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==Style discussions elsewhere==
== Request for comment: Deprecation of the Template:English variant notice ==
<!-- START PIN -->{{Pin message}}<!-- ] 06:15, 18 June 2029 (UTC) -->{{User:ClueBot III/DoNotArchiveUntil|1876457735}}<!-- END PIN -->
Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to ''Concluded'' when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.


===Current===
An editor has asked for a discussion on the ] of ]. ].<small>—]</small><sup>(]</sup><sub style="margin-left:-2.0ex;">])</sub> 07:00, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
(newest on top)
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* ] - A ]/] question
* ] – Plural possessive ] question
* ]
* ] – to use policy-based material on "Christ" found in an essay but more useful in a guideline. (Nov. 2024)
* ] – Has stylistic implications (punctuation, leading "The", etc.) despite not being intrisically an MoS matter. (Nov. 2024)
* ] - use of flag icons in infobox per ] (Sep.–Nov. 2024) – See also prior ].
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=== Forum shopping notice ===
'''Pretty stale but not "concluded":'''
{{Moved discussion to|Misplaced Pages:Administrators' noticeboard/Requests for closure#Administrative}}
* RfC needed on issue raised at ] (June–July 2004, archived without resolution). Presently, the royalty/nobility wikiprojects have imposed putting British peerage titles in place of names in biographical infoboxes, against ], ], and the template's documentation. Either the community will accept this as a best practice and the guidelines changed to accomodate it, or it should be undone and the infobox used consistently and as-intended.
The virtually unanimous consensus a week or two ago to deprecated the huge banner version of the ENGVAR templates (see ]) is being forum-shopped in an "RFC" that is not actually an RFC, at ] (and ] wouldn't even be the right venue for such a discussion anyway; it would be ], since this is not a proposal). I don't know what the intent is, though I note that I announced a day or two ago that I was working on the ] for these and a categorization merger plan, and the pseudo-RFC, pseudo-proposal does not appear to have understood anything in the previous discussion, but is an odd "we need ENGVAR templates!" overreaction. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 14:37, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
* A ] revision RfC needs to be drafted, based on ] (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024, archived without resolution). JOBTITLES remains a point of confusion and conflict, which the guidelines are supposed to prevent not cause.
* ] – Involves ] (plus ], ], ]). Covers more than thread name implies. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' Stalled without resolution; at least 3 options identified which should be put to an RfC.
* ] – Involves ], ], ], ], etc. (Sep. 2023 –) ''Result:'' Still unresolved, though consensus seems to lean toward permitting lower-case "prophet" when needed for disambiguation, but no agreement yet on specific guideline wording.
* ] – Specifically in tables, possibly elsewhere. ] (at the table "General guidelines on use of units") has an example of existing use that is being challenged, and material at ] is also at issue. (Dec. 2023 –) ''Result:'' Still unresolved.
* ] – Help page is conflicting with ] and ] on a technical point. (Aug. 2023 – Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' No objection to fixing it, and a suggestion to just do it ]ly, but the work actually has to be done.
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{{block indent|1=<nowiki />
==Pronoun pref==
'''Capitalization-specific:'''
Regarding ] I am wondering if we can include ] as an illustrative example.
{{Excerpt| Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters|Current|subsections=no}}
:''This applies in references to any phase of that person's life, unless the subject has indicated a preference otherwise''
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===Concluded===
JM Kroc has stated a desire, in ]ity, to be addressed by whatever pronoun is appropriate to how they are presenting. So since Kroc presented as male for the earlier portion of life, it would be appropriate to use male pronouns earlier in their life.
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* ] – Use en dash not hyphen in four paired names? ''Result:'' Yes.
* ] – In short, should we use odd-ball stylization of band names and the like to match their marketing? (July–Aug. 2024) ''Result:'' No formal closure, but a clear consensus against this idea, and against the underlying "conflict" premise; the proponent simply did not understand the policy.
** Various simultaneously executed RMs by the same proponent all concluded against the desired over-stylizations (usually ALL-CAPS) – some by affirmative consensus against, some by no consensus to move.
* ] – Should British peers use their peerage title in place of their name in infoboxes? (June–July 2004) ''Result:'' archived without resolution. This needs to be RfCed.
* ] – ]: "Shays'" or "Shays's"? ''Result:'' "Shays's". No objective rationale was presented for an exception to the guideline, and evidence shows "Shays's" common in source material even if "Shays'" is also common, especially in older sources.
* ] – Should multiple entries be formatted as a list or a single phrase? (Apr.–May 2024) ''Result:'' 4:1 against proposed change to a list format; alternative idea at end neither accepted nor rejected.
* ] – Do flags in this infobox serve a "useful purpose" per ] or are they primarily decorative and should be removed? (Apr.–May 2004) ''Result:'' 3:1 against inclusion; the 1 did not read or understand the entire guideline. See also later ].
* ] – Primarily on a recent habit of military-conflict articles having collages of 4, 6, or even more images in their infobox. (Mar.–May 2024) ''Result:'' No formal closure, but a clear consensus against this practice; image galleries (when appropriate at all per ]) belong in the article body.
* ] – ] (and ]) in "day of year" (DoY) article candidates for "featured list". (Feb. 2024) ''Result:'' No formal closure, and little clear consensus other than that ] / ] apply, as does ].
* ] – On ] vs. ], etc. (Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' No clear consensus reached; a great deal of sourcing is provided, but there's a feeling that real-world usage varies considerably on a case-by-case basis, so ] might invididually trump ]. Worth revisiting in a few years to see whether source usage has shifted.
* ] (moved from WP:VPPOL) – Yet another round of this long-term, multi-RfC process. Consensus about "deadnames" seemed possible this time but was mostly elusive. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' no consensus to change the wording of MOS:GENDERID based on this proposal; consensus against changing "should be included" to "may be included".
** Related: See numerous previous deadname-related and more general GENDERID discussions listed below.
* ] – Proposal to merge a "guideline in all but name" into MoS. (Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' consensus to promote to a guideline (after some significant revisions).
* ] – Peripherally related to ] and ]. (Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' Consensus to increase to 250px.
* ] – ] has long been considered too complicated and hard to follow. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' input stalled out over the holidays, then it was archived without resolution.
** ] – Abortive, unclear RfC that resolved nothing. (May–Sep. 2023) ''Result:'' unanimously opposed.
* ] – Involves ], ], ], ]. (Oct.2023 – Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' Archived without closure. There does not seem to be a compelling reason for this ALL-CAPS behavior in the template/module, but it was still happening in Nov. 2024.
** Discussion re-opened at ] (Nov. 2024). Changed to lowercase ; we'll see if that sticks.
* ] – Involves ], ], ], ], ], etc. (Oct. 2023 – Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' No formal closure, but there seems to be no appetite for diverging from ], and the OP commingled unrelated cases like stagenames of real people.
* ] – About use of {{tlx|sronly}} around table captions (which are primarily for screen readers) to hide them from the usual non-screen-reader view, only when their content repeats what is in the table headers. (Nov.–Dec. 2023) ''Result'': Archived without firm resolion. As there was but one opposer of the idea, there is no consensus against doing this. If more opposition arose or some reason, open an RfC about it.
* ] – Involves ]. (Oct. 2023 – Feb. 2024) ''Result:'' Thinly attended, but there does seem to be a linguistics standard to render ]s in {{sc2|smallcaps}}, so this has been accounted for and added to the exception lists at ] (since our articles are consistently doing it based on that sourcing).
* ] – On ] and whether to add another example to it. (Oct. 2023) ''Result'': Discussion archived without a clear conclusion.
* ] – On use of a template to link Korean characters to Wiktionary (Jan. 2024). ''Result'': general consensus to not do that excessive linking; and a bot request made to clean it up.
* ] – Use an en dash instead of a hyphen? ''Result'': Withdrawn
*] – Move review on Pākehā settlers vs. European settlers in New Zealand, related to ], ], ], ] (Feb. 2024). ''Result:'' There were many steps in this process but ultimately ] was moved to ].
* ] – To treat word-substitutions ("U" for "You", "❤️" for "Heart", {{nowrap|"..."}} for elided wording), as "words" for the purposes of a particular line-item about title-case treatment. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024) ''Result:'' Done, with unanimous support.
* ] – To merge a line-item (about stylization of stage/pen names) out of MOS:INITIALS (where the one of the examples is only semi-pertinent anyway) and into ], leaving behind a cross-reference to MOS:TM from ]. (Nov.–Dec. 2023) ''Result:'' Because of some things that apply to personal not corporate names, this ended up not being practical; intead the MOS:BIO material was cleaned up and cross-references between the two MOS sections was improved; description at: ]. No objections or other issues have come up.
* ] – Proposal to add something to ]. (Oct.–Dec. 2023) ''Result:'' "no consensus as to whether or how to standardize ISBNs or whether to subject them to a CITEVAR-like rule .... The closest thing we have to a consensus here is that spaces (option 4) should not be used."
* ] – About changing ] to specify a format (new or otherwise) for betting-odds ratios. (Oct.–Dec. 2023) ''Result:'' No formal closure, but apparent general agreement that the <code>:</code> style for ratios in general applies to odds ratio in particular like the rest, and MOS:RATIOS updated to say this.
* ] – Primarily a matter of article title, but there are related issues such as capitalisation. (Nov. 2023) ''Result:'' basically stalled out, without resolution/action. Specific revision proposal is needed.
* ] – Also involves ]. RfC on "season 3, episode 7" vs. "season three, episode seven" styles (and probably also "seventh season" vs. "7th season", etc.). (Oct.–Nov. 2023) ''Result:'' "season and episode numbers should be expressed as numerals in tables, headings, and article body" (revision of a previous, less clear close).
* ] – On how WP uses terms like "terrorist/terrorism" and "freedom fighter", specifically to add a requirement "these words should only be used in quotations or referencing third-party use of the term". (Oct. 2023) ''Result:'' "nearly unanimously opposed".
* ] – Involves ], ], etc. (Sep.–Oct. 2023) ''Result:'' "rough consensus to allow for lowercase or capital letters after dashes or colons in article titles, section titles, and list items".
* ] – ] / ] and Northern Ireland again. (Sep.–Oct. 2023) ''Result:'' No formal closure, but near-unanimous consensus against using national flags as ethnicity symbols.
* ] – Involves ] and could have implications for what the guideline says due to wildfire news bringing many more editorial eyes to that page than to ]. (Aug.–Sep. 2023) ''Result:'' Archived without closure or any clear consensus; the general gist seems to be that the state of Hawaii is named Hawaii, the island is named Hawaiʻi, and diacritics (] and ]) should not be suppressed in the more localized names (and the US Geological Survey, which sets official placenames, along with the Hawaiʻi Board on Geographic Names, which basically tells USGS what to do in Hawaii/Hawaiʻi, both agree).
* ] – ] stuff. (Aug. 2023) ''Result:'' Not moved. Lots of invalid arguments, and confused attempt to pit ] against MoS (COMMONNAME is not a style policy, never has been one, and never will be; every proposal to incorporate a style matter into a policy has failed).
* ] – Wikiproject propsal to change ] or ]. (Aug. 2023) ''Result:'' wrong venue, and to the extent people commented on using 24-hour time, it was mostly opposed.
** ] – Above question was raised at a specific article as a "local consensus" matter. (Aug.–Sep. 2023) ''Result:'' unanimous opposition to 24-hour time.
* ] – Follow-up to "unfruitful" discussions at ], etc. (Aug. 2023) ''Result:'' No formal closure; general agreement basically boils down to "write clearly and don't confuse or over-simplify with an adjective".
* ] – Wikiproject proposal to change rank abbreviations (to NATO style) in ]. (Aug. 2023) ''Result:'' no formal closure, but overwhelming consensus to stick with MoS and ignore NATO preferences.
* ] – And some alternative ideas, including merger into ]. (Aug. 2023) ''Result:'' No formal closure, and the idea was mostly opposed, with no effect but returning all of the shortcuts (], ], ], ], ]) that someone changed to point to the ] essay to now point back to the real guideline at ].
** The essay has since been retooled to be an exegesis of the guideline, though attempts at ]ing are likely to continue, as this is one of our most hotbed internal topics. See also the guideline ], and the essays ] and ].
** ] – Proposal to move the MoS material into WP:BLP. (Aug. 2023) ''Result:'' Procedurally closed as "premature".
* ] – Should the en dash have spaces around it; should it be an em dash? ''Result:'' moved to spaced en dash.
* ] and ] – Relating to concordance between wikidata descriptions and enwiki "short description". (Aug. 2023) ''Result:'' Good summary: "as long as you choose a comprehensible form, your edits are fine. However, you should not change existing descriptions for stylistic reasons, and also not to unify desriptions for a given set of items"; also observations that various languages, e.g. Spanish, do not use an en dash for this purpose. So, Wikidata will not be changing away from hyphen as default, and any desire to have WD material, like automatically provided short descriptions, will have to do that change on our end.
* ] and ] – Use "&" or "and"? (see ]). ''Result:'' Follow ]; the essay ] conflicting with the guideline and with ] policy was noted, and this ] was fixed in Jan. 2024. The second of these actually closed as "no consensus" because the ] who closed it did not know of ] policy and incorrectly treated policy- and guideline-based arguments as no stronger than those based on a contrary essay.
* ] – Some re-wording proposals, and even a suggestion to remove the language entirely. (July 2023) ''Result:'' No formal closure, and did not result in wording changes, though a re-do might come to such a conclusion.
* ] – move to ] like ], or is there a reason to hyphenate as ]? (July 2023) ''Result:'' Not moved. The closer actually misunderstood the guideline wording badly, and this has created a ] policy failure with titles of other such entities including AFL–CIO, and the Famous Players-Lasky decision covered just below. This probably needs to be re-done.
** ] – ditto. ''Result:'' Procedurally closed as a ] of the RM above.
* ] –&nbsp;proposal to use dash instead of hyphen. (June–July 2023) ''Result:'' Use the dash per ]; a followup RM to add "Corporation" to the title rejected that idea despite ] supporting it, one of several recent RM incidents suggesting that at least some portions of the page do not enjoy consensus.
* ] – Proposal to change ] that "encyclopaedic significance of the deadname established through in-depth analysis or discussion of the name in high quality sources, or if they were notable prior to transitioning". (June–July 2023) ''Result:'' "no clear consensus".
* ] – Primarily about "When should Misplaced Pages articles include the former name of a deceased trans or nonbinary person who was not notable prior to transitioning?" (May–June 2023) ''Result:'' "there is a consensus against using the former names of transgender or non-binary people, living or dead, except when of encyclopedic interest or when necessary to avoid confusion. Also, there is clear consensus that a former name is not automatically of encyclopedic interest. Where, exactly, the lines of encyclopedic interest and avoiding confusion are is not simple or clear and will likely need discussion on individual articles, although there is definitely space for more guidance in the MOS". This has let to a lot of follow-on discussion and dispute.
* ] – Proposal to move section to naming-convention guideline. (June 2023) ''Result:'' no pro or con input; re-opened (Jan. 2024) on main MoS page.
* ] – Proposal to make anti-deadnaming rules apply to the long-deceased as well. (Apr.–May 2023) ''Result:'' No consensus to remove ''living'', so "the ''living'' qualifier, shall remain in place". The May–June 2023 RfC above was an outgrowth of this discussion.
* ] – essential information, or icon cruft? (Mar.–Apr. 2023) ''Result:'' "There is consensus against inclusion of rank icons."
* ] – involves ] and ]. (Feb.–Mar. 2023) ''Result:'' no consensus to use "v"; continue to use "vs." or "vs" as suits the ] of the article.
* ] – Should an external style guide be used in place of ] in chapter lists (e.g. ])? (Jan.–Feb. 2023) ''Result:'' Insufficient input to reach a consensus. Needs to be RfCed. But the {{lang|la|status quo}} default principle is that a lack of consensus to create an exception to general rules does not result in such an exception.
* ] – Open discussion as to whether decimalized years should be used in personal biographies. (Jan. 2023) ''Result:'' discussion archived; majority felt that decimalized years are not standard in biographical prose and should be limited to a statistical/mathematical context.
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== Retain or remove citation indicators in quoted text? ==
Even now, with Kroc assuming a female name and central identity, this also means they can be referred to as male in present day if presenting as a male, like for example if Kroc was to compete in another male powerlifting event, set a male world record, compete in a male bodybuilding event, or challenge ] in a UFC fight or something. However is Kroc is dressed in female clothing it would be appropriate to use female pronouns. ] (]) 17:36, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
:You are interpreting the rule correctly. If anyone gives you trouble, make sure you have a link to a quote of Kroc stating his or her preference. A personal blog is acceptable in this case. ] (]) 18:50, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
::I believe that this is saying that Kroc is the exception to MOS:IDENTITY because she prefers to be thought of as someone who actually '''was''' a man before her body was changed with surgery, not a woman trapped in a man's body. ] (]) 18:56, 14 August 2015 (UTC)
:::I believe this is why ] is poorly thought out. It was authored by wanna-be "allies" not by transgender people, and they're making {{em|incorrect}} generalized, politicized assumptions and ]ing them here. I know quite a few TG people, and only a small minority are into this "]" stuff and trying to erase their past, though many, yes, did feel they were misgendered from an early age. These experiences, sentiments about them, and actual expectations differ {{em|widely}} and frequently. MOS (and, should this be moved, any other policy or guideline) should not attempt to "legislate" some language police ]s' personally preferred one-size-fits-all solution, but approach this from a "how to best serve the readership while accounting for ] subjects' interests where reasonable" perspective like we do everything else. The huge thread atop ] indicates the general shape how to approach this: Use clarifying language (e.g. "Kaitlyn (then Bruce) Jenner won the , competing as a man"), and avoid pronouns. This is not rocket science, it's just clear writing. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 00:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::], what do you support the rule should be changed to?? Please simply reveal what you think the paragraph that starts with "Any person whose gender might be questioned..." ] (]) 13:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


Is it acceptable to remove citation indicators – ¹ or (Gorgon, 1993) – that appear within quoted text (this would be to improve readability). I'm not referring to citing quoted material, but to citation marks ''within'' quoted material. Thanks! ] (]) 12:18, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
== RfC: piping a wikilink for the sole purpose of inserting the 's ==


:Yes. References to footnotes are usually silently omitted, as they are not a part of the text flow anyway. ] (]) 11:52, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
Hi! You may be interested in ]. It is about <code><nowiki>] administration</nowiki></code> vs. <code><nowiki>]'s administration</nowiki></code> wikilinks. Thanks in advance! -- ] (]) 04:54, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
::Thanks. Is this addressed in the MoS? I couldn't find mention ]. This would seem a common situation when citing academic sources. ] (]) 15:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
:::I added it while doing some other cleanup. It's entirely normal to silently (not with "...") remove inline citations from quoted material, since WP isn't providing the source info, and to the reader it will be just be frustrating (they'll go looking for "Smith 1997" or whatever, and not find it). If our article is also citing the same source, then linking the quoted citation to our citation might be useful, but shouldn't be seen as manadatory. A general principle of quotation (inline or block) is to only quote what is pertinent, what is contextually necessary for our purposes; otherwise we're wandering into over-quotation which is both poor writing and apt to be a copyright issue unless the source is public-domain. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 13:55, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Thanks. Your addition is helpful and doesn't seem to overcomplicate things. I realized the primary aim with quoted material is not to forensically reproduce it from the source (as I'd kinda been doing), it's to accurately represent the meaning as it appears in the full context of the source. Which makes minor silent adjustments for readability fine, provided meaning is strictly preserved – comprehension and judgement are of course required. ] (]) 17:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)


== Stale advice: slashes have been line-breaks since 2005 (Unicode 4.1.0) ==
== Include country when mentioning placenames? ==


{{alink|Slashes (strokes)}} says "On the other hand, if two long words are connected by an unspaced slash, an {{tl|wbr}} added after the slash will allow a linebreak at that point."
There is a disagreement between two editors at ] as to whether placenames mentioned (as locations of copies of the statue) should, or should not, include "United States" and "England". One view is {{tq|if people are too ignorant to know that California is in America and Lincolnshire is in England (or are too lazy to click a link) then that's their fault. We shouldn't have to awkwardly and unnecessarily insert country names after every place}}. Another view is {{tq|in an international encyclopedia such as this we need to give full place names with country - not everyone who reads this will recognise every US state (I sometimes forget whether "Michigan" is in Canada or USA) or British county}}.


I've recently tweaked a couple of articles doing this, and realized that my browser will allow breaks after slashes without any special markup. This is part of the . Looking into the archives, it was added to support breaking URLs between and .
I cannot find anything in ] to help: the section on ] is about choice of name, historic name, etc, not level of context given for the name.


It's been 19 years. Do we still need this advice? I ask because ''some'' parts of WP are aggressively backward-compatible: {{tl|wbr}} still expands to <code>&lt;wbr/>&amp;#8203;</code> since apparently IE7 and earlier don't support <code>&lt;wbr/></code>. But I seriously doubt that WP is ''consistently'' backward-compatible; I'm sure there are lots of more recent edits where the editors didn't see a problem with long /-separated lists on their browsers and didn't do anything tricky. ] (]) 17:20, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
(a) If there is guidance about this somewhere, please show us where.


:Look at Good articles (or former Good articles) from years ago they read like they do now and it just shows that the Manual of Style will stay exactly the same as it has been for 18 years unfortunately. ] (]) 02:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
(b) Perhaps, if there is no such guidance, there should be?


==Input needed on disagreement over where the lifespan goes in relation to a baronetcy or a peerage title==
MOS afficionadoes would be welcome to chip in to the discussion at ]. Thanks. ]] 13:55, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
] and I disagree on where the lifespan goes in relation to a name that includes a baronetcy or a peerage title. It started with Muéro removing honorifics from the lead of several articles on peers (many of which I have on my watchlist), following the recently changed guidelines at ]. This is not controversial, but in their edits, he also removed a comma unrelated to the honorifics, but called for by ] ("''Don't let other punctuation distract you from the need for a comma, especially when the comma collides with a bracket or parenthesis''").
:Having it specified would be useful. From what I've seen, the norm is similar to that of ]. If the place is widely known (e.g., California or New York City) there is no need to specify its location to a wider geographical area. If the place is relatively unknown to a ''global'' audience (e.g., Iowa or Akron) or there are multiples of that location (e.g., Cleveland) then we should specify it (which for the latter would disambiguate it). ] ] <small>Please &#123;&#123;]&#125;&#125;</small> 17:04, 16 August 2015 (UTC)
*As far as places in the US are concerned, as long as the State name (California, Texas, Wisconsin, etc.) is included there is no need for "United States" be included ''as well''. The average English speaking reader (our audience) does not need to be told that ] is in the United States... because he/she will already know that ] is in the United States. I would say the same assumption of a preexisting familiarity will be true for the Provinces in Canada, the States and Territories of Australia, and the Counties of the UK.
:However, the assumption of a preexisting familiarity will not extend to States/Departments/Provinces/Regions of other countries. The typical English speaker probably will not be aware of the provinces of ]... so adding ] when mentioning towns in ] would be helpful.
:In other words, I would object to creating a one-size-fits-all "rule" for this. Take it on a case by case basis. ] (]) 12:27, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
::I'm wary about making assumptions about our "typical" reader knows, particularly when writing a general encyclopedia where it is often good practice to state the obvious. According to ], the countries with the second, third, and fourth largest English-speaking populations are India, Pakistan, and Nigeria. My knowledge of the interior geography of those countries is spotty at best; it would be very presumptuous to assume someone there must have a detailed knowledge of mine.--] (]) 13:29, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
:::For those who don't know that Ohio is in the United States... well, that's what links are for. ] (]) 13:42, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*'''NOTE''': As far as the specific article (ie ] is concerned... I have attempted to resolve the issue by simply reorganizing the article a bit... I have added "by country" section headers. With section headers that mention the name of the country, there is no longer a need to add the country name every time we mention a town's name (the reader will know that the town is in the US or UK etc because the section header ''says'' so). This may not necessarily resolve the generalized question, but hopefully it will resolve the immediate dispute that raised that question. (Sometimes it helps to think "outside the box"). ] (]) 14:24, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*It agree with this: {{tq|As far as places in the US are concerned, as long as the State name (California, Texas, Wisconsin, etc.) is included there is no need for "United States" be included as well.}} But I know that many do not. This should be settled with a site-wide, well-advertised RfC, mentioned at ] and ]. We keep coming back to this without resolution. It's getting perennial. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 00:59, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


I pointed this out to them, and they acknowledged the error, but then they instead started to leave another comma in place, a comma that was required by the now obsolete guideline. I can't find the guideline in the history of this article, but it went something like this:
== RfC: Are personal pronouns (including "who") to be avoided for fictional characters? ==
:''For people with a baronetcy or a peerage, the post-nominals should be separated from each other, <u>and from the name</u>, by a comma, for consistency's sake.'' (my underscore)


That is the comma Muéro left in place, and the result was this:
{{rfc|style|lang|rfcid=FBD9125}}
John Doe, 1st Baron Doe, (1 January 1801 – 31 December 1881), was a Whig politician ...


I pointed out to Muéro that this is also wrong, and that punctuation rarely – if ever – precedes a parenthetical expression. But they are adamant that it should be there.
Is it incorrect to use personal pronouns such as "he", "she", or "who" to refer to fictional characters? For example:


So here we are. I'd like input from the project, and I'm sure Muéro would like that too.
:: Nelvana is a fictional superhero '''who''' first appeared in ''Triumph-Adventure Comics #1''.
: vs.
:: Nelvana is a fictional superhero '''that''' first appeared in ''Triumph-Adventure Comics #1''.


The discussion originated on ], but I'm copying it here, and closing it there, while notifying them.
: ]&nbsp;] 09:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)


===The discussion on Muéro's talk page===
Hello.


Thank you for your contributions. Regarding your edit of ], and similar edits removing postnoms per the new guidelines, please don't remove the comma '''''after''''' the parenthetical birth–death expression. It's supposed to be there per ]: "''Don't let other punctuation distract you from the need for a comma, especially when the comma collides with a bracket or parenthesis''".
===Discussion (pronouns for fictional characters)===


Thank you. ] (]) 15:50, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
* There are editors who insist that, since a character is not a living human, it cannot be referred to with a personal pronoun. I am not aware of any style guide that recommends avoiding personal pronouns for characters, nor am I aware of this being generally true in spoken or written English (or why it should be). Some editors nevertheless change "who" to "that" in articles on fictional characters, as Lacking evidence from real-world usage or styleguide recommendations, this appears pointless at best, and in many cases unnatural and awkward.
** Real-world evidence indicates
** Styleguides seem to be entirely silent on the (non-)issue.
** The only off-Wiki source I can find that even addresses the issue is which concludes "... it is not at all unwarranted that a personal pronoun such as 'he' be (nonconnivingly) used to refer to such a character." (referring to Sancho Panza).
** This line from the ] article would be absurd with a "that" in place of the "who": ''"The majority of the books' plot covers seven years in the life of the orphan Potter, who, on his eleventh birthday, learns he is a wizard."'' Similarly this line from the ] FA, where replacing "with whom" with "with which" would do unspeakable damage: ''"Robin was introduced, based on Finger's suggestion, because Batman needed a "Watson" with whom Batman could talk."''
** Real-world examples from ''Britannica'':
***
***
*:]&nbsp;] 09:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*::How widespread is this problem? Did this just come up once or more than once? If lots of people are getting confused by this issue, then an addition to the MoS is warranted. ] (]) 12:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*::: This has been "standard" at WP:COMIC for longer than I've been here. I'm not aware of any other WikiProject that supports the idea, but the editors at WP:COMIC have come to believe that their local decisions are valid elsewhere (for instance, disambiguating all comics character articles with (comics) where (character) is standard elsewhere, which has resulted in endless moves at articles like ] and ]). ]&nbsp;] 22:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*:::This came up a couple of years ago at ]. My comment then was: I'm a strong supporter of the ] guideline, but I don't think it suggests we should grammatically treat fictional characters as inanimate objects; that's just not how English works. That interpretation would lead to truly absurd text: "It fights an assortment of villains assisted by its crime-fighting partner, Robin." *Of course not. The only reason ''that'' sounds less glaringly wrong is because it is increasingly common to use ''that'' when referring to people, however, doing so is still widely considered an error, and should be avoided.--] (]) 13:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*How is this any different from centuries of literary criticism where people have referred to fictional characters as "he" or "she"? See ] for the first one who came to mind. ]] 13:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*:OK, that's not the best of articles, lots of unsourced stuff, but ] is a Good Article and refers to the character as "she" throughout. I wonder if there are any FAs for fict characters. ]] 13:38, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*::Yes. ]. FA, and "he becomes increasingly formidable, powerful and ultimately sinister as the novels progress". Or am I missing something, and superheros are in some way different (beyond their superpowers) from characters in novels? ]] 13:43, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*::: This appears to be a pet issue of the superhero faction of WP:COMIC, but they do make the claim that it applies to all fictional characters, so if any of them were interested enough in any of the articles you've linked to, I imagine they'd make the same change. ]&nbsp;] 21:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*:::This is the fairly classic "popular culture isn't as good as older but still popular culture which has become known as heritage, literature, and etc--at least on Misplaced Pages" bias that spawned as a counterforce to the overwhelming documentation of fictional elements relative to "scholarly" elements prior to 2007 or so. It's nothing new. --] (]) 15:08, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
* There is a somewhat interesting question hidden in the question of: what about characters that appears as both genders (aka genderbent) at some point in their history? I can't think of any off the top of my head presently, but I suspect we'll be seeing more of them as time passes and cultural barriers come down. --] (]) 15:11, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*:I'm not confident of that, Izno. The question seems to be "Should we refer to fictional characters the same way we'd refer to real people?" The answer is "Yes (and really why did you have to ask?)." I imagine we'd refer to a genderfluid fictional character the same way we'd refer to a genderfluid human, though for actual fictional beings who do not have gender at all, like fictional aliens, we could find some precedent in the literary criticism of 20th century science fiction. ] (]) 17:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*::Genderfluidity isn't what I'm getting at, actually. I'm talking about characters who are distinctly one or the other given a particular serialization referencing that character e.g. . Yours is probably still the correct answer, but it's an interesting question because there's no actual definite "he"/"she" then. "Predominantly depicted as a he/she" would be a phrase I'd expect to see in that case, I suppose. --] (]) 18:09, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*::: This discussion is supposed to be about animate vs inanimate pronouns. ]&nbsp;] 21:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*This matter seems to be, "The only reason we don't have a rule about this is because it's a non-issue the overwhelming majority of the time." There seems to be no serious question regarding what the rule ''is'', only whether we need to use the space to tell people about it. ] (]) 17:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
*We're not going to use ''pronouns'' because they are fictional? What kind of weird fundamentalist idea is this? Refer to fictional persons as we would real people. ] ] 23:31, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
:* And the answer for gender-unclear individuals is "they", which is been the gender neutral 3p singular pronoun. Chaucer and Shakespeare used it and people who say they don't use it even use it speech unknowingly all the time. ] ] 23:33, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


:Ah, good catch. I can't wait for the day when nobility titles are also excluded entirely, which would make that comma unnecessary anyway. ]<sup>(]/])</sup> 15:58, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
* I don't think there's a universal answer here. When talking in terms of the fiction (including talking about the development of the character in the work of fiction such as the Batman/Robin example given above), refering to the characters with "who" rather than "that" makes sense, because we're writing about a fictional person at that point. But when we're talking about the character as strictly an element in an out-of-universe fashion, as the lead example gives, referring to the character as a thing ("that" instead of "who") makes more sense. But it all really depends on the context and I don't think one rule can capture all uses easily. --] (]) 23:39, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
**^^You understand it '''perfectly'''. That is exactly how it is.] (]) 23:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
*** You mean, that's how you wish it were. Meanwhile, back in reality ... ]&nbsp;] 23:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
** It's fine to have a belief, Masem, but
**# where in the real world does this belief hold currency?
**# in what tangible way is the encyclopaedia improved by adhering to such a belief? In what way could the encyclopaedia suffer damage by using personal pronouns for fictional characters?
**# how would this hold for hypothetical (thus fictional) persons? e.g. is "There will never be a person who can travel backward in time." an error?
**: ]&nbsp;] 23:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)


::Hello again.
::::I think the difference is understanding when the character is being discussed as a character whether within the work of fiction or as the development of that work of fiction (to which "he/she/who/etc." type pronouns apply) and when the character is being discussed as a creative idea or concept (for which "that/which" type pronouns apply). It is also important to recognize that one should not force the idea of "individualizing" a fictional concept when the context is not appropriate. For example (not real wording but to get the idea across) "Superman is a character created by Siegel and Schuster. They created him in 1933." is forcing the personal pronoun since we know that Siegel and Schuster never actually created a "person", which the "him" pronoun implies. Instead the language that our article acctually uses "The character was created by the two in 1933." is the right way to approach it, or "They created the character in 1933..." So sometimes these knots of which pronoun to use are created by poor approach to the existing language around it. --] (]) 16:21, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


::Thank you for your understanding. Re: your latest edits, you're now leaving a comma in place that shouldn't be there.
Oh, ] (]) 23:46, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
*'''Support Masem''' - his description covers it perfectly. It basically depends on context. Excluding gender pronouns altogether is going to lead to awkward sentences, and probably general confusion as to what the pronoun is referring to in more complex sentences, so avoiding altogether is not a good approach. Either way, I don't see this being much of a problem that a guideline needs to be put in place. If its just one person who keeps bringing it up, they ]. ] ] 12:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, (29 April 1936 – 26 February 2024),
*'''Per Masem''', basically. In-universe: ''who''/''whom''; as a character, out of that context, ''that''/''which''. It just needs to make sense in the context. That said, I do think MOS should state this explicitly, at ], to avoid perennial fights about this (it is by no means the first one). That's the obvious place for it, and this discussion is sufficient consensus to add it. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 01:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
^ ^ ^
** Talk about jumping the gun! We have yet to see a single piece of evidence that this is considered even an issue outside of WP:COMIC. ] at its most pointless. ]&nbsp;] 01:13, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
A B C
***Just because you personally haven't seen evidence doesn't mean it's not generalizable. It's obviously generalizable to all fictional characters. Your attempt to spin this as just some comics editors thing is off-base. There's a world of difference between "Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character that first appeared in print in 1887", vs. "In ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'', Sherlock Holmes, who lives in London at this period in his story arc, travels to Dartmoor to investigate reports of a spectral dog." Simply rewording gets around the issue in most cases; there is no need to fight over "who" in {{!xt|Holmes, who appeared in print in 1887, was featured in four novels and 56 short stories by Conan Doyle}}, when rewording as {{xt|The character first appeared in print in 1887, and was featured in four novels and 56 short stories by Conan Doyle}} simply erases the issue. See lead section of MOS: {{tq|"If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, ] can make the issue moot."}} <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 02:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
**** You have not provided evidence for the invalidity of ''Holmes, who appeared in print in 1887, was featured in four novels and 56 short stories by Conan Doyle''—you've done no more than asserted it. ]&nbsp;] 03:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
***** And here are some real-life examples, from the very first page of Google Books results:
******
******
******
******
*****: Talk about choosing a poor example! ]&nbsp;] 03:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::: Talk about failure of reading comprehension (and overuse of "talk about"; twice in the same thread? Seriously?). No one said it's never used, just that it looks terrible and is easily avoided with better writing: "Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, appearing in the 1880s, was the most popular ...". <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 17:37, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::: And this would be my suggestion too: when it is clearly not talking about the character within the scope of their fictional world but as a creative element or property or similar out-of-universe factor, then rewriting sentences to simply avoid having to use a controversial choice of pronouns is a better solution. If we're talking the character as related to their role in the work of fiction , then one can use the natural-sounding "person" pronouns without issue. --] (]) 17:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::Yep. The very fact that this is so heated and so perennial conclusively proves it's controversial, and much of the point of MoS is helping editors avoid getting into the same controversies over and over again. MoS clearly should advise rewriting to avoid controversy, and should note that the difficulty only arises in poorly worded cases like "Superman, who was sold" vs. "Superman which was sold", never in cases like "The trademark rights to Superman, which were sold", and not in cases like "Superman, who was born on a planet named Krypton", when writing in-universe plot summaries. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 19:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


::Commas A and C are paired, comma B should be removed along with the postnoms that followed it. Commas rarely precede parentheses.
I think it is safe to say there is a majority consensus, there is only one editor '''who''' wants it his way...] (]) 22:03, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
* Amazing you state this, when you've just cited which I didn't start (and which rejected your ridiculous prescription). But when you have no evidence to bakc yourself up, I suppose you resort to ad hominems. ]&nbsp;] 05:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


::Cheers.
From my point of view, fictional characters are still "people" - as in, they have identities and personalities. If the character in question has an identity that can be considered reasonably close to human, the term "who/whom" makes sense, as you're referring to an individual. This also applies to a group of individuals. If you're referring to something that is inanimate (eg. a computer with no specific identity), then "it" and "that" make more sense. However, HAL 9000 is identifiably male, and GLaDOS is identifiably female, and as such it makes sense to use gender-specific pronouns for them, as well as refer to them with "who" rather than "that". IMO, there is almost no difference between real-life identities and fictional ones in this respect. Also, while I'm not participating in the comics project, I have never once seen a review or article about a comic book character that used inanimate pronouns to refer to that character when it had a gender identity. The only times I've seen the words "it" and "that" used to describe such a character have been when referring to generic robots and machines, alien creatures for which individual identity isn't important, etc..) &mdash; ''']''' (]) &mdash; 21:47, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


::] (]) 17:52, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
===Suggested wording (pronouns for fictional characters)===
:::I don't think that makes sense. If someone doesn't have a nobility/royalty title, there is no comma before or after the life span. When adding the nobility/royalty title, the pair of commas should go before and after the nobility/royalty title. Why, when adding the nobility/royalty title, would the life span get looped into the comma pair? ]<sup>(]/])</sup> 17:56, 25 November 2024 (UTC)


====Step by step====
Since Cebri has provided evidence that this is an actual problem that occurs at a non-negligible frequency, I believe it's worth adding a line to the MoS or ], location TBD. I suggest the following first draft:
I think it makes perfect sense. You don't put a parenthetical expression '''''after''''' punctuation, do you?
Let me take this step by step. Normally, the first sentence would be something like this:
John Doe was a Whig politician ...


Now let's add that he was a peer:
{{quotation|Editors are not required to use inanimate pronouns ("that," "which") for fictional characters. Decide on "who" vs "that" depending on the context of the sentence.
John Doe, 1st Baron Doe, was a Whig politician ...
::"He first appeared in print in 1961 alongside another hero who was, at the time, more famous."
^ ^
::"Wonder Woman is one of many characters that have become a franchise unto themselves."}}
A B
The commas A and B are paired, i.e. the "parenthetical" title is set off at both ends (unless when there is other punctuation, like at the end of sentence). Let's see what happens without the closing (second) comma:
John Doe, 1st Baron Doe was a Whig politician ...


If the commas aren't paired, the sentence reads "1st Baron Doe was a Whig politician", and "John Doe" is left dangling at the start of the sentence.
I believe "not required" expresses our meaning very well. ] (]) 01:31, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:"Not required" tends to be taken as implying "but preferred", and that is not at all how I read the prevailing opinion above. If you're trying to express the lack of a hard rule, perhaps something along the lines of "no requirement for either … or …; it depends on the context". ] (]) 05:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
: Given there exists no support for the prescription oustide the dark basement of the superhero faction of WP:COMIC the wording should avoid the appearance of giving it any legitimacy. Misplaced Pages is not the place to introduce novel linguistic prescriptions. If an editor chooses to avoid personal pronouns when adding text, that's an editorial decision; but prowling pages to removing such pronouns in no way improves the encyclopaedia, and in many cases (as cited) hurts it. ]&nbsp;] 06:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
::The truth seems to be that English overwhelmingly prefers "who" over "that," so that's what we want to communicate. Take two! "In general" is usually interpreted as "Most of the time."
:::{{quotation|In general, use animate pronouns ("who," "she") for fictional characters, but there are some contexts in which inanimate pronouns are suitable ("that," "which").
::::"Laertes and Ophelia both took action, unlike Hamlet, who continued to delay."
::::"Wonder Woman is one of many characters that have become a franchise unto themselves."}}
::What really has to shine here are the examples. It would be best to really hammer home how these contexts are different. ] (]) 12:04, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:::Whenever this discussion pops up, it always seems to center on passages that refer to the character by name, specify the fictional nature, and then say something else. Take the primary example for this new debate: "Nelvana is a fictional superhero who first appeared in Triumph-Adventure Comics #1." Break it down into two sentences. "Nelvana is a fictional superhero. ___ first appeared in Triumph-Adventure Comics #1." Does ''she'' or ''it'' belong in the blank? I think very few people would argue against ''she'', so it follows a personal pronoun, ''who'' should go in the combined sentence.
:::Most of the time, though, the simple solution is to rewrite the passage to eliminate the issue altogether. Why argue about "Other characters that have adopted this name" vs "Other characters who have adopted this name" when you can shorten it to "Other characters using this name"? ] (]) 13:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:In whatever MOS wording we adopt, I would suggest not leaving out ''it'' when discussing pronouns. ''Who''/''that'' errors are fairly common at the best of times, so ''(s)he''/''it'' is perhaps a better test, as Argento points out above me. So your second example could be:
{{quotation|"Wonder Woman is one of many characters that have become a franchise unto themselves.It has been enduringly popular since its creation."}}
:That sounds wrong to me, but it is clearer what is being suggested.--] (]) 13:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
::That is a case where I would replace "It" with "The character" to avoid the pronoun knot. --] (]) 16:22, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:::Dancing around personal pronouns might work for a sentence or two, but becomes unwieldy when you are discussing a fictional character as a concept for whole paragraphs. — ] <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"></sub></small>]]</span> 16:39, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
::::Why not write: "Wonder woman, as a character, has become a franchise unto herself. She has been eduringly popular since her creation." If you avoid writing about fictional characters "as a concept", and instead just write about that particular character, you can avoid having "pronoun trouble". ] (]) 16:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::Yeah, it is actual far less frequent when one writes about a character as a concept than as a character, though it sometimes is needed; the intro on Superman I think captures a place where one does need it: "The Superman character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933; the character was sold to Detective Comics, Inc. (later DC Comics) in 1938." In any of this sentence to us "he" instead of "the character" implies an ownership of a living being which is the one sticking point in the language; it is the concept that has ownership and creation. Past that, "he/who" all make sense. --] (]) 16:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::: ''In any of this sentence to us "he" instead of "the character" implies an ownership of a living being'': it implies no such thing—or do you have a source which addresses this to back up such a statement? This is a solution looking for a problem. ]&nbsp;] 21:17, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::: There is something that I do not know what it is that is odd or off-putting about saying "Smith created him" or "Smith transferred ownership of him", and less so but still begging the question of "Smith envision him" (where "him" here is the fictional character of interest). You create, transfer or envision the character as non-entity, not as a fictional person or being. If there is a rule of language for this, I don't know but I do see this used around many sources that discuss concepts and development of fictional characters. --] (]) 21:48, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::: You mean ''you'' find something off-putting about it. Nothing wrong with that, but it is not grounds for introducing a new linguistic prescription. In the real world people have no problem saying Can you show evidence to the contrary? ]&nbsp;] 21:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::::: Well, it's not a new linguistic prescription as both ways are technically proper English, it's purely a style aspect and one that I don't think any of the major style guide goes into this. I do think WP does have the ability that, if by consensus, we adapt a style that we feel is better in the larger picture for en.wiki. ''I'' personally feel there's something offputting when we use certain combinations of verbs and pronouns that can be simply avoided by better word choices or restructuring. --] (]) 22:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::: No, the underlying principle you're suggesting is ''not'' "technically proper English": the only reason "that" is acceptable at all is because many use "that" interchangeably "who", as in: "There's the guy that was here yesterday." In the case of "Superman is a character that was created by Shuster & Siegel", "that" is ''not'' chosen because "Superman is inanimate"---at least, not anywhere outside of WP:COMIC. In the real world, there is no issue using personal pronouns with ficitional characters, because ''personal pronouns do not imply actual living human beings'' (I've already given you the example "There will never be a person who can travel backward in time.", and you know there's no end to such examples). ]&nbsp;] 22:51, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::::"That" is proper English when we are talking about a non-person, which a fictional character ''may'' be treated as at times. Consider "John Q Smith created the painting ''that'' was later transferred to the museum.", "John Q Smith created the character ''that'' was later transferred to a big publisher." It's completely acceptable language, when we are not at all describing any aspect of the characters as a person in the text, because in situations like this, it is a thing. And again, I do want to stress that my main solution here is to avoid situations where one would need such pronouns to minimize the potential "disruption". "John Q Smith created the character. The character's rights were later transferred to a big publisher." --] (]) 01:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::::: Boson has You've also failed to provide evidence that there is any "disruption" to be avoided. "Nelvana is a superhero who was created by Adrian Dingle." is not a problematic sentence—nothing needs to be "fixed", nothing needs to be recast. ]&nbsp;] 01:32, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
: We should avoid giving inappropriate advice on the use of English, and especially refrain from giving the incorrect impression that "that" (as opposed to "which") is an "inanimate pronoun". ''That'' is a relative pronoun used for restrictive (aka defining, integrated) relative clauses, both for inanimate and animate entities, as in ]: ''the farmer that kept the rooster, the judge that married the man, the man that kissed the maiden, the maiden that milked the cow'', etc.). To avoid additional confusion, any examples should use non-restrictive (aka non-defining, supplementary) relative clauses with ''which'' and ''who'', which ''do'' distinguish between personal and non-personal (including most animals). Yes, recommended usage of ''that'' and ''who'' is slightly more complicated, but is not something that needs to be dealt with in the Manual of Style. ''That'' can be a useful way of avoiding the distinction between personal and non-personal (as in some examples here?), but that is also something for English teachers that does not need to be described here. --] (]) 17:34, 20 August 2015 (UTC)


Now, let's add the life span. Where do we add it? Before punctuation.
====Take three (wording of MoS entry on pronouns for fictional characters)====
John Doe, 1st Baron Doe (1 January 1801 – 31 December 1881), was a Whig politician ...
Take three:
^ ^
:{{quotation|In general, use animate pronouns ("who," "she") for fictional characters, but there are a few contexts in which inanimate pronouns are suitable ("which," "it"). However, it is often possible to avoid the issue entirely by rewording the sentence.
A B
::"Laertes and Ophelia both took action, unlike Hamlet, who continued to delay."
The commas A and B are still paired. See?
::"The character Superman, which was sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938, was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933."
::"The character Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster in 1933 and sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938."}}
Remember the points that we're trying to convey: 1. It's best to use animate pronouns, 2. but we're not banning inanimate pronouns (and 3. here's what we mean by that). Those issues are not in dispute here. As for locations, I'm thinking both here and at ]. ] (]) 19:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
::: Again, this seems to be legitimizing a non-issue—is there anyone here who is ''not'' from WP:COMIC that would have batted a lash at ''"The character Superman, who is owned by DC Comics ..."'' before this RfC was started? Of course not—this is perfectly natural everyday English that poses no problem to readers whatsoever and ]. It does ''not'' imply—even slightly—that Superman is a real person. The language does not work that way. ]&nbsp;] 21:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::Huh. I mostly agree that it's fine to use "who" for fictional characters, but actually, maybe not in this case. Is Superman a slave? Can he buy his freedom from DC? Until I read your example sentence, I would have said there was never any problem with using "who" for Superman, but now I think maybe there's a distinction between Superman-the-fictional-person (for whom "who" is fine) and Superman-the-item-of-intellectual-property (for which "who" is a bit weird). --] (]) 01:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::Exactly, and note how your own use of "whom" and "which" naturally distinguishes. No one is actually making the argument that one should have written "Superman-the-fictional-person (for which ...)", but CT has been spinning it this way incessantly to make the argument look weak when it is not. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:23, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::It seems off to me to mark explicitly that this has to do with fictional characters vs. non-fictional people. That's not how English works. Otherwise, I agree with darkfrog's three points. — ] <span title="Representation in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)" class="IPA"></sub></small>]]</span> 23:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::Curly Turkey brings up a good point that the problem should be big enough for the solution to earn the space it takes up in the MoS or MoS:FICTION. A few links were offered in the previous section. {{replyto|Cebr1979}}, do you know of any more? ] (]) 00:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::Not off the top of my head, no. I wasn't a part of the original conversation, though. It's possible that one grew out of something from somewhere else but, like I said, I don't know for sure. Sorry couldn't be of more help!] (]) 00:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::::Nah, thanks, Cebri. I guess if it's only that one incident that we know of then it's not really necessary to codify it. But just so I don't leave a job half-done, the kicker seems to be whether the character is acting or being acted upon like a person rather than like an object or concept:
::::::::::{{quotation|Wonder Woman is one of two female characters who were on the original Justice League." / "Wonder Woman is one of many characters that have been marketed to children"}}
::::::::: ] (]) 00:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::: That's really my only issue. The lead of a ] article should be: "] is a ] '''that''' appeared in the ] series, '']''," in order to denote we are talking about a '''thing''': aka: a lifeless, inanimate object. As for the rest of the article, I don't think it matters as, most of it would be written in-universe anyhow. If it would make this all go away (and stay away as I feel like too many editors are having to spend too much time on this), I'd even compromise with "] is a ] appearing in the ] series, '']''" -OR- "] is a ] having appeared in the ] series, '']'' and bypass the whole "who vs. that" thing altogether! That's just a suggestion, though. If it ends up being the beginning of a whole new conversation taking up a whole lot more time, I'll simply withdraw it and go back to the "] is a ] '''that''' appeared in the ] series, '']''" position I've had since the beginning.] (]) 00:59, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::::: I hope you are not suggesting that ''"Wonder Woman is one of many characters '''who''' have been marketed to children"'' is invalid English. We have yet to see any evidence of such a prescription in English, or any evidence that any sort of problem arises from it. The axiom that ''personal pronouns refer only to real persons'' has already been shown to be invalid, as in the example ''"There will never be a person who can travel backward in time."'' ]&nbsp;] 01:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::::::I'm trying to create an example in which it is clearly better to use "that" or "which" than to use "who." If you can think of a better one, then by all means. ] (]) 03:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::::::: If there ''is'' such an example, I'm sure it will be obvious to any English speaker and not require addressing in the MoS. That is not the issue. The issue is that a small coterie of WP:COMIC editors want prescribe against the usage of personal pronouns, even where real-world usage has no issue with it. They would have the "who"s in the ''Britannica'' examples changed. To what purpose? What would be improved? ]&nbsp;] 03:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::::::::::{{ec}} "There will never be a person who can travel backward in time" is not fiction, it's a hypothetical. Different case no matter how you look at it (grammatically, psycho-linguistically, socio-linguistically, language-philosophically, etc.). We have special grammar rules for hypotheticals ("If I were to go to Japan" not "If I was to go to Japan"), that do not apply to fictional characters. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::::::: ''in order to denote we are talking about a '''thing''' '': In stark contrast to the way the English language actually works, which makes no such distinction. What it comes down to is that there is a group of superhero editors at WP:COMIC who wish the English language worked in a different manner from which it does. English does ''not'' distinguish fictional vs non-fictional persons via pronoun usage. For example, Britannica uses "who" to refer to the characters of Spider-Man and Superman: ]]&nbsp;] 01:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::::::: You keep relying on links to ''Encyclopaedia Britannica''. ] ''Britannica''. No one suggested that counter-examples, using "who" indiscriminately for fictional characters, cannot be found, only that it's unclearly writing from several different perspectives. It's actually interest to read a lot of ''Britannica'' articles on fictional characters, and you can see that their (inconsistent) pool of writers are individually wrestling with this issue, and no following a rule about it. The usage veers all over the place. Their article on Superman just gushes with "who" and reads like a somewhat nutty comic book collector of half-believes the character is a real person. The "Sherlock Holmes" are mostly studiously avoids this usage, and only slips up in a couple of places; it reads much more encyclopedically. This is a good indication of why MoS should actually give clear guidance on this. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::::::::: There isn't a shred of evidence the author of the Sherlock Holmes article "studiously avoids this usage"—the article uses out-of-universe "he" twice! Even if it didn't appear at all, that would be not evidence of "studiously avoid this usage".
::::::::::::: Nor do I "rely" on ''Britannica''—the vast majority of links I've provided have been to other sources. I get the feeling you haven't read ] (as ] pointed out to you at ). ]&nbsp;] 20:42, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


] (]) 23:04, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
I like Cebr1979's final wording (some of the work-arounds are quite awkward), but not entirely for their reasons. "That" is used for people, and fictional people are treated as people. But the ''concept'' is not a person. "That" doesn't mean the referent is inanimate, but I agree that the concept of a fictional character should use the same pronouns as the concept of a commemorative garden. But when discussing the character itself, the same pronouns should be used as when discussing historical people. — ] (]) 01:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
* For the record, you support a wording like: "Superman is a fictional character. It was created by Shuster and Siegel."? Do you have any evidence for such usage outside of Misplaced Pages? ]&nbsp;] 01:26, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
**CurlyTurkey: you really do put a lot of words in peoples' mouths and that is something you need to stop doing. ASAP. The only person '''who''' has ever mentioned the word "it," is you.] (]) 01:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::He's doing it again, below. No one who knows how to use English would use such an "it" construction, and I'm confident that CT knows this. This mischaracterization approach is a combined ] and ] fallacy pile-up, an attempt to distract from a weak argument that depends principally on outrage instead of reason (this is also whence his projecting stuff like "gut feelings" (see below) onto arguments based on logic instead of the gut feelings his own argument is clearly rooted in). <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::: One has to wonder why SMcCandlish keeps resorting to synonyms of "outrage" to discredit me. I doubt anyone reading this discussion is going to get the impression that SMcCandlish has approached it with a cool head. ]&nbsp;] 20:45, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
'''Comment''': So how do we deal with figures whose reality is disputed? Do we use "who" or "which" for Jehova and King Arthur? Of course, in real life we use "who", as we do for Superman. ]&nbsp;] 01:26, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::No one does that for Superman, except in an in-universe context, unless they <del>want to<del> {{small|}} <ins>don't realize that to many readers it will</ins> sound silly. For possibly-real entities, use "who", except when discussing them conceptually (hint: exactly like fictional characters): {{xt|She believed in King Arthur, who she was sure would return some day, just as she felt Jesus would.}}, but {{xt|The conceptualization of King Arthur, which varies from historical figure, to figment of mythic imagination, is difficult to unravel." It would be ignorant to use "who" instead of "which" in the second sentence &ndash; even if you swapped "Jehovah" in for "King Arthur". Obviously we'd need to be careful writing such a thing about a deity subject to modern worship, but that's not a {{em|grammar}} matter. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 02:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::: ''No one does that for Superman'': you actually said that out loud?
:::*
:::*
:::*
:::*
:::*
:::: Would you like some more from these "silly" and incompetent English-speaking writers? ]&nbsp;] 03:23, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::: You're misrepresenting someone else's argument yet again. Please stop. I never said the {{em|writers}} are silly, and never used the word "incompetent", nor did I write "No one does that for Superman" by itself, but in a qualified, much longer statement. The {{em|usage}} is certain silly, and the writing is consequently poor. Poor writing does not magically become good writing because an editor at a publisher neglected to notice it was poor. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::: And you have yet to provide evidence that "it was poor"—only bald assertions and a lot of mind reading (your Sherlock Holmes example is a howler of fitting a writer's "intentions" into the Procrestean bed of your POV). ]&nbsp;] 20:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


:The nobility title is a nonessential appositive. Commas go before and after a nonessential appositive. I'm assuming you don't consider the lifespan, which is never set off by commas in a Misplaced Pages article, to be a part of the same nonessential appositive somehow, right? If it's not included in the nobility title nonessential appositive, then it goes outside the commas. ]<sup>(]/])</sup> 00:04, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
:As the rest of us have been saying all along: It would depend on what context the subject was being discussed (if discussed as an actual person from history, then '''who''' - if discussed as a legendary figure from a mythos, then '''that'''). At this point, I do believe you are at a 'grasping at strings' impasse with your argument.] (]) 01:56, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:CT, my comment to you above probably got a bit buried; let me recap here. I would have totally agreed with you until I read your example sentence about Superman, who is owned by DC. That honestly did strike me weird, and I had no preconception that it would.
:Could it be that there's a distinction between when we talk about fictional persons in-universe versus out-of-universe? I'm sort of spitballing here; this isn't something I've thought a lot about. But maybe something like:
::''Frankenstein's Monster was a fictional monster. He was created by Dr Frankenstein in the latter's lab.''
:versus
::''Frankenstein's Monster is a fictional character that was created by Mary Shelley.''
:Thoughts? --] (]) 02:04, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::Moving into the past tense actually changes the meaning dramatically. To say, "Frankenstein's Monster was a fictional monster," would indicate that it ''used to be a fictional monster but, isn't anymore: it has since become real.''] (]) 02:26, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::Oh no, I don't agree. It ''could'' mean that, but it could also mean that the fictional character dies in the work. That's more along the lines of what I had in mind. --] (]) 05:18, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::Actually, on reflection, it's probably not so much about dying. I think it's more that the novel is written (I assume) in the past tense, and therefore in-universe assertions are in the past tense. --] (]) 05:20, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::: ]&nbsp;] 07:24, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::: {{ec}} A typo easily fixed that is entirely unrelated to the issue being addressed.
:: ]: Boson addressed this above: "that" is often used in place of "who", as in "There's the guy (who|that) came last night." The prescription that WP:COMIC prosposes is that we ''must'' use "that" rather than "who", because "that" refers to inanimate objects—which is false, as "that" also refers to animate humans ("That's the guy that came last night.") So we have two false premises: (a) that personal pronouns can only be applied to living humans (a proposition easily falsified); and (b) "that" is used only for non-humans (the falsehood of which has been demonstrated).
:: Now, do you see anything "off" about the two ''Britannica'' examples I've provided? I've yet to find any argument off-Wiki arguing for this distinction—I see no evidence that the distinction actually exists in the English language (or any reason it should). ]&nbsp;] 03:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::{{ping|Curly Turkey}} Those two examples don't seem so bad. I still think "... who is owned by DC ..." is pretty jarring, though. It really does sound like slavery when you put it that way. I don't have any hard-and-fast rules to propose; I just report that that one has a problematic sound. --] (]) 05:28, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::Same here. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::: I don't hear it at all, but does ''"Wonder Woman is owned by DC"'' sound any more or less like slavery? Or if we inserted a more plausibly real-sounding name: "] is owned by DC Comics"? ]&nbsp;] 05:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::: As everyone but you here seems to understand: Rewrite to avoid awkwardness. "Wonder Woman is owned by DC" is essentially a nonsense phrase to begin with, since it doesn't tell us what intellectual proper rights are meant (and there are several distinct ones). And you're ] others' views as a ] yet again, at least the third time in this thread: 'The prescription that WP:COMIC prosposes is that we ''must'' use "that" rather than "who{{"'}} is a blatant fabrication. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::: There's no fabrication—the context makes it clear that what I said is qualified as out-of-universe cases in which a relative pronoun were required or desired. Suggesting it applies to any other context is dishonest. ]&nbsp;] 20:59, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


::No, it doesn't. Sure, the lifespan parenthetical isn't part of the appositive, but neither are the commas, which is demonstrated by the fact that at, if the name and title occurred at the end of a sentence, there wouldn't be a comma; there would be a period/full stop:
:::This is {{em|entirely}} about in-universe vs. analytic context. And yes, using past tense in the latter changes the meaning, indicating a change in analytic conceptualization, just as Cebr1979 describes. That said, no "that" is needed in {{xt|Frankenstein's Monster is a fictional character created by Mary Shelley.}} Remember MoS's best piece of advice: {{tq|"If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, ] can make the issue moot."}} <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 02:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
... {{xt|Joseph Smith bequeathed the manor to his nephew, John Doe, 1st Baron Doe (1801–1881).}}
:::: Or, rather, you'd prefer it were. The proposers of this new prescription have yet to provide real-world evidence that there is any validity to the prescription. Gut feelings are no basis for ]. ]&nbsp;] 03:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::Confusing logic with "gut feelings" is never going to serve you well in any debate. In this case, the advice is consistent with that of the ''Chicago Manual of Style'' (16th ed.), as far as it goes, on both verb tense and personification. I think the genesis (the "origin story", if you will) of your apparent anger about this issue is you think the goal here is to prevent use of "is" and "he" and "who" in in-universe writing. It's not (or if anyone is making that argument, I don't see it gaining any traction). What I'm advising below is based on real-world observation and the style guides I have on hand (which is a lot of them, but most do not directly address this question). This matter has been written about, even in texts on philosophy of language and social psychology , , but it's non-trivial to find it because most searches for things like "how to write about fictional characters" will bring up material on how to write in-universe material about fictional characters (i.e., how to write fiction). Here's a fun one, from a twelfth-grade writing class, warning of "the trap of writing about fictional events and characters as if they were somehow real. This loses marks!" The usage of inanimate wording for characters as concepts is nearly universal in high-quality publications. It's jarring and unprofessional-looking when you encounter something like "Wonder Woman is a fictional superhero '''who''' first appeared ...". (There's a gut reaction; see the difference?) I've been out of university for more than a few years, but I recall it being entirely conventional in literary criticism and review material to separate fact from fiction in the manner we're proposing here. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 03:58, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::None of the links talk about pronouns, and you have yet to provide evidence that the English language makes the distinction between fictional & non-fictional persons via pronouns. Assertions, but no evidence, nor the "logic" you speak of. If you're going to burden the MoS and thousands of editors with this non-issue, I'd expect you'd provide ''something'' other than bare assertions that contradict the provided evidence. You know, asserions that "no one" writes "silly" things that large numbers of professional writers actually ''do'' write, as per the copious evidence I've provided you. ]&nbsp;] 04:22, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::: ''you think the goal her is to prevent use of "is" and "he" and "who" in in-universe writing'': what do you base this assertion on? The inciting edit was ]&nbsp;] 04:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::::I still don't see what all this personal venting of your has to do with {{em|reasoning}}, when it comes to the general shape of this proposal. I do find it ironic that the usage that set you off was so borderline. The problem with isn't even the one actually at issue it. It's that it's in-universe writing (regardless of ''who'' vs. ''that'') in a place where we don'd use in-universe writing (in disambiguation). This is a bedrock principle of ] and ]. We would never, ever, ever disambiguate ] as ]. It confuses real-world disambiguation with an in-universe fictional fact. The obvious fix for this hatnote case at ] is <code>{<nowiki />{about|the character known as "Princess Diana of Themyscira" and "Diana Prince"|other characters known by this name, as well as other uses}}</code> The end. Basic MOS advice all the time: Rewrite to avoid ] disputes. This rewrite in particular makes perfect sense, because it's linguistically sound, it ties this back to the real world (the knowledge of the readers and what they're looking for &ndash; i.e. the actual purpose of disambiguation), {{em|and}} it eliminates the (yes, in this case quite silly) ''who'' vs. ''that'' dispute. But resolving that one doesn't resolve the larger issue. We have thousands and thousands of articles on fictional character, and they should not begin with leads that look like "'''Mr. Bigglesworth''' is a fictional cat. He likes to sit on Dr. Evil's lap." WP is not a seventh-grade writing exercise. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 08:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::::: ''all this personal venting'': you might want to step back and examine your tone and approach before making these accusations. I have yet to see "reasoning" on your part—simply bald assertions that the evidence provided contradicts (e.g "No one would say XXX"—countered with a whole list of RSes saying "XXX"). I'm asking for evidence that real-world English distinguishes fictional persons from non-fictional ones via pronouns. You've provided none; I've provided piles, which you refuse to engage with. ]&nbsp;] 08:35, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::::::Cebr1979 already provided you counter-examples. There's no point in providing successive piles of counter-examples; every single person in this e-room (except perhaps you) realizes that actual usage in sources is divided on this point. We're {{em|moving on}} past that, into {{em|reasoning}} about whether one or another usage (there are at least three approaches, not two) is better for WP purposes. You're still mired back in trying to prove that some people do use "who", a point that no one has been disputing. Please catch up. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)<p>Update: It's much more instructive to analyze actual use in a carefully written article, as I've done below in a separate sub-thread. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 19:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)</p>
:I think I understand what's the issue is, {{replyto|Cebr1979}}. You are thinking as if English were logical. It isn't. The overwhelming practice (though I'd say it's a bit shy of being a rule) is to refer to fictional characters as if they were people except when the context heavily and explicitly treats them as things. But still, I don't support adding a rule to the MoS or anything else for just one person. You've been shown proof and you've been shown consensus. Even if there were an edit war or something, there are processes for that. Tacking a new, permanent rule up into the MoS targeting just one person wouldn't be appropriate. ] (]) 03:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::Are you sure you were responding to me there? I don't really see anything where I'm acting as if the English language is logical?] (]) 23:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::Doesn't have anything to do with "just one person", though (the same point I'm trying to make above). Rather, this is a long-standing, repeat-argued issue, and certainly pre-dates WP and MOS. Serious linguistic and other literature have addressed the question of distinguishing, in our language use, between real-world facts and fictional ones about the same character. The solution proposed is not novel, but routine. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 08:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


::You wouldn't place the parenthetical outside the sentence like this, would you?
Let's call this take 3B. Relevant changes in bold (not to be preserved if used in the MoS).
... {{!xt|Joseph Smith bequeathed the manor to his nephew, John Doe, 1st Baron Doe. (1801–1881)}}
:{{quotation|In general, use animate pronouns ("who," "she") for fictional characters, '''even when writing out-of-universe,''' but there are a few contexts in which inanimate pronouns are '''also''' suitable ("which," "it"). However, it is often possible to avoid the issue entirely by rewording the sentence.
::"Laertes and Ophelia both took action, unlike Hamlet, who continued to delay."
::"The character Superman, which was sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938, was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933."
::"The character Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster in 1933 and sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938."}} "Also" should cut down the possibility that someone will insist on changing "who" to "that" or "which" in an out-of-universe context. ] (]) 13:00, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::This still fails to distinguish between in-universe and real-world context. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::"Fail" suggests I was attempting it. This version specifically tells editors to use "who" even when talking out of universe. That is standard English usage. "In-universe vs real-world" does not seem to be the litmus test for whether to use animate or inanimate pronouns, if such a test even exists. ] (]) 19:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::Doesn't suggest anything of the sort, since "this" is a pronoun that doesn't apply to you, a person. Why return to the theme of "litmus tests" and "hard-and-fast rules" after it's already been pointed out that this isn't what we're discussing? Again: This is about how to best write for our readers, not about forcing MoS compliance with some imaginary external language authority. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 19:30, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::::SmC, you and I have very different ways of thinking about language and writing. Please accept that I find your arguments unconvincing and stop trying to convert me to your way of thinking. As for what I ''am'' thinking, this is one of the least rule-ish things I've ever composed for the MoS. I'm ''deliberately'' trying not to make "use 'who'" look like a universal requirement, and I'm saying ''not'' to use a specific litmus test because this seems to be the one time here on WT:MOS where there actually might not be one. If possible, enjoy the moment of an English-has-rules person like me being the one to say, "I don't think that's a rule." ] (]) 19:42, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::::There is no "conversion" process in operation here; this is not a religious discussion. I not certain you actually understand my arguments exactly (which is probably my fault and means I need to restate them better); your objections to them match neither their wording or intent. I accept that you're not trying to push something as an external rule that MoS should adopt; I don't recall anyone suggesting that you were, or suggesting that this should be done, or even suggesting that such a "rule" exists. There's a difference between {{em|adopting}} some externally provided "rule" (e.g. "capitalize after a colon when what follows it is a complete sentence", which many though not all style guides advise), and MoS adopting an internal rule by consensus that amounts to "do not use pronouns confusingly, but write more clearly instead". This is a good illustrative case of why the "everything MoS says should be cited to an external style source" idea is unworkable. No external source is required for the WP editing community to come to it's own internal consensus on one point of how to avoid writing poorly. Maybe we'll never agree about this "source the MoS" thing. I'm happy that we seem to be agreeing that "rewrite to avoid confusing pronoun use" is the way to go, but the evolving consensus to do this isn't based on external rulebooks; it's based on observation of and reasoning about the nature of the dispute. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 20:18, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


::Ergo: normal rules apply, which is that punctuation doesn't precede a parenthetical. (The exception being when there is a complete sentence inside the parentheses, in which case punctuation occurs both at the end of the preceding sentence, i.e. before the parenthetical, and before the closing parenthetical, as shown here.)
====Take four (wording of MoS entry on pronouns for fictional characters)====
::Commas go before and after an appositive (unless there is other punctuation), but that does not necessarily mean immediately after.
:{{quotation|1=Use animate pronouns ("who", "she") for fictional characters only in an ]. There are contexts in which inanimate pronouns are suitable ("which", "it"), especially when referring to characters conceptually. However, it is usually possible and preferable to avoid awkward constructions by rewording, often with the side benefit of increased brevity.

::'''In-universe perspective using ''who'':''' {{xt|Superman, who arrived on earth as a child, and Lex Luthor, a human, are arch-enemies throughout various comic and filmic depictions.}}
::] (]) 10:29, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
::'''Real-world perspective using ''which'':''' {{xtn|The character Superman, which was sold to Detective Comics in 1938, was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933.}} (Permissible but perhaps awkward.)
:::"Punctuation doesn't precede a parenthetical" is not a rule at all. It's just something you made up.
::'''Rewritten real-world perspective:''' {{xt|Superman was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933, and sold to Detective Comics in 1938.}}
:::If the parenthetical were being applied to the nobility title, then the parenthetical should go within the commas that set off the nobility title. But the parenthetical is being applied to the actual name of the person, which came before the nonessential appositive that is set off by commas.
::'''Misuse of animate pronoun ''who'':''' {{!xt|Superman, who was sold to Detective Comics in 1938, was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933.}} (Superman is not a person in this sense.)
:::If you dislike the placement of the nobility title between the name and the lifespan parenthetical, I wouldn't disagree. I'd happily remove the nobility title entirely from the lead sentence (or heck, the whole article). Or put the lifespan parenthetical first, and then the nobility title. But wherever the nobility appositive is being stuck, it gets set off by commas. That's the rule. ]<sup>(]/])</sup> 13:38, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
}}
:::This one is simple: a comma is ''never'' placed immediately before other punctuation. Instead it's placed ''after'' them or, in case or semicolons and periods, omitted altogether. While ] doesn't say so quite explicitly (supposedly treating it as one of these common sense things that everybody already knows?), it gives an example of how to do it correctly: "Burke and Wills, fed by locals (on beans, fish, and ngardu), survived for a few months." (With the second parenthetical comma ''after'' the closing bracket.) So, by analogy, "John Doe, 1st Baron Doe (1 January 1801 – 31 December 1881), was a Whig politician" is indeed correct. ] (]) 08:58, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
(Fixed some typos, formatting, and example mismatches in the process.) This version gets at the fact that we usually {{em|do}} want animate in the in-universe sense (and do no need to avoid it), but never want it in the out-of-universe sense, but can usually avoid it. Whatever the final text, it probably belongs at ] not the main MOS, though it could be summarized here without delving into examples. The main MOS page is already too long and needs to be pared back to giving the advice without so many examples. The detailed subpages exist for all the examples and other details. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 03:16, 21 August 2015 (UTC)<p>PS: I fully support replacing Superman with Wonder Woman, but don't remember enough about the character to do it well myself. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 03:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:Concur with the OP and with Gawaon on the typographical point; we don't use a comma right before a round-bracketed parenthetical, nor does much of anyone else in the world. One might make an argument that "logically", in the way a computer program would approach logic, there should or could be one there, and this is the direction Muéro has been going, but human language does not operate on such a basis, being a matter of convention combined with expediency, not a matter of a JSON-like syntax in which a comma that really should not be needed to parse the material must be present anyway or the operation will fail.<p>That said, we do have several interrelating issues in play in this titles and post-noms sector that are worth cataloguing and considering in some detail:</p>
:# Something like "Xerxes Youill Zounds, Grand Poobah of Elbonia–Brobdingnag (3 May 1571 – 24 July 1644), was ..." is {{em|always}} indicating the life-span dates. If there is a need to specify the duration of a peerage, including a change in titles, that should be done in plain English in the article body, and is not going to be lead-sentence or even lead-section material. It's body material, like "Upon the death of his father, Zounds became 3rd poobah of Elbonia on 12 December 1629. He was elevated to 1st grand poobah of Elbonia–Brobdingnag on 20 June 1639 by High King Korki IX of Kerblachistan. Zounds was also the bishop of Lilliput from ca. 1630 to 14 February 1633, when he was defrocked by the archbishop of Elbonia."
:# As an anti-classist myself, I still have to observe/concede that "don't include any titles or post-noms because they are classist" is not a viable position. WP is ], and when any such title or honor (whether earned or hereditary or otherwise) is pertinent to a notable article subject, it should be covered, more prominently the more important it is within the context of their notability. (See below for an idea toward suppressing lead inclusion when not related to notability at all but a late-coming add-on to the pile of someone's life aachievements.)
:# There's a been a very long-standing {{lang|la|de facto}} consensus to always include peerage titles {{em|and}} important post-nominals (but not academic or professional titles or post nominals like "Dr" or "PhD", or guild/union stuff like "]", "]") in the lead sentence. Virtually every applicable article has been written this way.
:# A recent-ish RfC (I seem to have lost the link to it – help me out?) with probably much too low a turnout upended part of this, and now has us remove the post-nominals from the lead {{em|sentence}}. This has not sat well, and actually introduces some writing problems that the RfC participants did not anticipate. For example, WP does not, except in an article on the subject being abbreviated, introduce an acronym/initialism unless it is going to be re-used later in the same article. But if our bio subject's investiture as a ] is covered in the body only, the point at which this is done has no need to a "KCB" appearing at that point, since "KCB" is used as a post-nominal not otherwise and would not be re-used later in the article; the result is that the "KCB" that applies to this person has no logical place to go in the article any longer, since it was actually only pertinent in the lead sentence, attached to the person's name. We could do something very awkward like state that this knighthood entitles/entitled this person to use "Sir" or "Dame" and the post-nominal "KCB", but this sort of blather would have to be repeated throughout many thousands of articles, and was already very concisely conveyed by the original lead sentence without having to spell it out and micro-] the bio article with detailia about how a particular order's nomenclatural rules operate. Simply showing rather than telling was better.<p>So, this really should be re-RfCed, at a higher-profile venue like ] so we are certain that the community at large really wants to impose this lead rule change and its problems all in the name of shaving a few characters off the lead sentence. "The postnoms will be in the infobox anyway" isn't the (or an) answer, since not all bios have infoboxes, and there is staunch resistance to adding them in many cases. A potential compromise might be to not include postnoms in lead sentence but in an infobox when one is present and has a parameter for it.</p>
:#Even without revisiting that with a better RfC, the present wording at ] is daft: "post-nominal letters may be included in the main body of the article, but not in the lead sentence of the article". This has already lead to dispute about whether it means post-noms are banned from the entire lead or only the literal lead sentence, because it only addresses the lead sentence and the post-lead-section article body. The correct answer (if you look at the RfC discussion and the alleged consensus arising from it) is that this should instead read something like "post-nominal letters may be included, but not in the lead sentence of the article"; there was no consenus to ban them from the entire lead section. However, this runs into the problem above: Because post-nominal letters are used directly with full names, and generally only upon first introduction, there effectively is no practical place for them, in the lead section or in the article body, other than the lead sentence (except arguably in an infobox if it's there and has a place for this information).
:#Next, there's a misapprehension here (evidenced in the beginning of this thread) that this anti-postnom RfC result somehow also means to remove peerage and nobility titles from the lead. It does not. They are a different category of thing and were not addressed in that RfC. It is possible that a consensus might be reached to remove peerage titles when they are not pertinent to the subject's notability (e.g. that would have been the case with ] had he remained an actor/director/producer only and not taken a seat in the House of Lords). There are also many life baronetcies created late in the life of the recipients and to little public awareness; a case can be made to exclude them from the lead sentence and probably from the entire lead section. But this is something for a consensus discussion on an article-by-article basis, or for a new RfC if we wanted a categoric rule of some kind about it.
:#A side issue is that some parties from the nobility and peerage wikiprojects have, by ] behavior, programmatically usurped the {{para|name}} parameter of {{tlx|infobox person}} and its offshoots, abusing it to hold the peerage title, when that really belongs in {{para|postnom}} since it is in fact post-nominal (it's just not a post-nominal abbreviation). See ] for the typical absurd result. Because this has been done to thousands and thousands of articles and involves yet another "wikiproject rebellion" against the norms of the entire rest of the project, I suspect this is probably best addressed with another WP:VPPOL RfC so there can be no doubt about the community consensus level of the result (which will obviously be to stop having our infobox blatantly lie to our readers that Margaret Thatcher's {{em|name}} is "The Baroness Thatcher". For the Thatcher case, the obvious solution is: {{para|name|Margaret Hilda Thatcher}}{{para|honorific_suffix|Baroness Thatcher&lt;br /&gt;{{tlp|Post-nominals|country{{=}}GBR|size{{=}}100%|LG|OM|DStJ|PC|FRS|HonFRSC}} }}, and this is what agrees with the lead of the article. (Note lack of "The" before "Baroness".)</p><p>These infoboxes are also failing ] by including honorific {{em|salutation}} phrases like "The Right Honorourable" that are not part of the name in any sense, but used when writing a letter to such a person or when introducing them as speaker, and so on; that sort of information does not belong in a bio article (much less thousands of them robotically) but in an article on forms-of-address etiquette and probably again in the article on the title (baronet or whatever the case may be).
:There are probably other issues to address, but this is a lot already. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 13:42, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

== Any objections to extending MOS:TIES to all nations and regions? ==

Currently ] qualifies itself to English-speaking nations. However, in an increasingly multicultural world with English emerging as the ], at minimum in the ], why qualify this part of the MoS like that, ESPECIALLY when it also impacts on ]? For example, the ] has 24 official languages, including English, and multilingualism is one of its founding principles.

Would it not make sense to extend ] to nations (and regions) irrespective of whether they traditionally speak English or not? Because I can see how saying to someone that embraces multilingualism and values Europe's rich linguistic diversity wishing to contribute to an article on a topic with strong ties to their nation or region in the EU, where English is an official language, that in this case that tie doesn’t count (and someone else gets to decide) might be perceived as ... well ... rude and arrogant, which isn't just unnecessary but also unproductive. Would the article not benefit from including anyone with a strong tie to it?

I must note I would prefer if there was an established international variant, but I also find it practical not to have to waste time and effort trying to work out whether in a given article its meter or metre, organise or organize, or SI first and then imperial, or imperial first and then SI. Because getting it wrong just causes unnecessary consternation, especially if the article is inhabited by one or more "]s". ] (]) 06:41, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
:I'm not in favor of this idea. TIES is an exceptional case that should be used only when it's very clear; the main rule is RETAIN.
:In practice I think this proposal comes down to "don't use American English in articles about Europe". I don't agree with that. --] (]) 06:52, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{reply to |Trovatore}} The proposal doesn’t suggest it no longer needs to be clear, nor that that main rule is no longer retain. It simply proposes that MORE voices are heard.
::As for the “don’t use American English in Europe” bit ... that would then only happen if most voices then want that. The solution surely isn’t “but I don’t like that, so let’s exclude them from the set of voices allowed to speak”. Fear not, they may choose American, who knows. ] (]) 06:21, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:Also not in favor for the reasons cited by Trovatore. ] (]) 07:16, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
:I do object to this.
:Moreover, from what I understand it's a perennial suggestion, so I recommend perusing ], wherein I happen to embark on a journey from the exact wrong position all the way to the right one, filling your heart with hope for a better future as you follow my progress. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 07:23, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
::If it keeps coming up, perhaps there is something there.
::However, you do highlight its more complex than I originally thought, so back to the drawing board 🤔. ] (]) 06:24, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:'''Not a chance.''' The purpose of MOS:TIES is entirely, only, solely about English-language dialects that exist at a more or less national level and in a formal ] suitable for encyclopedia writing. Under no circumstances would we accept an English pidgin/creole or some vaguely identifiable informal habits of English-as-a-second-language users in some country or region as a "variety of English" to accept for encyclopedia writing. If you encounter "Franglais", "Spanglish", "Deutchlish", etc., in any of our articles it should be normalized on the spot to whichever form of standardized English suits the subject best if there are strong ], or to the form that the article already most closely matches (British, American, Canadian, or some other dialect of a country with majority or official and large minority English usage in a formal register). Another way of looking at this: There is no strong tie between Finland and any form of English. Even the "Well, it at least shouldn't be American, but British, because the UK is part of Europe and the US is not" sort of argument fails, because there's more than one national dialect of English in Europe (Irish, for now, and probably Scottish if they have another independence referendum). If there's not a particular encyclopedia-appropriate variety/dialect of English in widespread use in a country, then that country by definition has no strong tie to any such particular variety. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 06:22, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::{{reply to |SMcCandlish}} Thank you for stating very clearly and firmly that {{tq|the purpose of ] is entirely, only, solely about English-language dialects}}, because THAT means my primary concern of how it relates to ] is a non-issue!
::For the record, I did not, and still don’t, propose that “Franglais” and so on become accepted English variants. Because that would be insane, pointless and not useful. ] (]) 06:46, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::If this is something to do with promotion of ''crore'' and ''lakh'' in articles that pertain to India, there's already a big thread about that at ] (again), and last I looked the consensus wasn't really changing: they're permissible as secondary units, but always need to be converted because they don't mean anything to anyone outside India and parts of its immediate neighbors (and of course among first-gen Indic diaspora). Maybe the tide has shifted in that discussion; I last looked at it about a week ago. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 06:50, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::No. I wasn’t aware of that thread. ] (]) 06:52, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::The thread to which you refer is “RfC Indian numbering conventions”? ] (]) 06:59, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I don’t think there is any real overlap with the “RfC Indian numbering conventions” thread.
::::I also think ] is a dog’s breakfast, but happy to leave it alone at this time.
::::Are there any objections then to apply the direction from {{u|SMcCandlish}} that {{tq|the purpose of ] is entirely, only, solely about English-language dialects}} to ] and decouple "respect the principle of 'strong national ties'" from MOS:TIES? For example, change it to "respect the underlying principle of strong national ties as also used in MOS:TIES but in a different context”, and then also qualify the following with ''only''?
::::*In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United States only, the …
::::*In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United Kingdom only, the …
::::*In all other articles, the …
::::] (]) 08:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Well, you're been so vague about why you are asking these things, what rationale you could have for making up a new rule or changing any existing one, without any reference to an ongoing and important on-site problem, that all one has been left with is guesswork based on encounters with extant or recent discussions that seem like they could be pertinent. "{{tq|Are there any objections}}"?: '''Yes.''', I can think of a number:
:::::#There is no clear rationale for what you're proposing, much less a consensus to do it. Substantive changes to policies and guidelines (]) need consensus or they will not be accepted (unless they, rarely, hit upon something that needed to adjusted and no one else noticed until now, which isn't the case here).
:::::#There are strong rationales against it, most obviously:
:::::#:A. Your implicit notion that units of measure have no connection to dialect (or "variety" as WP likes to say) is not correct.
:::::#:B. Even if it were, it'd be immaterial. The next implicit idea in your proposal (quite central to it really) is that if P&G page X reiterates a general principle from another, Y, and cites the latter for the explanation, such that X applies that principle to X's circumstances because they are reasonably analogous to Y's, that this somehow creates a ] rules-chain dependency in which every aspect of the context of the cited origin of the principle in Y must also be applicable to the citing circumstances of X. Nothing on Misplaced Pages works that way at all. Cf. ]: it's a mistake to try to interpret our P&G as essentially a legal system (or as something like a procedural programming language, or a chain of dependencies in building software from source code; more than one analogy works).
:::::#:C. Because of point B, and because of the guideline's current "where applicable" wording (which is there for a reason and meaningful), your first rewrite idea, of tacking on a bunch of "respect the underlying principle of strong national ties as also used in MOS:TIES but in a different context" verbiage it entirely superfluous. The two versions convey the same meaning, because it is already understood that the principle (not the detail-by-detail contextual specifics) of TIES is being applied at UNITS. This is the way our entire P&G system operates. It wouldn't really be possible for it to be any other way. If UNITS was literally just restating TIES, down to the specifics of exactly what TIES covers, then UNITS would be redundant (in this regard) with TIES, and its wording about this issue would've been deleted long ago and replaced with a simple cross-reference to TIES without further comment. The kind of exemplary and contextual more-than-crossreferencing done at UNITS is entirely normal. And important: an editor looking for "what to do about units" is unlikely to instead stumble upon "what to do about national-level usage disputes", and so would be unlikely to find the TIES principles and then be certain how to contextually apply them (if at all) to units, without being basically an expert in our style guide the way some Tolkien fans learn Elvish.
:::::#:D. The next bit of suggested rewriting is to inject "only" into two line items, but this change would have a nonsensical and undesirable result in two ways: It would make those items applicable under no circumstances to anywhere but the US and the UK, respectively (even to former UK colonies with English- and units-usage norms virtually indistinguishable from British in an encyclopedic ]); and it would necessitate (to fix that new problem) expanding that into a long list of every country with anything that WP would consider a "national variety of English" with pertinent unit-usage norms. The purpose of those two examples is {{em|as examples}} (not as an exhaustive list) of how to approach these matters. The examples were chosen because they settled previously recurrent disputes. So, what long-term, recurrent, serious problem can you point to that you think your changes would resolve? The examples are not there to serve as the beginning of an ever-growing rulebook to address every imaginable case with a new micro-topical line item to thump. The purpose of giving a general principle and providing some prominent examples is to obviate the need to have a pile of micro-rules. (MOS:NUM is already too detailed as it is.)
:::::# The long-term stability of these guidelines is very important, because even small but meaningful/operative changes to them can affect many thousands up to potentially millions of articles, for reasons that almost always resolve to trivial and subjective peccadilloes. That cascading-wave-of-unneeded-changes problem (and all the fighting the endless trivial tweaks would generate) is never more of a danger than when a national-level and frequent usage matter is at issue (and literally millions of our articles do have measures with units in them). See also ]: If MoS, after 20-odd years, doesn't already have a rule about something, then it needs to {{em|not}} have a rule about it, because it is not necessary for the project to do what it does successfully, and MoS is already way too long.
:::::# Your "I also think ] is a dog's breakfast, but happy to leave it alone at this time" approach does not bode well. Our policies and guidelines don't exist as hills to die on. The purpose of these style guidelines is (aside from the main one of producing intelligible and consistent content for our readers) {{em|dissuading}} style-warring behavior. Arriving with the idea that the rules are broken and that at some forthcoming time you're going to fix them is antithetical to their purpose and to the needs of the community. It largely doesn't matter {{em|what}} any particular line-item in MoS sets out (except when there is objectively a reader-clarity improvement offered by one option over another), only that it sets out, and long-term retains, {{em|something}} that addresses a recurrent dispute pattern and brings it mostly (hopefully entirely) to an end, and/or that it produces better content for our readers – even if that "something" is arbitrary or is a compromise that can't please everyone. Just as a word to the wise, ] (including TIES) is pretty much the hardest-fought consensus compromise reached in MoS's history, and is also one of the oldest and most stable, so if you think you're going to make serious changes to it, you are very mistaken. It's like going to Canada and declaring your mission is to undo the country's approach to French and English as official languages.
:::::This might all come off as harsh, but ], and the vast majority of proposals to change any P&G are off the mark. There are many devils in many details (thus the length of this), with a lot of nuanced interrelations between different rules (or advice or best practices or whatever you want to call them). Most of the real kinks were worked out long ago. Those that remain are subject to long-term dispute that hasn't produced a workable compromise. There is no such dispute about the material you want to change. And there are sometimes severe costs for making changes that are not vital to make.<!--
-->PS: I've tried hard to find a "yes" to put into this pile of "no", and there is one! Namely, your version is correct that the "scare quotes" around ''strong national ties'' shouldn't be there. I just went and removed them, so thanks for that. Otherwise, no element of your draft appears to be clearly an improvement. Here's the original wording: {{xt|The choice of primary units depends on the circumstances, and should respect the principle of ], where applicable}}. Here's yours (presumably also keeping the original's first 10 words and the link): {{!xt|respect the underlying principle of strong national ties as also used in ] but in a different context}}. Mentioning the other guideline by name is redundant with linking to it, and all our P&G pages are fairly (not entirely) consistent in, when practical, using plain English with links around pertinent terms rather than injecting page names. Mentioning it by shortcut in particular is "newbie-unfriendly" and wrongly presumes memorization of our shortcut strings. "Underlying" is a puff word and doesn't serve a concrete purpose in the sentence. (And underlying what? It has no clear downstream referent.) "As also used in" is more redundancy; if we're linking to TIES as the locus of the principle, it's already automatically understood that the principle is applied at the place we're linking to. "But in a different context" is a combination of redundancy with the implication of the link again, and quite odd wording: Why is there a "but" in this? (What it is contrasting against?) "Different" from what? Different in what way? And "context" is conceptually misused in this construction, in that the general principle at TIES is a meta-context, of all usage/style disputes pertaining to national-level English dialects, while use of units is a subset of that, a sub-context, not a conflicting/alternative context. Finally, unit usage is only {{em|sometimes}} a subset of the usage in a national variety of English, thus the original's "where applicable" – a key point that your version drops, despite it seeming to be central to the bee in your bonnet. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 11:54, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::Introducing Scottish as an additional form of English would cause mayhem - or at least a shedload of future editing - here. We’ve already had a nationalist-driven push towards replacing ‘British’ with ‘English’ or ‘Scottish’ in bio articles, usually uncited and based purely on supposition or the subject’s birthplace. Fortunately, Scottish Independence appears to be receding as a prospect, at least in the short to medium term. ] (]) 07:48, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I don't disagree (and we had a real template at {{tlx|Use Scottish English}} in 2013, with an attempt to re-create it in 2016). Several years ago, I tried to get rid of all the "Use {{var|Foo}} English", and related, templates declaring "national varieties" that, in reality, are completely indistinguishable from general British English {{em|in an encyclopedic register}}, and could all collectively be covered by a "Use Commonwealth English" template. ENGVAR only applies to national (not subnational) varieties, and only those dialects that exist in distinct forms and with a formal register (by definition: if you can't write encyclopedia-appropriate material in a dialect, then it doesn't belong in our articles for any reason, so ENGVAR cannot be used to "protect" it from edits). But nationalistic sentiments won out in the end, and we still have all that claptrap, with ridiculous results like articles being tagged with {{tlx|Use Jamaican English}}, {{tlx|Use Singaporean English}}, etc. (Likewise we have no use of American-splitoff variants, either, like "Use Guam English", etc.) Too many editors who should know better and should think just a tiny bit harder have utterly mistaken the purpose of these as something like "national pride" flags to put on articles, in a verging-on-] manner. These tags absolutely do not resolve to "write an article about Nigeria using colloquialisms and grammatical oddities found only in the informal speech and writing of English in Nigeria, which will be confusing to everyone else in the world". If someone tries that crap in response to such a template, rewrite the material per ] and ]. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 11:54, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

== MOS:NOTGALLERY ==

At another talk page, I was writing an explanation of why articles should not be swamped in a plethora of images, planning to cite ]. Fortunately for once I checked first and found that it is just an alias for ], not a statement that article spaces should not be mirrors of Commons.

Given that the majority of visitors do so on mobile phones, is there a case for an explicit policy that says that curation is essential, ]?

Or would it be enough to change the target of NOTGALLERY to ] (which might need a little expansion because right now it just says {{tq|Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important ] to understanding. When possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones, especially on pages with few visuals. However, not every article needs images, and too many can be distracting.}} At least a reference to ]? (which is expressed in terms of word count, not megabytes, so would also need work). ] (]) 17:48, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

:I think IMAGEREL would be a better redirect target. I want this to point to guidance that images should be included selectively rather than overwhelming articles with images. NOTDB instead seems to be guidance that images should be relevant and accompanied by text, which is not enough to prevent big indiscriminate galleries. —] (]) 20:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

::I've had second thoughts about this one. It is probably not wise to make NOTGALLERY an exception to the general rule that WP:NOTaaaaaaaa shortcuts all redirect to ]. So the better plan is to add a short sentence to the current target to say that {{tq|Misplaced Pages is not a database of images or a {{lang|fr|]}}; those are among the functions of ]. Image use in Misplaced Pages articles must comply with ].}} I will do that now.
::IMAGEREL needs some work too, to make it even more explicit that to bury an article in a mass of images is sure way to ensure that nobody reads it. --] (]) 10:43, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:While some types of "galleries" should be avoided, articles on certain visual topics do benefit from many visual examples. I also do not think we should explicitly outlaw the ] model while allowing many other bibliographic lists. One size does not fit all, and such a change would need to be debated with the folks curating ] and those who work on visual topics. —] (]) 10:57, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::Pending further discussion, I have removed the reference to ''catalogue raisonné'' from my amendment (so that it now reads simply {{tq|Misplaced Pages articles are not a repository of images: image use in Misplaced Pages articles must comply with ].}} to item 4, "Photographs or media files".
::I agree certainly that, in an article about an artist or an artistic movement, it is essential to illustrate the phases of their artistic development. That to me is clearly in keeping with IMAGEREL and wp:localconsensus can determine relevancy. But to include an image of <em>every</em> work in an artist's '']''? How is that a valid exception to NOTDB? (and likely a COPYVIO too). And why not show every putter manufactured by ACME Golf Inc? every locomotive made by ACME Rail Inc? every postage stamp (including all misprints) produced by the Austro-Hungarian empire? We have articles so swamped in pointless images that they have become essentially unusable to visitors on mobile. How does that make any sense? --] (]) 11:34, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I would definitely oppose including every work in an artist's oeuvre in an article on the ''artist'', but I want to make sure we do not outlaw ], where the images are perfectly encyclopaedic and just as relevant for identification as the images in ]. Tables in such long lists are often not great for small screens, but that is a separate issue from the number of images. Generally, lists are not the same as other articles in their use of images, so the rules should reflect that. —] (]) 12:25, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I don't see a problem with that. Clearly the application of IMAGEREL should (and would) be different between a list article v a fairly broad concept article. To take your example, it would be entirely reasonable to include every image we have in the list article, provided that we use small thumbnails (upright=0.2); conversely (IMO) the bio article about Munch should be curated so that it has just one carefully chosen image to illustrate each phase of the development of his style , with maybe one or two especially notable examples that he did . Surely we don't want to replicate Commons? --] (]) 18:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:Please, let's not compromise the full extent of the encyclopedia by limiting what has always been one of its main features. Images and galleries define and describe just as much as text. That many choose to "read" Misplaced Pages on tinier gadgets should not dictate the coverage and image-styling of encyclopedic content articles. ] (]) 11:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::The problem we have at the moment with some articles is what {{u|David Eppstein}} describes above as "big indiscriminate galleries" and rote copying of everything in Commons for no evident informative purpose, a form of ]. As IMAGEREL begins, "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important ] to understanding". Without curation, the information gets buried in the woodpile.
::I am not proposing a principle that we must minimise the number of images, period. My proposal is that we provide a policy basis that editors can use to say "that point is already adequately illustrated, another image adds nothing new" or "this article had become so bogged down in images that it no longer navigable". I am talking about edge cases here, in most articles it is not an issue. But some have become swamped in an uncritical replica of Commons. This is not to enable wikilawyering, it just makes it easier to explain the rationale. --] (]) 18:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::As an example of the sort of burying articles in galleries that I would object to, see ], where (at least in its ) four of its six sections are entirely image galleries (in some cases hidden in collapsed templates, with much of their content peripheral to the main article topic).
:::We do need wording that distinguishes this case from ], where the galleries are entirely appropriate, though. —] (]) 18:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::But as far as I can see, the List of paintings by Edvard Munch (and similar lists by artists) already complies with IMAGEREL, because the use of images in that article is ''proportionate and entirely relevant to that context''. Conversely, to put all those paintings in the Munch bio article as a giant gallery would not be proportionate (IMO).
::::So to focus this discussion, can anyone suggest another sentence we can use to amplify the point made in the opening sentence of IMAGEREL? ("Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding".) How about
::::{{blockquote|Consequently, each image in an article should have a clear and unique illustrative purpose: for guidance, see ].}}
::::AFAICS, that responds to and respects both the Munch examples above. (FWIW, very few if any of the visual arts articles suffer from this swamping problem. The issue affects high profile articles like ].) ] (]) 11:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:It is entirely enough that we have the ] shortcut. A proposal to retarget ] to that would almost certainly fail, because it's part of a very long-standing set of policy (not guideline) WP:NOT{{var|FOO}} shortcuts to sections of ], and such a change would both confuse editors today and render archived discussions of policy misleading. "Ain't broke; don't fix it." <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 06:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

== Audio video guidance ==

Hi there, I'm noting a lack of guidance for Audio video content, I've mentioned this at ]. It seems people just edit MOS rather than run through large discussions, but I'm reluctant to start plunging in before getting some help. Here is what i think is needed:

* Something explaining that the guidance at ] applies to Audio-video content in most cases, eg regarding relevance, image quality, textual information, offensive images, placement, size, location, availability. Nearly all of the page is relevant, in fact.
* The download advice might need to be different. Do videos or audio need a warning that they are large files? This is not assumed, it seems.

There is a case for some separate AV guidance, regarding:

* Length: should inline videos be shorter where possible? Does this apply to audio clips?
* Language: if audio or video is original language, should subtitled content be preferred rather than recording originals? Should songs be subtitled where possible? What are the requirements for validating translations (what are the relevant WP policies on translation of original source material that apply?)
* Rendition: historical accents and historical musical performances might be very rare. Should we say that modern standards are fine, in the absence of authentic reconstructions?
* Public domain renditions: if audio or video is a rendition of a public domain source, for example a work by Mozart, or a speech by Caesar, what are the requirements for source validation (these should reference WP's general guidelines, but these are mostly focused on secondary sources).

] ] 20:25, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
*Elsewhere, someone asked whether an RfC would be needed to add guidance on this topic. I think not -- while discussion will be needed on details, I can't see anyone objecting to clarifying that multimedia beyond everyday images should follow similar guidelines to those for image. The question is where to say that. We don't want to duplicate guidance on contextual significance etc., because that creates two things that need to be kept in sync. Probably the best thing is to expand MOS/Images to explicitly cover other multimedia. See BTW ], which has a ''contextual significance'' section. ]] 20:39, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Thanks very much (and yes that was me!) I agree that MOS:Images would be best, especially to get this started.
*:The ''contextual significance'' contains much about in-copyright works. That is in general very helpful. In-copyright video samples feels like something rather complex that might need an RFC, and might be best parked until there is a little more in place. ] ] 20:49, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
*::@] Would it be helpful if I draft up something on ] and ask for feedback? ] ] 21:03, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
*:::I suggest you wait a while so that the experienced editors gathered here can lend their thoughts. After that, you might take the conversation back to Talk:MOS/Images, but since that page has 1/5 watchers of this one, and you've already put a pointer there to this thread here, it might be better to continue here as you begin to draft. There's no hurry to this, so the slower you take it, and the greater the extent to which others can get their thoughts in, the smoother it will go. (I'm afraid I'm really tied up IRL so the time I myslf can contribute is limited.) ]] 21:24, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
*::::Happy to wait. I made a stab at below, but I can wait for further thoughts / feedback here. What I've provided relates to historical source content, as most of the AV I've been dealing with falls into this category; I have guessed at some other considerations but it is currently narrower than it should be. ] ] 21:44, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

<blockquote>Audiovisual content can also be used for illustrative purposes. Most of the guidance on images above applies to audio visual content. Additionally, consider:

* '''Length''': inline videos or audio that is shorter will be easier for users to watch. Consider clipping long form content, and linking to the original on Commons, or elsewhere. Longer videos (eg, over 10 minutes) may be more suitable for links than inline video, unless they are highly relevant to the page's subject.
* '''Rendition''': historical accents and historical musical performances of content may be very rare. Modern renditions are fine, where authentic reconstructions are not available, and may be preferred, where there is uncertainty about the original performances.
* '''Musical, poetic and literary content''': aesthetic considerations are higher for these kinds of content. Where possible, the performances should be considered good by other editors. Where editors find performances are poor, content should generally not be included.
* '''Language''': where audio or video is in the original language, subtitles should generally be preferred rather than translated versions, as this reflects the original more closely and text files are easier to correct than mistakes in audio-visual content. Where possible, songs should be subtitled. Original language versions should be made available where where possible for artistic content.
* '''Translations of subtitles''' should be verifiable, but as with other Misplaced Pages content, competent editors can create them. While academic translations are preferred, where subtitle translations are longer than 10-20 words, use of academic translations is likely to constitute copyright infringement. Here, a Wikipedian's translation should ideally be verifiable against an academic translation. (See ] for further guidance.)
* '''Public domain renditions''': if audio or video is a rendition of a public domain source, for example a work by Mozart, or a speech by Caesar, the original sources must be valid. The performance should be comparable and follow the original. Where possible, include links on media file pages so that editors can make checks.
* '''Sourcing''': as with images, sourcing of audio-visual content needs to be copyright compliant. Sources of CC video and audio can include Youtube, Flickr and CC search tools. Care should be taken to ensure the licensing claims appear to be valid.
* See also: ]</blockquote> ] ] 21:50, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

:The "Language" point is a bit unclear to me. Is it asking for subtitles to be in English or the original language? If the phrase "rather than translated versions" is referring to the spoken or written material, that seems to contradict the phrase "where audio or video is in the original language". Which is also a weird way to say it because the "original language" could be English. Given that this is English Misplaced Pages, an English version should be provided whether or not there is a non-English version.
:Subtitles should be provided for all videos with an audio track, to make them accessible for readers who cannot hear or find it difficult. There are additional guidelines at ].
:Not sure the "Sourcing" point needs to be made, as this is explained in detail for images generally.
:The "Length" point should probably link to the ] and point out the copyright issue when displaying here under fair use. It should say "video" not "videos" to be grammatical.
:I would drop the "Translations of subtitles" point and just link to ] for guidance on translations.
:The "Public domain renditions" point does not make any sense to me, and I would just drop it.
:I'm not sure whether the "Rendition" point needs to be made, but if it does, it's confusing. I think it's supposed to be recommending that historically accurate renditions of older works are preferred, if available. Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't, depending on what the purpose of inclusion in the article is. Might be better just to leave this point off; I don't see any similar guidance for audio samples of music. Page editors can decide which samples are best out of those available.
:Another point probably worth making is that a video should be considered an optional part of an article. In other words, any content vital to reader understanding should be included in the text and not be omitted on the assumption that reader will watch the video. Many readers will not be able to view video due to technical limitations, such as using a web browser that is not configured with a video player, or reading an article in another medium such as an app, paper printout, or text-to-speech system (including those who cannot see or find it difficult to read text). There is more specific guidance against putting text in images at ].
:It's fine for a video to re-explain something that's already explained in the text if having a moving image clarifies substantially, but it seems wasteful for embedded videos to effectively repeat or rephrase the text.
:-- ] (]) 22:49, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
::Thanks very much!
::* Regarding '''language''', this was meant to be about non-English content, think Bach or Mozart in German or Latin; or Goethe's poetry.
::* On '''Sourcing''', the section on images does not include YT, which is significant for CC video.
::* On '''translation''', the situation for subtitles is a bit different, as usually you cannot use academic in-copyright translations, so this mention is retained.
::* On '''public domain renditions''', this was the subject of a ]. Does that help? Take a file such as ]. There is some need for verification, even tho it is not being used as a citation? I've edited it for clarity.
::* On '''style of renditions''', this has come up a few times in discussion, including at the link above, where a user claimed only a Catholic priest could do a Latin audio recording; also at ] on LA Misplaced Pages about accents and delivery, preferring a modern standard over historical guesses. I figured the same principle might apply to say reading Shakespeare, or using 16th century instruments; it simply shouldn't be a consideration, but sometimes editors think it should be.
::* I've added the points on (1) text as images, (2) subtitles for EN content, (3) optionality of AV content
::'''VERSION 0.2'''
::Audiovisual content can also be used for illustrative purposes. Most of the guidance on images above applies to audio visual content. Importantly, audio-visual content should not be an essential part of a page, which is necessary to understand the whole. This is because not all readers will be able to download or access the content, for example because of technical limitations or relying on text to speech tools. With audio and video just as with any content, relevance is paramount; consult ] for further context. There must be a clear reason for including the content on the page.
::Additionally, consider:
::* '''Length''': inline videos or audio that is shorter will be easier for users to watch. Consider clipping long form content, and linking to the original on Commons, or elsewhere. Longer videos (eg, over 10 minutes) may be more suitable for links than inline video, unless they are highly relevant to the page's subject.
::* '''Rendition''': historical accents and historical musical performances are not required. Modern renditions of audio are acceptable. For example, there is no need to read Shakespeare with an Elizabethan pronunciation.
::* '''Musical, poetic and literary content''': aesthetic considerations are higher for these kinds of content. Where possible, the performances should be considered good by other editors. Where editors find performances are poor, content should generally not be included.
::* '''Subtitles for comprehension''': In English language videos, an English language subtitle track should always be provided for accessibility. See ] for more details.
::* '''Subtitles for translation''': where audio or video is originally in a non-English language, for example a Goethe poem, subtitles should generally be preferred over than translated audio, as this reflects the original more closely and text files are easier to correct than mistakes in audio-visual content. Where possible, songs should be subtitled. Original language versions should be made available where where possible for artistic content.
::* '''Translations of subtitles''' See ] for guidance. Note that longer subtitle sequences may need to be translated by Wikipedians rather than obtained from academic sources to avoid copyright infringement.
::* '''Embedding text''': As with images, rendered text should be avoided in video content. See ] for more information.
::* '''Public domain renditions''': if audio or video is a rendition of a public domain source, for example a work by Mozart, or a speech by Caesar, it must be possible to check the original scores or texts. An editor should be able to compare the performance with the original. Where possible, include links on media file pages so that editors can make checks.
::* '''Sourcing''': as with images, sourcing of audio-visual content needs to be copyright compliant. Sources of CC video and audio can include Youtube, Flickr and CC search tools. Care should be taken to ensure the licensing claims appear to be valid.
::* See also: ]


::] ] 23:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
* '''Strong oppose''': the proposal is in conflict with real-world usage, has no evidence to support its axioms (in fact, all the evidence provided contradicts the proposed axioms), and is burdensome ]. It's a solution looking for a problem based on a misunderstanding of how the English language works and does not improve the encyclopaedia. ]&nbsp;] 03:28, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::This appears to be related to situations such as ], where a consisting of a person reading a letter aloud was included in an article, one example of a series of such edits. It is not clear to me that we need a bunch of guidelines about the best form for this sort of application because it is not clear that it is desirable to include such videos in the first place - the cart is being put before the horse. ] (]) 23:54, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
* '''Wishful thinking''' I don't like this wording either, SmC. The "that"/"which" set of pronouns is actually really rare. Like, Cebr, you seem to be treating English as more logical than it really is. Really, English uses "who" for characters even in most of the cases in which it would make sense to use "that" or "which." ] (]) 03:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::Yes, I certainly would like to clear up some of the misapprehensions that regretfully appeared in that discussion. It's a discussion I will deeply regret getting involved in for some time.
** Um, the fact that it's commonly awkward to use a "that" or "which" construction is why it says look toward rewriting. The proposal pre-addresses your complaint about it. It could just be that we wouldn't even need to go that far and just state that it's often awkward, instead of illustrating it with an example at all. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 08:30, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::I'll be clear about the other discussions and examples of this content for context:
::::I'll be clearer: What I don't like about this is that "Use animate pronouns when the character is acting like a person and inanimate pronouns when the character is acting like an object" does not seem to be a hard rule in English, and this passage treats it as if it were (or at least is likely to be interpreted as such). Something looser is more likely to serve Misplaced Pages well. What we actually ''want'' is for people to use "who" almost all the time but not make a fuss over the occasional "which." This passage could give us the same people making a fuss over "it should be 'who'!/no it should be 'that'" in one passage and "it should be 'that' this time!"/"no, ''this'' time it should be 'who'!!" in the same article. ] (]) 12:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::* ]; ] no debate and no questions occurred
::::::See ] vs. ]. There really is no such thing as "a hard rule in English". There is only usage, in different contexts. The question here is what is more useful to our audience, in the encyclopedic ]. A large proportion of MoS (and of all style guides) is advice on writing in a formal rather than informal register. This is such a case. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::* ]; no questions raised (I am the main editor for this page but plenty of people make edits)
::::::::We've been through this, SmC. ''Yes, English does have rules.'' You don't happen to like to think of them that way, and that's your business, but the fact of the matter is that anything that goes into the MoS is going to be interpreted as non-negotiable by at least some of the users in the article space. This new text, whether you want to call it a rule or not, looks like it will cause more fights than it will prevent, and it does not look like it reflects the actual state of what is required in correct English. ] (]) 19:14, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::* ]; ] as a link after discussion with editors
::::: Thoguh it should be pointed out that it only happens one way—changing "who" to "that". I'm not aware of any editor making the rounds doing the opposite. ]&nbsp;] 13:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::* ]; ] after discussion with editors
::::::Except everyone else understands that it happens more than one way, and this version of the proposal explicitly states this and provides examples of how it happens more than one way. Please stop engaging in ] and ] arguments. It's getting ]. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::* ]; readings included; no discussion or objection
::::::: ''Except everyone else understands that it happens more than one way'': Oh, really? Diffs, please (not holding my breath). ]&nbsp;] 20:33, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::* ]; reading of his disputes with no objections raised
* '''Strong oppose'''. Curly Turkey is absolutely right (and is the only editor on this thread doing the work of finding examples to illustrate his points). Using inanimate pronouns to refer to fictional characters is a ] on the part of a small number of comics-focused Misplaced Pages editors in response to having to write from a real-world perspective. It doesn't happen anywhere else, and is not good English usage. --] (]) 10:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::* ]; reading of his defence of Catholicism; posted and no objections raised
** Did you actually read the proposal? It suggests using alternative constructions {{em|instead of}} inanimate pronouns. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::* ]; ]; no response yet
*'''Suggestion''' - Rewrite "The ''character Superman'', which was sold" as "The ''Superman character'', which was sold". I think reversing the order makes it more clear that ''Superman'' is describing the word ''character'', not the other way around. ] (]) 11:28, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::* ] and ]; early work added; an editor has asked me to check whether these are sufficiently relevant; I've agreed to do so and remove the videos if ] is not met.
::Counter-suggestion: "the ''rights'' to Superman, which were sold". --] (]) 11:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::@] I hope you can at least see that normally I try to be as collaborative as I can be. there's not much point going further into why that discussion became hard for me. However, policy is the place where we make guidelines to avoid disputes and lack of clarity.
:::Yes those things would both be good if we were talking about a real article, but the point of the passage is to give an example of a case in which "...Superman, which..." would be better than "...Superman, who..." ] (]) 12:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::What meets ] overrides any other consideration, to my mind so I have added that to the draft text. (''With audio and video just as with any content, relevance is paramount; consult ] for further context. There must be a clear reason for including the content on the page.'') ] ] 00:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I think the distinction this discussion is groping towards is that inanimate pronouns can be appropriate when talking about a character, not as a character, but as a ''property'' - for example, when discussing things like rights and copyright ownership. When discussing a character as a character, I can't think of any situation where inanimate pronouns would be appropriate. --] (]) 14:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::As regards the other articles where there was no discussion, just because there was no dissent at the moment doesn't mean there wont be in the future. What happened at the Machiavelli article could just as easily happen in the other ones
:::::That's definitely {{em|one}} of the points. The other is to avoid use of "who" except in an in-universe way, rewriting to avoid any awkwardness that might results from use of inanimate pronouns. Darkfrog24 is definitely picking that up. Why say "Superman, who was sold" {{em|or}} write "Superman, which was sold", when rewriting to avoid the confusion makes more sense: "The rights to Superman, which were sold". <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::::I am also asking you kindly to please stop making the issues with that RfC bigger than what they are. ] (]) 00:27, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::We can take this discussion in two ways:
::::::* We can either construtively discuss the principles behind what video content should be allowable; or
::::::* We can decide that emotions are too high for it and pause it
::::::I do need this guidance, because there are divergences of opinion on some of the points, and it's important to me to be able to resolve them. But my guess is that if the three of us are just going to rehash the RFC discussion, then that would a terrible use of other people's time and energy. A break off would make sense, in my view. ] ] 00:41, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::No one's emotions are high but yours, judging by your rather relentless snipes against my character and the fact that you have so much as admitted it in the RfC. You have also stated that the RfC "needed to die" (quite strong words) when I gave you a chance to change your mind, and now you want to pause now that the discussion is nearing a close?
:::::::I do not get what you are trying to accomplish here, to be fair. ] (]) 00:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::It is not needed to rehash the RFC here, but I did feel that fresh eyes on this talk page should have enough context to understand what the proposal is about. ] (]) 00:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Thanks, I appreciate that as a valid concern. Does the change regarding ] help, or do you feel more is needed? For context, other points raised in the RFC such as regarding the need to be able to validate translation is also included. ] ] 00:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I dropped the video from ]; it seemed like excessive detail. It's already on '']'' where it's a bit more appropriate. But even there, it seems like it violates the video equivalent of ]. Same for ] and ].
:::::I also posted that the video for ] should probably just be kept on Commons; there's already a general link to the topic there.
:::::I agree it's not clear that videos of performances of works should generally be included, so I would also be hesitant about specifying anything in particular about those. Uploaded videos cover a broad variety of subjects, including scientific phenomena, buildings, and specific events. -- ] (]) 03:22, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::I would like to understand ] a bit more, especially regarding accessibility in particular, as this is certainly an overriding concern. What makes the text subtitle files inaccessible and not regarded as text? ] ] 09:09, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Subtitles are, of course, text. They are less accessible than the text in an article because some readers will have technical or logistical difficulty watching video and thus reading subtitles or listening to audio narration. For readers that ''do'' watch a video (which presumably has an animation or something which illustrates the subject of the article in a way a still image cannot), it ''increases'' accessibility by allowing people who cannot hear or find it difficult to know what is being said or what sounds are happening in the video. -- ] (]) 15:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::] already says that for user-created diagrams, etc., a source for the underlying data must be included. To me, this applies straightforwardly to videos that are presenting public-domain content. A citation to the original work is kind of implied, but a reference to a specific version or even better an online copy, should suffice. YouTube videos that we're importing into Misplaced Pages as on-article videos are no different than diagrams or maps or explanatory videos uploaded by random Misplaced Pages or Commons users, assuming an appropriate copyright license. The reliability of YouTube is not really in question, any more than the reliability of any given Misplaced Pages editor is, when they are just repackaging information from a different underlying source in a more digestible way. That's different than citing a YouTube video as a reliable source for the information itself.
:::I'm not sure I have enough examples to make a guideline about video length. Ten minutes seems way too long for download on a mobile phone, and most videos I would expect to be under a minute. Perhaps there are exceptions, but I'd want to survey how videos are being used now. In the meantime, I would trim the 0.2 version down to reduce scope and reduce overlap with other pages and rephrase and retitle:
:::----
:::'''Video content (v. 0.3)'''
:::* The guidelines on this page also generally apply to videos.
:::* Many readers will not be able to play videos, because of technical limitations of their web browser, because they are seeing article content on a different web site or app, or because they are using a different medium, such as paper or text-to-speech system. Some readers cannot see or find it difficult. Videos should be used as a ''supplement'' to article material, to concisely illustrate the subject in a way that a still image or text cannot do. Videos should not replace article text, and articles should remain coherent and comprehensive when video playback is not available.
:::* Similar to ], for accessibility and file size reasons:
:::** Videos that simply show text should be replaced with text.
:::** Videos that simply show a sequence of still pictures should be replaced with an image gallery.
:::** Videos of text being read aloud should be replaced with text, or if the sound of words is being demonstrated, audio files (with the text being read in the file caption or in closed captioning).
:::** Videos of text and narration with should be converted to article text.
:::* The copyright and other guidelines on ] also apply to video samples.
:::* The policies on ] also generally apply to videos.
:::* Accessibility guidelines at ] apply.
:::----
:::-- ] (]) 03:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::] has additional suggestions; not sure if it's appropriate to link there from here. -- ] (]) 03:57, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
::::With your commentary, this makes a lot of sense. I would point out that there was a lot of heat generated over YT reliability in the aforementioned RFC, so it would be good to point that it can be used. YT is not mentioned as a source for images in the images section above; an alternative would be to add it there in the list of common sources, but that also seems odd. I know one can point to the archive discussion, but that is not generally available knowledge for anyone looking at the guidance in future. ] ] 09:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I added a clarifying note at ] for YouTube; hopefully this will not be controversial. -- ] (]) 02:44, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Unfortunately that has been . It might make more sense here, because this is about video as illustration, and there is ]. Perhaps it should be parallel advice to this, eg mentioning that YT has a search facility for CC content (and there isn't anything else AFAIK). ] ] 09:10, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::I started a discussion at ]. -- ] (]) 20:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Thanks - quick observation that we have lost that the guidance for illustrative audio content would also generally derive from the images guidance. The music samples page linked is wholly focused on samples from copyrighted material; there is a lot of PD / CC music material on WP, especially for classical music. Sometimes this could do with subtitling, etc, care in positioning, checks for relevance, etc. ] ] 09:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::OK, what are you suggesting? -- ] (]) 18:59, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::I think, where appropriate, add audio, eg "The guidelines on this page also generally apply to videos and audio files"; maybe "where appropriate, for instance non-English language audio files should include subtitles". I'm not sure there is much else. ] ] 22:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::And where would you find that addition to be appropriate? -- ] (]) 02:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::I would amend the title to "Video and Audio content"; I would amend bullet one to "The guidelines on this page also generally apply to videos and audio files". Under "Similar to MOS:TEXTASIMAGES, for accessibility and file size reasons:" I would add "where appropriate, for instance non-English language audio files should include subtitles". The accessibility guidelines could move to be bullet two, in order that audio and video advice is at the top. ] ] 08:02, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::It looks to me like hardly anything on ] applies to audio files, and it seems like the wrong place to go looking for style advice about them. -- ] (]) 22:52, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::For example:
::::::::::::::* ]
::::::::::::::* ]
::::::::::::::* ]
::::::::::::::* ]
::::::::::::::* ]
::::::::::::::* ]
::::::::::::::* ] Uploading to commons, recording information about files, changes in editing and download size etc
::::::::::::::These seem pretty substantially helpful guidance to me, and pretty similar level of relevance as to video files. ] ] 09:10, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::Yeah, most of the material in those sections is not relevant to audio. I'd say if you feel strongly that guidance is needed for audio generally and not just music samples, we should create a new page. Editors shouldn't have to read through a whole page about images just to pick out the occasional tidbit on audio files, if they're only interested in the latter. -- ] (]) 20:32, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::I've posted the 0.3 draft for now, since that wouldn't be changed by adding an audio page somewhere else. -- ] (]) 20:46, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::::::::Thanks for posting the v 0.3. On audio, I would think about this from a few user perspectives:
::::::::::::::::* There is currently no MOS advice at all on audio files and approaching general layout, pertinence, etc. What would the user do? Currently, MOS offers them nothing, so they must either guess or work off examples on other pages.
::::::::::::::::* If a user asks for advice, where would they be pointed? (my guess: ] as closest match.
::::::::::::::::IMO, it would be better to offer them something, even apologetically ("There is currently no detailed advice on MOS regarding use of audio files, but the basic principles of ] and some considerations at ] may be helpful.") This could be placed at a page relevant to other audio usage files, for example. ] ] 10:02, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::::::::::Feel free to propose a draft if you like. It's also possible no particular guidance is needed, if people are able to figure this stuff out using common sense and regular editorial judgement, and if disputes arise, turn to the various policy and guideline pages on topics like due weight. -- ] (]) 21:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:Given the small amount of material to include about this, and the redundancy that would be required with MOS:IMAGES if "MOS:VIDEOS" were its own page, and given the short nature of the audio samples MoS page, I think the most sensible approach is to merge all of this into a WP:Manual_of_Style/Images_and_multimedia page with a top MOS:MEDIA shortcut (which I'm surprised doesn't already exist as an internal disambiguation page), then MOS:IMAGES, etc., going to sections. We have too many separate MoS pages as it is, and this is an ideal merge of two of them and a proposed third. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 06:07, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::Sure, that's a reasonable alternate approach. I think it would work if we put the things that apply across all three at the top, and then make it clear with section headers which those interested in a specific media type should look at without having to read inapplicable guidelines. -- ] (]) 08:22, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::+1 to both of these observations. ] ] 09:04, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::Yeps. If we hammer out a videos-related section, I'll be happy to do the work (most MoS merges and the like are done by me because I kind of have a database in my head of all the rules and how they interrelate, and 19 years of observing how misinterpretations, lawyering, and other problems can be avoided by careful wording. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 14:23, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::I think what we could agree on for videos has been added. -- ] (]) 00:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)


== misleading text in ] ==
===Should the MoS state this rule explicitly? (pronouns for fictional characters)===


The text on keyboard entry of dashes in {{slink|Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style|Dashes}} is misleading. The text {{tqq|or on a Windows keyboard }} implies a technique specific to windows when in fact it is valid for any OS. -- ] (]) 15:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
We've established that general English practice is to refer to fictional characters as "who" almost all of the time. Consensus seems to be 1) use "who" and 2) but we don't want to do anything that could be construed as banning "that"/"which," and that consensus seems to be overwhelming. We're working out exactly how we'd phrase this above. Next question: Is the problem big enough to merit taking up space in MoS, MoS:FICTION or both?
:True. What it should say: "on a Windows keyboard enter them manually as {{key press|Alt|0}} {{key press|1|5|0|chain=}} (on the numeric keypad) for en dash, and {{key press|Alt|0}} {{key press|1|5|1|chain=}} for em dash." -- ] (]) 16:02, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
My own take is that if this is just one person, then a line in the MoS isn't appropriate. But if it's a ''group'' of people or if this is a recurring problem, even on just one Wikiproject, then a line in the MoS is just the thing. ] (]) 03:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::Wrong on two counts:
::# No. It should not say anything at all, per ].
::# And even if it does, those ]s are only valid for ] and related. They don't work if the user has a different default code page installed.
::Delete it completely. --] (]) 17:23, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I doubt that NOTHOWTO is meant to apply to the MOS. It's surely helpful for editors and hence should stay, reworded if needed. ] (]) 08:26, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Gaewon is correct: NOTHOWTO applies to articles only. MOS is littered with how-to stuff, as is should where the ratio {{nobreak|<code>(editor confusion and time saved)/(])</code>}} seems sufficiently high. However, if this starts getting into weeds of code pages and such, it may be best to relegate the whole thing to ], with a pointer to that from MOS. ]] 20:28, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::So why not simply recommend {{tl|mdash}}, {{tl|ndash}} and {{tl|snd}} rather than advise keyboard callisthenics? --] (]) 20:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Yes, I have always advocated symbolic representations (templates such as you list, or html escapes such as &amp;mdash;) of the various dashes (and in some cases, even hyphens), rather than having them appear literally in the wikisource, so that editors can see at a glance that the right character is present. But even though ], I can't seem to get people on board with this. ]] 20:49, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::I am happy typing the dashes on my Apple keyboards but also happy with recommending the templates rather than giving keyboard-specific advice. What I would like to avoid is warring bands of gnomes going around changing unicode dashes to templated dashes and vice versa. —] (]) 21:31, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::Edit conflict: yes, different route to the same answer. --] (]) 20:38, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
:::JMF's policy understanding {{em|is}} mistaken above. ] only applies to article content (and other reader-facing content, like portals and the front page features). If it applied to internal documentation, then we would have to delete the entire "Help:" namespace and about 95% what is in "Misplaced Pages:" namespace. However, the technical point JMF raised is entirely correct, and we should not be telling editors to use keyboard codes that will do the wrong thing (or nothing) if they don't happen to be using the "right" code page. To {{tq|1=simply recommend {{tl|mdash}}, {{tl|ndash}} and {{tl|snd}}}} is the sensible approach. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 06:02, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Let's just direct people to ]. --] &#x1f339; (]) 23:00, 23 December 2024 (UTC)


== Is there a MOS guidance that applies to changing between common terms based on the name of the Wiki article? ==
:I quite like your third take above, Darkfrog, but I tend to agree that we have all fallen down a rabbit hole here. I'd suggest that pointing to the rough consensus of this conversation in the archives will be sufficient should this issue arise intermittently in the future.--] (]) 03:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
: Nobody's proposed banning "that". The proposal is to overturn the ban the on "who", "he", and "she". Here we have Darkfrog24 telling us "who" is used "almost all of the time", while SMcCandlish and Cebr claim it ''never'' is (while ignoring all evidence that it is). Communication is not happening. ]&nbsp;] 08:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:: This is at least the fifth time in the same conversation you've blatantly misrepresented others' arguments to try to make your own seem more reasonable. I insist that it stop, immediately. It's getting beyond disruptive at this point, and is patently un]. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 18:18, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:I've been a part of discussing ''who vs that'' at least three times. Aside from the two discussions linked above, here's a ]. (It starts off on something different.) From personal experience, I think this should be mentioned specifically in the MoS. People who strongly oppose using ''who'' for a fictional character are the only ones who cause these discussions, and pointing to previous consensus usually doesn't sway them. Either the previous consensus was "obviously wrong," or "maybe it's time to have another discussion and see if consensus has changed." Having something spelled out in the MOS would (hopefully) be more definate. ] (]) 16:05, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::That seems to be the trust of this. Maybe there really people who think that "who" should never be used for a fictional character even in an in-universe plot summary, but I don't see that view being advanced by anyone in this discussion, so one would think the result will be sensible. Somewhere between "never ever use 'who{{'"}} and "always use 'who' no matter what", the encyclopedic approach will be found. I'm pretty sure it's already been outlined pretty clearly. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 20:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:::To be clear, I've never seen anyone oppose using who/he/his pronouns in a plot summary.
I ''have'' seen people suggest not using those words outside the summary. Go , then ctrl+F for "Joe Blow". ] (]) 21:01, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::: Where has anyone suggested avoiding personal pronouns in in-universe contexts? I've yet to see such an argument. Every time I've seen this come up it has been about out-of-universe writing—almost always in the context of the lead. ]&nbsp;] 21:04, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


Do we have a guideline for dealing with different name, common names for the same thing (] vs ])? The target article, ], has used both names (changed in 2009 and 2022). Sources use both terms but I think the shorted "I4" is used more often in sources. I presume we would follow something like the MOS:ENGVAR where if there is no source preference we go with what the editors used first. Recently an editor, {{u|Kumboloi}}, made a number of good faith changes in linking articles from "inline-four" to "straight-four" to align external article text with the target article name. Is there a guide on this? How should this be handled? ] (]) 14:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
===A case study from ''Britannica'' on rewriting to avoid===
Above, someone insists ''Encyclopaedia Britannica'' uses "who" for fictional characters (and very selectively links to examples of this; in reality {{em|some}} of ''Britannica''<nowiki />'s writers do it and some do not). Leaving aside the ]-Britannica point, let's actually examine a one of their articles that is not written like their "Superman" article. I'll run with the second one I looked at, "Sherlock Holmes" .
* "{{tq|'''Sherlock Holmes''', fictional character created by the Scottish writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The prototype for the modern mastermind detective, Holmes first appeared in Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual of 1887.}}" Avoidance of pronouns.
* "{{tq|As the world’s first and only “consulting detective,” he pursued criminals throughout Victorian and Edwardian London, the south of England, and continental Europe.}} Use of pronoun in an appropriate in-universe way.
* Rest of lead paragraph: avoidance of pronouns.
* Second paragraph: "{{tq|his professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School.}}" Pronoun refers to Conan Doyle, not Holmes.
* "{{tq|his honed skills of observation and deductive reasoning ... Holmes offered some insight into his method ... His detecting abilities become clear, though no less amazing, when explained by his companion, Dr. John H. Watson ... declaring his abilities to be 'elementary,' ...}}". All four pronouns are references to Holmes, in-universe.
* Third paragraph: "{{tq|His London abode at 221B, Baker Street, is tended by his housekeeper ... his even wiser but less ambitious brother, Mycroft; and, most notably, his formidable opponent, Professor James Moriarty ...}}". All three pronouns are references to Holmes, in-universe.
* Fourth paragraph: "{{tq|Claiming that Holmes distracted him 'from better things,' ...}}". Pronoun is a reference to the author.
* "{{tq|Conan Doyle ... attempted to kill him off}}". This actually does appear to be use of "him" to refer to Holmes as a character, after a great deal of studious avoidance of doing so. It's also not unclear in the context, because it the sentence is carefully constructed and is about the author's relationship to the character; any professional editor could have missed this, or caught it and considered it permissible.
* "{{tq|Holmes and his nemesis ...}}". Use of pronoun in an appropriate in-universe way.
* "{{tq|By popular demand, Conan Doyle resurrected his detective in ...}}" Pronoun is a reference to the author.
* Fifth paragraph: "{{tq|Among the most popular stories in which he is featured are ... Holmes’s character has been translated to other media as well, and he is widely known on both stage and screen.}}" Like the above case, this is non-confusing use of "he" to refer to the character in an out-of-universe way, that cannot be mistaken for anything but real-world reference to a character, not in-universe actions of the character.
* "{{tq|... his meerschaum pipe and deerstalker hat ... his investigations in the country}}". Pronouns are in-universe.
* Sixth paragraph: "{{tq|... a genre of parodies and pastiches has developed based upon the Sherlock Holmes character ...}}". A return to the intro's studious avoidance of pronouns.
What we can learn from this:
# A great deal of care was taken to avoid confusing use of "he".
# Mostly it was avoided by careful construction of sentences, that used pronoun-substitute phrases like "a popular figure", "fictional character", "the Sherlock Holmes character", "Holmes's character, etc.
# It was only used about the character in two sentences that very explicitly spelled out that the character was being discussed in a real-world context; and both of these could easily have been rewritten to not use the pronoun even then (one suspects they were added by later writers/editors; the piece is credited to both one main author and to "Ed.", about which see ).
# Awkward constructions using "it" and the like were never used to refer to the character.
# There is never any confusion of any kind between the in-universe character actions and the real-world analysis of the character.
This is pretty good writing, but WP can do better (in part by rewriting to avoid both cases of out-of-universe "he", but in other ways: the article has neutrality and tone issues that WP would not permit, cites no sources, is not very comprehensive but highly summarative, and is otherwise very "''Britannica''-ish", which is not what WP is going for.
<span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 19:07, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


:It's a policy, our ], which largely doubles as our policy on article titles. Generally, for a given thing there's no reason to use a different name in the prose of any other article than one would use in the article about the thing itself, if that makes sense.<span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 14:57, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:If the moral is "Use personal pronouns for fictional characters in both in-universe and real-world contexts, but avoid pronouns altogether where it may cause confusion," then I'm all for it. --] (]) 19:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::I'm not sure where the naming convention says we should change article text in a case like this. The article in question indicates both names are common (''A straight-four engine (also referred to as an inline-four engine)''). This is also reflected in the two name changes over the years. I don't see where the naming convention says we should favor the target article name vs what the individual article sources are using. Consider a hypothetical, I'm created a Wiki article about the new "CarX". My RS source that says, "CarX uses an ''inline four engine''". Why would I not follow the source vs use the title of our straight four article? This is especially true if if the hyperlink is added later by a different editor. Also, until 2022 the title of the article was "inline". A consensus of 3 editors changed the article name. That's fine but the result is many changes to other articles. If a new consensus of 5 editors reverses the change do we flop back? I think it's less disruptive (makes articles more stable) if we avoid article text changes in cases like this. However, I am interested in knowing what guidance might apply here. ] (]) 15:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
: SMcCandlish, there is no evidence that "A great deal of care was taken to avoid confusing use of 'he'."—the author used it twice! It was natural and utterly un-confusing, and such pronouns are used throughout ''Britannica''. You've shot your own argument in the foot. ]&nbsp;] 20:27, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::: I'm interested in understanding this. My motivation in making the edits came down to a suspicion that there was some type of penalty incurred by linking through a redirect page, or that the redirects imposed a maintenance overhead. I hadn't read the naming convention, but if there's no real reason to reduce the number of redirected links, and recognizing that the target page could just as easily be renamed again in the future, I'll stop doing these edits. (Personally, I prefer "inline" to "straight", but I can see how the renaming would help organize the associated pages.) Thanks. ] (]) 15:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::CT, the {{em|entire piece}} avoids doing so, going out of its way in this regard again and again and again, except in only two places where it explicitly reiterates that we're talking about a fictional character outside the context of the fiction. This clear message is to generally avoid using pronouns out-of-universe, and be very careful when you do chose to use them. This is a pretty simple and obvious lesson. You'd see it, too, if you were devoting less brain power to trying to prove everyone {{em|wrong}} and more on actually looking at usage. Your approach to this has been suboptimal because you find uses of poor constructions like "Sherlock Holmes, who was created in ..." and latch onto this as if it's proof that it's a good idea. It's not. It's just illustration some some writers are less careful than others. You then try to deny all counterevidence that doesn't agree with you, and misstate the opposing argument as being in favor of something like "When Sherlock Holmes was created, it was ..." (as you've done multiple times in the above discussion) which not one single person here has advocated. It's not constructive, and just demonstrates that you're not understanding the actual discussion. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 20:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::My reasoning is ] stresses how we are required to name things, as we are un all editorial decisions, based on WP:V and WP:NPOV (in many cases this boils down to the result of ]). It has provisions specific to the article title and not the body, but much of it is expressing how to apply V and NPOV in deciding what to call things.
::: ''the {{em|entire piece}} avoids doing so'': based on what evidence other than mindreading? How can you possibly characterize that as "avoid doing so"? If the author was honestly "avoiding" it, it must have been quite the burden to do so if two "he"s managed to slip in! The rest of your comment is a mess of ad hominems and bald assertions that your own evidence disproves. ]&nbsp;] 21:22, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
::::If we take alternative names as such—e.g. that, all else being equal, we do take ''inline four'' and ''straight four'' to be synonyms, truly referring to the same thing for our purposes—it makes very little sense to "wall off" which names are used in a particular article, as there are no clear limits on how strictly this would have to be observed. Am I allowed to use any synonymous nouns, verbs, or adjectives in my synthesis that don't happen to appear in my three best sources? On the other hand, naming according to a generalized scope is surely more coherent for a hyperlinked encyclopedia providing tertiary analysis instead of merely refactoring and reshuffling the specific language of our secondary sources.
::::Of course exceptions abound, much of the time alternative names and redirects should be freely used according to syntactical and contextual concerns—but I believe this to be correct mindset to assume by default. I don't think any given article that uses ] needs to be changed. However, in cases like these, I feel it pays dividends to use terminology consistently between pages. If readers are encountering technical or domain specific language for the first time, we create the most helpful and coherent tertiary analysis for them if we zoom out a bit. It makes no sense to prefer '']'' to '']'' just because the book we're citing prefers the former—e.g., in an article about a specific battle, or a broad conceptual article not specific to the Sasanians—our deliberately preferring ''Sassanid'' simply does not aid the reader in becoming familiar with whatever additional context they're going to go to ] for in order to better understand our other article.
::::If I wake up and find this totally incoherent, I apologize. It's hard to speak clearly about naming and reference, though it's one of my favorite things to think about. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 16:49, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::] clearly says: "Piping links solely to avoid redirects is generally a time-wasting exercise that can actually be detrimental. It is almost never helpful to replace <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>]</syntaxhighlight> with <syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" inline>]</syntaxhighlight>." So if a link already leads to the correct article, but using an alternative name that redirects, that's ''absolutely fine'' and nothing more needs to be done. I realize that you're probably not talking about piping, but about changing the link text and link target together – but that too is unnecessary if the existing link target works fine (by redirecting). ] (]) 17:12, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Kumboloi, thanks for that explanation. It reaffirms my believe that you were acting in good faith (I hope you took my revert that way as well). ] (]) 19:11, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:I think there needs to be a good reason to not use the article title in text (and they do exist), and that can be discussed on a per-case basis at the relevant article (or other) talk page.—] (]) 17:19, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::Agreed. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 17:21, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Just so long as it is realized that THERE RATHER OFTEN IS A GOOD REASON! National language preferences for one thing. Busywork drive-by changes should be strongly discouraged. ] (]) 18:48, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Goes without saying! <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 19:04, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I just thought I'd drive by and agree with that. ]] 22:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:The answer the the OP's question is "More or less ''yes''", in the form of ]. Remesense's idea above that article titles policy and its dependent naming-conventions guidelines and essays (which actually defer to MoS on style questions) somehow dictate in-article content. They absolutely do not, or we would simply merge them. However, agreement with the page title can actually qualify as a good reason for a text change under STYLEVAR a lot of time, such as when a old page title (and our mirroring of it in the text) was a misnomer, unhelpfully ambiguous, obsolete, or obscurantist. When such problems don't apply, then having more than one way to refer to the subject is a boon to editors and readers, since it allows us to write less repetitively. But the lead should almost always agree with the title, and start with the term/name in the title and secondarily provide any noteworthy alternative(s). Some exceptions of course apply, such as when a term/name in the title is a colloquialism and used for ] purposes in the title but is not the best way to introduce the first sentence (this is especially common at biographical articles, in which we often give the full "Elizabeth" or "Robert" name of someone more commonly called "Liz" or "Bobby" and given that way in the page title). <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 03:28, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::I think they must dictate in-article content to a degree at least—it would make no sense to use a particular name in the title and initial definition (I've been assuming congruence throughout, e.g. no disambiguators considered) and then never again. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 03:36, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::That's a correlation/causation mix-up. What you're talking about is just ] (to the point of "Don't be intentionally perverse as if with a goal of confusing readers as much as possible") and a matter of ]. It's not an element of title policy or of naming conventions, which do not address article content (except a few of the worst-written NC pages have a statement or two in them about body content that needs to move out of those pages; I've been cleaning those up as I run across them). <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 14:18, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::I've been racking my brain trying to articulate exactly what I mean here, but I do not think it is <em>merely</em> correlative. Hopefully that is a useful thought inasmuch beyond just the trivial truth that the language one is exposed to affects the language they go on to use and think in terms of. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 19:32, 25 December 2024 (UTC)


== Legibility of thumbnails at default size ==
* As this RfC has the potential of overturning we should probably invite that discussion's participants to weigh in:
{{Moved discussion from|Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Images#Legibility of thumbnails at default size}}
*:{{Ping|Maunus|Cambalachero|Geraldo Perez|Cyphoidbomb|Boz|CombatWombat42|AngusWOOF|InedibleHulk|Nightscream|ProtoDrake|Benlisquare|Diego Moya|Jayron32|NukeofEarl|Alsee|Granger|Llywrch|Nyttend|Nihonjoe}}
]
*: The question is whether MoS should prohibit the use of personal pronouns ("he"/"she"/"who") to refer to ficitonal characters in an out-of-universe context. ]&nbsp;] 21:18, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
]
I am surprised there is no direct statement along the lines of {{xt|If possible, the selection, placement, and sizing of images should allow readers to fully decipher what they are intended to illustrate; thumbnails should be legible with the default base size of 220px without requiring readers to expand them.}} It seems like much of the guidance has this as an unstated goal, but there are cases where it is slightly less intuitive that this is a principle that editors should heed. My one worry is hypothetical quibbling over what any given image is intended to illustrate—is the specific text written on a street sign important for illustrative purposes?—but I feel like that's totally explicable in each instance via editor discussion. It's clear that some appropriate images cannot be legible at thumbnail size in context, either because they are visually intricate or the placement context simply won't allow it, but it seems helpful to state that editors should make an attempt when it is possible. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 16:02, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:{{ping|Remsense}} Can you give an example? ] (]) 16:39, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::Clicked around until I found one: at ], it's not really possible for me to discern the field of figures as men sitting at desks rather than just noise. This image should be displayed at a slightly larger size, and maybe cropped a bit.
::Another class of examples is insignia and coats of arms, where arguably key details that would be legible in the original contexts are illegible at thumbnail sizes in infoboxes, especially in cases where there are especially elaborate versions that editors sometimes opt for out of a misplaced sense of completeness (I guess). <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 17:03, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::]
:::]
:::They're everywhere. ] (]) 21:23, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
::::That is something that gives me pause: this seems like a common-sense guideline to me, but either it's so obvious that it shouldn't be a guideline (?) or it's not nearly as obvious to others. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 21:48, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::I've always found it odd that we don't have a minimum size recommendation. Can't tell you how many times I see collages or galleries that have teeny mini images that lack accessibility for all. <span style="font-weight:bold;color:darkblue">]</span>🍁 03:49, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do to print articles out (or otherwise have them in a format where the thumbnails are all you get), also. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 03:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::I do worry my criterion above is too loosey-goosey to be a good guideline; I don't think there's a problem with speaking in terms of minimum size as such, maybe it's better getting the intended point across? <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 03:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Definitely better getting the intended point across. If we try to impose a numeric min. size, people are going to argue about it until the end of fargin' time, based on the behavior of their preferred devices and browsers, and so on. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 03:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC); rev'd. 13:39, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::What do you think about the potential phrasing first presented—i.e. {{xt|if at all possible, what images are being used to illustrate should be fully legible when scaled according to the default base size}} <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 03:23, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::::Lots of unnecessary words. {{xt|When possible, images with text should be legible when ...}} I'm not sure what "according to" the default base size means. Is it really the {{em|default}} base size? Are more than handful of editors reading this going to understand what "base size" means? I thinking there must be a clearer way to get the point across, but the goal seems right. (Speaking of "getting the intended point across": ironically, my previous message had an extraneous word, "than", in it – in a position that reversed or at least badly confused my meaning, so I've removed it.) <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] 😼 </span> 13:39, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::::I'm not sure how to phrase it. It's not just images with text either, it's all images that are added but cannot actually be deciphered without expansion. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 04:40, 24 December 2024 (UTC)


== Commas around incorporated businesses' names ==
: Personal pronouns should not be prohibited, but I agree some sentences can be rewritten to as to not raise this issue, like how people would replace "he" and "she" with "one", or use "the character". The Superman example is nice for that. Also, there are fictional characters that are not people, like ]: "is a sentient computer that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew." While the character is in the concept stage, the character can be person-less. For example: "The author planned for Holmes to be a sentient computer that would light up and make a pinging sound when it solved the question. He changed it to be a normal person after realizing that computers would not fit the setting." When the character is obviously a person, then using "who" would be fine. For example: "The author wanted a magical girl heroine who would appeal not only to tween girls but also adults" . The Wonder Woman example is not relevant as it supports the usage of "that" and "which" on the genderless word "characters". Similarly, ] refers to the team which is genderless/impersonal. Sorry if this retreads on what was already posted. I think we don't need to spell out or impose extra rules that would cause folks to make more grammatical errors. ] (] • ]) 22:16, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


from looking at ], there isn't any guidance on how to deal with names with '']''. multiple articles do any of the following, either with no comma, a comma only before and a comma around the word.


# {{xt|Mumumu Inc. is a company ...}}
'''At this point, it's clear CurlyTurkey is not going to stop until he gets his way or no way. You all do realise we could just move on without him and create a majority rules consensus, right? Or, do we all want to go around in circles forever and ever amen? Personally, I don't.'''] (]) 23:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
# {{xt|Mumumu, Inc. is a company ...}}
* What, you mean like the I could go with that. ]&nbsp;] 23:47, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
# {{xt|Mumumu, Inc., is a company ...}}
**You mean the conversation where everyone (except you) agrees that '''who''' should not be used for fictional characters? Sure.] (]) 23:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


I am aware that the commaless and comma style may coexist (sometimes in the same article!), however the second and third styles should likely be decided upon. ] (]) 01:09, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
== 43rd governor of Kentucky ==
*Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy! I ''cannot wait'' for someone to say that ''Inc.'' is an "appositive", and therefore the commas have to come in pairs. ]] 01:20, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
*:Is that the cool way of saying that you don't think it is one? ] (]) 06:46, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
*There is a lengthy discussion at ]. --] &#x1F98C; (]) 09:42, 26 December 2024 (UTC)
*:@] thank you so much for your link and oh dear it really is long. ] (]) 13:56, 26 December 2024 (UTC)


== An editing policy question ==
This is in today's TFA (See the Main Page today, or ] anytime.) There's a question at ] about whether to capitalize "governor". Both copyedited text in general and wikiproject practice tend to be inconsistent on the point. ] says to capitalize the office ("was King of France", which is a singular office), but of course it would be "43 kings of France" rather than "43 Kings of France", so one interesting question is whether "43rd governor of Kentucky" more closely resembles the former or the latter. Thoughts? - Dank (]) 14:53, 18 August 2015 (UTC)


When I read Wiki policy and guidance pages, I sometimes find ''shall'' used instead of ''will'' to indicate what must be done ''—'' for example, in the ] article, we find: "The more signs that are present, the more likely sockpuppetry is occurring, though no accusations '''shall''' be made unless, beyond a reasonable doubt, one is really certain."
:The consensus on what sources I've dug up in a few minutes seems to be to not capitalize "governor" unless it is used with the person's name: "Governor Smith vetoed a bill. He is the third governor to do so." (search for "capitalize the titles") (search for "mayor")
:However, I did find one notable exception. The says that a title can be capitalized when used ''immediately after'' the person's name to "indicate preeminence in certain specialized instances," which I take to mean "John Smith, Governor of Kentucky." ] (]) 17:45, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
::Amazingly helpful, thanks. - Dank (]) 17:52, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
:::Yeah, that's use with name as title. It's distinct from "when John Smith was the governor of Kentucky". Some (especially American) style guides might capitalize it there, too (i.e., {{xtn|when John Smith was the Governor of Kentucky}}), and some writers (probably zero style guides) would even do this: *{{!xt|when John Smith served Kentucky as its Governor}}. MOS would consider both of those to be overcapitalization. The only difference, however, between {{xt|Kentucky Governor John Smith}}, and {{xt|John Smith, Governor of Kentucky}}, is syntax. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 02:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


Granted that ''shall'' is often used this way in government and judicial documents, I think it sounds somewhat at odds with the more user-friendly ambience Misplaced Pages has tried to create for editors. Besides, ''shall'' is not consistently applied throughout the policy and guidance pages ''—'' for example, in the same ] article, we find: ''"''The closing administrator '''will''' be required to follow the consensus, even if they personally disagree.''"''
== Notice of proposal regarding unusual prepositions in titles (re: clarification request in RM closure) ==
{{FYI|Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.}}
Please see ]. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 23:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)


— For the above reasons, wouldn't it be in Misplaced Pages's best interests to avoid using the conversationally archaic ''shall'' in these articles and replace it with ''will?''? I doubt that this would make editors with wrongdoing on their minds less likely to behave as desired.
* '''Oppose''': the proposal is in conflict with real-world usage, has no evidence to support its axioms, and is ]. It's a solution looking for a problem based on a misunderstanding of how the English language works. ]&nbsp;] 03:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
* This is not a vote, it's a {{tq|Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.}} <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 17:31, 21 August 2015 (UTC)


— But if the decision is made to continue "shalling," then for the sake of consistency couldn't a search-and-replace be done throughout the policy and guidance articles to replace ''will'' with ''shall'' where the word needs to indicate what must be done? ] (]) 16:53, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
== Centralized spot for capitalization after hyphenation ==


:It's fine, really. This is one of those things the MOS exists to obliquely neutralize—i.e. this is a pretty conjectural position and not worth getting into all-in or all-out discussions over. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 17:16, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
Weirdly, there was no one place this was located, but it was scattered about in ] and not written in generalized form. I've fixed this at ], with shortcut ]. Also added a one-liner summary at ]. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 00:23, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
::“Obliquely neutralize” — there’s a new one for me! 😅
::I just thought it would help lighten the bureaucratic tone of these articles to dial down the legalese, as many editors feel increasingly on edge with all the rules and regulations they discover the more they wade into Misplaced Pages. ] (]) 17:31, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
:::Genuinely, I apologize that I can't talk normal when the situation would benefit from it. Take that how you will. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 17:32, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
::::Or shall. ]] 17:39, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::😂 ] (]) 07:44, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::{{small|Am losing the ] here, mate. ] (]) 12:34, 31 December 2024 (UTC)}}


:::Just be aware that you’ve entered the purview of a global encyclopedia, and that means you will encounter forms of English that aren’t necessarily common locally to wherever you live. ] (]) 17:57, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
== Revisiting possessive for words ending in unsounded s ==
::::Is this one of those ] situations where we should stick to a limited number of ]s on a sliding scale (must > should > may)? --] &#x1F98C; (]) 18:42, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
::::@], Although I’m aware of different styles of English in different parts of the world, the ''shall/will'' issue I’ve raised here is more about how Misplaced Pages wants to show officially expected actions in particular situations.
::::Not like , “Today I shall go to the beach” … but like, “Administrators shall hold discussions on the matter for one week before reaching a decision.” ] (]) 12:10, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::Nevertheless, ‘shall’ is still reasonably common usage in formal, official or legal written texts, in the UK, in a way that I don’t think you can say for the US (but willing to be corrected…), and is not considered particularly user-unfriendly. Your observation to the contrary above is therefore pitched from the perspective of a particular Engvar, which was my original point. ] (]) 15:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::@], you're probably right about "how official" ''shall'' sounds to UK and US readers of official documents. And frankly, that word is still used from time to time in official documents in the US, even though much more rarely these days''.'' Even so, here's a thought: if ''will'' would work equally well as ''shall'' in Misplaced Pages policy and guidance documents, why not use it consistently here so as to make "official stuff" sound a bit less bureaucratic but at the same time affirming of expected behavior?
::::::Though I'm American, I doubt that any of our UK cousins across the pond would feel affronted if Misplaced Pages consciously adopted ''will'' in its policy and guidelines. Wouldn't it simply be one more example of Misplaced Pages's intentions of providing as welcoming and user-friendly environment as possible in which to work, while in no way demeaning other varieties of writing?
::::::Alternatively, to avoid the whole ''shall/will'' issue, there are still other ways wording could be done. For example, instead of "Administrators shall hold discussions...,” we could say, "Administrators are to hold discussions ....” ] (]) 11:04, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::More rules about how rules should be written could be one step forward, two steps back. ]] 12:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::Onbiously, you're free to edit how you want, but as a general rule, surely it isn't WP's object, nor that of the MoS, to try and enforce general language preferences on our editors? ] (]) 11:41, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
:::::::: You state the onbious. ]] 12:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
::::::::Well, @], I think it’s time for me to gracefully bow out of the discussion now. My only Intent in making my suggestion was far from an attempt to ''enforce,'' though I see how it might be interpreted that way''.''
::::::::Instead, I was trying to make a case for a slight change in wording that seemed to me could help Misplaced Pages accomplish its very positive goal of creating an open, light, friendly ambience — just as seniors helping in the Teahouse and elsewhere are asked to do with those who ask questions. I know that as some editors get involved with Misplaced Pages, they come to feel weighed down by many rules and regulations and even become fearful they might make a slip and face serious consequences.
::::::::It was this I hoped my suggestion might help prevent in the long run, with the flip-side benefit of editor retention. ] (]) 12:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)


==Discussion at ] (redux) ==
Can someone point me to justification within the WP confines of why Illinois, Descartes, and Verreaux have an added ’s rather than only an apostrophe? Perhaps I missed it, but I don’t see it on the pages listed at ]. ] (]) 06:47, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
]&nbsp;You are invited to join the discussion at ]. <span style="border-radius:2px;padding:3px;background:#1E816F">]<span style="color:#fff">&nbsp;‥&nbsp;</span>]</span> 21:13, 29 December 2024 (UTC)<!-- ] -->
* I doubt Misplaced Pages has decided on this, as it appears to be a matter of dispute. Recently Arkansas passed a resolution that the possessive of the state name be ''Arkansas's'', though some were nonplussed, saying it was "too many esses". I'm in the '' 's'' camp. ]&nbsp;] 08:16, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
**I'm also in the always-use-the-same-formula camp ('s); but there are too many detractors to get consensus. I believe that as long as usage is article-consistent, either approach has to be accepted. ] ] 09:13, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
***I think we should follow ''Fowler's Modern English Usage'', which says "With French names ending in (silent) -s or -x, add 's (e.g. Dumas's, le Roux's) and pronounce the modified word with a final -z." ] (]) 14:00, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
*Agree with the above commenters: Consistently use ''<nowiki />'s''. Leaving it out because of how you think it sounds is ], and WP is not a novel trying to mimic people's speech patterns. When Jones says something it's {{xt|Jones's}} speech. When I break a glass and cut myself while cleaning up, it was one of the {{xt|glass's}} fragments that cut me. The temple I was in in Greece last year was a former center of {{xt|Zeus's}} worship. People resist this mainly because many Bibles use {{!xt|Jesus'}} (often in red like that) and they don't ever want to do it differently. If it comes down to it, we can just make an exception for {{xt|Jesus'}} in the context of scripture, only (use {{xt|Jesus's}} in the context of, e.g., the historicity of Jesus), and move on, the same way it's permissible to use smallcaps for the Tetragrammaton and English Bible translation of it as {{GOD}}, and we even templates for this stuff (I just used one of them). A ] exception to avoid religious flamewars and permit "Jesus{{'"}} is no reason to throw the rest of the rule baby out with the religion bathwater. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 00:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
* OP here. ] states "For the possessive of most singular nouns, add 's (my daughter's achievement, my niece's wedding, Cortez's men, the boss's office, Glass's books, '''Illinois's''' largest employer, '''Descartes's''' philosophy, '''Verreaux's''' eagle). …" . I was asking not for further argument at this point, but for reference to old discussions to have that as a grounding. ] (]) 03:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
:: Is any help? --] (]) 19:51, 20 August 2015 (UTC)
::: thx -- am going through that … will report back ] (]) 06:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:: {{ec}} See also ]. It may not be exhaustive, either. The key material to me is the series of 2009 threads showing that a total mess had been made in MOS trying to account for varying preferences here, and it led to frequent strife, both at articles and here at WT:MOS. This is one of the cases where we just need to pick something and stick with it or the flaming would never die. It appears that once something has been picked and stuck with, virtually no one cares, and dispute dies off almost entirely. <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 02:24, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
The part I’ve gone through so far starts out with a contrived example as an object of discussion: ‘''"These are Doris' copies of Morris' books on Socrates' and Descartes' philosophies.”’'' It’s slow-going to pick out rationale specifically re the unsounded s. (And nearly all archive search results for ] are after 2009, so a thorough search to find rationale supporting the past decision will be a massive undertaking.) What I've seen so far identifies consistency and simplicity as overall drivers on the Possessives section. Noble goals, perhaps, but what’s striking is how far the guidance is from actual usage.


==Discussion on ] bio leads==
Looking at the 3 examples given — Google searches for Illinois, Descartes, Verreaux show:
See ]. ] (]) 19:07, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
<ol>
<li>"Descartes's" -"descartes’” — 12,100 hits</li>
<li>-"Descartes's" "descartes’” — 19,400,000 hits</li>
<li>"Illinois's" -"Illinois’” — 5,540 hits</li>
<li>-"Illinois's" "Illinois’” — 479,000,000 hits</li>
<li>"Verreaux's" -"Verreaux’” — 21,900 hits</li>
<li>-"Verreaux's" "Verreaux’” — 321,000 hits</li>
</ol>
In Google Scholar, the ratios are more striking — for Verreaux, there are 0 and 2,820 hits, respectively.


== Usage of historical place names in infoboxes ==
For unsounded s, usage is overwhelmingly in favor of apostrophe only.


Some feedback ] would be nice. Thanks --] (]) 19:34, 1 January 2025 (UTC)
Thoughts? ] (]) 20:21, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
:Several:
:#Your statistical method in those searches is invalid because of how Google operates and the nature of the data. Any work that included the string "Verreaux's" would also be likely to include "Verreaux" by itself. Google drops all punctuation from searches, even when the search terms are quoted. This means that, operationally, your searches on {{!xt|"Descartes's" -"descartes{{'"}}}} and {{!xt|"Descartes's" "descartes{{'"}}}} are, respectively, actually being performed as {{!xt|"Descartess" -"descartes"}} and {{!xt|"Descartess" "descartes"}}, respectively, which are basically gibberish.
:#Google is useless for this sort of thing, even aside from the punctuation problem, since there is no way to distinguish high-quality sources from random kids' blogs, nor from one regional usage variation to another, nor even from material written by native English speakers vs. those with only partial fluency (or the output of machine translation). There's also no way to use it to distinguish between material written to a particular published style guide vs. another one or vs. no guidance at all.
:#Published mainstream style guides are more useful, in general, for questions of this sort, but they prove not to all agree with each other, and some have strange rules like use <code>'</code> not <code>'s</code> (e.g. {{xtn|Zeus'}} not {{xtn|Zeus's}}) for "names from antiquity", whatever that means; others are pronunciation based; others are consistent on <code>'s</code>; others are semi-consistent on <code>'s</code> except after another <code>s</code>; etc.
:#Whether an ''-s'' is sounded or not varies from speaker to speaker, often regionally; previous discussions illustrate this actually, though I don't know if you've run into the ones that do yet, so the "based on pronunciation" model fails in an international encyclopedia, even if it (allegedly) works on some national levels (my linguistic training tells me even that assumption is patently false).
:#Whether it's sounded or not in spoken English is of questionable relevance in written English to begin with.
:#Rehashing old discussions to "re-legislate" a current issue is rarely helpful. It can be helpful in discerning why a guideline (or whatever) presently says what it says, but generally is not helpful in determining whether to change it or how. It's not necessary to re-argue all previous argument in order for WP consensus to form today.
:#WP doesn't operate on a "precedent" basis much of anywhere, and even where it is a concern, it's a limited one. So no "massive undertaking" is required to ferret out every prior thread that ever mentioned possessive suffixes (and your search for "possessive prefix" would not be expected to find anything useful, since English doesn't use prefixes to indicate the possessive). Anyway, the ] principle tells us to rely on current thinking, not thinking from several years ago.
:#It's more important to examine the present context. Is a MoS rule "working" for the most part compared to an old rule or a lack of any rule? Where disputes arise what are they about? Are they widespread or limited to a specific topic or case? Are they frequent or rare? Are they populous, or is it mostly the same editor or handful of editors re-re-raising the same "issue"?
:#Is the WP rule based on citation to some external "authority", or based on internal consensus about what works best here? (Obviously the latter in this case.)
:This is a case where off-WP guidance is very inconsistent, and where the consensus has emerged to pick the one of several possible treatments of the issue (the version with the least variation, for simplicity), and run with that for the sake of forestalling further strife. As a rule, it's intent is conflict reduction, not propriety (contrast this with a rule like "capitalize after a colon when what follows the colon is a complete sentence", a rule that is found in most style guides, and about which people rarely edit-war; here, the rule is intended to match what actually is a prevailing usage, rather than put an end to a perennial conflict by picking something out of competing usages none of which are predominant). Some MoS rules (perhaps most of them) serve both the "look professional" and "forestall fighting" purposes, but this is not required. (Some serve other purposes, e.g. technical ones, that don't relate to either of those two more common rationales.) <span style="white-space:nowrap;font-family:'Trebuchet MS'"> — ] ] ] ≽<sup>ʌ</sup>ⱷ҅<sub>ᴥ</sub>ⱷ<sup>ʌ</sup>≼ </span> 21:14, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

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Misplaced Pages's Manual of Style contains some conventions that differ from those in some other, well-known style guides and from what is often taught in schools. Misplaced Pages's editors have discussed these conventions in great detail and have reached consensus that these conventions serve our purposes best. New contributors are advised to check the FAQ and the archives to see if their concern has already been discussed.

Why does the Manual of Style recommend straight (keyboard-style) instead of curly (typographic) quotation marks and apostrophes (i.e., the characters " and ', instead of “, ”, ‘, and ’)‍? Users may only know how to type in straight quotes (such as " and ') when searching for text within a page or when editing. Not all Web browsers find curly quotes when users type straight quotes in search strings. Why does the Manual of Style recommend logical quotation? This system is preferred because Misplaced Pages, as an international and electronic encyclopedia, has specific needs better addressed by logical quotation than by the other styles, despite the tendency of externally published style guides to recommend the latter. These include the distinct typesetters' style (often called American, though not limited to the US), and the various British/Commonwealth styles, which are superficially similar to logical quotation but have some characteristics of typesetters' style. Logical quotation is more in keeping with the principle of minimal change to quotations, and is less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing, than the alternatives. Logical quotation was adopted in 2005, and has been the subject of perennial debate that has not changed this consensus. Why does the Manual of Style differentiate the hyphen (-), en dash (–), em dash (—), and minus sign (−)? Appropriate use of hyphens and dashes is as much a part of literate, easy-to-read writing as are correct spelling and capitalization. The "Insert" editing tools directly below the Misplaced Pages editing window provide immediate access to all these characters. Why does the Manual of Style recommend apostrophe+s for singular possessive of names ending in s? Most modern style guides treat names ending with s just like other singular nouns when forming the possessive. The few that do not propose mutually contradictory alternatives. Numerous discussions have led to the current MoS guidance (see discussions of 2004, 2005, 2005, 2006, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2009, 2009, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2017, 2017 (the RfC establishing the present consensus), 2018, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022). Why doesn't the Manual of Style always follow specialized practice? Although Misplaced Pages contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field, such as academic journals, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for or examples of how to present those facts to non-experts. When adopting style recommendations from external sources, the Manual of Style incorporates a substantial number of practices from technical standards and field-specific academic style guides; however, Misplaced Pages defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles.
Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated. Please read recent comments, look in the archives, and review the FAQ before commenting.
Section sizes
Section size for Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (157 sections)
Section name Byte
count		 Section
total
(Top) 2,657 2,657
Retaining existing styles 2,787 2,787
Article titles, sections, and headings 137 12,678
Article titles 3,406 3,406
Section organization 4,752 4,752
Section headings 3,573 4,383
Heading-like material 810 810
National varieties of English 847 6,626
Consistency within articles 1,230 1,230
Opportunities for commonality 1,882 1,882
Strong national ties to a topic 1,414 1,414
Retaining the existing variety 1,253 1,253
Capital letters 648 18,724
Capitalization of The 984 984
Titles of works 1,232 1,232
Titles of people 780 780
Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines 4,974 4,974
Calendar items 701 701
Animals, plants, and other organisms 5,616 5,616
Celestial bodies 1,249 1,249
Compass points 1,203 1,203
Proper names versus generic terms 1,337 1,337
Ligatures 495 495
Abbreviations 774 8,129
Write first occurrences in full 640 640
Plural forms 245 245
Punctuation and spacing 1,175 1,175
US and U.S. 1,918 1,918
Circa 279 279
Avoid unwarranted use 662 662
Do not invent 874 874
HTML tags and templates 383 383
Ampersand 1,179 1,179
Italics 105 6,366
Emphasis 1,133 1,133
Titles 572 572
Words as words 1,320 1,320
Non-English words 751 751
Scientific names 499 499
Quotations in italics 581 581
Italics within quotations 767 767
Effect on nearby punctuation 638 638
Quotations 1,355 16,636
Original wording 3,026 3,026
Point of view 1,234 1,234
Typographic conformity 5,818 5,818
Attribution 438 438
Quotations within quotations 94 94
Linking 483 483
Block quotations 3,049 3,049
Non-English quotations 1,139 1,139
Punctuation 203 76,952
Apostrophes 2,184 2,184
Quotation marks 394 13,595
Quotation characters 1,035 1,035
Double or single 1,234 1,234
For a quotation within a quotation 869 869
Article openings 729 729
Punctuation before quotations 2,023 2,023
Names and titles 1,331 1,331
Punctuation inside or outside 3,717 3,717
Quotation marks and external links 940 940
Quotation marks and internal links 1,323 1,323
Brackets and parentheses 3,366 4,571
Brackets and linking 1,205 1,205
Ellipses 2,939 2,939
Commas 4,876 8,072
Serial commas 3,196 3,196
Colons 1,868 1,868
Semicolons 3,331 5,721
Semicolon before "however" 2,390 2,390
Hyphens 9,985 9,985
Dashes 939 16,164
In article titles 759 759
In running text 2,195 12,352
In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through 3,063 3,063
In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between 5,212 5,212
Instead of a hyphen, use an en dash when applying a prefix or suffix to a compound that itself includes a space, dash or hyphen 1,297 1,297
To separate parts of an item in a list 585 585
Other uses for en dashes 543 543
Other uses for em dashes 966 966
Other dashes 605 605
Slashes (strokes) 3,341 3,948
And/or 607 607
Symbols 595 595
Number (pound, hash) sign and numero 2,310 2,310
Terminal punctuation 737 737
Spacing 512 512
Consecutive punctuation marks 1,151 1,151
Punctuation and footnotes 2,179 2,179
Punctuation after formulae 218 218
Dates and time 361 5,083
Time of day 794 794
Dates 1,033 1,033
Months 323 323
Seasons 774 774
Years and longer periods 1,080 1,080
Current 718 718
Numbers 1,884 1,884
Currencies 1,637 1,637
Units of measurement 2,737 2,737
Common mathematical symbols 2,606 2,606
Grammar and usage 62 12,759
Possessives 158 1,918
Singular nouns 975 975
Plural nouns 523 523
Official names 262 262
Pronouns 104 5,804
First-person pronouns 1,494 1,494
Second-person pronouns 2,306 2,306
Third-person pronouns 1,900 1,900
Plurals 2,005 2,005
Verb tense 2,970 2,970
Vocabulary 98 22,675
Contractions 476 476
Gender-neutral language 1,692 1,692
Contested vocabulary 256 256
Instructional and presumptuous language 2,578 2,578
Subset terms 618 618
Identity 1,957 3,604
Gender identity 1,647 1,647
Non-English terms 301 8,016
Terms without common usage in English 1,547 1,547
Terms with common usage in English 400 400
Spelling and romanization 4,917 4,917
Other non-English concerns 851 851
Technical language 1,961 1,961
Geographical items 3,376 3,376
Media files 69 2,791
Images 313 313
Other media 181 181
Avoid using images to display text 884 884
Captions 526 1,344
Formatting of captions 818 818
Bulleted and numbered lists 1,552 1,552
Links 10 1,750
Wikilinks 1,411 1,411
External links 329 329
Miscellaneous 18 13,328
Keep markup simple 1,219 1,219
Formatting issues 1,016 2,981
Color coding 1,245 1,245
Indentation 720 720
Controlling line breaks 2,471 2,471
Scrolling lists and collapsible content 3,164 3,164
Invisible comments 1,554 2,817
How to add an invisible comment 1,263 1,263
Pronunciation 658 658
See also 1,199 4,870
Guidance 1,242 1,242
Tools 300 300
Other community standards 523 523
Guidelines within the Manual of Style 310 1,606
Names 1,296 1,296
Notes 24 24
References 28 28
Further reading 1,206 1,206
Total 226,980 226,980
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Welcome to the MOS pit


    Style discussions elsewhere

    This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived.

    Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to Concluded when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.

    Current

    (newest on top)

    Pretty stale but not "concluded":

    Capitalization-specific:

    This section is an excerpt from Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Current.

    Move requests:

    Other discussions:

    Pretty stale but not "concluded":

    Concluded

    Extended content
    This section is an excerpt from Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Concluded.
    Capitalization-specific:
    2024
    2023
    2022
    2021

    Retain or remove citation indicators in quoted text?

    Is it acceptable to remove citation indicators – ¹ or (Gorgon, 1993) – that appear within quoted text (this would be to improve readability). I'm not referring to citing quoted material, but to citation marks within quoted material. Thanks! Tsavage (talk) 12:18, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

    Yes. References to footnotes are usually silently omitted, as they are not a part of the text flow anyway. Gawaon (talk) 11:52, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks. Is this addressed in the MoS? I couldn't find mention MOS:QUOTE. This would seem a common situation when citing academic sources. Tsavage (talk) 15:58, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    I added it while doing some other cleanup. It's entirely normal to silently (not with "...") remove inline citations from quoted material, since WP isn't providing the source info, and to the reader it will be just be frustrating (they'll go looking for "Smith 1997" or whatever, and not find it). If our article is also citing the same source, then linking the quoted citation to our citation might be useful, but shouldn't be seen as manadatory. A general principle of quotation (inline or block) is to only quote what is pertinent, what is contextually necessary for our purposes; otherwise we're wandering into over-quotation which is both poor writing and apt to be a copyright issue unless the source is public-domain.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:55, 11 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks. Your addition is helpful and doesn't seem to overcomplicate things. I realized the primary aim with quoted material is not to forensically reproduce it from the source (as I'd kinda been doing), it's to accurately represent the meaning as it appears in the full context of the source. Which makes minor silent adjustments for readability fine, provided meaning is strictly preserved – comprehension and judgement are of course required. Tsavage (talk) 17:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

    Stale advice: slashes have been line-breaks since 2005 (Unicode 4.1.0)

    § Slashes (strokes) says "On the other hand, if two long words are connected by an unspaced slash, an {{wbr}} added after the slash will allow a linebreak at that point."

    I've recently tweaked a couple of articles doing this, and realized that my browser will allow breaks after slashes without any special markup. This is part of the current Unicode line-break algorithm. Looking into the archives, it was added to support breaking URLs between Unicode 4.0.1 (2004-03-30) and Unicode 4.1.0 (2005-08-29).

    It's been 19 years. Do we still need this advice? I ask because some parts of WP are aggressively backward-compatible: {{wbr}} still expands to <wbr/>&#8203; since apparently IE7 and earlier don't support <wbr/>. But I seriously doubt that WP is consistently backward-compatible; I'm sure there are lots of more recent edits where the editors didn't see a problem with long /-separated lists on their browsers and didn't do anything tricky. 97.102.205.224 (talk) 17:20, 26 November 2024 (UTC)

    Look at Good articles (or former Good articles) from years ago they read like they do now and it just shows that the Manual of Style will stay exactly the same as it has been for 18 years unfortunately. This0k (talk) 02:45, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

    Input needed on disagreement over where the lifespan goes in relation to a baronetcy or a peerage title

    Muéro and I disagree on where the lifespan goes in relation to a name that includes a baronetcy or a peerage title. It started with Muéro removing honorifics from the lead of several articles on peers (many of which I have on my watchlist), following the recently changed guidelines at WP:POSTNOM. This is not controversial, but in their edits, he also removed a comma unrelated to the honorifics, but called for by WP:COMMA ("Don't let other punctuation distract you from the need for a comma, especially when the comma collides with a bracket or parenthesis").

    I pointed this out to them, and they acknowledged the error, but then they instead started to leave another comma in place, a comma that was required by the now obsolete guideline. I can't find the guideline in the history of this article, but it went something like this:

    For people with a baronetcy or a peerage, the post-nominals should be separated from each other, and from the name, by a comma, for consistency's sake. (my underscore)

    That is the comma Muéro left in place, and the result was this: 

    John Doe, 1st Baron Doe, (1 January 1801 – 31 December 1881), was a Whig politician ...

    I pointed out to Muéro that this is also wrong, and that punctuation rarely – if ever – precedes a parenthetical expression. But they are adamant that it should be there.

    So here we are. I'd like input from the project, and I'm sure Muéro would like that too.

    The discussion originated on Muéro's talk page, but I'm copying it here, and closing it there, while notifying them.

    The discussion on Muéro's talk page

    Hello.

    Thank you for your contributions. Regarding your edit of Frederick Curzon, 7th Earl Howe, and similar edits removing postnoms per the new guidelines, please don't remove the comma after the parenthetical birth–death expression. It's supposed to be there per WP:COMMA: "Don't let other punctuation distract you from the need for a comma, especially when the comma collides with a bracket or parenthesis".

    Thank you. HandsomeFella (talk) 15:50, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

    Ah, good catch. I can't wait for the day when nobility titles are also excluded entirely, which would make that comma unnecessary anyway. Muéro 15:58, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
    Hello again.
    Thank you for your understanding. Re: your latest edits, you're now leaving a comma in place that shouldn't be there.
    Nathaniel Charles Jacob Rothschild, 4th Baron Rothschild, (29 April 1936 – 26 February 2024),
                                  ^                     ^                                   ^
                                  A                     B                                   C
    Commas A and C are paired, comma B should be removed along with the postnoms that followed it. Commas rarely precede parentheses.
    Cheers.
    HandsomeFella (talk) 17:52, 25 November 2024 (UTC)
    I don't think that makes sense. If someone doesn't have a nobility/royalty title, there is no comma before or after the life span. When adding the nobility/royalty title, the pair of commas should go before and after the nobility/royalty title. Why, when adding the nobility/royalty title, would the life span get looped into the comma pair? Muéro 17:56, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

    Step by step

    I think it makes perfect sense. You don't put a parenthetical expression after punctuation, do you? Let me take this step by step. Normally, the first sentence would be something like this: 

    John Doe was a Whig politician ...

    Now let's add that he was a peer: 

    John Doe, 1st Baron Doe, was a Whig politician ...
        ^              ^
        A              B

    The commas A and B are paired, i.e. the "parenthetical" title is set off at both ends (unless when there is other punctuation, like at the end of sentence). Let's see what happens without the closing (second) comma: 

    John Doe, 1st Baron Doe was a Whig politician ...

    If the commas aren't paired, the sentence reads "1st Baron Doe was a Whig politician", and "John Doe" is left dangling at the start of the sentence.

    Now, let's add the life span. Where do we add it? Before punctuation. 

    John Doe, 1st Baron Doe (1 January 1801 – 31 December 1881), was a Whig politician ...
        ^                                                  ^
        A                                                  B

    The commas A and B are still paired. See?

    HandsomeFella (talk) 23:04, 25 November 2024 (UTC)

    The nobility title is a nonessential appositive. Commas go before and after a nonessential appositive. I'm assuming you don't consider the lifespan, which is never set off by commas in a Misplaced Pages article, to be a part of the same nonessential appositive somehow, right? If it's not included in the nobility title nonessential appositive, then it goes outside the commas. Muéro 00:04, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    No, it doesn't. Sure, the lifespan parenthetical isn't part of the appositive, but neither are the commas, which is demonstrated by the fact that at, if the name and title occurred at the end of a sentence, there wouldn't be a comma; there would be a period/full stop:
    ... Joseph Smith bequeathed the manor to his nephew, John Doe, 1st Baron Doe (1801–1881).
    You wouldn't place the parenthetical outside the sentence like this, would you?
    ... Joseph Smith bequeathed the manor to his nephew, John Doe, 1st Baron Doe. (1801–1881)
    Ergo: normal rules apply, which is that punctuation doesn't precede a parenthetical. (The exception being when there is a complete sentence inside the parentheses, in which case punctuation occurs both at the end of the preceding sentence, i.e. before the parenthetical, and before the closing parenthetical, as shown here.)
    Commas go before and after an appositive (unless there is other punctuation), but that does not necessarily mean immediately after.
    HandsomeFella (talk) 10:29, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    "Punctuation doesn't precede a parenthetical" is not a rule at all. It's just something you made up.
    If the parenthetical were being applied to the nobility title, then the parenthetical should go within the commas that set off the nobility title. But the parenthetical is being applied to the actual name of the person, which came before the nonessential appositive that is set off by commas.
    If you dislike the placement of the nobility title between the name and the lifespan parenthetical, I wouldn't disagree. I'd happily remove the nobility title entirely from the lead sentence (or heck, the whole article). Or put the lifespan parenthetical first, and then the nobility title. But wherever the nobility appositive is being stuck, it gets set off by commas. That's the rule. Muéro 13:38, 26 November 2024 (UTC)
    This one is simple: a comma is never placed immediately before other punctuation. Instead it's placed after them or, in case or semicolons and periods, omitted altogether. While MOS:COMMA doesn't say so quite explicitly (supposedly treating it as one of these common sense things that everybody already knows?), it gives an example of how to do it correctly: "Burke and Wills, fed by locals (on beans, fish, and ngardu), survived for a few months." (With the second parenthetical comma after the closing bracket.) So, by analogy, "John Doe, 1st Baron Doe (1 January 1801 – 31 December 1881), was a Whig politician" is indeed correct. Gawaon (talk) 08:58, 28 November 2024 (UTC)
    Concur with the OP and with Gawaon on the typographical point; we don't use a comma right before a round-bracketed parenthetical, nor does much of anyone else in the world. One might make an argument that "logically", in the way a computer program would approach logic, there should or could be one there, and this is the direction Muéro has been going, but human language does not operate on such a basis, being a matter of convention combined with expediency, not a matter of a JSON-like syntax in which a comma that really should not be needed to parse the material must be present anyway or the operation will fail.

    That said, we do have several interrelating issues in play in this titles and post-noms sector that are worth cataloguing and considering in some detail:

    1. Something like "Xerxes Youill Zounds, Grand Poobah of Elbonia–Brobdingnag (3 May 1571 – 24 July 1644), was ..." is always indicating the life-span dates. If there is a need to specify the duration of a peerage, including a change in titles, that should be done in plain English in the article body, and is not going to be lead-sentence or even lead-section material. It's body material, like "Upon the death of his father, Zounds became 3rd poobah of Elbonia on 12 December 1629. He was elevated to 1st grand poobah of Elbonia–Brobdingnag on 20 June 1639 by High King Korki IX of Kerblachistan. Zounds was also the bishop of Lilliput from ca. 1630 to 14 February 1633, when he was defrocked by the archbishop of Elbonia."
    2. As an anti-classist myself, I still have to observe/concede that "don't include any titles or post-noms because they are classist" is not a viable position. WP is not a socio-political activism tool, and when any such title or honor (whether earned or hereditary or otherwise) is pertinent to a notable article subject, it should be covered, more prominently the more important it is within the context of their notability. (See below for an idea toward suppressing lead inclusion when not related to notability at all but a late-coming add-on to the pile of someone's life aachievements.)
    3. There's a been a very long-standing de facto consensus to always include peerage titles and important post-nominals (but not academic or professional titles or post nominals like "Dr" or "PhD", or guild/union stuff like "ASC", "PGA") in the lead sentence. Virtually every applicable article has been written this way.
    4. A recent-ish RfC (I seem to have lost the link to it – help me out?) with probably much too low a turnout upended part of this, and now has us remove the post-nominals from the lead sentence. This has not sat well, and actually introduces some writing problems that the RfC participants did not anticipate. For example, WP does not, except in an article on the subject being abbreviated, introduce an acronym/initialism unless it is going to be re-used later in the same article. But if our bio subject's investiture as a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath is covered in the body only, the point at which this is done has no need to a "KCB" appearing at that point, since "KCB" is used as a post-nominal not otherwise and would not be re-used later in the article; the result is that the "KCB" that applies to this person has no logical place to go in the article any longer, since it was actually only pertinent in the lead sentence, attached to the person's name. We could do something very awkward like state that this knighthood entitles/entitled this person to use "Sir" or "Dame" and the post-nominal "KCB", but this sort of blather would have to be repeated throughout many thousands of articles, and was already very concisely conveyed by the original lead sentence without having to spell it out and micro-WP:COATRACK the bio article with detailia about how a particular order's nomenclatural rules operate. Simply showing rather than telling was better.

      So, this really should be re-RfCed, at a higher-profile venue like WP:VPPOL so we are certain that the community at large really wants to impose this lead rule change and its problems all in the name of shaving a few characters off the lead sentence. "The postnoms will be in the infobox anyway" isn't the (or an) answer, since not all bios have infoboxes, and there is staunch resistance to adding them in many cases. A potential compromise might be to not include postnoms in lead sentence but in an infobox when one is present and has a parameter for it.

    5. Even without revisiting that with a better RfC, the present wording at MOS:POSTNOM is daft: "post-nominal letters may be included in the main body of the article, but not in the lead sentence of the article". This has already lead to dispute about whether it means post-noms are banned from the entire lead or only the literal lead sentence, because it only addresses the lead sentence and the post-lead-section article body. The correct answer (if you look at the RfC discussion and the alleged consensus arising from it) is that this should instead read something like "post-nominal letters may be included, but not in the lead sentence of the article"; there was no consenus to ban them from the entire lead section. However, this runs into the problem above: Because post-nominal letters are used directly with full names, and generally only upon first introduction, there effectively is no practical place for them, in the lead section or in the article body, other than the lead sentence (except arguably in an infobox if it's there and has a place for this information).
    6. Next, there's a misapprehension here (evidenced in the beginning of this thread) that this anti-postnom RfC result somehow also means to remove peerage and nobility titles from the lead. It does not. They are a different category of thing and were not addressed in that RfC. It is possible that a consensus might be reached to remove peerage titles when they are not pertinent to the subject's notability (e.g. that would have been the case with Christopher Guest had he remained an actor/director/producer only and not taken a seat in the House of Lords). There are also many life baronetcies created late in the life of the recipients and to little public awareness; a case can be made to exclude them from the lead sentence and probably from the entire lead section. But this is something for a consensus discussion on an article-by-article basis, or for a new RfC if we wanted a categoric rule of some kind about it.
    7. A side issue is that some parties from the nobility and peerage wikiprojects have, by WP:FAITACCOMPLI behavior, programmatically usurped the |name= parameter of {{infobox person}} and its offshoots, abusing it to hold the peerage title, when that really belongs in |postnom= since it is in fact post-nominal (it's just not a post-nominal abbreviation). See Margaret Thatcher for the typical absurd result. Because this has been done to thousands and thousands of articles and involves yet another "wikiproject rebellion" against the norms of the entire rest of the project, I suspect this is probably best addressed with another WP:VPPOL RfC so there can be no doubt about the community consensus level of the result (which will obviously be to stop having our infobox blatantly lie to our readers that Margaret Thatcher's name is "The Baroness Thatcher". For the Thatcher case, the obvious solution is: |name=Margaret Hilda Thatcher|honorific_suffix=Baroness Thatcher<br />{{Post-nominals|country=GBR|size=100%|LG|OM|DStJ|PC|FRS|HonFRSC}} , and this is what agrees with the lead of the article. (Note lack of "The" before "Baroness".)

      These infoboxes are also failing MOS:HONORIFIC by including honorific salutation phrases like "The Right Honorourable" that are not part of the name in any sense, but used when writing a letter to such a person or when introducing them as speaker, and so on; that sort of information does not belong in a bio article (much less thousands of them robotically) but in an article on forms-of-address etiquette and probably again in the article on the title (baronet or whatever the case may be).

    There are probably other issues to address, but this is a lot already.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:42, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

    Any objections to extending MOS:TIES to all nations and regions?

    Currently MOS:TIES qualifies itself to English-speaking nations. However, in an increasingly multicultural world with English emerging as the lingua franca, at minimum in the Western world, why qualify this part of the MoS like that, ESPECIALLY when it also impacts on MOS:UNIT? For example, the European Union has 24 official languages, including English, and multilingualism is one of its founding principles.

    Would it not make sense to extend MOS:TIES to nations (and regions) irrespective of whether they traditionally speak English or not? Because I can see how saying to someone that embraces multilingualism and values Europe's rich linguistic diversity wishing to contribute to an article on a topic with strong ties to their nation or region in the EU, where English is an official language, that in this case that tie doesn’t count (and someone else gets to decide) might be perceived as ... well ... rude and arrogant, which isn't just unnecessary but also unproductive. Would the article not benefit from including anyone with a strong tie to it?

    I must note I would prefer if there was an established international variant, but I also find it practical not to have to waste time and effort trying to work out whether in a given article its meter or metre, organise or organize, or SI first and then imperial, or imperial first and then SI. Because getting it wrong just causes unnecessary consternation, especially if the article is inhabited by one or more "Shelobs". Elrondil (talk) 06:41, 14 December 2024 (UTC)

    I'm not in favor of this idea. TIES is an exceptional case that should be used only when it's very clear; the main rule is RETAIN.
    In practice I think this proposal comes down to "don't use American English in articles about Europe". I don't agree with that. --Trovatore (talk) 06:52, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
    @Trovatore: The proposal doesn’t suggest it no longer needs to be clear, nor that that main rule is no longer retain. It simply proposes that MORE voices are heard.
    As for the “don’t use American English in Europe” bit ... that would then only happen if most voices then want that. The solution surely isn’t “but I don’t like that, so let’s exclude them from the set of voices allowed to speak”. Fear not, they may choose American, who knows. Elrondil (talk) 06:21, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Also not in favor for the reasons cited by Trovatore. Doremo (talk) 07:16, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
    I do object to this.
    Moreover, from what I understand it's a perennial suggestion, so I recommend perusing the last major flare-up of it from June, wherein I happen to embark on a journey from the exact wrong position all the way to the right one, filling your heart with hope for a better future as you follow my progress. Remsense ‥ 论 07:23, 14 December 2024 (UTC)
    If it keeps coming up, perhaps there is something there.
    However, you do highlight its more complex than I originally thought, so back to the drawing board 🤔. Elrondil (talk) 06:24, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Not a chance. The purpose of MOS:TIES is entirely, only, solely about English-language dialects that exist at a more or less national level and in a formal register suitable for encyclopedia writing. Under no circumstances would we accept an English pidgin/creole or some vaguely identifiable informal habits of English-as-a-second-language users in some country or region as a "variety of English" to accept for encyclopedia writing. If you encounter "Franglais", "Spanglish", "Deutchlish", etc., in any of our articles it should be normalized on the spot to whichever form of standardized English suits the subject best if there are strong MOS:TIES, or to the form that the article already most closely matches (British, American, Canadian, or some other dialect of a country with majority or official and large minority English usage in a formal register). Another way of looking at this: There is no strong tie between Finland and any form of English. Even the "Well, it at least shouldn't be American, but British, because the UK is part of Europe and the US is not" sort of argument fails, because there's more than one national dialect of English in Europe (Irish, for now, and probably Scottish if they have another independence referendum). If there's not a particular encyclopedia-appropriate variety/dialect of English in widespread use in a country, then that country by definition has no strong tie to any such particular variety.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:22, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    @SMcCandlish: Thank you for stating very clearly and firmly that the purpose of MOS:TIES is entirely, only, solely about English-language dialects, because THAT means my primary concern of how it relates to MOS:UNIT is a non-issue!
    For the record, I did not, and still don’t, propose that “Franglais” and so on become accepted English variants. Because that would be insane, pointless and not useful. Elrondil (talk) 06:46, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    If this is something to do with promotion of crore and lakh in articles that pertain to India, there's already a big thread about that at WT:MOSNUM (again), and last I looked the consensus wasn't really changing: they're permissible as secondary units, but always need to be converted because they don't mean anything to anyone outside India and parts of its immediate neighbors (and of course among first-gen Indic diaspora). Maybe the tide has shifted in that discussion; I last looked at it about a week ago.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:50, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    No. I wasn’t aware of that thread. Elrondil (talk) 06:52, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    The thread to which you refer is “RfC Indian numbering conventions”? Elrondil (talk) 06:59, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don’t think there is any real overlap with the “RfC Indian numbering conventions” thread.
    I also think MOS:TIES is a dog’s breakfast, but happy to leave it alone at this time.
    Are there any objections then to apply the direction from SMcCandlish that the purpose of MOS:TIES is entirely, only, solely about English-language dialects to MOS:UNITS and decouple "respect the principle of 'strong national ties'" from MOS:TIES? For example, change it to "respect the underlying principle of strong national ties as also used in MOS:TIES but in a different context”, and then also qualify the following with only?
    • In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United States only, the …
    • In non-scientific articles with strong ties to the United Kingdom only, the …
    • In all other articles, the …
    Elrondil (talk) 08:34, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Well, you're been so vague about why you are asking these things, what rationale you could have for making up a new rule or changing any existing one, without any reference to an ongoing and important on-site problem, that all one has been left with is guesswork based on encounters with extant or recent discussions that seem like they could be pertinent. "Are there any objections"?: Yes., I can think of a number:
    1. There is no clear rationale for what you're proposing, much less a consensus to do it. Substantive changes to policies and guidelines (WP:P&G) need consensus or they will not be accepted (unless they, rarely, hit upon something that needed to adjusted and no one else noticed until now, which isn't the case here).
    2. There are strong rationales against it, most obviously:
      A. Your implicit notion that units of measure have no connection to dialect (or "variety" as WP likes to say) is not correct.
      B. Even if it were, it'd be immaterial. The next implicit idea in your proposal (quite central to it really) is that if P&G page X reiterates a general principle from another, Y, and cites the latter for the explanation, such that X applies that principle to X's circumstances because they are reasonably analogous to Y's, that this somehow creates a bureaucratic rules-chain dependency in which every aspect of the context of the cited origin of the principle in Y must also be applicable to the citing circumstances of X. Nothing on Misplaced Pages works that way at all. Cf. WP:WIKILAWYER: it's a mistake to try to interpret our P&G as essentially a legal system (or as something like a procedural programming language, or a chain of dependencies in building software from source code; more than one analogy works).
      C. Because of point B, and because of the guideline's current "where applicable" wording (which is there for a reason and meaningful), your first rewrite idea, of tacking on a bunch of "respect the underlying principle of strong national ties as also used in MOS:TIES but in a different context" verbiage it entirely superfluous. The two versions convey the same meaning, because it is already understood that the principle (not the detail-by-detail contextual specifics) of TIES is being applied at UNITS. This is the way our entire P&G system operates. It wouldn't really be possible for it to be any other way. If UNITS was literally just restating TIES, down to the specifics of exactly what TIES covers, then UNITS would be redundant (in this regard) with TIES, and its wording about this issue would've been deleted long ago and replaced with a simple cross-reference to TIES without further comment. The kind of exemplary and contextual more-than-crossreferencing done at UNITS is entirely normal. And important: an editor looking for "what to do about units" is unlikely to instead stumble upon "what to do about national-level usage disputes", and so would be unlikely to find the TIES principles and then be certain how to contextually apply them (if at all) to units, without being basically an expert in our style guide the way some Tolkien fans learn Elvish.
      D. The next bit of suggested rewriting is to inject "only" into two line items, but this change would have a nonsensical and undesirable result in two ways: It would make those items applicable under no circumstances to anywhere but the US and the UK, respectively (even to former UK colonies with English- and units-usage norms virtually indistinguishable from British in an encyclopedic register); and it would necessitate (to fix that new problem) expanding that into a long list of every country with anything that WP would consider a "national variety of English" with pertinent unit-usage norms. The purpose of those two examples is as examples (not as an exhaustive list) of how to approach these matters. The examples were chosen because they settled previously recurrent disputes. So, what long-term, recurrent, serious problem can you point to that you think your changes would resolve? The examples are not there to serve as the beginning of an ever-growing rulebook to address every imaginable case with a new micro-topical line item to thump. The purpose of giving a general principle and providing some prominent examples is to obviate the need to have a pile of micro-rules. (MOS:NUM is already too detailed as it is.)
    3. The long-term stability of these guidelines is very important, because even small but meaningful/operative changes to them can affect many thousands up to potentially millions of articles, for reasons that almost always resolve to trivial and subjective peccadilloes. That cascading-wave-of-unneeded-changes problem (and all the fighting the endless trivial tweaks would generate) is never more of a danger than when a national-level and frequent usage matter is at issue (and literally millions of our articles do have measures with units in them). See also WP:MOSBLOAT: If MoS, after 20-odd years, doesn't already have a rule about something, then it needs to not have a rule about it, because it is not necessary for the project to do what it does successfully, and MoS is already way too long.
    4. Your "I also think MOS:TIES is a dog's breakfast, but happy to leave it alone at this time" approach does not bode well. Our policies and guidelines don't exist as hills to die on. The purpose of these style guidelines is (aside from the main one of producing intelligible and consistent content for our readers) dissuading style-warring behavior. Arriving with the idea that the rules are broken and that at some forthcoming time you're going to fix them is antithetical to their purpose and to the needs of the community. It largely doesn't matter what any particular line-item in MoS sets out (except when there is objectively a reader-clarity improvement offered by one option over another), only that it sets out, and long-term retains, something that addresses a recurrent dispute pattern and brings it mostly (hopefully entirely) to an end, and/or that it produces better content for our readers – even if that "something" is arbitrary or is a compromise that can't please everyone. Just as a word to the wise, MOS:ENGVAR (including TIES) is pretty much the hardest-fought consensus compromise reached in MoS's history, and is also one of the oldest and most stable, so if you think you're going to make serious changes to it, you are very mistaken. It's like going to Canada and declaring your mission is to undo the country's approach to French and English as official languages.
    This might all come off as harsh, but WP:Policy writing is hard, and the vast majority of proposals to change any P&G are off the mark. There are many devils in many details (thus the length of this), with a lot of nuanced interrelations between different rules (or advice or best practices or whatever you want to call them). Most of the real kinks were worked out long ago. Those that remain are subject to long-term dispute that hasn't produced a workable compromise. There is no such dispute about the material you want to change. And there are sometimes severe costs for making changes that are not vital to make.PS: I've tried hard to find a "yes" to put into this pile of "no", and there is one! Namely, your version is correct that the "scare quotes" around strong national ties shouldn't be there. I just went and removed them, so thanks for that. Otherwise, no element of your draft appears to be clearly an improvement. Here's the original wording: The choice of primary units depends on the circumstances, and should respect the principle of strong national ties, where applicable. Here's yours (presumably also keeping the original's first 10 words and the link): respect the underlying principle of strong national ties as also used in MOS:TIES but in a different context. Mentioning the other guideline by name is redundant with linking to it, and all our P&G pages are fairly (not entirely) consistent in, when practical, using plain English with links around pertinent terms rather than injecting page names. Mentioning it by shortcut in particular is "newbie-unfriendly" and wrongly presumes memorization of our shortcut strings. "Underlying" is a puff word and doesn't serve a concrete purpose in the sentence. (And underlying what? It has no clear downstream referent.) "As also used in" is more redundancy; if we're linking to TIES as the locus of the principle, it's already automatically understood that the principle is applied at the place we're linking to. "But in a different context" is a combination of redundancy with the implication of the link again, and quite odd wording: Why is there a "but" in this? (What it is contrasting against?) "Different" from what? Different in what way? And "context" is conceptually misused in this construction, in that the general principle at TIES is a meta-context, of all usage/style disputes pertaining to national-level English dialects, while use of units is a subset of that, a sub-context, not a conflicting/alternative context. Finally, unit usage is only sometimes a subset of the usage in a national variety of English, thus the original's "where applicable" – a key point that your version drops, despite it seeming to be central to the bee in your bonnet.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:54, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Introducing Scottish as an additional form of English would cause mayhem - or at least a shedload of future editing - here. We’ve already had a nationalist-driven push towards replacing ‘British’ with ‘English’ or ‘Scottish’ in bio articles, usually uncited and based purely on supposition or the subject’s birthplace. Fortunately, Scottish Independence appears to be receding as a prospect, at least in the short to medium term. MapReader (talk) 07:48, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don't disagree (and we had a real template at {{Use Scottish English}} in 2013, with an attempt to re-create it in 2016). Several years ago, I tried to get rid of all the "Use Foo English", and related, templates declaring "national varieties" that, in reality, are completely indistinguishable from general British English in an encyclopedic register, and could all collectively be covered by a "Use Commonwealth English" template. ENGVAR only applies to national (not subnational) varieties, and only those dialects that exist in distinct forms and with a formal register (by definition: if you can't write encyclopedia-appropriate material in a dialect, then it doesn't belong in our articles for any reason, so ENGVAR cannot be used to "protect" it from edits). But nationalistic sentiments won out in the end, and we still have all that claptrap, with ridiculous results like articles being tagged with {{Use Jamaican English}}, {{Use Singaporean English}}, etc. (Likewise we have no use of American-splitoff variants, either, like "Use Guam English", etc.) Too many editors who should know better and should think just a tiny bit harder have utterly mistaken the purpose of these as something like "national pride" flags to put on articles, in a verging-on-WP:OWN manner. These tags absolutely do not resolve to "write an article about Nigeria using colloquialisms and grammatical oddities found only in the informal speech and writing of English in Nigeria, which will be confusing to everyone else in the world". If someone tries that crap in response to such a template, rewrite the material per MOS:COMMONALITY and MOS:TONE.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:54, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

    MOS:NOTGALLERY

    At another talk page, I was writing an explanation of why articles should not be swamped in a plethora of images, planning to cite MOS:NOTGALLERY. Fortunately for once I checked first and found that it is just an alias for WP:NOTDB, not a statement that article spaces should not be mirrors of Commons.

    Given that the majority of visitors do so on mobile phones, is there a case for an explicit policy that says that curation is essential, less is more?

    Or would it be enough to change the target of NOTGALLERY to MOS:IMAGEREL (which might need a little expansion because right now it just says Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding. When possible, find better images and improve captions instead of simply removing poor or inappropriate ones, especially on pages with few visuals. However, not every article needs images, and too many can be distracting. At least a reference to WP:ARTICLESIZE? (which is expressed in terms of word count, not megabytes, so would also need work). 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:48, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

    I think IMAGEREL would be a better redirect target. I want this to point to guidance that images should be included selectively rather than overwhelming articles with images. NOTDB instead seems to be guidance that images should be relevant and accompanied by text, which is not enough to prevent big indiscriminate galleries. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:52, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    I've had second thoughts about this one. It is probably not wise to make NOTGALLERY an exception to the general rule that WP:NOTaaaaaaaa shortcuts all redirect to WP:Misplaced Pages is not. So the better plan is to add a short sentence to the current target to say that Misplaced Pages is not a database of images or a catalogue raisonné; those are among the functions of Wikimedia Commons. Image use in Misplaced Pages articles must comply with MOS:IMAGEREL. I will do that now.
    IMAGEREL needs some work too, to make it even more explicit that to bury an article in a mass of images is sure way to ensure that nobody reads it. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:43, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    While some types of "galleries" should be avoided, articles on certain visual topics do benefit from many visual examples. I also do not think we should explicitly outlaw the catalogue raisonné model while allowing many other bibliographic lists. One size does not fit all, and such a change would need to be debated with the folks curating WP:NOT and those who work on visual topics. —Kusma (talk) 10:57, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Pending further discussion, I have removed the reference to catalogue raisonné from my amendment (so that it now reads simply Misplaced Pages articles are not a repository of images: image use in Misplaced Pages articles must comply with MOS:IMAGEREL. to item 4, "Photographs or media files".
    I agree certainly that, in an article about an artist or an artistic movement, it is essential to illustrate the phases of their artistic development. That to me is clearly in keeping with IMAGEREL and wp:localconsensus can determine relevancy. But to include an image of every work in an artist's oeuvre? How is that a valid exception to NOTDB? (and likely a COPYVIO too). And why not show every putter manufactured by ACME Golf Inc? every locomotive made by ACME Rail Inc? every postage stamp (including all misprints) produced by the Austro-Hungarian empire? We have articles so swamped in pointless images that they have become essentially unusable to visitors on mobile. How does that make any sense? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:34, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    I would definitely oppose including every work in an artist's oeuvre in an article on the artist, but I want to make sure we do not outlaw List of paintings by Edvard Munch, where the images are perfectly encyclopaedic and just as relevant for identification as the images in List of members of the 19th Bundestag. Tables in such long lists are often not great for small screens, but that is a separate issue from the number of images. Generally, lists are not the same as other articles in their use of images, so the rules should reflect that. —Kusma (talk) 12:25, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    I don't see a problem with that. Clearly the application of IMAGEREL should (and would) be different between a list article v a fairly broad concept article. To take your example, it would be entirely reasonable to include every image we have in the list article, provided that we use small thumbnails (upright=0.2); conversely (IMO) the bio article about Munch should be curated so that it has just one carefully chosen image to illustrate each phase of the development of his style , with maybe one or two especially notable examples that he did . Surely we don't want to replicate Commons? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Please, let's not compromise the full extent of the encyclopedia by limiting what has always been one of its main features. Images and galleries define and describe just as much as text. That many choose to "read" Misplaced Pages on tinier gadgets should not dictate the coverage and image-styling of encyclopedic content articles. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:49, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    The problem we have at the moment with some articles is what David Eppstein describes above as "big indiscriminate galleries" and rote copying of everything in Commons for no evident informative purpose, a form of visual clutter. As IMAGEREL begins, "Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding". Without curation, the information gets buried in the woodpile.
    I am not proposing a principle that we must minimise the number of images, period. My proposal is that we provide a policy basis that editors can use to say "that point is already adequately illustrated, another image adds nothing new" or "this article had become so bogged down in images that it no longer navigable". I am talking about edge cases here, in most articles it is not an issue. But some have become swamped in an uncritical replica of Commons. This is not to enable wikilawyering, it just makes it easier to explain the rationale. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:23, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    As an example of the sort of burying articles in galleries that I would object to, see hexagonal prism, where (at least in its current version) four of its six sections are entirely image galleries (in some cases hidden in collapsed templates, with much of their content peripheral to the main article topic).
    We do need wording that distinguishes this case from List of paintings by Edvard Munch, where the galleries are entirely appropriate, though. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:29, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    But as far as I can see, the List of paintings by Edvard Munch (and similar lists by artists) already complies with IMAGEREL, because the use of images in that article is proportionate and entirely relevant to that context. Conversely, to put all those paintings in the Munch bio article as a giant gallery would not be proportionate (IMO).
    So to focus this discussion, can anyone suggest another sentence we can use to amplify the point made in the opening sentence of IMAGEREL? ("Images must be significant and relevant in the topic's context, not primarily decorative. They are often an important illustrative aid to understanding".) How about

    Consequently, each image in an article should have a clear and unique illustrative purpose: for guidance, see less is more.

    AFAICS, that responds to and respects both the Munch examples above. (FWIW, very few if any of the visual arts articles suffer from this swamping problem. The issue affects high profile articles like Swastika.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    It is entirely enough that we have the MOS:IMAGEREL shortcut. A proposal to retarget WP:NOTGALLERY to that would almost certainly fail, because it's part of a very long-standing set of policy (not guideline) WP:NOTFOO shortcuts to sections of WP:NOT, and such a change would both confuse editors today and render archived discussions of policy misleading. "Ain't broke; don't fix it."  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:10, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

    Audio video guidance

    Hi there, I'm noting a lack of guidance for Audio video content, I've mentioned this at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Images. It seems people just edit MOS rather than run through large discussions, but I'm reluctant to start plunging in before getting some help. Here is what i think is needed:

    • Something explaining that the guidance at Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Images applies to Audio-video content in most cases, eg regarding relevance, image quality, textual information, offensive images, placement, size, location, availability. Nearly all of the page is relevant, in fact.
    • The download advice might need to be different. Do videos or audio need a warning that they are large files? This is not assumed, it seems.

    There is a case for some separate AV guidance, regarding:

    • Length: should inline videos be shorter where possible? Does this apply to audio clips?
    • Language: if audio or video is original language, should subtitled content be preferred rather than recording originals? Should songs be subtitled where possible? What are the requirements for validating translations (what are the relevant WP policies on translation of original source material that apply?)
    • Rendition: historical accents and historical musical performances might be very rare. Should we say that modern standards are fine, in the absence of authentic reconstructions?
    • Public domain renditions: if audio or video is a rendition of a public domain source, for example a work by Mozart, or a speech by Caesar, what are the requirements for source validation (these should reference WP's general guidelines, but these are mostly focused on secondary sources).

    Jim Killock (talk) 20:25, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

    • Elsewhere, someone asked whether an RfC would be needed to add guidance on this topic. I think not -- while discussion will be needed on details, I can't see anyone objecting to clarifying that multimedia beyond everyday images should follow similar guidelines to those for image. The question is where to say that. We don't want to duplicate guidance on contextual significance etc., because that creates two things that need to be kept in sync. Probably the best thing is to expand MOS/Images to explicitly cover other multimedia. See BTW Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style/Music_samples, which has a contextual significance section. EEng 20:39, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
      Thanks very much (and yes that was me!) I agree that MOS:Images would be best, especially to get this started.
      The contextual significance contains much about in-copyright works. That is in general very helpful. In-copyright video samples feels like something rather complex that might need an RFC, and might be best parked until there is a little more in place. Jim Killock (talk) 20:49, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
      @EEng Would it be helpful if I draft up something on Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Images and ask for feedback? Jim Killock (talk) 21:03, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
      I suggest you wait a while so that the experienced editors gathered here can lend their thoughts. After that, you might take the conversation back to Talk:MOS/Images, but since that page has 1/5 watchers of this one, and you've already put a pointer there to this thread here, it might be better to continue here as you begin to draft. There's no hurry to this, so the slower you take it, and the greater the extent to which others can get their thoughts in, the smoother it will go. (I'm afraid I'm really tied up IRL so the time I myslf can contribute is limited.) EEng 21:24, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
      Happy to wait. I made a stab at below, but I can wait for further thoughts / feedback here. What I've provided relates to historical source content, as most of the AV I've been dealing with falls into this category; I have guessed at some other considerations but it is currently narrower than it should be. Jim Killock (talk) 21:44, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

    Audiovisual content can also be used for illustrative purposes. Most of the guidance on images above applies to audio visual content. Additionally, consider:

    • Length: inline videos or audio that is shorter will be easier for users to watch. Consider clipping long form content, and linking to the original on Commons, or elsewhere. Longer videos (eg, over 10 minutes) may be more suitable for links than inline video, unless they are highly relevant to the page's subject.
    • Rendition: historical accents and historical musical performances of content may be very rare. Modern renditions are fine, where authentic reconstructions are not available, and may be preferred, where there is uncertainty about the original performances.
    • Musical, poetic and literary content: aesthetic considerations are higher for these kinds of content. Where possible, the performances should be considered good by other editors. Where editors find performances are poor, content should generally not be included.
    • Language: where audio or video is in the original language, subtitles should generally be preferred rather than translated versions, as this reflects the original more closely and text files are easier to correct than mistakes in audio-visual content. Where possible, songs should be subtitled. Original language versions should be made available where where possible for artistic content.
    • Translations of subtitles should be verifiable, but as with other Misplaced Pages content, competent editors can create them. While academic translations are preferred, where subtitle translations are longer than 10-20 words, use of academic translations is likely to constitute copyright infringement. Here, a Wikipedian's translation should ideally be verifiable against an academic translation. (See Non-English sources for further guidance.)
    • Public domain renditions: if audio or video is a rendition of a public domain source, for example a work by Mozart, or a speech by Caesar, the original sources must be valid. The performance should be comparable and follow the original. Where possible, include links on media file pages so that editors can make checks.
    • Sourcing: as with images, sourcing of audio-visual content needs to be copyright compliant. Sources of CC video and audio can include Youtube, Flickr and CC search tools. Care should be taken to ensure the licensing claims appear to be valid.
    • See also: Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Music samples

    Jim Killock (talk) 21:50, 16 December 2024 (UTC)

    The "Language" point is a bit unclear to me. Is it asking for subtitles to be in English or the original language? If the phrase "rather than translated versions" is referring to the spoken or written material, that seems to contradict the phrase "where audio or video is in the original language". Which is also a weird way to say it because the "original language" could be English. Given that this is English Misplaced Pages, an English version should be provided whether or not there is a non-English version.
    Subtitles should be provided for all videos with an audio track, to make them accessible for readers who cannot hear or find it difficult. There are additional guidelines at MOS:ANIMATION.
    Not sure the "Sourcing" point needs to be made, as this is explained in detail for images generally.
    The "Length" point should probably link to the Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Music samples and point out the copyright issue when displaying here under fair use. It should say "video" not "videos" to be grammatical.
    I would drop the "Translations of subtitles" point and just link to WP:NONENG for guidance on translations.
    The "Public domain renditions" point does not make any sense to me, and I would just drop it.
    I'm not sure whether the "Rendition" point needs to be made, but if it does, it's confusing. I think it's supposed to be recommending that historically accurate renditions of older works are preferred, if available. Maybe that's true, maybe it isn't, depending on what the purpose of inclusion in the article is. Might be better just to leave this point off; I don't see any similar guidance for audio samples of music. Page editors can decide which samples are best out of those available.
    Another point probably worth making is that a video should be considered an optional part of an article. In other words, any content vital to reader understanding should be included in the text and not be omitted on the assumption that reader will watch the video. Many readers will not be able to view video due to technical limitations, such as using a web browser that is not configured with a video player, or reading an article in another medium such as an app, paper printout, or text-to-speech system (including those who cannot see or find it difficult to read text). There is more specific guidance against putting text in images at MOS:TEXTASIMAGES.
    It's fine for a video to re-explain something that's already explained in the text if having a moving image clarifies substantially, but it seems wasteful for embedded videos to effectively repeat or rephrase the text.
    -- Beland (talk) 22:49, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks very much!
    • Regarding language, this was meant to be about non-English content, think Bach or Mozart in German or Latin; or Goethe's poetry.
    • On Sourcing, the section on images does not include YT, which is significant for CC video.
    • On translation, the situation for subtitles is a bit different, as usually you cannot use academic in-copyright translations, so this mention is retained.
    • On public domain renditions, this was the subject of a long and unclear discussion recently. Does that help? Take a file such as File:Queen Elizabeth I's Reprimand of an Insolent Polish Ambassador..webm. There is some need for verification, even tho it is not being used as a citation? I've edited it for clarity.
    • On style of renditions, this has come up a few times in discussion, including at the link above, where a user claimed only a Catholic priest could do a Latin audio recording; also at a parallel discussion on LA Misplaced Pages about accents and delivery, preferring a modern standard over historical guesses. I figured the same principle might apply to say reading Shakespeare, or using 16th century instruments; it simply shouldn't be a consideration, but sometimes editors think it should be.
    • I've added the points on (1) text as images, (2) subtitles for EN content, (3) optionality of AV content
    VERSION 0.2
    Audiovisual content can also be used for illustrative purposes. Most of the guidance on images above applies to audio visual content. Importantly, audio-visual content should not be an essential part of a page, which is necessary to understand the whole. This is because not all readers will be able to download or access the content, for example because of technical limitations or relying on text to speech tools. With audio and video just as with any content, relevance is paramount; consult WP:DUE for further context. There must be a clear reason for including the content on the page.
    Additionally, consider:
    • Length: inline videos or audio that is shorter will be easier for users to watch. Consider clipping long form content, and linking to the original on Commons, or elsewhere. Longer videos (eg, over 10 minutes) may be more suitable for links than inline video, unless they are highly relevant to the page's subject.
    • Rendition: historical accents and historical musical performances are not required. Modern renditions of audio are acceptable. For example, there is no need to read Shakespeare with an Elizabethan pronunciation.
    • Musical, poetic and literary content: aesthetic considerations are higher for these kinds of content. Where possible, the performances should be considered good by other editors. Where editors find performances are poor, content should generally not be included.
    • Subtitles for comprehension: In English language videos, an English language subtitle track should always be provided for accessibility. See MOS:ANIMATION for more details.
    • Subtitles for translation: where audio or video is originally in a non-English language, for example a Goethe poem, subtitles should generally be preferred over than translated audio, as this reflects the original more closely and text files are easier to correct than mistakes in audio-visual content. Where possible, songs should be subtitled. Original language versions should be made available where where possible for artistic content.
    • Translations of subtitles See Non-English sources for guidance. Note that longer subtitle sequences may need to be translated by Wikipedians rather than obtained from academic sources to avoid copyright infringement.
    • Embedding text: As with images, rendered text should be avoided in video content. See MOS:TEXTASIMAGES for more information.
    • Public domain renditions: if audio or video is a rendition of a public domain source, for example a work by Mozart, or a speech by Caesar, it must be possible to check the original scores or texts. An editor should be able to compare the performance with the original. Where possible, include links on media file pages so that editors can make checks.
    • Sourcing: as with images, sourcing of audio-visual content needs to be copyright compliant. Sources of CC video and audio can include Youtube, Flickr and CC search tools. Care should be taken to ensure the licensing claims appear to be valid.
    • See also: Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Music samples
    Jim Killock (talk) 23:32, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    This appears to be related to situations such as Talk:Niccolò_Machiavelli#RFC_on_video_inclusion, where a video consisting of a person reading a letter aloud was included in an article, one example of a series of such edits. It is not clear to me that we need a bunch of guidelines about the best form for this sort of application because it is not clear that it is desirable to include such videos in the first place - the cart is being put before the horse. MrOllie (talk) 23:54, 16 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, I certainly would like to clear up some of the misapprehensions that regretfully appeared in that discussion. It's a discussion I will deeply regret getting involved in for some time.
    I'll be clear about the other discussions and examples of this content for context:
    @MrOllie I hope you can at least see that normally I try to be as collaborative as I can be. there's not much point going further into why that discussion became hard for me. However, policy is the place where we make guidelines to avoid disputes and lack of clarity.
    What meets WP:DUE overrides any other consideration, to my mind so I have added that to the draft text. (With audio and video just as with any content, relevance is paramount; consult WP:DUE for further context. There must be a clear reason for including the content on the page.) Jim Killock (talk) 00:12, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    As regards the other articles where there was no discussion, just because there was no dissent at the moment doesn't mean there wont be in the future. What happened at the Machiavelli article could just as easily happen in the other ones
    I am also asking you kindly to please stop making the issues with that RfC bigger than what they are. Plasticwonder (talk) 00:27, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    We can take this discussion in two ways:
    • We can either construtively discuss the principles behind what video content should be allowable; or
    • We can decide that emotions are too high for it and pause it
    I do need this guidance, because there are divergences of opinion on some of the points, and it's important to me to be able to resolve them. But my guess is that if the three of us are just going to rehash the RFC discussion, then that would a terrible use of other people's time and energy. A break off would make sense, in my view. Jim Killock (talk) 00:41, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    No one's emotions are high but yours, judging by your rather relentless snipes against my character and the fact that you have so much as admitted it in the RfC. You have also stated that the RfC "needed to die" (quite strong words) when I gave you a chance to change your mind, and now you want to pause now that the discussion is nearing a close?
    I do not get what you are trying to accomplish here, to be fair. Plasticwonder (talk) 00:47, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    It is not needed to rehash the RFC here, but I did feel that fresh eyes on this talk page should have enough context to understand what the proposal is about. MrOllie (talk) 00:48, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks, I appreciate that as a valid concern. Does the change regarding WP:DUE help, or do you feel more is needed? For context, other points raised in the RFC such as regarding the need to be able to validate translation is also included. Jim Killock (talk) 00:54, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    I dropped the video from Henry VIII; it seemed like excessive detail. It's already on Defence of the Seven Sacraments where it's a bit more appropriate. But even there, it seems like it violates the video equivalent of MOS:TEXTASIMAGES. Same for Martin Luther and On the Bondage of the Will.
    I also posted that the video for Elizabeth I should probably just be kept on Commons; there's already a general link to the topic there.
    I agree it's not clear that videos of performances of works should generally be included, so I would also be hesitant about specifying anything in particular about those. Uploaded videos cover a broad variety of subjects, including scientific phenomena, buildings, and specific events. -- Beland (talk) 03:22, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    I would like to understand MOS:TEXTASIMAGES a bit more, especially regarding accessibility in particular, as this is certainly an overriding concern. What makes the text subtitle files inaccessible and not regarded as text? Jim Killock (talk) 09:09, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Subtitles are, of course, text. They are less accessible than the text in an article because some readers will have technical or logistical difficulty watching video and thus reading subtitles or listening to audio narration. For readers that do watch a video (which presumably has an animation or something which illustrates the subject of the article in a way a still image cannot), it increases accessibility by allowing people who cannot hear or find it difficult to know what is being said or what sounds are happening in the video. -- Beland (talk) 15:37, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Misplaced Pages:Image use policy already says that for user-created diagrams, etc., a source for the underlying data must be included. To me, this applies straightforwardly to videos that are presenting public-domain content. A citation to the original work is kind of implied, but a reference to a specific version or even better an online copy, should suffice. YouTube videos that we're importing into Misplaced Pages as on-article videos are no different than diagrams or maps or explanatory videos uploaded by random Misplaced Pages or Commons users, assuming an appropriate copyright license. The reliability of YouTube is not really in question, any more than the reliability of any given Misplaced Pages editor is, when they are just repackaging information from a different underlying source in a more digestible way. That's different than citing a YouTube video as a reliable source for the information itself.
    I'm not sure I have enough examples to make a guideline about video length. Ten minutes seems way too long for download on a mobile phone, and most videos I would expect to be under a minute. Perhaps there are exceptions, but I'd want to survey how videos are being used now. In the meantime, I would trim the 0.2 version down to reduce scope and reduce overlap with other pages and rephrase and retitle:
    ----
    Video content (v. 0.3)
    • The guidelines on this page also generally apply to videos.
    • Many readers will not be able to play videos, because of technical limitations of their web browser, because they are seeing article content on a different web site or app, or because they are using a different medium, such as paper or text-to-speech system. Some readers cannot see or find it difficult. Videos should be used as a supplement to article material, to concisely illustrate the subject in a way that a still image or text cannot do. Videos should not replace article text, and articles should remain coherent and comprehensive when video playback is not available.
    • Similar to MOS:TEXTASIMAGES, for accessibility and file size reasons:
      • Videos that simply show text should be replaced with text.
      • Videos that simply show a sequence of still pictures should be replaced with an image gallery.
      • Videos of text being read aloud should be replaced with text, or if the sound of words is being demonstrated, audio files (with the text being read in the file caption or in closed captioning).
      • Videos of text and narration with should be converted to article text.
    • The copyright and other guidelines on Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Music samples also apply to video samples.
    • The policies on Misplaced Pages:Image use policy also generally apply to videos.
    • Accessibility guidelines at MOS:ANIMATION apply.
    ----
    -- Beland (talk) 03:56, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    Misplaced Pages:Videos has additional suggestions; not sure if it's appropriate to link there from here. -- Beland (talk) 03:57, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    With your commentary, this makes a lot of sense. I would point out that there was a lot of heat generated over YT reliability in the aforementioned RFC, so it would be good to point that it can be used. YT is not mentioned as a source for images in the images section above; an alternative would be to add it there in the list of common sources, but that also seems odd. I know one can point to the archive discussion, but that is not generally available knowledge for anyone looking at the guidance in future. Jim Killock (talk) 09:14, 17 December 2024 (UTC)
    I added a clarifying note at Misplaced Pages:Reliable sources/Perennial sources for YouTube; hopefully this will not be controversial. -- Beland (talk) 02:44, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    Unfortunately that has been reverted as "unnecessary". It might make more sense here, because this is about video as illustration, and there is parallel advice for images above about CC content sources. Perhaps it should be parallel advice to this, eg mentioning that YT has a search facility for CC content (and there isn't anything else AFAIK). Jim Killock (talk) 09:10, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    I started a discussion at Misplaced Pages talk:Reliable sources/Perennial sources#Imported YouTube videos. -- Beland (talk) 20:21, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks - quick observation that we have lost that the guidance for illustrative audio content would also generally derive from the images guidance. The music samples page linked is wholly focused on samples from copyrighted material; there is a lot of PD / CC music material on WP, especially for classical music. Sometimes this could do with subtitling, etc, care in positioning, checks for relevance, etc. Jim Killock (talk) 09:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    OK, what are you suggesting? -- Beland (talk) 18:59, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    I think, where appropriate, add audio, eg "The guidelines on this page also generally apply to videos and audio files"; maybe "where appropriate, for instance non-English language audio files should include subtitles". I'm not sure there is much else. Jim Killock (talk) 22:56, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    And where would you find that addition to be appropriate? -- Beland (talk) 02:37, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    I would amend the title to "Video and Audio content"; I would amend bullet one to "The guidelines on this page also generally apply to videos and audio files". Under "Similar to MOS:TEXTASIMAGES, for accessibility and file size reasons:" I would add "where appropriate, for instance non-English language audio files should include subtitles". The accessibility guidelines could move to be bullet two, in order that audio and video advice is at the top. Jim Killock (talk) 08:02, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    It looks to me like hardly anything on Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style/Images applies to audio files, and it seems like the wrong place to go looking for style advice about them. -- Beland (talk) 22:52, 20 December 2024 (UTC)
    For example:
    These seem pretty substantially helpful guidance to me, and pretty similar level of relevance as to video files. Jim Killock (talk) 09:10, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yeah, most of the material in those sections is not relevant to audio. I'd say if you feel strongly that guidance is needed for audio generally and not just music samples, we should create a new page. Editors shouldn't have to read through a whole page about images just to pick out the occasional tidbit on audio files, if they're only interested in the latter. -- Beland (talk) 20:32, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    I've posted the 0.3 draft for now, since that wouldn't be changed by adding an audio page somewhere else. -- Beland (talk) 20:46, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    Thanks for posting the v 0.3. On audio, I would think about this from a few user perspectives:
    • There is currently no MOS advice at all on audio files and approaching general layout, pertinence, etc. What would the user do? Currently, MOS offers them nothing, so they must either guess or work off examples on other pages.
    • If a user asks for advice, where would they be pointed? (my guess: MOS:Images as closest match.
    IMO, it would be better to offer them something, even apologetically ("There is currently no detailed advice on MOS regarding use of audio files, but the basic principles of WP:DUE and some considerations at MOS:Images may be helpful.") This could be placed at a page relevant to other audio usage files, for example. Jim Killock (talk) 10:02, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Feel free to propose a draft if you like. It's also possible no particular guidance is needed, if people are able to figure this stuff out using common sense and regular editorial judgement, and if disputes arise, turn to the various policy and guideline pages on topics like due weight. -- Beland (talk) 21:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Given the small amount of material to include about this, and the redundancy that would be required with MOS:IMAGES if "MOS:VIDEOS" were its own page, and given the short nature of the audio samples MoS page, I think the most sensible approach is to merge all of this into a WP:Manual_of_Style/Images_and_multimedia page with a top MOS:MEDIA shortcut (which I'm surprised doesn't already exist as an internal disambiguation page), then MOS:IMAGES, etc., going to sections. We have too many separate MoS pages as it is, and this is an ideal merge of two of them and a proposed third.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:07, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Sure, that's a reasonable alternate approach. I think it would work if we put the things that apply across all three at the top, and then make it clear with section headers which those interested in a specific media type should look at without having to read inapplicable guidelines. -- Beland (talk) 08:22, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    +1 to both of these observations. Jim Killock (talk) 09:04, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yeps. If we hammer out a videos-related section, I'll be happy to do the work (most MoS merges and the like are done by me because I kind of have a database in my head of all the rules and how they interrelate, and 19 years of observing how misinterpretations, lawyering, and other problems can be avoided by careful wording.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:23, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    I think what we could agree on for videos has been added. -- Beland (talk) 00:27, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

    misleading text in Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style#Dashes

    The text on keyboard entry of dashes in Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style § Dashes is misleading. The text or on a Windows keyboard implies a technique specific to windows when in fact it is valid for any OS. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:20, 18 December 2024 (UTC)

    True. What it should say: "on a Windows keyboard enter them manually as Alt+0 150 (on the numeric keypad) for en dash, and Alt+0 151 for em dash." -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 16:02, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    Wrong on two counts:
    1. No. It should not say anything at all, per WP:NOTHOWTO.
    2. And even if it does, those alt codes are only valid for code page 1252 and related. They don't work if the user has a different default code page installed.
    Delete it completely. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:23, 18 December 2024 (UTC)
    I doubt that NOTHOWTO is meant to apply to the MOS. It's surely helpful for editors and hence should stay, reworded if needed. Gawaon (talk) 08:26, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    Gaewon is correct: NOTHOWTO applies to articles only. MOS is littered with how-to stuff, as is should where the ratio (editor confusion and time saved)/(WP:MOSBLOAT) seems sufficiently high. However, if this starts getting into weeds of code pages and such, it may be best to relegate the whole thing to WP:How to make dashes, with a pointer to that from MOS. EEng 20:28, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    So why not simply recommend {{mdash}}, {{ndash}} and {{snd}} rather than advise keyboard callisthenics? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:36, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    Yes, I have always advocated symbolic representations (templates such as you list, or html escapes such as &mdash;) of the various dashes (and in some cases, even hyphens), rather than having them appear literally in the wikisource, so that editors can see at a glance that the right character is present. But even though EEng is pretty much always right, I can't seem to get people on board with this. EEng 20:49, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    I am happy typing the dashes on my Apple keyboards but also happy with recommending the templates rather than giving keyboard-specific advice. What I would like to avoid is warring bands of gnomes going around changing unicode dashes to templated dashes and vice versa. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:31, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    Edit conflict: yes, different route to the same answer. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:38, 19 December 2024 (UTC)
    JMF's policy understanding is mistaken above. WP:NOTHOWTO only applies to article content (and other reader-facing content, like portals and the front page features). If it applied to internal documentation, then we would have to delete the entire "Help:" namespace and about 95% what is in "Misplaced Pages:" namespace. However, the technical point JMF raised is entirely correct, and we should not be telling editors to use keyboard codes that will do the wrong thing (or nothing) if they don't happen to be using the "right" code page. To simply recommend {{mdash}}, {{ndash}} and {{snd}} is the sensible approach.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:02, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Let's just direct people to Misplaced Pages:How to make dashes. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:00, 23 December 2024 (UTC)

    Is there a MOS guidance that applies to changing between common terms based on the name of the Wiki article?

    Do we have a guideline for dealing with different name, common names for the same thing (Inline-four engine vs Straight-four engine)? The target article, Straight-four engine, has used both names (changed in 2009 and 2022). Sources use both terms but I think the shorted "I4" is used more often in sources. I presume we would follow something like the MOS:ENGVAR where if there is no source preference we go with what the editors used first. Recently an editor, Kumboloi, made a number of good faith changes in linking articles from "inline-four" to "straight-four" to align external article text with the target article name. Is there a guide on this? How should this be handled? Springee (talk) 14:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)

    It's a policy, our naming conventions policy, which largely doubles as our policy on article titles. Generally, for a given thing there's no reason to use a different name in the prose of any other article than one would use in the article about the thing itself, if that makes sense.Remsense ‥ 论 14:57, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not sure where the naming convention says we should change article text in a case like this. The article in question indicates both names are common (A straight-four engine (also referred to as an inline-four engine)). This is also reflected in the two name changes over the years. I don't see where the naming convention says we should favor the target article name vs what the individual article sources are using. Consider a hypothetical, I'm created a Wiki article about the new "CarX". My RS source that says, "CarX uses an inline four engine". Why would I not follow the source vs use the title of our straight four article? This is especially true if if the hyperlink is added later by a different editor. Also, until 2022 the title of the article was "inline". A consensus of 3 editors changed the article name. That's fine but the result is many changes to other articles. If a new consensus of 5 editors reverses the change do we flop back? I think it's less disruptive (makes articles more stable) if we avoid article text changes in cases like this. However, I am interested in knowing what guidance might apply here. Springee (talk) 15:52, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm interested in understanding this. My motivation in making the edits came down to a suspicion that there was some type of penalty incurred by linking through a redirect page, or that the redirects imposed a maintenance overhead. I hadn't read the naming convention, but if there's no real reason to reduce the number of redirected links, and recognizing that the target page could just as easily be renamed again in the future, I'll stop doing these edits. (Personally, I prefer "inline" to "straight", but I can see how the renaming would help organize the associated pages.) Thanks. Kumboloi (talk) 15:56, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    My reasoning is WP:NC stresses how we are required to name things, as we are un all editorial decisions, based on WP:V and WP:NPOV (in many cases this boils down to the result of WP:COMMONNAME). It has provisions specific to the article title and not the body, but much of it is expressing how to apply V and NPOV in deciding what to call things.
    If we take alternative names as such—e.g. that, all else being equal, we do take inline four and straight four to be synonyms, truly referring to the same thing for our purposes—it makes very little sense to "wall off" which names are used in a particular article, as there are no clear limits on how strictly this would have to be observed. Am I allowed to use any synonymous nouns, verbs, or adjectives in my synthesis that don't happen to appear in my three best sources? On the other hand, naming according to a generalized scope is surely more coherent for a hyperlinked encyclopedia providing tertiary analysis instead of merely refactoring and reshuffling the specific language of our secondary sources.
    Of course exceptions abound, much of the time alternative names and redirects should be freely used according to syntactical and contextual concerns—but I believe this to be correct mindset to assume by default. I don't think any given article that uses First World War needs to be changed. However, in cases like these, I feel it pays dividends to use terminology consistently between pages. If readers are encountering technical or domain specific language for the first time, we create the most helpful and coherent tertiary analysis for them if we zoom out a bit. It makes no sense to prefer Sassanid to Sasanian just because the book we're citing prefers the former—e.g., in an article about a specific battle, or a broad conceptual article not specific to the Sasanians—our deliberately preferring Sassanid simply does not aid the reader in becoming familiar with whatever additional context they're going to go to Sasanian Empire for in order to better understand our other article.
    If I wake up and find this totally incoherent, I apologize. It's hard to speak clearly about naming and reference, though it's one of my favorite things to think about. Remsense ‥ 论 16:49, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    WP:NOTBROKEN clearly says: "Piping links solely to avoid redirects is generally a time-wasting exercise that can actually be detrimental. It is almost never helpful to replace ] with ]." So if a link already leads to the correct article, but using an alternative name that redirects, that's absolutely fine and nothing more needs to be done. I realize that you're probably not talking about piping, but about changing the link text and link target together – but that too is unnecessary if the existing link target works fine (by redirecting). Gawaon (talk) 17:12, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Kumboloi, thanks for that explanation. It reaffirms my believe that you were acting in good faith (I hope you took my revert that way as well). Springee (talk) 19:11, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    I think there needs to be a good reason to not use the article title in text (and they do exist), and that can be discussed on a per-case basis at the relevant article (or other) talk page.—Bagumba (talk) 17:19, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Agreed. Remsense ‥ 论 17:21, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Just so long as it is realized that THERE RATHER OFTEN IS A GOOD REASON! National language preferences for one thing. Busywork drive-by changes should be strongly discouraged. Johnbod (talk) 18:48, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Goes without saying! Remsense ‥ 论 19:04, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    I just thought I'd drive by and agree with that. EEng 22:10, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    The answer the the OP's question is "More or less yes", in the form of MOS:STYLEVAR. Remesense's idea above that article titles policy and its dependent naming-conventions guidelines and essays (which actually defer to MoS on style questions) somehow dictate in-article content. They absolutely do not, or we would simply merge them. However, agreement with the page title can actually qualify as a good reason for a text change under STYLEVAR a lot of time, such as when a old page title (and our mirroring of it in the text) was a misnomer, unhelpfully ambiguous, obsolete, or obscurantist. When such problems don't apply, then having more than one way to refer to the subject is a boon to editors and readers, since it allows us to write less repetitively. But the lead should almost always agree with the title, and start with the term/name in the title and secondarily provide any noteworthy alternative(s). Some exceptions of course apply, such as when a term/name in the title is a colloquialism and used for WP:COMMONNAME purposes in the title but is not the best way to introduce the first sentence (this is especially common at biographical articles, in which we often give the full "Elizabeth" or "Robert" name of someone more commonly called "Liz" or "Bobby" and given that way in the page title).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:28, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    I think they must dictate in-article content to a degree at least—it would make no sense to use a particular name in the title and initial definition (I've been assuming congruence throughout, e.g. no disambiguators considered) and then never again. Remsense ‥ 论 03:36, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    That's a correlation/causation mix-up. What you're talking about is just WP:Common sense (to the point of "Don't be intentionally perverse as if with a goal of confusing readers as much as possible") and a matter of MOS:BETTER. It's not an element of title policy or of naming conventions, which do not address article content (except a few of the worst-written NC pages have a statement or two in them about body content that needs to move out of those pages; I've been cleaning those up as I run across them).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  14:18, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    I've been racking my brain trying to articulate exactly what I mean here, but I do not think it is merely correlative. Hopefully that is a useful thought inasmuch beyond just the trivial truth that the language one is exposed to affects the language they go on to use and think in terms of. Remsense ‥ 论 19:32, 25 December 2024 (UTC)

    Legibility of thumbnails at default size

    Moved from Misplaced Pages talk:Manual of Style/Images § Legibility of thumbnails at default size
    Noisy haze at 220px
    Noisy haze at 165px

    I am surprised there is no direct statement along the lines of If possible, the selection, placement, and sizing of images should allow readers to fully decipher what they are intended to illustrate; thumbnails should be legible with the default base size of 220px without requiring readers to expand them. It seems like much of the guidance has this as an unstated goal, but there are cases where it is slightly less intuitive that this is a principle that editors should heed. My one worry is hypothetical quibbling over what any given image is intended to illustrate—is the specific text written on a street sign important for illustrative purposes?—but I feel like that's totally explicable in each instance via editor discussion. It's clear that some appropriate images cannot be legible at thumbnail size in context, either because they are visually intricate or the placement context simply won't allow it, but it seems helpful to state that editors should make an attempt when it is possible. Remsense ‥ 论 16:02, 21 December 2024 (UTC)

    @Remsense: Can you give an example? Magnolia677 (talk) 16:39, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    Clicked around until I found one: at Crony capitalism#In sections of an economy, it's not really possible for me to discern the field of figures as men sitting at desks rather than just noise. This image should be displayed at a slightly larger size, and maybe cropped a bit.
    Another class of examples is insignia and coats of arms, where arguably key details that would be legible in the original contexts are illegible at thumbnail sizes in infoboxes, especially in cases where there are especially elaborate versions that editors sometimes opt for out of a misplaced sense of completeness (I guess). Remsense ‥ 论 17:03, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    They're everywhere. Magnolia677 (talk) 21:23, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    That is something that gives me pause: this seems like a common-sense guideline to me, but either it's so obvious that it shouldn't be a guideline (?) or it's not nearly as obvious to others. Remsense ‥ 论 21:48, 21 December 2024 (UTC)
    I've always found it odd that we don't have a minimum size recommendation. Can't tell you how many times I see collages or galleries that have teeny mini images that lack accessibility for all. Moxy🍁 03:49, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    It's a perfectly reasonable thing to do to print articles out (or otherwise have them in a format where the thumbnails are all you get), also. Remsense ‥ 论 03:51, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    I do worry my criterion above is too loosey-goosey to be a good guideline; I don't think there's a problem with speaking in terms of minimum size as such, maybe it's better getting the intended point across? Remsense ‥ 论 03:55, 22 December 2024 (UTC)
    Definitely better getting the intended point across. If we try to impose a numeric min. size, people are going to argue about it until the end of fargin' time, based on the behavior of their preferred devices and browsers, and so on.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:17, 23 December 2024 (UTC); rev'd. 13:39, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    What do you think about the potential phrasing first presented—i.e. if at all possible, what images are being used to illustrate should be fully legible when scaled according to the default base size Remsense ‥ 论 03:23, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    Lots of unnecessary words. When possible, images with text should be legible when ... I'm not sure what "according to" the default base size means. Is it really the default base size? Are more than handful of editors reading this going to understand what "base size" means? I thinking there must be a clearer way to get the point across, but the goal seems right. (Speaking of "getting the intended point across": ironically, my previous message had an extraneous word, "than", in it – in a position that reversed or at least badly confused my meaning, so I've removed it.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:39, 23 December 2024 (UTC)
    I'm not sure how to phrase it. It's not just images with text either, it's all images that are added but cannot actually be deciphered without expansion. Remsense ‥ 论 04:40, 24 December 2024 (UTC)

    Commas around incorporated businesses' names

    from looking at MOS:COMMA, there isn't any guidance on how to deal with names with Inc.. multiple articles do any of the following, either with no comma, a comma only before and a comma around the word.

    1. Mumumu Inc. is a company ...
    2. Mumumu, Inc. is a company ...
    3. Mumumu, Inc., is a company ...

    I am aware that the commaless and comma style may coexist (sometimes in the same article!), however the second and third styles should likely be decided upon. Juwan (talk) 01:09, 26 December 2024 (UTC)

    An editing policy question

    When I read Wiki policy and guidance pages, I sometimes find shall used instead of will to indicate what must be done — for example, in the Signs of Sockpuppetry article, we find: "The more signs that are present, the more likely sockpuppetry is occurring, though no accusations shall be made unless, beyond a reasonable doubt, one is really certain."

    Granted that shall is often used this way in government and judicial documents, I think it sounds somewhat at odds with the more user-friendly ambience Misplaced Pages has tried to create for editors. Besides, shall is not consistently applied throughout the policy and guidance pages — for example, in the same Signs of Sockpuppetry article, we find: "The closing administrator will be required to follow the consensus, even if they personally disagree."

    — For the above reasons, wouldn't it be in Misplaced Pages's best interests to avoid using the conversationally archaic shall in these articles and replace it with will?? I doubt that this would make editors with wrongdoing on their minds less likely to behave as desired.

    — But if the decision is made to continue "shalling," then for the sake of consistency couldn't a search-and-replace be done throughout the policy and guidance articles to replace will with shall where the word needs to indicate what must be done? Augnablik (talk) 16:53, 28 December 2024 (UTC)

    It's fine, really. This is one of those things the MOS exists to obliquely neutralize—i.e. this is a pretty conjectural position and not worth getting into all-in or all-out discussions over. Remsense ‥ 论 17:16, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
    “Obliquely neutralize” — there’s a new one for me! 😅
    I just thought it would help lighten the bureaucratic tone of these articles to dial down the legalese, as many editors feel increasingly on edge with all the rules and regulations they discover the more they wade into Misplaced Pages. Augnablik (talk) 17:31, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
    Genuinely, I apologize that I can't talk normal when the situation would benefit from it. Take that how you will. Remsense ‥ 论 17:32, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
    Or shall. EEng 17:39, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
    😂 Augnablik (talk) 07:44, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
    Am losing the will to live here, mate. Martinevans123 (talk) 12:34, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
    Just be aware that you’ve entered the purview of a global encyclopedia, and that means you will encounter forms of English that aren’t necessarily common locally to wherever you live. MapReader (talk) 17:57, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
    Is this one of those rfc:2119 situations where we should stick to a limited number of modal verbs on a sliding scale (must > should > may)? --Redrose64 🦌 (talk) 18:42, 28 December 2024 (UTC)
    @MapReader, Although I’m aware of different styles of English in different parts of the world, the shall/will issue I’ve raised here is more about how Misplaced Pages wants to show officially expected actions in particular situations.
    Not like , “Today I shall go to the beach” … but like, “Administrators shall hold discussions on the matter for one week before reaching a decision.” Augnablik (talk) 12:10, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
    Nevertheless, ‘shall’ is still reasonably common usage in formal, official or legal written texts, in the UK, in a way that I don’t think you can say for the US (but willing to be corrected…), and is not considered particularly user-unfriendly. Your observation to the contrary above is therefore pitched from the perspective of a particular Engvar, which was my original point. MapReader (talk) 15:16, 30 December 2024 (UTC)
    @MapReader, you're probably right about "how official" shall sounds to UK and US readers of official documents. And frankly, that word is still used from time to time in official documents in the US, even though much more rarely these days. Even so, here's a thought: if will would work equally well as shall in Misplaced Pages policy and guidance documents, why not use it consistently here so as to make "official stuff" sound a bit less bureaucratic but at the same time affirming of expected behavior?
    Though I'm American, I doubt that any of our UK cousins across the pond would feel affronted if Misplaced Pages consciously adopted will in its policy and guidelines. Wouldn't it simply be one more example of Misplaced Pages's intentions of providing as welcoming and user-friendly environment as possible in which to work, while in no way demeaning other varieties of writing?
    Alternatively, to avoid the whole shall/will issue, there are still other ways wording could be done. For example, instead of "Administrators shall hold discussions...,” we could say, "Administrators are to hold discussions ....” Augnablik (talk) 11:04, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
    More rules about how rules should be written could be one step forward, two steps back. EEng 12:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
    Onbiously, you're free to edit how you want, but as a general rule, surely it isn't WP's object, nor that of the MoS, to try and enforce general language preferences on our editors? MapReader (talk) 11:41, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
    You state the onbious. EEng 12:28, 31 December 2024 (UTC)
    Well, @MapReader, I think it’s time for me to gracefully bow out of the discussion now. My only Intent in making my suggestion was far from an attempt to enforce, though I see how it might be interpreted that way.
    Instead, I was trying to make a case for a slight change in wording that seemed to me could help Misplaced Pages accomplish its very positive goal of creating an open, light, friendly ambience — just as seniors helping in the Teahouse and elsewhere are asked to do with those who ask questions. I know that as some editors get involved with Misplaced Pages, they come to feel weighed down by many rules and regulations and even become fearful they might make a slip and face serious consequences.
    It was this I hoped my suggestion might help prevent in the long run, with the flip-side benefit of editor retention. Augnablik (talk) 12:37, 31 December 2024 (UTC)

    Discussion at Archimedes § MOS:'S (redux)

     You are invited to join the discussion at Archimedes § MOS:'S. Remsense ‥ 论 21:13, 29 December 2024 (UTC)

    Discussion on American football bio leads

    See here. ~WikiOriginal-9~ (talk) 19:07, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

    Usage of historical place names in infoboxes

    Some feedback here would be nice. Thanks --Flominator (talk) 19:34, 1 January 2025 (UTC)

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