Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Query about article tense

Hi all, I was engaged in a discussion with a user about proper tense for an article lead. The context is: whether or not we would refer to a concert tour in the past or present tense, specifically related to this change where "was" changes to "is":

"The Formation World Tour is the seventh concert tour by American singer Beyoncé in support of her sixth studio album, Lemonade."

The editor made some widely unrelated arguments, like that concert tours should be considered fiction and so the rules of writing about fiction should apply; that "the music industry has a lot less to do about music than it did [during Woodstock]" (the Woodstock article uses past tense); that a tour is not an event, it's a production; and so forth. Anyway, the editor has cited Romeo and Juliet (2013 Broadway play) as an example of using present tense to describe an event production in the past. I asked the creator of that article why they chose present tense, but the response didn't resolve my issue. Soooo, I'm hoping someone here can explain which tense is appropriate for The Formation World Tour, is or was? I know that we use present tense for TV articles and typically for film articles, because they are presumed to exist in some form, but it's not as intuitive for me in the context of a Broadway play or a concert tour. Is a Broadway play considered a past event? Is a film tour considered a past event? I clearly need edification. Thanks for any help you might provide. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 20:07, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

It is simple: events are past tense if they happened in the past. As you found out, it isn't that simple. The tour itself, and any events on the tour, should be past. The music from the tour, if recorded, would be present, especially if albums are for sale (or resale). Ideas can live on, even if no physical representation of them exists. The music should be present tense, even if no recordings are known to be made. (Someone likely snuck their iPhone in and recorded it, right?) For one specific question: The Formation World Tour is the seventh concert tour ...: this one bothered me for a while. (More usually first, but seventh, too.) It still is the seventh, so present, but it is an event, so past. I finally decided for past on ones like that, but probably wouldn't change it unless someone asked. I think I agree with much of the current tense. Note: Throughout the concert, a large, rotating LED screen is featured centre stage is present, as it is not one specific performance, but a concert program that was, and could still be repeated, or videos of it reshown. Specific single events, tend to be past tense. I hope this helps. Gah4 (talk) 21:02, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Oh, the actual description of this is at: MOS:TENSE. Gah4 (talk) 21:04, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

@Gah4: I appreciate the reply, and yeah, I know about MOS:TENSE, but part of the issue was the assertion that the Broadway play and the tour are not events, they are "productions". I don't know what criteria the other editor uses to make that distinction, or what difference it makes. The one argument the editor made that I understand is that the tour will always be Beyonce's 7th, although saying "is" suggests strongly that the tour is still ongoing. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 21:16, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

As I noted, the seventh is always confusing. But I agree that a Broadway play should be present, at least as long as any written or recorded copies exist, as are Shakespeare's plays. I mostly got into MOS:TENSE regarding computers, reading the article on the PDP10 while sitting next to one that was (and still is) running. The PDP10 is a type of computer, not a specific one. As long as descriptions on how to build one still exist, it is described in the present tense. Events, such as the sale of a specific machine, are past tense. A broadway play can be recast in a different theater, and is still the same play. If a video of the tour was made, descriptions of that video would be present tense, at least as long as any copies existed. Someone watching the video would mention the tour in present tense. A video of only one concert on the tour might be past tense, though. (Analogy to a type of computer, vs. a specific instance of one.) Things that happened more than once on the tour, are not specific events. On the tour, Beyoncé sings her favorite song. But During the first concert on the tour, Beyoncé sung her favorite song. One is a specific event, and one is not. This, or course, is all my opinion, but I have been thinking about it for some time now, and used it to edit many articles. As far as I can tell, the current version of the article is fine, though that some might find changes that could be made. Gah4 (talk) 21:58, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

Just for full disclosure - I am the other editor that started the conversation.

For me, I am looking at two things. The first one is the fact that we are numbering the tour. It is her 7th tour, and it always will be. To say that it "was her 7th tour" means that it became something else - as if I was a Governor and became President. I will always be President, never Governor. Or how Bruce Jenner became Caitlyn Jenner. He was Bruce, now he IS Caitlyn. What did the 7th tour become? We could say that it "was a tour", but the minute we add the number it is that number in the present tense.

Now, the other thing I was looking at -- And I admit that maybe it is because I am too closely related to the entertainment industry and I see things that outsiders do not.

But, the modern concert tour, particular in the various pop genres, and very specifically a Beyonce tour - they are scripted and choreopgraphed just like a Broadway play. Beyonce has more non-musical performers on stage than she has in her road crew. It is not like the old rock concerts where there are 4 guys on stage playing music. The video displays. The lighting. Changing stage sets. Props. Costumes. They are no different than huge Broadway productions, not music concerts. They take months to plan, script, and rehearse. (And I should know, I own a 50,000 sq ft venue that artists rent out for this very purpose).

So, when I saw that Romeo and Juilet is spoken in the present tense, I can only assume that Formation is also a present tense.

Kellymoat (talk) 22:59, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

One single concert is an event. But a tour is not an event.Kellymoat (talk) 23:10, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

My choice for the (Nth) of something is usually to leave it in whatever tense it is in already. I try to get the rest of them right. I run into cases such as XXX was the first minicomputer. (As there is uncertainty in the definition, there is more than one computer with this claim.) If it was the first, then it still is. But often enough, I leave it past, if it was already past, to avoid causing someone to revert the rest of the changes and make the whole thing past. I believe present is right, but not quite enough to convince everyone else. Those that are definitely not events, I have an easier time with. I always put [[MOS:TENSE]] in my edit summary, as a hint to those who might want to revert, when I change tense in an article. Gah4 (talk) 02:21, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I cannot agree with To say that it "was her 7th tour" means that it became something else. It should have been left as past tense. It was a tour, it was her seventh, and it still is, but past tense makes more sense. Dicklyon (talk) 02:29, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

[1] is previous discussion on this question. If Beyoncé goes home for a few days between concerts, is that the end of one tour, and then the beginning of the next? The problem is that a tour isn't an event. It has a fuzzy beginning and ending. It could be continued, after what was supposed to be an end. As noted above, the tour can be considered not just the physical movement of people and props, but the documentation on how to produce it. A Broadway play is still a Broadway play, even when it isn't playing on Broadway. As with a Shakespeare play, it is the document that makes the play, not the people. Gah4 (talk) 02:55, 19 January 2017 (UTC)

I disagree with this point. I believe it is very clear when concert tours are ongoing or have ended, given how dates are added generally months in advance and "going home for a few days" would never be the sole indication of an end of the tour, and dates being listed under an official itinerary of a tour of a same name and of a same production would obviously indicate it is the same tour and not the beginning of another. Tours have a very clear beginning, and generally a clear end. Venues (in this case stadiums) have to be booked and sold to the public. Tours don't just have random dates confusingly added to the end blurring or confusing anything, so to say "a fuzzy beginning and ending" is a bit of a stretch. Whilst dates could unexpectedly be added, the ending of a tour is always eventually clear. If it was to suddenly have more dates added, these would be added to the official itinerary website as well as other, multiple sources reporting the new dates months in advance. If this was to happen, then the opening of the article would easily revert back to present tense and refer to the tour as " is the ongoing 7th concert tour" which would be consistent with all other ongoing tour articles, and then once the final performance of those announced dates were complete, it would change back to past, no? ThirdWard (talk) 23:40, 20 January 2017 (UTC)

Part of the confusion is the name tour itself. Tour emphasizes the movement of buses and trucks from one place to another, but the important part of the tour is the actual shows. The analogy to a Broadway show, which is a series of individual shows, even while not traveling. If you think of a tour as the movement of buses and trucks, then yes it begins when the first truck leaves, and ends when the last one returns home. (Not the beginning of the first concert, and the end of the last one.) But as with Broadway plays, and Shakespeare plays, the play exists in written form, in present tense, even when it isn't on stage. Similarly, a concert tour is the choreography that defines it, the stage props that were built based on written drawings, the T-shirts that were printed, and the CDs and DVDs that were sold. Beyoncé might be less famous than Shakespeare, and will be forgotten after not so many years. Then it will be past tense. Gah4 (talk) 03:26, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I don't see the confusion. You don't need to pin down the exact start and end times of the tour to know that it's in the past after it's over. Dicklyon (talk) 04:54, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Agreed. While this is the wrong place to define what a tour is, once it has been defined it should be pretty clear when one is over. Primergrey (talk) 05:23, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

From Cats (musical): As of 2016, Cats is the fourth-longest-running show in Broadway history. Present tense, even though it is not currently running on Broadway. Romeo and Juliet is a Shakespeare play. The Formation World Tour is the seventh Beyoncé concert tour. Gah4 (talk) 07:24, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

Actually, Cats is currently playing at the Neil Simon Theatre. It's a revival.oknazevad (talk) 20:18, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Cats is a musical, composed (past tense, the process of composition has concluded) by Andrew Lloyd Weber; but the first season of Cats was a production that started on date-x, ended on date-y, and featured so-and-so as Grisabella. [Apologies for using placeholders and not looking up the facts.]

George W. is a former president (or "President"? let's not go there) – he's still alive – who served particular terms of office which are now concluded. George Washington was a president, it's okay to use past tense because he is dead.

So is it just about whether Cats or The Formation Tour are "alive" or "dead" in a factual rather than linguistic sense? Does it matter whether the stage directions or score for Cats have been published as distinct entities or just written down somewhere? Does it matter that Cats is likely to be performed again in future but Formation is not?

Like other editors above, part of my uneasiness is that the word "tour" implies a beginning and end, more like a season of a play than the "instructions on how to produce it" (good description, btw). There is also the question of what is the main referrent of the article? Industry insiders might see more emphasis on the preparation (time-bound) and the instructions (possibly recorded for posterity), but the average reader probably expects the article to be about the event as it happened.

Pelagic (talk) 18:18, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Seems to me that tour in the name doesn't necessarily make it past. There is a DVD set called The Madrigal History Tour. The description of it says In this six-part Madrigal History Tour the King's Singers vocal ensemble travels through Germany, Spain, France, England and Italy. Note the present tense, even though I presume they have stopped traveling. But something can be named tour even if no-one actually does any touring. Gah4 (talk) 19:21, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

In the first example, Broadway history is the context, and the subject of Broadway history is ongoing. The second is also clearly correct (but should it be, "Shakespeare is the writer of..." or "Shakespeare was the writer of.."? And the third reads well only while the tour is ongoing. Not sure if it's wrong after that, but it would read terribly. Primergrey (talk) 07:46, 21 January 2017 (UTC)

I would argue that the reason why the Cats example should be present-tense, is because the "As of" implies a statement that was present when it was written. "As of January 21, 2017, the film has grossed $215 million." This was something that I brought up in a few Wikipedia venues including the Reference Desk a while back, because it irked me that a statement about the past was written in the present, but most of the responding editors seemed to think "as of" warranted present tense. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 02:08, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

As I previously stated above, I do believe that "Formation IS the 7th tour". But I disagree with the comparison to "Cats is the longest running" because longest running is a title/award/record. It is currently the record holder. If Hamilton runs longer than Cats, "Cats was the longest running until Hamilton overtook that spot in 2050". However, that wouldn't be the first line of the article. The first line would be, "Cats IS a musical." Kellymoat (talk) 13:30, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

The Phantom of the Opera is actually the longest running. Has been for about 8 years, actually.

There's a difference that causes the Broadway show analogy to break down, though. A musical or play has a written script (and score, for musicals) that itself is a literary work that is as readable as a novel or other book. And the title applies to that just as much as to any individual production. For that matter, the title applies equally to all productions, whether it's a multi-million dollar mounting for Broadway or a zero dollar budget community theatre production in the middle of nowhere. That's the difference between tours and plays. Tours, once they end, are over, done, past. They no longer exist. Plays, on the other hand, are persistent works. A given production (or national tour) may end, but the play still exists, even if just as a script. That's why past tense is appropriate for tours, but not for plays. The two are not the same. oknazevad (talk) 20:18, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

• How about if people with better things to do go write articles, leaving people with nothing better to do fuss about the tense of Beyonce's tour? EEng 13:41, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I wonder how you can imagine that anyone would benefit from a comment like yours. Maybe you need to take your own advice to heart and go find something to edit instead of jumping into conversations that don't matter to you. Or perhaps this is another of your humor pieces and I just don't get the joke? Dicklyon (talk) 13:53, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm 100% serious. None of our readers cares a whit whether Beyonce's 7th tour (or is it a Tour?) is is or was was; maybe 1% will notice that there's an inconsistency among articles on this point, and 0.001% will think, fleetingly, "I guess someone might make those consistent someday." That's it. Readers don't care, just like they don't care whether Grand Central is a station or a Station. But there's a class of editor who cares, apparently, and if those editors want to waste their time on such meaninglessness, I guess I can't stop them. But I may be able to help other editors resist the siren call and not get drawn in, so they can edit usefully elsewhere. If I'm successful in that in even one case, then that's a net gain to Wikipedia. EEng 14:19, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Grand Central Terminal, dammit! And yes, it's a proper noun that's carved in stone in the building! I kid. Slightly. oknazevad (talk) 20:18, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I prefer your comedy to your dramatics. Primergrey (talk) 18:28, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm trying to expand my range. EEng 22:06, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

I think this agrees with what I tried to say above. I try to get the obvious ones right. For the not so obvious ones, I leave them, whichever way they are. If they are unobvious enough to question here, then I just leave them. There are enough obvious ones to fix. That doesn't mean that it isn't worth discussing here, though. Gah4 (talk) 19:39, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

It was worth raising, up to the point it showed signs of becoming another fight to the death for the heart and soul of Wikipedia, all over a single word. At that point I felt I should throw a lifeline to any souls wanting to save themselves. EEng 22:06, 22 January 2017 (UTC)

Application of MOS:TENSE to literary criticism in articles on historical figures

Li He#Poetry

I'm not sure which tense this should be written in. Right now I've got his poems make frequent use of inauspicious words but he wrote evocatively of the worlds of gods and Buddhas and He frequently combined colour and feeling imagery, and I don't know which it should be. One clarification that might be necessary is that probably only a small portion of his poetry survives, so when scholars talk about themes and the like, they aren't technically talking about what the historical Li He wrote, but what is evident in the works that happen to have come down to us.

Thoughts? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 04:36, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

I think that sounds right. Assuming he is dead, then he is past tense. The poems still exist, and so are present tense. Actually, I suspect that is true even if he is alive, as the writing is a past event. Seems to me that if scholars give misleading interpretations, then that is their problem. If you have a source, you could note that the problem exists. Some scholars could make the distinction in the comparisons. Gah4 (talk) 10:37, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

If the writer is alive, use the present perfect tense for his writing, as it's still possible he could write more. If he has definitively left off writing, or if the text refers to a particular period of his writing that does not continue into the present, then you can use the simple past. --Trovatore (talk) 20:02, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Italicizing the title of the "My Little Pony" article

It appears the My Little Pony article is about the franchise, not a specific work, and as such, I think it should not be italicized. Currently, it's italicized in some parts of the article and unitalicized in other parts. Which is correct? nyuszika7h (talk) 11:36, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Try looking at similar articles. If "My Little Pony" is not italicized, then should we remove the italics from "Star Wars"? The latter article has more than ten times as many editors watching it. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 22:34, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Can I get some opinions?

Would some MOS-knowledgeable editors not participating in the recent revisions to WP:MOSTV's plot section be available to comment at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television#TVPLOT reverted? Thanks, Jclemens (talk) 05:59, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Question about the use of en dashes in the Manual of Style

I am not allowed to change these instances of en dashes, so I have to ask these questions here:

1. Why are en dashes (–), rather than hyphens (-), used in “north–west,” “east–west,” etc. in this article?
2. Why is an en dash used to connect two independent clauses (not recommended for Wikipedia – see below)? En dashes aren’t used for this; semicolons or em dashes are. Parentheses can also be used.
3. Why is an en dash, rather than a hyphen, used in “month–day–year”?

En dashes are used to connect ranges of numbers. Hyphens are used to connect compounds. Em dashes are used to connect two independent clauses, although other punctuation marks, such as the semicolon and the parentheses, can also be used. I don’t understand why en dashes are used for all three in the Manual of Style.

―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 19:48, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

You are not disallowed from editing the MOS; see WP:BRD. But you are disallowed from repeating the edits that have been repeatedly objected to, under threat of block.

1. North-west is a direction, and should use hyphen, but east–west is an opposition between directions; like an up–down or left–right or hot–cold distinction, these oppositions between parallel items get the en dash.
2. The dash (rendered either as unspaced em dash or spaced en dash) makes a more emphatic break, or interruption, than the semicolon. The writer apparently wanted it to read that way.
3. The en dash connects parallel items as in month–day–year; not clear what usage of hyphen would make one want to use it there.

Dicklyon (talk) 19:58, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I understand. Thank you for this explanation. If someone would tell me this right away rather than continuously reverting my revision because I’m wrong, without telling me why after I asked a million times, that’d save me a lot of trouble.

As for the second one, I have never seen an en dash being used as an em dash before. Every single grammar guide, along with every person I have talked to, have not said anything about en dashes being used like this. It is pretty strange for me, but I guess it has to stay like this.

And yes, I know that I am not banned from editing the Manual of Style, which is why I removed that statement before you replied.
―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 20:01, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

The reason everyone's so pissed off at you is that the stuff Dicklyon just explained to you is explained right in the MOS sections you've been changing. You've made 24 edits to this page in the last week (some of them making scores of changes throughout the page) and not a single one has survived. Even now you continue to make wrongheaded "corrections". When will you learn? EEng 20:19, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

The link which Dick provided, which apparently shows how common a Google search is, doesn’t prove anything.

You wouldn’t say “Wikipedia uses several dash,” would you?
―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 21:26, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, I still find the use of unspaced em-dashes rather than spaced en-dashes odd (and indeed ugly). The point you are not appreciating is that this is an international project, and punctuation practices vary both between and within countries. Unspaced em-dashes are much less common in the UK. The MoS rightly allows both to be used.

Secondly, grammatically a singular noun can certainly follow expressions like "forms of". "Different forms of politeness are appropriate in different circumstances" is perfectly grammatical. "Two forms of water coexist at 0 °C" can't be replaced by "Two forms of waters ..." Peter coxhead (talk) 21:58, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Firstly, I changed the spaced en dash to a semicolon, not an em dash. Semicolons are accepted no matter where in the world you’re.

Secondly, “water” is an uncountable noun, which means that the plural form is the same as its singular form. “Dash” is a countable noun, which means that the plural is “dashes.” “Two forms of dash” sounds awkward. Like I said, one would not say “Wikipedia uses two different dash.”
―PapíDimmi (talk | contribs) 22:01, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Peter's examples using politeness and water aren't apposite. Nonetheless it's merely your opinion that "two forms of dash are" is wrong or awkward. EEng 23:59, 3 February 2017 (UTC)

I was going to write more, but then thought of the usual tl;dr problem. Ok, so it's established that a mass noun can be used after "forms of". The issue then is whether English makes a sharp distinction between count and mass nouns, and the clear answer is that it doesn't. (Even "water" can be used as a count noun when it means something like "glasses of water": "Three waters and a beer" is fine as a description of what a group are going to have to drink.) If "dash" refers not to one particular mark but to a kind of punctuation in general, then "two forms of dash" is as acceptable as "two kinds of sentence" ("two kinds of sentences" seems utterly wrong to me and I would immediately want to correct it). There may be an ENGVAR issue here, with British English more willing to use a mass noun sense; a willingness perhaps connected to the well-known difference in the usage of words like "committee", where British English uses the singular "committe is" more than US English.

We've had what I think is a parallel discussion concerning "species of" or "genus of" in relation to organism articles. Some editors, including me, naturally write "... is a species of spider"; others naturally write "... is a species of spiders". Those who naturally use each variant find the other odd. The answer, as always, is not to edit-war over legitimate variations in English usage. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:54, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

It would be helpful if people who display such a poor understanding of basic grammar and punctuation (and legitimate variations in the latter, as in unspaced emdashes being equivalent in usage to spaced endashes) were a little less insistent on edit-warring changes based on that ignorance. If you haven't seen something and therefore assume it cannot exist (a common problem/fallacy encountered among WP contributors), or don't understand how something works, fine, but it's always an idea to take a step back if you find people repeatedly telling you that you are wrong, and having a think about whether you might be. N-HH talk/edits 10:22, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

Wise words; too little heeded. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:56, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

The problem with PapiDimmi is that he's hardly caught on that he's wrong about Grammar or Usage Hobbyhorse GUH1 before he moves on to Grammar or Usage Hobbyhorse GUH2, and the cycle of misbegotten insistence begins again. EEng 12:26, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

@EEng: it would be good to have an essay at WP:GUH which we could link to when reverting edits based on Grammar or Usage Hobbyhorses. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:40, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

RFC on hyphen in "narrow-gauge railway" titles

At Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Hyphen in titles of articles on railways of a narrow gauge I have started an RFC. The question reads: Should articles with "Narrow gauge railways" and such in their titles include a hyphen as "Narrow-gauge railways"? And is there any tweak needed to the guidelines at WP:HYPHEN to be more helpful in deciding such things? Participation is welcome. Dicklyon (talk) 06:01, 4 February 2017 (UTC)