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Welcome to the MOS pit[Humor]


    Style discussions elsewhere

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

    Current

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    Pretty stale but not "concluded":

    Capitalization-specific:

    This section is an excerpt from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Current.[edit]

    Move requests:

    Other discussions:

    Pretty stale but not "concluded":

    Concluded

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    Extended content
    This section is an excerpt from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Concluded.[edit]
    Capitalization-specific:
    2024
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    2021

    WP:COMMONALITY: "the most commonly used spelling variant within a national variety of English should be preferred"

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    Would it be possible to soften the wording here? WP:COMMONALITY says:

    within a national variety of English, the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred

    I've recently observed this verbiage, reasonably and straightforwardly applied, to change towards → toward because the latter is more common in AmE (and according to some other style guides, preferred). This seems counterproductive—unless I'm all out of whack, while and whilst may be a different story, but surely editors shouldn't have to fret about pairs like toward and towards when both are totally acceptable in both American and British English?

    Maybe something like should usually be preferred → is often preferred? Remsense ‥ 论 04:46, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • Makes sense to me. --Trovatore (talk) 04:57, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Preferred" is a softening of the intent (ie, this advice is not written in stone on pain of death but keep to it as often as possible), so "should usually" and "often" are not needed at all. I suggest should usually be preferred → is preferred .  Stepho  talk  05:09, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      But crucially, I don't think it is preferred as a matter of course. Again, it seems pointless and against the spirit of WP:COMMONALITY generally to essentially engender a new ENGVAR distinction for vocabulary where really, none actually exists—based on an overbroad frequency criterion clearly meant for other cases subject to an actual distinction. Remsense ‥ 论 05:17, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Maybe we should just remove the bullet point altogether? If a preference in the MoS isn't doing any actual good, it should be removed. --Trovatore (talk) 05:23, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I agree. "usually be preferred" is already very soft. It's "preferred", not "required", and it's "usually", not "always". pburka (talk) 03:40, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I agree with the suggestion "is preferred"; it's a good recommendation that steers language away from fringe spellings/variants and encourages mainstream language use, thus allowing users to focus on article content rather than oddities in the text. Doremo (talk) 06:41, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Again, that works much of the time but blanket application also compels cases of the polar opposite dynamic, where totally normative, natural language choices are artificially subject to lexicographic sidebars. Remsense ‥ 论 06:44, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      A blanket application would be encouraged by phrasing such as "is required" or "is mandatory" rather than "is preferred". Doremo (talk) 07:23, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      To be blunt, I don't agree that preferred plus the context that the MOS is merely a guideline adequately communicates this. It is simply a wrong statement. Commonly used, perfectly acceptable language should not be deemed non-preferred due to accidents of the MOS's diction. Remsense ‥ 论 03:52, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Doremo, can you give an example of a fringe spelling being discouraged by this bullet point? --Trovatore (talk) 06:53, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Any old thing, really: acrost for across, alarum for alarm, annoint for anoint, etc. Doremo (talk) 07:20, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      And have you seen actual evidence that the bullet point has been effective in discouraging such spellings? If this is just something that could happen, I'm not convinced it's worth the space in the MoS. Generally, the fewer rules the MoS has, the better. --Trovatore (talk) 07:51, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It can be a useful point to refer editors to when they use uncommon spellings (such as here). Uncommon spellings are not simply a hypothetical possibility. Doremo (talk) 08:15, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Commonality also directs towards using forms common to multiple ENGVARs, over ENGVAR-specific ones, where possible. MapReader (talk) 07:15, 11 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There must be a lot of WP editors out of step then. Nearly three times as many articles contain towards than have toward - 315,526:111,876 - and 36,988 contain both. This is a crude metric, no doubt affected by citations as well as editors' own language choices, but it does show that towards is neither uncommon nor archaic - and should not be interfered with. I do, however, agree with Doremo that there are indeed variations which have become demonstrably fringe - it would be better for MOS to focus on directly recommending editors to avoid those. - Davidships (talk) 20:56, 12 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe that's already what the current recommendation ("prefer the most commonly used current variant") succinctly does. It's better than listing thousands of fringe variations to avoid. If a zealous editor modifies a few cases of towards or toward based on the same principle, it really does no harm to WP's language quality. Doremo (talk) 03:27, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I would immediately revert "toward" to "towards" under WP:ENGVAR. The more critical issue is how do we know what the preferred form is in something like America English? I usually just switch off the spell checker and rely on the few American editors to tell me if something sounds wrong to them but there are regional differences. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 04:55, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This seems to be not exactly an ENGVAR issue, which is choosing between national standards, but to a more general question of prescriptive grammar rules, which can be debated within English variations as well as between them. It may be worth stating that ENGVAR should not be used as a cudgel to enforce a much more specific grammatical preference, but I'm not sure the issue raised is that directly linked to COMMONALITY. CMD (talk) 08:51, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    How about within a national variety of English, when it is clear that one variant predominates, it should receive preference? Remove the "usually"; indicate that the preference always exists when there's a markedly dominant usage; and leave unspoken that in other cases, we should leave what's already been written and each other alone?
    This formulation was inspired by my reaction to reading about "towards" and "toward" above. I'm from the US; I think I usually say and write "towards"; it's crossed my mind a number of times across the years that maybe I ought to be using "toward"; but then I've decided not to worry about it. It seems to me a case of free variation, which is a thing, and, whichever form appears in an article in US English, a "no nitpicking" standard should apply. If there are varieties of English where "towards" is as out of the ordinary in elevated writing as "ain't" or "all y'all", then nitpick in articles written in those varieties. Largoplazo (talk) 23:17, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The background of the addition of the bullet point is here and here for those of you that are interested. I've no particular preference or opinion on preferred vs usually preferred or other variants, nor a general objection to softening the language, but as a general principle we should be using the most common spelling variant of words. Also, this bullet is solely addressing spelling variants of a single word, I wouldn't see personally see "toward" being a different way of spelling the word "towards". Scribolt (talk) 17:45, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Nevertheless, since British and Commonwealth English uses ‘towards’, and (as is suggested) American English might have split usage between both ‘towards’ and ‘toward’, using ‘towards’ meets the requirements of commonality - i.e. not using a minority usage when a more commonly used and understood form of English is available. MapReader (talk) 18:47, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Again, we are conflating "most frequent lexicographically" with "most commonly understood" in instances where there is no justification, i.e. where there are multiple universally understood and accepted forms. This encourages hysterical tinkering with prose that is fine across many articles because someone got a bee in their bonnet—that is an outcome the MOS should avoid. Remsense ‥ 论 18:55, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    What if we add what you just wrote? ie

    Do not conflate "most frequent lexicographically" with "most commonly understood" and make changes in instances where there are multiple universally understood and accepted forms.

    Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:22, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I would fine with that in principle, but naturally I am also sympathetic with those who want to keep the guidance as brief as possible. If that isn't a concern for anyone here, then sure. Remsense ‥ 论 20:30, 13 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It could be shortened to just "Do not...make changes in instances where there are multiple universally understood and accepted forms". I don't think we need to mandate the most common spelling variants, if it varies in real life it'll vary within our editor base. Changing one common variant to another by itself feels almost a cosmetic edit. CMD (talk) 03:49, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Perhaps we should step back a bit and look at the goal. We want to use words that can be read by the majority of English readers and avoid words that are only understood by a small subset. We don't care if synonyms are used as long as they are understood by our readers from multiple countries. I suggest:

    use words that are commonly understood by international readers and avoid words used only smaller groups.

    In particular, I don't care if an article uses "towards" or "toward" because the majority of our readers will understand both forms. We should of course avoid archaisms like "whilst" and localisms like "acrost" because these will confuse many of our readers who have only a basic grasp of English.  Stepho  talk  04:27, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    "Whilst" is certainly not an "archaism"! -- Necrothesp (talk) 11:42, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Technically true. But I can't remember the last time I heard it in natural speech and its increasingly uncommon in the written word too. For non-native speakers (and for many native speakers too) it belongs with thou/thee/thy speech. Regardless - it's just an example that can be changed if it's a sticking point.
    Our objective is to minimise editor conflict over English usage. If a reader has to look up a word, that is fine, it is in line with our educational mission. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:51, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Can you please show me where WP's objective is to teach English. Occasionally it is necessary to use a new or complicated word but if a well-known and/or simpler word does the same job then why make the reader spend brain power thinking about the language when they could be using that same brain power to think about the topic that they were actually interested in?
    • The problem is that last bullet point runs counter to the spirit of the rest of WP:COMMONALITY. It should just be deleted - it's not relevant to ENGVAR or reducing ENGVAR conflict and is unclear what happens if that bullet conflicts with the bullets above it. DeCausa (talk) 19:02, 14 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I don't see any particular issue with the last dot-point being discussed. Guidance is usually written in a way that is less than emphatic - eg preferring should over must. If anything, we might amend to say the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred in that usually is somewhat redundant and the rest of the dot-point identifies the exception without a need for usually. There is good reason for the dot-point. In a corpus of British sources, one will see usage of what are acknowledged as American spellings and vice versa - see [2][3][4]. While there are many reasonable explanations for this, the simplest is that British publishers accept international manuscripts without demanding a change to Br English and the same for American publishers. The dot-point resolves a potential point of dispute when we can see, for example, both colour and color in a corpus of British sources. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:40, 15 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I do not agree with softening this language, especially in the way proposed above, which would basically resolve to "There is no actual rule here, so just do whatever the hell you feel like." Part of the problem here is that the intent and meaning of this material has perhaps gotten obscured semi-recently by clumsy editing. The idea "within a national variety of English, the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred" doesn't address the purpose of this section. It is to choose, when possible, wording that makes sense across dialects, not just within one. I guess the "within a national ..." wording isn't wrong on its face; e.g., connexion and mediaeval/mediæval survived longer in BrEng than AmEng, but connection and medieval now dominate even in BrEng, so should be preferred even in a BrEng article. (Years ago, I got kind of yelled at for converting medieval to mediaeval in a BrEng article, and after doing some n-gram research learned that the complainant was correct: the ae spelling has been moribund even in BrEng books for a very long time [5].)

      But this "within a dialect" material is entirely a side point, not the main point of MOS:COMMONALITY. That main point, rather, is telling us we should use buck and doe in reference to deer (these terms being universally understood), not hart and hind (obsolete except in some narrow dialects). The sentiment "use words that are commonly understood by international readers and avoid words used only [by] smaller groups" is at root correct, and it wouldn't hurt to integrate language like this (though clearer; what is an "international reader"? Someone who is who has dual citizenships?). E.g., the Scottish English and occasionally Northern England English word outwith should never appear in our articles except in a direct quotation (and even then probably with a Wiktionary link) because it is not understood by much of anyone outside its native region, and to most readers will look like a weird typo. (It's an inversion of without, in the nearing-obsolescence sense 'outside of, beyond the boundary or limits of'. In nearly every instance, it can be replaced with outside, and if not then with beyond, as in "outwith the city limits of Aberdeen"). Same goes for various American South peculiarities like ornery and recalcitrant; there probably is no circumstance in which such material can't be rewritten to make sense to everyone.

      Next, any time words are encountered with excrescent suffixes (forwards, towards, backwards, whilst, amongst, amidst, etc.), they should be shortened, because the short versions are universally understood, the long versions are less concise for no gain, and the excrescent suffixing serves no actual purpose. Informal American English uses a bunch of this crap, too (sometimes in a tongue-in-cheek way, sometimes an urban, regional, or subcultural dialect way), and we would not tolerate it here, so BrEng doesn't magically get a free pass on essentially the same sort of poor writing. (Such cleanup obviously doesn't apply to -s and -st words that cannot be shortened without a meaning change ("I have two cat who love to rub up again people's legs" obviously doesn't work, but anyone competent to work on this project already understands that.)
       — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:54, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

      Let's see. Crucially, I cannot accept on faith that toward is meaningfully more concise than towards. I understand concision to be clarity achieved via efficiency in syntax and word choice, such that readers have to exert the least mental effort possible to understand a passage. Data measuring any difference on average would have the final word here, but humans do not read words letter by letter. I'll assert categorically that one lexeme being one letter longer than another is not—and moreover, cannot be—the underlying cause for one requiring more effort to read. That is not how we read, so efficiency must always merely correlate with byte differential. (It is worth pointing out that overly terse prose is not concise in this way, as it lacks a level of redundancy and familiarity that is generally helpful for readers, and thus becomes stilted and more difficult to read.) Anecdotally, the lexemes toward and towards read as exactly the same word to me. The suffixing serves no purpose, but neither does removing or fretting about the suffixing. Remsense ‥ 论 16:34, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Non-useful side query

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    why does this site even need multiple varieties of english... why cant there just be one? hint: look the name of the language, where it originated. it isnt called american its called ENGlish ZacharyFDS (talk) 10:07, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    If you actually wanted an answer and didn't just post this to annoy others: to reduce fighting, as previously stated. Remsense ‥ 论 23:18, 16 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "didn't just post this to annoy others" Ok
    i would change the spellings on the rest of non usa related pages but id get reverted and banned so i refrained from doing the rest
    the "non usa related pages" i quoted? theres many around here, for starters there are japanese exclusive video game pages that use the so called "american english" despite the subject in question having zero relation to the usa ZacharyFDS (talk) 11:16, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    ZacharyFDS, do you recall wasting your time and several other editors' time over a four-day period recently, in a discussion that ended with you confessing im dumb can you forgive me [6]? This is shaping up the same way. You've been editing four months and have made 47 edits -- of which maybe four are useful. The rest are you displaying your ignorance, and your inability to write literate English, even while pontificating about the English language. Cut it out. EEng 12:05, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My prediction, if events continue to play out as they are currently, is that Americanisms will become somewhat less popular in English variants outside the US, and British/Commonwealth ENGVAR and use of dmy rather more popular. As just one small sideshow from the current geopolitical s***show that the US is laying on for the rest of the world. MapReader (talk) 14:10, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's OK -- you can say "shitshow". We're all adults here. EEng 16:08, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Some non-dispositive side commentary: Socio-politically, MapReader's predictive analysis might turn out correct, but it's already the case that non-US spellings and non-US date formatting mostly dominate in English on a global level anyway. There are some vagaries in this, though. E.g., "program" and "analog" tend to dominate in computing and related contexts (and "dialog" versus "dialogue" have taken on distinct meanings in the context of video games and their coding; dialogue is text and/or voice-acting of a character's speech, while a dialog is the user-interface elements presenting such text (which might be dialogue or might be something else, such as scenic description or a choice selector). Conversely, "theatre" is increasingly common even in American English in reference to live productions and venues for them, versus "movie theater", and metaphoric uses like "operating theater", "theater of war", etc., where the theater/theatre split remains firmly dialect-bound. The various a[e] and o[e] words ultimately deriving from Greek seem to be in inconsistent flux; aesthetic[s] has come to universally dominate, including in AmEng (with the specialized exception esthetician, i.e. someone who's job it is to remove body hair), while foetus/fetus and such seem to remain very split in usage. One that might move over time is loss of the ped- version of paed- (in reference to children) because ped- has at least 3 other meanings from other (all Latin, I think) roots: foot/feet, soil and by analogy flat surfaces, and something else I'm misremembering); only time will tell on that one. Another source of chaos in such equations is that a number of non-US online publishers use US date format (or even a weird format that doesn't agree with what WP would call any ENGVAR), because the content management system the publisher is using has a default and the operators of that instance of the CMS never changed it. It's thus not uncommon to see UK, Australian, etc., blogs with dates like "March 17, 2025" or "Mar. 17, 2025" or stranger variants like "Mar 17 2025", "Mar-17-2025", etc.).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:06, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "This is shaping up the same way." Yes, and we're also by no means inspired to take typographic-style and English-usage advice from someone whose every other word is an uncorrected typo. (Fortunately, a quick review of recent reader-facing, in-article output of this person doesn't show the same problems, but I only looked at the first page of contribution history.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:06, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You must be looking at the wrong editor. This guy's got literally 1/10 of 1 page of contributions, total. EEng 19:27, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There was never any dispute about program, that spelling was adopted from the outset to refer to computer scripts, in British English, as distinct from programme which refers to schedules and TV series and the little booklets you get given at concerts and the theatre. MapReader (talk) 19:15, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    to EEng: Ofc yanks cant tolerate being criticised so they resort to insults.
    i can talk the way i like thank you very much, this is literally a talk page, not an actual article.
    what i want is there to be less americanism on pages about content that doesnt originate from usa.
    does that sound like a good compromise? ZacharyFDS (talk) 09:06, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    by the way i CAN write "literate English" as you term it ZacharyFDS (talk) 09:09, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Look at you, showing us how well you take criticism, whipping out an insulting nationalistic generalization in response. Also, no, bluntly telling us "what i want" while dismissing what's been said to you about what other people want is the opposite of a compromise. The existing guidelines you're complaining about are the compromise. Largoplazo (talk) 12:38, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    LOL this is a talk page as i said before, i dont need to talk in formal english
    i CAN take criticism thank you very much
    im not a nationalist
    the compromise is the american english mdy whatnot can stay on usa related pages and content of american origin ZacharyFDS (talk) 13:25, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm done feeding the troll. Look elsewhere. Largoplazo (talk) 16:08, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    yeah im done with this place ZacharyFDS (talk) 17:03, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    goodbye. ZacharyFDS (talk) 17:04, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    ZacharyFDS, I'm sorry, but I'm looking at the apostrophe-free "cant" and "theres", the lack of hyphens in "non usa related" and "so called", the puzzling phrase "japanese exclusive", and the complete lack of upper-case letters and periods, and I wonder what variety of English you think you're writing in. It certainly isn't British English, at least not as I'd expect it from someone who's militantly opposed to other editors' non-use of it. Largoplazo (talk) 23:34, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    ??????????? what are you going on about ZacharyFDS (talk) 09:12, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Answering ZacharyFDS@: Most English speakers prefer using the dialect of English that they use at home. Reading a different dialect is not too bad but most really, really hate writing in a different dialect. If we forced everyone to write in British English (because English came from England) then the Yanks would either stop contributing or write American English anyway. Likewise, if we forced everyone to write in American English (because Wikipedia is an American company) then the Brits, Canucks, Aussie, Kiwis, etc would either stop contributing or write in Commonwealth English anyway. By having both (see WP:ENGVAR for details) we appeal to both sides. Nobody really likes it but it's better than having half of the authors rebel. And we haven't found anything better.  Stepho  talk  03:00, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps you're just a kinder person than I, but I tend to be very pessimistic about umbrage of the kind proudly taken above being worth the effort of either diagramming out a roadmap for empathy like you're doing, or being defused by being shown its rank hypocrisy like Largoplazo has done. I understand we're rightfully required to spend a lot of our time on here throwing AGF after bad, but.
    Remsense ‥ 论 03:08, 18 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    nice i got 26 notifications because i questioned the usa centric bias of this website ZacharyFDS (talk) 08:26, 19 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Statutory instruments of the United Kingdom

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    Many of the entries in Category:Statutory instruments of the United Kingdom are named without a leading "The", despite their formal titles using one (compare, for example, our Closure of Prisons Order 2014 with its official web page - the omission also occurs in its infobox; and the emboldening of the article's opening sentence).

    Legislation.gov's guidance for ministers and staff writing them states: "The title should begin with 'The…' and end with the year in which it is made. The only exception to using ‘The’ in SI titles is when they start with '[His] Majesty's…'".

    Our MOS says (emphasis mine) "Do not place definite or indefinite articles at the beginning of titles unless they are part of a proper name..."

    Can we bulk move/ rename them, or do we need an RFC? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:33, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I think that would be a multi-entry WP:RM. While the WP:RFC process can technically be used for anything, if moves are handled via RfC instead of RM then a certain camp of editors likes to raise a great deal of hell, including dogged pursuit of the matter to WP:AN (where the result was that they were again told than the community can use whatever decision-making processes it likes to arrive at a decision – there is no means of process-wonkery by which the community making up its mind can be WP:WIKILAWYERed into invalidity). We don't need a repeat performance of that fiasco. So the RfC route is probably better avoided unless there's a real reason to go there. The WP:DRAMA cost will be higher than is probably warranted.

    As for whether these moves are actually a good idea or not is an open question. There is a tension between MOS:THETITLE and WP:THE, the latter being the default approach, and the former being something applied only to titles of published works as such. A law or piece of legislation is on the cusp between being a published work and being something else. I would suggest that as an encyclopedia subject, such a legal instrument is more in the "something else" category. We are writing about their effects on society, about debates surrounding them, about their enactment and sometimes repeal, about the politicians and parties behind them, and so on, not about their nature as documents and the processes of publishing them. They are not reviewed as literature, or otherwise generally treated as publications in the usual sense, they simply happen to have been printed out on paper (and now e-paper) for various purposes like public examination and lawyerly reference. WP avoids tacking on a leading "The", when feasible to avoid it, for good reasons.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:38, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Is this not WP:OFFICIALNAME v WP:COMMONNAME? In running text, it's atypical in law books to see capital 'T' in an SI name. And "The" is never included, for obvious reasons, in law book SI indexes. Surely, that would need to be the case if the "The" is to be part of the article name? DeCausa (talk) 19:02, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @DeCausa - the template {{DEFAULTSORT}} is there to deal with the indexing matter - rather than giving things an incorrect name. -- Beardo (talk) 16:43, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My point was not about WP indexing. It's about WP:COMMONNAME and why the existing titles were not incorrect. DeCausa (talk) 18:49, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    They very much are real published works; "Closure of Prisons Order 2014", the example I gave above, has an ISBN—ISBN 9780111108048—and can be ordered from good bookshops or libraries. As may they all. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:59, 17 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    MOS:SURNAME Clarifications

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    My understanding of this section is that for most articles, a person should be referred to by their full name on first mention and then by their surname on subsequent mention, with an exception for instances where there might be multiple people with the same surname. Does this apply to all people mentioned in an article, or only the subjects of biographical articles?

    Also, while it's generally not that difficult to adhere to this for shorter articles, for longer ones with many sections, it gets a bit unwieldy. I think where I struggle most is instances where the person has a relatively common surname and is mentioned much earlier in the article (so it wouldn't be immediately clear to me as a reader that this is referring to the same person). I've seen some people advise that you essentially "re-introduce" people in every new section, but that also gets unwieldy in short sections (so you might introduce someone in one paragraph and re-introduce them in the next).

    Because of my confusion on this point, I've generally just been approaching instances like these intuitively (and inconsistently). Sometimes I will use the surname and add a short adjective clause to clarify who is being discussed (ex. "Steele, co-founder of the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute"), but I'm not sure if this is right. It's possible that these are circumstances that we should be approaching intuitively, but I'm not sure. I guess, does anyone have any advice for this? Spookyaki (talk) 19:39, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    "intuitively (and inconsistently)" seems like the perfect advice. If you are a good writer, trying to follow a simple rule will make you worse. If you are a bad writer and you try to force other people to follow a simple rule, that will make it worse. Our MoS has a lot of rules, but the main thing is to write clearly and well. Keep up the good work. SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:27, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As you noted, sometimes surname-only it's unclear if the original mention is distant but full name where not needed can get unwieldy. It's a good place for exercising editorial judgment. Largoplazo (talk) 20:42, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well put by SchreiberBike. That's exactly it. DeCausa (talk) 22:52, 20 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    CONFORM question

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    In Korean, the tilde "~" is used for number ranges, e.g. "1945~1946". If this is in the title of a Korean-language work being cited, do we convert the tilde to an endash (e.g. "1945–1946") per MOS:CONFORM? I don't know if we should. I feel like CONFORM is mostly for when works are English-language, but the current wording doesn't cover that. seefooddiet (talk) 06:24, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I'd treat this analogous to embedded quotation marks in foreign-language quotations, about which the text says: "If there are nested quotations, follow the rules for correct punctuation in that language" (emphasis added). So typographical details in foreign-language quotations are not modified to fit English conventions (which would indeed be odd) but remain true to the surrounding language. So if year ranges in Korean are written like that, I'd preserve that verbatim too – every foreign-language title is effectively a short quotation from that language. Gawaon (talk) 09:40, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the reply, I agree with you. I think we should reword MOS:CONFORM to include that nuance. seefooddiet (talk) 09:55, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with using the tilde in a non-English-language quote or title for the same reasons Gawaon expressed. If the quote or title is translated from Korean to English, I'd assume the date range would also be translated to English with an en dash. Whether it's worth adding one more thing to our already long Manual of Style is another question, unless it can be shown that this is a frequent problem. When it is used, I would mark it with a {{not a typo |~}} template because most people will not be aware of that convention. SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:19, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think the wording could be adjusted to not add notable length, maybe a few characters but I don't think that's much to write home about. Currently the wording implies changes should be made regardless of the language of the source. If I started following this discussion, I'd be in violation of the letter of the MOS. seefooddiet (talk) 18:06, 23 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    "But... in English, ~ means "approximately". "The entity weighed ~100 tons". "Korean Person (1408~1479)" kind of indicates that her exact death year is unknown. Yes the spacing is wrong, should be "Korean Person (1408 - ~1479)". Yes we are not supposed to use ~ for that but rather use circa -"Korean Person(1408 - c. 1479)" and always do in my experience. Yes AFAIK ~ is not best standard English and we don't do that for anything. The reader does not know this. She does or might know that ~ means approximately. Herostratus (talk) 02:56, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's true that ~ means "approximately" in English, but the Korean writing system is a separate system. It seems strange to bend Korean practices to English practices in fully Korean-language text. I'm not sure if that's what you're suggesting we should do btw; it's a little hard for me to understand what your overarching point is seefooddiet (talk) 05:41, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Note that we're talking about citing the original titles of works written in Korean here. It has nothing to do with writing about Koreans or Korean topics in English. Gawaon (talk) 17:21, 25 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, right, did not get that at first. Yeah for titles I can see a fair case for keeping the tilde... altho for titles do we not format them into title case (e.g. "Smith's article 'The day I became a genius' sucked...", would we not render that as "Smith's article 'The Day I Became a Genius' sucked..."? (Some publications use sentence case for titles, and wouldn't this be similar?) Not sure, asking. But keeping the tide in titles is OK too. Herostratus (talk) 01:58, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    MOS:TITLECONFORM should address that concern seefooddiet (talk) 02:01, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Apositives and adjective phrases

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    I've noticed some editors have been unnecessarily using apositives and adjective phrases about people, entities, and organizations that are so notable that they have WP articles already that can simply be linked.

    Apositives and adjective phrases generally create clunky and complex sentences. That's a risk we can take when the apositive or adjective phrase is needed to explain something. But when we have an existing article, I sort-of feel we should adopt a best-practice of deferring to simplicity. My sense is that the artificial use of apositives and adjective phrases is sometimes done to create an "aura of disreputability" around a subject, which is anathema to our purposes.

    Here are a couple of invented examples:

    • On July 12, Rurritanian troops captured the leader of the Popular Front, a designated terrorist organization.
    If Popular Front does not have a WP article, the apositive ("a designated terrorist organization") seems appropriate. But if it's so notable that it has a Wikipedia article that can simply be linked, is the apositive -- even assuming it's adequately sourced -- still appropriate?
    • John Doe is on the board of the Rurritanian Legal Aid Society, an extremist group that supports the Popular Front.
    If Rurritanian Legal Aid Society does not have a WP article, the apositive ("an extremist group that supports the Popular Front") seems appropriate. But if it's so notable that it has a Wikipedia article that can simply be linked, is the apositive -- even assuming it's adequately sourced -- still appropriate?
    • The Rurritanian Patriotic League claims John Doe distributed flyers for the Popular Front, a designated terrorist organization.

    As editors continue to cram redundant apositives into text, our most popular articles become less and less readable and more clumsily composed. While this may touch on NPOV, my concern is not coming from that vector. Rather, I approach this as a question of readability and good writing.

    I'm not necessarily proposing any MOS additions right now, I'm just curious if there are any thoughts about this? Chetsford (talk) 02:24, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • Austere minimalism isn't good writing. Whether the thing referred to is notable or not, or linked or not, doesn't matter. If a bit of description serves the reader's understanding of what's being described, then include it; otherwise don't. Of course, as with all choices of what to include or not include, one must strive to avoid potential POV issues. But forcing editors to click to another article, just so they can learn something we ought to be telling them in whatever article they were originally reading, makes no sense.
    Also, invented examples are rarely helpful, and they're not helpful here. Why don't you come back when you've got an actual issue in an actual article (complete with an editor who takes a different position than you do)? Then maybe there'd be something to discuss.
    Having said all that, here's something else: this is a matter of what constitutes good writing in general. And MOS doesn't try to teach such principles, unless experience shows there's a recurring problem -- see WP:MOSBLOAT. EEng 04:17, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    OK. So that's a no. Chetsford (talk) 05:49, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes: no. EEng 13:44, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The MOS does try to go beyond style issues. MOS:NOFORCELINK: Use a link when appropriate, but as far as possible do not force a reader to use that link to understand the sentence. The text needs to make sense to readers who cannot follow links. Users may print articles or read offline, and Wikipedia content may be encountered in republished form, often without links. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:27, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I don't think I've ever read NOFORCELINK before. The explanation makes perfect sense, though, and assuages my concerns! Chetsford (talk) 06:43, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    FWIW, I was trying to figure out why you were writing "apositive" ("not positive") instead of "negative", as though "negative" was a taboo word for you. Then I looked it up and found that it's "appositive", a word I didn't know despite knowing the construction that it refers to, where one noun or noun phrase is apposed (positioned adjacent to) to another. Largoplazo (talk) 13:07, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    These don't read to me as crammed at all. Editorial judgement is called for in assessing when a reader has a good chance of not knowing what some referrent is or why it's relevant to the current passage and providing the necessary context to enable smooth reading and sufficient comprehension. That doesn't change just because this is Wikipedia and such information can be found in linked articles. Requiring readers to flip back and forth constantly between the current article and other articles just to have a basic understanding of what the current article is telling them isn't a good idea. Largoplazo (talk) 13:16, 24 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Dr and St as contractions

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    I see under Contractions, in addition to referring to the usual contractions like "don't" -- that have apostrophes, it refers to Dr. and St ("Contracted titles"). Is this a common use of the word "contraction"? I've never heard of it. I would call those abbreviations and abbreviated titles. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 05:40, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    This should be clarified, yes—contractions are morphologically different words, abbreviations are purely orthographical alterations of the same word. (They are still pronounced in full as doctor, saint. etc.) Remsense ‥ 论 07:43, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Foreign terms

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    What should the MOS say about where to use templates like {{translation}} and {{literal translation}} for foreign titles and phrases? MOS:FOREIGN does not have a clear answer. 2001:8F8:172B:38CA:A4A9:AD59:7ACD:1803 (talk) 07:29, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I think the answer is generally pretty simple: articles should be self-standing, so if the meaning of vocabulary readers would not be expected to know provides important context to the article topic, then an inline explanation should be included. This is precisely how English-language jargon is treated, and there's no conceptual difference when the obscure vocabulary happens to be in another language entirely. Remsense ‥ 论 07:51, 29 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Should we generally prefer romanizations over non-Latin script in running text?

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    MOS:ZH has a guideline that Chinese characters should not appear in running text, proposing that readers only comfortable with the Latin script should generally be able to read sentences aloud (omitting any parenthetical call-outs) without hiccups:

    Red XN His name was 刘仁静 (Liu Renjing).
    Green tickY His name was Liu Renjing (刘仁静).

    I think this makes a lot of sense, and the main § Spelling and romanization section (or if not, perhaps /Text formatting § Non-English-language terms) may benefit from including a point to this end. Many articles, here Epic poetry § Etymology, do the following:

    The English word epic comes from [...] the Ancient Greek adjective ἐπικός (epikos), from ἔπος (epos), 'word, story, poem'.

    Should we specifically recommend editors do the following instead?

    The English word epic comes from [...] the Ancient Greek adjective epikos (ἐπικός), from epos (ἔπος), 'word, story, poem'.

    Remsense ‥ 论 09:50, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Consistency makes sense, and it is probably better for readers to read transliterations first. CMD (talk) 15:00, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My only worry is that those with little exposure to either the topic at hand or to language studies in general may not intuit that the native form is just that, if it is not given clear preeminence.
    Typically this may be lessened when forms appear in native–romanization order early, e.g. with the translated title topic in the lead sentence? Remsense ‥ 论 15:58, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I kind of expect Chinese to have transliteration first, potentially followed by characters, but I also expect Ancient Greek to have Greek alphabet first, possibly followed by a transliteration. Allowing Greek script but not Chinese script in the text may of course just reflect the bias of my somewhat classical education (and I kind of expect educated people to know Greek letters but not Chinese characters), but I would not want to have a rule that dictates we need to do it in the same way for all languages when this goes too much against scholarly convention. Consistency is always only local (if everything on Wikipedia follows the same rules it is usually inconsistent with the way everybody else uses the same words), so I do not value it very much. —Kusma (talk) 20:29, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I searched for a Greek example as a deliberate steelman, picking the least dissimilar non-Latin script. If anyone wants evidence in the wild I'll go find it, but also picture Russian, Hebrew, Arabic, Tamil etc. in your mind's eye.
    Essentially, I find myself making this fix across many articles. It often seems to read more amiably, even in Greek. Remsense ‥ 论 22:06, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It's hard to see any justification for transliteration not coming first. This is about basic accessibility for the vast majority of English-language readers. I'd go as far as saying the answer should be obvious to us all.DeCausa (talk) 22:16, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Let the person making the sentence do what she thinks best. Nobody notices or cares if its done differently in different articles and neither is objecectively better. (Internal consistency within an article is different, but that is covered by the rule "For any debatable construction, if there is a consistent version used in the article, follow it" or whatever, which I assume we have such a rule or we had better have. Since the reader doesn't care or even notice, any rule about this particular issue would be solving a problem that doesn't exist, and just gives editors overly concerned about consistency justification for going around changing it to no gain. Herostratus (talk) 02:11, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I wouldn't've posted this barring the thesis that is there is a meaningful distinction, suggested by the fact that people generally read linearly, and interruptions of unfamiliar/functionally illegible elements in running text aggregate to make reading more difficult. If you don't think there's anything to that, that's fine, but I would appreciate acknowledgement that I'm not merely seeking to make more work for editors to do. Remsense ‥ 论 02:27, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Fwiw I agree with Remsense; I think this is a problem that exists and that Latin script text should be preferred when possible. It's functionally a de facto rule already imo; putting non-Latin text first is an exception rather than the norm. I've seen few cases where non-Latin first could be justifiable. seefooddiet (talk) 03:18, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    This might be in conflict with MOS:FOREIGNEQUIV; the example given there is is of a name that's fairly similar in anglicised form and when transliterated but some of our articles have greater differences, so we go from Rhodes to Helen of Troy to Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens.
    Even if it only applied to text after the first sentence, it might affect a lot of articles and peeve a number of editors when applied, so I'd suggest advertising it fairly widely and more clearly than the brief non-canvassingly neutral note I put at WT:CGR,[7] which I fear might not have made sense to anyone. Maybe an RFC? NebY (talk) 18:30, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I very specifically mean running text, meaning not in brackets, including at the beginning of the lead. Remsense ‥ 论 19:06, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, thanks. NebY (talk) 20:16, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I think that, specifically in the case of Greek etymologies of English words (example Icosahedron), it would be incorrect and misleading to state the transliteration as the root of the word, with a parenthetical gloss stating the actual form of the root. We should state the root itself in running text in Greek script with a Latin-script gloss. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:17, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    It would be awkward to formulate this rule with any cut-out, though it seems clearly incorrect if this were the case with, say, Hebrew. If people feel likewise I'm happy to drop this idea. Remsense ‥ 论 19:30, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Hebrew characters in running text are an absolute requirement for some mathematics articles like continuum hypothesis. Greek characters in running text are similarly required for articles like pi and golden ratio. In these cases, the characters are mathematical notation rather than parts of words, but they are still non-Latin-script characters in running text. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:03, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, of course. Maybe I didn't articulate my position clearly enough, but those cases are clearly entirely outside the bounds of what I mean to suggest. Remsense ‥ 论 21:11, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I generally place the transliteration first when mentioning Greek words in running text, for the reason you've stated (reading without hiccups). I'm not necessarily sure that it should be explicitly recommended, though, and there are at least a few cases where I think having the Greek text first would be preferable. Stating, for example, that "the Greeks inscribed [insert transliteration here] on a tablet from ..." wouldn't be all that accurate, and particularly for more crude inscriptions the shapes of the letters might be important. Having the Greek text first would also be the better choice in a discussion of an ancient Greek manuscript's degeneration, or for illustrating a lacuna in a manuscript, and I could see that in some etymology sections editors might want to use the Greek text first. This isn't to say that it's not good advice in general (it is), but I suspect there might be more exceptions than initially thought, and editors in niche areas might find that such a guideline (if too absolute or all-encompassing) might be a source of irritation. – Michael Aurel (talk) 05:24, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Maybe something as simple as Be mindful of the potential for non-Latin scripts to interrupt the flow of reading for those who are unable to decipher them. In running text, consider placing the native non-Latin terms inside parentheses when they are needed, with a corresponding romanization or translation placed outside the parentheses and forming part of the sentence. That's too wordy as a first pass, but I wanted to at least concretize a tad. Remsense ‥ 论 05:45, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As long as it isn't worded in a way that will encourage gnomes to go around changing every instance without thought. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:02, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Trust me, that's my No. 1 priority here also. Remsense ‥ 论 06:03, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Michael Aurel's exception examples are ones where the actual form of the written word is relevant, I would expect them to apply for Hebrew, Chinese, and other languages too. CMD (talk) 06:49, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If we do want to add something about this (and I wouldn't say I have strong feelings on whether or not we should), then a passage along those lines seems fairly sensible. – Michael Aurel (talk) 15:48, 4 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    HTML inline quotation marks

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    Hello, I could not find any instruction on whether inline HTML quote marks are acceptable in source editing view. <q>quote</q>, which would render as quote.

    The way it renders depends on your browser settings, and can be configured through a stylesheet. That said, I'm not sure if there is a ready-made template to let editors manage the rendering (e.g. whether to use single or double quotes).

    I ran a search and could not find a previous topic on this, or any suggestions outside the MOS. There has been a recommendation in place since 2005 against curly quotes (WP:CURLY), after MediaWiki made it possible by moving to Unicode.

    The recommendation against curly quotes stands on the basis that they are difficult to type on a stanardcomputer keyboard.
    No such difficulty exists for HTML quotes. Users of source view are already familiar with HTML-like syntax e.g. <ref>.
    I would therefore like to propose that it should be deemed acceptable in the MOS to enclose quotes in a <q> element. Johnanth ✆|☑ 20:57, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Oppose because it breaks cut'n'paste. Compare:
    1. The man said, "Run, Billy!" (typed using the quote key)
    2. The man said, Run, Billy! (typed using <q>...</q>)
    Try to select the portion from "said" through "Run" in the browser (for me, desktop Firefox) and then paste it into various programs. The first approach gives me said, "Run (the literal chars I selected) pasted into a Word document and the same string pasted into this browser text-entry box. The second approach gives me said, Run (quote-char lost) in Word and said, "Run" (end quote-char added) into browser. DMacks (talk) 21:42, 31 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I acknowledge DMacks's point, but that same behaviour makes <q>...</q> perfectly suitable to be used in {{DISPLAYTITLE}} for MOS:MINORWORKS that appear in quotes in running text, like song titles, short stories, etc.: Let It Be (song). Such a radical proposal would of course need very wide discussion. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 00:40, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    There is a brief mention at Help:HTML in wikitext#q: <q>...</q> is used to mark a short quotation. There has been very little implementation of this element in Wikipedia yet.
    How wary should we be of relying on HTML to convey meaning? For example, should we use it to distinguish actual quotations from indirect speech:
    1. Alice says it doesn't matter
    2. Alice says "it doesn't matter".
    NebY (talk) 12:20, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you able to provide an excerpt from the official documentation for <q>? Jc3s5h (talk) 16:53, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Is this[1] what you want? Did you want the entire thing? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 17:29, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I try to avoid using HTML in wiki mark-up and much prefer using templates like {{quote inline}}. Noted that this does have the same issue as <q>...</q> about cut/paste not copying the quote characters.  Stepho  talk  01:39, 2 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I failed to find this template in my research. If we are happy with HTML inline quotes in principle, then this would be a valid alternative. Johnanth ✆|☑ 17:48, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    References

    1. ^ "HTML5: Edition for Web Authors - 4.6.7 The q element". W3C standards and drafts. W3C. Retrieved April 1, 2025. The q element represents some phrasing content quoted from another source.

    MOS:COLON sanity check

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    This diff represents correct applications of MOS:COLON, right? It just looks bizarre to me. Remsense ‥ 论 21:27, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    It looks bizarre to me too, but the capitalizations are correct per MOS:COLON. I'm not sure that many colons is necessary or even good writing though. Schazjmd (talk) 22:51, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    That was my thought. I spent a lot of time hammering out this prose, and still am never quite sure when to use dashes versus colons in articles where a lot of statements qualified by lists are made. I guess I have a clearer sense not to use a colon when it would look this strange. Remsense ‥ 论 22:53, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I just realized that I avoid colons, except when introducing a list. Don't know if it's the influence of some childhood teacher or what, but using them between two independent clauses just reads wrong to me. I mean, I know it isn't technically wrong, just somewhere through the years I absorbed a disapproval of them. My personal quirk, I guess. Schazjmd (talk) 23:27, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Unable to justify colons, I am left largely to use dashes, which I have previously feared I overuse. In these instances, semicolons don't read as connecting the two thoughts strongly enough—in dense, technical prose, those more explicit logical connections seem pretty conducive to easing reader comprehension. Remsense ‥ 论 23:33, 9 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that it matches MOS:COLON, but in my experience, lower-case is commonly used in such cases even when a complete sentence follows. So I would tend to make the "start it with a capital letter" rule optional for such cases. Gawaon (talk) 15:28, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Remsense, I would disagree regarding the capitalisation after the colon in the example in some cases. As a general rule, shorter sentences are a more readable style. If it is indeed a complete sentence after a colon, it should probably be written as a separate sentence. Cinderella157 (talk) 23:51, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    How do you feel about the current revision? I mostly replaced the problem colons with dashes, but also a semicolons and some splits into separate sentences. Remsense ‥ 论 00:16, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think that many of those sentences where the dash is used could be split into a separate sentence following the dash (ie omit the dash). An exception would be where the dash is followed by for example. Just my thoughts. To your initial question, I would only cap after a colon where it was a complete sentence as a quote or perhaps: [T]he quote can be treated as if it were a complete sentence even if it was part of a longer sentence in the original text but end with a period or elipses as appropriate. Cinderella157 (talk) 02:07, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Judging by Fowler (4th ed.), this is something which varies between British and American English: Note that in British English the word following a colon is not in capitals (unless it is a proper name), but in American English it is capitalized if it introduces a grammatically complete sentence. I live in a country where British English is predominant, and I wouldn't ever use a capital letter after a colon (except when needed for other reasons). – Michael Aurel (talk) 06:18, 11 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Is there a valid use for empty section headers?

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    T368722 proposes to create new Linter tracking for empty section headers (e.g. === ===). Are there valid uses for empty section headers that outweigh the negatives? Please respond at the original thread: Wikipedia talk:Linter#New lint category for empty headings. Thanks. – Jonesey95 (talk) 00:53, 10 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC on NCCAPS capitalization threshold

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    Procedural close: per several people below, the framing here will make it very difficult to determine consensus. Feel free to revert me if you like, but I strongly suggest starting a new RfC without simply inaccurate claims like Consensus is currently to treat the threshold for such as about 90%. Extraordinary Writ (talk) 17:10, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Should the threshold for capitalization of article titles in NCCAPS be reduced? 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 10:43, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Current wording

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    For multiword page titles, one should leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase unless the title phrase is a proper name that would always occur capitalized, even mid-sentence. (Consensus is currently to treat the threshold for such as about 90%.)

    Proposed wording

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    For multiword page titles, one should consider what sources use, particularly midsentence. If a substantial majority of sources (defined as about [depends on option]) leave the title capitalized, the title phrase can be considered a proper name in most cases. If that substantial majority is not reached, leave the second and subsequent words in lowercase.

    • Option A: Status quo; 90–95% capitalized.
    • Option B: 75–80% capitalized.
    • Option C: 2/3–70% capitalized.
    • Option D: 60% capitalized.

    Discussion

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    • Support, ideally option C or D as proposer. My reasoning is explained at this village pump thread. I originally supported a more radical version (instead of 70%/two-thirds, 51%), but the comments there and at the original discussion have persuaded me to adopt a more moderate stance with a greater chance of passing. TL;DR: Ignoring the vast majority of sources to uphold some editors' interpretation of grammar rules goes against the fundamental principles of Wikipedia. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 10:43, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      In what way is the status quo a problem? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 11:41, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      It ignores the majority of sources. If four out of five sources use uppercase, we use lowercase. This goes against our core principle of following the sources. 🐔 Chicdat  Bawk to me! 12:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose: There are no circumstances under which a word or phrase should be treated as a proper noun/phrase in a title but not in body text. Any guidance as to whether to treat something as proper, including consensus thresholds, ought to be at MOS:CAPS, more specifically at MOS:PROPERNAMES, not MOS:NCCAPS. Largoplazo (talk) 12:05, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm confused by where the "Consensus is currently to treat the threshold for such as about 90%" comes from, since I can't find that in WP:NCCAPS. Gawaon (talk) 12:06, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Bad RfC per Gawaon, there isn't any "status quo" 90–95% threshold in the relevant policies. Beyond that, Oppose having separate thresholds for title and body (which would only lead to inconsistencies), although I wouldn't be opposed to a RfC establishing a slightly lower threshold for both. Chaotic Enby (talk · contribs) 12:24, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      ^ This. The RfC based on so many wrong premises, not least of which is setting an arbitrary numerical threshold for something that shouldn't use one. It ought to be called off ASAP. Toadspike [Talk] 14:47, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose. Our MOS often incorporates best practice as seen in other style guides or in some sources, but like any style guide which provides a degree of consistency in publications, it has to dare to settle on choices which some will see as arbitrary or going against common practice elsewhere. We don't use the same spelling, units of measurement or representation of numerical values as our sources, switching from paragraph to paragraph or article to article; we follow our own MOS. This saves us from considering whether the sources are RS for style as well as content – this proposal would have us counting antique sources with modern ones, tabloid newspapers with academic journals, and British English with American and Indian. TL;DR: Wikipedia presents content in its own way, and that's fundamental. NebY (talk) 13:22, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose: First there absolutely should not be different criteria for capitalization in article titles than in running text (except for the first letter). It invites a mess and would be a major change which would benefit no one. Second, Wikipedia style is to capitalize for proper names and acronyms. That is the style we've chosen and as determining exactly what is a proper name is difficult, we use other sources as a guide to determine what is and is not a proper name. We don't just follow other publications' capitalization because other sources capitalize for other reasons. Many capitalize all headings or article titles. Many capitalize for importance in a topic area. Many sources capitalize for no apparent reason. I see no reason for change. SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:14, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Do honors/awards need to have notability?

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    For some reason I thought we expected them to have their own articles. Doug Weller talk 14:35, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I would expect them to have their own articles if notable by general notability criteria. Why would they not? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 17:43, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think it should be stated in the MOS. Doug Weller talk 18:12, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Why? Are they sufficiently different from other topics to need special guidance? · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 19:05, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    For there to be an article about an award, it would have to meet general notability criteria. For an article about some other topic to mention an award does not require that. Perhaps that's the confusion here. SchreiberBike | ⌨  19:35, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I, and MOS:FILMACCOLADES, disagree. An award giver should have an article about their awards at the bare minimum, for an award to be included in an awards table. Gonnym (talk) 20:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Does this apply in general, or just to films? SchreiberBike | ⌨  20:56, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Definitely not. I see minor awards/honors used in biographies to make the person seem more important. I thought we don't allow that. Doug Weller talk 07:03, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Do they actually make the person seem more important? I suppose they might, depending on the reader. Is it important to an encyclopedic article? My guess is it would depend on the context, but this is not really my field of interest or expertise. A basic rule of thumb might be "If you can wikilink it you can mention it, if not, have a good reason why it is worth mentioning". Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 07:58, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    In some instances I think the notability of the award and the award giver is collapsed into a single basis for notability, such that there should not be separate articles on the two. If there is an article on an award giver that substantially mentions the awards that they give (which is probably the case with some film critics organizations that give film awards), I think that would suffice. BD2412 T 21:04, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I really could use some context. The only more fully expressed questions underlying yours that I can come up with would belong at WP:N instead of here. Largoplazo (talk) 21:11, 13 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    An example:"In 1981, They Came Before Columbus received the "Clarence L. Holte Literary Prize". Sertima was inducted into the "Rutgers African-American Alumni Hall of Fame" in 2004. "
    No article for the "literary prize". Doug Weller talk 07:08, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I guess I can see how the question might be suitable here, if the question is whether to mention the award in an article about a person whose notability is established through other criteria. It just made me think of cases I've frequently encountered where a list of awards seems to be the article creator's basis for imputing signficance/notability, yet none of the awards are notable. That's why I had WP:N in mind. Largoplazo (talk) 11:57, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If this is a question about triva/cruft, then as a general rule they should be avoided. However, it is easy imagine how a non-notable honor/award (being awarded a scholarship?) might play a significant role in someone's life, and thus be worth a mention in a biography. Does Aurelian being named Restitutor Orientis count as an honor? What seems important is that the honor/award is remarked upon as significant by secondary sources. Sources from the subject or the award body shouldn't mean much. CMD (talk) 07:23, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I am pretty confident that in the last 10 years we had a centralized discussion that awards and honors (not just film) should be notable (not necessarily a standalone page, just being able to show that the general body of those awards could be documented with non-primary sources), as it was creating excessive fluff on some bio and other creative work pages to include every no-name award. Unfortunately, I can't find it easily. Masem (t) 12:16, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Why in the world are the archives set up so you can't search them? I presume this can be fixed. Doug Weller talk 13:02, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I just rearranged the top boxes so that the search box is next to the archive list. Easier to find now? --jpgordon𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇 14:34, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Definitely, thanks. Doug Weller talk 14:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Are you maybe thinking of the not-yet-a-guideline Wikipedia:Awards and accolades and its talk pages, or some discussion that led to it? NebY (talk) 14:43, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, that was the resulting page or at least the ideas I call discussed from that prior discussion. Masem (t) 14:46, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So maybe work towards making it a guideline? I know I, clearly mistakenly, remove awards etc if they don't have their own article or very clear notability. Doug Weller talk 15:24, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Animal pronouns

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    Does the manual of style say anyting about pronouns for individual animals? Should we use 'it' or 'he/she'? I've had a look at a few featured articles (Laika, Easy Jet (horse) and Knut (polar bear)) which all use he/she pronouns but can't find anything on the manual of style or something. ―Panamitsu (talk) 02:51, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    From English personal pronouns: Animals are often referred to as it, but he and she are sometimes used for animals when the animal's sex is known and is of interest, particularly for higher animals, especially pets and other domesticated animals. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 03:31, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC on capitalization of titles in citations

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    As far as I can see nobody has linked to this RfC from a MOS page, but I think it would be of interest to people who care about the MoS. There is an RfC on capitalization of titles in citations at the source citation guideline talk page. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 23:40, 14 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    @Mike Christie, it hasn't been linked from this page I think, but it has been linked at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization discussions ongoing (keep at top of talk page) (under other discussions). Hey man im josh (talk) 14:07, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Conflict with guideline on citations

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    Just a note I started a thread at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Conforming citations to Wikipedia style regarding guidance which appears to conflict with MOS:CONFORMTITLE, MOS:CONFORM, and MOS:TMRULES, if anyone here is interested in participating. -- Beland (talk) 03:50, 15 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]

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