for a fact that certain projects have been manipulating the less carefully watched sub-guideline pages to favor their positions, in an attempt to evade MOS's more general prescriptions. I believe that every single MOS page needs to be reviewed, probably quarterly, in a programmatic way to ensure that it does not give conflicting, only expanded and more detailed, advice. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:34, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
- Project-specific guidelines should be allowed to make up rules for situations that occur exclusively or almost exclusively within that project. General-writing rules should be in the general Wikipedia MoS. The issue that I see with this is if something occurs within two or more Wikiprojects but not throughout Wikipedia; the guidelines must be made to match across those Wikiprojects. Placing that guideline in the MoS proper should be a fallback option in the case of disputes. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:12, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Sure, as long as we remember they're really topic-specific, and while often largely written by projects, even hosted at them as subpages of projects, their applicability is never predicated on whether an editor is project member. And we have WP:LOCALCONSENSUS which essentially means that if a topical, project-authored "guideline" conflicts with a general, site-wide one, then the wider "rule" wins. I've been the principal author of topical style/naming and notability conventions myself at MOS:CUE and WP:CUENOT, so I don't have anything against the idea generally.
What I was really getting at was whether, say, MOS:CAPS, MOS:NUM (both of which I've edited for years) MOS:ICONS (which I'm one of the principal authors of – I'm not singling out any page to be "picked on" here) and other non-project sub-guides of MOS are in a position to depart from MOS and conflict with it. Rather, it seems clear to me that their role is to a) elaborate on and enhance MOS without contradicting it because they're simply sections we've forked off to different URLs for space reasons, as is the case with CAPS and NUM, or b) add guidance to MOS that was missing, again without conflicting with it, in cases where MOS has imported a non-MOS guideline into MOS, as is the case with ICONS and various topical guidelines that don't screw with general guidance, such as MOS:MED, MOS:CUE, and so on.
We have a problem when MOS has changed and four years later various sub-guideline pages still contain wording that was deleted from MOS on purpose, and editors at those sub-guidelines say there is consensus "there" to keep the obsolete wording! It's a quiet little mutiny/rebellion, basically, by people who know their arguments will not stand up to wider scrutiny here at WT:MOS, which lots of people actually watchlist and pay attention to, unlike the subpages's talk pages which are largely ignored and thus are strong magnets for special interests' nonsense and viewpoint-pushing. This is precisely what WP:LOCALCONSENSUS exists to prevent. The fact that a sub-guideline isn't a WikiProject per se is irrelevant, since the policy actually speaks of a small group of editors, generally, in a particular time and place bucking wider consensus, e.g. a sub-guideline making up its own rules right now because of fewer editors that it takes one hand to count engaging in revertwars against edits that would do nothing but make it consistent with MOS proper. We can't have "child" pages randomly defying the baseline guidelines/polices. If a change is needed, we need to establish a consensus at the broader page that a change that a sub-guideline has come to local consensus on should in fact propagate upward. It certainly isn't automatic or assumed.
— SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 19:22, 11 February 2012 (UTC)- If the editors on a topic have adopted specific rules because of sources, MOS should reflect it instead of squishing it to impose an artificial consistency. The main MOS page needs to be updated to reflect accurately the state of its specialized sub-guidelines. Otherwise, what is the point of having specialized sub-guidelines? --Enric Naval (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
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- MOS shouldn't reflect changes at a sub-page unless a case is made to do so here. Far too many projects have been manipulating the sub-guideline pages with near impunity to suit pet peeves, because virtually no one watchlists them with much attention. MOS shouldn't reflect sub-page changes at all when they conflict with general usage as reliably sourced in works on general usage, and sub-guidelines should not recommend doing so, or they're violating WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. You appear to be advocating the WP:Reliable sources style fallacy, in which it is wrongly presumed that reliable sources on facts about some topic are reliable sources on style matters in general-purpose (not specialist publication) prose any time the topic happens to be involved. The point of having the sub-guidelines is principally to reduce the size of MOS proper to something readable in one sitting, and also to provide room on the subpages for more examples, less clipped wording and special case handling that doesn't directly contradict MOS proper. It's emphatically not for the sub-guidelines to just go their own way. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:16, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- A while back, I was supporting a rule against using "#" for "number" (as "We're #1 !!"), when "#" isn't familiar to readers outside North America. But then the editors at Wikipedia:WikiProject Comics made a persuasive case that, no matter where they come from, enthusiasts always use "#" to identify different comic books in lists and articles. —— Shakescene (talk) 23:38, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- They're right (I'm a comic collector among many hobbies, so I can confirm this.) But they should come here, because their in-house preference disagrees with MO,S and get consensus to tweak MOS on this point, which should be very easy. They shouldn't browbeat random editors into obeying their pseudo-guideline, if that's what's happening. Note that this is different from things like capitalizing bird common names, since using the "#" character isn't a basic grammar point, while capitalizing only proper nouns is. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- In response to Eric, if the sources indicate a change in the English language (or an error in the MoS), then the main MoS should be changed to reflect this. We did this a few years ago after a source, Chicago, endorsed leaving the periods out of "U.S."
- Using single quotation marks within plant species names is a good example of how a project-specific MoS might legitimately differ from the main MoS. Shakescene also makes a good case for why any MoS specific to Wikiproject:Comics might differ from the main MoS—because the rule in question would only apply to comic book titles. However, the common names of species occur across many projects. No one's made the case for the common name of a bird specie being essentially different from the common name of any other specie. Darkfrog24 (talk)
Many people have said many times that sources specialized in birds capitalize bird names, while sources specialized in other animals don't. This is dissed all the time as "we don't follow the style at sources". Which makes me wonder about why we bother with WP:COMMONNAME at all. --Enric Naval (talk) 11:58, 12 February 2012 (UTC)- See [4]. Reliable sources capitalize bird names. So we should follow WP:COMMONNAME. --Enric Naval (talk) 12:38, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's the WP:SPECIALSTYLE fallacy. What's common in specialist (ornithologist and birder in this case) sources is virtually unknown in reliable sources written for a general audience (encyclopedias, newspapers, non-bird-specific magazines, non-bird-specific refereed journals, dictionaries, etc.), making it actually less common, simply more familiar to specialists. This is simply a fact, and there's no way around it. Note also that COMMONNAME never once mentions capitalization or other style matters, so it isn't relevant here anyway. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Please note that this so-called "fallacy" is elucidated in an essay very recently written by McCandlish himself. I sharply disagree with that particular essay and do not find any genuine fallacy therein explained. --Trovatore (talk) 18:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's why it links to articles on the fallacies. I'm not sure what sort of "ah HA!" you're trying to imply here. Of course I recently wrote it. I announced that I did so here and several other places. I wrote it specially to counter the SPECIALSTYLE tactic of re-re-re-raising the same things over and over again so that discussions turn into a wall of text and the debate collapses. I.e., I will not be explaining the fallacies to you, since the essay and the articles it links to already do so. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 22:44, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- Please note that this so-called "fallacy" is elucidated in an essay very recently written by McCandlish himself. I sharply disagree with that particular essay and do not find any genuine fallacy therein explained. --Trovatore (talk) 18:25, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
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- That's the WP:SPECIALSTYLE fallacy. What's common in specialist (ornithologist and birder in this case) sources is virtually unknown in reliable sources written for a general audience (encyclopedias, newspapers, non-bird-specific magazines, non-bird-specific refereed journals, dictionaries, etc.), making it actually less common, simply more familiar to specialists. This is simply a fact, and there's no way around it. Note also that COMMONNAME never once mentions capitalization or other style matters, so it isn't relevant here anyway. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ha, and in the same page we have WP:LOWERCASE, which says to downcase everything except proper nouns, then says "For more guidance, see Naming conventions (capitalization)." MOSCAPS saw a lot of discussion and now says in the lead that most capitalization is for proper names and acronyms. How about we update the policy page to fit the consensus in the page it's defering to? --Enric Naval (talk) 12:54, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
- You're misquoting. LOWERCASE is part of WP:AT, which refers to WP:Naming conventions (capitalization) (WP:CAPS), not the incorrect
[[WP:MOSCAPS|Naming conventions (capitalization)]]
in your post above. WP:CAPS in turn defers to guidance here, and never mentions WP:MOSCAPS a.k.a. MOS:CAPS at all. So, even the naming conventions pages agree that MOS is authoritative here on capitalization, not its sub-guideline MOS:CAPS. QED. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 18:12, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- You're misquoting. LOWERCASE is part of WP:AT, which refers to WP:Naming conventions (capitalization) (WP:CAPS), not the incorrect
- They're right (I'm a comic collector among many hobbies, so I can confirm this.) But they should come here, because their in-house preference disagrees with MO,S and get consensus to tweak MOS on this point, which should be very easy. They shouldn't browbeat random editors into obeying their pseudo-guideline, if that's what's happening. Note that this is different from things like capitalizing bird common names, since using the "#" character isn't a basic grammar point, while capitalizing only proper nouns is. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:27, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
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- If the editors on a topic have adopted specific rules because of sources, MOS should reflect it instead of squishing it to impose an artificial consistency. The main MOS page needs to be updated to reflect accurately the state of its specialized sub-guidelines. Otherwise, what is the point of having specialized sub-guidelines? --Enric Naval (talk) 19:36, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
- Sure, as long as we remember they're really topic-specific, and while often largely written by projects, even hosted at them as subpages of projects, their applicability is never predicated on whether an editor is project member. And we have WP:LOCALCONSENSUS which essentially means that if a topical, project-authored "guideline" conflicts with a general, site-wide one, then the wider "rule" wins. I've been the principal author of topical style/naming and notability conventions myself at MOS:CUE and WP:CUENOT, so I don't have anything against the idea generally.
- Clearly, any sub-page guidance that seeks, for a set of articles, to override for better or worse general MoS guidance, should do this in coordination with the MoS main page. Otherwise, we have to clean up messes later. Tony (talk) 13:09, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
Proper nouns vs. proper names Noetica explained very carefully here that "proper noun" is badly mis-used in the MOS and some of its subpages. A small part of the lead of WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters was changed to correct this. It would be really nice if we could agree to sort out the rest of the MOS and stop mis-using this term, as people are above. This has nothing to do with any of the debates about what should be capitalized; I have different views from Noetica about this. But he's absolutely right about the mis-use of the term "proper noun". In English, proper nouns and proper noun phrases are capitalized, and these probably form the bulk of words which are capitalized. But words and phrases which are capitalized are not all proper nouns or noun phrases. In the sentence She is a Congregationalist minister, Congregationalist is an adjective (or a noun used to form a compound but not a proper noun); in the sentence She is a Muslim, Muslim is a noun, but not a proper noun (as is shown by the use of a which cannot be used with a proper noun in its normal usage). I'm sure that SMcCandlish didn't intend to imply, as he did above, that only proper nouns should be capitalized, but it's easy to make this mistake when the MOS and its subpages are wrong. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:31, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
- I concur. Good catch. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 22:40, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- Or else what? Ban all the users and WikiProjects who break the MOS rules? You repeated riling against WP:LOCALCONSENSUS (as if your own opinions aren't entirely local as well) and now your "essay" (more like a rant), seem to betray a deep-seated belief in a Wikipedia-wide conspiracy against your pet WikiProject (and yes, it is a WikiProject in a sense) — MOS. This subsection's title should be amended to: "MOS sub-guidelines: Independent and can contradict SMcCandlish?"-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 19:47, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Who said anything about banning anyone? — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:06, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
Which English should be used?
After reading the article S&M (song), which is nominated to be a featured article at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/S&M (song)/archive6, I noted that the article is written in American English. "S&M" is a single published by Rihanna, a Barbadian singer. I commented at the FAC that the article's English and dates may be written in Barbadian/British English as the subject (Rihanna) is Barbadian, and Barbados is part of the Commonwealth—even the article "Barbados" is written in British English. Auree commented that since the article uses the word "Barbadian" once, and that Rihanna is living now in the US, the article should be written in American English. I know that the usage of the English depends on the subject and secondly on the main writter (if the subject doesn't belongs to an English-speaking region). The question I have is, which is the "correct" use of English here? Tbhotch.™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 01:52, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- I believe that Barbadian English should prevail. In my view, that the song's singer lives in the United States (and partially recorded it there) doesn't rise to the same level as her nationality.
- Likewise, I would expect all of our articles about John Lennon's songs (including those recorded in the U.S. when he resided there) to be written in British English. It would seem silly to draw a dividing line and switch to American English because of where he happened to live and work at a given time. —David Levy 02:11, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Some of these can be a bit of a judgment call. It maybe depends on how Americanized she is or is perceived to be. If it's borderline, then maybe there aren't "strong national ties" and the fallback position would be WP:RETAIN.
- I would expect Maria Sharapova's article to be in American English even though she's not an American citizen, but of course that's not the same case because Russia is not an English-speaking country. --Trovatore (talk) 02:19, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I agree that WP:RETAIN is the appropriate fallback in the event that consensus isn't reached.
- I also agree that a person's country of residence is a reasonable determining factor when its English variety is the only one available to consider. —David Levy 02:29, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- OK that helps, thank you. Tbhotch.™ Grammatically incorrect? Correct it! See terms and conditions. 05:09, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Having listened to the song itself, it sounds American to me (box pronounced as bahx, wanting with a silent T, more with a non-silent R), so that's the dialect I'd use in the article, if I had to choose. ― A. di M. 14:31, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Unfortunately, English recording artists also drop plosives (sounds which cause "banging" into the microphone) as well as many dropped letters. Often it is for the ease of singing and it would be a little dodgy to go on such a premise. Similarly, Barbados is a Carribean country where "bahx" could be considered normal for that region. (see Bajan Creole for some interesting pronunciations) Chaosdruid (talk) 15:53, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- Canada, NZ and Australia are part of the Commonwealth of Nations, too, but we don't force "British English" (which is a broad category of dialects anyway, not a dialect) on them. It's a mistake to assume that current and former British territories in the Caribbean use British English. They don't. They have their own dialects. Many of them, like Canadian English, are close to American that British English (though some, like Jamaican English, are closer to Irish English, and others are, of course, French-based). All that said, Rhianna's a long-time US resident and principally has a US-based market for her work. I'd go with WP:RETAIN here. Place of birth rather than place of longest adult residence is often a poor choice for a WP:ENGVAR interpretation. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 22:37, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
- Spelling-wise, formal standard written Australian English, New Zealand English, Jamaican English and Irish English are pretty much the same as formal standard written British English. As long as you avoid colloquialisms (which, outside direct quotations, you should avoid anyway) an article in correct Irish English is extremely likely to be correct Australian English too and vice versa. So, when talking about the formal standard written language, classifying dialects into American English and Commonwealth English is a very good approximation (the only major problem with it being Canadian English). ― A. di M. 10:32, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- I can buy that. I don't think it means Rihanna articles shouldn't be in American English, though. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:04, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- She's surely on MySpace; we should just ask her staff what her preference would be. >;-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs.
- I can buy that. I don't think it means Rihanna articles shouldn't be in American English, though. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:04, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Spelling-wise, formal standard written Australian English, New Zealand English, Jamaican English and Irish English are pretty much the same as formal standard written British English. As long as you avoid colloquialisms (which, outside direct quotations, you should avoid anyway) an article in correct Irish English is extremely likely to be correct Australian English too and vice versa. So, when talking about the formal standard written language, classifying dialects into American English and Commonwealth English is a very good approximation (the only major problem with it being Canadian English). ― A. di M. 10:32, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Dash/hyphen
I am aware that this has been the topic of debate in the past, but could anyone offer an exaplantion of why we have such complicated hyphen-endash-emdash style rules in a general-use encyclopedia, which has thousands of amateur editors? Many publishers, including most newspapers, survive with a simple distinction betwen a hyphen – used for ALL prefixes/suffixes, compounds etc – and a dash, whether en or em, used for parentheticals or "hypercommas" and as breaks in prose text. We follow the more specialised trend of also using dashes in some cases for compounds and prefixes, eg see esp. points 2 and 3 at WP:ENDASH. All this seems to do is:
- entail a lengthy and confusing style guide entry;
- mean any casual editor will almost certainly, unwittingly, add non-MOS compliant text;
- make it harder for those with standard keyboards to add MOS-compliant text via the WP editing window, even if they want to try to;
- lead to huge fights over trivia (eg Mexican-American War vs an endashed join); and
- means people obsessed with getting the "right" punctuation spend hours amending WP text and initiating page moves
The benefits of clarity seem marginal to me – do most readers even notice the distinction on the page between "Smith-Jones theorem" and "Smith–Jones theorem"? Even if they do, and understand that difference, does it even matter whether it is immediately obvious whether it was a theorem put forward by Mr Smith-Jones on his own or by Mr Smith and Mrs Jones working together? All we seem to have here is complexity for the sake of it. N-HH talk/edits 13:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- This is a commonsense approach, not a style guide approach. One of the main purposes of a style guide is to enable those editors who contribute to it, and so are familiar with it, to feel superior to those who are not; adopting your suggestion would undermine this, so it's clearly unacceptable (unfortunately). Peter coxhead (talk) 14:04, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- You can see a list of links to previous discussions at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Register#Hyphens.
- —Wavelength (talk) 17:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks. I've skimmed through a couple of those, but can't quite work out when and how we ended up with what we have now (to the extent that one can isolate on such point), and whether it has - or even ever had - wide consensus. If anything, some of those discussions seem to merely provide evidence of quite how many disputes have been generated when it comes to interpretation and application, especially in respect of compounds and hypen vs endash. N-HH talk/edits 17:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- Precisely. Real consensus, I would argue, requires that the style rules are as clear and simple as possible. A good example is deprecating the use of single quotes in favour of double-quotes. It's an easy rule to understand; easy to implement; and avoids a lot of arguments over what kind of quote marks to use. Naturally there have to be a few exceptions, but these are also easy to understand. The hyphen rules are unclear to most editors, hopelessly complex, and also allow WP:ENGVAR exceptions (so that if I come across both the US style emdash without spaces and the British style endash with spaces in the same article, I have to work out which is correct and which should be changed based on who started or mainly edited the article). It's hard not to be cynical as I was above; I don't want to say that those who created the style rules deliberately favoured complexity, but lack of clarity and excessive complexity does seem to be the end-product of some long discussions of style rules. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- Our existing dash rules are the result of a big discussion. One might think that the consensus among most Wikipedians would be that few readers or editors know or care about the difference between - – — −, and that no guideline can change that situation. However, almost nobody expressed that opinion at that well-advertised discussion, so the result was even more complicated than what we had before. Maybe it means that everybody agrees, after studying the subject, that dashes are important. More likely it means that nobody wants to look stupid. The problem is built into the consensus nature of Wikipedia with no easy solution. So in the interest of peace in Wikipedia, not so much because it really matters, I will continue to change hyphens to dashes according to our rules, even though nobody, not even Manual of Style regulars, are able to keep track of 1.4 megabytes of style guidelines including subpages. Art LaPella (talk) 21:02, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- Precisely. Real consensus, I would argue, requires that the style rules are as clear and simple as possible. A good example is deprecating the use of single quotes in favour of double-quotes. It's an easy rule to understand; easy to implement; and avoids a lot of arguments over what kind of quote marks to use. Naturally there have to be a few exceptions, but these are also easy to understand. The hyphen rules are unclear to most editors, hopelessly complex, and also allow WP:ENGVAR exceptions (so that if I come across both the US style emdash without spaces and the British style endash with spaces in the same article, I have to work out which is correct and which should be changed based on who started or mainly edited the article). It's hard not to be cynical as I was above; I don't want to say that those who created the style rules deliberately favoured complexity, but lack of clarity and excessive complexity does seem to be the end-product of some long discussions of style rules. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:03, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks. I've skimmed through a couple of those, but can't quite work out when and how we ended up with what we have now (to the extent that one can isolate on such point), and whether it has - or even ever had - wide consensus. If anything, some of those discussions seem to merely provide evidence of quite how many disputes have been generated when it comes to interpretation and application, especially in respect of compounds and hypen vs endash. N-HH talk/edits 17:43, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Of course, a common sense alternative to venting about re-re-re-re-rehashed topics like this is to pretend the rule you don't like doesn't exist, write how you want to write, and let grammar gnomes who actually memorize complicated dash rules in MOS clean them up later. This is why 99.99% of editors do, so why not you? :-) The fact that, in any given system, some rules are complex, won't be remembered in every detail by anyone, and won't be implemented or obeyed by some doesn't mean they serve no purpose. They do provide useful guidance for those who actually GaF. In this respect, it's precisely like reference citation formatting nitpicks. If they were just pointless noise that no one cared about, the MLA Handbook and similar works would go out of print, and we could just delete the citation templates and WP:CITE as a bunch of complicated, confusing crap. In reality, some people do care. Those who do clean up citation formatting practically on auto-pilot, and those who don't care about these rules simply ignore or work around them. Life goes on. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
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- It isn't quite that simple, as the WP:MOS cabal requires dashes to be used in places that the majority of our sources use hyphens. This is particularly noticeable when it impacts WP:TITLE. I think it's the insistence that WP:MOS must always trump majority usage in WP:RS and WP:COMMONNAME that is so irritating to many. To some degree this is also a complaint with the requirement to use logical quotation as well, although I don't share that particular concern. I think many people who aren't crazy about some MOS prescriptions would be happier if we aimed for consistency from the bottom up (agreement with high quality sources first, then consistency within the article, followed by style established within the project or subject area) rather than having everything enforced top down. WP:ENGVAR and WP:DATE are examples where this is practiced. One aspect of the dash rules that follows this is em dash vs. spaced en dash, since both are allowed and neither is favored. A true style guide for a particular publication should pick one. Even with this permissiveness we can still disallow hideousness such as spaced em dashes and em dashes used to form date and numeric ranges. Quale (talk) 00:43, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Speaking just for myself,
- I have a hyphen key on my keyboard;
- I have no knowledge of, nor little interest in learning, HTML;
- when I need a diacritic I go to http://tlt.its.psu.edu/suggestions/international/accents/codealt.html, and nearly always just copy-and-paste, although I do occasionally use the alt-code; and
- in any case, nearly all of my posts here at Wikipedia have been on talkpages - I don't think I've ever needed a dash in an article or title.
- Milkunderwood (talk) 01:08, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- (I suspect that User:Quale, above, means editors rather than sources, but I'm not sure. The use of dashes in original sources is usually impossible to decipher.) Milkunderwood (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, it totally depends on an imtimate knowledge of the typeface, much of the time, and even that's out the window these days since typography is all digital now, and for every font there are 50 very, very similar knockoffs that are not at all guaranteed to be consistent with regard to the sizes of various forms of dash. Anyway, the problem here is the notion of "high quality sources" being equivalent to "reliable sources for facts about some specialized topic" rather than "reliable sources about general-purpose English style and grammar, such as the Chicago Manual of Style and Hart's Rules. Our dash/hyphen rules are coming from those, which are the highest quality sources. Are they anal? Yes. Even I ignore them when I'm not 100% sure an en dash should be used, I put a hyphen, move on, and don't give it a second's further thought. If WP:FAC wants to impose a hyphen here and an en dash there based on what MOS says, before issuing a stamp of Featured Article approval, let them, and do it, and why sweat about it? I'm unaware of any style guide of any kind anywhere that makes zero distinctions between various dash types. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- (I suspect that User:Quale, above, means editors rather than sources, but I'm not sure. The use of dashes in original sources is usually impossible to decipher.) Milkunderwood (talk) 01:25, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Speaking just for myself,
- It isn't quite that simple, as the WP:MOS cabal requires dashes to be used in places that the majority of our sources use hyphens. This is particularly noticeable when it impacts WP:TITLE. I think it's the insistence that WP:MOS must always trump majority usage in WP:RS and WP:COMMONNAME that is so irritating to many. To some degree this is also a complaint with the requirement to use logical quotation as well, although I don't share that particular concern. I think many people who aren't crazy about some MOS prescriptions would be happier if we aimed for consistency from the bottom up (agreement with high quality sources first, then consistency within the article, followed by style established within the project or subject area) rather than having everything enforced top down. WP:ENGVAR and WP:DATE are examples where this is practiced. One aspect of the dash rules that follows this is em dash vs. spaced en dash, since both are allowed and neither is favored. A true style guide for a particular publication should pick one. Even with this permissiveness we can still disallow hideousness such as spaced em dashes and em dashes used to form date and numeric ranges. Quale (talk) 00:43, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Getting everyone to know and implement MOS style has never been a goal at MOS, and hyphen/dash issues are no different. It's perfectly OK for editors to use hyphens where en dashes would be better, in running text or in titles, just as it's OK to write with bad grammar and poor spelling. Other editors who care about such things will likely fix it up better eventually. What's not OK is to fight the editors that are making improvements to improve the spelling, grammar, and style – that's what has caused some problems in the past. Editors like Peter coxhead who assert bad faith on the part of editors who care about style would do WP a favor by staying out of such issues. Also any editor who asserts that "the benefits of clarity seem marginal to me" should probably just not bother with such issues, rather than stirring up trouble. Some of us value clarity, and see it as an important principle in the style of a general encyclopedia. Dicklyon (talk) 01:40, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Just to be very clear, I do not assert bad faith on the part of editors who care about style. I care very greatly about style myself (one of my activities in the university departments in which I worked was teaching referencing and I still maintain a website on it that gets 1000+ hits a week). I include myself as well: there is a real danger that those of us who enjoy understanding and constructing style rules get to love the subtlety of the issues involved, and forget that sometimes these are completely lost on other people. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:31, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Based on N-HH's whole sentence, I think he or she meant "the benefits for clarity", that is, he or she doubts that the dash rules improve clarity. (I'm a confirmed hyphenater, en-dasher, and em-dasher, but I don't know of any evidence on this point.) —JerryFriedman (Talk) 06:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ah, that's possible. I apologize if I misinterpreted. Clarity would indeed have been a benefit there. I can agree that the "benefits to clarity" of the distinction between "Smith-Jones theorem" and "Smith–Jones theorem" is limited, especially since some readers use fonts that won't even show the difference. But to readers who are familiar with English typography, even subconsciously, the en dash will often carry the clue they need to quickly interpret the text correctly. Not everyone will benefit, but nobody will be harmed or otherwise inconvienced, by that clue. For some readers, like you and me who know what it's about, knowing whether a theorem is named for one person or for two often is of some interest, as are the other meaningful differences signaled by correct punctuation and typography. In other situations, like whether to use spaces around en dashes in various complicated compounds, there's not much affect on meaning, but there is still a desire for stylistic consistency, so readers won't start to wonder what the differences mean. Trying to specify a style based on best practice, guides, and house-style desire for consistency is not easy without some complicated cases and lots of examples. Sure, it would be much simpler to say "always use a hyphen wherever English style guides suggest an en dash or em dash"; but that's not what the consensus came up with. Dicklyon (talk) 06:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- The problem with the WP approach to hyphenation is that most people simply don't (or in my case can't) see the visual difference between a hyphen and an en-dash on the screen. Commonly used computer font faces are not consistent as to the relative lengths of these. I've spent quite a bit of time making usage consistent at List of botanists by author abbreviation, but I can only do this by using search-and-change in an editor; maybe it's an age thing, but I simply can't see the difference between "a-b" and "a–b" in many fonts.
- The question I have is why the important distinction many writers make between the scare quotes in She's a 'real' woman and the quotation marks in He said she was a "real" woman is dismissed, whereas the difference between Smith-Jones and Smith–Jones is considered important. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:31, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ah, that's possible. I apologize if I misinterpreted. Clarity would indeed have been a benefit there. I can agree that the "benefits to clarity" of the distinction between "Smith-Jones theorem" and "Smith–Jones theorem" is limited, especially since some readers use fonts that won't even show the difference. But to readers who are familiar with English typography, even subconsciously, the en dash will often carry the clue they need to quickly interpret the text correctly. Not everyone will benefit, but nobody will be harmed or otherwise inconvienced, by that clue. For some readers, like you and me who know what it's about, knowing whether a theorem is named for one person or for two often is of some interest, as are the other meaningful differences signaled by correct punctuation and typography. In other situations, like whether to use spaces around en dashes in various complicated compounds, there's not much affect on meaning, but there is still a desire for stylistic consistency, so readers won't start to wonder what the differences mean. Trying to specify a style based on best practice, guides, and house-style desire for consistency is not easy without some complicated cases and lots of examples. Sure, it would be much simpler to say "always use a hyphen wherever English style guides suggest an en dash or em dash"; but that's not what the consensus came up with. Dicklyon (talk) 06:17, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Based on N-HH's whole sentence, I think he or she meant "the benefits for clarity", that is, he or she doubts that the dash rules improve clarity. (I'm a confirmed hyphenater, en-dasher, and em-dasher, but I don't know of any evidence on this point.) —JerryFriedman (Talk) 06:00, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Just a couple of points: no one forces anyone to write in a certain way. It's the encyclopedia anyone can edit, and editors routinely add to articles in the wrong variety of English; they frequently make grammatical glitches (me included), and they frequently use whatever typography they know. That's fine. The essence of a wiki is housekeeping: we have gnomes who choose to spend part of their time copy-editing and otherwise tweaking articles so they're of professional standard. This process is the same for all good publishers (it's just that our text goes public at early stages in the process). This should be a relaxed, collegial process. I get the feeling some people think it's a blame-game rather than a fixing process (for which site-wide guidelines are important); blaming is very much against the pillars and policies, and should be deprecated wherever it's evident in an editor's behaviour. I actually don't see this at all on WP. Tony (talk) 10:38, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
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- @Tony1: it's not quite true that "no one forces anyone to write in a certain way". When I started editing on Wikipedia, I used single quotes as "scare quotes", since this was normal in serious writing. My usage was changed – correctly according to the MOS – but this means that I cannot show the difference between scare quotes and quotation. So I am forced to write in a certain way. I don't want to make a big thing out of the guidance on quote marks; I can see the argument that single quotes get lost on computer screens. But then so does the hyphen/en dash difference. So it seems odd that different decisions were made in these two cases. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:39, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm unaware of any style guide that draws this 'scare quote' distinction you're making (if there is one, I'd like to read it), and we're telling editors they shouldn't be using scare quotes anyway, for WP:NPOV reasons, because they're most often interpreted as a stand-in for phrases like "supposed" or "so-called" that call into question the accuracy of what's being scare quoted (that's why they're called that - the scare the reader away from acceptance). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Chicago Manual of Style mentions that the use of scare quotes is not uncommon in "works of philosophy". But overall it discourages their use, like any other guide I can recall. Good Ol’factory (talk) 01:45, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm unaware of any style guide that draws this 'scare quote' distinction you're making (if there is one, I'd like to read it), and we're telling editors they shouldn't be using scare quotes anyway, for WP:NPOV reasons, because they're most often interpreted as a stand-in for phrases like "supposed" or "so-called" that call into question the accuracy of what's being scare quoted (that's why they're called that - the scare the reader away from acceptance). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 21:49, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- @Tony1: it's not quite true that "no one forces anyone to write in a certain way". When I started editing on Wikipedia, I used single quotes as "scare quotes", since this was normal in serious writing. My usage was changed – correctly according to the MOS – but this means that I cannot show the difference between scare quotes and quotation. So I am forced to write in a certain way. I don't want to make a big thing out of the guidance on quote marks; I can see the argument that single quotes get lost on computer screens. But then so does the hyphen/en dash difference. So it seems odd that different decisions were made in these two cases. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:39, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- In reply to a dig/query further up the page my statement that "The benefits of clarity seem marginal" rather obviously should be read as "The benefits [in terms] of clarity ..". It's a talk page, so I'm not quite sure of the need to get quite so excited and sarcastic about it, let alone to suggest that I or anyone else should "stay out of such issues". In return, I promise not to raise the point that you can't spell "effect". Anyway, the implication in some responses that this is about a disagreement between those who care about proper or "professional" punctuation and those who do not, or that it is equivalent to tolerating mis-spelling or poor grammar, misses the point. I am in favour of consistency (and do not buy the "let's just follow sources" argument, since that too just sets up endless debate and pointless hard work, given the inevitable variation between them and the need to evaluate and weigh them all when coming to a hyphen vs endash decision). As I noted, plenty of publishers - I'd go so far as to say most non-specialist ones - do use only hyphens for compounds and prefixes. That option is no less "correct" than the rules we have here. It's just a choice - that's the point, and we seem to have made an odd one. Nor have I seen where the consensus for this complicated rule came in. Can someone point me to it, and can I assume it was agreed among a pretty small group of people? N-HH talk/edits 12:05, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- Sorry, I started the sarcasm/irony. A British habit; I should have learnt by now that it seems to be interpreted differently elsewhere. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:43, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- No worries. I am a big fan of sarcasm; sometimes it has value, especially as a last resort. I was more bothered by that fact that I was hit by a direct and unprovoked personal attack and advised I was not fit to comment on such topics - which was then followed by a belated apology leavened with a hilarious "joke" about clarity when it was explained to them - because one editor didn't understand the rather obvious meaning of what I had said in one sentence. I don't see how you can be held responsible for that. (And let's not get into what actually constitutes irony, technically speaking).
- More on point, and when it comes to clarity, I'd also query how much benefit there is with the enforced distinction. Eg, what is clarified by insisting on pre–World War 2 rather than pre-World War 2? Sure Smith–Jones theorem, to those who notice, is different from Smith-Jones theorem, but if you meet the phrase in passing, surely the main point you would wish to know is what the theorem says, not whether it was drawn up by one or by two people; and if you were on the actual page about the theorem itself, wouldn't that anyway be specified within the first couple of sentences in the lead? What actual benefit accrues from knowing a secondary issue immediately on sight of the phrase itself? Especially when compared to the effort expended to get to that point? N-HH talk/edits 13:27, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think there are two connected substantive issues.
- It's not clear to me, from reviewing the archives (but I can't claim to have read all of them) that there were sound reasons from reaching a different kind of conclusion in the case of dashes/hyphens than, purely as an example, in the case of double/single quote marks. The benefits of the distinction seem to be very small; even supporters agree that many readers can't distinguish hyphens and en dashes. The costs are quite substantial; as I noted above, I did edit the whole of List of botanists by author abbreviation to ensure consistency. It's hard to divide up the time involved, because enforcing alphabetic ordering took most of my time, but sorting out the "-" marks correctly in the two places they occur in each entry was not a trivial task (and new entries are frequently "wrong").
- Although there were clearly debates about the hyphen issue, the number of editors involved was fairly small. It's not clear to me that there is sufficient community involvement in MOS debates. As a relatively new editor, I initially assumed that the MOS was the result of very widespread consensus in the past, but I'm not now so sure; some of the issues seem to me to involve WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. This doesn't automatically make the decisions wrong, but it does mean that I'd like to see a bit more willingness on the part of editors who contribute here to consider whether past decisions really had consensus or not.
- Peter coxhead (talk) 13:48, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think there are two connected substantive issues.
- Sorry, I started the sarcasm/irony. A British habit; I should have learnt by now that it seems to be interpreted differently elsewhere. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:43, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Much of WP:MOS is in fact local consensus, as the manual is pretty much controlled by a fairly small group that tends to "vote" en bloc. Most editors aren't interested enough in these issues to devote the great amount of time and effort needed to try to influence decisions on major issues (or rather what passes for major issues at WP:MOS) such as quotation style or the dash guideline, and for minor issues they rarely appear at all. I think the controlling bloc is extremely knowledgeable about these issues and I also think there can be a benefit to follow the guidance of those most experienced in a particular area and who are willing to do the hard work of maintaining and improving the MOS. Unfortunately I think this bloc is not particularly representative of the majority of editors. One example of this can be seen in the repeated attempts to abolish the year-month-day date format from the encyclopedia. This has strong approval among WP:MOS regulars but has been rejected decisively by editors on the whole. Quale (talk) 07:00, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Quale, the now-banned user Pmanderson and at least one of his socks were pumping out the "MoS bullies" meme apace for some time. I don't see the "fairly small [controlling] group" that votes as a block. Could you name them? And correct me if I'm wrong: voting is not the accepted way of discussing matters, even when there's contention.
On the dash matter, I see this: "The voting page attracted contributions from 60 editors. In almost all cases, the existing content of WP:DASH was endorsed by a clear majority. Where there was doubt (occasioning very useful discussion), there was an opportunity to amend the guidelines to reflect the wishes of the community more accurately; ..."
The consultation was advertised very widely and lasted more than two full months. I think I speak for all editors who've contributed to this page in saying that they long for this sort of community involvement in the style-guideline discussions, and take every opportunity to welcome new voices.
BTW, I had a quick look at your contribs. Nice work. Tony (talk) 12:19, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Quale, the now-banned user Pmanderson and at least one of his socks were pumping out the "MoS bullies" meme apace for some time. I don't see the "fairly small [controlling] group" that votes as a block. Could you name them? And correct me if I'm wrong: voting is not the accepted way of discussing matters, even when there's contention.
- Much of WP:MOS is in fact local consensus, as the manual is pretty much controlled by a fairly small group that tends to "vote" en bloc. Most editors aren't interested enough in these issues to devote the great amount of time and effort needed to try to influence decisions on major issues (or rather what passes for major issues at WP:MOS) such as quotation style or the dash guideline, and for minor issues they rarely appear at all. I think the controlling bloc is extremely knowledgeable about these issues and I also think there can be a benefit to follow the guidance of those most experienced in a particular area and who are willing to do the hard work of maintaining and improving the MOS. Unfortunately I think this bloc is not particularly representative of the majority of editors. One example of this can be seen in the repeated attempts to abolish the year-month-day date format from the encyclopedia. This has strong approval among WP:MOS regulars but has been rejected decisively by editors on the whole. Quale (talk) 07:00, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Thank you. You are definitely one of the leaders of that bloc. As for the dash guideline, the primary drafter stated that the wikipedia guideline is more comprehensive than that in any other style manual. I don't claim any expertise in this area, but that seems quite possible. It doesn't seem to me to be a point of pride as much as an admission that it is inappropriate for wikipedia. If other style manuals don't see the need to examine the issue of dash usage with that level of subtlety and detail, why is it essential that wikipedia do so? Except for particular issues that arise uniquely in an international collaborative environment like wikipedia, I don't think it's appropriate for the MOS to innovate in this fashion. Perhaps you or someone else could explain why wikipedia needs more in depth coverage of dash usage than any other style manual? I also find annoying the repeated claim that most readers don't notice the dashes so it's fine that the MOS has a large dash section that most editors don't understand. The claim is that since the dash guideline supposedly doesn't matter much, anyone who doesn't think it belongs in the MOS should go away. If it really is as unimportant as is claimed then the time and resources used in developing it were not well spent. Quale (talk) 00:17, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
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←Well, this seems to be the main recent detailed page I was looking for (finally found with some help from Tony's link above). I guess it shows there was fairly wide input on each point (a lot more at least than is often the case on MOS topics as far as I can tell), and mostly fairly supportive both of the principle of using endashes for some compound constructions and in respect of each of the sub-points detailing when that might be necessary. I don't want to kick this all up again or formally propose a simplification - I didn't realise either it had gone to ArbCom - but I'm still left scratching my head as to why we need such a lengthy and complex rulebook; per my original points, and per the point that using only hyphens is not "wrong" or "inaccurate" but is just an alternative system, commonly used by many, if not most, non-specialist publishers. I find it odd not least because a) it would have spared everyone all that debate and voting over drafting of the rulebook for when to prefer endashes over hyphens (even those who agreed with the principle disagreed over individual examples of when to apply it); and b) would save many of those same people all the time they now spend changing hyphens to endashes and debating or even arguing over such changes. Hyphenation causes enough headaches in terms of when to do it at all; adding the extra complication of what sort of hyphen/dash to use seems nuts. But hey, maybe I'm the crazy one .. N-HH talk/edits 16:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- For what it's worth, it keeps some grammar hounds happy, and doesn't really cause anyone grief. Loads of editors ignore the entire section with impunity because it's too complicated for them (and this is perfectly fine per WP:IAR – you don't have to learn complicated "rules" to edit here as long as you follow basic policies like NPOV, V, NOR, NPA, N and NOT), and other gnomish editors who really care about dashes clean up after them. I've been around long enough I've slowly absorbed all the dash rules and fix them while editing pretty much reflexively, the same way I fix typos, or Briticisms in an American-English articles or linked dates, or whatever, as if on auto-pilot. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 00:32, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, as I say, it seems to be a waste of time even for those who favour the complexity (however much "correction" is done on auto-pilot), and I'm not sure keeping grammar hounds happy should be a basis for determining WP policy. And, while I wouldn't describe myself as a grammar hound as such, I do know and care about grammar, and it doesn't particularly make me happy (in any event, isn't it more technically about punctuation style rather than substantive grammar?). I don't think either it's correct to say it doesn't cause grief. Just see Mexican-American war and other fights over page moves; which don't simply come about because people don't agree with the rule, but because people can't agree how to apply it. That is, the very existence of the rule creates conflict, even among those who might support it in theory, that simply would not arise if we went for the simpler option. N-HH talk/edits 11:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- It seems that clarifying the rule has helped save time and drama caused by people disagreeing how to apply the rule at places like RMs on articles about the Mexican–American War. Isn't it preferable to hash it out here, one time, rather than having the same argument over and over at dozens or hundreds of RMs/etc? This seems like a good approach when there is significant disagreement about something like this, no matter how trivial. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oh, maybe. That assumes that someone in such a repetitive argument (who is unlikely to be a Manual of Style regular) has somehow found the relevant guideline, and interpreted it correctly. If not, then such an obscure guideline's main function is to help prevent people from finding other guidelines, and to discourage compliance with guidelines in general. Art LaPella (talk) 22:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm assuming that generally in such a discussion the MOS will be consulted. Whether it will be considered prescriptive or not by the different sides in the debate is another interesting question, but I don't see it being ignored. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- The MOS wasn't mentioned at all here, but after some Googling I concluded that is unusual. I suppose it's more common to be unaware of dashes at all. Art LaPella (talk) 01:38, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- I'm assuming that generally in such a discussion the MOS will be consulted. Whether it will be considered prescriptive or not by the different sides in the debate is another interesting question, but I don't see it being ignored. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oh, maybe. That assumes that someone in such a repetitive argument (who is unlikely to be a Manual of Style regular) has somehow found the relevant guideline, and interpreted it correctly. If not, then such an obscure guideline's main function is to help prevent people from finding other guidelines, and to discourage compliance with guidelines in general. Art LaPella (talk) 22:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- As with some other aspects of style, like capitalization, it's really about making the encyclopedia as easy to understand as possible. Fundamentally, the en dash is used when it conveys an important distinction from what a hyphen would suggest – since the dash separates more, and the hyphen joins more, their traditional roles have been based on how closely you want things joined, or how much separated. A reader doesn't need to know anything about the rules or the glyphs or their names to pick up on the signals, but writers need some rules to help them make a good choice without too much arguing. It's not that complicated, except for some particular choices that tend to expand the list into corner cases and such. Most of us writers who understand en dashes use them instinctively; having the option-hyphen key on the Mac keyboard since 1984, and "--" in TeX since before that, has given many writers and editors long experience with this, even if they're not into typography, especially those of us who have worked with professional editors. Dicklyon (talk) 23:08, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- Last time I counted, about half the dashes found in random articles were added using AWB, and about half the places that should be dashes were hyphens instead. So when you use words like "instinctively", remember you're a minority. Art LaPella (talk) 23:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- But that's ok; before I trained myself to use option-hyphen, I would just write a hyphen and hope AWB or someone came along to fix it. I didn't worry about it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't quite get the assertion that it saves arguments by centralising them. If the rule said simply, in six-odd words, "always join compounds/prefixes with a simple hyphen" - rather than consisting of the awkward and lengthy list of various situations and examples when an endash is preferred that we have currently - there would be no arguments at all as to how to follow the MOS in individual cases. Arguments that do arise are as much, as I say, about how to apply the rule among those who in principle accept the concept of variation - eg "this is one of those endash situations/no it isn't". Also, as noted, the clarity or "making the encyclopedia easy to understand" arguments are pretty thin, surely - the benefit is marginal even for those who do get the difference when reading text; and it's not a free bonus, without other consequences. Finally, as I also keep saying, plenty of people who have "worked with professional editors" would not have seen insistence on making the distinction - the "it's more professional" suggestion really is bunkum. N-HH talk/edits 09:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- But that's ok; before I trained myself to use option-hyphen, I would just write a hyphen and hope AWB or someone came along to fix it. I didn't worry about it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:47, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- Last time I counted, about half the dashes found in random articles were added using AWB, and about half the places that should be dashes were hyphens instead. So when you use words like "instinctively", remember you're a minority. Art LaPella (talk) 23:25, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- It seems that clarifying the rule has helped save time and drama caused by people disagreeing how to apply the rule at places like RMs on articles about the Mexican–American War. Isn't it preferable to hash it out here, one time, rather than having the same argument over and over at dozens or hundreds of RMs/etc? This seems like a good approach when there is significant disagreement about something like this, no matter how trivial. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:38, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, as I say, it seems to be a waste of time even for those who favour the complexity (however much "correction" is done on auto-pilot), and I'm not sure keeping grammar hounds happy should be a basis for determining WP policy. And, while I wouldn't describe myself as a grammar hound as such, I do know and care about grammar, and it doesn't particularly make me happy (in any event, isn't it more technically about punctuation style rather than substantive grammar?). I don't think either it's correct to say it doesn't cause grief. Just see Mexican-American war and other fights over page moves; which don't simply come about because people don't agree with the rule, but because people can't agree how to apply it. That is, the very existence of the rule creates conflict, even among those who might support it in theory, that simply would not arise if we went for the simpler option. N-HH talk/edits 11:59, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
I agree entirely with N-HH. This is part of a more general issue, namely, who is the style guidance in the MOS for? Given the nature of Wikipedia editing, particularly the large number of edits by inexperienced editors, style guidance needs to be as simple and as limited as possible. Sometimes this approach has been followed, as with single vs. double quote marks. In the case of hyphens the reverse approach has been followed; the guidance is extremely complex and promotes arguments even among style guide enthusiasts. No-one has convincingly justified the difference between these two cases. (Indeed I would argue that the quote marks guidance is much less "professional".) Unnecessarily complex guidance just leads to disrespect for the MOS as a whole. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:26, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Sorry guys
I tend to read things literally, sometimes missing clues to sarcasm, or contextual cues that would help me see through a simple mistake in typing. As for N-HH claiming that I made an unprovoked personal attack, no that's not what I did. When I said "any editor who asserts that 'the benefits of clarity seem marginal to me' should probably just not bother with such issues, rather than stirring up trouble," I meant exactly and only that. If N-HH is not such an editor, because he didn't really assert that, then it doesn't apply to him. Dicklyon (talk) 17:50, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Boy definition
Look at Bibiana Fernández at the phrase "She was born a boy". We need to discuss good terminology for statements describing trans women this way. Georgia guy (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- Here is a list of links to archived discussions about the use of pronouns for transsexuals.
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 74#Transgender pronoun / identity
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 127#MOS:IDENTITY and NPOV
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 109#Gender pronouns
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 123#Identity
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 122#Transsexual women
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 125#Renée Richards, and Gender Identity (with a list of links to previous discussions)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 102#Gender
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 108#Gender of gender-ambiguous persons
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 108#MOS:IDENTITY
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 105#Identity
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive (sexuality)#Transexuals [sic]
- —Wavelength (talk) 20:22, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- But this time the situation is not about pronouns; it's about terms; specifically the word "boy" under the definition "A trans woman before her period of being changed with surgery". Georgia guy (talk) 20:25, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's a lot of links. Specifically and succinctly, what is wrong with "She was born a boy" and what should be used instead? Herostratus (talk) 21:09, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- We know that a boy is a stage in the life of a man, not a trans woman. For the "What should be used instead??" question, this section is intended to discuss a better phrase, so that's the question that I would like for someone to think of a good answer to. Georgia guy (talk) 21:23, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
- I am no expert in this but I think we want something that implies nothing about internal state, neither mental, emotional, spiritual, physical (internal organs, genetics). Along the lines of "She was born with male genitalia" though that is perhaps too clinical. Jojalozzo 01:23, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- She was born anatomically male, and was named (not "called") Manuel. The whole article needs help. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:00, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm with Jojalozzo on this. "She was born with male external genitalia." "She was raised male." "She was raised as a boy." "She was born anatomically male" (we can forgive this one for not addressing the issue of brain anatomy). The whole idea is that everyone assumes that she was really a boy (for the understandable reason of the presence of a visible penis) and then later found out they were wrong. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:08, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thus it's important not to use terminology implying that she actually was a boy before her surgery period, a statement that we know is wrong if you understand that the brain alone defines one's gender. Georgia guy (talk) 15:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- It is an over-simplification to say the brain alone defines one's gender. It's fine as a matter of courtesy to refer to a person according to the person's preferred gender. That does not change a spectrum of biological and medical facts; the correlation of gender preference to brain structures is a mysterious area at present. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:25, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Can you clear up the second and third sentences of your paragraph?? I especially want you to emphasize whether you think it's okay to use the word "boy" to mean a transsexual woman before her period of surgery. Georgia guy (talk) 16:33, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- I think it must be taken on a case by case basis. Georgia guy's comments imply a binary state of the brain (and any spiritual aspects of a person, if such exist). But our ignorance of brain anatomy and souls does not allow us to know that a person's concept of himself/herself must be fully male or fully female. I don't believe we are in a position to rule out the possibility of a person who's self-concept is slightly more female than male. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Can you clear up the second and third sentences of your paragraph?? I especially want you to emphasize whether you think it's okay to use the word "boy" to mean a transsexual woman before her period of surgery. Georgia guy (talk) 16:33, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- It is an over-simplification to say the brain alone defines one's gender. It's fine as a matter of courtesy to refer to a person according to the person's preferred gender. That does not change a spectrum of biological and medical facts; the correlation of gender preference to brain structures is a mysterious area at present. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:25, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Thus it's important not to use terminology implying that she actually was a boy before her surgery period, a statement that we know is wrong if you understand that the brain alone defines one's gender. Georgia guy (talk) 15:15, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- "Anatomically male" makes no claims about genetics but implies there are no female sexual organs. As far as I know medical personnel look solely at the exterior genitalia to determine a newborn's gender. I don't think we should use terminology that implies more than that unless we have specific information that other criteria were used. A less clinical version of my proposal is "She was born with a penis." Jojalozzo 20:45, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Two questions:
- How does "She was born anatomically male" not address the issue of brain anatomy?
- How does "born with a penis" exclude the possibility of Ambiguous genitalia (which no one here knows may or may not have been the case)?
- Milkunderwood (talk) 21:35, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- My point is we shouldn't be making statements that imply anything about internal anatomy (either presence or absence) unless we have sources. "She was born anatomically male" is not supported by "male" on a birth certificate. To be more accurate we could say "She was classified as male at birth." Jojalozzo 22:37, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Two questions:
- I'm with Jojalozzo on this. "She was born with male external genitalia." "She was raised male." "She was raised as a boy." "She was born anatomically male" (we can forgive this one for not addressing the issue of brain anatomy). The whole idea is that everyone assumes that she was really a boy (for the understandable reason of the presence of a visible penis) and then later found out they were wrong. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:08, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- She was born anatomically male, and was named (not "called") Manuel. The whole article needs help. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:00, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- I am no expert in this but I think we want something that implies nothing about internal state, neither mental, emotional, spiritual, physical (internal organs, genetics). Along the lines of "She was born with male genitalia" though that is perhaps too clinical. Jojalozzo 01:23, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- We know that a boy is a stage in the life of a man, not a trans woman. For the "What should be used instead??" question, this section is intended to discuss a better phrase, so that's the question that I would like for someone to think of a good answer to. Georgia guy (talk) 21:23, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
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- When we say "She was born a boy" do we mean she was classified as a boy at birth or that she was in fact anatomically a boy at birth (based on sources that attest to that state both internally and externally, whether this was determined at the time of birth or much later). Which of these options we use depends on our sources. (And remember I'm not an expert — just winging this as we go along.) Jojalozzo 22:46, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I'm totally winging it, too - and I've never heard of this person before. I like your "She was classified as male at birth" as simplest and safest. Thus She was classified as male at birth, and was named Manuel. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:58, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- It is my belief that brain anatomy is the main determinant of gender in humans, but this has not been entirely proven. We cannot be certain that social, experiential, epigenetic and other factors play no role. Even if it had been proven, we don't have brain scans of any of our subjects to reference. We must say something that means, "Everyone thought X was a boy, but X now identifies as female."
- I greatly prefer "classified as a boy" or "assumed to be a boy" to the overly socio-centric "assigned." However, perhaps it would be more natural to say, "She was given the male name Manuel at birth and raised as a boy." Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:12, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Just because everyone thought a statement doesn't mean it was true. What does "socio-centric" mean?? Does its definition parallel the definition of "US-centric" that means "told from a point of view that the United States is the main country"?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- “Just because everyone thought a statement doesn't mean it was true.” Dunno; I'd think that the community of native English speakers do get to decide what an English word (namely boy) means. Especially in such a context: I'd treat born a boy as a quasi-idiom that doesn't have to have exactly the sum of the meanings of its parts. ― A. di M. 15:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, what do you think a boy means?? Is a boy a stage in the life of a man or of a trans woman?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- In the context of fetuses and newborn babies, I take it's a boy to mean more or less ‘it's got a penis’. Whether it'll grow into a man, a woman, a hijra, or die at the age of one month we cannot know in advance. ― A. di M. 19:12, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well, what do you think a boy means?? Is a boy a stage in the life of a man or of a trans woman?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- “Just because everyone thought a statement doesn't mean it was true.” Dunno; I'd think that the community of native English speakers do get to decide what an English word (namely boy) means. Especially in such a context: I'd treat born a boy as a quasi-idiom that doesn't have to have exactly the sum of the meanings of its parts. ― A. di M. 15:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- FWIW, it's not like brain anatomy cannot change after birth. (But I'm no expert in this kind of things, so I don't know how relevant is that.) ― A. di M. 15:31, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- By "socio-centric," I mean, "centered on society." Its opposite in this case would be "bio-centric."
- Just because everyone thought a statement doesn't mean it was true. What does "socio-centric" mean?? Does its definition parallel the definition of "US-centric" that means "told from a point of view that the United States is the main country"?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:22, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm totally winging it, too - and I've never heard of this person before. I like your "She was classified as male at birth" as simplest and safest. Thus She was classified as male at birth, and was named Manuel. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:58, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I mean that saying "we are assigned our gender at birth," as some social scientists do, supports the idea that society and culture are the sole determinants of gender (The fact that "gender" has more than one definition muddies the waters here). I believe that "assigns" implies that brain anatomy, genitalia, body chemistry, etc. play no significant role in gender; that trans men choose to become male rather than discover that they always were male. I believe that we should choose a term is neither socio-centric (assumes society determines gender) nor bio-centric (assumes that one or more solely biological factors determine gender).
- One way to do this is to describe what people did rather than what they are. We should say, "She was raised as a boy"—because that can be verified as certainly true—rather than "she was a boy." We should say, "at age 26, X identified as male and began the legal gender transition process" rather than "at age 26, X became male."
- I concur with A di M. Because this issue is scientifically unresolved, we must keep to neutral language in articles about specific trans people. (We can put longer explanations of different hypotheses in the articles about gender and transgenders in general.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
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- What would the bio-centric POV be for trans women?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:40, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- A bio-centric POV for a trans person would be any phrase that takes the assumption that biological factors (brain anatomy, genitalia, body chemistry, DNA, etc. or any combination of these) are the sole causes of gender in humans and that society, non-biiological experience, culture, and individual choice play no significant role. (Example of "biological experience": diet, disease, injury.)
- I'm biased because I believe gender to be a primarily biological phenomenon (to which society has reacted) but I figure an NPOV article might read something like, "X's brain anatomy was always female" or "X's parents raised him as the wrong gender" when these statements could not be proven. (It would be okay to say "X was given an fMRI at age three and it showed that X's brain anatomy more closely resembled average female than average male" if the article cited actual medical records.)
- It's hard to come up with examples of bio-centric NPOV, probably because they're rarer than socio-centric ones. The short answer is that the academic field of gender studies grew out of sociology, not biology. Neuroscience has been a more recent introduction to gender studies. If you want to talk more about that, message me on my talk page. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:48, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
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- People can be wrong in saying that someone was raised as the "wrong gender".
- (My Google search for sex change regrets reported about 1,430,000 results, and I propose an article called "Sex change regret".)
- —Wavelength (talk) 21:37, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- If you put quotation marks around that, there are under 10,000 results (and only 3 in Google Books, and none in Google Scholar). Anyway, I can't see the direct relevance of that to this discussion (which is about the meaning of the phrase born as a boy – my take is that interpreting it to mean born with a brain structure matching that of neurotypical straight men rather than something like born with a penis is disingenuous). ― A. di M. 23:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- A. di M., I remark that the original post mentioned the expression (actually a sentence or a clause, and not a phrase) "She was born a boy", and expressed a need to discuss good terminology. Darkfrog said, at 15:48, 23 February 2012, that "an NPOV article might read … 'X's parents raised him as the wrong gender'." In my post at 21:37, 23 February 2012, I made the statement "People can be wrong in saying that someone was raised as the 'wrong gender'." That statement and the two accompanying external links to support it are directly relevant to the discussion.
- (My parenthetical comment about search results and a proposed article were and are only indirectly relevant. By the way, the term "neurotypical" refers to people who are not on the autism spectrum, and is irrelevant to gender identity.)
- —Wavelength (talk) 01:04, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- If you put quotation marks around that, there are under 10,000 results (and only 3 in Google Books, and none in Google Scholar). Anyway, I can't see the direct relevance of that to this discussion (which is about the meaning of the phrase born as a boy – my take is that interpreting it to mean born with a brain structure matching that of neurotypical straight men rather than something like born with a penis is disingenuous). ― A. di M. 23:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
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Wording that describes the social/familial actions such as "She was given the male name Manuel at birth and raised as a boy" avoids biological assumptions but it also raises the possibility that the actions may have been contrary to the medical gender classification. When we have sources for the subject's medical birth-gender determination then we should not be ambiguous about it. Perhaps: "She medically classified as male at birth, given the male name Manuel, and raised as a boy." Jojalozzo 16:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- I still don't see why it needs to be any more complicated than She was classified as male at birth, and was named Manuel. A baby was delivered; someone, presumably the birth attendant, marked the SEX box on the birth certificate "M" rather than "F"; and the baby's parents named the baby "Manuel", surely after looking at the baby. It's doubtful anyone gave the baby a brain scan; and there's no need to go into a clinical discussion of the baby's sex organs. "Medically" classified, and "raised as a boy" both seem to suggest the possibility (which we don't know) that she may have been born with indeterminate sex organs. It also seems unnecessarily redundant to specify that "Manuel" is a male or boy's name. Milkunderwood (talk) 00:13, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- I like your proposal: 'She was classified as male at birth and named Manuel.' I can see that "medically classified", while technically neutral, is easily interpreted to mean there was an anotomical anomaly. Jojalozzo 01:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- :-) I'm glad you like it - I stole it from your 22 Feb post, of course.
- If there's general agreement that "classified" is the best word to indicate "M" or "F" being written in the SEX box on a birth certificate - and I'm not entirely sure that it is - then perhaps this phrasing "She/He was classified as male/female at birth" could be formalized in the MoS for general use. Milkunderwood (talk) 02:37, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- I am slightly ashamed to say I just looked around and found Sex assignment which discusses the assignment of gender at birth and reassignment later. The word "classified" is not used there. To be consistent with that practice we could say "She was assigned male gender at birth..." with that link to Sex assignment. It's not as cogent but it works okay for me. (Also see Gender of rearing) Jojalozzo 04:05, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- I like your proposal: 'She was classified as male at birth and named Manuel.' I can see that "medically classified", while technically neutral, is easily interpreted to mean there was an anotomical anomaly. Jojalozzo 01:40, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- I like a lot of the proposed wordings, particularly the "classified" or "medically classified" one, but feel like they kind of dance around the issue that she had male genitalia at birth, which is of course why that assignment was made. To avoid stating this directly is to imply (confusingly) that the hospital made some kind of bizarre unexpected error in their assignment - although they erred, it was an error based on the usual standard medical practice in which sexual assignment is based on the baby's visible genitalia, a practice that we don't possess the technology to surpass. I'd go for something more like, "She was born with male genitalia, given the name Manuel, and raised as a boy." Dcoetzee 04:28, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- "Sex" is different from the confusingly politically correct term "gender", which has a different meaning. I'm not aware of any birth certificate that designates male or female as a newborn's "gender", but would be glad to know if anyone can find and link to one. Also, we have no idea, or basis for supposing, what genital formation anyone was born with - see Intersex, Sexual differentiation, etc. "Classification", if that term is acceptable, does not imply professional obstetric examination, whereas adding "medical" does. "Raised as a boy" implies that the baby's parents made a deliberate choice to raise the child as a boy rather than as a girl. "Manuel" does not need to be disambiguated as being a boy's or male name. All of this is why, with the possible exception of the word "classified" as opposed to "assigned" or some other word, She was classified as male at birth, and was named Manuel is a far simpler and straightforward formulation. Also, her name was "Manuel"; we have no idea what she was called. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- Milkunderwood, if you look up "gender" in a dictionary, you will see that "sex, state of being male or female" is one of its definitions. It does mean the same thing as "sex," and it quite handily comes without all the sexual connotations. The confusion comes from the fact that "gender" has more than one correct definition; many social scientists use it as shorthand for "gender role" or "gender identity."
- JojoL, the word "assigned" is common in the social sciences, but I find that it implies that society determines whether someone's male or female, which is arguably not true. A more neutral word would be better, even if a link to the article on sex "assignment" were also provided. (The lead of that article makes it clear that "sex assignment" is primarily act of recognition and acknowledgement rather than a choice or judgment, but the word "assignment" alone does not.)
- Because "raised as a boy" literally describes what the parents did, I have a hard time believing that it implies anything inappropriate. (Was Chaz Bono raised as a girl? Yes he was.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:35, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- Most words in English do have more than one dictionary definition; both "gender" and "sex" certainly do. As you say, one definition of "gender" is "sex", and vice versa. I'd appreciate your finding me a sample birth certificate that asks for the "gender" of a newborn to be specified. One "sexes" chicks or pups, kittens, etc; it's the same procedure to determine the sex of a human baby. For better or worse, this is a "classification". The primary connotation of "gender" has more to do with self-identification than with the external physical equipment one was born with. "Raised as a boy" need not imply anything "inappropriate"; it's unnecessary, and its inclusion does imply that the parents made a deliberate choice. Why try to make it more complicated than necessary? Milkunderwood (talk) 06:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- Per your dictionary link,
- Word Origin & History: "As sex took on erotic qualities in 20c., gender came to be used for "sex of a human being," often in feminist writing with reference to social attributes as much as biological qualities; this sense first attested 1963."
- Milkunderwood (talk) 06:16, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- No, the primary understanding of "gender" is just "state of being male or female" without any sociological or biological implications, and its use in this capacity can be dated back to the 1300s. Many people are actually surprised to find that sociologists have a specialized definition of the word. When I took my first anthro class and my professor said "Gender is a social construct," I though she'd lost her mind. (Getting that woman to define her terms was like pulling teeth.) Because Wikipedia is a general-audience publication, we should use "gender" to mean "state of being male or female" in general. This is how most readers will understand it.
- In my own experience with academic journal articles within the life sciences, it's not rare to find articles that refer to the "gender" of fruit flies and test rats, etc., though there are also many articles that say "sex." An extremely brief search of Science turned up these: [5] [6]
- If we're describing what happened during someone's childhood, then "raised as a boy," fits in very nicely. It's clear and it is consistent with the idea that the parents believed their child was a boy, regardless of whether they were right. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Per your dictionary link,
- Most words in English do have more than one dictionary definition; both "gender" and "sex" certainly do. As you say, one definition of "gender" is "sex", and vice versa. I'd appreciate your finding me a sample birth certificate that asks for the "gender" of a newborn to be specified. One "sexes" chicks or pups, kittens, etc; it's the same procedure to determine the sex of a human baby. For better or worse, this is a "classification". The primary connotation of "gender" has more to do with self-identification than with the external physical equipment one was born with. "Raised as a boy" need not imply anything "inappropriate"; it's unnecessary, and its inclusion does imply that the parents made a deliberate choice. Why try to make it more complicated than necessary? Milkunderwood (talk) 06:09, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- "Sex" is different from the confusingly politically correct term "gender", which has a different meaning. I'm not aware of any birth certificate that designates male or female as a newborn's "gender", but would be glad to know if anyone can find and link to one. Also, we have no idea, or basis for supposing, what genital formation anyone was born with - see Intersex, Sexual differentiation, etc. "Classification", if that term is acceptable, does not imply professional obstetric examination, whereas adding "medical" does. "Raised as a boy" implies that the baby's parents made a deliberate choice to raise the child as a boy rather than as a girl. "Manuel" does not need to be disambiguated as being a boy's or male name. All of this is why, with the possible exception of the word "classified" as opposed to "assigned" or some other word, She was classified as male at birth, and was named Manuel is a far simpler and straightforward formulation. Also, her name was "Manuel"; we have no idea what she was called. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:07, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
- While the general case may be hard to find wording for, with a relatively unambiguous name such as Manuel the phrase "Bibiana Fernández, (born Manuel Fernández, date) follows the fairly normal practice for people who change names. This would seem to cover the case, since there are no sourced (or otherwise) statements in the article that establish any facts about gender except the use of names, pronouns and the word "boy". More concerning from a BLP point of view are the category assignations without sourced statements to back them up. Rich Farmbrough, 11:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC).
Capitalization of breed names, landrace names
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20120304182901im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/31/Imbox_notice.png/20px-Imbox_notice.png)
Peeps here are likely to be interested in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Dog breed capitalization. I strongly recommend a WP:RFC on the matter, as it is a complex, perennially angsty debate, and actually raises some different issues than the similar question of capitalization of species common names. I think that the RfC should be held here at WT:MOS proper, because this page is widely watchlisted, and WT:MOSCAPS is ignored by almost everyone, which ensures that an RfC held there will not be representative of a broad view. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 01:38, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- That ...does not necessarily ensure that. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:05, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Have to beg to differ. That page is clearly borderline WP:OWNED by pro-caps projects, and virtually no one watchlists that thing. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Here's proof (of the latter point): Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Capital letters has only 153 watchlisters, on the entire system.[7] This includes watchers of the talk page, inactive editors, etc. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 08:30, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
See also Talk:Van cat#Requested move. Even cat/dog/horse/whatever breed fanciers know not to capitalize the sames of non-official-breed general types or landraces, yet most articles on them are capitalized wrongly here because of the spillover effect of people seeing caps in one place, like Norwegian Forest Cat (a real breed), and assuming they should go around applying such style with impunity to articles on everything that is alive. I've de-capped St. John's water dog, Mountain dog, domestic short-haired cat, and various other cases, without much trouble. Regardless of your stance on capitalization of the names of human-engineered domestic animal breeds as recognized by international fancier and agricultural breed registries (a still-open issue that is sure to be interesting), the idea of treating broad, naturally-occurring, regional types of dog, cat, whatever, as if they were proper names is clearly not the same. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Capitalization of song titles
Formerly Out of curiosity
(Note: this question has no encyclopedical value, so avoid it if you don't want to spend your time with it (though it shouldn't take long)) I'm really not good at grammar, and I'd just like to know the capitalisation of the following song titles (which are capitalised as work titles)
- "Love, I Think I Had Never Felt It Before, So I Cannot Say That I Have Felt It This Time, But You Were My Everything" (I know "but" is sometimes decapitalized when used as preposition (e.g. Nothing but the Beat), but is it one here?)
- "I Wish I Never Wrote This Song Almost As Much I Wish I Never Met You" ("as", I think, is only capitalized when used as preposition (as in "Come as You Are), but not as an adverb, right?)
That's just all I want to know. Btw, if I missed another word that should be de-capitalised, let me know. Thanks, --The Evil IP address (talk) 18:12, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- I am changing the heading of this section from "Out of curiosity" to "Capitalization of song titles", in harmony with WP:TPOC, point 12 (Section headings). Please see Microcontent: Headlines and Subject Lines (Alertbox).
- —Wavelength (talk) 19:02, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, "but" is supposed to be in lowercase in title-case situations. It's a coordinating conjunction: "I Love You but Your Breath Stinks." Here's a neat, brief article that covers the variations in title case. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:24, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- You might wish to read these pages, and then post your question at one of the corresponding talk pages.
- —Wavelength (talk) 17:08, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- My intuition says but should be capitalized because there's a comma before it, but probably my intuition is full of s***. ― A. di M. 23:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- This is why WP's "sentence case where possible" method is such a great solution. Rich Farmbrough, 11:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC).
- I'm unaware of any WP advice to convert title case to sentence case for song titles. There certainly shouldn't be. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 08:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- This is why WP's "sentence case where possible" method is such a great solution. Rich Farmbrough, 11:28, 27 February 2012 (UTC).
- My intuition says but should be capitalized because there's a comma before it, but probably my intuition is full of s***. ― A. di M. 23:30, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Product existence: form of the verb when a product no longer exists
Formerly Product existance I am fairly confident that when a product is discontinued by its manufacturer, the product still is considered to exist physically. So if, for example, Ford stopped making the Mustang today, the Mustang article shouldn't say: The Ford Mustang WAS a car made by the Ford..... It shouldn't say this because there would still be Ford Mustangs on the road. Then if it was a Mustang, then what it it now? This is similar to how we refer to Television shows that have been canceled. They still are considered to exist, so we refer to them as "is" instead of "was", per MOS:TV.
Now is there an MOS on this? I could search all day, but some of the MOS guidelines are so long and drawn out that I thought a simple question would be faster.--JOJ Hutton 20:21, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- In your hypothetical example, the article could say: "The Ford Mustang is a car that was made by the Ford Motor Company."
- If later all the Mustangs disappear, it could say: "The Ford Mustang was a car that was made by the Ford Motor Company."
- This is my answer from my own reasoning. I am unaware of the existence of a relevant guideline in the Manual of Style.
- —Wavelength (talk) 20:55, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well I'll continue to search for one. If none is found then perhaps a paragraph could be written. But Where and in which MOS would this go?--JOJ Hutton 21:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- This is not a question of style; it's basic English grammar. And spelled existence. Wavelength is correct on all points. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes spelling is my "disebilitty". Sorry if I offendad anywons eyes. Spell check failed me.
- So then where is the MOS. Where would it go, if it doesn't EXIST? (See, I learneded. Arf Arf Arf Arf.--JOJ Hutton 23:43, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- That is the point. If it is not a question of style, then it does not belong in MOS at all. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- But MOS:TV is an MOS and deals with the very issue of "Was" vs "Is". Is that not too a style issue? If not, then which guideline would this go under, because there is a discrepancy on formatting across some articles. The Nintendo Entertainment System is no longer manufactured, but its article correctly refers to it as "IS", while a few articles like the Commodore 64 Games System, use the "WAS". Seems like a style issue to me, but if not style, then what is it? Guideline? Policy?--JOJ Hutton 00:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, it's a style issue, broadly interpreted. I concur with Wavelength. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- MOS-TV is simply wrong on this point. As Milkunderwood says, this is a straightforward English-grammar question, not a style question. --Trovatore (talk) 00:49, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- I.e. "it's a style issue, broadly interpreted." MOS addresses all sorts of grammar issues. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 16:03, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- MOS-TV is simply wrong on this point. As Milkunderwood says, this is a straightforward English-grammar question, not a style question. --Trovatore (talk) 00:49, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yeah, it's a style issue, broadly interpreted. I concur with Wavelength. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 09:36, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- But MOS:TV is an MOS and deals with the very issue of "Was" vs "Is". Is that not too a style issue? If not, then which guideline would this go under, because there is a discrepancy on formatting across some articles. The Nintendo Entertainment System is no longer manufactured, but its article correctly refers to it as "IS", while a few articles like the Commodore 64 Games System, use the "WAS". Seems like a style issue to me, but if not style, then what is it? Guideline? Policy?--JOJ Hutton 00:01, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- That is the point. If it is not a question of style, then it does not belong in MOS at all. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- This is not a question of style; it's basic English grammar. And spelled existence. Wavelength is correct on all points. Milkunderwood (talk) 23:26, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well I'll continue to search for one. If none is found then perhaps a paragraph could be written. But Where and in which MOS would this go?--JOJ Hutton 21:01, 22 February 2012 (UTC)
- You might wish to read these pages, and then post your question at one of the corresponding talk pages.
- —Wavelength (talk) 17:10, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not sure I agree with your first point. In natural speech, if I'm talking about a product no longer made, I almost always use past tense: Betamax was a video format, Zima was an alcoholic beverage, the Ford Pinto was a vehicle. Maybe that's just me. —Designate (talk) 21:08, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- We're talking physical form, not manufactured goods. If I was currently using any one of those products you mentioned, for instance, if I was driving a Ford Pinto, if it "Was" a Ford Pinto, what is it now? Zima may be an exception, since its a consumable, but I'm willing to bet that there are a few bottles in the world some where. So if I'm holding a bottle of Zima, it still would be a bottle of Zima, despite the fact that it is no longer manufactured. (Damn it!)--JOJ Hutton 21:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- And the trademarks still exist. I couldn't (without getting sued into the poorhouse) launch my own new beverage called Zima just because the original isn't being produced right now. It could come back at any time (to JOJ's happiness :-). Cf. the Ford Thunderbird, which was not produced from 1998 to 2001. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 23:03, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- The past tense sounds more natural to me, too (though I'm not a native speaker). I think it's related to the choice of tenses in Copernicus said that the Earth revolve[s/d] around the Sun: of course it still does, but Copernicus' point was that it did then, not that it would in 2012. (According to Huddleston & Pullum, both tenses are OK in such sentences.) ― A. di M. 23:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- I agree, in that sentence, the past tense sounds much better than the present tense. Individual instances of the Ford Model T still exist, but as a product the Model T line no longer exists. An individual car still "is" a Model T, but "the Model T" is a Platonic abstraction away from the individual instances, and is in the past. --Trovatore (talk) 00:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- But the articles are not about the production of a product, but are about the physical product. About products and physical material goods that can still be used, touched, held, and in some cases bought and sold, despite its production status. Like when a book is no longer being printed, its still known to exist. Or when a TV show is no longer being produced, its still known to exist. In fact MOS:TV says exactly this. MOS:TV is an MOS and has a section dealing with this very issue. How is this not too an MOS issue? (More of a question for Milkunderwood)--JOJ Hutton 01:23, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- it's not related to the choice of tenses in Copernicus said that the Earth revolve[s/d] around the Sun: it's a question of grammatical constructions with indirect speech. It's always in past tense, so the correct transformation into indirect speech of 'Copernicus said: "the Earth revolvs around the Sun"' is 'Copernicus said that the Earth revolved around the Sun'. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:38, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I think I have to disagree with the sweeping statement "it's a question of grammatical constructions with indirect speech. It's always in past tense". In this example you're correct that "Copernicus said". But I can easily see, for instance, "Confucius says", in the sense that his words live on. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Look, it's not a question of logic. It's a question of grammar. MOS:TV is simply wrong on the grammar. It needs to be changed. --Trovatore (talk) 01:47, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- (In response to Trovatore): Exactly so. And this is a grammar issue of sentence construction, not an issue of "style". Milkunderwood (talk) 00:41, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- “But the articles are not about the production of a product, but are about the physical product.” So, how comes it starts with “The Ford Mustang is” and not “Ford Mustangs are”? ― A. di M. 10:15, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I agree, in that sentence, the past tense sounds much better than the present tense. Individual instances of the Ford Model T still exist, but as a product the Model T line no longer exists. An individual car still "is" a Model T, but "the Model T" is a Platonic abstraction away from the individual instances, and is in the past. --Trovatore (talk) 00:10, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
- We're talking physical form, not manufactured goods. If I was currently using any one of those products you mentioned, for instance, if I was driving a Ford Pinto, if it "Was" a Ford Pinto, what is it now? Zima may be an exception, since its a consumable, but I'm willing to bet that there are a few bottles in the world some where. So if I'm holding a bottle of Zima, it still would be a bottle of Zima, despite the fact that it is no longer manufactured. (Damn it!)--JOJ Hutton 21:54, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
- See "Sequence of tenses".—Wavelength (talk) 00:50, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
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- In the Mustang example, it's not just about existence of the car, its about the making. The car(s) still exist, the making though has stopped. So "The Ford Mustang is a car that was made by Ford". Similarly, "Lost is a show that was made by ABC"; "Great Expectations is a book that was written by Dickens". Barsoomian (talk) 11:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, most people would agree with some form of that, but where is it written in the MOS? Perhaps a trip to the Village Pump would produce more results, as there appears to be no real guideline or MOS that addresses this issue.--JOJ Hutton 13:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- No, most people would not agree with that. It's completely tin-eared English; it's just flat completely wrong. "Was" is correct here. --Trovatore (talk) 21:01, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ah, now here I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, Trovatore. The Ford Mustang/Lost/Great Expectations etc is/was a car/show/book, can both be correct - they simply mean subtly different things. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:27, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, fair enough. --Trovatore (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- "Great Expectations is a book that you can buy ..."; "When he wrote it, Great Expectations was a book that ..." - etc. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Indeed. And we're addressing the former context. —David Levy 21:48, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- "Great Expectations is a book that you can buy ..."; "When he wrote it, Great Expectations was a book that ..." - etc. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:40, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Yes, fair enough. --Trovatore (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- A book doesn't cease to exist when it's no longer published, a film doesn't cease to exist when it's no longer screened in cinemas, a television program doesn't cease to exist when it's no longer produced/broadcast, and an automobile doesn't cease to exist when it's no longer manufactured.
- I own a Pontiac Vibe (a model discontinued in 2009). I'm no mechanic, but I'm fairly certain that it is a car. (I don't know how else to explain my ability to insert gasoline and drive it from place to place.) —David Levy 21:33, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- As I said above, there's a difference between a Pontiac Vibe (an individual instance), and the Pontiac Vibe (a Platonic abstraction). Your individual Pontiac Vibe is green or whatever, but the Pontiac Vibe was such and such. --Trovatore (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- I understand the distinction, but I disagree that it's relevant. When a product/line is no longer marketed, that doesn't mean that it ceases to exist; it means that it is a product/line that was marketed. —David Levy 21:48, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- And on what do you base the assertion that MOS:TV is "simply wrong"?
- I Love Lucy ended production in 1957, but I can view it today. If it isn't a television series, what is it? —David Levy 22:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- You know, that's the same argument that was used at Whitechapel murders to defend the nonsensical formulation [t]he Whitechapel murders are... in the opening sentence — as though these women were being eternally murdered in real time. (This wording has been changed.) I hope you don't defend that, on the abstract basis that there is no answer to what the murders are now? From the standpoint of logic you might possibly have a case, but it's simply not the way the English language works. It sounds absolutely terrible.
- I will grant you that my intuitions on this do seem to be sensitive to context. I can accept "I Love Lucy is my favorite show" well, I can accept it from an English-usage POV anyway but have a harder time with "I Love Lucy is a sitcom that was produced in (fill in years)". --Trovatore (talk) 22:20, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- You know, that's the same argument that was used at Whitechapel murders to defend the nonsensical formulation "[t]he Whitechapel murders are..." in the opening sentence — as though these women were being eternally murdered in real time. (This wording has been changed.) I hope you don't defend that, on the abstract basis that there is no answer to what the murders are now?
- The two subjects aren't comparable. A murder is an event. It's analogous to a car's/television program's production, not to the resultant product.
- Why are you comparing something that occurred in the past with something that exists today? Are you seriously suggesting that it's "wrong" to state that "I Love Lucy is a television series"? It's an extant entity, but you appear to believe that it's incorrect to claim that it "is" anything.
- From the standpoint of logic you might possibly have a case, but it's simply not the way the English language works. It sounds absolutely terrible.
- I couldn't disagree more. To me, it sounds "absolutely terrible" to treat extant entities as though they no longer exist. I don't understand why you want to do this. Why, in your view, is I Love Lucy no longer a television series? What caused this change? How, when it clearly continues to exist, is this the case? What sets it apart from literature published in 1956 and films released in 1956 (or do you believe that they no longer exist)?
- I will grant you that my intuitions on this do seem to be sensitive to context. I can accept "I Love Lucy is my favorite show" well, I can accept it from an English-usage POV anyway but have a harder time with "I Love Lucy is a sitcom that was produced in (fill in years)".
- "The Ten Commandments is a film that was produced in 1956."
- "Aniara is a poem that was written in 1956."
- What's the difference? Are those statements "wrong" too? —David Levy 23:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- I am reporting my intuitions on what is natural in the English language. I really don't believe that (assuming you're a native speaker) you don't get these same intuitions.
- To go further -- The Ten Commandments absolutely was a film produced in 1956. Is is completely wrong here. For the poem, it seems different; I don't know exactly why. --Trovatore (talk) 03:51, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- As I said above, there's a difference between a Pontiac Vibe (an individual instance), and the Pontiac Vibe (a Platonic abstraction). Your individual Pontiac Vibe is green or whatever, but the Pontiac Vibe was such and such. --Trovatore (talk) 21:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Ah, now here I'm afraid I have to disagree with you, Trovatore. The Ford Mustang/Lost/Great Expectations etc is/was a car/show/book, can both be correct - they simply mean subtly different things. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:27, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- No, most people would not agree with that. It's completely tin-eared English; it's just flat completely wrong. "Was" is correct here. --Trovatore (talk) 21:01, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Yes, most people would agree with some form of that, but where is it written in the MOS? Perhaps a trip to the Village Pump would produce more results, as there appears to be no real guideline or MOS that addresses this issue.--JOJ Hutton 13:23, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- In the Mustang example, it's not just about existence of the car, its about the making. The car(s) still exist, the making though has stopped. So "The Ford Mustang is a car that was made by Ford". Similarly, "Lost is a show that was made by ABC"; "Great Expectations is a book that was written by Dickens". Barsoomian (talk) 11:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I am reporting my intuitions on what is natural in the English language. I really don't believe that (assuming you're a native speaker) you don't get these same intuitions.
- I am a native English speaker, and you're quite mistaken in that belief. Your assertions baffle me.
- To go further -- The Ten Commandments absolutely was a film produced in 1956. Is is completely wrong here.
- It's wrong to state that "The Ten Commandments is a film"? Why? Does it currently exist? If so, what is it?
- What about The Artist? Is that a film? If so, when will it cease to be one?
- For the poem, it seems different; I don't know exactly why.
- Neither do I. You're drawing arbitrary distinctions, citing no explanation beyond uncorroborated gut feelings.
- Conversely, I'm applying the basic linguistic principle that if an entity currently exists, it is something. —David Levy 05:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
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- And on what do you base the assertion that MOS:TV is "simply wrong"?
- I didn't. I haven't even looked at it. This example is in the OP; Trovatore remarked, "MOS:TV is simply wrong on the grammar. It needs to be changed." Milkunderwood (talk) 22:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- I was addressing Trovatore (hence the indentation). —David Levy 23:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Perhaps a sentence should be added to the Manual of Style to the effect of "This MOS does not attempt to teach editors basic English grammar such as the appropriate use of verb tenses". Milkunderwood (talk) 19:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- I recommend the addition of a link to "Wikipedia:WikiProject Grammar" to the list under the heading "See also".
- —Wavelength (talk) 20:06, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Much better. I was being facetious, but only partly so. Then there's apparently still the MOS:TV that's confused and ought to be fixed by someone. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:26, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Perhaps a sentence should be added to the Manual of Style to the effect of "This MOS does not attempt to teach editors basic English grammar such as the appropriate use of verb tenses". Milkunderwood (talk) 19:36, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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In any event, I still think it's useful to point out that this discussion is about grammar and not "style". It has no place in the Manual of Style. Milkunderwood (talk) 21:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Style guides often cover elements of grammar. When multiple grammatical choices are commonly considered valid, determining which to use is a style matter. Helpful guidance shouldn't be omitted from the MoS on some sort of technicality. —David Levy 22:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Except that I think we are wandering off into semantics - which still has nothing to do with style. Milkunderwood (talk) 22:22, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Sorry, I don't understand your point. —David Levy 23:52, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Yes, I can see that. My post "wandering off into semantics" was actually an edit conflict, meant to supplement my "In any event ... [etc]", rather than being a response to your "Style guides often ... [etc]". When I was able to post I formatted it badly. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
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- My apologies for the confusion. —David Levy 05:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- And my apologies to you for not having been clear. Thanks. Milkunderwood (talk) 06:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- My apologies for the confusion. —David Levy 05:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
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- With regard to "When multiple grammatical (or semantic) choices are commonly considered valid, determining which to use is a style matter", you may be right. I would not have thought so, but I have no means of defending my position. But I do wonder just how far into grammar or semantics you might think it appropriate for a "style" manual to go. I take it you think my mostly but not entirely facetious suggestion "This MOS does not attempt to teach editors basic English grammar such as the appropriate use of verb tenses" is not a good idea. Milkunderwood (talk) 03:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Actually, I agree with the crux of that. I believe that it's sensible for the MoS to address grammatical issues that arise because more than one approach is commonly regarded as valid. (This is such an issue.) —David Levy 05:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's fine; it isn't worth pursuing. (You might want to help with the actual wording, to see that it doesn't get scrambled or go too far afield.) Milkunderwood (talk) 06:14, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- Actually, I agree with the crux of that. I believe that it's sensible for the MoS to address grammatical issues that arise because more than one approach is commonly regarded as valid. (This is such an issue.) —David Levy 05:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
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- (Has anyone else had access problems recently? On two different computers, trying each with both Chrome and IE8, it was taking me 10+ minutes to bring up a Wikipedia page, but other websites came up immediately. Finally working again now.) Milkunderwood (talk) 03:18, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Yes, I experienced such difficulties earlier (and an editor reported a similar issue at Talk:Main Page). —David Levy 05:31, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
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Use of # in table headers
Some editors are replacing # in table heads with "No." or other equivalents, claiming that MOS:HASH absolutely prohibits use of # in any article in any context. It currently says "Avoid using the # symbol".
Regardless, it is still heavily used. For instance, a rough estimate is that about 40% of the TV show episode lists use # in a table header. E.g., eight out of 20 shows in Lists of British television series episodes, starting with "A" use the # :
- List of Absolutely Fabulous episodes
- List of After You've Gone episodes
- List of Da Ali G Show episodes
- List of 'Allo 'Allo! episodes
- List of An Idiot Abroad episodes
- List of As Time Goes By episodes
- List of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet episodes
- List of The Avengers episodes
(I chose British shows here, as it is sometimes claimed that # isn't understood outside the US. As a non-American, I can say that is not true. But # meaning "pounds", that is weird; "number" is fine.)
Also many current popular shows, such as List of Game of Thrones episodes, List of Modern Family episodes.
I cannot find any explanation or justification of this part of MOS. The Talk archives are voluminous and hard to search. However, I found [8] which seems to be when this guideline was proposed. There were plenty of exceptions mentioned. I do not know how that ended up as simply "avoid", nevertheless, I do not think a hardline prohibition is supported by the discussion there. So I think that this should be revised to specifically allow use of # in tables, where it saves space and is quite clear, and retain the admonition against use in prose. Barsoomian (talk) 10:56, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- List of An Idiot Abroad episodes also uses the numero sign, which MOS:HASH specifically says not to use, so it clearly does not comply. List of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet episodes does not use "#", it uses "Episode", so, out of the first 20 articles one is very wrong and 13, not 12, do not use "#". There's a relevant discussion, now archived, here, where it was mentioned by multiple editors that "#" is ambiguous. --AussieLegend (talk) 11:08, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I see along rambling discussion that did not end in consensus on anything. The ambiguity mentioned is what is being counted, the meaning of # or No. as "number" is not ambiguous. Otherwise, that did not seem to be about this specific point. And many of the prominent episode lists cited in that discussion then still use # in their headers, eg. List of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. So it doesn't seem to have been put into practice by anyone, except perhaps you. I am asking for the policy to take account that many editors do not agree with this prohibition and revise it to something more sensible. Barsoomian (talk) 11:24, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- You're correct that no consensus was reached, which is why some articles still use it. However, your claim that "it doesn't seem to have been put into practice by anyone, except perhaps you" is far from correct. In fact the discussion was started by an editor who disagreed with "Season #" and "Series #" headings that were being used by many editors, including me. It wasn't until after that discussion concluded that I became aware of MOS:HASH, when an article I regularly edited was changed by another editor citing it. Since then I've seen many articles changed by many editors citing MOS:HASH. Your actions here obviously motivated by your opposition to "#" being changed to "No." at List of The Almighty Johnsons episodes and, despite a request, you still haven't explained why you think "#" is better than "No." --11:46, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- I never noticed any such request. I don't see any reason to prefer "No." in this case. Obviously, from the examples I cited, I am not the only person who thinks that "#" is a valid and obvious symbol to use for this purpose. You haven't given any cogent reason not to do so. That "many articles [were] changed by many editors citing MOS:HASH." is a circular argument, and why I opened the discussion here, to question this appeal to authority (and would I be right in suspecting that you were one of the architects of this rule you enjoy laying down so much?) Barsoomian (talk) 15:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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- The request was clear on my talk page.[9] You responded to the content directly after it,[10] and even copied it to Talk:List of The Almighty Johnsons episodes. I didn't ask you if there was any reason to prefer "No.", I asked "Why do you prefer "#" over "No." given the obvious preference for the latter in the MoS?", something you still haven't answered. The argument for "No." is in MOS:HASH, which says to avoid it, and comments in the discussion that I linked to explain that it is ambiguous, especially when one column is headed with "№" and the other is headed by "#", such as in List of An Idiot Abroad episodes, as the two mean the same thing. You may prefer #, and others may too, but your own investigation showed there are more articles that don't, so they don't support your opinion. I still fail to see why you prefer "#". --AussieLegend (talk) 15:30, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
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The question I am asking here (since you closed discussion of your Talk page, how can you continue that here?) is: Why prefer "No.", the abbreviation of a Latin phrase, over a single symbol "#" that is one character long and unambiguous? Actually, I don't care what you prefer. I do care that you want to forbid anyone from preferring otherwise, for no reason except that "it's in the MoS". Doing some archaeology, I found that at 14 September 2009 the wording was:
Number signs
Avoid use of the # symbol (known as the number sign, hash sign or pound sign) when referring to numbers or rankings. Instead use the word "number" to preserve formality. For example:Incorrect: Her album reached #1 in the UK album charts Correct: Her album reached number 1 in the UK album charts
Similarly, avoid using № or "No." (the numero signs).
This was entered with the comment "Punctuation: Agreed in Talk that # and No. should not be used". The changes, without any consensus, since then to "simplify" this have created the impression that "No." is the ONLY abbreviation that should be used. But the insistence on substitution of "No." for "#" is not supported by this guideline, the original discussion actually deprecated ALL abbreviations. It seems obvious that this policy applied to prose, not formats where abbreviations were appropriate, such as multi-column tables. There was no distinction made between abbreviations. As I have documented, the # and № are both very commonly used in tables in Wikipedia now. I see no reason to deprecate this. It is a quite normal and clear usage and has been for decades. So I advocate a reversion to the original sense, with clarification as to the scope, something like:
Number signs
In prose, avoid use of the # symbol (known as the number sign, hash sign or pound sign), № or "No." (the numero signs) when referring to numbers or rankings. Instead use the word "number" to preserve formality. For example:Incorrect: Her album reached #1 in the UK album charts Correct: Her album reached number 1 in the UK album charts.
In tables and lists short forms may be used, if the meaning is clear.
Barsoomian (talk) 16:49, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- That I closed the discussion on my talk page is irrelevant. In the more than 14 hours between when I asked that question and when I closed the discussion after you started making snide comments and told another editor to "but out", you edited my user page on 3 different occasions. There was plenty of time to respond, and you still could at Talk:List of The Almighty Johnsons episodes, where you copied the content, and yet you're still avoiding providing an answer. Anyway, to the relevant topic here, you should have done a bit more than scrape the surface in your archaeology exploits. The content that you claim was there until 14 September 2009, was actually first added on that date,[11] during a discussion now archived at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 110## in British English. Subsequent discussion resulted in a change to what is pretty much the present format on 24 September 2009.[12] I don't see any justification in removing use of "No.". What was stated in the 2009 discussion is still valid and, in any case, you've gotten around MOS:HASH at List of The Almighty Johnsons episodes by changing "No." to "Ep.".[13] --AussieLegend (talk) 17:58, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- I haven't "avoided an answer" I answered above. Why prefer "No.", the abbreviation of a Latin phrase, over a single symbol "#" that is one character long and unambiguous? Is it being in the form of a rhetorical question confusing? I'm sorry. But clearly it doesn't matter what I say, you revert regardless, and templating anyone who dares to disagree. You are the one who has avoided answering any of my points. I resent your forcing your interpretation of an arbitrary rule, an interpretation which has never been discussed, explained or given consensus. None of the links you cite do that; yes I did read them. One person commented that he thought # might be confusing, another went ahead ahead and made it so. Now, without any wider consensus or discussion, you are using this as a licence to arbitrarily change articles, templating anyone who disagrees with absurd assertions that using the numbersign in a table is "unusual, inappropriate or difficult to understand", all of which are untrue (it is used now in thousands of major articles, such as List of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, as a random example, without anyone suffering "confusion"). In any case, I brought the discussion here to get comments from editors who might consider it on the merits rather than defending an entrenched position. Barsoomian (talk) 18:37, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
Just a reminder that, whether "#" or "No." is used, they should be rendered as {{Abbr|#|Number}} or {{Abbr|No.|Number}}. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:14, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Interesting. But every time I try to use "#" I am reverted, so it's not an option now. Barsoomian (talk) 15:02, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- That's highly dubious "abbr fetishism" (and I say that as someone who's 10x more semantic HTML fetishistic than almost anyone else on the system. :-) For one thing, it wouldn't be done except for the first time in the same article, and we don't use {{abbr}} /
<abbr>
markup for symbols, only for abbreviations (in fact, doing so is an abuse of that HTML element). The "#" symbol is, by definition, a symbol not an abbreviation. Even "No." is questionable. It's actually an ASCII rendering of the numero symbol, U+2116 № numero sign (HTML:№
), which is a symbol albeit one obviously derived from abbreviation of Latin: numero, 'number', in the same way that the trademark symbol ™ is a symbol, not simply an abbreviation of "trademark". There are many cases of this, including "&", which is a distorted abbreviaton of Latin: et, 'and', and so on. An argument can be made for "No." since it's been kind of "desymboled", but I think that's a hairspliting exercise, as there is no one who knows English who doesn't recognized "No.", which is widely used around the world even outside of English, even in Cyrillic (as the actual numero symbol), despite Cyrillic not having an "N" glyph. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 08:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)- Agreed. I've already seen Jan, Feb etc. (in tables including all months in order, no less, where if you can't figure out what Jan mean you likely can't figure out how to use a computer either), FFS. What's next, DNA, LSD or TNT, where actually fewer people know the substance by its full name than by the initials? Duh. ― A. di M. 13:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- This overuse of abbr needs to be addressed at MOS:ABBR; it's essentially the exact same concept as overlinking of things like today and sun and elbow. Actually, it's not "essentially" the same thing, it is the same, since it is a form of linking, to a pop-up tooltip instead of an article. We don't link if it blindingly obvious. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 16:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Agreed. I've already seen Jan, Feb etc. (in tables including all months in order, no less, where if you can't figure out what Jan mean you likely can't figure out how to use a computer either), FFS. What's next, DNA, LSD or TNT, where actually fewer people know the substance by its full name than by the initials? Duh. ― A. di M. 13:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Is there any good reason to avoid # which doesn't apply to No. as well? (I find the idea that the former is unfamiliar to non-Americans ridiculous – and I've never been to America; plus, even the 0.1% of people who haven't encountered it before would likely be able to figure it out from the context without breaking a sweat.) ― A. di M. 18:51, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- This is one of those MOS points I don't entirely support myself. It derives from the fact that most published style guides say to use "No." or the U+2116 № numero symbol (which MOS says not to use, for no known reason; it should explicitly state why if it's going to continue to do so). The "#" symbol is overwhelmingly used as standard in many cases, from sports statistics to music and movie sales, in the vast majority of both general and specialist reliable sources. I do agree that in general prose both "#" and "No." should be avoided. There's no reason to abbreviate. In a table or repetitive list, which does provide a reason to abbreviate, I'm fine with recommending "No." generally vs. "#" as a default, but the half-assed wording we have pretends there are no exceptions. I recently (after a reliably sourced proposal that garnered no opposition) added comics as a codified exception (WikiProjects' MOS-hating editwarriors take note: The issue was raised because the comics project was advising something different than MOS. Sound familiar? Instead of launching a tendentious, canvassing, poll-stacking, histrionic war, someone just asked about it and recommended a change, and a week later it was fixed because compelling reasons were presented to fix it. People don't have to fly off the handle to get specialist preferences worked into MOS when they don't violate WP:ASTONISH (if they do, too bad, get over it and move on); calm reason usually works.) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 08:18, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Are there many old fonts still widely used which don't support the U+2116 № character? If there are, that's a good reason to avoid it. (BTW, how about Nº (capital N plus masculine ordinal sign º)? It ought to look the same or very similar to U+2116 № but it ought to be supported by pretty much all fonts.) ― A. di M. 12:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- № is in any Unicode font, but not if you're restricted to 8-bit Windows ANSI. If you can't use the actual character, better to use just "No." rather than trying to simulate it. But # is in every font from 7-bit ASCII up. Interestingly, № is on the editing "Insert symbol" list, despite its apparent prohibition. And as a brief reconnoiter found, it is widely used in articles here, though the equally banned # is more common. Barsoomian (talk) 13:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't understand what you mean by 'If you can't use the actual character, better to use just "No." rather than trying to simulate it.', since the character string "No." is a simulation of №. Who uses 8-bit ANSI? Any restriction that would affect that Unicode glyph would affect huge numbers of them all over the system, effectively making the issue moot. We do not optimize for obsolete operating systems. We can't, or we cannot do what we need to do to make a proper encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Well this is a bit of a digression, but the № symbol is just a representation of "No." an abbreviation for the Latin numero. They're equivalent, not simulations. Similar to the origin of the & as Latin "et", except that we don't use the "et" form at all any more in English. The "simulation" I was advising against was using " Nº", which looks similar but purely accidentally. Anyway, if you want to advocate removing the restriction on № (also widely ignored) then please do so, preferably in a separate topic, as the case is a bit different. Barsoomian (talk) 15:31, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- I don't understand what you mean by 'If you can't use the actual character, better to use just "No." rather than trying to simulate it.', since the character string "No." is a simulation of №. Who uses 8-bit ANSI? Any restriction that would affect that Unicode glyph would affect huge numbers of them all over the system, effectively making the issue moot. We do not optimize for obsolete operating systems. We can't, or we cannot do what we need to do to make a proper encyclopedia. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- № is in any Unicode font, but not if you're restricted to 8-bit Windows ANSI. If you can't use the actual character, better to use just "No." rather than trying to simulate it. But # is in every font from 7-bit ASCII up. Interestingly, № is on the editing "Insert symbol" list, despite its apparent prohibition. And as a brief reconnoiter found, it is widely used in articles here, though the equally banned # is more common. Barsoomian (talk) 13:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Are there many old fonts still widely used which don't support the U+2116 № character? If there are, that's a good reason to avoid it. (BTW, how about Nº (capital N plus masculine ordinal sign º)? It ought to look the same or very similar to U+2116 № but it ought to be supported by pretty much all fonts.) ― A. di M. 12:54, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Support Barsoomian's wording change. There's no reason to favor "No." over "#" in tables and lists (indeed, "#" is by far favored in both sporting and media contexts), and no reason to actively promote "No." (or, of course, #) in prose, except where such use is overwhelming (as # is in comics, in constructions like "The Amazing Spiderman #247"). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 00:09, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose Barsoomian's wording. It is moderate and subtle, but still does not reflect the fact that "#" has noticeable support only in the US. In The Canadian Style (current edition, 1997) it gets a limited acceptance similar to Barsoomian's proposal (p. 29). But even in the major US guide CMOS it is barely mentioned. (And never shown or used in CMOS, in referencing examples or any other context so far as I can see after a diligent search; same for the hugely influential APA Manual, with its meticulous and numerous tabular examples.) In the Gregg Reference Manual (my favourite US guide for its detail and subtlety) "No." is preferred (or no marker at all), in almost all circumstances. Most mentions there of "#" are proscriptive (don't use it addresses, for example: see 316c). At 455c there is a small concession: "The symbol # may be used on business forms and in technical material." And these two examples are later given: "use 50# paper for the job" (543d); "reorder #4659 and #4691" (543e). British guides (New Hart's and the others in that stable) have no place for "#", except perhaps as one in a series of note markers where numbers are not used. Cambridge Guide to English Usage at the article "hash" identifies "#" as American, and allows that it is "handy in mathematical tables and computer codes". In fact, I notice a predominance of acceptance among those with a solid mathematical or computing background, like SMcCandlish and A di M (no offence meant to either!). In conclusion, nowhere do we find a ringing endorsement of "#" for any use. I stand firmly against its incorporation in Wikipedia style, and I would not countenance its acceptance without solid endorsement in a properly conducted RFC. Many who edit here are international or "Americanised" in their outlook, or technically oriented as I have observed. The rest of the world does not use or accept "#" for indicating numbers.
- NoeticaTea? 01:58, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- I am neither American nor Americanised. I'm from the "rest of the world" (specifically Australia, and now Hong Kong). We don't need a "ringing endorsement" of its use, we need a good reason to proscribe using a common symbol, in every Latin character set, and plainly marked on every keyboard (UK or US). Currently I have found it being used in roughly 40% of articles listing UK TV episodes, for instance. That would not have been tolerated for a minute if it was not well understood by British readers and editors. The sporadic and random attempts by zealous editors to stamp it out, wielding the MOS:HASH as a blunt instrument, are met with incomprehension and annoyance as, for instance, tight header text is wrapped to two lines, as a side effect, while there is no gain in readability. It's an observable fact that it has entered common usage here (that is Wikipedia, all varieties of English), at least in the table layout s that I suggest it specifically be allowed for editors to have the choice to use it when appropriate. Barsoomian (talk) 08:42, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- For the record, I'm neither a mathematician nor a computer scientist. (I was taught about # by my father when I was about 7 years old. I have taken a few maths and comp sci courses in university since then, but it's not like we routinely talked about album charts or sports rankings or TV series in them, anyway. What I guess the CGEU is talking about has very little to do with the use of # as a synonym of №, which is what's being discussed here.) ― A. di M. 17:29, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose proposed change. Many contributors might be from the restricted areas of academic/professional life outside the US in which the hash is widely used, but we should be providing an encyclopaedia that suits the reader, not the editors. Although recognition of the hash in UK is undoubtedly much wider than it was a few years ago, it is still perceived as an Americanism. Kevin McE (talk) 07:33, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
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- I find the statement that the hash is used in "restricted areas of academic/professional life" a highly dubious assertion. Its origin being recognised as an "Americanism" doesn't mean it isn't recognised. It is currently used by many editors in articles on British subjects; surely edited and read by many British readers without causing consternation. I am sure that none of those who oppose this use find it personally confusing; they are acting on behalf of a hypothetical person who I doubt really exists any more, at least in the readers of Wikipedia. A column of figures with a symbol at a the head is pretty much self evident. Barsoomian (talk)
- Yeah, this is starting to look more and more like WP:IDONTLIKEIT, based on ca. 1970s assumptions about usage. Simply repeating the assertion that "#" is a weird Americanism that no one else understands doesn't make it true or even vaguely plausible given the evidence against this. And it's important to note that the proposal is actually two proposals: 1) stop favoring one abbreviation over the other, and 2) explicitly favor the full word "number" over any abbreviation in running prose (there's really no excuse for using an abbreviation there unless it's in a special context in which such a usage is near-universal). MOS is not bound to the Chicago Manual of Style, though we use it among other sources and other considerations in formulating what to do here. It's a noticeably conservative work, and often does not reflect current usage (and I don't mean texting-speak and street slang). If nearly half of British TV series articles use "#" (this would be after various people have tried to enforce MOS by cleaning up articles that do so, mind you), this is strong evidence that the prohibition against "#" is broadly perceived as obstructionist nonsense and is being WP:IAR'ed by a very large number of editors, in a programmatic, consistent way (i.e., it doesn't reflect consensus any longer if it ever did). It's also broadly used in sports articles. I've seen it in snooker tournament articles despite their being mostly Commonwealth-edited and Commonwealth-read. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 09:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- How many years is “a few years”? We most definitely only use billion to mean 109 even in British articles, although it used to mean 1012 in Britain until the 1970s. ― A. di M. 10:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- I find the statement that the hash is used in "restricted areas of academic/professional life" a highly dubious assertion. Its origin being recognised as an "Americanism" doesn't mean it isn't recognised. It is currently used by many editors in articles on British subjects; surely edited and read by many British readers without causing consternation. I am sure that none of those who oppose this use find it personally confusing; they are acting on behalf of a hypothetical person who I doubt really exists any more, at least in the readers of Wikipedia. A column of figures with a symbol at a the head is pretty much self evident. Barsoomian (talk)
Oppose proposed change. I agree that the British view the use of the "#" key for numbers and more especially for pounds as an Americanism. In the UK, pounds are denoted either by "£" or by "lbs". It should also be noted that when computers were restricted to a 96 character set, there were various national character sets - the UK and the US sets were identical except that the UK had the symbol "£" instead of the symbol "#". Martinvl (talk) 09:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- No one is proposing to use # for pounds. And no one accessing a computer this century is restricted to 96 characters. Really, I will defend to the death the spelling of aluminium or colour, but # is pretty much universally understood now and is not an obvious flag of an American writer. But it's not formal use, it's an abbreviation, like &, and used in similar contexts.Barsoomian (talk) 10:03, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)Nobody is proposing to use # for pounds! And that thing about 7-bit character encodings dates back several decades. ― A. di M. 10:08, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- (edit conflict)x2! Ditto all that. Even Americans haven't regularly used "#" to mean "pounds" since my grandma was a teenager, as far as I can tell. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:45, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
Support new wording. It reflects actual usage in articles, and therefore more accurately describes the broad consensus of editors across Wikipedia. oknazevad (talk) 03:11, 4 March 2012 (UTC)
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20120304182901im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/31/Imbox_notice.png/20px-Imbox_notice.png)
This discussion may be of interest: image banner for nav header. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:07, 26 February 2012 (UTC)
- Wow, that's the worst WP:GAMING I've ever seen I think. It's really a MOS:ICONS issue; I reposted about it there. (Short version: Someone's trying to evade MOS:ICONS prohibition of festooning things with decorative icons by putting the icons and fancy text in a big 1996-website-style graphical banner and claiming it's exempt from MOS. I couldn't make this up.) It's being used in quite large number of article, too. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 08:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Links not in quotes but nearby
To link when a linkable term is within a quotation, I've been using an alternative method so as not to link within a quotation. Near the quotation, usually within a ref element supporting it, usually following a bibliographic citation in the ref element, I add something like "(Wikipedia has an article on the [[linked-to subject]].)". One editor removed one such instance but others have stayed in place, perhaps because they weren't noticed. If this method is useful, I suggest it be included in WP:MOS as a choice. Nick Levinson (talk) 17:06, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- Can you point to a specific example of each of the two formats? That would help. Thanks. Milkunderwood (talk) 17:41, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- I have to go home to find one or two, but the format is as given above, including the parentheses and linking brackets (you see the latter because I used nowiki markup). Only one format is being proposed; it is the alternative to linking within the quotation, which is not wanted. Does the format make sense now? Nick Levinson (talk) 17:56, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't know why you are imposing such a restriction on yourself. So long as there is no reasonable doubt that the link is to the word as the speaker meant it, there is no editorialising of a quote simply by having some of it in blue on our screens: one might as well agrue that they didn't say the words in the font in which they appear on our screens. Kevin McE (talk) 18:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- See WT:MOSLINK#Links in quotations. ― A. di M. 19:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- What an extraordinary restriction! If lifting a quote from today's newspaper (not one that is necessarily likely to appear in an encyclopaedic article, but it makes the point), on what possible grounds can it be wrong to put "[[Paul Scholes|Scholes]] and [[Ryan Giggs|Giggs]] are the best players [[Manchester United F.C.|this club]] has ever had"? Crazy! Kevin McE (talk) 19:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- It's one of the more controversial MOS points, and last I raised the issue myself, I thought we had consensus to stop trying to tell people not to link in quotations if it seemed helpful. This is probably the single most-ignored MOS rule. Some such links are annoying every-day-word links, some of them are POV-pushing or OR-synthesizing, but a very large number of them are necessary to make the article cohesive without being hair-pullingly redundant by including links to all the important terms immediately after the quotation that contains them. I have to confess that since I notice this restriction was put back in MOS, I have WP:IARed on this one with complete impunity and will continue to do so any time the result for article is better. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 06:56, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- What an extraordinary restriction! If lifting a quote from today's newspaper (not one that is necessarily likely to appear in an encyclopaedic article, but it makes the point), on what possible grounds can it be wrong to put "[[Paul Scholes|Scholes]] and [[Ryan Giggs|Giggs]] are the best players [[Manchester United F.C.|this club]] has ever had"? Crazy! Kevin McE (talk) 19:59, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- See WT:MOSLINK#Links in quotations. ― A. di M. 19:16, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- I don't know why you are imposing such a restriction on yourself. So long as there is no reasonable doubt that the link is to the word as the speaker meant it, there is no editorialising of a quote simply by having some of it in blue on our screens: one might as well agrue that they didn't say the words in the font in which they appear on our screens. Kevin McE (talk) 18:10, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
- I have to go home to find one or two, but the format is as given above, including the parentheses and linking brackets (you see the latter because I used nowiki markup). Only one format is being proposed; it is the alternative to linking within the quotation, which is not wanted. Does the format make sense now? Nick Levinson (talk) 17:56, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
We're losing the original issue. I accept the existing MOS provision against linking within quotations. I'm suggesting a method consistent with not linking within quotations. (I couldn't quickly find an example at home.) In short, the alternative method I propose is to link outside of the quotation, even if that means adding a nonquotational sentence just so a link can be provided. How does that sound? Nick Levinson (talk) 15:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
I did find an example, in the SCUM Manifesto article, in footnote 61: "Siegel, Deborah, Sisterhood, Interrupted, op. cit., p. 26 (referring to "the stances taken by the likes of Solanas and The Weathermen" (Wikipedia has an article on The Weathermen))". In this case, the link is piped from the Weather Underground article. The result is that the link is not inside the quotation. Nick Levinson (talk) 15:33, 28 February 2012 (UTC) (Corrected lack of paragraph break: 15:39, 28 February 2012 (UTC))
- I understand. I and I think Kevin are suggesting this is grotesque. In the interim is seems like a good solution, but I for one don't think there's a solid consensus to retain such anti-link-in-quote restrictiveness, based on discussion that have taken place here within the last year or so. I'm too tired right this moment to go dig it out of the archives. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:49, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- How about “the stances taken by the likes of Solanas and The Weathermen [Weather Underground]”? (This is silly when the title of the linked article matches the text in the quotation exactly, but in that case the grounds to avoid linking from within the quote are less strong.) ― A. di M. 09:58, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- The example confuses me. Do you mean that the original we are quoting said "the stances taken by the likes of Solanas and The Weathermen [Weather Underground]" or "the stances taken by the likes of Solanas and The Weathermen"? That is, are we just adding a link, or adding a [square-bracketed interpolation] with a link in it? If the latter, is it being added only for the purpose of linking, or would have we have added it as a clarification even if not linked? — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:41, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- The original (according to Nick Levinson, I've not read it myself) says “the stances taken by the likes of Solanas and The Weathermen”; the square brackets ought to make clear that the insertion of [Weather Underground] is ours not theirs. As for the second question, we're linking anyway, so what's it matter what we would do if we weren't linking? ― A. di M. 14:50, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- The example confuses me. Do you mean that the original we are quoting said "the stances taken by the likes of Solanas and The Weathermen [Weather Underground]" or "the stances taken by the likes of Solanas and The Weathermen"? That is, are we just adding a link, or adding a [square-bracketed interpolation] with a link in it? If the latter, is it being added only for the purpose of linking, or would have we have added it as a clarification even if not linked? — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:41, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- How about “the stances taken by the likes of Solanas and The Weathermen [Weather Underground]”? (This is silly when the title of the linked article matches the text in the quotation exactly, but in that case the grounds to avoid linking from within the quote are less strong.) ― A. di M. 09:58, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
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- The method using internal bracketing technically works, but my first impression is that it will confuse some readers and editors and lead to bad followup editing by drive-by editors. And in cases where what gets linked needs quotation marks because they're in the article title (I think there are cases of that), it will look to readers like a quotation from the source when it's not.
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- The added-sentence method solves that, but adds bulk. Editors might prefer a choice. Would that be okay?
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Apparent contradiction in "Bulleted and numbered lists" section
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20120304182901im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/f/fb/Yes_check.svg/20px-Yes_check.svg.png)
Someone recently added (I then deleted, and someone reverted back) the undiscussed:
- Use proper wiki-markup, not HTML line-break tags (<br />), to separate list items
immediately before the long-standing:
- Do not leave blank lines between items in a bulleted or numbered list unless there is a reason to do so, since this causes the Wiki software to interpret each item as beginning a new list.
The former appears to directly contradict the latter. If your intent is to separate list items with more space, the way to do this emphatically is with <br />
; there isn't even a wiki-template wrapper for this ({{br}} does something else). The "proper wiki-markup" way to do this would intuitively seem to be to simply insert a blank line, between list items, but this is verboten by the latter point, because it forks the markup into two lists, thus wrecking the semantic HTML value of using list code to begin with. 06:51, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- If this was supposed to address things like:
1) The first point<br /> 2) The second point<br /> 3) The third point
- then yes, this is common among noobs who haven't learned #-list wikimarkup yet, but the wording added is too vague, and this isn't really an MOS issue, its a "Help:" namespace thing. We don't need MOS to tell editors "you don't have to use
<i>...</i>
to do italics" or "please don't use bare HTML table markup; see Help:Tables". Coding how-tos, and wikimarup tutorials aren't really MOS's job. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:38, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Just to be clear, I intend to re-delete this, per WP:BOLLOCKS as unclear guidance no one can actually follow, unless someone with a clear vision of why it was added rewords it to not contradict the line that follows it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:38, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Going twice... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- Replaced it with pointers to pages on list style and coding. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 00:02, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
- Going twice... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:58, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- Just to be clear, I intend to re-delete this, per WP:BOLLOCKS as unclear guidance no one can actually follow, unless someone with a clear vision of why it was added rewords it to not contradict the line that follows it. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:38, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Merge WP:FAUNA sections to MOS
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)#Article text obviously has to merge here, to WP:Manual of Style#Animals, plants, and other organisms (and get addressed in WP:LEAD, too). It's definitely in the wrong venue right now, being 100% prose/lead style advice that has nothing to do with article naming. It's actually very important, but quite hard to find because it's in the wrong page. For once, it's something on this topic that isn't already inside MOS proper that actually does have a very clear consensus record, having been arrived at in a well-attended RfC with a clear outcome, at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology/Archive 4#Consensus how scientific names are displayed in the lead of species articles listed under common names.
I intend to rapidly merge this (as in within 24 hours) so if you have an objection, raise it quick. This is such a no-brainer it suggests there should be some kind of "WP:CSM", "Criteria for speedy merging". ;-)
Normally I'd be WP:BOLD and just do it w/o posting here about it, but anything to do with animal names seems to send tempers through the roof (including mine sometimes - no pot/kettle here), so I'm erring on the side of caution. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- May need more discussion It must be made clear that the merged material only applies to fauna articles (the text to be merged is only at the fauna naming page, and the archived discussion has at the start "Plants and fungi are listed at their scientific names so this particular discussion does not apply to them"). Overwhelmingly flora articles are at the scientific name, but a few are at the common name when the scientific name is normally in bold, which is not recommended for fauna articles in the text to be merged. There seems not to have been a consensus on how to handle flora articles at common names. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:14, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Right, sorry I wasn't clear that I was going to account for this. The wording at the linked-to RfC made this clearer (and better - it isn't only about fauna articles, but rather about articles titled based on common name rather than scientific; this is more common with animal than plant articles, but not exclusive to either). Regardless, it has no business being at WP:FAUNA, which despite the shortcut name is and only is an article titles naming convention, so prose usage is out-of-scope. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Actually there's a general lack of clarity over where to explain conventions for article titles and where to explain conventions for the same word or phrase used in running text. I think that stuff about running text has crept into pages ostensibly about titles for this reason. Perhaps title issues should be subsections of more general pages? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- That does seem to be the general trend; cf. topical manuals of style (some labelled with {{style-guideline}} and named as part of MOS, some tagged with {{WikiProject style advice}} or nothing and named as part of the project; most of them contain short naming conventions as well, because it's really a subtopic of the style issue in most cases. I'd be generally supportive of the idea of moving all NC material to MOS pages when this can be done relatively seamlessly. (With, say, WP:NCP it probably couldn't be, because there are a lot of non-style concerns in it). At any rate, I think a wholesale change like that would be highly controversial and a proposal at WP:VPP to do it would probably fail, several times in a row. I suggest that a more likely approach would be to move all the non-title material to MOS pages, since it does belong in MOS and does not belong in NC pages, then note which of the topical NC's are left with hardly anything to do with naming that's actually topic-specific, and then merge those "stub guidelines" back into WP:AT. Six or so years ago, when I was first writing MOS:CUE (then, WP:WikiProject Cue sports/Spelling conventions), I tried to generate a stand-alone NC page for it too, before realizing there were approximately zero naming issues in that field that weren't either style issues I'd already covered, or general bio, organization, etc., issues already covered by WP:NC (now WP:AT) and the NC sub-guidelines. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 00:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- I'm not entirely sure what you mean above. If you mean that all discussion of conventions for naming organisms in running text should be in the body of the MOS, I think this is a bad idea. There are many complex issues in this field (e.g. differences between the codes of nomenclature in the use of connecting forms in ranks below species; how to handle the provisions of the ICNCP in regard to cultivars, Groups, grexes, trade designations; etc.). These don't belong in the main MOS; they are not of any concern to most editors. A few key issues (e.g. italics and only capitalize the genus name) should be in the main MOS; the rest should be in more specialized guidance. My point is that advice about the title of articles should be restricted to issues which are unique to titles (e.g. the preference for common names for animals but for scientific names for plants and fungi). All typographical issues relating to titles are the same as for running text, surely? So why separate the advice – it just leads to duplication and then disputes when there are differences (I hardly need to say this!!). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
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- Aye; the "geeky details" should be in subguideline pages and even (e.g. the hyphenation rules detailia of birds) at project pages. What I'm getting at is the naming conventions pages should not be trying to set prose style standards; it's utterly out-of-scope. If its helpful, they could briefly repeat some of the rules established in style guidelines. For example, I edited MOS:CAPS's section on organism names to mention parenthetically that bionomials are italicized where the page discussed how they are capitalized, because it would be "editor hateful" to mention only the caps rule there and force people to go looking at MOS:ITALICS for the italics half of the "how to format a binomial" question. But while MOS:CAPS now mentioned the italicization, it isn't the guideline that set that standard. WP:FAUNA is a naming convention page, and doesn't set style standards, even if it relies upon them internally in context and may cross-reference them for convenience, if you see what i mean. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:56, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
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- I'm not entirely sure what you mean above. If you mean that all discussion of conventions for naming organisms in running text should be in the body of the MOS, I think this is a bad idea. There are many complex issues in this field (e.g. differences between the codes of nomenclature in the use of connecting forms in ranks below species; how to handle the provisions of the ICNCP in regard to cultivars, Groups, grexes, trade designations; etc.). These don't belong in the main MOS; they are not of any concern to most editors. A few key issues (e.g. italics and only capitalize the genus name) should be in the main MOS; the rest should be in more specialized guidance. My point is that advice about the title of articles should be restricted to issues which are unique to titles (e.g. the preference for common names for animals but for scientific names for plants and fungi). All typographical issues relating to titles are the same as for running text, surely? So why separate the advice – it just leads to duplication and then disputes when there are differences (I hardly need to say this!!). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- That does seem to be the general trend; cf. topical manuals of style (some labelled with {{style-guideline}} and named as part of MOS, some tagged with {{WikiProject style advice}} or nothing and named as part of the project; most of them contain short naming conventions as well, because it's really a subtopic of the style issue in most cases. I'd be generally supportive of the idea of moving all NC material to MOS pages when this can be done relatively seamlessly. (With, say, WP:NCP it probably couldn't be, because there are a lot of non-style concerns in it). At any rate, I think a wholesale change like that would be highly controversial and a proposal at WP:VPP to do it would probably fail, several times in a row. I suggest that a more likely approach would be to move all the non-title material to MOS pages, since it does belong in MOS and does not belong in NC pages, then note which of the topical NC's are left with hardly anything to do with naming that's actually topic-specific, and then merge those "stub guidelines" back into WP:AT. Six or so years ago, when I was first writing MOS:CUE (then, WP:WikiProject Cue sports/Spelling conventions), I tried to generate a stand-alone NC page for it too, before realizing there were approximately zero naming issues in that field that weren't either style issues I'd already covered, or general bio, organization, etc., issues already covered by WP:NC (now WP:AT) and the NC sub-guidelines. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 00:19, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- Actually there's a general lack of clarity over where to explain conventions for article titles and where to explain conventions for the same word or phrase used in running text. I think that stuff about running text has crept into pages ostensibly about titles for this reason. Perhaps title issues should be subsections of more general pages? Peter coxhead (talk) 17:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
- Right, sorry I wasn't clear that I was going to account for this. The wording at the linked-to RfC made this clearer (and better - it isn't only about fauna articles, but rather about articles titled based on common name rather than scientific; this is more common with animal than plant articles, but not exclusive to either). Regardless, it has no business being at WP:FAUNA, which despite the shortcut name is and only is an article titles naming convention, so prose usage is out-of-scope. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (fauna)#Capitalisation of scientific names also has to merge here, for the same reasons, except a note that the title of an article that is the scientific name of the animal is in the form Homo sapiens not "Homo Sapiens". Nothing else in that section has anything at all to do with AT/NC issues. — Preceding unsigned comment added by SMcCandlish (talk • contribs)
- I think you mean "Homo sapiens" emphasizing the lower-case "s". Art LaPella (talk) 03:08, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- I had some typos in there; now it says what it was supposed to. :-) — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:56, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
- I would say, as I said above, that the note is rather that when the title of article is a scientific name it follows precisely the same conventions as for running text (both in capitalization and in italicization). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:55, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- Exactly. That even sounds like good wording to specifically use at the NC page after the MOSish stuff is merged here. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:46, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Proceeding with the merges: Any more issues to raise? I'd like to get on this ASAP. This MOS/NC animal names cleanup has taken over a month already. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 15:49, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
- Going twice... — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 23:56, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Proposing MOS:GLOSS as an actual guideline
I propose that Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Glossaries have its proposal tag changed to {{MoS-guideline}}. Its advice is already being used as if it were "officially" a guideline. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 11:48, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
- Oppose Lots of good potential there, but still needs work.
There is a current discussion highlighting problems with the Naming Conventions section at Talk:Glossary of botanical terms#Botany vs. botanical(irrelevant). --Tom Hulse (talk) 21:11, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
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- Except that it doesn't. MOS:GLOSS wouldn't affect any concern raised by anyone at that talk page. It doesn't say anything that contradicts that article's current name, Glossary of botanical terms, despite your claim in article talk to the contrary. Specifically, it says: "For a glossary list article that consists of a simple lead and a glossary, the form Glossary of subject terms is preferred, with redirects to it from [misc. plausible alternatives here]". It doesn't specify "subject in noun form"; that idea comes from WP:AT policy. If you have an issue with the idea that Glossary of botany terms is less ambiguous than Glossary of botanical terms, you'll need to that up at WT:AT to the extent anyone cares (I don't see anyone trying to move the article back to the "botany" version of the name), since AT is what recommends using the noun form for article names and redirecting to them from adjective forms and other modifications. MOS:GLOSS certainly said no such thing, and does not address this issue at all. Perhaps you'd like to review MOS:GLOSS again and reconsider your position? — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 09:19, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
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- Perhaps I misunderstood why you included it in that discussion, where you called it "a long-stable guideline proposal" as part of arguments justifying an aritcle move there. If you can clarify that (at my talk page?), I'll strike that part of my objection. To be more clear on "needs work": The article is far from stable. It had the under construction tag last month, and you have many, many undiscussed edits since then; even today you are still changing it. Here is the diff for the last month. For naming conventions, I don't think imposing rigid consistency, even if it's just requireing "terms" always helps improve Wikipedia. For instance Glossary of classical physics is much better without added "terms", but conversely Glossary of equestrian terms virtually requires "terms" to be added. I don't think a one-size-fits-all approach always works when the topics can be as unrelated as any two words in the English language. Also, the overall article reads awkwardly technical and overly verbose to my ear, although I am certainly not a glossary expert, so perhaps that is necessary. At least it might benefit from review by non-specialist, non-familiar editors. --Tom Hulse (talk) 13:09, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
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- I dropped you a line in user talk, especially about avoiding "one-size-fits-all". I'd like to address some of this here, since it's already public. By "stable" I don't mean "absolutely unchanging"; it's been tweaked in various ways lately, especially in response to technical changes in WP's deployment of the MediaWiki software (itself changed in the last year in ways that directly affect glossary coding), in Mediawiki:Common.css, and in the code of the members of Category:Glossary templates, as well as in response to issues raised by "live" glossaries. Transhumanist put an under-construction tag on it because he was cleaning up the wording in a marathon editing session, especially redundant bits, but changed very little about the underlying advice. That aspect of it has hardly altered in any important way in well over a year. Even as an official guideline, it couldn't "impose" anything; it's just trying to set a default, thus loose wording like "preferred" not "required". :-) I've been internalizing the more salient bits of the discussion at Talk:Glossary of botanical terms and thinking of how to revise the NC section to get at precisely what you're talking about without it sounding like "there is no convention, do whatever you like"; certain constructions make more sense than others, and it may take some time to sort that out. More detail at your user talk.
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- It is overly verbose, but I don't think any of it is intrinsically wrong in any sense at this point. Transhumanist was working on the verbosity problem, but has been busy lately. It is technical mainly because the MediaWiki parser has severe issues. The developers are actually working on (and supposedly nearing completion of) a from-the-ground-up replacement of the entire wikimarkup-to-HTML-output parser that should some day obviate half of that technicality, but the fact for now is that wikimarkup's handling of definition lists is very, very brittle and flaky. I think some of the more technical bits will fork off into a "Help:" namespace page, but it's not the only highly technical MOS page. The "geeky" factor wears off pretty quick. The template-defined glossary markup is so intuitive you end up internalizing it after coding only a few entries in a glossary. Way easier than things like wikimarkup tables. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 14:37, 3 March 2012 (UTC)
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Italicization of English as if it were a foreign language
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20120304182901im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/31/Imbox_notice.png/20px-Imbox_notice.png)
Template talk:Lang-en#Remove italicization from Template:Lang-en may be of interest, for its connection to MOS:ITALICS. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 12:41, 1 March 2012 (UTC)
Citations in MLA format
![](https://web.archive.org/web/20120304182901im_/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/3/31/Imbox_notice.png/20px-Imbox_notice.png)
Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Adding Modern Language Association format into Wikipedia? (permanent link here).
—Wavelength (talk) 06:14, 2 March 2012 (UTC)