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*Pernickerty details: Being a minimalist, I applaud efforts to remove redundant features from such stylised lists, since it looks cleaner and is easier to read, usually. While I'd go further than what people here would accept, may I suggest a few changes that are by no means radical or non-standard. Can the semicolon before the (year) be removed? Unsure why we need italics ''and'' quotes for the title. Would be please to see sentence case rather than title case for titles of articles and books, at least in your examples; this is standard nowadays, although not always observed. Can't stand "page(s)"—can we have just "p." and "pp." plus space? Your final dots are not consistent: some have not dot (after external links) and ISBNs, and after "Mich.)", some do have dots. I'd go for no dots if others can cope with it. Why try to beat the line break with another signal that the item has finished? I pressed a while ago for the redundant "on" to be removed (Retrieved 2007-05-16 is exceedingly clear and shorter). I suppose we have to have the hard-to-read and, for readers who aren't familiar with it, potentially ambiguous ISO dates? What's wrong with giving them the choice df and mf (int. or US normal date formats)? ] ] 05:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
*Pernickerty details: Being a minimalist, I applaud efforts to remove redundant features from such stylised lists, since it looks cleaner and is easier to read, usually. While I'd go further than what people here would accept, may I suggest a few changes that are by no means radical or non-standard. Can the semicolon before the (year) be removed? Unsure why we need italics ''and'' quotes for the title. Would be please to see sentence case rather than title case for titles of articles and books, at least in your examples; this is standard nowadays, although not always observed. Can't stand "page(s)"—can we have just "p." and "pp." plus space? Your final dots are not consistent: some have not dot (after external links) and ISBNs, and after "Mich.)", some do have dots. I'd go for no dots if others can cope with it. Why try to beat the line break with another signal that the item has finished? I pressed a while ago for the redundant "on" to be removed (Retrieved 2007-05-16 is exceedingly clear and shorter). I suppose we have to have the hard-to-read and, for readers who aren't familiar with it, potentially ambiguous ISO dates? What's wrong with giving them the choice df and mf (int. or US normal date formats)? ] ] 05:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
:I've converted ] to a test case at ]. Lots of problem cases to see. Best examined by comparing the two in separate windows.] (]) 05:47, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
This page falls within the scope of the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style
This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Misplaced Pages Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing.
A is the grammatically correct version. B wouldn't be horrible, though (since the 'also' is a throwaway term, you're not really miscontextualizing the statement by omitting it). --Ludwigs219:36, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
The APA Publication Manual (5th ed.) on page 119 says "the first letter of the forst word in a quotation may be changed to an uppercase or lowercase letter." Later on the same page it says "do not use ellipsis points at the beginning or end of any quotation unless, to prevent misinterpretation, you need to emphasize that the quotation begins or ends in midsentence."
AP Stylebook agrees on both counts, and thank you for bringing this up, Gerry, this is something I have to keep repeating. Also, this (lowercasing or uppercasing the first letter in the quote because it now does or doesn't begin a sentence) is one thing we don't require brackets for to show a difference from the original quote. (The only other two things that can show up inside quotation marks without using brackets to show that you're messing with the material are ellipses and toggling between single and double quotes.) - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:16, 9 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm surprised we don't. It's rather more likely to affect the meaning than the punctuation at the end of the quote, on which we are fanatically determined. (Ellipses are a sign, although an ambiguous one, that we are messing with the quote; we should probably recommend "ellipses in the original" when they are.) SeptentrionalisPMAnderson03:29, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
That's a good point; I can tell you that the answer AFAIK is that style guides are generally agreed on not needing brackets around the first letter, whereas they're split on whether you can add a period/fullstop or comma inside the quotation marks at the end. But you make a good point. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 01:55, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
We are an encyclopedia, not a newspaper. If Mencken saw "hat" in submitted copy, he would have been right to mock the perpetrator out of journalism; but our standards are different; we quote much more rarely, to begin with. I'm not saying that we should require "hat"; I still doubt we need to require logical punctuation. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson03:48, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Hmmm ... the double mirrors make my head spin: who knows whether the original had the ellipsis at all, and whether, if so, square brackets were used or added by WP? I think that's what Anderson is rightly cautioning as "ambiguous"; it's an inherent problem in the use of ellipsis symbols. I don't think there's a simple answer. On the cap vs lower case, I'm pretty sure MOS says you can use lower case in this instance. I don't understand the quoted statement—was it intended to be heavily ironic? Can you link to the context? Tony(talk)03:46, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Proposal to deprecate and remove images that say 'this is not an image please add one'
I see lots of pictures that say "Replace this image". For example see in Ann Robinson. There is nothing in the images section of the MOS about them. I propose the following text:
Articles should not contain images/text stating that there is no image and/or whose purpose is to invite editors to add an image. If such images are present, they should be deleted. This applies to "Replace this image male.svg" or "Replace this image female.svg"
Strong support—They look dreadful in their grey complexity; they make the article look perpetually unfinished; they push the assumption that an article can't be good unless it has an image; there are better ways of encouraging WPians to locate suitable images than defiling the very top of an article. I can see why the practice was started in good faith, but in retrospect it looks like a bad misjudgement. Such encouragement should be an important role of WikiProjects. Tony(talk)13:35, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Support. They look bad, push useful information further down the screen, and if anything probably encourage people to upload non-free images (people who know about Misplaced Pages's image use policy are also intelligent enough to know that an article doesn't have an image, and what to do about it, without being told). And the idea that we should discourage adding these things but not allow the removal existing ones is thinking at its muddledest.--Kotniski (talk) 15:05, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Support removal because new editors often imitate existing style rather than consulting the MOS, and also I think most if not all editors of a website know that an image improves a biography, so these placeholders are not useful. Darkspots (talk) 16:08, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
It doesn't occur to them them that it is people like them who provide photos and they don't know how to upload/add them.Genisock2 (talk) 16:10, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
SupportAll of Misplaced Pages can be improved. There's no point in plastering pages with big flags attesting to this. This is a good article, but we're going to scream in your face that it can be improved. Punch the monkey to improve Misplaced Pages! Such self-references make good-quality articles look like they come from an amateur website with those awful “under construction” graphics. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-10 20:01 z
Support. They look awful. No image at all would be better in every case. This is a classic case of the tail wagging the dog; these are put up largely for editors but the vast majority of users are only readers. They still have to look at these ugly placeholders. Britannica doesn't use imagery like this and neither should we. --John (talk) 01:56, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
And also because they don't like their articles to look like ass. Neither should we. These are the equivalent of "under construction" signs and they make our articles look ugly and amateurish. --John (talk) 19:34, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Support deprecation and weakly support removal of existing imaged commands. We're always under construction and editors who find images will look whether they are needed. -- SEWilco (talk) 19:05, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose as proposed. No need to make tens of thousands of unnecessary edits just to remove these, and I they might actually prompt users to upload the images as intended (off the cuff unqualified statement). –xeno (talk) 12:26, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose Consensus was not to mass remove them, just to discourage future use, no need to make all these edits. MBisanz12:36, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose per xeno. Users might see a lack of an image as an agreement not to have one; an explicit "hey, you there, put a proper picture here!" encourages additions. Prince of Canada12:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Absolutely not - the last thing we need is to take a wishy-washy statement about "some people don't like using these" and transform it into a blanket ban. Doing this would not help the encyclopedia one whit. Shimgray | talk | 12:53, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Placeholders have been independently invented by a number of groups (:No_Photo_Available.svg for example) which suggest a common need and a fair degree of acceptance.Genisock2 (talk) 13:01, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose - They encourage image submission, which we want, and they don't exactly trash the aesthetic either. Why delete them? I don't think the MOS debate about whether they should be used was publicized widely enough, I'd like to see that misguided change reversed. Avruch13:24, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose: I still think we should be using these templates — but that is a different discussion — I don't see any reason to go around removing them, no. - Rjd0060 (talk) 14:28, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose: As long as we encourage readers to become editors through cleanup templates on the main article (as opposed to talk), then we should be asking for help whenever we can. --MASEM15:09, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
So would you support a message displayed automatically at the top of all articles, saying something like "YOU can improve this article by adding sourced relevant information or free images". It would be less intrusive than these placeholder images, and not be limited to one specific type of "help" on one specific type of article.--Kotniski (talk) 15:31, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
No, that would not be specific enough to be useful, and would still require a large number of edits to alter the current situation. Leaving it the way it is with images in infoboxes (where a free image will go) is fine. MBisanz15:33, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
So why that specific request for help? Why is it so likely that readers will have free pictures of people? Or why is it so important that we request those but not other types of image or information? And getting rid of the existing placeholders doesn't necessarily require large numbers of edits (even if you consider that a problem) - it could be done at the same time as bots perform other cleanup.--Kotniski (talk) 15:39, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose per Masem and Shimgray. The images themselves could definitely be improved though (more abstract, less "western" as someone said). -- Quiddity (talk) 18:00, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose There are certainly a lot of articles where the use of such images are pointless and feel free to remove those on a case by case basis, but even though they are discouraged there are still situations where they can be useful and so a complete "bad and delete" policy is not helpful. For example if a lot of people independently keep adding unsuitable non-free images to an article whenever the previous set gets deleted it can be useful to put up a placeholder to let them know that only free licensed images are wanted. Some of the main arguments against image placeholders in the past where that not all articles need images in the first place, but in the case of an article where fans will upload any old image they find on google if they find the article without one I think adding a "free image only please" placeholder makes a lot of sense even if it is generally discouraged. --Sherool(talk)22:40, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
But the placedholders we have don't emphasize "free image only", so I still don't see why you want to retain them.--Kotniski (talk) 10:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
So how about we just edit the image to say "please replace me with a free image"? Or whatever the verbiage needs to be. One edit handles every instance of the image being used. Prince of Canada10:24, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Well according to the comments above, the verbiage would need to be more along the lines of "please do NOT replace me with an image unless you have a free one".--Kotniski (talk) 10:47, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
The specific verbiage isn't that important at the moment, and I leave it to wiser minds than mine to come up with the specifics anyway. Point being, if we replaced with (or edited the current) something that actively encourages people to upload a new (free, legal, etc) image, there's a net benefit to the project. Or, why not try it for a month (arbitrary time period), and see what happens to articles, how often new images are placed, how often they're copyvios, etc. Prince of Canada11:02, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose - what Avruch said. We want more people to contribute, not less. I'd be interested to know from the OTRS people who handle the photosubmission queue if people mention these when they submit pictures. Mr.Z-man06:48, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I note that none of the opposers has even attempted to answer my question - why do we scream at people to contribute these particular images as opposed to the many other types of images and information they are just as likely to be able to contribute? --Kotniski (talk) 10:15, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
I agree that there is no reason to limit this to people, but this is a major focus because it's where WP:NFCC#1 is most commonly abused. I would support (and be willing to create) similar placeholders for buildings, rivers, lakes, mountains, household appliances, etc. if there was enough demand. However at first glance most inanimate topics appear to already have a free photo, while most people do not. — CharlotteWebb10:38, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Well yes, because there aren't so many free images about, which makes it all the less likely that anyone will be able to contribute one, and all the more likely that they will be provoked into contributing non-free ones. So it seems that bios are actually the last kind of articles that we should wish to deface in this way. --Kotniski (talk) 10:47, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
The thing about people is that people tend to have pics of them or they do not for buildings and other fixed objects people we get better results by finding existing wikipedians who live near them.Geni20:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
Don't follow. People don't tend to have free pics of famous people very often; and "finding existing WPans who live near them" could be done with exactly the same type of placeholders.--Kotniski (talk) 10:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Your argument is illogical, "we don't ask people to contribute everything else, so we shouldn't ask for these" - why does it have to be an all or nothing thing? I'd actually support asking for more. We probably have at least (I haven't actually done the math) 10 readers for every editor. If we could get even 0.1% of those readers to contribute something we'd be much better off. Mr.Z-man17:07, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
So after every sentence in Misplaced Pages we should write "if you can improve or add to this sentence then please click the edit button and do so"? That's what your argument leads to. I'm not saying we shouldn't ask for help, just that it should be done in an unobtrusive way, and without irrational emphasis on certain types of help rather than others.--Kotniski (talk) 10:34, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
No, I didn't say that and my argument does not necessarily lead to that. If you can't argue rationally, please don't ask others to try and refute your points. That's like saying raising the legal blood alcohol limit for drivers will lead to a 5000% increase in drunk driving accidents because everyone will drive drunk all the time. You continue to make this an all-or-nothing thing - It doesn't have to be. Though, we do already put inline tags on particularly problematic sentences.
How can we ask for help in an "unobtrusive" way that will still have results? If we put things like this on the talk page, almost no one's going to see them, which defeats the purpose. Would you object to a "This article needs an image" cleanup tag? Mr.Z-man19:47, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
because your core claim is fundimentaly false. we ahve stub notices and cleanup templates (and placeholders for buildings and there is one around for warships).Geni20:42, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
What core claim? Stub notices are OK; they go out of the way at the end of an article. Cleanup templates, where appropriate, aren't bad, since as well as asking for help they usefully inform the reader that this article isn't really up to standard (as do stub templates in a way). Again, why buildings particularly? Why warships particularly? Why not simply have one unobtrusive (that's the main thing) object to be placed on any article that lacks an image? Like the "coordinates missing" thing that appears out of the way at the top? We don't need to do it with a placeholder that occupies exactly the same position and amount of space as our hoped-for image is going to.
because useing different images means we get a degree of auto categorization and there are a number of article where it is safe to assume that there will never be a free pic.Genisock2 (talk) 16:51, 18 October 2008 (UTC)
Oppose - I think I share at least some responsibility/credit for these images coming into existence (a suggestion I made once on a mailing list). The hope was that we could correct a significant lack we had of photos of living persons. We can disagree about whether the approach was good, about whether it was successful, about whether we need to continue to add them. But I can't see any point whatsoever in immediately removing them everywhere. –RHolton≡– 17:02, 12 October 2008 (UTC)
You should perhaps drop by Chris Cunningham's talk page and ask him directly, he's the one that said that. I could not find anything either. –xeno (talk) 13:02, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
From what I recall, the use is discouraged on dead people's biographies if they were not living when photography was widely available thus an image unlikely. -- Banjeboi22:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)
From the archives:
Stats. Of the first twenty images linked to the female placeholder, four are deceased. Gia Carangi, Kathleen Kenyon, Ruth Gordon, Sophie Germain. Three are twentieth-century figures who died in the 1970s or 1980s. One (Germain) has been dead 1831. If you're arguing in favor of the placeholders on the grounds that they help educate editors about "fair use"/"free" images, I will argue that in these four cases (20% of the sample) they are actually misleading editors about what kinds of images are usable. Now, the proponents will say that the guidelines discourage the use of the placeholder on any articles other than living person bios; however, the practice is somewhat less clear.Northwesterner1 (talk) 20:07, 18 April 2008 (UTC)
The photosubmission queue on OTRS pretty much takes care of the second issue, especially if we remove the upload link (it should point to commons anyway). And removing the placeholders isn't going to prevent a "a determined copyright violator." Mr.Z-man17:10, 11 October 2008 (UTC)
"End comma" to mark the end of an inserted part of a sentence
Is there a consensus in place on the issue of "end commas"? What I mean is the following:
"XX was born on February 25, 1978 in Bratislava ...". In my opinion, 1978 (which year?) serves as a qualifier to February 25. The end of the inserted part of a sentence should be marked with a comma (unless one reaches end-of-sentence, in which case the end is implicit).
Otherwise the sentence falls into two parts: "XX was born on February 25" and "1978 in Bratislava ...", which makes the second part look as an independent clause, which it isn't.
When you read the sentence out loud to yourself, it goes like this: "XX was born on February 25 (pause) 1978 (pause) in Bratislava ...", right? The pauses are the commas.
The same thing goes for this: "Born in Akron, Ohio to parents Bill ...". This sentence also misses a comma to mark the qualifier (which Akron?).
If there isn't a consensus on this, maybe one could be created?
I think this has been talked about before. Some people think like you do; others regard the comma simply as a conventional part of the representation of the date (separating the two numbers) or town ("town, state" is the conventional format for an American town). I'm in the second camp - in particular, I don't think I would pause either before or after 1978 in your example.--Kotniski (talk) 10:24, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Was there any conclusion to that discussion? Btw, I don't mean that the pauses are very long, they're barely perceivable - but they're there. There is also a slight change of tone, and after the second comma the tone that preceded the first comma is resumed. LarRan (talk) 10:45, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
I guess there wasn't a conclusion. I like to think the majority agreed with me, but I don't remember for sure;) While I can admit there may be slight pauses or tone changes, I don't think they're the kind of pause that would warrant a comma under normal circumstances.--Kotniski (talk) 10:54, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
You don't pause after "25th" in reading aloud, and it's not a normal grammatical comma either. It exists solely by convention to separate the two sets of numbers. Tony(talk)11:22, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
Ok, there might not always be a perceivable pause, depending on your way of speaking, but within the expression "New York, New York", do you really say the words "York, New" as glued to each other as the words "New York"? If you must inhale before finishing the sentence (while speaking), where do you inhale, between "New" and "York" or between "York," and "New"? I bet it's the latter. Conventions don't come out of the blue: if the comma isn't a grammatical one, what kind of comma is it? The only other comma I can think of for the moment is the decimal comma, and that one it isn't for sure. I'm pretty sure it's a grammatical comma.
Is it in your view outright wrong to have an "end comma", or do you see it as matter of taste, so to speak? Is there anybody else, who has input to this discussion?
In the American language, these are parentheticals; my learned colleague is attempting to explain a language which is not his own. Like other parentheticals, idiom may allow omitting the dividing comma: "In 1978, the city of New York..." may become "In 1978 the city of New York...", but careful writers will include the comma whenever its absence may be confusing; some will always include it. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson04:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I believe that in the previous discussion of this subject, although no real consensus was reached, there was support for using a comma after location parentheticals (like Chicago, Illinois—for some reason I don't think New York, New York is the best example available), but not for a comma after a year in a full date. Waltham, The Duke of04:25, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
FWIW, doing a Google search on the random phrase "Chicago Illinois was" seems to show a significant majority for the punctuation "Chicago, Illinois was".--Kotniski (talk) 09:13, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes, you're right, English is not my own language, but I'm doing my best. It's not easy, you should try it some time ;-)
Found something interesting in the article Comma (punctuation), that seems to support my position:
Years following dates (this is American usage—whether this is really parenthetical is moot): My father ate a bagel on December 7, 1941, and never ate one again. (See #10 below.)
States following cities: My father ate a bagel in Dallas, Texas, in 1963.
In each case, the parenthesised (as if in parentheses) text is both preceded and followed by a comma, unless that would result in doubling a punctuation mark, or if the parenthetical is at the start or end of the sentence.
The first example, though, may not be a "full proof", as the second comma could be there for another reason, like in
"My father ate a bagel last Wednesday, and never ate one again."
Yeees... I'm not quite sure what the source is for that section of the article though. It seems a bit like an essay expressing someone's personal opinions (and we've already established that opinions on this point differ). In fact I might set about tidying up that article a bit, now you've drawn attention to it.--Kotniski (talk) 12:28, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Under construction artifacts
User:Woody drew my attention to {{under construction}}. I see there is Category:Under-construction templates.
When I first saw them, I thought that I was not supposed to edit the page and it seems that discouraging editing is exactly the purpose. I think I may even have been told by another editor that I needed to wait until he/she had removed the template. However, people are abusing what should be a rare privilige. If the argument is that active editing is in process then they must be tapping away at their keyboards and that seems to be an argument for perhaps 15 minutes to an hour grace.
I have the following suggestions:
Ban 'under construction' templates. Misplaced Pages is always work in progress. I don't believe that the number of templates on articles matches a real requirement. However, I don't think many people will support this option.
Rationalise the many similar templates into one template.
Each 'under construction' template shall have a visible expiry time. This will make it much easier to see that the template is due for removal. Currently, you have to be determined to work out how long it has been there, who added it, and whether they are showing signs of activity.
The expiry time for 'under construction' templates shall not exceed one hour. The time of one hour is arbitarily chosen but is consistent with active editing of text by the editor that wants to use the template to discourage contributions by other editors.
It seems like a good point to bring up; the template could potentially come across as bossy. On the other hand, I think it varies a lot from forum to forum; there are times and places where the template could help avoid edit conflicts. Any guideline that might cover this would IMO be a behavioral or editing guideline, not a style guideline. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 14:27, 13 October 2008 (UTC)
When a reference to a person contains two or more successive initials, is there a rule about whether a space should be placed between the initials? For example:
Unfortunately, it's up to the editor. IMO, the spaced version is execrable. And you might also consider losing the dots, as is increasingly common in English: PG Wodehouse. Tony(talk)02:18, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I consider the spaces strongly preferable. Without the spaces it looks too much as though the names are not separate from each other, particularly without the periods (what's that, an MPAA rating for Jeeves & Wooster?). In the case of three forenames, as in Du Bois, I'm willing to soften this on practical grounds. --Trovatore (talk) 02:22, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not sure I have a preference; I do not mind the spaced version, and I also think it is suggested in the naming conventions. (I suppose not using spaces is more plausible for three–or more?!—letters.) Not using full stops, however, seems like a stretch to me. PG Wodehouse looks like the name of an electronics company (where PG would be an obscure initialism). Waltham, The Duke of04:15, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Stops but no spaces for me. Doesn't matter what the sources do, particularly if they were written a long time ago - this is a style thing, where we don't have to imitate specific sources. --Kotniski (talk) 09:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Quite right. It would be silly to use different conventions within an article to follow the house styles of different sources. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-14 19:13 z
The period marks that it's an abbreviated first name. That does not mean that the space should be lost. Check this example: J. Edgar Hoover. If he had been known as J. E. Hoover, should the space be removed? Of course not. Where's the logic and the consistency? I assume that you don't think he was called J.Edgar Hoover - without the space. LarRan (talk) 18:08, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Bringhurst (book), an authority on typographic style, states unequivocally “add little or no space within strings of initials. ¶ Names such as W.B. Yeats and J.C.L. Prillwitz need hair spaces, thin spaces or no spaces at all after the intermediary periods. A normal word space follows the last period in the string” (p 30). Since we don't have the level of control to use thin spaces, no spaces is our only choice.
Additionaly, it would be poor style to let strings of initials break at the end of the line, and clutter the wikitext ridiculously to write “J.&C.&L.&Prillwitz.” —MichaelZ. 2008-10-14 19:13 z
Well, that's Bringhurst's style convention. It's not binding on us, either. No-spaces are, in my opinion, hideous (thin spaces, I agree, would be OK if we had them). --Trovatore (talk) 19:24, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, as regards the linebreak issue: It's true, that's a bit of an annoyance, but it's unlikely to come up very much. In most cases the initials will be used only in the title and at the start of the first sentence, so there's no linebreaking to do. Admittedly it's possible that you might be talking about P. G. Wodehouse and his brother or something, both named Wodehouse, in the same article, and need to distinguish them, but this is a corner case and shouldn't be the determining factor of what we do normally. --Trovatore (talk) 19:27, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Of course Bringhurst's advice is not binding, but the book is considered a standard, and so we can consider the unambiguous directive as good advice.
It's also the form recommended by the Economist “Initials in people's names, or in companies named after them, take points (with a space between initials and name, but not between initials),” the Guardian, sans points, “no spaces or points, whether businesses or individuals eg WH Smith...,” and the Times Online “With people's names, put points between the initials (with thin space between).”
I'd be glad to consider any typographic or style-guide advice which suggests word spaces between initials, but so far all we have is the personal preference of a few editors. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-14 20:13 z
Let's keep in mind that we don't need to have a standard at all. Leaving it up to the judgment of editors on individual articles is just fine. I mention my preferences only to show another side to the preferences expressed by some others. --Trovatore (talk) 20:26, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Why would we consider the spaced form equally acceptable, when it is rejected in professional publishing? Its use, plus the inconsistency, just makes Misplaced Pages look a touch more bush league. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-14 20:30 z
WP:MOS#Consistency is “an overriding principle.” The whole point of the MOS is to promote consistency, internally and with generally accepted, documented practices in English-language writing and publishing. That your personal preference differs sounds like something you should be prepared to deal with in your own way. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-14 20:52 z
Yet another, secondary, consideration is search. P.G. Wodehouse (261 results) and pg wodehouse (261) are equivalent for most search engines, but P. G. Wodehouse (752) parses as three words. Which are you least likely to type into the search field when looking for “Peegee Wodehouse?” —MichaelZ. 2008-10-14 20:30 z
Spaces are just not used in abbreviations. Would you write U. S.,Washington D. C., or The Man From U. N. C. L. E.? This is supported by our article on Abbreviation: “spaces are generally not used between single letter abbreviations of words in the same phrase, so one almost never encounters "U. S.".”
Is there any objective argument supporting the use of spaces? —MichaelZ. 2008-10-14 20:44 z
The problem is that you're thinking of the initials as a single abbreviation. They just aren't. They are two abbreviations (in the case of two forenames). That's the difference with the examples you cite, where you're making a single abbreviation. Otherwise it's like you're collapsing two of the person's names together into a single lexical entity. --Trovatore (talk) 20:50, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
With respect, that is not what the problem is.
Of course Wodehouse's forenames are a single entity. U.S., D.C., and P.G. are each an abbreviated phrase (United States, District of Columbia, and Pelham Grenville), lexically and typographically. They are demonstrably treated as such by writers, editors, and typesetters. . —MichaelZ. 2008-10-14 20:58 z
The cases are not parallel. "U.S." is the name of a political entity; neither United nor States is a name. But Wodehouse's first "name", in the abbreviated form, is P, his second "name" is G, and his third name is Wodehouse. They should not be collapsed into a single thing. It strikes me as borderline disrespectful towards the individual. --Trovatore (talk) 21:12, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
“Which Wodehouse?” would be answered—with all due respect—by the proper name “Pelham Grenville,” or its abbreviation “P.G.” That's the prevalent style of writing abbreviations. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-15 00:30 z
I am not convinced that it is "the" prevalent style. It appears to be a prevalent style. I have explained why I consider it to be an inferior one. --Trovatore (talk)
Oh, except sure, I agree, for a single abbreviation, that's the way to write it. But it's not a single abbreviation; it's two abbreviations. --Trovatore (talk) 00:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
The AP Stylebook (2007), p 331, “Initials: John F. Kennedy, T.S. Eliot (No space between T. and S., to prevent them from being placed on two lines in typesetting ¶ Abbreviations using only the initials of a name do not take periods: JFK, LBJ.”
Generally I find that journalistic stylebooks take an overly space-saving approach. As another example they tend to avoid the serial comma. --Trovatore (talk) 00:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
FWIW I noticed that the Chicago manual, section 15.12, recommends a space between the initials. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:52, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
No one is trying to save space; it's a matter of looking smarter and avoiding line-wrapping. I agree with everything Michael Z says, except for the line that the whole project should be consistent on the matter (its akin to engvar, requiring within-article consistency). Since people feel very strongly about the dots, I'm happy with the option to use them or not to use them. It would be ideal to have a mild recommendation against the spacing (since this is a justified online format), retaining the option to use it. Tony(talk)05:48, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
To me, there is no logic, nor any consistency, in removing the space just because one abbreviated name follows another. If you write J. Edgar Hoover, and not J.Edgar Hoover, why suddenly write J.E. Hoover? If you don't write JohnF. Kennedy, and you don't write John F.Kennedy, why write J.F. Kennedy (btw, I'm comfortable with JFK and LBJ). Ok, there could be line breaks at places we would prefer not to have them, but so what? There will always be that -- unless we place "hard" line breaks in the text. I'm with Trovatore. LarRan (talk) 07:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I prefer dots and spaces, but between the two, the spaces are actually more important. I don't agree that leaving out the spaces "looks smarter"; quite the opposite, in fact, because as I say it unjustifiably collapses two names, which should remain separate, into a single lexical unit.
I'm not sure what justification has to do with it. I do agree that it's unfortunate to have a line end in T. and then have the next one start with S. Eliot, but it would be just as bad to have a line end in J. and the next one start with Edgar Hoover, and I don't see that having a line end with T.S. and the next one start with Eliot is really much better. --Trovatore (talk) 07:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Oh, it is (though it's still bad). I don't buy your argument about collapsing two names either - if we collapse United States into U.S., then we can collapse John George into J.G. They are two words in each case, but form part of the same name. --Kotniski (talk) 08:08, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Not the same. Neither United nor States is a name; it's only together that they make a name. But if someone is named John George Smith you can call him John, George, or Smith; each of them separately is his name. (Granted, most people with that name will be a little surprised to be called George, but there are those who go by their middle names by preference.) --Trovatore (talk) 08:12, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
They can be used separately, but when we use them together they form one single name (otherwise John George would equal George John). --Kotniski (talk) 08:44, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I think your argument about the difference between names and items might escape most punters. We may as well go back to "U. S. A." and "N. A. S. A.". They're harder to read and contain redundant formatting on two counts. The first signal that it's an abbreviateion is the upper case, especially marked with two or more letters together. The second signal is the dots. The third signal (very dodgy, IMO) is the intervening space. The tendency is to reduce redundant formatting, especially strong since the demise of the typewriter and the advent of a wealth of formatting resources on computers. We've finally realised that excessive formatting carries disadvantages, one of which is that in most cases it's harder to read. Methinks you've become so used to writing and expecting the triply formatted initials that you find anything hard to accept. Tony(talk)08:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
John George does not equal George John, whether the bearer is called by the first, the second or both. The keyword here is "both", which means that it's two names, not a single name. Or would you call Pelham Grenville Wodehouse Grenville Pelham Wodehouse? LarRan (talk) 09:06, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
If you're talking to me, then no, obviously, that was my point. If "John George Smith" were just a list of three names by which the person might be called, then we could equally well put them in another order, "George Smith John" etc. We can't, because the phrase "John George Smith" is itself a name.--Kotniski (talk) 09:35, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
The fact that John George Smith is a name does not rule out that John, George and Smith also are names. In addition, you haven't removed the space between the names, and still it's a name, right? So why would removing the space between initials be necessary to make that -- the combination of initials and lastname -- a name? LarRan (talk) 11:11, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm not saying it's necessary for that reason, but it's the normal style when initials are part of the same name. Like in U.S.A. (where America and (the) States are also names for it, and even if United happened to be as well, that wouldn't cause people to start writing U. S. A.).--Kotniski (talk) 11:24, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Nor is it a valid argument that "FL" or "F.L." for "French Legion" should suddenly be "F. L." because my neighbour's surname is "French". Tony(talk)14:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
The States is not part of the abbreviation U.S.A., whether the definite article is within parenthesis or not. The only name within that abbreviation is America, while all parts of P. G. Wodehouse are names. Even if there are people with the surname French, it isn't a name when part of the expression French Legion, it's an adjective.
My observation is that T.S. or P.G. in many cases (not all) is the result of sloppy typing or writing. That's why you find so many occurrences of T.S.Eliot and P.G.Wodehouse (no space before last name) and T.S and P.G (no second period). Many are not aware of the importance of spaces, and some don't even see this error until it's pointed out to them. So I guess my view is that a missing space between initials is simply a case of sloppyness, forgetfulness or other mistake, in short: an error.
With regard to Ipoellet's input below, I would comment that the abbreviations don't first show up in writing, they show up in daily parlance. Wodehouse's friends in school probably found it easier to address him as P G than Pelham Grenville. Spaces and periods are neither distinguishable, nor are they needed, when speaking, but the need of them arises when the name is put into writing. The role of the periods there is to point out that this is an abbreviation, the role of the space is to make clear that it's two abbreviations, not one.
Wow. I'm not accustomed to raising this much discussion! My original concern in raising this question was merely whether I would violate the MOS in exercising my preference in a particular edit I was doing. The answer clearly seems to be "no", and I thank everyone for their input. But insofar as the discussion expanded beyond my original concern, I've been wondering why I hold my particular preference - unspaced (with dots). I came up with two reasons: (1) When we reduce someone's forenames to initials, we are already - for whatever reason - trimming parts out to shorten them. Having chopped off all but the first letter of two or three names, it seems just a continuation of the same logic to pare out the space in between. The last name is not truncated, so the space remains there. Taking the reasoning even further would suggest that we should eliminate the dots as well, but that final step seems less conventional in the world at large. (2) When an individual's forenames are reduced to initials, they generally cease to be independently usable to refer to that person. It would be stylistically unacceptable to refer to T. Eliot, P. Wodehouse, or W. Du Bois. Thus the reduced initials do become a single lexical unit, and the space comes out. Ipoellet (talk) 16:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
I'd say ditch the spaces. A few people have argued by analogy, citing the fact that we'd provide spaces if the names were spelled out entirely. Misses the mark. If the names were spelled out, we'd need the spaces to be able to quickly distinguish the individual tokens. That doesn't carry across to a context where each token is always the same length and dots serve as explicit delimiters, so why should we observe the same convention? Should we put spaces in 01/01/2008 just because we'd put them in 1st January 2008? Ilkali (talk) 17:13, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
You're way beside the point. 01/01/2008 is not a name, nor is any part of it. The first 01 is not abbreviated, and the second 01 is not an abbreviation of January.
The rules you're applying here are arbitrary. That's the point. Why should we need special rules for names? What practical purpose do those spaces serve? Ilkali (talk) 11:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Look, I'm not claiming to be riding in on the white steed of Logic and explaining why things have to be the way they are. It's a different rule for personal names than it is for organizations or countries, and sure, there's an element of arbitrariness to this. I'm just saying why it isn't totally arbitrary, why it makes sense and is plausible.
Let me give one more point along those lines: When you read Wodehouse's name aloud, at least in a formal context, you don't say, as Mzajac (ITIW) said above, Peegee Wodhouse. You say, clearly, Pee Gee Wodehouse, with Gee as a stressed syllable. The spaces are a better indicator of this.
Also I don't necessarily insist on "triply formatted" -- I would be OK with P G Wodehouse, spaces but no dots, especially as it's a British topic. --Trovatore (talk) 19:16, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
"you don't say, as Mzajac (ITIW) said above, Peegee Wodhouse. You say, clearly, Pee Gee Wodehouse". So what? Every rule espoused here in favor of the spaces is completely ad hoc. We don't write 01/ 01/ 2008 just because its constituents map to phonetically distinct words. Ilkali (talk) 11:19, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
So you're perfectly comfortable with T.S.Eliot and P.G.Wodehouse? You stated above that since we have the periods, we don't need the spaces. LarRan (talk) 19:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
No I didn't. I said that the dots serve as explicit delimiters (which is undeniably true), and argued that this (along with another factor - go read it again) marked a clear difference between the demands on styling in abbreviated and full forms. Since the contexts and demands are different, arguments by analogy are unpersuasive. The reason I would oppose renderings like T.S.Eliot is that they are extremely nonstandard. You can't make the same claim about T.S. Eliot. Ilkali (talk) 20:50, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Style manual survey
All the discussion got me to go to the library. I apologize for assuming that no spaces was the prevailing form based only on a quick review of online sources. Here are my findings. Most manuals also dictate where word breaks are allowed. These citations include advice for copywriters, editor, and typographers, and probably don't all assume the same level of typographic control. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 01:02 z
JRR Tolkien – “no spaces or points,” Guardian
J.R.R. Tolkien – “a space between initials and name, but not between initials,” Economist
J. R. R. Tolkien – “hair spaces, thin spaces or no spaces at all,” The Elements of Typographic Style, p 30
J. R. R. Tolkien – “thin space between,” Times Online
J. R. R. Tolkien – “put a thin space between a person's initials . . . except where they stand alone,” Canadian Press Stylebook, 12th (2002)
J. R. R. Tolkien – “non-breaking word space.” “If initials are given instead of first names, the break should follow the initials. Chicago Manual of Style (2003)
J. R. R. Tolkien – “preferably with a space after each in OUP style;” J.R.R.T. “entirely in initials . . . no spaces;” FDR, LBJ “people more commonly known by their free-standing initials have neither points nor spaces.” Also, “Do not break place-names or (especially) personal names, if possible. If it is unavoidable break personal names between the given name(s) and surname, or initials (there must be at least two) and surname.” Oxford Style Manual (2003)
J. R. R. Tolkien – “there are spaces between each period and the following...,” The Canadian Style (1997)
All of the spacing above works as intended in Safari/Mac, Firefox/Mac, and MSIE 7. MSIE 6 displays boxes for hair spaces, and huge spaces for thin spaces. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 01:43 z
There is no one prevailing style.
Manuals which recommend any type of spacing between initials also assume professional typographic setting, including control over fractional spaces and word breaks (at the end of the line). None of this is practical to recommend in Misplaced Pages. We can type literal non-breaking spaces (option-space on a Mac), but they get automatically wiped out by edits using some web browsers.
The only way to approximate professional results in Misplaced Pages, i.e., to avoid line breaks like T. / S. Eliot, is to recommend no spaces between initials. this also has the advantage of being consistent with all other abbreviations, and helping to focus search results (e.g., the terms Eliot and T.S. or its equivalent TS, are more specific than three terms Eliot, T., and S.).
The MOS shouldn't recommend a particular style, but should list the advantages and disadvantages of each. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 01:16 z
Michael, I'd like thin spaces as the ideal, but yes, we found here some 18 months ago that IE6 (and now you say its offspring) won't deal with them. It's with a great deal of irritation that we had to abandon a template that combined thin spaces with hard-spaces for this purpose. WHY do people still use IE? Dropping it is the only way you'll force that behomoth to get real. In any case, it's display is generally shockingly poor compared with those of other browsers. Tony(talk)01:54, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
C'est la vie. Many people just don't have control over which web browser they use, or simply don't realize that website problems are the fault of their browser. It will be some years before we have full typographic control on sites for the general public. In the meantime, we have to make compromises, or simply choose from the menu of what works. In some ways, it's already light years ahead of 1970s phototypesetting, etc.
By the way, it may be possible to emulate the typographic appearance using CSS word-spacing or letter-spacing properties, but I think a style decision is more robust than creating new templates, etc.
(MSIE 7 does these fractional spaces right by the way, or at least MSIE 8 emulating 7 does.) —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 02:07 z
A reasonably nice technical solution has occurred to me. The thing is, you're not likely to use P. G. Wodehouse except at first reference; subsequent references will just say Wodehouse. In Wodehouse's bio there's no problem, because the first reference will be early in the first sentence, so no linebreak. In other articles that mention him, on the other hand, he'll be wikilinked at first reference.
So we could avoid most of the linebreaking problems if the developers could be persuaded to do the following simple thing: Inside a wikilink, following a dot, a single space is rendered as non-breaking. Granted, it's not 100% foolproof, but it should take care of most of the problem. --Trovatore (talk) 08:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Presumably only the first instance will be linked. Hardly worth worrying about. Have you ever tried to get WikiMedia developers to do anything? It's like pushing against an ocean liner. Tony(talk)09:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, the first instance is probably the only place there's a problem; that was my point. But no, I'm not extraordinarily optimistic about getting action from the developers. I'm suggesting it might be worth a try. Not all cases of single letter--dot--single space--letter will be initials, but it's hard to imagine a case where you'd actually want that single space to be breakable inside a link, so the solution could have benefits beyond the current discussion. --Trovatore (talk) 09:17, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for that research, Michael Z, well done.
To me, it seems that most sources recommend the presence of a (some kind of) space, which is what I have advocated. The only problem we have now is the line breaks. For editors who are bothered by this, the solution is easy: pipe the links with non-breaking spaces, and there won't be a line break between the initials.
At the relatively low resolution of the computer display, I calculate that a typographic hair space (M/24) is equivalent to no space, and a thin space (M/5) is 2 or 3 pixels (for comparison, a word space is M/3 or 4 pixels in Misplaced Pages's default body text size). However, on my machine in Safari and Firefox, both hair and thin spaces render as exactly 1 extra pixel, while a word space renders as 3 pixels.
Setting the initials and points tight solves the wrapping problem, which I think is more important, for every instance, linked or unlinked, and without having to use any extra pipes, character entities, templates—just by typing the name. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 15:25 z
Wodehouse's full name appears 7 times in the body of the article, 9 times in its bibliography and links with spaced P. G., 8 times with tight P.G., and 3 times with PG sans points (obviously some are quoted titles which shouldn't be changed). A Google search "P.G. Wodehouse" OR "P. G. Wodehouse" site:en.wikipedia.org finds 50 articles in the first seven pages of results containing versions the name (that's when I got tired of counting). There are six or seven articles containing a variation of P.G.Wodehouse with no space at all.
I leave it to someone else to count the variegated T.S. Eliots, J.R.R. Tolkiens, H.G. Wellses, etc. ad infinitum. Any one of these names may appear hundreds of times in Misplaced Pages.
Initials set tight is a perfectly acceptable style, it is simplest for editors, it keeps wikitext clean, it avoids the wrapping problem, it focusses search engine results, and also helps readers consistently find names using text search on the page. Why not simply stick to one consistent style which is most practical for a web site with thousands of amateur editors? —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 14:44 z
Encouraging a single simple standard which corresponds with other abbreviations will only improve consistency. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 22:42 z
Because it's bloody ugly, that's why. Because it makes people want to read Peegee Wodehouse, when it ought to be Pee Gee Wodehouse. And note that it doesn't even solve the wrapping problem, because a line ending in P.G. is still quite bad.
If Wodehouse's initials+surname appear seven times in the body, well, that should probably be fixed, no? The standard is to use surname only at second reference, unless you're distinguishing him from someone else of the same name. --Trovatore (talk) 19:11, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but to me peegee and pee gee read and sound the same. That some professional style manuals specify no space or hair space (1/24 em), and that none of them mention this so-called ugliness tells me that this is the equivalent of your opinion or original research, and not a supportable argument for spaces.
It does solve the wrapping problem—the manuals which specify wrapping to this level of detail may discourage wrapping of proper names, but they absolutely prohibit breaks between initials. Supporting quotations are in the survey above.
I'm sorry, but I don't see any problem with the specific occurrences of Wodehouse's full name in the article—if you do, then please remove them and drop a note back here. That names with initials will appear only once at the beginning of a line in a single Misplaced Pages article is false. The scope is thousands of occurrences of hundreds of names. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 22:42 z
Editors are going to use every possible permutation of initials, stops, spaces and spelled out names. The question in a commercial publication would be one of how initials should be rendered throughout by mediawiki. So far, we haven't even gotten agreement on using one citation style, but good luck with that. I'd suggest that when there is an article the first usage should wikilink to that article, which in most cases will have fully spelled out names. If citing JJD Smith or J.J.D Smith or J. J. D. Smith (or whatever) it should be pipetricked as ] for JJD Smith. Of course a hybrid between tl:persondata and tl:initialism would be a better answer for any number of reasons. LeadSongDog (talk) 21:02, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
In my case, I'm supporting it with perfect logic and consistency. The ultimate argument is that if J. Edgar Hoover is correct, then J. E. Hoover would have been correct, had he been known by two initials. Also, J.E. Hoover is only halfway from the sloppily typed J.E.Hoover -- and yes it looks gastly. LarRan (talk) 21:24, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, but I don't see any support for that argument in any literature, while I have cited professional style manuals whose advice contradicts it. It amounts to “I like it that way.” I have also found no support for the “two abbreviations vs one abbreviation” assertion.
Both spaced and unspaced initials can be considered correct, but a line break between initials is demonstrably incorrect. The only simple, consistent way to keep things within the realm of correctness is to type the initials tight. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 22:42 z
We aren't going to agree on this. Luckily we don't need to. The status quo, in which the MoS simply doesn't mention the issue, is not causing any problems. --Trovatore (talk) 22:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, the discussion doesn't look like it's going to go anywhere else. Perhaps I'll gather the evidence cited above, and put together a proposal for this discussion or the Village Pump. If you find any other relevant sources to cite, please mention them here and I'll include it in the proposal. You'd also have the opportunity to state your own ideas in any poll, of course. —MichaelZ. 2008-10-16 23:04 z
"The ultimate argument is that if J. Edgar Hoover is correct, then J. E. Hoover would have been correct, had he been known by two initials". Only if we assume a certain rule (that abbreviated forms have to mirror non-abbreviated forms in their spacing) that clearly is not recognised by all commenters here. Where is the evidence that this rule exists? Or is it more ad hoc nonsense? Ilkali (talk) 23:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
To be more clear: we have the same problem with J. Edgar Hoover, i.e. a line can end with J. and the next line could start with Edgar. Yet nobody would suggest J.Edgar Hoover, to avoid unwanted line-breaks between J. and Edgar. Still, T.S. is proposed as the appropriate solution to avoid line-breaks between T. and S.. I find that amazing.
To me, this is a process of maturing. First you realize that writing T.S.Eliot is not correct. 99% (at least) realize that there should be a space before Eliot. The next step is to realize that there should be a space between the initials, similar to the space between J. and Edgar. I think more and more editors (slowly) realize that, and I'm pretty convinced that nobody goes in the other direction. Yes, some tolerate the missing space (sighing heavily to themselves), but that's not the same as believing that it's correct.
And it's not ad hoc nonsense. Since when has logic ceased to apply on language and writing? Is your position less ad hoc? At least it's less logical.
To continue to repeat that leaving out a space between the initials is incorrect, after having read the survey of manuals which demonstrates that it is an acceptable style, is to ignore evidence and defy logic, no? —MichaelZ. 2008-10-17 15:13 z
"To be more clear: we have the same problem with J. Edgar Hoover, i.e. a line can end with J. and the next line could start with Edgar. Yet nobody would suggest J.Edgar Hoover, to avoid unwanted line-breaks between J. and Edgar". Firstly, linebreaks are not the only issue here. Secondly, our job is not to lead linguistic change. We are only justified in choosing from styles that are in common use, which J.Edgar Hoover is not.
"And it's not ad hoc nonsense. Since when has logic ceased to apply on language and writing?" The more you declare that your position is logical while ignoring every counterargument I provide, the more I think you don't know what the word means. Ilkali (talk) 12:49, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Naming conventions: hyphen is not used as a substitute for an en dash
Currently this guideline says:
When naming an article, a hyphen is not used as a substitute for an en dash that properly belongs in the title, for example in Eye–hand span.
Some people seem to think that, but I don't know of any good reason (apart from that categories are basically a pain and we can't really be bothered doing them right). I'd also like to know the answer, as I'm thinking about renaming lots of categories in line with the recent renaming of 1800s to 1800–1809, etc., and obviously I'd prefer to use dashes rather than hyphens to be consistent with the article names.--Kotniski (talk) 08:14, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Kotniski, it would be a significant service to the project if you'd do that. I know that His Grace the Duke of Waltham would be keen to pursue this as well. There is absolutely no reason at all that category names should not be as readable as article titles, and consistent with their punctuation and formatting. Tony(talk)08:20, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
As far as the decades go I would suggest at least creating redirects e.g. 1810–1819 → 1810s just in case the title used for the previous decade lends itself to naïve assumptions (or hell, might as well rename all the decades the same way). — CharlotteWebb14:28, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
How well do category redirects work these days? The dashes are preferable as the final outcome, but if people aren't willing to type them we might wind up with articles being undercategorized. This isn't a problem for ordinary wikilinks, because you can just put a redirect. --Trovatore (talk) 01:30, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Alas, I don't think there's any progress on this front (that I know of). That's why revisiting those category-move discussions would be an exercise in futility: there cannot be made an argument that consensus has changed. Since that fiasco, I've been meaning to initiate a discussion in the Pump about category redirects, but I wanted to bring myself up to speed with the status quo regarding categories in general first. As with many other things I've wanted to do lately, I haven't got round to it yet. (My ill health these days doesn't help much, either.)
If I remember well, the primary arguments against using dashes in category names are soft redirects (which slow down navigation) and the hard-to-combat miscategorisation and category fragmentation that would ensue, even if sporadic.
I think it would be nice if an editor saving an article after adding a redirecting category to it would receive a message to change the category. Rather unlikely, though. Waltham, The Duke of04:06, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
I was under the impression that category redirects now work (with the help of a bot to recategorize the members). At least, I've seen the bot in action a few times.--Kotniski (talk) 10:36, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Yes. Several people have at various times operated bots for this task. It would be easy to add a feature that nags the previous editor, but that might be more annoying than helpful. Anyone who has the page watchlisted would figure it out soon enough. A more elegant solution might be to make it impossible to create or link to two distinct pages (or categories) which differ only by the type of dashes used so if "FooBar" already exists, anyone linking to "FooBar" would get a link which points to and is rendered as the correct title. This would ensure that one or the other, but not both, can exist or be linked to. There would only need to be a few exceptions for -, –, —, etc. to exist as non-equivalent redirects (to articles about each type of punctuation). The devs are considering something largely similar to this for exotic and visually indistinguishable white-space characters (from non-latin unicode ranges). There was a very old bugzilla report which gained renewed interest after some oddball vandalism which made multi-word wikilinks turn red for no obvious reason (in fact, changing the type of space used). Dashes are a little less difficult to tell apart, but only to the trained eye (and by trained I mean familiar with the font used to display them and the urlencoding e.g. %E2%80%93 used to link them). — CharlotteWebb19:12, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
It seems to me that this rule conflicts with the WP:naming conventions general rules for no benefit, as in the text of an article redirects can take care of style issues like this one. When this issue was discussed briefly on the talk page of the naming conventions there were no consensus for it. The problem is that most people searching for a term are much more likely to use a hyphen than a dash so common usage dictates placing the name under a hyphen rather than a dash. --Philip Baird Shearer (talk) 10:48, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
All elements in a list should use the same grammatical form and should be consistently either complete sentences or sentence fragments.
When the elements are complete sentences, they are formatted using sentence case and a final period.
When the elements are sentence fragments, they are typically introduced by a lead fragment ending with a colon, are formatted using consistently either sentence or lower case, and finish with a final semicolon or no punctuation, except that the last element typically finishes with a final period.
to:
All elements in a list should use the same grammatical form and should be consistently either complete sentences or sentence fragments.
List items should start with a capital letter.
List items should not have a punctuation mark such as a period, comma, or semi-colon at the end, except if a list item is one or more full sentences, in which case there is a period, question mark, or exclamation point at the end.
This drops the recommendation on introducing the list with a colon. I don't think it's necessary to specify; doesn't the proper punctuation depends on the wording of the sentence? I don't think the introductory punctuation should depend on whether or not the list items are complete sentences or sentence fragments. The preferred style is not pretending that a list of sentence fragments is part of the previous sentence. (I really dislike the non-parallelism and gratuitous punctuation that introduces, anyway.) -- Beland (talk) 15:21, 14 October 2008 (UTC)
Your entry provides no good reason to change the current wording, IMO. Please note that WP:LISTS has been in a disordered state for some time. Tony(talk)14:10, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
Well, arguing in favor of the WP:LISTS recommendation:
It's consistent with tables, infoboxes, "Reference" sections, "See also" sections, "External links" sections, "Further reading" sections, disambiguation pages, and a large number of articles which have list-only sections. These lists do not add punctuation to the end of items that do not need it internally.
It agrees with my elementary school intuition - sentences end in a period, sentence fragments don't. Which is much simpler than learning a special rule where list items are treated differently if they are introduced in a particular way.
Pretending the list is part of the previous sentence makes the sentence excessively long, and makes nested lists extremely awkward.
It's more maintainable. Since punctuation is strictly parallel, no repairs are necessary if the order is changed or the list is extended.
It's what most people do naturally. I hit "Random article" a few dozen times, and the preponderance of the list items I saw were punctuation-free. Much of the rest of the Manual of Style itself doesn't even follow the list style it recommends. It would be a lot more work to force an artificial style on every list-bearing article that it would be to simply adopt the most common natural one.
As Beland's own list demonstrates, we will usually want an introductory colon even when the list elements are full sentences. On the other hand, a long introduction, consisting of several complete sentences, may be worsened by a colon.
This is therefore a matter on which we have no need to decide; we should be silent.
There are several other anomalous cases; some lists, for example membership lists in articles on international organizations, may well have no introduction beyond the section title. SeptentrionalisPMAnderson02:45, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
Numbered lists
I came across an instance on Schizophrenia which is not exactly covered by the instances where it's explicitly OK to use a numbered list. It has something like:
...must meet the following 3 criteria.
Explanation of first very complicated criterion
Rule 1
Rule 2
Rule 3
Second criterion
Third criterion
I think the numbering is useful for clarity, especially since the introduction says how many items there are to consider. I propose the following additional case to be added to the Manual of Style pronouncement on numbered lists:
When numbering is needed for clarity, such as with nested lists
Greetings, I notice the MOS is silent on excessive quotations. I recently encountered a number of articles replete with quotations (after GA review, I found them via peer review). There were various copyvios concerns which were addressed. However, the base question of - what extent of quoting is allowed? - was not answered by the MOS. I do not find large collections of quotes to be encyclopaedic. Can the manual be tightened? Anyone else have thoughts? Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 16:49, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
This edit removed a cited quotation of a hundred-plus words with the edit summary "copyright infringement." Was the quotation excessive? Fg2 (talk) 05:39, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Re: Headbomb: I refer to articles comprised solely or largely of quotations; where a paraphrased summary remains possible. Granted, this is perhaps not a style issue.
Re: Fg2: The policy is NFC#Text, and the question is: does the brief quotation serve to illustrate a point of view or establish context. In the case of the above, I argue that the quotation does establish context; and is thus permissable. Perhaps there is something I didn't know. Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 15:34, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, Lazulilasher. I appreciate the point of view of someone who has not been involved in editing the article. Having edited it from time to time, I might misjudge something like this. Fg2 (talk) 11:12, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
The manual at present doesn't appear to cover the case of a living person when describing the format of a date range. Whilst a dead person is formatted thus: "Anne Example (1900–99)", with an en-dash, a living person should presumably be: "Anne Example (1900–)". However, I've seen it done with an em-dash and a space, thus: "Anne Example (1900— )". I presume that's wrong, but it'd be nice to clarify the consensus, and mention it in the manual. – Kieran T14:20, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Something tells me that it's much more polite to the person to say "(b. 1900)" than to use an en dash to point to their death ("watch this space"). Tony(talk)16:10, 21 October 2008 (UTC)
Merging the zillions citation templates out there
Since the citations templates do not give uniform outputs, I've taken the liberty to write one that encompasses most of them. It is very bot-friendly, as all a bot would have to do is to replace {{cite X| with {{cite whatever-name-this-template-ends-up-with| and everything will be tidy up.
The template is (for now) located at {{User:Headbomb/Sandbox/Citation}} and it's been thoroughly test and handles everything I've thrown at it, with little to no problems (I'll detail them in a while). It's been designed with maximum compatibility in mind, so it will handle "conflicting parameters" like |author |first |last |author1 etc with no problems.
Features:
Wikilinks authors, publishers, dates automatically if even if no link is given.
Doesn't link authors specified with |author= or with |coauthors= as inputs on these parameters aren't consistent enough.
Handles and gives link to BIBCODE, PMID, PMC, ISBN, ISSN, DOI, OCLC, search.
Supports archives and accessdate
Summaries and quotes are seperated from the "reference" for easier reading
Warns if some important inputs are missing (like titles)
Known "problems:
Some fields that were manually wikilinked will display as ], but this can easily be avoided by telling to bot to remove the manual linking on these fields, and to pipe link using author and authorlink. Might cause problems with publishers.
|location and |publication-places technically conflict, but the template that use |publication-place don't use |location, so there's is no de facto conflict
Has some trouble handling dates in the "30 December 2008" format, as it will link to 30 December 2008 rather than 30 December2008. Problems can be avoided by telling the bot to place an ISO-format date instead. Autolink removed.
More might be discovered
Example with all parameters: (note: Inputs don't make much sense, I just wrote random stuff to fill all the parameters)
User:Headbomb/Sandbox/Citation
Saner examples: (Various cite templates used directly from wikipedia, nothing else changed. I don't remember which was which, but there were at least {{cite book}}, {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}}, and {{cite news}}.)
Feedback is appreciated. Test the template on existing pages (using the preview feature), try to "break" the template throwing weird combinations of parameters and see if it still does its job.
OPPOSE until at least the two following issues are solved:
Dates in citations should not be linked. While there might be a debate about whether a few selected dates (especially years) might be worthy of linking in the article text, there is no reason to link dates in citations.
The use of the term "ISO" which presumably refers to ISO 8601:2004(E) ISO 8601 (downloadable PDF from ISO). No software author should ever mention ISO 8601 without reading it. Will Headbomb certify that he or she has read the standard and that the proposed template complies with it (in particular, the requirement to always use the Gregorian calendar and the requirement to not use years outside the range 1583 through 9999)? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 03:30, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Hold your horses cowboy. there's nothing to oppose or support for now. I'm simply gathering feedback on it for now and to have a round of testing to expose the bugs and oddities I've missed. Details can be worked out later. But modifying it to not wikilink dates isn't very hard to do, and I'm saying ISO dates because we MoS folks all know what ISO dates are. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 04:10, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I strongly object to you using the term ISO. Much of the use of this term in Misplaced Pages constitutes either reckless disregard for the truth, or outright lies. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:18, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Gerry has raised central points that need to be addressed. I want to say that broadly, this is one of the best things that could happen at WP. We have lived for some time with a chaotic, decentralised, uncoordinated plethora of citation templates that has taken control of reference formatting away from article editors. The original intention to assist newbies who'd never had to write out a consistently formatted, information-complete reference list was a doubtful one, IMO, given that all that was required was a few models for people to copy and some simple guidelines. However, they've spread like leprosy since, so at least rationalising them can't help but be a good move. I'm keen to hear what SandyGeorgia says about this: she is one of our most experienced citation/verification reviewers and has to deal with the issues on a daily basis as FAC delegate. Tony(talk)03:43, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I dislike the massive number of redlinks. Could it only link them automatically if the page exists (using #ifexist) or would that be too much server load? (I'm thinking it would, in that case I think that feature may need to go...). That said I agree with Tony that this would be awesome once all the kinks are ironed out. Giggy (talk) 05:00, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
There are a lot of redlinks yes, I agree but I don't mind seeing them in references (personal preference here). However, I would argue that the redlinks would serve a couple of things.
Creating articles for these authors & publishing houses. Now for the authors, this may or may not be overkill, but if the redlinks are bothersome, people can always change |last=Boucher and |first=Bobby to |author=Boucher, Bobby and be done with the redlinks. For the publishing houses however, this would ensure that publishing houses get articles, and that we stop seeing things like John Wiley & Sons, INC in favour of John Wiley & Sons.
This is awesome. The toolbar thing will need to be rewritten, and someone should notify Dispenser so that the reflinks tool can be updated (if this goes forward). I agree with Giggy about minimizing redlinks where possible; what if it only linked publishers no matter what, but checked authors? Or some variation on that? What an excellent thing for you to do, well done! 05:11, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Headbomb has a point on publishers, so yeah, per Roux it might be a good idea to always link publishers but not link authors by default. At least, that's what my wish list says. Giggy (talk) 05:13, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Heh, and my wishlist says don't wikilink publishers... In my eyes, it's pretty pointless (much more so than wikilinking dates, for instance.) --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 05:30, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
Like Tony, I generally applaud the effort here. I'm certainly opposed to the proliferation of citation templates. Indeed, this is one reason (among various) why I don't use the "cite X" templates, and stick to {{citation}} instead. A couple of quick points:
I don't see the point of automatic wikilinking. In general, I believe wikilinking publishers is un-necessary. And while I'm more of a fan of wikilinking authors, given how many authors have articles that are not strictly under their own names (e.g. "David Smith " or "David S. Smith" rather than "David Smith"), such wikilinking would seem to be haphazard at best.
I don't see why there is a semi-colon after the final author (or indeed after any of the authors).
For me, it would be important that the template could function with {{harvnb}}.
Well concerning the sea of red, the authors that shouldn't be linked can be written with |author= instead of |first= and |last=. I realize that this isn't optimal, but I think that it's something that we can live with, especially considering that a good deal of the time, the authorlinks are very nice to have. And it's also something that would encourage people to write articles about a bunch of stuff.
As for the semi-colon, it's the result of some (justifiable for now at least) laziness since the last author listed depends on what parameters aren't used (and there are a lot of them). As for why I've put semicolons between authors, it's simply because when reading something like "Robert, Jim, Smith, James, Kelvin, Michel, John, Paul, Bondar, Roberta" is very confusing compared to "Robert, Jim; Smith, James; Kelvin, Michel; John, Paul; Bondar, Roberta" is more easily parsed by readers.
I'll look into {{harvnb}} but I won't promise anything for now. It might be a template that is simply too difference form the others to merge.
Pernickerty details: Being a minimalist, I applaud efforts to remove redundant features from such stylised lists, since it looks cleaner and is easier to read, usually. While I'd go further than what people here would accept, may I suggest a few changes that are by no means radical or non-standard. Can the semicolon before the (year) be removed? Unsure why we need italics and quotes for the title. Would be please to see sentence case rather than title case for titles of articles and books, at least in your examples; this is standard nowadays, although not always observed. Can't stand "page(s)"—can we have just "p." and "pp." plus space? Your final dots are not consistent: some have not dot (after external links) and ISBNs, and after "Mich.)", some do have dots. I'd go for no dots if others can cope with it. Why try to beat the line break with another signal that the item has finished? I pressed a while ago for the redundant "on" to be removed (Retrieved 2007-05-16 is exceedingly clear and shorter). I suppose we have to have the hard-to-read and, for readers who aren't familiar with it, potentially ambiguous ISO dates? What's wrong with giving them the choice df and mf (int. or US normal date formats)? Tony(talk)05:38, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
(or hell, might as well rename all the decades the same way). — CharlotteWebb 14:28, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
