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Hyphens instead of endashes

From the discussion at Talk:Epstein–Barr virus#Requested move, it came to my attention that, as currently written, the line "A hyphen is used by default in compounded proper names of single entities." (line A) contradicts the line just before it, "An en dash is used for the names of two or more people in an attributive compound." (line B). Line A is easily read to imply that entities such as Comet Hale–Bopp (one of our examples here) should be hyphenated, not dashed, contrary to what line B says. They are properly dashed, though. In a few cases, such as the examples accompanying line A (McGraw-Hill, Guinea-Bissau, etc.), there is properly a hyphen, not an endash. What seems to distinguish line A's category is that these are no longer simply seen as named after two entities, but as entities with a single name. -- JorisvS ( talk) 10:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I can attest to the confusion caused by line A in the Talk:Epstein–Barr virus#Requested move. Lines A and B, to me, seemed to suggest contradictory ways of writing "Epstein Barr virus": hyphenated as a single entity, or en dashed as an attributive compound named after Epstein and Barr. Walternmoss ( talk) 13:54, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
In an earlier discussion about en-dashes vs. hyphens, there was some agreement that the wording of this section of the MoS needed to be clarified, but nothing happened – partly, I think, because Noetica said he would look at it, but he left Wikipedia. JorisvS is right that the key difference is whether the separate entities are seen as distinct. Since the Epstein–Barr virus article explains the origin of the name from two people, an en-dash is clearly appropriate. "McGraw-Hill" still seems to me a problematic case. I don't see "McGraw" and "Hill" as the origin of "McGraw-Hill", so a hyphen appears appropriate to me. However, it might be that someone more familiar with the publishing industry would be aware of the two entities, and would use naturally use an en-dash. Can this subjectivity be avoided? Peter coxhead ( talk) 17:31, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm not familiar with previous discussions about this, but ... is there any reason why WP:COMMONNAME wouldn't apply to questions like this? -- Stfg ( talk) 18:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
Well, that has been the fiercely (sometimes viciously) debated issue on more than one occasion. In one corner are those who would answer that WP:COMMONNAME should apply, and that the relative usage of en-dash vs. hyphen in reliable sources should determine usage here. In the other corner are those who would answer that COMMONNAME does not apply to style issues, and that in the interests of consistency Wikipedia should apply its own style rules regardless of sources. Let's not start this debate all over again. (It applies to en-dashes vs. hyphens, capitalization of the English names of species, logical quotation style vs. traditional US quotation style, and doubtless a number of other issues. In every case the second position has been upheld.) Peter coxhead ( talk) 18:55, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
There was a pretty heated discussion on the Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) talk page about the en dash (primarily me ranting). What the argument arose from, was the fact that I had never recalled seing an en dash used in any of the scientific literature...until pointed out by several other wikipedians in a minority of papers. From my count, a hyphen is used in EBV ~98% of the time in article titles archived on PubMed. I was fighting very hard for the hyphen w/o knowing about this WP:COMMONNAME rule, as it intuitively made sense to use the "consensus" or most-common form of the name to me. Eventually I changed my mind. What really turned me around was the recognition of the utility of the en dash, it's grammatical appropriateness, and (most importantly) the discovery of its use in several "key" or "landmark" papers. Ultimately, I think the source material (particularly for technical matters) should guide naming conventions on Wikipedia. In the EBV field there is a diversity of naming, so my attempted compromise solution has been to look for precedents in the lit. that jibe with the Wikipedia guidelines, good grammar (to the best of my knowledge), and that allow for some sort of consistency in the naming of pages. It's tough. Walternmoss ( talk) 23:40, 19 November 2013 (UTC)
So, what about adding "... if these are no longer seen as named after two entities." to the sentence about the hyphens? Any problems with saying that? -- JorisvS ( talk) 08:28, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Only that I've no idea what it means. But I've no idea what the present wording is supposed to mean either, so the addition won't make it any worse. In fact I think I know what it's supposed to mean. If the compound is "attributive", then it's dashed. That means if it qualifies another noun, as in the Hale-Bopp case, where it qualifies "Comet". (Presumably in the example with "just" Hale-Bopp, without the "Comet", the compound is still regarded as attributive because the noun is still understood.) But if the compound is the whole name, then it's hyphenated. The union of two cities seems to be an example of a different sort, that perhaps ought to have a separate bullet point. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 09:57, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
So, how do you think we could rephrase it? -- JorisvS ( talk) 10:17, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Somewhat like this, perhaps? W. P. Uzer ( talk) 11:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
Sorry, can you actually suggest that directly on the talk page rather than actually editing the MOS and posting a link to that edit? The MOS needs to be stable and changes need to be discussed first. N-HH talk/ edits 12:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
No they don't. Pages on which anti-Wikipedians try to enforce an ad hoc "no change without discussion" policy are the ones that have the most problems, because the normal channel by which problems are fixed is closed off. If you object to my changes, say why, and then we can have a discussion. Otherwise you're just making things worse with your groundless reverts. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 14:17, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
@ W. P. Uzer: this MOS guideline is a bit different from the average article. It has been struggled over for years, and hyphens and dashes are one area where development has been especially challenging. Please note the banner at the top of the project page itself, where it says "Please ensure that any edits to this page reflect consensus." This applies especially to issues that are under active discussion here and where there are differing views. Please also take care about dubbing the people around here as "anti-Wikipedians", as this sort of language escalates the kind of tension that can arise here, which we're all doing our level best to avoid. Regards, -- Stfg ( talk) 14:47, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Indeed. This is not a substantive entry for an individual topic, where of course not every change needs pre-approval or prior discussion and consensus, but a site-wide guideline page. There's a rather obvious difference in content and purpose, and hence in terms of the need for stability, as the banner here makes clear. I have no idea what an "anti-Wikipedian" is. N-HH talk/ edits 15:01, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
In this case, someone who would prefer to keep a problem rather than solve it, because by keeping it we achieve "stability". Or simply someone who doesn't get (or who opposes) the idea that "everyone can edit". Sadly, there seem to be more and more such people around, not only on this page. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 15:21, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Who says I'd rather keep the problem for the sake of stability? And who says your edits solved anything anyway? The first of the two I reverted together removed an entire sentence, claiming it was repetition when it wasn't, since it included the suggestion of using alternative, more common words. The second, which related more specifically to the hyphen/endash point, shuffled text around and added the confusing and confused claim about "a compound which qualifies another noun", when we are actually taking about names and proper nouns. Nor did it do anything to solve the actual underlying problem with this part of the MOS, which is its apparent internal contradiction. That's what's already being discussed, and it doesn't help to have the current text being shuffled around as that discussion takes place. N-HH talk/ edits 15:38, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
All right, now you're providing reasons, good. If you'd done that to start with, rather than inventing quasi-procedural justifications for your action, then we would have made progress far more pleasantly. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 16:00, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
The "quasi-procedural justifications" were a perfectly valid reason for reverting, without or without any fuller explanation of the problems with the content of the edit. If you'd made your proposal here, I and others could have responded substantively to that from the outset. However you try to rationalise this, the bottom line is that someone asked you for your suggestion; instead of explaining any proposed changes and awaiting comments, you simply edited the page and then pointed them to that edit. That is not how the editing process works, not least because if everybody went about it that way, especially for unclear issues and especially on site-wide guidelines, it'd be chaos. N-HH talk/ edits 17:02, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
No, that's exactly how the editing process works, or is supposed to work. Even on a site-wide guideline (so what? I didn't change the substance of any guidance), we first try to make things better by making things better. It's honestly the most effective way, and the secret of Wikipedia's success. I won't respond any more on the topic since I know people like you are inaccessible to the light, but I remain in diametric disagreement with you on this point. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 20:06, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
All this patronizing lecturing doesn't advance the issue. I still don't know if anyone objects to my changes, and if so, for what reason. This is exactly the kind of behavior which makes "development especially challenging". It would be a whole lot less challenging if people only reverted if they disagreed, and explained why they disagreed. That way we wouldn't waste time on non-issues and meta-issues, problems would be fixed without fuss, and discussion would be focused on such genuine problems as really require it. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 14:57, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
The revert wasn't "groundless". The grounds were that it restored what had been agreed by a prior consensus, until such time as a new consensus might be agreed. Had you made your proposal here, people would surely have given reasoned opinions of it. Please remember that the MOS represents a previous consensus, which it's fine to change, but not OK to ride roughshod over. -- Stfg ( talk) 15:45, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
So I changed it, which you say is fine. I didn't "ride roughshod over it"; I didn't change any of the substance of the advice, just tried to improve the way it was worded. If someone disagrees that it was an improvement, that's fine. The implication of the original reasoning was that it didn't matter whether or not it was an improvement, it was that attempted improvements are not welcome here per se, which is obviously not a helpful attitude to take. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 16:00, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Just to clarify, what I said is fine to change is consensus; it isn't OK to change text that was hammered out in a consensus-building process, without first changing the consensus by means of discussion. -- Stfg ( talk) 17:42, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Again, there is no attempt to "change the consensus", just to better express what the consensus is. That oughtn't to require long process, or we'll never achieve anything. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 20:06, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

I have seen arguments over the years about em-dashes, en-dashes, hyphens, minus signs et al. I have not read all the walls of text about the arguments so maybe my question has already been answered somewhere but I have not seen it. For the reader or anyone for that matter what difference does it make which one is used? Do reader or writers for than matter gain more insight into a subject if the "correct" one is used? Do we lose some understanding if the incorrect one is used? I do not see any reason to worry about this minutia but maybe there is a good reason to spend so much time on dashes. Can someone explain to me why we need to spend so much time and space on this? 69.255.176.248 ( talk) 11:37, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes, for readers who understand normal English punctuation, the distinctions signaled by punctuation are useful and make it easier to understand the material quickly. Dicklyon ( talk) 17:56, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
I suppose we spend the time and space here, at a central point, so that editors don't end up spending even more time and space debating the point on many diverse articles. Also, it's fun to apply one's mental capabilities to something that doesn't really matter (hence chess, crosswords, etc.) W. P. Uzer ( talk) 11:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
There is also always the solution, suggested by me and others in the past, of going back to what many publishers and readers, especially online, are quite happy with: which is to only ever use a hyphen for all such joins (including prefixes) and to not worry about hyphen/endash distinctions to start with. Sadly, it's never going to fly because too many people on these pages think it's "unprofessional" while others seem to quite like these endless navel-gazing disputes about how to apply the rules in each case. N-HH talk/ edits 12:00, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
I wasn't asking why the time is spent here, I was asking about overall time spent on this issue. I guess N-HH answered the question, editors think it is unprofessional to have the "wrong" dash but it does not look like it really makes any difference, people just love to argue. 69.255.176.248 ( talk) 12:14, 22 November 2013 (UTC)
The wrong dash? You mean an em not an en dash? Tony (talk) 14:47, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
this is all really lame and of concern only to grammar nazis. -- TRPoD aka The Red Pen of Doom 15:37, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Maybe you could try to make useful comments instead of ranting about "grammar nazis". -- JorisvS ( talk) 18:17, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

If I might try to continue the more substantial discussion at the bottom of the thread where we can find it, can anyone do a better job than I did at explaining the apparent contradiction (and in the process, perhaps explaining what an "attributive compound" is)? W. P. Uzer ( talk) 16:15, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Actually, is it even clear what the problem is? Is it that simply all compounds that are used attributively (whether or not implied) dashes and those are used substantively hyphenated. Or is it whether or not the entity is seen as one whole, no longer considered named after two distinct entities? -- JorisvS ( talk) 16:22, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
It's the latter surely. All the examples listed are names of things and proper nouns, whether it's McGraw-Hill or Hale–Bopp. The problem is that there is no obvious logic to that distinction, or at least no obvious logic than can be applied consistently. N-HH talk/ edits 17:05, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
The difficulty with the latter is that that rule is pretty subjective, but that need not be a problem for the MoS. It could be worded as "A hyphen is used in proper names when the entity is seen as one whole and is no longer considered named after two distinct entities.". -- JorisvS ( talk) 18:17, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Well, Wilkes-Barre is presumably considered to be named after two distinct entities, by those who know it is so named, just as Hale–Bopp is considered to be named after two distinct entities, by those who know it is so named. (People who don't know might think anything.) And they are both seen as one whole. So why does one have a dash and the other a hyphen? W. P. Uzer ( talk) 20:13, 23 November 2013 (UTC)
Nobody got any ideas? Maybe I was right the first time, and we decided to use the dash in Hale–Bopp just because it is a shortening of Comet Hale–Bopp, in which Hale–Bopp is an attributive compound? W. P. Uzer ( talk) 20:55, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
Okay, it is clear that it is not yet clear what the rule we are supposed to be clarify is exactly. -- JorisvS ( talk) 11:03, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
So should we not assume that the text is intended to say what it appears to be saying - that such compounds take a dash if they're "attributive"? Thus the clarification would involve merely defining "attributive", doing it in such a way that the definition includes cases like Hale–Bopp even when the word Comet gets omitted. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 09:36, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
I think we're in danger of drawing a false distinction in terms of meta-language here. Hale-Bopp and McGraw-Hill are both proper names of things – of a comet and a publishing house respectively. In so far as they qualify those latter terms, they are also attributive and adjectival phrases. The fundamental issue, whatever language we use to describe it, seems to be that where the two names have in some mysterious way become one, we would use a hyphen. Until then, we use an endash. It might help if one of the people who regularly stick up for making a rule out of such distinctions – a minority practice among publishers as a whole, especially non-book publishers – and have helped foist it on Wikipedia, explained how, exactly, they think the distinction works and how the MOS might best be worded for clarity and to avoid confusion and apparent contradiction. N-HH talk/ edits 10:23, 26 November 2013 (UTC)
It does seem that McGraw-Hill is a poor example, partly because its name has now changed, and partly because it always seems to have been attributive in virtually the same way that Hale–Bopp is. Perhaps we should just follow the conventions used in the relevant literature in cases like this. (The official company name, the official comet name as listed by astronomical bodies, etc.) W. P. Uzer ( talk) 10:45, 26 November 2013 (UTC)

So why don't we make this easy? Every dash used on Wikipedia looks like this, -. It is easy because you just have to type it on the keyboard and most readers (the people we are creating this for) probably could care less what it looks like. Problem solved. 69.255.176.248 ( talk) 20:23, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Or not solved, because many people are used to using and seeing real dashes in certain situations and will try to insert them. There isn't really a problem anyway, because in the rules are clear for the great majority of cases and correspond to what most experienced writers will be used to. The ambiguity we're talking about here affects only a very limited set of cases. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 10:46, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

I thought a hyphen and an en-dash were the same thing, and an em-dash was something slightly wider which some people insist on in some circumstances I can never remember, and which doesn't have a key for it. If "normal English punctuation" requires us to distinguish identical characters, and use special keys absent from English-language keyboards, with certain rules half the English-speaking world never knows about, then "normal English punctuation" isn't part of normal English. Ananiujitha ( talk) 21:31, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

If you have a keyboard that looks something like this, there are only two keys that will directly give a hyphen, and none that will give a dash. The two that produce a hyphen are (i) in the main keyboard, immediately to the right of the digit 0; (ii) in the numeric keypad on the right, directly above the +. These give the same character, which strictly speaking is called hyphen-minus since it has a dual role. In Wikitext, the hyphen-minus and en dash are the same width as each other, with the em dash being slightly longer; but when displayed on a finished page, the hyphen-minus is about half the width of the en dash – which is itself half the width of the em dash — you can enter both of these characters into Wikitext using a variety of techniques. -- Redrose64 ( talk) 00:05, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
I think you'll find the hyphen-minus (-) is different from an en dash (–), the latter being longer than the former. They do perform different tasks. They were indistinguishable on typewriters with fixed-width characters and, sadly, computer keyboard makers failed to differentiate them when other fonts came along and the world got lazy. Microsoft Word automatically converts hyphens to endashes when surrounded by a space on both sides, but most other applications don't, so the subtlety has become lost to many. A hyphen, however, is never a correct substitute for an em dash (—), which basically denotes a parenthetical remark—like this one—where they are paired in the same way as parentheses. It can also be used for a parenthetical remark at the end of sentence without another em dash before the full stop—like this. Luckily, both of these dashes are readily available using the Wiki markup links below the edit box. — sroc  💬 00:46, 25 November 2013 (UTC)
It is sad that there is this problem with typing endashes, but it is not relevant for the issue at hand: The rule that describes the few cases when a hyphen should be used instead of an endash. -- JorisvS ( talk) 11:03, 25 November 2013 (UTC)

So to come back the question of why it's Hale–Bopp with a dash and Wilkes-Barre with a hyphen, does anyone have any better suggestions than the one currently implied: that in the first case the compound is "attributive" (the qualified noun "comet" being understood), while in the second it isn't? And if not, does anyone object to this being clarified with the addition of an explanation of what is meant by "attributive"? W. P. Uzer ( talk) 10:21, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Are any external style guides saying that, or are you inferring it from the examples to hand? If the former, could you give us some links? Then I'd say go for it. If the latter, I'd say it's original research, and from an anecdotal sample. And while I'm here, what is the rationale for removing the McGraw-Hill example from the guideline while this discussion is still in progress? The edit summary says "see talk", but I'm missing the explanation, and it may be important, since you've pointed out that it's attributive, which would mean that it's a counter-example to this theory, hence important. -- Stfg ( talk) 16:06, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
I'm inferring it from what's written in the guideline, which is supposedly based on a consensus that Wikipedia editors reached. "Attributive" seems to be the key word, and I'm inferring what is meant by "attributive" based on the examples given and my knowledge of what attributive actually means. I can't come up with any logical explanation for McGraw-Hill within the framework given, so I'm assuming it was an error, and since the present name of the company has no hyphen or dash, according to its article, the example seems to have lost its purpose in any case (but please restore it if you think it will help our deliberations). W. P. Uzer ( talk) 18:20, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

"Attributive" is something of a red herring; it's incidental to the intended distinction. Using hyphens or en-dashes in the problematic cases being discussed here has to do with the "binding strength" of the two symbols: hyphens bind more tightly than en-dashes. Thus in Lennard-Jones potential the hyphen is intended to show that this is named after a single person called "Lennard-Jones". In Comet Hale–Bopp the en-dash is intended to show that it is named after two people called "Hale" and "Bopp". "Lennard" and "Jones" are bound more tightly than "Hale" and "Bopp". This makes excellent sense, until you consider more evidence and more cases. Thus:

  • The distinction for comets is irrelevant, because the naming authority only uses one element of a hyphenated name. Thus if Lennard-Jones and Hale had jointly discovered a comet, the name would not be Lennard-Jones–Hale (1st = hyphen, 2nd = en-dash) but Lennard–Hale. So by using an en-dash in Wikipedia, we are making a distinction which isn't needed.
  • Cities can acquire double-barrelled names in several ways. They can be named after two people or two cities can merge. We want the first case to bind the names more tightly than the second case, so a city named after two people uses a hyphen (hence Wilkes-Barre) but a union of two cities uses an en-dash (hence Minneapolis–Saint Paul). However, this leads to an inconsistency between cities named after two people, which use a hyphen, and theorems, laws, comets, etc. named after two people, which use an en-dash.
  • What is being attempted is to use hyphen and en-dash to mark in text tightness-of-binding distinctions that can be made in symbolic contexts by parentheses. However, any number of levels can be marked by nested parentheses, but only two by hyphen and en-dash. Since hyphenated proper names can arise by more than two joining processes as shown above (one person with a double-barrelled name, two people, two cities) it's never going to work without some inconsistencies.

Personally, I don't think it's worth making the hyphen/en-dash distinction in proper names of this kind; it just causes too much hassle. However, if we do make the distinction, there are bound to be anomalies. Peter coxhead ( talk) 18:14, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Why do you say "We want the first case to bind the names more tightly than the second case, so a city named after two people uses a hyphen (hence Wilkes-Barre)"? Shouldn't it be Wilkes–Barre, for the same reasons as Hale–Bopp and Minneapolis–Saint Paul, namely, the combination of the names of separate entities? I think the hyphen/dash distinction is too subtle for anyone to make any assumptions whether Wilkes-Barre or Wilkes–Barre is one town named after two people or a merger between two towns, without context or clarification, when it could easily be put down to a typo or some editor misunderstanding the distinction. — sroc  💬 22:49, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
Personally, I would have thought Wilkes-Barre (hyphenated) was an individual’s surname, as in Double-barrelled name, rather than a thing’s name. — 173.199.215.5 ( talk) 23:12, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
So does anyone have any idea how to sort out this mess (with minimal change to the substantial consequences of the guidance, I suppose)? W. P. Uzer ( talk) 20:55, 29 November 2013 (UTC)
I'd say leave well enough alone, unless you find a grammar guide that does a good job of it. Wilkes-Barre is a city, not much like Minneapolis–St. Paul, which is two cities. The distinction between Wilkes-Barre and Hale–Bopp is more subtle, but editors mostly know it when they see it, and there's not usually much disagreement that the former is more strongly bound into a single city name and the latter is the names of co-equal discoverers of the comet. Many sources use en dash in Hale–Bopp; none do for Wilkes-Barre, as far as I know. Dicklyon ( talk) 06:09, 2 December 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that the current wording is unclear (see the link at the beginning of this post), no matter the rules, and so has to be changed. However, for it to be changed, we must be clear on what the rule is. -- JorisvS ( talk) 09:16, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

Here's another example to consider: The Hindi-Urdu language (hyphen, a single language, sometimes called Hindi, sometimes Urdu) vs the Hindi–Urdu controversy (dash, dispute between Hindi and Urdu).

McGraw-Hill is an oddity, but I think is universally hyphenated. It's an idiosyncratic exception that's being treated as a double-barreled name; there's no real reason for it, AFAICT. Guinea-Bissau is irrelevant: That's not a union of Guinea and Bissau, but rather the Guinea of Bissau vs. Guinea-Conakry.

But the constant attacks and attempts to dumb down Wikipedia so it contains nothing an editor doesn't already know is a distraction from actually trying to clarify such issues. If we can't discuss this rationally, I think we should probably just remove the counter-example and leave McGraw-Hill as an eccentric exception, with a link to this discussion rather than to the MOS. — kwami ( talk) 07:35, 1 December 2013 (UTC)

And what about Wilkes-Barre? Would you put that in the same "eccentric" category, or do you think its exclusion from the dash rule is connected with the fact that the compound is not "attributive"? W. P. Uzer ( talk) 20:02, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
Can we find a solution? Is the use of a hyphen instead of an endash:
a) a few oddities
b) because it is not in an attributive phrase attributive (whether implied or not)
c) because these are more strongly bound together (and if so, how to decide which should be used)?
d) or because they are seen as single entities no longer named after which they were originally named?
Or a maybe a combination of these? In any case, the current wording is unclear, as has been experienced here, and therefore must be changed. This can only be done, however, if we know how to change it. -- JorisvS ( talk) 19:25, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
It seems that most people here think "attributive" is in fact irrelevant. So how about we delete that word, and simply say afterwards that if some term (such as Wilkes-Barre) is invariably written with a hyphen rather than a dash in sources, then we do so also? The other examples like Guinea-Bissau probably don't even belong in that section, as Kwami pointed out. W. P. Uzer ( talk) 09:41, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
But then, when is it enough? Is one example of a dash already sufficient for us to dash the term? -- JorisvS ( talk) 09:52, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
So, should we just delete the paragraph and just say that there are a few casewise-determined cases where a hyphen is used where one would expect an endash? -- JorisvS ( talk) 15:45, 8 December 2013 (UTC)
I was thinking, what about an endash is used to indicate a symmetrical relationship, and a hyphen to indicate the unity of the two? This would explain Hindi–Urdu controversy vs. Hindi-Urdu. It would also explain Wilkes-Barre (1 city) vs. Minneapolis–St. Paul (2 cities). It would also explain names such as Lennard-Jones. -- JorisvS ( talk) 12:39, 11 December 2013 (UTC)
No one disagrees or knows a counterexample? This MOS line style still needs to be clarified, so I'll do that if no one voices any disagreement. The latter explanation seems to be the best one we've been able to find, I think. -- JorisvS ( talk) 12:54, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't think you have a mandate to make changes. Could you print here the current and your proposed new texts first, for our consideration? Tony (talk) 02:28, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
Sure. This is what I'm proposing:
An en dash is not used for a hyphenated personal name.
  • Lennard-Jones potential with a hyphen: named after John Lennard-Jones
An en dash is used for the names of two or more people in an attributive compound.
  • the Seifert–van Kampen theorem;   the Seeliger–Donker-Voet scheme;   the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow theory
  • Comet Hale–Bopp or just Hale–Bopp (discovered by Hale and Bopp)
A hyphen is used by default in compounded proper names of single entities.
  • Guinea-Bissau; Bissau is the capital, and this distinguishes the country from neighboring Guinea
  • Wilkes-Barre, a single city named after two people, but Minneapolis–Saint Paul, a union of two cities
  • John Lennard-Jones, an individual named after two families
An en dash is used to indicate a symmetrical relationship, but a hyphen is used to indicate a unity.
  • Hindi–Urdu controversy (a dispute between Hindi and Urdu) vs. Hindi-Urdu (an alternative name for the Hindustani language)
  • Minneapolis–St. Paul (2 cities) vs. Wilkes-Barre (1 city named after Wilkes and Barre)
  • John Lennard-Jones, an individual named after two families
The en dash in all of the compounds above is unspaced.
Does anyone have suggestions or remarks? -- JorisvS ( talk) 16:32, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

At first look there's a comforting conceptual simplicity in what you propose: "An en dash is used to indicate a symmetrical relationship, but a hyphen is used to indicate a unity." But thinking it through, symmetry is not essential; separateness in the entities is what counts more. Consider:

  • US–Australia cultural and linguistic exports.
  • A Hanoi–Da Nang train journey.
  • Our China–Siberia border crossing.

No symmetry, but separate entities invoked. Reversibility is one "test", but it's not always the case. Ontological separateness is what really counts.

We all want a guideline that is optimal for editors to understand. May I ask for a short statement as to what is unsatisfactory or difficult about the current text? That would help us to know where it stands. Tony (talk) 09:09, 18 December 2013 (UTC)

Okay, so we say "An en dash is used to indicate separateness of the names, but a hyphen is used to indicate unity." instead. The current text, as explained above, is unclear and appears to directly contradict itself. First it says "An en dash is used for the names of two or more people in an attributive compound.", with Comet Hale–Bopp as an example, but then it says "A hyphen is used by default in compounded proper names of single entities.", even though the name of a single entity was dashed just before. -- JorisvS ( talk) 09:45, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
Any other critical notes? -- JorisvS ( talk) 12:54, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Exactly what is wrong with the current text? Tony (talk) 13:03, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
What did I say just above? That. -- JorisvS ( talk) 14:00, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
Indeed – exactly as was pointed out at the start of the thread all those weeks and bytes ago. It's amazing how long it can take for some things to sink in. As I recall saying at some point, it would be useful if one of those who initially insisted that WP apply this minority-practice distinction at all and/or any of those who then contributed to the drafting of the current detailed section, could actually weigh in and help out. Those people would include your interlocutor here, among others. N-HH talk/ edits 15:39, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't see a problem: it says "by default", which indicates that there are exceptions. If it would be clearer, perhaps add "However,"? "However, a hyphen is used by default in compounded proper names of single entities." Tony (talk) 00:57, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
But how is "Comet Hale-Bopp" not a "compounded proper name" of single entity? Fine, there are exceptions to any rule, but how is anyone meant to work out what they are, how frequent they are or how the distinction is drawn? N-HH talk/ edits 12:02, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Is there still anything wrong with my suggestion above?
An en dash is not used for a hyphenated personal name.
  • Lennard-Jones potential with a hyphen: named after John Lennard-Jones
An en dash is used for the names of two or more people in an attributive compound.
  • the Seifert–van Kampen theorem;   the Seeliger–Donker-Voet scheme;   the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow theory
  • Comet Hale–Bopp or just Hale–Bopp (discovered by Hale and Bopp)
A hyphen is used by default in compounded proper names of single entities.
  • Guinea-Bissau; Bissau is the capital, and this distinguishes the country from neighboring Guinea
  • Wilkes-Barre, a single city named after two people, but Minneapolis–Saint Paul, a union of two cities
  • John Lennard-Jones, an individual named after two families
An en dash is used to indicate separateness of the names, but a hyphen is used to indicate unity.
  • Hindi–Urdu controversy (a dispute between Hindi and Urdu) vs. Hindi-Urdu (an alternative name for the Hindustani language)
  • Minneapolis–St. Paul (2 cities) vs. Wilkes-Barre (1 city named after Wilkes and Barre)
  • John Lennard-Jones, an individual named after two families
The en dash in all of the compounds above is unspaced.
-- JorisvS ( talk) 22:23, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Does the silence mean that it is correct this way? -- JorisvS ( talk) 10:37, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
No. Tony (talk) 09:05, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Then tell what's wrong! Let's correct it and build something better! -- JorisvS ( talk) 09:00, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Definite improvement. Unless there's s.t. specifically wrong, I say we go for it. — kwami ( talk) 06:13, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

It looks good to me, too. Removing the "single entity", which is too broad and ambiguous to be useful, is probably a good step. Tony, tell us what you're thinking. Dicklyon ( talk) 06:26, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Proposed change

Per the above discussion, I suggest changing:

A hyphen is used by default in compounded proper names of single entities.

  • Guinea-Bissau; Bissau is the capital, and this distinguishes the country from neighboring Guinea
  • Wilkes-Barre, a single city named after two people, but Minneapolis–Saint Paul, a union of two cities
  • John Lennard-Jones, an individual named after two families

to:

An en dash is used to indicate separateness of the names, but a hyphen is used to indicate unity.

  • Hindi–Urdu controversy (a dispute between Hindi and Urdu) vs. Hindi-Urdu (an alternative name for the Hindustani language)
  • Minneapolis–St. Paul (two cities) vs. Wilkes-Barre (one city named after Wilkes and Barre)
  • John Lennard-Jones, an individual named after two families

-- JorisvS ( talk) 14:20, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

For the sake of consistent formatting, may I suggest:
An en dash is used to indicate a conjunction of separate entities or concepts; a hyphen is used to indicate unity of a single entity or concept formed by combining multiple names.
  • Hindi–Urdu controversy (a dispute between Hindi and Urdu); but Hindi-Urdu (an alternative name for the Hindustani language)
  • Minneapolis–St. Paul (a union of two cities); but Wilkes-Barre (one city named after Wilkes and Barre)
  • John Lennard-Jones (an individual named after two families)
I'm not sure the words "separateness" and "unity" made the distinction clear, so I've suggested alternate wording for the introductory line, too. — sroc  💬 14:48, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, I think that looks better. Thank you. -- JorisvS ( talk) 16:04, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support removal of Capitalization: I think it fits established conventions better, and would aid in consistancy. VivaLaPandaz ( talk) 21:19, 25 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support: Looking good to me, the examples are better and it's more easily understandable. Also, the numbers are now spelled out. :) However, let's wait to see the feedback from more editors. —  Dsimic ( talk) 03:19, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support for sroc's change, for the reasons given by Dsimic.— DocWatson42 ( talk) 18:42, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Support improved wording by User:Sroc. People, please join this discussion! -- JorisvS ( talk) 08:22, 27 January 2014 (UTC)
The way I was taught the typographic use of a en dash, is that it's showing some sort of relationship between two things. Hence "Human–Computer Interaction" and use in page ranges. That makes sense to me as an explanation of the above examples as well. Well, except Minneapolis–St. Paul, that's an odd one. Arguably that the combination of the two cities represents their close relationship. SamBC( talk) 19:08, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment: I agree in principle with the distinction between separation (Hindi–Urdu controversy, Hindi and Urdu are separate literary registers and/or languages) and unity (John Lennard-Jones is one individual), but I see problems with the examples:
  1. Minneapolis–St. Paul is not "a union of two cities" - it is " the most populous urban area ... composed of 182 cities and townships ... its two largest cities, Minneapolis, ... and Saint Paul". Ie it is a single urban area that includes the two named cities and 180 others cities/towns. Perhaps Minneapolis–St. Paul is a good example (named after two separate cities), but it is poor and misleading description.
  2. Not shown in the proposed change, but immediately above in MOS:ENDASH is "En dash is used ... Comet Hale–Bopp ...(discovered by Hale and Bopp)." Yes the comet was named after two people, but generally Hale-Bopp is the common name of a single comet. Why does a single comet have an en dash when a single city (Wilkes-Barre), also named after two people, have a hyphen? Do you intend to delete/replace the existing sentence and examples "An en dash is used for the names of two or more people in an attributive compound..."? The "proposed change" didn't say so.
Mitch Ames ( talk) 13:34, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
That's a good catch, just corrected the proposal above according to your suggestions regarding Minneapolis–St. Paul. Regarding the Hale–Bopp comet and comparison with Wilkes-Barre, well, that's probably because the comet has C/1995 O1 as it's official name, making Hale–Bopp just an alias. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 23:36, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
An en dash is used to indicate a conjunction of separate entities or concepts; a hyphen is used to indicate unity of a single entity or concept formed by combining multiple names.
  • Hindi–Urdu controversy (a dispute between Hindi and Urdu); but Hindi-Urdu (an alternative name for the Hindustani language)
  • Minneapolis–St. Paul (a union of two cities an urban area named by its two largest cities); but Wilkes-Barre (one city named after Wilkes and Barre)
  • John Lennard-Jones (an individual named after two families)
Corrected according to Mitch Ames's suggestions, so "Minneapolis–St. Paul" is described as "an urban area named by its two largest cities". —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 23:36, 28 January 2014 (UTC)
"Regarding the Hale–Bopp comet and comparison with Wilkes-Barre ..."
Yes C/1995 O1 is its official name, but its common name and the title of the article is Comet Hale–Bopp. When we talk about Comet Hale–Bopp are we referring to the comet or the discoverers? If we have examples of:
  • en dash, Hale–Bopp, one comet discovered by Hale and Bopp
  • hyphen, Wilkes-Barre, one city named after Wilkes and Barre
I suggest that we need to clearly and unambiguously explain, in the description of the policy, what the distinguishing criteria is, because it is not obvious from the examples. Why is Hale–Bopp "the names of two or more people in an attributive compound" but Wilkes-Barre not? A rule of "named after discoverers, use en dash, else hyphen" or "if the term is a common name for which there is a different formal designation, use en dash, else hyphen" does not sound like a good clear rule to me. Mitch Ames ( talk) 13:56, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
These are good points. I can't quite wrap my head around "Wilkes-Barre". Maybe "Hale–Bopp" is dashed because it is short for "Comet Hale–Bopp" and "Wilkes-Barre" is no such shortening? I'm not really sure, but I can't think of any other good reason. -- JorisvS ( talk) 16:02, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
The International Astronomical Union says that all comet names are spelled with a hyphen. But some editors think they can spell better than the naming authority for all celestial bodies, and they insisted on dashing Hale-Bopp..... -- Enric Naval ( talk) 16:42, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
They IAU, however, does not distinguish between endashes and hyphens, so that's unfortunately useless. -- JorisvS ( talk) 17:00, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
Please cite a source for this statement. Even non-reliable sources will do. Any source. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 11:17, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
Regarding "Hale–Bopp" vs. "Wilkes-Barre", it's probably something like this:
  • Comet Hale–Bopp "was discovered independently on July 23, 1995 by two observers, Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp, both in the United States." That means they haven't made it a joint venture, and instead worked without knowing each other, so the title gets an en dash.
  • Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania "was named Wilkes-Barre after John Wilkes and Isaac Barré, two British members of Parliament who supported colonial America." That means they were pushing into the same direction, "modifying" each other all the time etc. So, it gets a hyphen.
How about that? I know it's pushing it quite far, but to me that's the only another reasonable explanation. Thoughts? —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 03:24, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
But comets carry a dash regardless of whether the people worked together to discover it or did so independently. This to indicate that it has been named after multiple people, and not one person carrying a double name (like Lennard-Jones). -- JorisvS ( talk) 08:39, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
If a discoverer has a hyphenated surname, the hyphen is replaced with a space (i.e. 105P/Singer Brewster named after Singer-Brewster) or part of the name is removed. This is to prevent confusion with the hyphens for multiple discoverers. This is sourced from reliable sources in the Singer Brewster article. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 09:48, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
Oh, I wasn't aware of that, sorry. Thanks for the explanations, will remember for the future. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 18:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm rather fond of en dashes but this discussion is troubling, and I can only think of a question to illustrate the difficulty: "Are there any Minneapolis–St. Paul bus routes in the Minneapolis-St. Paul transit system?" Modal Jig ( talk) 20:21, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
Why would the second one be with a hyphen? -- JorisvS ( talk) 21:54, 29 January 2014 (UTC)
Actually I found the answer to my question (what's the difference between Hale–Bopp and Wilkes-Barre) in MOS already - I just wasn't paying attention. It says (above the Hale–Bopp example) that an en dash is used "for the names of two or more people in an attributive compound" (my emphasis). "Hale–Bopp" is attributive (adjective qualifying a noun) in that it describes/qualifies "Comet". Ie the name is Comet Hale–Bopp, not just Hale–Bopp. In the case of Wilkes-Barre, that hyphenated term is the complete name, it is not a qualifier for another noun.
I'm not sure I like the answer, but it is there. Mitch Ames ( talk) 12:09, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
The full comet name is "C/1995 O1 (Hale-Bopp)", not "Comet Hale-Bopp". -- Enric Naval ( talk) 14:04, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
@ Mitch Ames: That makes sense, thanks, but then what about Wilkes-Barre Township, for example? Hm, shouldn't "Wilkes-Barre" have an en dash when used that way? —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 18:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
I would interpret the MOS guidelines as indicating that Wilkes-Barre Township should be an en dash instead of a hyphen. That could mean my interpretation is wrong, or that the guideline should be changed, or that it is a sufficiently rare example that we can ignore the guideline without worrying about changing it. Mitch Ames ( talk) 13:28, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Totally agreed. Any comments from other editors, please? —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 14:30, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Okay, now I'm totally confused as well. Either we don't understand something and/or something is wrong. Well, something is certainly wrong with the MOS, that's why this whole big thread started in the first place, but there are apparently still things we need to find out before we can properly rewrite it. Any suggestions on how to figure this out? -- JorisvS ( talk) 07:45, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
Is Wilkes-Barre simply an exception, or is there a rule to it? Can anyone say something that might help clear this up? -- JorisvS ( talk) 13:39, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
To me, Wilkes-Barre Township is simply a small mistake in an article title, not an exception. Went ahead and boldly renamed the article to Wilkes–Barre Township – maybe we'll draw more attention that way. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 15:26, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
It just struck me: whereas Hale–Bopp is attributive even when used without "Comet", this is not the case for Wilkes-Barre, just like Lennard-Jones, right? Now, just like " Lennard-Jones potential", "Wilkes-Barre Township" is derived from an originally non-attributive compound, whereas this is not the case for Hale–Bopp. Could preserving the hyphen from an originally non-attributive compound be the rationale for using a hyphen in Wilkes-Barre Township? -- JorisvS ( talk) 15:39, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Makes sense, but again, why "Wilkes–Barre" shouldn't be treated as an adjective compound, qualifying "Township" as a noun, despite the fact "Wilkes-Barre" is also used as a non-attributive compound? Preserving the hyphen—by following the line of creation for these compounds—would also require some history to be involved, as it would mean that "Wilkes-Barre Township" has been coined after "Wilkes-Barre", meaning that the latter compound is older. Hope it makes sense. :) —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 16:22, 19 February 2014 (UTC)
Yes, it starts out as Wilkes-Barre, without anything to qualify. Wilkes-Barre Township is then named after Wilkes-Barre. That's like Lennard-Jones: that starts out as such, and then something is named after it/him, Lennard-Jones potential, which then preserves the hyphen. Although "Lennard-Jones" of course does qualify "potential", it does so as a single term, whereas in "Comet Hale–Bopp" "Hale" and "Bopp" do so as two terms joined together. -- JorisvS ( talk) 11:36, 23 February 2014 (UTC)
That totally makes sense, but the small trouble is Wilkes-Barre city was founded in 1769 and formally incorporated in 1806, while Wilkes–Barre Township was settled in 1758 and incorporated in 1790 – that makes it unclear which name was created first? In order for Wilkes-Barre to act as a "single-term" qualifier, Wilkes-Barre should've been coined earlier, if I'm not mistaken? —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 23:02, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, maybe, but did they also receive their current names when they were founded? And what was the rationale for calling "Wilkes-Barre" just that when there was already a "Wilkes–Barre Township"? -- JorisvS ( talk) 20:08, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree, and I've already asked myself the same two questions, but unfortunately was unable to provide good answers. Any historians around, please, to help us resolve this dilemma? :) —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 20:39, 27 February 2014 (UTC)
Is there a specific place where we could ask this? -- JorisvS ( talk) 08:39, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I really don't have a clue. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 04:53, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
I asked the question at Wilkes-Barre, but there has been no response. -- JorisvS ( talk) 11:42, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
Wilkes–Barre Township apparently used to include Wilkes-Barre (City) and only later were they split [1]. This would appear to mean that Wilkes–Barre Township should have an endash. Does it also mean Wilkes-Barre should have an endash? -- JorisvS ( talk) 00:16, 15 March 2014 (UTC)
Great find, thank you! With such historical data available, "Wilkes–Barre Township" should have an en dash (as an attributive compound and older term of the two), while "Wilkes-Barre" stays with a hyphen (as it isn't an attributive but a standalone term). In other words, complete name of the city is "Wilkes-Barre" so it goes with a hyphen.
That's how it looks to me. Of course, I could be easily plain wrong there. :) —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 07:02, 18 March 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, looks like it. So how would you suggest to phrase this in the MOS? -- JorisvS ( talk) 10:19, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
I've taken a crack at it and have made a suggestion below. -- JorisvS ( talk) 10:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)
Based on a quick look, your proposal is quite detailed and should cover it pretty well; the only thing which to me isn't good enough is the use of "substantively", as that opens a path for putting too many things under such a broad classifier. Of course, I'll have another look at it a bit later, and will try to provide some suggestions for improving that specific area. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 17:59, 21 March 2014 (UTC)
Well, instead of "substantively (on its own)" we could write "on its own", though that makes the current phrasing about the attributive use of the originally substantive "Lennard-Jones" less clear. -- JorisvS ( talk) 15:51, 24 March 2014 (UTC)
Hm, I've been thinking about it further, and it might be just fine as-is. Only if we could somehow bring your new proposal to attention of more editors... —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 08:41, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
  • From the IAU's own site, official naming principles: "It frequently happens that a comet is found by (a) discoverer(s) --- whether a single individual, two individuals working together, or a team --- who cannot detect cometary activity with the equipment that he/she/they possess. Such an object may therefore be assumed to be a minor planet and so designated when two or more nights' worth of observations are available to the Minor Planet Center (or posted, for example -- prior to being designated -- on the MPC's NEO Confirmation webpage, if unusual motion is detected)."

    So -- and --- are their best notion a sentence-level dash, it seems. On that page the word dash doesn't appear; nor is there an en dash or an em dash character. But we do find their infamously stupid principle for use of hyphens close by. Tony (talk) 11:45, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Sooo, the IAU does know what a dash is and how to use it in a sentence..... But you don't like how they represent it? If you are using a typewriter, you don't know what a dash is because you can't type it? If you are limiting yourself to ASCII characters for some reason, you don't know what a dash is? Even if you are clearly using a dash, and using it correctly? I don't get your argument......
  • The only thing I can gather from your post is that you really dislike IAU's spelling rules. -- Enric Naval ( talk) 14:04, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
  • Comment – What about making the hyphen the default, and the endash to indicate opposition? E.g. use a hyphen in Dallas-Fort Worth but a dash in Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Bwrs ( talk) 09:51, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

  • It is my understanding that a compounded proper name uses the hyphen when the name formed is chosen by the primary parties being joined—the en-dash is used when the compound is chosen by a third party. Married names are always hyphenated unless it is preferred to omit it; for example: Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Companies follow the same standard which is why McGraw-Hill is properly hyphenated and Wells Fargo is hyphen-less—and they have the additional option of choosing an ampersand; as in Black & Decker.

    Conversely, compounds like Hale–Bopp and Epstein–Barr were chosen by a third party; for example: the IAU and the AMA respectively. I believe the term: "attributive compound" was an effort to imply the compound was attributed, or given – requiring an en-dash. The Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania example uses a hyphen because the city was formed by a chosen merge of the two formerly independent cities whereas Wilkes–Barre Township was formed as a Home Rule Municipality by the legislative act of a third party. Other examples include Winston-Salem, North Carolina where both cities orchestrated the merge opposed to Minneapolis–Saint Paul and Dallas–Fort Worth which were both named by a census designation.

    Dashes for dummies says that a compound formed by an en-dash indicates the "existence of tension", which can be created when a name is decided without collaboration. I have seen no exceptions to this as a rule and I am confident a contrary example will not be found.— John Cline ( talk) 19:42, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Have you tried looking up attributive in a dictionary instead of making up weird theories about what it might mean? Dicklyon ( talk) 05:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposed change 2

Per the most recent above discussion, I suggest changing:

An en dash is not used for a hyphenated personal name.
  • Lennard-Jones potential with a hyphen: named after John Lennard-Jones
An en dash is used for the names of two or more people in an attributive compound.
  • the Seifert–van Kampen theorem;   the Seeliger–Donker-Voet scheme;   the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow theory
  • Comet Hale–Bopp or just Hale–Bopp (discovered by Hale and Bopp)
A hyphen is used by default in compounded proper names of single entities.
  • Guinea-Bissau; Bissau is the capital, and this distinguishes the country from neighboring Guinea
  • Wilkes-Barre, a single city named after two people, but Minneapolis–Saint Paul, a union of two cities
  • John Lennard-Jones, an individual named after two families

to:

An en dash is used to indicate a conjunction of separate entities or concepts when used attributively, even when it is done so implicitly:
  • the Seifert–van Kampen theorem;   the Seeliger–Donker-Voet scheme;   the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow theory
  • Comet Hale–Bopp or just Hale–Bopp (discovered by Hale and Bopp)
  • Hindi–Urdu controversy (a dispute between Hindi and Urdu)
A hyphen is used when such a compound used substantively (on its own) by default:
  • Guinea-Bissau; Bissau is the capital, and this distinguishes the country from neighboring Guinea
  • Wilkes-Barre, a single city named after two people, but Minneapolis–Saint Paul, an urban area named after its two largest cities
  • John Lennard-Jones, an individual named after two families
  • Hindi-Urdu (an alternative name for the Hindustani language), but Hindi–Urdu controversy (a dispute between Hindi and Urdu)
  • Wilkes-Barre (one city named after Wilkes and Barre), but Wilkes–Barre Township (a township founded before the city and named after the same people)
If this substantively used compound is later used attributively, the hyphen is kept:
  • Lennard-Jones potential, named after John Lennard-Jones

Feel free to copyedit my suggestion to bring its style in line with the rest of the MOS. -- JorisvS ( talk) 10:34, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

People, could you chime in and respond. Is my latest proposal finally good (then please support), or are there still things that have been overlooked so far (then I'd like to know that very much)? -- JorisvS ( talk) 13:22, 26 March 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, it would be great to see more opinions on this proposal. JorisvS and I have been discussing some parts of the proposal for a long time, as you can see above. Please comment, so all that work isn't wasted; maybe we were plain wrong there, but however let's discuss. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 01:07, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't understand this. Can you point to any grammar guides that do anything like this? Dicklyon ( talk) 01:29, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Are you referring to Wilkes-Barre vs. Wilkes–Barre Township or something else? —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 01:33, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I'm referring to what seems to be an odd, unfamiliar, or novel set of rules. And can you say what might change if we used these new rules? If there are differences, we'd need to look at them. If there are not, let's leave the rules at what we had a large majority of users supporting. Dicklyon ( talk) 03:30, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Ok, for the beginning, could you please explain why did you rename Wilkes–Barre Township article back to Wilkes-Barre Township? Why a hyphen instead of an en dash, I'd really like to know the logic behind? —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 03:44, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I got to reading the talk above and discovered that it had been moved without discussion to provoke a reaction. So I searched for any precedent for the en dash there, and couldn't find any. It seems to be only an effect of your newly made-up rules. Can you explain whether there's any basis in guides for it? Dicklyon ( talk) 05:21, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Please don't get me wrong, but I'll respond with a counterquestion. So, are there any guides against the earlier rename? In other words, why the hyphen is correct in "Wilkes-Barre Township", and why the en dash is incorrect? In the discussion above we've examined more than a few logic paths ending up with en dash being correct, so please correct us where we were wrong. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 05:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
I don't know of any guide that addresses the difference between a city name and a township name, but the logic and newly invented rules seem like a stretch, and there are exactly zero sources that do this for the example in question. If we can treat Wilkes-Barre Township like the city Wilkes-Barre, as a single entity name, not a "Wilkes and Barre" or "Wilkes vs Barre" Township, then we can leave the hyphen. Or we can leave it just because there's no precedent nor guideline to do otherwise. This is nothing like Hale–Bopp, where half of reliable sources style it with the en dash for the same reasons that we do, IAU's recommendations notwithstanding. Dicklyon ( talk) 05:58, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
So, in "Wilkes-Barre Township" we're simply preserving the hyphen from an originally non-attributive compound? In other words, "Wilkes-Barre" is a standalone term no matter which way it's used, and not an attributive compound? —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 06:08, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Early spellings/stylings include "township Wilkesbarre", Wilkes-barre, Wilkes-Barre, Wilkes Barre, etc. So, I don't have any good rationale, but the hyphen is what they have standardized on. Dicklyon ( talk) 06:21, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Hm, but we should provide some kind of a rationale behind it, if you agree, just so it serves well as an example in the MOS. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 06:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
But, as discussed above, 'preserving a hyphen' gets into trouble because the township predates the city. How can it be 'preserving'? -- JorisvS ( talk) 14:16, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
Exactly, something can be preserved only if it existed before. That's why we've spent so much time trying to figure out whether the hyphen existed before, or, in other words, whether the township predates the city or vice-versa. All that is inline with the need to provide some kind of a rationale, if you agree. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 16:34, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
The rules and rationales that we have incorporated in the dash and hyphen guidance all comes from published grammar guides. I am against making up new rules to support odd cases. I think we can leave "Wilkes-Barre Township" as an odd case if you believe the current rules imply an en dash there even though that is unprecedented. Dicklyon ( talk) 15:56, 1 April 2014 (UTC)
Well, I'm fine with leaving "Wilkes-Barre Township" as an exception, though it leaves a bit of a bitter taste in my mouth after spending so much time discussing about a likely en dash. :) Of course, we should also hear JorisvS' opinion. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 07:06, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Leaving it as an exception has one problem: It opens the door to creating more exceptions and such discussion is bound to happen. Take the reason for this thread's existence: That Epstein–Barr virus should have a hyphen (it really shouldn't, but quite understandable from the nominator's POV at the time). I'm uneasy with leaving it an exception for this reason, not so much as the time we've spent analyzing it. Maybe if we find a rationale for it as an exception? -- JorisvS ( talk) 12:32, 2 April 2014 (UTC)
Does anyone have a suggestion how to deal with this, then? -- JorisvS ( talk) 14:58, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
Unfortunately, I'd say this a WP:DEADHORSE case. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 00:10, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Yeah, but unfortunately, the MoS as it stands is not good. This has been discussed in this thread before. The choice is between leaving it wrong, or keep trying to poke it. What about just not mentioning Wilkes-Barre Township? Because it was just an example, and appears to be an exception, not an indicator of another rule we haven't figured out. -- JorisvS ( talk) 14:23, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Anyway, not many people seem to care about. Maybe Dicklyon is willing to provide some more feedback? —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 04:41, 15 April 2014 (UTC)


Anything wrong with changing it instead to the following?

An en dash is used to indicate a conjunction of separate entities or concepts when used attributively, even when it is done so implicitly:
  • the Seifert–van Kampen theorem;   the Seeliger–Donker-Voet scheme;   the Alpher–Bethe–Gamow theory
  • Comet Hale–Bopp or just Hale–Bopp (discovered by Hale and Bopp)
  • Hindi–Urdu controversy (a dispute between Hindi and Urdu)
A hyphen is used when such a compound used substantively (on its own) by default:
  • Guinea-Bissau; Bissau is the capital, and this distinguishes the country from neighboring Guinea
  • Wilkes-Barre, a single city named after two people, but Minneapolis–Saint Paul, an urban area named after its two largest cities
  • John Lennard-Jones, an individual named after two families
  • Hindi-Urdu, an alternative name for the Hindustani language, but Hindi–Urdu controversy (a dispute between Hindi and Urdu)
If this substantively used compound is later used attributively, the hyphen is kept:
  • Lennard-Jones potential, named after John Lennard-Jones

This only removes mention of the anomalous Wilkes-Barre Township and the then superfluous second mention of Wilkes-Barre and includes some style formatting, compared with the previous proposal. -- JorisvS ( talk) 10:25, 25 April 2014 (UTC)

Can we stick an RfC fork in this and see if it's done baking yet? This has been really dragging out.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:26, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

If you ask me, an RfC might help. But just might. —  Dsimic ( talk |  contribs) 18:57, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

MOS:QUOTEMARKS vs WP:QUOTEMARKS, WP:QUOTEMARK, MOS:QUOTEMARK

Please see a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles#MOS:QUOTEMARKS vs WP:QUOTEMARKS, WP:QUOTEMARK, MOS:QUOTEMARK on confusion between similar shortcuts redirecting to two distinct guidelines within MOS. — sroc  💬 12:02, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

RFC: Same rules for CS1 and Citation

Please review the RFC at Template talk:Citation#RFC: Same rules for CS1 and Citation about whether the rules for valid parameters in Citation Style 1 should also apply to the Citation template. Jc3s5h ( talk) 17:30, 30 April 2014 (UTC) (word added 17:38 UT)

I didn't know that RFCs were capable of experiencing pleasure. EEng ( talk) 17:33, 30 April 2014 (UTC) [Smart-alec comment removed now that OP corrected.]

RfC: Proposed rewording for instructions for disambiguation at the WikiProject Comics Manual of Style

A Request for Comment has been made regarding the appropriate level of generality of article title disambiguation for articles under WikiProject Comics. Please join the discussion here. Curly Turkey ( gobble) 21:20, 28 April 2014 (UTC)

RfC: Revised proposed rewording for instructions for disambiguation at the WikiProject Comics Manual of Style

A revised Request for Comment has been made regarding the policy compliance of title disambiguation for articles under WikiProject Comics. Please join the discussion here (original here). Curly Turkey ( gobble) 23:47, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Question about ungrammatical movie end credits disclaimer

If the correct plural form of "person" is "people" rather than "persons" and the correct adjective form of the word "fiction" is "fictional" rather than "fictitious", why are the latter terms used in the end credits disclaimers of movies which usually state:"The PERSONS and events [...] are FICTITIOUS [....]"? Why the need to be so ungrammatical? --Marce 11:29, 30 April 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fandelasketchup ( talk • contribs)

Neither of your premises is true. 'Persons' is an entirely legitimate English plural, and is especially often found in legal contexts where clarity is key. Similiar, 'fictitious', 'fictional' and even 'fictive' are valid adjectives, with related and overlapping meanings. In particular, 'fictitious' means 'made-up' whereas 'fictional' means 'to do with works of fiction' (if I recall correctly). But in any case, there's no centralised standard for English writing - who would you expect to rule that a particular usage was definitively right or wrong? AlexTiefling ( talk) 11:36, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Well... from my experience, the editors here at our MOS page frequently make such definitive rulings... of course, half of us will rule that a particular usage is definitively right, while the other half will rule that it is definitively wrong... but we are definitive in either case. :>) Blueboar ( talk) 14:24, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
That's categorically wrong. EEng ( talk) 17:23, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
For reasons I won't go into specifically, it appears (incredible as it may seem) that I should have put a little winky ;) emoticon on my post just prior. See, Blueboar made an ironic and (I think) amusing point about people's positions being "definitive", and so I said he was "categorically" wrong, you see, and ... It was all in good fun -- not in any way a comment on anyone's actual positions on anything. EEng ( talk) 04:10, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Well, I will grant that the MOS applies to the text of an article, and not to WP:Categories. But otherwise I am not wrong.  :>) Blueboar ( talk) 11:32, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

compound-adjective–like situation

Since we haven't had a good knock-down–drag-out hyphen–dash battle for a while, the evil part of me hankers to put the cat among the pigeons. How should we describe a relationship that's similar to that between a father and a son? Would it be a

father-and-son–like relationship

--? Inquiring minds want to know. EEng ( talk) 05:16, 1 May 2014 (UTC)

Reword to "Paternalistic relationship" Blueboar ( talk) 11:38, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Cop-out–like answer. EEng ( talk) 11:51, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps... but, I think, still valid. If the MOS must address such complex (convoluted) constructions, the advice I think we should give is: avoid them - by engaging in some judicious rewriting. Best practice would be to not write a sentence like "They had a father-and-son–like relationship." in the first place, and instead write "Their relationship was like that of a father and son." Blueboar ( talk) 13:12, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
If you search WP;NDASH for the string applying you'll see MOS does give advice (much like yours) for a different but comparable situation, along with the appropriate punctuation if the editor chooses to ignore the advice. Just through I'd ask. EEng ( talk) 17:34, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
EEng, there are a few problems with your post of 05:16, 1 May 2014.
  • The heading compound-adjective–like situation contains four braces (curly brackets), and as a result the wikified arrows in watchlists are not functional.
  • Your first sentence expresses a hankering for a battle, but Wikipedia in general and its Manual of Style in particular need a peaceful atmosphere, where competing options can be examined and discussed calmly instead of being used in conflicts.
  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Hyphens (version of 10:48, 1 May 2014) ends with this statement: "Hyphenation involves many subtleties that cannot be covered here; the rules and examples presented above illustrate the broad principles that inform current usage." Many editors already find the Manual to be too large, so I recommend that any mention of a guideline on this matter be added to the article " Hyphen" instead.
— Wavelength ( talk) 15:03, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
<stares in stunned disbelief> EEng ( talk) 17:34, 1 May 2014 (UTC)
  • EEng, you left a dummy-edit summary on the MOS page commenting on my immediately prior edit: "How much nicer the world would be if people said, "The new wording seems to imply this is mandatory—restoring old sense of optional' rather than huffing and puffing about 'I see no consensus on the talkpage' ".

    My wording is pretty standard, and I didn't think for a minute you'd be offended. I'm sorry to have offended you. Tony (talk) 09:16, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

  • It's hyphens. Constructions like "father-and-son-like relationship" are quite common (in not-so-great-styled writing ;-), and always use hyphens.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:20, 2 May 2014 (UTC)


Proposal to close easily gameable and frequently exploited loophole

The lead of MOS presently closes with:

Discuss style issues on the MoS talk page. Some of the past discussions that led to decisions on aspects of style guidance are recorded at the MoS register. In case of discrepancy, this page has precedence over its subpages and the Simplified Manual of Style.

This should really read

Discuss style issues on the MoS talk page. Some of the past discussions that led to decisions on aspects of style guidance are recorded at the MoS register. In case of discrepancy, this page has precedence over its subpages, the Simplified Manual of Style, and (on style matters) other guidelines.

I made this edit here, and added a citation to policy on the matter at [2]. All of this was almost immediately reverted by Trovatore here, with an edit summary of "that the MOS represents a broader consensus than other guidelines is not clear at all. The MOS mostly represents the views of a small core of people interested specifically in the MOS". I have since restored the policy citation, since it's applicable to the text before the "other guidelines" change. Per WP:BRD, let's discuss that change.

  • The objection: Trovatore's objection doesn't actually make sense. Of course the MOS represents a broader consensus than other guidelines on style matters, which is the only thing under discussion here. Anyone who disagrees is welcome to point us all to the Wikipedia Stylebook, or Wikipedia Style Manual, or whatever alternative to the Wikipedia Manual of Style that more authoritatively treats style here, that we've all somehow not noticed. The Good Article and Featured Article processes generally require compliance with MOS, not with some alternative to MOS - not a wikiproject one, not a personal one, not a competing WP-wide one. Trovatore's second objection seems to mean "my views haven't gained much traction at MOS so I don't like it". On it's face it's meaningless; every policypage on WP represents the views of the comparably small number of editors interested specifically in writing it. This is just as true of WP:Verifiabilty and of WP:Consensus as WP:Manual of Style.
  • The rationale: Various guidelines, especially among the naming conventions pages, as well as wikiproject-authored wannabe guidelines, frequently attempt to contradict the MOS. They POV-fork on a rather frequent basis when editors with an axe to grind, a peeve to pet, fail to win consensus here. The most obvious way to put a stop to this is to close the gaping loophole in MOS's wording that encourages this nonsense. It's not even an change in policy in any way; WP:LOCALCONSENSUS already invalidates such attempts to ignore site-wide consensus in favor of little "micro-consensuses". All the change would do it put an end to a lot of perennial strife and bickering.

 —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  07:04, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Some cases in point
I was asked for examples so here are some. Just current/recent stuff, not historical:

See also problems with MOS's own subpages:

 —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  04:55, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

My objection makes perfect sense. It is not clear that the MOS represents a broader consensus on any particular style question than another guideline that treats that particular question. A guideline does not have to be about style in general to represent a broader consensus on a particular style point. -- Trovatore ( talk) 07:21, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
As for the MoS being a site-wide consensus, that's the point in dispute. -- Trovatore ( talk) 07:26, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
The idea that WP's site-wide style guideline, that anyone can edit and which is one of the most-watchlisted policypages on the entire system, with very, very high levels of participation on its talk page (see the enormousness of the archives) is somehow how not really a site-wide guideline, is absurd on its face. This pseudo-rationale has been raised before and rightly ignored before. You don't get to declare any or every policy and guideline on the project invalid just because they don't reflect your views, sorry. You seem to have missed that I already addressed your claim that MOS somehow doesn't represent consensus because of who edits it most: I'll repeat it for you here: "On it's face [your objection is] meaningless; every policypage on WP represents the views of the comparably small number of editors interested specifically in writing it. This is just as true of WP:Verifiabilty and of WP:Consensus as WP:Manual of Style." It is clear that MOS represents a broader consensus on style questions. If some other guideline wants to treat a particular question of style on Wikipedia in more detail than MOS does, it's still necessary to get consensus at MOS to go along with it, or it simply isn't a style guideline here and MOS will, as a patter of policy at WP:CONLEVEL supersede it. This is an ineluctable fact. Ensuring that is pretty much the entire point of CONLEVEL, which was written in direct response to RFARB cases involving people (especially but not exclusively at wikiprojects) trying to POV-fork their own "rules" in contravention of site-wide guidelines. Much of MOS is made of things that originated at wikiprojects, as topical editors bothered to gain consensus to add them here, instead of digging themselves into adversarial positions of bucking the system just to buck it. I don't know what sort of definitional games you're trying to play with "site-wide", but no one here has any patience for it and you've not raised a valid objection to the edit you reverted.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  09:42, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
What you have not established is that it's a site-wide consensus. Secondarily, even if it were so, nothing in any policy you've quoted gives the MoS any monopoly on style questions (or, as far as I can tell, even mentions the MoS). Why does the MoS have a broader consensus on a particular style question than another guideline? Say it's a question about the style of how Elizabethan sonnets are to be indented, and a broader group of people have participated in a guideline specific to sonnets than have participated in it at the MoS? Just because it's a style question, you think MoS gets to take priority even in that case? I see no support in any policy you've quoted for that. -- Trovatore ( talk) 21:25, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Are you sure you understand how en.wiki operates? If you don't think MOS is a a site-wide consensus, go delete the {{ Guideline}} tag from it. Of course MOS takes priority over other guidelines on style question; it is WP's style guideline. If someone thinks that something at MOS conflicts with how people in their field prefer to x (plug in any value, e.g. "indent Elizabethan sonnets" or "present common names of organisms") they raise the issue at WT:MOS and get consensus for a change. You (and SlimVirgin) are sorely confusing the WP:BOLD ability of projects or anyone else to fill a void in style guidance, with an imagined right to tell established style guidance to go to hell if it conflicts with what you want to do and consensus isn't going your way. Technically speaking, WP:IAR provides such an escape value as a last resort. Even if you're of the camp that, say, Cougar should be capitalized in running prose (I got bit by a Cougar), and you know the whole project is against you on that, you're not going to get blocked or topic banned for writing it as [[Cougar]] when adding new material. Now one can force you to spell it a way you don't like,. You will, however, get into trouble if you keep changing it to upper case, and reverting others changing it to lower case per consensus at MOS:LIFE. Neither you nor any wikiproject has some right to WP:OWN articles and force other people to use your style quirk on the basis of some personal or local micro-consensus.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  03:01, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
You have not cited anything that supports this claimed monopoly for MoS on any point that is argued to be a style point. On a given point, LOCALCONSENSUS does say that the broader-based consensus takes precedence. It does not say that the broader-based consensus on the point is automatically the one in the MoS, even if the point is a style point. In fact, it doesn't even mention the MoS. -- Trovatore ( talk) 00:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Why/how could you think that a policy stating that wikiprojects cannot make up their own rules in conflict with wider policies and guidelines, somehow means "policies and guidelines other than MOS" because it didn't mention MOS by name? To use your favorite phrase,the burden of proof is on you to show that MOS is excluded from LOCALCONSENSUS.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:28, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
SMcCandlish, if I understand correctly, says that MoS is a broader consensus because there isn't an alternate style manual. I'm not clear what to make of that assertion since the processes here don't allow an alternative. It's not evidence of a broad consensus that MoS has no competitors; it's evidence that good editors have more important things to do than discuss minutiae. As to the question of where there is the broadest consensus, that is found in the practices of Wikipedia editors, not in any written policy. Micro-consensuses are actually all the consensuses we have and it's exactly spot on that the consensus at MoS is the consensus of a relatively small number of self-appointed experts. That is not a criticism, though, since no page like this could function if everyone with an interest participated. But policy reflects practice on Wikipedia and MoS editors help provide some consistency, which is one value among many. -- Ring Cinema ( talk) 07:58, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Ring Cinema, if I understand correctly, says that those who care about so-called "minutiae", like style in encyclopedic writing, are not "good editors". The evidence of broad consensus for MOS is that virtually everyone follows it here on virtually every point except rank noobs and those with particular pet peeve axes to grind. If you think micro-consensuses are all we have, you've clearly not read and understood WP:CONLEVEL. This debate is academic, however. The matter here, in this little proposal, is whether any other guideline on the system is more authoritative on style than MOS. Clearly the answer is "no". If you and Trovatore want to engage in existential navel contemplation about what consensus "really" means or whatever, here fun with that, but it's not germane to the discussion of closing this silly loophole in MOS's lead wording.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  09:42, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Sorry you don't get the drift. To just state the facts, each and every last consensus anywhere on WP is a local consensus, and this page is no exception. Even bestowing the tepid honorific "guideline" doesn't make the consensus any broader. Perhaps this disappoints. Editors on MoS don't dictate to other editors and, as I've pointed out, it is better to reflect good practices than to attempt to claim "authority". Claims of authority are fallacious on their face in this context and an authoritarian's fantasy. -- Ring Cinema ( talk) 04:04, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
See your talk page. You are misinterpreting WP:CONSENSUS among other pages. This debate does not need to get mired in further discussion of your approach to that (including this dispute you seem to want to raise with the {{ Guideline}}, which belongs probably at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines. No one said anything about anyone dictating anything to anyone. The only claims of authority being made are those being made by propoonents of the fantasy that WP:AT conflicts with MOS and has "authority" over it (there is no such conflict).  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅⚲͜ⱷʌ≼  07:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I notice with disappointment that there are no examples given of cases where this "gameable and frequently exploited loophole" has been exploited. Given the proposer's involvement in some quite heated and controversial discussions recently, I think we should ask exactly which discussions they think this change would affect, and what that effect would be. Andrewa ( talk) 09:00, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Careful what you wish for. Here's a recent example of you exploiting the very loophole I'm talking about, engaging in the pretense that WP:NCFAUNA and WP:BIRDS#Naming are immune to MOS concerns at WP:MR because they're not MOS subpages, as a technicality: [8]. See also several other threads I've started immediately above; they're all about various other guidelines PoV-forking from MOS. The WP:NCFAUNA and WP:NCFLORA issues in particular are exploits of this loophole. PS: I'm not sure what sort of aspersion you're trying to cast by criticizing my argument on the basis of my having been involved in debates you characterized as "heated and controversial", but that's three different fallacies at once (guilt by association, ad hominem, and confusion of correlation and causation); not impressive.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  09:42, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
I suspect I want to reject all four accusations of logical fallacy, and also the implied breaches of good faith on my part. But Let's try to focus on the topic at hand (I have restored the heading of this section, which you deleted, [9] I hope that this was simply an accident on your part... if not some explanation is due IMO). Do you really want to cite this diff as a prime example of the easily gameable and frequently exploited loophole that you wish to close? Really? Andrewa ( talk) 15:33, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
That's a user-talk matter; it's not germane to MOS. I'll bring it to your talk page.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  02:45, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
And I have replied there. [10] The issue that is germane to this discussion is that you have cited this edit of mine as the prime and only example you offer of someone exploiting the easily gameable and frequently exploited loophole that you want closed, which is the topic of this section, which you named and started. I just wanted to be sure that this was the case, because I think that anyone examining the diff will wonder what you are on about. But I could be wrong and am very interested in other views on that. Andrewa ( talk) 11:09, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Actually, I pointed you to several other discussions on this page that are evidientary of the problem. [I've listed this more clearly above] Please read more carefully. PS:, I just going to go with WP:SPADE here, because WP:CIVIL doesn't require being nice, and what you're doing is pseudo-nice on its face: Please stop engaging is such florid, unctious [[[WP:CIVILPOV]] faux-genuflection. It comes off as extremely snide. It's okay for us to disagree and debate here, but this "oh I'm so fallible and so terribly interested in your views" sarcasm is obnoxious and a strong impediment to civil discourse.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
While I certainly agree that the MoS should take precedence on style matters, if only because it's easier to find all the rules if they're in one place, the question of whether or not it does is relevant. Of course any debates held here will be disproportionately attended by people who prefer this page. Where would we go to establish that the MoS trumps these other pages? Darkfrog24 ( talk) 14:01, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Here, of course; the place to discuss the content and meaning of any page on WP is on its talk page. And its not true that only people who like to work on MOS and believe in its purpose watchlist this page; a large proportion of watchers of it, maybe even a majority of them, are people who don't like MOS or some aspect of it they have filed to get consensus to change.
There is no policy question to ask and settle here. The proposed change is a clarification of existing policy, not a change to policy in any way. I think you and some others, above, are mistaking this for some kind of hierarchical power-struggle question; it's not. It's matter of basic reasoning and of preventing further strife from people who cannot quite follow WP policy processes. MOS, the style guide on Wikipedia, is about style, and other guidelines (besides MOS's own subpages) are not. To the extent they sometimes wander a little bit into style territory, as WP:NCFAUNA does for example, when it gets into why or why not to capitalize or italicize in animal-related article titles, it already explicitly defers to MOS; it has big fat hatnotes that do this, unmistakeably. Despite this, because of the loophole in the wording of the MOS lead, people are still WP:GAMEing the system to POV-fork the style advice (we're not talking about any non-style, article titling material that is clearly NC/AT territory, only style, here). WP:LOCALCONSENSUS already makes it clear that a few editors can't go off to a wikiproject, or some other guideline, to make up a contradictory "mini-consensus" amongst themselves that conflicts with MOS. This is not permitted, as a matter of official policy. The change I'm proposing is a similar reminder of this.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  14:23, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
No, LOCALCONSENSUS does not in fact say that it is not permitted to make a guideline that conflicts with the MOS. It doesn't say anything about the MOS. It talks about site-wide versus local consensus. You claim that the MoS represents site-wide consensus. You have not established the factual basis of that claim.. --- Trovatore ( talk) 21:10, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Interesting fringe view. Have fun with that.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  00:45, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
The burden of proof is 100% on you. You have not met it. -- Trovatore ( talk) 02:15, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
The most obvious way to test this theory of yours is to remove the {{ Guideline}} tag from Wikipedia:Manual of Style, and remove the page from lists of guidelines. Then enjoy your lengthy block for POINTy disruption.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:21, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't have to test anything. The burden of proof is on you. You have not met it. -- Trovatore ( talk) 08:42, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
No one on Wikipedia believes that but you. I'm citing Argument from repetition and WP:DFTT, and just moving on, sorry.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
And I repeat: Why/how could you think that a policy stating that wikiprojects cannot make up their own rules in conflict with wider policies and guidelines, somehow means "policies and guidelines other than MOS" because it didn't mention MOS by name? To use your favorite phrase,the burden of proof is on you to show that MOS is excluded from LOCALCONSENSUS. Everyone but you knows that it isn't. —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:28, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  • NB: As an independent matter, I added a citation to WP:CONLEVEL policy so people know where MOS superseding its subpages comes from in policy; clearly many people have been very confused about this. I guess just to follow me around and reflexively blanket-revert me as much as possible, I've been reverted on this twice already by the same party for no expressed reason (only a false claim that this citation was under discussion, which it was not). This kind of editwarring is not acceptable and is a example of why discretionary sanctions have been authorized for dealing with MOS and AT disputes. Either raise a substantive disagreement (could there possibly be one?!) for why a guideline should somehow not cite the WP policy from which it derives a not very well understood authority, or stop your revert-warring, please.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  14:23, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
  • You've just linked to Wikiproject Deletion Sorting. The relevant shortcut is AC/DS, or even better, a link to the specific one. -- Stfg ( talk) 14:42, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Hi SMcCandlish, I reverted your addition of the footnote citing WP:CONSENSUS. Groups of editors can indeed decide not to apply the MoS (as can individuals); see the GA criteria for an example. GAs are expected to comply with five of the MoS subpages (LEAD, W2W, etc), but not with the main MoS. The point of that part of WP:CONSENSUS is to stress that groups of editors can't decide not to be neutral, for example, or to override a wiki-wide RfC, but that can't be extended to guidelines like the MoS, parts of which may have very little consensus. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:12, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Hi SlimVirgin. Hang on a minute: the GA criteria aren't a Wikiproject. What WP:LOCALCONSENSUS says is: "unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope". (My italics). It kinda pains me to point that out, but that is what it says.
All the same, I do think we need some pragmatism here. At present there are plenty of bird FAs capitalizing bird species, though FA does require MOS. Is the world going to end because of it? I'd have thought that some kind of SPECIESVAR, requiring only that articles were self-consistent, would be quite enough for WP. -- Stfg ( talk) 16:42, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Stfg, I think whether we call them a WikiProject or some other group of editors, the point is that, as a matter of fact, groups of editors (and individual editors) can and do decide to ignore the MoS. The GA criteria have been that way for years. They wouldn't be able to say "we have decided that GAs need not be neutral," but if they say they're not adhering to the MoS, no one bats an eyelid. That's the key difference here, not whether they are called a WikiProject. I agree with your point about pragmatism, but better still would be just to leave things alone. Adding SPECIESVAR would be instruction creep too. The MoS already says: "Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia." SlimVirgin (talk) 17:06, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
Your opinion about what wikiprojects can or should do doesn't match policy nor the WikiProject Council's own guidelines, and is not relevant to whether MOS can cite the policy on which it bases its ability to supersede its own subpages, which is what we're talking about here. You have thus given no actual basis for your revert. Please do so, or undo it. PS: Since you seem unaware of them, here are the relevant policy and guideline:
  • Wikipedia:Consensus#Level of consensus ( WP:LOCALCONSENSUS): "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope." And: "Wikipedia has a higher standard of participation and consensus for changes to policies and guidelines than to other types of pages. This is because they reflect established consensus, and their stability and consistency are important to the community."
  • Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide#Advice pages: "The best [wikiproject-based] advice pages do not conflict with the site-wide pages and avoid unnecessary duplications with site-wide pages. However, in a few cases, projects have wrongly used these pages as a means of asserting ownership over articles within their scope, such as insisting that all articles that interest the project must [comply with the advice page], and that editors of the article get no say in this because of a "consensus" within the project. An advice page written by several members of a project is no more binding on editors than an advice page written by any single individual editor. Any advice page that has not been formally approved by the community through the WP:PROPOSAL process has the actual status of an optional {{ essay}}.
Again, this is an interesting side discussion, but does not address why you are reverting MOS citing a policy it relies on. Please explain how blocking that could possibly make sense.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  00:39, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Unproductive, personalized arguments
I'm very disappointed that SMcCandlish seems to be returning us to the bad old days of aggressive editing and counter-editing of the MOS and its subpages. I thought we'd managed to get away from all that and have more civilized discussions. [B]etter still would be just to leave things alone – absolutely. Peter coxhead ( talk) 17:37, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
I'm very disappointed that you're engaging in an assumption of bad faith and a personal attack on a page subject to discretionary sanctions for such things.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  00:39, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I can see personal attacks but not assuming bad faith. Ultimately, he's just discussing your edits. You have made changes before discussion was complete. The way consensus works is that we make the decision, and then decide together how to change it. The onus is always on the person making the changes, yet you are acting like the onus is on the person reverting your changes. —  trlkly 02:39, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
WP:BOLD is policy. WP:BRD, a guideline, is optional, and even if you're following it, the reversions require policy-based (or in articles, RS-based) rationales, not WP:IDONTLIKEIT (or worse yet "I don't like you") obstructionism. See also WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY, another policy, not guideline or essay.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  08:33, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I think that's what I'm coming around to too, for many reasons. It's not just birds, see Talk:Crowned crane#Other examples. What the proponents of compulsory non-capitalisation don't seem to realise is that we use English, and that means we're not going to be 100% consistent. It's not our job to promote any variety of English as the standard. Not only is that contrary to policy, it also reflects an obsolete view of linguistics.
In a project as vast as ours, and with no editorial board, the MOS is very important, to help editors to produce consistent articles and thus give the best reader experience... always our bottom line. But we need to be clear on its purpose, and ours.
WikiProject Birds are doing a good job, including their decision to capitalise common names. They should be supported. If the MOS says otherwise, it's the MOS that should change. If the MOS is not sufficiently clear, as seems to be the case, then it should be clarified.
And if we do that, I think we can call it progress, and hopefully reduce the angst and all get back to improving the encyclopedia. Andrewa ( talk) 18:09, 5 April 2014 (UTC)
The process you think doesn't exist already exists. It's called coming to WT:MOS and gaining consensus, based on reason and evidence, that MOS needs to be changed to account for some particular style convention. MOS is entirely composed of such cases. What has happened in this case is that proponents of a particular style quirk have failed to gain consensus on it, because their reasons are weak and sometimes downright false. This happens all the time, too. There is not one single rule in MOS that doesn't have its detractors, somewhere. Just yesterday someone came by and tried to change italicization of major works of art to be double quotation mark style, as just one recent example. There is also probablh not one single rule that doesn't have detractors who can cite sources (from one specialized context or another) "proving" their way is "right"; style conventions very frequently conflict, and MOS has to settle for advising the variant that best serves our largest readership, not the one most pleases a tiny handful of specialists. (Ideally they actually coincide, e.g. formatting units like 43&nbsp;cm</code>, not 45cm or 43 cm. or 43 CMs; but often they don't. That's just tough.

When these failures to gain consensus occur, they do not, through some mystical process, reverse themselves into reasons that consensus has been reached, that MOS must change to support them, simply because the losers go off and write up their WP:POVFORKed rule on another page and use WP:FAITACCOMPLI editing practices to engage in WP:OWNish behavior that makes it seem like they have consensus in a particular topic area. That's precisely the kind of WP:GANG and WP:BATTLEGROUND behavior that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy exists to put a stop to. Editors are increasingly getting indef blocked for tendentious disruption along these lines, including in partiuclar editwarring in favor a style quirks (changing en-dashes to hyphens is a recent-ish example) on the basis that some external "standard" demands it and that MOS has "no consensus" to go against these "reliable sources". It's a ridiculous argument that's been debunked 1,000 times. Reliable sources on facts about our article topics are not magically also reliable sources on how to style prose in a general purpose encyclopedia. WP:AT, etc., explicitly refer to MOS for such style matters for a reason - they are style matters and this is our style guide. If you don't like something in the style guide, work to gain consensus to change it. You don't burn down Congress/Parliament, or declare your own independent republic and army, because you disagree with a law they passed, you work to make legislative changes within the system. If you'd rather take the revolutionary insurrection approach, please see WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:SOAPBOX, WP:NOTHERE, WP:GREATWRONGS, and other instructive pages.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  02:43, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree. We've already had this argument. You're never going to convince those people who edit bird articles not to use the language conventions their sources typically use. That's why we had to come up with a compromise in the first place. If the problem is that people are not following the agreed upon compromise, then you tell them what the guidelines are and recommend that they try to change policy. Making it more restrictive isn't going to fix the problem. People who capitalize common bird names aren't doing it because they see it in other articles, but because they were taught to capitalize them.
Consistency is overrated. The average reader doesn't care too much. It's okay for things not to be perfect. Trying to be perfect and stirring up strife is worse for the encyclopedia than going with the flow. Quite a few people I know who have an intellectual bent and could help the project won't because they find the place way too contentious. Our primary focus should be content, not rules.
If people are making mistakes in capitalization, just fix them and move on. We don't need to assume that there is a problem with the guidelines. Get this--most people who edit here have never read them. —  trlkly 02:39, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
"You're never going to convince those people who edit bird articles not to use the language conventions their sources typically use." This is off-base for three reasons: 1) They're conventions learned in academia as adults, by people who know they are specialist style that applies only in specialist contexts. They're nothing at all like the ingrained-since-elementary-school visceral knowledge that misc. stuff is not capitalized for no apparent reason. I do not Drive in my Red Card to the Grocery Store, unless I'm borderline illiterate. Everyone BUT specialists win that "never going to convince us what we've been taught is wrong" argument, sorry. 2) All or nearly all (maybe some don't publish?) such specialists do in fact regularly drop the capitalization, when they submit articles to journals that don't permit the capitalization, which is all but ONE non-ornithology-specialized bio/sci journal, and even some ornithology journals, and virtually all the newspapers, general-audience magazines, whatever else they might write for less academically. The entire idea that they can't/won't adapt to a style guide here that calls for lower case is totally implausible. 3. We already have absolute proof that biological topic specialists will adapt immediately and without fuss to Wikipedia setting a lower-case common names standard, because it's already happened in just about every field but birds here. When MOS really firmly settled on lower case in 2012, a large number of projects were capitalizing like mad: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Animals/Draft capitalization guidelines. And they just stopped, no fuss, no muss, except for articles on two types of insects, sometimes, but I see no evidence they actually editwar to keep the caps and the project has no local consensus on the matter, and same goes for a few plants pages in particular categories. The only project, or other group of editors, pitching a fit about it are some members (not everyone) in WP:BIRDS. I think this is clearly a personalities issue, and nothing more. I've lower-cased common names in the titles and content of hundreds of non-bird articles without a single objection/revert that I can recall. No one cares but a dozen or so birds editors, and so far as I can tell one plants and insects editor. —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  14:28, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
I can speak from my own experience that trlkly raises a good point. Being ordered not to do what you've been taught is correct is a huge turnoff. However, in this case, we can cite style guides proving that using lowercase is correct in general-audience publications. They might find it easier to swallow if they can be shown that it's not a whim or personal preference.
But yes, the "just correct it and move on" is also a good solution. It's only if people change the lettering back that this should even come up. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 04:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
@ Darkfrog:: Exactly, on both points. The capitalization of common names of organisms is "wrong" because of what we were taught, to about 99.9% of editors and readers here. It was only taught as "correct" to specialists in a very small number of biological fields (some of them far narrower than birds. LC: 1, UC: 0. Next, all of the pro-caps camp learned their upper-casing in higher education as adults; it is not ingrained as part of their basic written langauge processing. LC: 2, UC: 0. Next, all of the pro-camps camp are well aware that their convention is not acceptable outside very narrowly tailor specialist publications; they don't get to use the caps when writing for general biological or science journals, nor for newspapers. LC: 3, UC: 0. Ergo, this "specialist outrage and alienation" is POV-pushing fiction made up by people who just don't want to admin that WP is just like any other venue that isn't an an ornithology journal. LC: 4, UC: 0. I could go on. Oh, actually, I will. Did you know that not all ornithology journals, even major ones require (or even permit? not sure yet) the capitalization? Ex: Journal of Ornithology. WP:BIRDS even says so, too: [11] "The convention [ sic] is followed by many of the big ornithological journals". Did you know that the IOC isn't even a taxonomic nomenclature authority, as WP:BIRDS also well knows? [12] The entire basis for the capitalization being pushed here, that's it supposedly a universal, official taxonomic standard in ornithology is a blatant falsehood, twice over.

Your second point is also crucial: Of course they change it back. No one cares if Sam Ornithogist writes new material using capitalized names; it only matters if Sam and friends will revert war everyone else to keep the capital letters, and this is why the issue never, ever goes away, and will never go away until there's one standard applied consistently.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

trlkly: The problem is that WP:OWN problems immediately arise, with other editors fighting the correction on the basis that they and some other handful of editors have come to some "local consensus" that their style quirks trump standard English usage. If the average reader didn't care the 10+ years of average readers pushing back consistently against this capitalization nonsense would never happened. It's still happening even today (see the recent RM closure in favor of lower-casing bird common names), a discussion in which MOS regulars were entirely absent, bird project regulars were present and vocal, and the anti-capitalization position was successfully enumerated by "average readers". There is no consensus at MOS or on WP generally that "consistency is overrated"; consistency is actually the main point of the MOS and of many of our other guidelines, because consistency helps both readers and editors in many ways. Your general take on perfection and rules applies to both sides of the argument, and actually applies more to the pro-capitalization side, since it requires and enormous amount of time and energy to buck consensus across the entire project just to force every editor to always capitalize bird names in bird article. It takes essentially no effort at all to just do what MOS advises, and stop capitalizing things that are not proper names. If some editor personally would rather cut their own throat than lower-case a bird name (or whatever style matter they will never, ever give up on), no one cares; the editor can cite WP:IAR and write as they like. If that editor editwars against other editors following MOS, by reverting their lower-casing, he or she will rightly eventually get blocked. No one has to convince bird editors to stop capitalizing. Policy at both WP:CONLEVEL and WP:OWN already tells them to stop forcing everyone else to capitalize. They have no business trying to change MOS:CAPS, WP:NCCAPS, WP:NCFAUNA, WP:NCFLORA, etc., to disagree with MOS so they can get their way.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  04:27, 6 April 2014 (UTC)


The proposal seems sound to me. Why not centralize style matters in one place, as we have mostly done already? Given that we have an MOS, shouldn't it be the place to codify our style decisions? If we state that it has precedence, then people who have style issues to resolve will know where to go. As things are now, they may go and make more localized decisions that lead to ongoing conflict, which is what we have gotten into with birds. Whatever the decision on birds is, it should be taken by the widest possible set of editors who care about style issues, and should be cast in concrete here at MOS, so that the answer becomes clear to all. Dicklyon ( talk) 04:58, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

"Localized decisions that lead to ongoing conflict" is precisely the problem. The NCCAPS, NCFAUNA, NCFLORA and MOS:CAPS guidlines all even conflict with each other. It's just ridiculous.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
The proposal seems unsound to me. There is nothing wrong with what WikiProject Birds is doing, and yet this seems to be a proposal to subtly undermine it.
We do need to clarify things, so that either WikiProject Birds gets clear support and the repeated and vigorous attempts to stop them cease, or they get a clear message that, for the sake of consistency and "correctness", they must change. But this is not such a proposal. It's just another shot in the war.
The argument from "correctness" is a fallacy. The rules it quotes were abandoned by linguists many years ago for the purposes for which they are being used here. The problem is, as observed by another editor above, Being ordered not to do what you've been taught is correct is a huge turnoff. [13] And that of course includes being ordered not to correct what you've always been taught is incorrect. This insight (and others in the post and the one to which it was replying) represent progress in my opinion. We can and must understand where the angst is coming from, and rise above it.
The argument from consistency cuts both ways. It can be equally argued that, as we have capitalisation well attested (outside of Wikipedia, that is) for some species and varieties, and for good, clear reasons, but there seems no downside to capitalisation, it would be better to simply capitalise all such. But better still is the current situation, with consistency encouraged within individual articles and groups of articles, but neither prescibed nor proscribed universally. This is part of the concept of a guideline rather than a policy.
The role of the MOS is to help editors and through that to make for the best reader experience. This change does not achieve either. But if we can clarify the application of the MOS and other guidelines to the capitalisation of bird species, that would be real progress, and I think it should be possible. Andrewa ( talk) 06:23, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
"There is nothing wrong with what WikiProject Birds is doing" except violating WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy. It's a policy that specifically says wikiprojects cannot make up their own rules that conflict with wider consensus at policies and guidelines. You know this already. Playing WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT is not constructive.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  11:09, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

The problem is that editors like SMcCandlish (I'm only personalizing this here because he was the person made the edit that started this off) simply don't see how harmful their attitudes and language are to the Wikipedia project as a whole. There just is no need for this kind of language:

  • "this capitalization nonsense" – whatever capitalization of the IOC names of birds is, it's not "nonsense". It's simply following one valid style rather than another.
  • "bird project regulars were present and vocal" – of course they were, and a good thing too. We need more participation in MOS-related discussions, not less. By all means encourage those with different views to participate, but don't imply it would be better had one group been absent.
  • "They have no business trying to change MOS:CAPS, WP:NCCAPS, WP:NCFAUNA, WP:NCFLORA, etc., to disagree with MOS so they can get their way". But it's ok for "MOS editors" to make changes so they can get their own way. Bird project members have the same rights as any other editors. (And I see no evidence that "they" tried to change WP:NCFLORA, for example; the page history shows who made the only recent changes to its meaning.)

"The role of the MOS is to help editors and through that to make for the best reader experience." Absolutely. Helping editors requires consensus. Consensus does not consist of a dominant majority bullying a minority into conformity. It requires respect for different views and some degree of tolerance of difference where the minority cannot be persuaded that the majoritarian view should prevail. Peter coxhead ( talk) 09:52, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

WP:KETTLE, Peter: This wasn't personalizing, a harmful attitude and language, for which there was no need? There's nothing even faintly pejorative about your second example of what I said. It makes no sense at all to criticize me for observing that members of a project were participating in a discussion actively (where you've been suggesting there was no consensus, just some MOS regulars), especially if you then immediately agree with me in the course of criticizing me.

I have never made an argument that members of that or any other project should not have their views represented; the objection is a procedural and consensus one. You don't change consensus at MOS by ignoring it an creating competing "anti-MOSes" at every page you can think of to work in contrarian material, which is precisely what's been going on here. It's not even consistent. There is no conspiracy (or if there is, it's sure disorganized) against MOS; it's pretty random but of-a-single-mind editors making piecemeal changes at all of these pages, such that they even conflict with each other. It just a worthless situation. No bad faith assumptions are needed on either side.

Bullying? See User:SMcCandlish/Capitalization of organism names for ten or so years of one project browbeating everyone on the system into submission, in ever forum possible, on a basis of blatant falsehoods – turns out, capitalization is NOT required by all ornithology journals, and is NOT a universal ornithological standard; it's NOT even consistent between organizations that do advocate it, and the big one, IOC, is NOT even a taxonomic nomenclature authority to begin with! I've clearly labeled links to all of these previous discussions. The capitalization is simply a somewhat familiar preference for ornithologists, and this is not enough to overrule WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy. The claim that MOS isn't really a consensus is nonsense (and yes that word does need to be used when it's apt, per WP:SPADE and WP:DUCK), not just on its face, but in this particular case because the WP:BIRDS people dominated the debate for two months here at WT:MOS itself in early 2012 and still failed to gain consensus for their views among the rest of the editorial body. You can't say "there's no consensus because our views weren't represented" and then after we see that, yes, your views were represented, switch that "there's no consensus because our views are different". You can't declare a consensus only when if favors your own preferences.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I'd add that I'm not sure how these multiple wall-of-text posts that have suddenly taken over the MOS talk page (and others), especially given their often hectoring tone, are going to help either resolve the issue, such as it is, or get wider input and consensus on what is, after all, a pretty trivial issue. Indeed, all this is surely incredibly off-putting for any disinterested passer-by. I would also make the general point that I'd don't buy the MOS trump claim. Sure, the wording at WP:CONSENSUS suggests that might be a valid position, but as someone else has pointed out above, it needs to be proven first that the MOS really reflects a higher-level or broader consensus. My experience has been that many things are agreed by one or two obsessive editors here (I don't mean that pejoratively), who then suddenly descend on multiple pages to declare that things must be done their way across the site, even when that contradicts what a more active and much broader consensus has explicitly decided, or tended to do quietly, in a specific context. Even if we can show that MOS can claim ranking rights, as also noted, does it have to, especially over something as esoteric as species capitalisation or indeed when it comes to enforcing 100% site-wide consistency on any matter? N-HH ( talk) 10:33, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
Re: "it needs to be proven first that the MOS really reflects a higher-level or broader consensus", see my response to Peter coxhead immediately above. If you have an actual crisis of faith in the process of discussions by interested editors on the talk pages of guidelines determining consensus, and think that MOS somehow cannot represent consensus because... (well, I'm not sure...), maybe you need to propose some new system of guideline consensus-building at Wikipedia talk:Policies and guidelines. But at this point, this is the process we have. Writing one's own anti-MOS pseudo-guidelines isn't the process. PS: Various of these related pages have recent posts by me, because a) they're all cross-involved in the same serious problems, b) some editors at them refuse to recognize consensus at one as applicable to the others, necessitating separate but rather redundant discussions, and c) I've been followed by a few editors from page to page who have reverted almost every single change I make, demanding independent discussions of even the most trivial suggestions (and then mostly refusing to actually engage in the discussions, violating the WP:BRD process). Not sure you're pointing fingers in the right direction here. —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Andrewa's post below was the first response to what I said above. If you want to respond in turn, to me or to them, please post below their, earlier response. I note as well that you've just opened yet another capitalisation-related section with a massive, bludgeoning and dense wall-of-text post, again leading from the off with accusatory language, this time about "rants" and "terrible idea[s]". This page has virtually drowned in a sea of words and impenetrable, mostly one-sided, argument over the past week, which is disruptive to the project, to this page and, indeed, to your ultimate objective. As it happens, I would tend to agree that excessive capitalisation is to be avoided and that there should be, up to a point, as much site-wide consistency as possible, but I'm not going to weigh in substantively to back you on that and, as suggested, I suspect disinterested parties are not going to be inclined to join in at all. Either take a break or post something concise and polite. N-HH ( talk) 10:52, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
They are not going to help either resolve the issue,... or get wider input and consensus, just the opposite, the danger is that they may prevent other views from being heard, and consensus from being achieved, resulting of course in each side then claiming victory. Resisting some tactics (there is no other word for them) without falling for them is hard work, but they do give some indirect indication of the validity of the arguments, in the same way as in the story of the preacher who wrote in the margin of his sermon notes logic weak at this point, speak a bit louder. (;->
Hang in there. I actually see some progress. The trick will be not to allow it to be buried. Andrewa ( talk) 11:29, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
A bit late for that. MOS controversies have a tendency to run long, get subtopic-divided sometimes, and eventually spin off proposals that represent congealed ideas from the rambling discussions.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Regardless of whether SmC's wording is inflammatory, the answer, "Should the common names of bird species be capitalized? No they should not" is correct. Wikipedia is a general-English publication and should follow general-English rules. It's my understanding that the ornithological practice of capitalizing common names was a shorthand way of indicating which bird was a member of the species White-throated Sparrow and which was simply a sparrow that happened to have a white throat. That issue does not come up so often in an encyclopedia. There is no reason to deviate from standard English rules. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 00:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Very important point and thank you for making it so clearly, but a misconception. Modern linguistics is descriptive not prescriptive, and the principles of WP:AT are completely in step with this more recent approach. It is not Wikipedia's place to promote these standard English rules. Instead we use English as it is currently attested. Andrewa ( talk) 02:17, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I am curious how you define prescriptivism and descriptivism. Based on my understanding of the terms, a statement like "Some specialist sources capitalize the initial letters of names of birds" would be descriptivist, while "Since some specialist sources capitalize the initial letters of of names of birds, so it should be an acceptable form for Wikipedia" is a prescriptivist statement, just one with a justification. It seems to me that the entire MOS is, almost by definition, prescriptivist. As is WP:AT. So arguing against prescriptivism would seem to me to be arguing that the entire MOS should be done away with. Tdslk ( talk) 07:22, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
What I'm saying is that we might get more people to accept standard English rules in ornithology articles if we demonstrate that it's not just MoS regulars throwing their weight around because we feel like it. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 00:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Agree totally. We need to step back and have a rational and respectful discussion. And it may not be easy as there have been a lot of (dare I say) feathers ruffled. But we must try, and thank you for being part of it. Andrewa ( talk) 02:17, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
As for the MoS being just a guideline, no it's not. It's a set of rules that people can and have be punished for disobeying. We have to take that into account with any wording that is put in place. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 00:23, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Again, thank you for making your point so clearly. The box currently [14] at the very top of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style starts out This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style... (my emphasis and italics). Do you have any cases of people being punished for disobeying the MOS? That would seem an overreaction to me, and contrary to WP:dispute resolution. Andrewa ( talk) 02:17, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Last time I asked, there were no examples of that. Dicklyon ( talk) 02:24, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
It happened to me, actually. I got brought up on AN/I for using American punctuation instead of British. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 01:12, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
For completeness and for those who may one day scan this archived discussion, I should say that the text I quoted comes from this version of the MoS-guideline template, which was last edited some months ago. Andrewa ( talk) 02:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't believe there is any such standard rule in English. It is an ornithology convention, not followed by general writers of English. Evidence is abundant. Dicklyon ( talk) 02:24, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Ah, but those who follow the convention are also writers of English. Why discount them? We are a general encyclopedia, certainly, but we draw on specialised sources too, and hold them in high regard. My point is that there's no such standard rule in English either way, and both forms are well attested. Your ngram seems to indicate that too. Andrewa ( talk) 02:40, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
All of this has been covered many times before, e.g. at WP:SSF in detail. Specialist sources on, say, zoology are not reliable sources on English language writing and usage for a general audience, anymore than Chicago Manual of Style is a reliable source on animal taxonomy. [Aside: You might be surprised just how bad CMoS is on that score actually! Ask in user talk, if you'd like a laugh.] And see above, the idea that the capitalization is actually a standard in ornithology is a falsehood. It simply common in that field, and advocated by an organization that isn't even really a taxonomic nomenclature authority. I'll keep keep repeating and linking to that until it sinks in. See WP:BIRDS admitting all of these things – it's not my assessment, but their own! – at well-labelled discussion archives I've been cataloguing here for some time.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Yes, a good addition to the lede, reflecting the current consensus of Wikipedia (notwithstanding the local consensus within the Birds project). -- JHunterJ ( talk) 11:26, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
    Which part is the good addition? This thread is getting fragmentary.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  12:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
    Ah, sorry. I refer to the proposed addition of ", and (on style matters) other guidelines". -- JHunterJ ( talk) 16:10, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Justin Vivian Bond

This has been raised in passing here before, but I've started a conversation at Talk:Justin Vivian Bond regarding the MOS:IDENTITY issues that article raises. Comments there would be most appreciated. The Blade of the Northern Lights ( 話して下さい) 18:34, 5 April 2014 (UTC)

Minor Copy-Editing

My reasoning below and the Manual of Style's imperative that Wikipedian writing be "concise" justifies that the "Strong national ties" section needs some concision. Knowing how contentious grammar can be—especially on an article anyone can edit and dozens of people warily watch—I have posted my proposed edit below:

  • "Articles on topics strongly tied to an English-speaking nation should use that nation's English..."
  • "Some articles about modern writers or their works therefore are written in the subject's style—especially if the writings are quoted. For example, the articles on J. R. R. Tolkien's works, like The Lord of the Rings, use British English with Oxford spelling.
This guideline justifies no national ownership of articles; see Wikipedia:Ownership of articles."
  • I made the first sentence a categorical imperative because it describes one
  • I replaced the wordy "[noun] that [verb]" and "the X of Y" with the more concise "[noun] [verb + ing]" and "Y's X".

Duxwing ( talk) 03:48, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

I don't buy it. Concision in articles is not the same need as concision in guidelines, which need to be more explanatory than brief. The section in question has more problems than one you're trying to address, but I don't think this helping. "That nation's English" is just odd. The possessive implies something like ownership, despite our disavowal of it. The second case is a real failure though. We do not write in J. R. R. Tolkien's style. It might be amusing to write an example article in Tolkien's epic-mythology-influenced, high fantasy style, of course, but that's not why we're here.  :-)  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ⚞(Ʌⱷ҅̆⚲͜ⱷ^)≼  04:37, 6 April 2014 (UTC)
I hope my suggestion didn't seem like something one was supposed to "buy". >_<
Concision and explanation are not mutually exclusive; e.g., E=mc^2 elegantly explains why antimatter produces an enormous bang.
Do you think "That nation's English" is odd because of its grammar or because of how you believe it implies ownership? We do not generally disavow ownership on Wikipedia; if we did, then we would disavow capitalism and thus our commitment to a neutral point-of-view on economics. Rather, we, following our anyone-can-edit philosophy, do not allow editors to claim ownership of articles. Finally, even if the possessive implied "something like ownership," it would not imply ownership because things like each other are not each other; e.g., red cars are not red giant stars.
Haha! I never knew the part about modern authors was false. I propose we delete it!

Duxwing ( talk) 05:18, 6 April 2014 (UTC)

That's a different kind of "explanation". It takes a considerable amount of education (i.e. explanation) to even begin to understand the Theory of Special Relativity. The problem with the possessive constructions isn't that they reflect a situation of actual possession, it's the constructions seems at first to imply something like that, which is jarring and distracts the reader into questioning why this construction was used and what it's implying. This wording should be as "transparent" as possible; people should just parse it and absorb the guideline, not scratch their heads over the wording choices made in the guideline.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅⚲͜ⱷʌ≼  07:22, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Linking to WP:CONLEVEL

I added a citation to the WP:CONLEVEL policy so people know where the provision "In case of discrepancy, this page has precedence over its subpages and the Simplified Manual of Style" actually comes from in policy; clearly, many people have been rather confused about this. SlimVirgin reverted me on this twice for no clear reason, only a false claim that this citation was "under discussion", which it was not, and still is not despite me opening a discussion for WP:BRD purposes, and thus this new thread, too. I initially brought it up here, asking for an explanation of the reverts, and was instead met with convoluted arguments about the WP:GAN process and wikiprojects and whatnot, that were perhaps relevant to my other proposed change, about expanding the wording in this section to be more general, but were not relevant to the citation that was reverted. This was followed by personalized borderline attacks (by someone else) and a big wall of text about...everything but the citation. I asked again for an any reasoned objection to the citation, and got another off-topic flood of repetitive posts that avoided the topic.

Given this clear failure to actually engage in the WP:BRD process, unless someone raises a genuinely substantive rationale (could there possibly be one?!) for why a guideline somehow cannot cite the WP policy from which it derives a not very well understood scope, I'm going with WP:BOLD policy and I'm putting the citation back in. If you want to revert it, let me quote WP:BRD here: "BRD is not a valid excuse for reverting good-faith efforts to improve a page simply because you don't like the changes. Don't invoke BRD as your reason for reverting someone else's work or for edit warring: instead, provide a reason that is based on policies, guidelines, or common sense. BRD is not an excuse to revert any change more than once. If your reversion is met with another bold effort, then you should consider not reverting, but discussing." I've done my part, and two days later the opposition to this simple citation addition has still failed to engage in their part of the D in BRD.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  09:14, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Going twice.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:29, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
I would oppose that link being added. I think you should gain consensus for anything in this area before making the edits, given how contentious the thing has become. SlimVirgin (talk) 15:34, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
OK, I agree with the addition, for the reasons given. What are the reasons for reverting the addition? -- JHunterJ ( talk) 16:06, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
It's misleading because it implies that local decisions are invalid, when the MoS itself says that articles need not be consistent across the project. There are discussions going on at the consensus page to decide how to proceed with that wording. I've also been looking around at how other wikiprojects approach this kind of style issue, and in all the ones I've looked at they make the decisions themselves, based on the specialist sources. So what WikiProject Birds did was fine and quite normal. It's just that some people here disagree with them.
Also, I think the "going twice" approach isn't helpful, and I'd appreciate it if that could stop (also the postings in multiple venues; all it does is wear people down, but that's not what creating/gaining consensus means). SlimVirgin (talk) 16:13, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Local consensuses contrary to the broader guidelines are invalid, unless the local group can "convince the broader community that such action is right". WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Reverting without discussion approach wasn't helpful either, and I'm sure we'd appreciate it if that could stop. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 17:05, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, again, please see WP:CONSENSUS and WP:BRD. You can't keep reverting and vaguely objecting to others' edits without policy-based reasons. What kind of policy-based reason you're going to come up with for not linking to a policy is beyond me, but go ahead and try. MOS citing the policy from which it derives its authority to supersede its own subpages doesn't "imply" anything about "local decisions", other than that POV-forking policy pages in an effort to evadee consensus is not permitted. MOS isn't saying that. WP:CONSENSUS is saying that. This doesn't have anything go do with articles; Wikipedia-namespace pages are not articles. MOS does not have to be put on hold because some people are discussing something on another page. MOS referring to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS policy, more to the point, doesn't have to be put on hold because you're busy over at WT:CONSENSUS trying to get rid of LOCALCONSENSUS policy. Please stop trying to make this and everything else be about birds. It's not; it's far more general. Speaking of what one might appreciate, and multiple venues, I'd really appreciate it if you'd refrain from following me from page to page reverting every other thing I do, and raising nonsensical objections that are not actually based on anything but your own wishful thinking and vague feelings and "confusions" about things. I'm not the one forking this discussion to other pages like WT:CONSENSUS. And, no, I won't stop asking people if they have objections in an effort to determine if there are objections. I really think you need to think about how much time and effort you spend telling other people how to edit and write here, and what effect this has on perception of your own contributions in recent memory. Finally, there is absolutely no "contention" about whether WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is policy, nor that guidelines can link to policies where it seems relevant to do so. So, please refrain from any further weird revertwarring.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  07:49, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

An award-winning discussion

While we're on the topic of "rave reviews", is there any explicit guidance on Wikipedia about phrases such as "Jason W. Peacock is an award-winning janitor at the ..." and "she appeared in an award-winning production of Hello Sally" and "the Emmy-winning television show Fred the Parrot" and "the Academy Award winning film Pretty Ugly"? My general feeling is that if something or someone wasn't noteworthy, we simply wouldn't be talking about them on Wikipedia, so there should be no need to mention awards in some attempt to assert noteworthiness or other forms of glory. — BarrelProof ( talk) 17:15, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

I believe WP:UNDUE is usually referred to as justification for removing "award-winning" and variants on same from sentences identifying the subject of an article, and such. DonIago ( talk) 17:26, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
WP:PEACOCK may be the one you are after. Hawkeye7 ( talk) 22:18, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
Right. The article can mention notable awards, but simply stating "award-winning" is PEACOCK/UNDUE. Virtually everyone over the age of 4 has won some kind of "award".  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  23:39, 7 April 2014 (UTC)

Remove "Use a consistent style for common names within an article"

I propose removing the following sentence from MOS:LIFE:

Use a consistent style for common names within an article.

in the paragraph that reads:

Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, gray wolf, but Przewalski's horse). Some editors prefer to capitalize the IOC-published common names of birds (Golden Eagle) in ornithological articles; do not apply this style to other categories. Use a consistent style for common names within an article. Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.

Don't panic; this has nothing to do with the usual reasons that issues with this section are brought up.

This sentence was somewhat controversial, and long-debated, when first proposed in 2012, but I will not make any kind of "it doesn't have consensus" long-after-the-fact whine here. It simply has unintended consequences, and they're rather severe:

  1. Many articles include vernacular ("common") names in other languages; it's a WP:NOR and WP:V problem, and just ignorant to force capitalization of these, in cases where our article title is title-cased, because in many cases the languages from which they come would not permit this; most languages have considerably more stringent proper name rules than does English, and capitalize much less frequently.
  2. Worse, because lower case in article prose (with sentence case in titles) is the norm, this rule would impose lower case automatically even on non-English common names that should be capitalized because of the rules of the language to which they belong (e.g., all nouns are capitalized in German).
  3. The principle rationale behind the WP:BIRD#Naming essay insisting on a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS to capitalize the International Ornithological Congress (IOC) common names of bird species is that the list is seen by members of that project as a published, universal standard. ignore for purposes of this thread all of the questions and controversies raised by that, and just assume for a moment that it's accepted by the community this way. This "consistency within an article" rule forces the capitalization of all vernacular names at bird articles, even ones for which there is no such standard for capitalization, even against the standards of the other, non-IOC organization the common name in question was sourced from.
  4. Worst of all, it causes, at ornithological or other capitalized articles, the absurd result of capitalizing things like a passing reference to cougar or any other non-bird species name, even in mid-sentence (e.g. "its main predator in the region is the Cougar (Mountain Lion)", a result guaranteed to sharply increase the WP:ASTONISH and WP:NABOB factors at any such article. One can unflatteringly suspect that a few opponents of bird capitalization may take a perverse delight in this, because it is highly likely to increase the frequency and heat of anti- WP:BIRD#Naming disputes raised by random editors/readers. But this result is not desirable (and it would be WP:POINTY and WP:GAMING if intentional).
  5. This problem directly leads to editors falsely assuming such capitalization of non-birds is a "standard" here and applying it elsewhere to other organisms and even non-organisms.

A construction like The Red-crested Mattressthrasher, which nests usually in Western Death Shrubs, feeds principally upon the Great Monster Scorpion and the Lesser Wamprat, and is predated in turn by the Mountain Yeti, and, near human settlements, by feral Dogs and Cats is in virtually every way worse than The Red-crested Mattressthrasher, which nests usually in western death shrubs, feeds principally upon the great monster scorpion and the lesser wamprat, and is predated in turn by the mountain yeti, and, near human settlements, by feral dogs and cats. [NB: Please stay focused here and do not digress into rants about ambiguity and capitalization; these examples assume that all these species common names would be wikilinked to articles on the species.] The first case is going to make most readers mentally rebel less than half-way through it, and make many come to the conclusion that it was written by an idiot. The second is most likely to inspire belief in a typographical error (which is already the frequent interpretation of non-birders at our bird-related articles), but otherwise possibly lead the reader to suspect that a special convention is in play, and this is precisely what WP:BIRDS says is true.

The principal motivation for including any mention at all of the birds thing in MOS:LIFE was to fence off the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS dispute about it and prevent the spread of its capitalization to other areas. We already know that most editors do not read MOS, including its instruction to not use this capitalization in other categories. Having actual articles wrongly capitalize the common names of mammals and trees and other non-birds, just to be "consistent", is a terrible idea, guaranteed via the WP:BEANS or monkey-see-monkey-do effect to directly and broadly inspire capitalization of all sorts of other things. Those of us who do lots of style cleanup regularly see it all the time.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  10:00, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

  • Oppose removal Clearly it would be wrong to encourage the wrong capitalization of vernacular names just to ensure consistency, and this is, fairly obviously, not the purpose of the sentence you propose removing. It could perhaps be qualified. Removing it would cause real problems.
    • Most bird articles use title case for IOC names. It's irrelevant here as to whether they should or not. While they exist, it's better to use the same case, correctly of course, for the English names of other organisms to ensure consistency and so that bird names are not stressed over those of other organisms. In my view (and the MOS in cases of allowed variation, e.g. ENGVAR, citation style), there's no case for inconsistency. The Red-crested Mattressthrasher, which nests usually in the Western Death Shrub, feeds principally upon the Great Monster Scorpion and the Lesser Wamprat, and is predated in turn by the Mountain Yeti, and, near human settlements, by feral dogs and cats is greatly preferable to The Red-crested Mattressthrasher, which nests usually in the western death shrub, feeds principally upon the great monster scorpion and the lesser wamprat, and is predated in turn by the mountain yeti, and, near human settlements, by feral dogs and cats. (Plural uses of English names referring to species as a whole are best avoided; there's a difference between "the Dog" and "dogs".)
    • There are some articles that have so many uses of title case for English names that no-one has yet wanted to convert them. If an extra item is added to such an article, it's better to be consistent. For example, there are eight long articles in the set List of the vascular plants of Britain and Ireland which naturally use title case for English names, because this is the BSBI standard (I, predictably, believe that they should use title case, but that's absolutely not the issue.) Either every English name in all eight articles should be converted to sentence case (which has to be done one-by-one because some contain proper names) or any added item should use the same capitalization.
Summary: there's no case for inconsistency! Peter coxhead ( talk) 10:47, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
"fairly obviously, not the purpose of the sentence you propose removing"? Obvious to you, but it's not even clear to WP:BIRDS, where it's not even clear to people there whether to capitalized non-IOC common names! ( WT:BIRDS#Question on common name capitalization) I didn't make this problem up, Peter. Removing or seriously fixing this poorly-thought-out sentence will have *no effect at all* on capitalizing IOC names in orn. article. Your idea that "the Dog" is different from "a dog" or "some dogs" is not widely recognized (here or anywhere) Its implication that, say, Golden Eagle would become "golden eagles" simply because it was plural, or "a golden eagle" simply because it meant a particular one that bit my ear, would not be agreed to by much of anyone, either, regardless how they felt about the IOC convention. The birders by and large would capitalize ALL of these, and insist on it. Anyway, the important part here is that I laid out a bunch of reasons why I proposed what I did, and you did not address any of them, only asserted that there's no problem.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:24, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. If not its removal, then an expansion to "Use a consistent style for common names of any given class of things within an article." Or something like that, only better phrased. -- JHunterJ ( talk) 10:42, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
I would support expansion along the lines you suggest, but not removal. Peter coxhead ( talk) 10:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
I don't see how this would work. The entire basis of the IOC birdcaps here is that IOC is [supposedly] an overwhelmingly reliable source on this and the convention is[supposedly] virtually universal [neither of these are really, true, but let's pretend]. It's a WP:V/ WP:RS/ WP:NOR argument. Butt he consistency clause I'm objecting to here, and JHunterJ's idea, too, would still force capitalization on every single case of #1 through #3 of my 5 cases above, in ornithology articles, all of which directly violate the V/RS/NOR principles calling for the caps to begin with. A clause limiting to the consistent-withn-article rule to a given class of things or whatever, only help with cases #4 and #5.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:24, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
  • (ec*2) The whole paragraph in which that sentence appears reads:
Common (vernacular) names are given in lower case, except where proper names appear (zebras, mountain maple, gray wolf, but Przewalski's horse). Some editors prefer to capitalize the IOC-published common names of birds (Golden Eagle) in ornithological articles; do not apply this style to other categories. Use a consistent style for common names within an article. Create redirects from alternative capitalization forms of article titles.
(my bold italics). The emphasized words already preclude Dogs, Cats and Cougars. Sure, not many users read MOS, but then they don't read that sentence either. For the benefit of those who do find their way to this paragraph, it would be enough to modify the offending sentence to read: Use a consistent style for the common names of birds within an article. This way, we don't have to conflate cats and dogs with the birds issue. -- Stfg ( talk) 10:44, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
"other categories" here means "other categories of article" referring back to the previous "ornithological articles", not "other categories of organism". Peter coxhead ( talk) 10:50, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Yes. JHunterJ's proposal is akin to making it mean what Sftg thought it did.  :-)  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:24, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
How do you know? It's ambiguous as to whether it refers to ornithological articles or to common names of birds. I most strongly oppose the notion that the presence of a capitalized bird name in an article should force the capitalization of an arthropod name (for example) as well. -- Stfg ( talk) 10:58, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Sorry, should have written that this is how the text is usually interpreted; I can now see that it's ambiguous. But it certainly does NOT mean that the presence of a capitalized bird name in an article forces other capitalizations. I take it to mean that only in bird articles (i.e. articles in the "ornithological category") should capitalization be used. The wider interpretation would allow all bird names to be capitalized in all articles. I'm sure that even SMcCandlish and I can agree that there's no consensus for this! Peter coxhead ( talk) 11:26, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Thanks. But still, for example, bird articles mention the birds' diets, which include crustaceans, insects, small mammals, fish and reptiles. I would find it silly if these would have to be capitalized in ornithological articles that capitalize the birds' common names. So I'm arguing that capitalization may (if agreed elsewhere) depend on the phylum/class/order/family of the critter being mentioned, but definitely not of the p/c/o/f of the article's main subject.
There's worse. Bald Eagle#Diet and feeding, a section of a featured article, lists species that the bird predates, and it does so by capitalizing the first word only, e.g. Pink salmon, even in the middle of a sentence. So it's, ahem, neither fish nor fowl, as it were. Whatever next? -- Stfg ( talk) 13:31, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Stfg: On "how do you know", it's because Peter, like me, was both involved in the drafting of it. He's right; the ambiguity is accidental, but not frequently confusing. Your fears are correct: The "other categories" bit was definitely intended to mean "category of articles", not "type of creature mentioned in this article". So, yes, it means that common names of arthropods and mammals are also being capitalized in any ornithology article, just to make all common names in it upper case. It's an insistence on dogged consistency at all (and pretty real and serious) costs, from people normally critical of MOS for being dogged about consistency; ironic and not a good situation.

There's an assertion latent in all of this that MOS's main point, throughout all it advises, is consistency within an article, but this isn't really true. MOS's main point is site-wide consistency for both readers (especially) and editors (secondarily), out of which in-article consistency flows automatically. The real "WTF?" point for me is the idea that it must be done this way (capitalize everything) in bird articles because failing to do so over-emphasizes birds. That's an argument to stop capitalizing birds, not to capitalize everything else! If stabbing yourself in the hand hurts, don't stab yourself in the eyes and knees, too, just to even it out. It's also ignores the reason WP:BIRDS insists on the capitalization: IOC bird vernacular names are not the same as common names of other species, because the IOC one is an "official" international "standard" [you can think this argument is silly if you like, but it IS the one being made by that project]. If, as Peter does here, one wants to ignore that and capitalize everything in a bird article on the basis that IOC bird names AREN'T special and different, one is also gutting the reason for ever capitalizing birds to start with.

I also have no idea where he gets the idea that in this scheme cougar and cat would not be capitalized, too. There is no difference codified here for "short vernacular names". The very fact that short, common ones no one in their right mind would capitalize are in fact being forced to be capitalized by this consistency-within-same-article provision, is why I think it's nonsense and has to be removed. My present solution, in the interim, has been to just WP:IAR on this and stop capitalizing anything but bird names in bird articles. I don't distinguish IOC and non-IOC common names in English (though we should), but I definitely do not tolerate forcing incorrect capitalization of foreign ones any time I encounter that. <shrug>  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  15:24, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for filling me in on the background. Well, idealistically I agree with you, but as said above, I think we need to find a pragmatic way, otherwise the MOS will just end up being what everybody should have done but nobody did. ( I don't understand the argument about cougar either, as it's the common name of one species. It's easier to understand with cats, since apart from Felis catus there are other species called cats). -- Stfg ( talk) 17:15, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
On wikipedia, cat is not a disambiguation page. But cats are not an necessary example here, "Cougars" [sic] do just fine. See its Talk:Cougar archives for unbelievably self-righteous and certain yet unbelievably wrong arguments for capitalizing cougar (being advanced - I bet you guessed it already - by a WP:BIRDS member, who was promoting common name capitalization everywhere, something members of that project say they're not doing).  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:32, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
Actually, I never mentioned "cougar" if you look at my comment. If writing in a style which requires the English names of species to be in title case, which I do on a regular basis outside Wikipedia, I would avoid using e.g. "Cats" to mean "several members of the species Felis catus" because of its potential for ambiguity. It's just a matter of good writing. This is all I meant. It's an irrelevant side point, which I should have omitted.
The key issue here, to repeat myself, is that the MOS always supports (correct) consistency within an article while allowing a considerable degree of inconsistency between articles. @ SMcCandlish: step back from the "bird names issue", and consider carefully what kind of precedent this would set. "This section of the article is entirely about Canada, so it should be in Canadian English because of national ties, regardless of the rest of the article." Consistency of style (correctly applied of course) within an article should be sacrosanct. (See, you've got me being dogmatic about the MOS now. :-) ) Peter coxhead ( talk) 20:52, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
Okay, we've had a minor miscommunication here, and I apologize for my role in that. The Cats example is perhaps too ambiguous. What I'm getting at is that, since there's no exception for "common names that are short" or "common names that are a bit more common than some not-so-common-ish ones" or whatever, nor an exception for plurals, the offending sentence does in fact require us to capitalize Cougar, Cougars, Lion, Lions, etc., in ornithology articles, right along with Mexican Jays and Red-throated Loons, as long as we're still running with this "special bird capitalization" business, and that most editors are going to find this unacceptable. I pick these examples for a reason. Both the Cougar and Lion articles (among many others) have been the loci of intense but severely misguided pro-capitalization activism. The concerns I'm raising are not hypothetical.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:32, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

I am not the first to suggest there's a problem here. E.g. this comment at WT:BIRDS, here: "Official names are recognized by official scientific organizations. Most are continent-wide. ... What people in rural Arkansas call a bird is not capitalized unless they use an official name. I think that non-bird species should not be capitalized unless they are capitalized on their own pages. Capitalizing all species names makes no sense to me in instances when there are no official names for them. Natureguy1980 ( talk · contribs) 03:22, 11 February 2012 (UTC) I don't agree with the "official" stuff, but clearly there's some disagreement that we should be capitalizing, even in bird articles, non-bird common names for which there is not even an off-WP standard that suggests doing so.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:22, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Is this a real discussion? Capital letters should be used where use of lower case letters might reasonably result in confusion. If, in context, confusion is unlikely, then lc is fine. Where "proper names" are concerned, and the capitalization of the proper name is customary, then it ought to be capitalized in the names of just about anything at all. (Net result of reading masses of text above) Collect ( talk) 23:24, 22 April 2014 (UTC)

Hmm, but I have a large collection of print and online style guides, and not one of them has any such rule as "Capital letters should be used where use of lower case letters might reasonably result in confusion", in any wording.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  02:48, 26 April 2014 (UTC)

Deletion of year ranges from section headings

A colleague editor has deleted (twice, so I thought I would open up discussion here) the year ranges from section headings in an article. For example, "Team X (2010-12)".

He asserts the years should be deleted, as they are already in the infobox.

I believe having the year ranges was fine, and there is not imperative to delete them. They serve as a navigational aid for the reader, as he reads the TOC and article. In fact, the reader may not look at the infobox. And infoboxes have all manner of acceptable "redundant" info -- that's their nature. Thoughts?-- Epeefleche ( talk) 20:36, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

According to Help:Infobox, "the information [in the infobox] should still be present in the main text," so that is most definitely their nature. I don't think it's ever valid to delete information from an article because it's already in the infobox. Ideally, the infobox should be a summary of the most important data found in the prose of the article. Pburka ( talk) 20:44, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
The dates are still in the text (as well as the infobox); the question raised here is whether they should also be in the section headings (and I don't have a strong opinion about that one way or the other). In this particular case, I question the necessity for most of the headings themselves. De la Puente was on many different team rosters, but usually on the practice squad, and he never played in a game until he got to the Saints. (Then he improbably ended up as a highly-rated starter on the top-rated offensive line in the league, which is what makes his story interesting.) I personally find all those earlier sections distracting, and I would seriously consider consolidating everything before New Orleans into one section. -- Arxiloxos ( talk) 21:29, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
All of that is an article content discussion, not an MOS discussion. Pburka is correct on the general principle, but it can't be used to demand that the data at issue be in headings in particular.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  01:49, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
The reason this is an MOS issue is that the assertion is that section headers should not have this information because infoboxes already reflect it, and the information is therefore redundant. It's akin to our MOS discussions as to whether material should be deleted from elsewhere if it is already in the infobox. And this is our MOS for section headings. Tx. Epeefleche ( talk) 02:03, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
This isn't a discussion for MOS unless there's guidance in MOS for this situation or you are lobbying for such guidance to be included in MOS. Keep the discussion at Talk:Brian de la Puente#Deletion of year ranges from section headings. — sroc  💬 09:59, 9 April 2014 (UTC)
MOS:INFOBOX is already clear that information should not be only within an infobox but also within the main body of the article, since reusers of WP articles regularly omit them. MOS isn't missing or failing to address anything here.  —  SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:45, 19 April 2014 (UTC)
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