Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Style discussions elsewhere [keep at top of page]

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

Current

(newest on top)

• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Distinguishing honorific from religious post-nominals (open discussion)
• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Refuted (open discussion)
• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Television#Boldfaced season number in the lead sentence of season articles (open discussion)
• Template_talk:Infobox_officeholder#RfC_regarding_ordinal_numbering (RfC)
• Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Video games#RFC (on plot summary lengths)
• Help talk:Citation Style 1#Italics of websites in citations and references – request for comment (RfC)
• Talk:Chairperson#chairman → chair in the article body (open discussion)
• Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RFC: spelling of "organisation"/"organization" in descriptive category names (RfC)
• Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (people)#Initials used in article text, vice initials used in citations (open discussion)

Concluded

Extended content

Talk:Boeing_737_MAX#Requested_move_25_May_2019 (capitalization). No consensus for "Max". Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Video games#Merge from Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Esports style advice (merge discussion). Archived. Talk:In God We Trust#Requested move 12 May 2019 (move request, on capitalization). No consensus to move. Talk:And Then There Were None § RfC: And Then There Were None and racial language (RfC). Closed, no consensus. Talk:Chairperson#Requested move 8 May 2019 – Chairman → Chairperson (move request). Closed as moved. Talk:Mueller Report#Publisher versus work or website in citation template – Perennial dispute about putting website titles in |publisher= or |via= just to avoid italicizing them in citation template output. Archived. Talk:Mueller Report#Reference formats – Discussion about using decorative template, {{redacted content}}, to simulate the appearance of blacked-out material in censored documents, e.g. CENSORED. Archived. Talk:35mm_movie_film#Requested_move_28_April_2019 – Proposal to undo two recent moves that went against MOS:UNITSYMBOLS. Moved to add space. Talk:Sino-Vietnamese conflicts, 1979–1991#RfC – a MOS:FLAGS matter, about military commanders. Consensus against using flag icons. Talk:Nghtcrwlrs (album)#Requested move 16 April 2019 – Nghtcrwlrs (album) → NGHTCRWLRS (album) – For consistency with band title. Not moved, per consensus. See also Talk:NGHTCRWLRS#Requested move 3 April 2019. Talk:Motion picture content rating system#RfC: Should we install a color scheme with 9 colors in the comparison table? – a MOS:ACCESS case of text-on-color luminosity and contrast. Some WP:CONLEVEL struggles. Closed: no consensus for any action. Talk:Efficiency movement#Requested move 11 April 2019 – A proper name, or not? Moved to Efficiency movement. Talk:Chairperson#Requested move 22 March 2019 – Some suggestions include Chairperson, and Chair (officer). A MOS:GNL matter, in part. No consensus to move to a specific title. A majority favored abandoning "Chairman", however. In a move review (Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2019 April#Chairman), the closure was endorsed. A new RM was then initiated: Talk:Chairperson#Requested move 8 May 2019. Talk:Spider-Man: Far From Home#Requested move 26 March 2019 – MOS:CT, from vs. From. No consensus to move. Exception to guidelines favoring lowercase prepositions. Talk:NGHTCRWLRS#Requested move 3 April 2019 (was Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Article naming convention) – Proposal to move a band title from ALLCAPS style. Closed as not moved. Note: The previous discussion was Wikipedia talk:Article titles#Article naming convention, a misplaced RM discussion, to move the title to ALLCAPS because the author prefers it. Talk:Landing Zones 1 and 2#Requested move 11 February 2019 – MOS:CAPS matter of "SpaceX landing zones" or "SpaceX Landing Zones". No consensus to move. Wikipedia talk:Wikimedia sister projects#Requested move 12 March 2019 – proposal to move this page to be a subpage of WP:Manual of Style/Linking, or just merge them. Not moved, as not strictly related to MOS and linking. Talk:Sobibór extermination camp#Requested move 4 March 2019, Talk:Sobibór trial#Requested move 21 March 2019, and Talk:Sobibór trial#Request for comment on using German names for World War II German concentration camps – typical diacritics case. All 3 moved as common name, without diacritic. Talk:Gore Effect#Requested move 5 March 2019 – a MOS:DOCTCAPS question. Moved to Gore effect. Talk:North Ossetia–Alania#Requested move 9 March 2019 – Multi-page RM, mostly MOS:DASH, plus some WP:CONSISTENCY and WP:CONCISE issues. Moved to titles with unspaced en dash. Talk:Ministry of Transport#RfC: Transport governance article titles – mostly a merge discussion, also involves MOS:CAPS and MOS:ENGVAR matters. Closed: Further discussion required. Talk:2003 Abbeville, South Carolina right-of-way standoff#Requested move 5 April 2019 – Weird mismatched comma and two or three unnecessary disambiguators? Moved to 2003 standoff in Abbeville, South Carolina. Module talk:Zh#MOS:SINGLE – Non-English language-formatting template diverging from what MOS:SINGLE says about linguistic glosses and literal translations. Resolved. Talk:Aurora, Illinois shooting#Requested move 16 February 2019 – Bracketing commas again. No consensus to move. Talk:Peshtigo Fire#Requested move 13 February 2019 – a typical MOS:CAPS RM discussion. Moved to lowercase. Talk:Fairy gone#Requested move 12 February 2019 – MOS:TITLES / MOS:TM cases (unusual in being about lowercase rather than over-capitalization). Closed in favor of Fairy Gone, per MOS:TITLES. Talk:Make America Great Again#Requested move 11 February 2019 – Reagan's version, versus arbitrary caps. Closed as "no consensus". Talk:Critique of the Kantian philosophy#Requested move 11 February 2019 – MOS:TITLECAPS question about capping Philosophy in this title of an appendix. Closed in favor of "Kantian Philosophy" per TITLECAPS. Talk:Tết#Requested move 10 February 2019 – typical diacritics-related RM. Closed in favor of not stripping diacritics. Talk:Milan-Cortina d'Ampezzo bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics#Requested move 10 February 2019 and Talk:Stockholm-Åre bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics#Requested move 10 February 2019 – a MOS:ENBETWEEN question, same on both. Close in favor of the en dash. Talk:New York-style pizza#Requested move 30 January 2019 – hyphen, en dash, or otherwise? WP:SNOWBALL close against using an en dash here, as a misunderstanding of MOS:DASH Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Taiwan#RfC on English variety and date format in Taiwan-related articles – Dispute over both whether to use American English and whether to impose American-style MDY (or even ISO YMD) dates. Closed with: "There is consensus to prefer no particular style. Where there is dispute, the principles of MOS:RETAIN and MOS:DATERET should be followed." Talk:Stokes' theorem#Requested move 4 December 2018 – about MOS:POSS application; closed as consensus not to move per WP:COMMONNAME, and a recommendation to revisit MOS:POSS. – Move review at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2018 December endorsed the original closure. Talk:Apollo Command/Service Module#Requested move 26 November 2018 and Talk:Apollo 8#Capitalization – lowercase command and service module; "lunar module" is less certain – see compromise at Talk:Apollo Lunar Module#Requested move 12 December 2018. Talk:Hyflex#Requested move 6 December 2018 – Treat HYFLEX as an acronym: allcaps. Talk:BFR (rocket)#Requested move 3 December 2018 – in which the proposed title Starship-Super Heavy may have an issue with respect to MOS:DASH – No consensus for proposed move, no consensus for alternate title Talk:OZ (magazine)#Requested move 22 December 2018 – Capitalization as if an acronym but it is not one; speedily closed as successful move to "Oz". Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Citation styles – Closed as consensus against a prescriptive set of citation styles. Talk:Boylston Street Subway#Requested move 14 December 2018 – two-article subway capitalization issue. Concluded to use lowercase "subway" per guidelines and sources. Talk:Lunar Roving Vehicle#Requested move 29 December 2018 – Title has been discussed previously, but not for capitalization. – Left capitalized. Move review at Wikipedia:Move review/Log/2019 January#Lunar Roving Vehicle (closed) endorsed the original closure. Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 28#Station names in ALLCAPS? – about ALLCAPS in titles in infoboxes to mimic station signs; archived with a general consensus: use standard English orthography, not stylization for its own sake. Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Request for comment: Should the Infobox photo caption identify a place or event if the information is tangential? – Closed as "rough consensus to leave this up to editor discretion". Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Request for comment: Size of post-nominals – RfC on 85%, 100%, or other font size. Could affect many articles, though only in a small way. Closed as "no consensus". Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Side matter: commas between post-nominal abbreviations – Gist: Is "OFM Cap FSA Scot FRHistS" five post-nominals, or three? (Hint: it's three.) – Closed without resolution, when the "parent" RfC was closed as "no consensus". Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters/Archive 28#Expand MOS:INSTITUTIONS to cover 'act', 'bill', 'resolution' and other items of legislation? – Proposal to lowercase mid-sentence use of such terms, except in proper names. Broadly supported. Doesn't look like the expansion has been done yet. Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Songs/Archive 19#Ariana Grande song title stylizations – Whether to mimic (or make special note of) all-lower-case song titles on album covers, track listings, etc. – Generally NO. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC on capitalization of the names of standardized breeds – RfC with wide potential impact (several thousand articles): Closed as "retain the current capitalization for the titling of standardized breeds on Wikipedia"; MOS:LIFE updated to implement this. Talk:Kildin Sami orthography#Requested move 21 December 2018 – multi-page RM primarily about diacritics (Sámi vs. Sami vs. Saami) – Closed as "No consensus to move to this or any other title." Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television)#RfC on using US or U.S. – In short: should WT:NCTV agree with MOS:US? – Closed as "No consensus (whatsoever) emerged in this discussion!" Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 148#RFC on capitalization of prepositions – Change MOS:CT to allow capitalization of four-letter prepositions in titles. – Closed: 'Apply our five-letter rule except when a significant majority of current, reliable sources that are independent of the subject consistently capitalize, in the title of a specific work, a word that is frequently not a preposition, as in "Like" and "Past". Continue to lower-case common four-letter (or shorter) prepositions like "into" and "from".' MOS:CT updated to reflect this [1]. Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 211#German double s: ß - In names, how should special non-English "Roman-ish" alphabetic letters be displayed? – Fun discussion didn't go anywhere Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 211#Can we PLEASE settle the capitalization situation, once & for all? – about MOS:JOBTITLES and where it applies. – Closed "There's a strong consensus that nothing needs to be settled and the concerned guidelines are already perfect. Exceptions may be evaluated on a case-by-case basis."

An amusement park with a Noah's Ark theme is...

• A Noah's Ark themed amusement park?
• A Noah's Ark-themed amusement park?
• A Noah's-Ark-themed amusement park?

This is for the Answers in Genesis page. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:16, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

• The form without hyphens is clear, and I do not see a compelling reason to hyphenate. It could also be rewritten to avoid the question: "An amusement park with a Noah's Ark theme" (also the title of this discussion). Jmar67 (talk) 16:34, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
• I could read the non-hypened form as a themed amusement part under the brand name "Noah's Ark". I think the second with the single hyphen is correct, but yes, as Jmar points out, rewording is much easier to do. --Masem (t) 16:39, 15 April 2019 (UTC)
• Yes, the day has come that we can combine hyphens with creationism. Now if we can only drag in Nazis and infoboxes somehow, we'll have achieved Nirvana. In the meantime, it pains me to say that none of the above is correct. An ndash is needed. Watch. Nothing up my sleeves...

A Noah's Ark–themed amusement park

See MOS:PREFIXDASH. The idea is that we want a bit more distance between Ark and themed than hyphen gives, because we don't want those two binding too closely to the exclusion of Noah's. EEng 16:52, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

That's reasonable. At the moment I don't see that covered under the section on hyphens. A reference there to the dash discussion would be good. Jmar67 (talk) 17:16, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I just tried something along those lines, but the mass of dash-and-hyphen–related (or maybe dash and hyphen–related or dash- and hyphen-related) material is just too crushing. I barely escaped with my life. EEng 17:51, 15 April 2019 (UTC)

I added an ndash to the article. Thanks! --Guy Macon (talk) 12:15, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

EEng, the important thing is: it's definitely dash- and hyphen-related and not dash and hyphen–related unless you're referring to the Dash and Hyphen pub. (I never go there, the atmosphere is too uptight.) Leviv ich 21:08, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

I feel there's a colonoscopy pun in there somewhere, but it's just not gelling. EEng 21:31, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

That's because your pun account is in a rears. This being MOS, I would suggest you start with semicolonoscopy puns. Then you can move up to innuendos. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:00, 19 April 2019 (UTC)

Wow, you're good. Your contribution has been formally entered in the Great Register. EEng 02:52, 20 April 2019 (UTC)

It's thhe first one, " Noah's Ark–themed amusement park" --Fandelasketchup (talk) 15:15, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

EEng: "The idea is that we want a bit more distance between Ark and themed than hyphen gives, because we don't want those two binding too closely to the exclusion of Noah's." This is precisely correct. I've always had the problem, however, of regarding the en dash as somewhat too wide for such purposes. I generally don't like it in number ranges either, for example, though I don't have anything against the character concerned's being a bit visibly wider than a hyphen. I've found this perceived excess of width to be particularly noticeable in bibliographies, where I've sometimes thought the en dash makes the page ranges stick out too much visually (and where I've occasionally revolted and used hyphens, with no one ever complaining in consequence). I was thinking today that in addition to the hyphen and the en dash, I'd like to have a c dash or an e dash, either of which would be about halfway between a hyphen and an en dash widthwise. It hit me as odd that while printers have always had a variety of spaces at their disposal (InDesign's Insert White Space menu shows, for example: Em Space, En Space, Nonbreaking Space, Nonbreaking Space [Fixed Width], Hair Space, Sixth Space, Thin Space, Quarter Space, Third Space, Punctuation Space, Figure Space and Flush Space), the hyphen/dash options have been remarkably meager (in InDesign, besides the normal and discretionary/nonbreaking hyphens: Em Dash, En Dash, and that's it). Where I went from there in this fanciful digression was to see if I could modify the width of characters in Wikipedia, but Help:Advanced text formatting offered no method for this. I thought of changing the en-dash font, but that wasn't a very appealing idea, and before I got around to possibly trying it another thought came to me that seemed interesting and amusing enough to post here, though I don't suppose it will have any practical consequences. Namely... one of the problems I may have with the en dash is that it's customarily used, spaced, as the long dash. So if it looks like a long dash, that's actually what it is, at least in text using the en rather than the em as long dash. So if it's been commonly thought that the em is too wide and that the solution for this is to space the narrower en... why not similarly use a spaced hyphen if or when the en is thought to be too wide? One wouldn't want much of a space, of course, and it might not seem or be perfectly logical in an example such as the one here, but I'm still going to have a crack at it and post what I get. Here it is, hyphenated with a hair space – A Noah's Ark - themed amusement park – and with a thin space – A Noah's Ark - themed amusement park. I like it with a hair space myself. Comments welcome but not expected. –Roy McCoy (talk) 05:10, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Roy, you say "I've always had the problem of regarding the en dash as somewhat too wide for such purposes". This is entirely your problem, or your font's problem perhaps. In most fonts, the difference is not so striking, but personally I prefer a font where the difference can't be missed (though it's been so long since I picked a font some place that I can no longer find where that was or what font it was; maybe I'm hallucinating). Also, the MOS does not recommend an en dash for this purpose, so it's not really an issue. Also, all the sources just use "Noah's Ark-themed", so I wouldn't be looking for ways to improve on something where our MOS and all sources are already aligned. Dicklyon (talk) 05:49, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

I didn't know it, Dicklyon, but you're right: it is entirely my problem. I googled "en dash is too wide" to see how many othere people shared my feeling on this, and there were no finds on it – not a single one. It's not a font thing, as I don't remember having ever encountered a font that didn't have a noticeable width difference between a hyphen and an en dash, though I suppose they may exist. So thanks for leading me to the realization that I'm surprisedly alone on this, and also for informing me that en dashes aren't recommended on Wikipedia for number ranges. As long as we're at that part or its neighborhood of the MoS, I just now changed the heading "Multi-hyphenated items" to "Multi-word hyphenated items" in accordance with the text, as there are not always multiple hyphens in such constructions. I was tempted as well to replace or delete the first example there ("a four-CD soundtrack album may be easier to read as a soundtrack album of four CDs"), since I sense no problem at all with the first variant and in fact find it easier to read than the second. If someone agrees with me (with this en-dash Google non-find I no longer have any confidence about people's agreeing with me, except on the nonnecessity of commas following short introductory prepositional phrases), they can maybe do something about the existing example. –Roy McCoy (talk) 19:26, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

En dashes certainly are recommended in number ranges; but not in Xx Xx-themed. You can see different relative widths in some fonts at Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash. Dicklyon (talk) 01:06, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

You're right again, Dicklyon. Actually I quite noticed "In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through", but I somehow missed "ranges of numbers" and got the idea that this was more in relation to non-numerical expressions. Thanks on the fonts – maybe I will have an occasion to switch fonts in WP at some point, then. Or maybe, perhaps more likely, I won't. –Roy McCoy (talk) 05:48, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Spaced hyphen is logical and visually appealing, but MOS:HYPHEN currently forbids it. Might be worth a discussion of its own. Jmar67 (talk) 08:41, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Thanks also, Jmar67 – not only for supporting my esthetic consideration, but also for relieving me of any imaginable temptation to act on it. I now see the proscription you're referring to, however ("A hyphen is never followed or preceded by a space, except [...]"), which supposably means word spaces and might thus be taken as not applying to the distinctly different hair spaces. But I'm not going to take that up and I doubt anyone else will either, so I don't think a separate discussion is called for at this point. Thanks for the suggestion, though. –Roy McCoy (talk) 19:26, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Spaced hyphen has one universal meaning: "I didn't know how to make a dash". It has no place in proper typography. Dicklyon (talk) 01:06, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't think you're right here though, Dick. (I just now realized your name is probably Dick Lyon. I thought it was one of those classical-type names: DICleon, like Anacreon etc.) You're mixing apples and oranges. A hair space is a small spatial adjustment; I was explicitly not suggesting a full-width word space such as used around en dashes. You really don't need to tell me about (word) spaces around hyphens. –Roy McCoy (talk) 05:48, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Got it. But I don't think there's ever a call for any amount of space around a hyphen. Let me know if you find otherwise. Dicklyon (talk) 20:35, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

Just now noticed this, Dicleon (excuse classickifyin' of your name – please protest if you don't like it). I don't expect to ever see a call for hair- or thin-spaced hyphens, which doesn't bother me as this makes my idea seem more original. Jmar67 approved it esthetically and I'm still gratified by that. I also still think my typographic observation makes sense, that if the en dash is being used as a full dash, as it regularly is, then one gets used to seeing it as a full dash and so when it's doing double duty also as an en, it tends to look wide (at least to me). In any event I was just chatting and wasn't intending to propose or suggest a change to the MoS on this. A P.S. here is that I just now remembered a case where spacing is indeed called for around a hyphen – namely when it follows the figure 4, which regularly collides with it in many fonts. One may properly consider this kerning rather than spacing, however. –Roy McCoy (talk) 01:55, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

"Noah's Ark-themed". This is already covered at MOS:HYPHEN (don't inject hyphens into a proper name being used adjectivally). But constructions with no hyphen are ambiguous. E.g. "A Noah's Ark themed amusement park" seems to suggest a "themed amusement park", which certainly sounds like a real thing, owned by a company called Noah's Ark (check trademark registrations and you'll find that there are many).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:18, 29 April 2019 (UTC)

That’s ugly. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

Tell that to the authors of the most world's English-language style guides. This is simply how hyphens are used with proper names. It's not like MoS just made this up. It's normal English.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:52, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

• A Noah's Ark themed amusement park? SmokeyJoe (talk) 06:04, 5 May 2019 (UTC)

  Not a use of italics MOS:TEXT would sanction.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:52, 7 May 2019 (UTC)

I asked retired WPian Noetica, whose expertise covers this type of issue. He agrees largely with SMcCandlish: "A Noah's Ark-themed amusement park". His reasoning:

• 1. "Noah's Ark" never needs a hyphen, any more than "New Zealand" does.
• 2. "A Noah's Ark themed amusement park" would be ambiguous at best, and misdirecting at worst. Ambiguity:
  • A: A themed amusement park that in some unspecified way is assimilated to Noah's Ark.

    Or:

  • B: An amusement park on a Noah's Ark theme.

To point 2 he adds: "That ambiguity is serious enough. But worse, the canonic disambiguation (assuming standard hyphen use in best-practice English) gives the wrong verdict. It gives A, which is far less likely to be meant."

Tony (talk) 06:50, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

In Wikipedia editing (and writing in general) some questions are better bypassed, and reducing word count to its absolute minimum is not the prime object. That's an amusement park with a Noah's Ark theme. To whatever extent this has become a hypothetical discussion, the place is WP:RDL. ―Mandruss ☎ 09:06, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Numbering officeholders in infoboxes

Relevant RfC for any concerned: Template_talk:Infobox_officeholder#RfC_regarding_ordinal_numbering — Preceding unsigned comment added by ReconditeRodent (talk • contribs) 13:02, 16 April 2019 (UTC)

Added to "Style discussions elsewhere". This entry can be deleted. Jmar67 (talk) 06:33, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

RfC on gendered nouns in spaceflight

I propose copying NASA's style guidelines verbatim: "In general, all references to the space program should be non-gender-specific (e.g., human, piloted, unpiloted, robotic, as opposed to manned or unmanned). The exception to the rule is when referring to the Manned Spaceflight Center (also known as the Manned Spacecraft Center), the predecessor of Johnson Space Center in Houston, or to any other historical program name or official title that included “manned” (e.g., Associate Administrator for Manned Spaceflight)." Kees08 (Talk) 19:15, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

Previous discussions on the spaceflight WikiProject.

• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spaceflight/Archive_6#Use_of_gender-neutral_language_in_spaceflight-related_articles
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spaceflight/Archive_7#Human_spaceflight_vs_Manned_Spaceflight
• Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Spaceflight/Archive_7#Discussion_about_the_phrase_"manned_mission"_and_weight_of_sources

Recently, there have been edits back and forth changing manned to crewed (and vice versa), occasionally resulting in minor edit wars. It has been long enough since the last major discussion on this issue that we can have a fresh one. NASA's policy is to use crewed and uncrewed in lieu of manned and unmanned, except for historical usage (like Manned Maneuvering Unit, Manned Orbiting Laboratory).

Style Guide for NASA History Authors and Editors

Slate article discussing NASA policy

Issue

Editors are interpreting Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Gender-neutral language differently, clarification is needed.

Support/Oppose/Comments

• Support - while we do not have to follow NASA's style guide, I think it is well-written, logical, and easy to interpret. Kees08 (Talk) 05:31, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support. This should be a simple, clear application of the first sentence of MOS:GNL, Use gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision. The fact that this is NASA's policy should also be given significant weight, as this is the topic area NASA falls under. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw) │ 05:51, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  Updating this to agree with those below saying that the text should be rephrased, not copied. —⁠烏⁠Γ ^(kaw) │ 00:34, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

• Oppose broad changes per WP:NOR and WP:WEIGHT. The terms are not always equivalent in meaning to the proposed alternatives, and so it fails the clarity and precision clause in MOS:GNL. Usage of terms should be accurately aligned with whatever supporting sources exist per WP:STICKTOSOURCE. We should explain that the various terms exist, and use them in the proper, sourced context. There is nothing inherently "gendered" about the term "manned", and it is not an uncommon term even to use for women. -- Netoholic @ 06:28, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support: I see no reason not to follow NASA's and MOS:GNL's guidance here. Regarding WP:NOR: Sticking to sources does not mean sticking to the exact word choices of sources: Rewriting source material in your own words, while substantially retaining the meaning of the references, is not considered to be original research. WanderingWanda (talk) 07:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support principle, though this seems redundant to the existing advice in MOS:GNL. Perhaps this RfC will provide sufficient clarification, such that no additions to the MoS will be necessary. NASA has prescribed gender-neutral language since at least 2006 ([2]). Netoholic I'm puzzled as to how WP:WEIGHT is relevant. Adrian J. Hunter^{(talk•contribs)} 07:48, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support I agree that this is redundant with MOS:GNL, which is fairly clear on this, but some people need the extra reminders. --Jayron32 12:09, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support What Jayron32 and Adrian J. Hunter said. I don't understand Netoholic's objections here. Also, while it's true that "she manned" is not unheard of, it's always been less common than "she piloted". Furthermore, if you swap in the male pronouns, you'll see that "he piloted" is also more prevalent: [3]. Mackensen (talk) 12:20, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  @Mackensen: No direct comparison works because the terms mean different things, which is my point. To "pilot" means to assume direct control over the movement of a craft. To "crew" means to perform one of many roles associated with operating the craft. To "man" a craft could mean any of the above, or simply sitting within a craft and being largely a passenger, as was especially true with the early missions. Likewise, one can "man" many other things that cannot be crewed or piloted - think of the phrase: she 'manned' the front desk of the store. This guidance will confuse people and cause them to use terms not supported by the sources. -- Netoholic @ 14:29, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  Sure, and I considered that. "Staffed" would be the direct replacement for "manned" in your hypothetical, though it's not applicable in this use case. The potential for confusion seems minimal, at best. Sidebar: while pilot involvement in the Mercury and Gemini missions was perhaps minimal compared to later missions, the pilots themselves were adamant that they were pilots who were piloting those spacecraft. You don't need "manned" to express any of these concepts. Mackensen (talk) 14:35, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  No, but you need to use whatever the secondary sources use as they are the ones that analyze what those men said, what NASA said, and what the general public expects from their language - hence WP:STICKTOSOURCE policy. -- Netoholic @ 14:38, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  Wikipedia articles are not just giant quotes. WP:STICKTOSOURCE does not say we are required to only directly quote sources. The use of paraphase, synonyms, summarization, and rewriting in Wikipedia's own style and voice is expected and encouraged. --Jayron32 14:41, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  These are not synonyms we're talking about. You are advocating for the changing of meaning without understanding the context of the terms in use. I have absolutely no problem with "crewed" - if that is was a source uses. But at present it looks like such usage is quite rare. -- Netoholic @ 14:48, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  We have several clearly useful alternatives to "manned", and those alternatives are not confusing to native English speakers. Your insistance, over and over, that WP:STICKTOSOURCE means we must stick to the exact word that the source uses in all cases is not borne out in any other situation anywhere else on Wikipedia, and it feels like you are reaching to somehow use your own idiosyncratic understanding of a policy page as a means to invalidate a consensus, or to somehow innoculate against a developing consensus so that you can claim that "the one single policy I have cherry picked here to interpret in my own way to defend my position must be the only valid policy that applies AND the only valid interpretation of that policy" That's not how any of this works. You don't get to pick one "magic spell" policy that trumps all others, you don't get to invalidate the perspectives of other that don't agree with you merely because they don't agree with you, and you don't "win" in the face of a developing consensus merely because you repeat the same points over and over or refute everyone with the same thing over and over. You don't get extra "consensus points" by doing that. --Jayron32 15:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support It's a sensible clarification in line with MOS:GNL. Schazjmd (talk) 14:12, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose. "Manned" is gender-neutral. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 14:28, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  Asserting so doesn't mean it is so. Gender-neutral language disagrees with you. Where can I read, elsewhere, that your assertion has evidence to back it up? --Jayron32 14:37, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  How is Gender-neutral language's assertion any more valid than mine? See wikt:man#Etymology 2. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:13, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  Gender-neutral language specifically notes many instances of avoiding the use of "man". You assert that it doesn't, and yet reading the article clearly shows it doing so. The actual evidence goes against your assertion. Also, see etymological fallacy. We use words as they are used now, not as they were used at some point in the past. Today, sources consider "man" to be gendered as male. The fact that speakers in the past didn't used to has little to no bearing on the discussion. Lots of words meant different things in the past. We use words today as they are used today. --Jayron32 15:19, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  I'm not arguing based on etymology; that was merely the section link. I'm arguing based on the usage in that section. But GNL is incorrect in stating that "crewed" should be used instead of "manned". Should we say "Crew the machine guns!" rather than "Man the machine guns!"? –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:21, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  When would one ever write either the phrase "Crew the machine guns!" or "Man the machine guns!" in a Wikipedia article? That phrase should never appear, except as a direct quote. Under normal encyclopedic style, I can't see any reason to present a second-person command with an exclamation point. --Jayron32 15:29, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  It was just an example to point out the fact that in this sense, it's not a gendered word any more than "history" is.

  What? I don't even know what you mean by that. Look, lets just sit back and watch consensus develop one way or the other here. Your arguments are becoming increasingly incomprehensible here, and ultimately I have wasted everyone's time by humoring you. You have voted. I have voted. Other people will vote. This entire side discussion has done, and will do, nothing towards generating a consensus. --Jayron32 15:42, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  I would have thought the reference was obvious in this context: "history" contrasted with *"herstory". —DIV (137.111.13.17 (talk) 02:27, 11 May 2019 (UTC))

  Also note that line in GNL was added just today; I've reverted the edit, and now GNL says nothing about "manned". –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:25, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  I never said Gender neutral language used the example "manned". I said it contained information about avoiding "man" in situations analogous to this. --Jayron32 15:28, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  In any case, to "man" a craft is not the same usage as using "man" as a suffix for occupational titles. And the article there is about documenting certain efforts and viewpoints; it does not provide advice on what should be done. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:38, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

It's not the same, but reliable sources do indicate that this usage of "manned" is gendered, and that's the category of language that MOS:GNL applies to. Nblund ^talk 15:50, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

I hope you realize using the phrase "etymological fallacy" is, in itself, offensive and derogatory. You are trying to dismiss an idea you dislike by slapping a biases label on it. In fact, "manned" spaceflight is a term in common use. It is less universally used than it was a few decades ago, but it is still widely used. We are talking about which of the currently used terms is more appropriate. Fcrary (talk) 18:44, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support If it works for NASA it will probably work quite adequately for us too. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 14:53, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support - sensible direction. Evidently the advice of MOS:GNL is not sufficient to prevent edit-warring in this topic, so it is necessary to explicitly adopt this style. Ivanvector (^Talk/_Edits) 15:18, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support Consistent with existing MOS:GNL guidance. If there's a specific use-case where "manned" has no English equivalent, then we can say it, but I sort of struggle to imagine a scenario where that's the case. This seems like an odd hill to die on. Nblund ^talk 15:40, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• OpposeSupport changing project pages Unless I am misinterpreting the intent here, the wording of MOS:GNL is sufficient. "Manned" is acceptable in established proper names. We can't include every organization's policy on gender-neutral language in the MOS. Jmar67 (talk) 15:46, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  You'll note that the proposal includes a specific exemption for established proper names, and is not proposing changing those. --Jayron32 15:49, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  We shouldn't need to say anything about terms in proper names. It should be clear that they are exempt. Jmar67 (talk) 16:03, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  That isn't the crux of the proposal though. The proposal is here because there is some clarification needed over the use of the terms "manned" and "unmanned" outside of proper noun situations. Some people feel those terms are gender neutral, or are otherwise not covered by MOS:GNL. This is specifically about adding clarifying language that such terms are covered by MOS:GNL and should be avoided here. When you stated "Unless I am misinterpreting the intent" it is clear you are. The purpose of the proposal is not to carve out the exceptions for proper names, it is to include language to explicitly note that "manned" is not gender-neutral. --Jayron32 16:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  Jmar67: I think a lot of the support !voters are agreeing with you that MOS:GNL already covers this. When you say "oppose" are you saying you believe that "manned" should still be used even in cases where it is not part of a direct quote or a proper title? Or are you just saying you oppose changing the wording of GNL? (similar to Izno's !vote below) Nblund ^talk 16:18, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  Thanks. I am opposed to copying the NASA guideline verbatim into the MOS. I still don't understand what specific change to the MOS is being suggested and where. Jmar67 (talk) 16:28, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  Thank you for your clarification. I understand what you're opposition is based on now. --Jayron32 16:36, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support Where there's a clearly supported gender neutral term, we should use it as per MOS:GNL. "Manned" may or may not once have been viewed as gender neutral, but language changes, and it isn't now, as NASA indicates. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:57, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support principle, oppose changing the main MOS page per the apparent duplication of intent. --Izno (talk) 16:02, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Unless I'm misunderstanding, I don't think the nominator is proposing changing any guideline pages. That is, I read the question to be: "Should we make this change at various spaceflight pages?" not "Should we add this language to the MOS?" WanderingWanda (talk) 16:24, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

    I propose copying NASA's style guidelines verbatim I interpreted copying here to mean publishing a MOS which uses the text of NASA's guideline, i.e., as a MOS change. You could reasonably interpret the word copy to mean "use their guideline without changing ours", but again, not what I did. I think my interpretation is more reasonably. ;) --Izno (talk) 16:39, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

    What misled me was that it was unclear where the cited NASA guideline would land, and I assumed it was the MOS. Jmar67 (talk) 17:27, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

    I want to have a clear interpretation of the Manual of Style that can be pointed to in future discussions that will hopefully end the edit wars. I thought perhaps a note like the Milhist one could be added, but whether it is or not I do not care. Kees08 (Talk) 16:50, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support NASA gets it right. XOR'easter (talk) 16:08, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support This sounds very sensible. Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:13, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support I agree with NASA's convention here and I think Wikipedia should adopt it. Reyk _YO! 16:22, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support mostly per WP:DUH. Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 16:23, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support. If we do copy though, quote marks and cite, perhaps with intro: Wikipedia has adopted the following guidance: Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:53, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose without modification NASA is not the only space agency around, and they have not always used this standard. I think it would be confusing to have an article on, for example, the Russian space program with quotes about "manned" missions and text about "crewed" missions. The same thing would apply to historical NASA missions, such as Mercury or Apollo. If the original sources used the term "manned" the article should as well. I think that's consistent with Wikipedia guidelines on gender-neutral language, since being consistent would improve clarity. Fcrary (talk) 22:07, 10 May 2019 (UTC)

  It is a good point that NASA is not the only space agency around. However the issue of 'mismatch' between quotations and surrounding article text is not a problem. Consider an article Caesar, for example: there may be quotations in Latin, but that doesn't conflict with the article being written in English. There can be an article on Hitler that includes pejorative terms for specific people or groups of people within quotations, but which avoids those pejorative terms within the surrounding article text. —DIV (137.111.13.17 (talk) 02:44, 11 May 2019 (UTC))

• Support—Wikipedia should always strive for inclusive language where reasonable. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:22, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support It's the right thing to do and the NASA policy means we have a good precedent to follow. The exception for historical terms is adequate. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:35, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
• Comment. It is not clear that "manned" is necessarily interpreted as a gendered verb. As evidence I propose the following scenario.
  NASA sends an "unmanned shuttle" to the moon. When it lands the crew get out and perform a moonwalk.
  I believe that everybody would interpret "unmanned" as a synonym of "uncrewed", and that nobody would leave open the option that an "unmanned shuttle" might have a crew who are all women (or perhaps even transgendered, intersex, etc.).
  Logically if "unmanned" is unambiguously a non-gendered synonym of "uncrewed", then "manned" should unambiguously be a non-gendered synonym of "crewed". Of course, logic might be lacking in reality....
  —DIV (137.111.13.17 (talk) 02:36, 11 May 2019 (UTC))

The simple response is that "reliable sources say it is gendered". That said: One verb form of "unman" means "to castrate". So it definitely is not an unambiguously non-gendered term. Roger Freitas uses the term "'unmanned' singer" to refer to a castrato vocalist. Romeo and Juliet even contains a play-on-words based around using the "unmanned" to indicate Juliet's virginity and her lack of self-control. "Manned" is often use to refer to male and female crew members, but that doesn't make it genderless. It's like the term "mankind" in that sense. Nblund ^talk 21:00, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

I don't think it is sufficient to say a single source considers a word gendered. I think it takes evidence that a majority of people, or at least a large majority, consider it to be when used in the relevant context. In you examples of "manned" being used as a gendered word, they are (1) rather archaic usage, which I believe few modern speakers of English would use, and (2) using the word in a dramatically different context. Are you implying that, if a word is gendered, then all of its homonym are also gendered? That does not make sense to me. Fcrary (talk) 21:28, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

My point was that can't exactly call a word "unambiguously genderless" when one of its dictionary definitions literally refers to removing someone's testicles. It's not just a single source. OED guidance, the Handbook of Nonsexist Writing, as well as the BBC and New York Times style Guides all note the gendered connotation. We don't have any source for polling the majority of English speakers, and the whole issue is that terms like "manned" or "mankind" are implicitly gendered even when the speaker doesn't intend them that way. Our informal poll of Wikipedia editors shows a pretty clear consensus in favor of avoiding the term. Nblund ^talk 22:31, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

It's hard to call anything about languages unambiguous. But if there are two completely unrelated dictionary definitions for a word, they are different words. Just because they are spelled the same way doesn't mean one is automatically a gendered word because the other clearly is. If I accepted that logic, I'd also have to agree an aircraft is a geometric construct, since those are both definitions of "plane". Fcrary (talk) 19:02, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

What a novel theory: "if there are two completely unrelated dictionary definitions for a word, they are different words". Did you make that up, or find it somewhere in a discussion of what makes a word? And are you also suggesting that some uses of "manned" and "unmanned" are not related by referring to the root "man"? Dicklyon (talk) 21:54, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

• Comment We might consider preserving the cited NASA guideline text and parts of this discussion in the article Gender-neutral language. Jmar67 (talk) 03:43, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
• Support 'Man' and 'manned' are not gender neutral words as acknowledged by NASA and most modern style guidlines. Many of the opposes use logic along the lines of "well it's gender neutral to me" or "that's what was written in the source". The first argument is irrelevant, what matters is the gender neutrality to most english speakers. The second is inappropriate in this context, we do not use Shakespearian language to discuss the works of William Shakespeare, even if that is how they were originally written. --Spacepine (talk) 11:50, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

In fact, we may use Elizabethan words in discussing Shakespeare's works. Specifically if the work contains a word which is no longer in common use. It would cause confusion to quote the text and then substitute the modern, equivalent word in a discussion of the text's meaning.Fcrary (talk) 18:44, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support the point being added in our own wording, but not plagiarized. We do not rip off language, word-for-word, from other style guides. We certainly should give the same advice (reworded), because it is sensible and is consistent with MOS:GNL. We should maybe omit "manned" as an example of gendered language, since there's obviously dispute about whether it qualifies.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:58, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

  @SMcCandlish: Since it's published by NASA, surely it's {{PD-NASA}}? Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 19:17, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

  Whether you can be prosecuted for stealing it has nothing to do with the principle of not just ripping it off. Beyond this obvious point, we do not want to set a precedent for directly quoting other style guides in our own. Our wording changes all the time to better suit our needs and the ability of our editorial pool to interpret and follow the rules as written and applied. Virtually nothing in MoS reads exactly as it did the first time it was written, because we cannot predict in advance what someone is going to try to WP:GAME a month or a year later, nor what adjustments have to be made to account for later changes to other WP:P&G pages. Another reason to not rip off other style manuals to the letter is that we can usually make the same effective rule more concisely, having had a lot of practice keeping our rules short for WP:CREEP reasons.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:34, 11 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support per MOS:GNL. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:43, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
• Oppose "copying NASA's style guidelines verbatim", but support the gist of the proposal, adopting guidance along those lines. Dicklyon (talk) 21:57, 12 May 2019 (UTC)
  • Oppose, as the word "human" has in itself the letters of the word "man", which is NOT, in itself (mind me being redundant) a gender-neutral term as it was before, since nowadays it is like saying "mailman" instead of "mail carrier", "fireman" instead of "firefighter", "chairman" instead of "chairperson" or "CEO" and so on. --Fandelasketchup (talk) 15:37, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

    That's farcically bogus folk etymology which has been debunked about a million times by now. Human does not in fact have the word man in it at all; it has the three characters m-a-n in it (lately; it did not in Middle English). The word man is from Proto-Germanic *mann, and human is from Latin hūmānus. In this case, they're not even anciently related. Man ultimately goes back to Proto-Indo-European *mon, while hūmānus is Latin homo with a suffix and vowel shifts, ultimately from PIE *ǵʰm̥mṓ, and related to words for 'earth' (humus, etc.). The resemblance of man and human in English is purely incidental, the result of convergence inspired by the kind of confusion/assumption that leads to folk etymology in the first place.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:04, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

• Support as long as we don't copy and paste. We should try to rephrase things in our words, to err on the side of over-caution with regards to copyright. (Summoned by bot) -- I dream of horses  If you reply here, please ping me by adding {{U|I dream of horses}} to your message  (talk to me) (My edits) @ 20:14, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
• OPPOSE - fisrt as factually wrong. Current and future nasa pubs do use “manned” so this seems a false premise. It looks to me more the case of a verb use “crewed” and a modifier use “manned”. Second ... umm NASA just is not the only or bulk of spaceflight any more, and it seems wrong to ignore other nations and private corporations usages if they are most such flights. Generally, I’ll say JUST FOLLOW THE SOURCE USAGES - paraphrase space by case whatever the usage was, is, or will be. Do not create and impose a rule that does not exist in outside reality. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 05:15, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Why...?

Why use the word "film" as opposed to "movie" in movie-related articles? I mean, isn't it more common to say "Let's go to the movies" than "Let's go to the films"? --Fandelasketchup (talk) 15:18, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Could you post a few examples? I would suppose the more appropriate word is sometimes "film", sometimes "movie", with it not mattering which other times. "Film" seems generally more appropriate for formal encyclopedic texts, where people aren't talking about going to the movies. –Roy McCoy (talk) 15:28, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I suspect the primary reason it that "film" shows up more often in reliable sources related to film, even though it's not the most common in everyday speech in the US. The names of entities like the National Film Registry, and The American Film Institute sort of reflect this. It is kind of amusing that we have entries like Scary Movie (film_series), but I think this is a fairly well established naming convention at this point. Nblund ^talk 15:49, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Roy, one example which comes to mind is the website https://www.primevideo.com which, upon logging me in, shows me "Watch Next TV and Movies" rather than "Watch Next TV and Films". The website I just gave you is the international version of http://www.amazon.com/amazonvideo. --Fandelasketchup (talk) 15:57, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

It may be more common in the US, but in Britain you would go to the cinema (or "flicks") to see a film. It's one of the classic issues with WP:ENGVAR. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:02, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Hmmm.... Martin of Sheffield, maybe that's where "Netflix" got its name from? --Fandelasketchup (talk) 16:30, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I'd always assumed that was obvious, but then I naturally use British terms. Martin of Sheffield (talk) 16:37, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

I think "film" is more formal, but I think it also is used exclusively for productions designed to be (originally) displayed in a theatre, while "movie" can refer to TV, streaming, etc. as well. "Flicks" is a common colloquialism for films (in the U.S., too), probably derived from the flickering seen in early projection systems. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 17:51, 16 May 2019 (UTC)

Except it isn't used exclusively that way. So ....  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:52, 17 May 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it's an ENGVAR issue. In the UK, we very rarely use the word "movie", whereas in the USA both terms are used, so it makes sense to use the term that is commonly used in both countries (as well as other English-speaking countries). -- Necrothesp (talk) 10:56, 21 May 2019 (UTC)

In Australia it would be 50/50 if we say 'watch a movie' or 'watch a film', regardless of whether it's the big screen (theatre) or the small screen (TV,phone,etc). Probably because we have a British heritage but absorb lots of American media. So I agree, it's a WP:ENGVAR thing.  Stepho  talk  07:06, 26 May 2019 (UTC)

Collapsing References

The references at the bottom of each page should be hidden and only be shown if the user presses on a special button or on a reference number (that would still be shown in text), also pressing on a reference number would show ALL references with the ability to hide them again with a special button, this way the user won't see a long page (the page would LOOK short), and won't get discouraged to read it, and this would raise the average knowledge of humankind and would make humankind stronger!!! and also this would make scrolling in the page easier. This way when users see short pages they would read more (the whole page or more of it as he would feel he's advancing in reading it and would feel like he's adding to his knowledge more than if the page looks extremely long) and people would donate more to Wikipedia because they use it more. Also this way the user knows approximately what percentage of the page he has read and how much time it takes to finish it based on the scrollbar at the side of the page unlike when references are expanded. If you want to keep it as it is at least add a button "Collapse references in this page." that would be required to be pressed on each page individually that the user wants to collapse the references in it to read it with a sensible "progress bar" which is the scrollbar on the side, the same button would be then "Show references on this page." for the user to mouse click or keyboard press on it if the user wants.

AdamMichaels784 (talk)

• That's an interesting idea. In some ways it would be more reader friendly, and we are here to serve the reader, but I think it might have the effect of making Wikipedia seem like it is the source of information, like Wikipedia is an authority. I think it should be clear in every article that Wikipedia is just a convenient collection of facts which all come from reliable sources. The reference section helps make that clear. I do note that on the iOS mobile app one must click on the heading to show references. SchreiberBike | ⌨  01:04, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

  Here to serve the reader? What? Didn't you get the memo? EEng 02:52, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

• The proposer has a good idea: An option to hide the sources. It's quite a simple one. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 01:36, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

  But a key requirement -- to uncollapse automatically when the reader clicks a thingamajig -- is not so simple, I'm guessing. EEng 02:51, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

• It's indeed an interesting idea, but I have a hunch it's one of those things that will get enough resistance that it will go nowhere. Of course, by the same reasoning other sections, such as notes an See Also, should be collapsible. Note that readers on mobile (who, IIRC, are the majority) see all sections, including the ref section, initially collapsed. EEng 02:48, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
• No opinion (I use mobile), but is this an MOS topic? Jmar67 (talk) 09:37, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

  Well, if this has any chance of happening it would probably need to be discussed here, and MOS/Layout, and VP, and then in an RfC. It's the sort of thing that gets the hackles up. EEng 12:40, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

• The reason(s) we do not do something or anything remotely similar to this is/are outlined at MOS:COLLAPSE. --Izno (talk) 11:50, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

  There izno need to rush to judgment. As I read COLLAPSE's somewhat rambling discussion, it might be OK to have the reflist be collapse-ible, not collapse-ed by default. But I still doubt this is going to happen. EEng 12:40, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

  I don't see how it being collapsible would accomplish anything. A user option to default to collapsed might be possible but since most users are not logged in... —DIYeditor (talk) 09:44, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

  I don't see how it would accomplish anything either. I was just pointing out that "something remotely like" the proposal is indeed acceptable. EEng 16:17, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

• I don't know why it would be hard to implement at least some of what the OP proposes, but keep it as a preference, a preference that wouldn't be mine, since much of the usefulness of Wikipedia is that you can get to so much the underlying documentation so easily. Otherwise, how are you to know the summary you're reading isn't just the product of some middle-school wit? There are leads and infoboxes for those whose attention would quickly flag when faced with a long article. Another possibility would be to have the References section lower down, below "External links", portals, navboxes, etc. How immutable is the present recommended layout? Dhtwiki (talk) 19:17, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

So what exactly is the problem with having references exposed? They are at the near-end of the article, and the only things below them are basically navigation tools (external links, templates, categories). And I'm assuming you're being facetious when you say doing this would lead to increased devotion and donations to Wikipedia, and—what was it?—"make humankind stronger"?!? Um, no.— TAnthony^Talk 19:29, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

Matching commas on attributive nouns in titles

What is the most correct and least awkward way to title certain articles? King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:56, 29 May 2019 (UTC) The MoS requires matching commas at the end if a date or place name contains a comma:

The woman from Tucson, Arizona, knew that the salesman who tried to sell her a new phone contract on July 1, 2018, was a fraud.

Note that these commas would not normally exist if not for the preceding comma, showing that it is indeed it is this rule which causes the presence of the commas:

The woman from Tucson knew that the salesman who tried to sell her a new phone contract on July 1 was a fraud.

This has been long-accepted as the standard in English grammar, and as far I as can tell no one seriously contests this rule in article prose. However, it becomes less clear when we talk about titles, because titles which follow this rule can appear strange to many people, especially when the expression containing an internal comma is an being used as an attributive noun. Here's an example, adapting a previous discussion I started (but didn't receive many comments): There have now been multiple shootings in some place called Aurora, two of them in Aurora, Colorado and one in Aurora, Illinois. Multiple WP:RMs have dealt with this issue:

• Talk:1993 Aurora, Colorado shooting
• Talk:2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting
• Talk:Aurora, Illinois shooting/Archive 1
• Talk:Sandy, Utah attack

I suggest reviewing the content of the discussions before proceeding further. I think there are three general schools of thought:

1. "City, State" is always a valid drop-in replacement for "City". If "Aurora shooting" would be the preferred title if there were no ambiguity, then "Aurora, Illinois shooting" would also be the preferred title.
2. Doing that is a violation of MOS:GEOCOMMA, so a matching comma should be used: "Aurora, Illinois, shooting". "City, State," is always a valid drop-in-replacement for "City" in the middle of a title.
3. The first is a violation of grammatical rules, and the second looks weird, so in most cases such articles should be retitled so that "City, State" is not being used as an attributive noun, even if such titles would normally not be preferred: "Shooting in Aurora, Illinois" or "2019 Aurora shooting".

The same thing is now playing out at Talk:March 1–3, 2018 nor'easter, but with MOS:DATECOMMA. We should seriously take a look at both these rules together to figure out what is the most correct and least awkward way to title such articles. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:56, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

• @Ahecht, AjaxSmack, Aphexcoil, Athaenara, BarrelProof, BD2412, Born2cycle, Bradv, Braxton C. Womack, Bus stop, Comfr, Davidsousa1, Dicklyon, Dohn joe, EDG 543, Erik, Feminist, Gonnym, HurricaneGeek2002, Huwmanbeing, Hydromania, In ictu oculi, InedibleHulk, Jax 0677, Jim Michael, John from Idegon, JorgeLaArdilla, Lawrencekhoo, Matuko, Necrothesp, Netoholic, Nohomersryan, Nsk92, Objective3000, Octoberwoodland, Paintspot, PC78, QEDK, Reidgreg, Sheldybett, Shibbolethink, SMcCandlish, SmokeyJoe, Sturmvogel 66, Tony1, TonyTheTiger, WikiWinters, Wow, WWGB, and Xain36: Pinging participants of past RMs. Feel free to ping others I may have missed. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 01:19, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
• The most correct way is to simply add the matching comma, but a fair number of users have expressed the opinion that they don't really care about it being correct, because they understand what it's supposed to mean in the incorrect form. A majority of editors in the biggest RM discussion supported fixing those by reordering or some other method, but this was not judged to be a consensus due to the fair number who didn't care about the error. This was only for GEOCOMMA, and very few such errors remain there, I think. I'm pretty sure DATECOMMA is an even more stringent rule in practice, yet an editor has already claimed it's rare to use correct grammar in American English, which seems odd to me, but yes we have lots of such violations in Wikipedia. Dicklyon (talk) 01:24, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
• Both approaches of adding the comma or rephrasing the title (e.g., to move the date or geographic location to the end of the title) are worth considering, and can somewhat be handled on a case-by-case basis. Just letting the punctuation violate MOS:DATECOMMA / MOS:GEOCOMMA does not seem like a good idea, since it makes Wikipedia look unprofessional. I am not aware of American style guidance saying the comma is not needed. What do The New York Times and The Atlantic do? —BarrelProof (talk) 01:35, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
• I have no interest in this, and frankly resent being pinged to it. I participated in a prior discussion on the AP style book, and in one on schools. I know how to find discussions that interest me. There is no need to ping me ever. John from Idegon (talk) 01:41, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  @John from Idegon: John, I felt a need to ping you just to thank you for taking the trouble to show up here and let us all know that you don't care. It's not every editor who will go out their way to say something when they have nothing to say. Please do not feel you need to thank me in return, but if you want to, I'll listen. Dicklyon (talk) 04:03, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  I was almost going to continue this chain but I'm still laughing at this. --qedk (t 桜 c) 04:26, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  It's not every editor who will go out their way to say something when they have nothing to say – If only that were true. EEng 09:52, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  Not if I have something to say about it. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 16:24, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

• Comment: The MoS is not policy, but rather is a guideline that relates to article prose, so using words like "the MoS requires" or "that is a violation of MOS:GEOCOMMA" is over-stating its importance or relevance in regards to article titles. WP:Article titles is the policy. That said, I don't see any real-world uniformity in favor of double commas for long date handling within titles. As examples, here are Google Scholar title results for one particular famous date and a famous city - I think you'll see handling is a mixed-bag. What we should be discussing is not what the MoS says, but rather what is the best consistent way to handle WP:TITLES on Wikipedia. I think its clear that long-term editor preference has been to not use the extra comma in page titles. These recent move discussions certainly show a strong disinclination to use them. If necessary, we can document this in WP:TITLES. I am open to changing the MoS as well (at least as relates to American English articles, where seeing a "naked" City, State or long date is not unusual, and is easily parsed by the reader), but I'm neutral on that at the moment as it relates to article prose only. -- Netoholic @ 01:56, 29 May 2019 (UTC) (updated)

  In your search for "September 11, 2001" in titles, only 1 on the first page of 10 hits has the unbalanced comma problem (2 do it right, and in the rest it doesn't come up). Similarly on your "Washington, DC" search, only 1 unbalanced, 2 with double comma, 1 with no commas, and the rest where it doesn't come up (because it's followed by end of title or colon or something). So sources are followed guidance about 2:1 at least. Nobody said it wasn't a common error. Dicklyon (talk) 02:41, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  I searched on "the September 11, 2001" earlier tonight without having seen the above, and without weeding out the titles (since I didn't see any need to – titles, schmitles, it's the same language) and got 32 finds with a comma following and 69 without. That's way less overwhelming than what I got with cities and states the other day, but still over two to one. What I think some people should consider is that even if certain things like absent commas following states and years are incorrect according to grammatical authorities, nonetheless some errors – possessive it's, for example – are more egregious than others. Could we lighten up a bit on the less egregious, or are all purported errors of any degree to be considered equally abominable and attacked with identical furor? –Roy McCoy (talk) 04:37, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  @Netoholic: The MoS is not policy, but rather is a guideline that relates to article prose. Since when is its application limited to article prose? Could you cite your source for this assertion?

  so using words like "the MoS requires" or "that is a violation of MOS:GEOCOMMA" is over-stating its importance or relevance in regards to article titles. You do accept that the MOS is to be observed absent exceptional circumstances, though, right? 142.160.89.97 (talk) 02:16, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  It "is to be observed" only per its stated scope "to help editors write articles with consistent and precise language, layout, and formatting" (note that titling is not listed there), and the very first section of the MoS (under the lead and ToC) redirects people to WP:TITLES policy for concerns related to that. Also, as a guideline, its understood that the MoS "is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". The MOS:GEOCOMMA section only gives examples of full sentences and doesn't mention titles. WP:TITLES only mentions comma handling under WP:COMMADIS, with no mention of dates/localities. There are naming conventions like WP:NCPLACE, WP:NCEVENTS, and WP:NCDATES, but none addresses extra comma use. WP:NCDATES#Year at the end, with comma states that "use of punctuation marks in article names is discouraged" and I think that is broadly-true. We often err on the side of removing punctuation in article titles, because it makes it easier for editors to predict how to link. -- Netoholic @ 02:35, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  It "is to be observed" only per its stated scope "to help editors write articles with consistent and precise language, layout, and formatting" (note that titling is not listed there). Is it your argument that titles are not part of articles? Or that titles don't contain language?

  and the very first section of the MoS (under the lead and ToC) redirects people to WP:TITLES policy for concerns related to that. ... Are you kidding? It doesn't just redirect to WP:TITLES; it supplements it and even provides the following:

  Subject both to the above and to WP:Article titles, the rest of the MoS, particularly § Punctuation, applies also to the title [emphasis added].
  — Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Article titles

  That being the case, Netoholic, how do you reconcile your argument that article titles are outside the scope of the MOS with Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Article titles?

  Also, as a guideline, its understood that the MoS "is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". Which is to say that the MOS is to be observed absent exceptional circumstances?

  The MOS:GEOCOMMA section only gives examples of full sentences and doesn't mention titles. WP:TITLES only mentions comma handling under WP:COMMADIS, with no mention of dates/localities. There are naming conventions like WP:NCPLACE, WP:NCEVENTS, and WP:NCDATES, but none addresses extra comma use. WP:TITLES doesn't mention date formats and particular provisions of the MOS don't mention their applicability to titles because that would be redundant to Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Article titles, excerpted above.

  WP:NCDATES#Year at the end, with comma states that "use of punctuation marks in article names is discouraged" and I think that is broadly-true. Given your deep concern about the scope of particular guidelines, I would have thought you would have paid more attention to the heading above that quotation. 142.160.89.97 (talk) 03:08, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  That line you quoted under Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Article titles is certainly interesting. But WP:TITLES does not broadly point to the MoS beyond linking to "further information". If there is any strict consideration related to article titles, though, it should be documented in WP:TITLES or a specific naming convention. I'd be very interested to dig into what prompted that line you quoted to be added here and no matching text included at WP:TITLES. Anyone know what the "ArbCom dash poll" refers to? EDIT: I think I found it Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/dash drafting. If this is what prompted that line to be added here, it seems like an overreach. -- Netoholic @ 03:52, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  But WP:TITLES does not broadly point to the MoS beyond linking to "further information". That is the nature of guidelines. They often tend to provide further information that doesn't contradict the relevant policies.

  If this is what prompted that line to be added here, it seems like an overreach. It's hardly overreach if it's been established as the community consensus for the better part of a decade.

  So if I understand correctly – and do correct me if I'm wrong here – I think we're now on the same page with respect to what started this thread, viz.:

  1. The MOS applies to article titles.
  2. The MOS is to be observed absent exceptional circumstances.

  142.160.89.97 (talk) 04:11, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  Not on the same page at all. In fact, you may be the first editor to have ever brought up that line of the guideline. I did some searches using the current and older versions of that line, and I don't see it being brought up in any other discussion or cited in any RM discussion. This line seems to have been added in the middle of a set of rewrites and largely ignored. I don't see that it has consensus to make it on the level of a policy. -- Netoholic @ 07:59, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

• I agree that those commas should be there in sentences, but they shouldn't be there in article titles. Jim Michael (talk) 01:55, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
• I agree with your opinion, It is confusing because there is no comma in the sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Holiakim (talk • contribs) 08:06, 3 June 2019 (UTC)
• Doesn't look odd to me. The year and state in the examples are postpositional modifiers/qualifiers. The link to attributive noun refers to "pre-modifiers". Viewing them as attributive nouns may cause the perception that parenthetic commas are incorrect. Not going to loose sleep if they aren't in titles though. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 02:07, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  The expression "postpositional modifiers/qualifiers" seemed curious to me, so I googled it. Zero finds other than the singular one here, so congratulations to Cinderella157 on having coined an original expression. I tried "postpositional modifiers" and got 43 finds, suggesting obscurity. The first of these related to the Peterborough Chronicle, a historical work written primarily in Old English. The second related to Old Hungarian. The third concerned contemporary English, but non-native-speaker with a sentence containing no comma ("My big brother studying in New York always buys me things because he still thinks that I am his little brother."). The fourth related to Chinese. When I tried "postpositional qualifiers" I got precisely two results, the first relating to Santali in Ol Chiki script, and the second to linguistic relativity in French, English, and German philosophy. So sorry, Cinderella, but I'm afraid your postpositional modifiers/qualifers aren't going to cut it as a rationalization for the sacred geodatecommas. We seem to be stuck with parenthesis for the geo, and a hodgepodge of parenthesis and apposition for the date. –Roy McCoy (talk) 15:35, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

Quoting or paraphrasing from the relevant pages: A modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure. Qualifier has a similar meaning/use. A modifier placed before the head is called a premodifier; one placed after the head is called a postmodifier. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition: preposition, postposition, or circumposition. A phrase is a group of words or even a single word. An attributive noun (or noun phrase) functions as a pre-modifier in a noun phrase - a prepositional modifier. Arizona is after (not before) Tuscon and therefore not an attributive noun (rather, it is an apposition? - yes, the term eluded me at the time, but not the construction to which it refers). Who would have thought I was being so novel by simply substituting "post" for "pre" to indicate that the qualification to the noun was being made "after" rather than "before". Ain't English grand. Regards, Cinderella157 (talk) 01:16, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Thank you, Cinderella157, for erroneously claiming that the state is an apposition. This enables me to correctly observe that we have a hodgepodge of parenthesis and apposition as our rationalization for both the geocomma and the datecomma. Dick denied that the state was an apposition before, and I granted that I could find that as a rationalization only for the datecomma. But now we have both for both. Thanks again. –Roy McCoy (talk) 01:38, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Replying:

1. Did Dicklyon deny "state" was an apposition? The point is that ... [parenthesis are one way to set off a disambiguating term, and commas are another] not that they are identical ... [or that apposition is the relevant concept]. This response occurred in the context of a question: Does anyone here think that apposition is identical to parenthesis? I read Dick's response as saying: "No, that is not the point. The point is how we disambiguate article titles with parenthesis or commas." To claim, "Dick denied that the state was an apposition", appears to me to be a leap that ignores the context and misrepresents what has been said. Perhaps Dick might comment as to what he intended.
2. To say, I have "erroniouslyerroneously claimed" ignores the question mark in my response that is less than unequivocal. However ...
3. The proposition I am responding to is that: parenthesis and apposition are mutually exclusive. Parenthesis can be appositive. Some appositional phrases are parenthetic but not all. There are both restrictive and non-restrictive appositions, of which, the latter are typically set off by commas (ie, are perenthetic). The two "sets" share an intersection. To that extent, both are correct and not so much of an "hodgepodge". Cinderella157 (talk) 10:25, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay, a Venn-diagram hodgepodge of parenthesis and apposition – that's even better. Since the year isn't either, it doesn't matter. And the prize for equivocality goes to you, with your question mark, obscure jargon and so forth – also for orthography, with your "erroniously", "apositive" and "perenthetic". But please: I would truly appreciate it if if you could explain to me why "[sic]" follows Elaine Byrne's use of the expression "less than equivocal" at https://www.broadsheet.ie/2011/03/31/dr-elaine-byrne-fighting-the-revolution-one-angry-old-man-at-a-time/. Thank you. –Roy McCoy (talk) 13:26, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

• Thanks King of Hearts for dealing with this. I think it's interesting that you write "two of them in Aurora, Colorado and one in Aurora, Illinois" rather than "two of them in Aurora, Colorado, and one in Aurora, Illinois". If this was owing to a natural instinct, I think the instinct is correct, and this despite any criticism that you wrote ungrammatically in omitting the comma. Your first school of thought, with its accompanying policy, is the most natural and (I think) normal, whether purportedly incorrect or not. The problem then, as you and others realize, is that you're then in violation of the MOS:GEOCOMMA rule. The problem, I suggest, may be with the rule rather than the exception. You say that "as far as [you] can tell no one seriously contests this rule in article prose", but I just recently read in a related discussion here that various style guides have been dropping the comma concerned, and (if I remember correctly) that about half the people in a certain space were doing likewise. If I had commented at that point, I would have said that when a state is really in apposition (this being the justification for the comma), it indeed generally appears in parentheses, with the state serving a distinguishing function rather than simply being part of the address. But I only mention that in passing. My opinion here is that the titling matter simply be left without a rule. Let editors title their articles as they wish, and the most natural and normal forms will presumably prevail, whether some people consider some of these grammatically incorrect or not. If this means that the rule is occasionally violated in titles, then so be it. It would hardly be the end of the world. –Roy McCoy (talk) 02:15, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
• Comment: Wrong venue?: I get that the above is more of an open discussion with no direct action proposed yet, but if there were to be any changes, the MoS isn't where we define how to handle article titles. Shouldn't this discussion, and any firm proposal that comes out of it, be held over at WT:TITLES? -- Netoholic @ 02:48, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  There are simply too many possible venues, including WP:NCE and a few others, so I just picked one and went with it. Any other talk pages can simply be pointed to this discussion as I've done. I don't think putting it at MoS is unreasonable given that one of the possible outcomes is carving out an exception to existing policy, which would probably need to be mentioned somewhere on the MoS page if implemented. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 03:01, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I've always felt like Tucson, Arizona, should have the comma when it's clearly a noun and not when it's trying to be an adjective. And that's the way I wish everyone felt and wrote (at least everyone who writes what I read). So there's that, for what it's worth. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:17, May 29, 2019 (UTC)

Good point, InedibleHulk. With your address-as-adjective case, we've got "1993 Aurora, Colorado shooting" for titles and "the Tucscon, Arizona climate" for text. I sense a progression here, though others supposably don't. –Roy McCoy (talk) 03:35, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

I sense it, too, a progression away from English as we know it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:39, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

Aye, supposedly. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:43, May 29, 2019 (UTC)

Supposably is a perfectly good word. It's in Collins, American Heritage, etc. etc., and I honestly don't know where the weird idea that there's something wrong with it came from. It doesn't mean the same thing as supposedly, though if you conflate the two you can lose the nuance. But to return to the previous point: we know English differently. If we didn't, everyone would already use it the same way and there wouldn't be any need for style guidance. Furthermore, I don't remember ever having seen a title such as "1993 Aurora, Colorado, shooting", and it's hard for me to even imagine such a load of commas in such a short series of words (unless in a series, which is what this looks like). If anyone can produce any examples, I'd like to see them. Here's a good one, though it's never appeared anywhere and hopefully never will: "the December 14, 1993, Aurora, Colorado, shooting". How about that one! ... I would also tend to say that I hadn't seen phrases such as "the Tucson, Arizona, climate", but I'm surprised when I google "the Tucson, Arizona" and discover that the first find is "in the Phoenix, Arizona, metropolitan area". That just doesn't look right to me... and ha, it's from Wikipedia! Let's see how it's done elsewhere. I'll take the first page of finds, and... 18 with comma, 84 without. The second page... 14 with, 59 without. Let's hop across the continent and try "the Norfolk, Virginia". The funny thing here is that the first find here too is from Wikipedia, and check this one out: "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Norfolk, Virginia article." But let's do the same as with Phoenix. First page of finds... 6 with, 56 without. Second page... 4 with, 45 without. Don't take my word for it – try it yourself, with any city and state. I think it'll always come out the same, which at least very strongly suggests that GEOCOMMA is contrary to normal English, and that jettisoning it would bring Wikipedia closer to English as most of us know it rather than progressing away from it. –Roy McCoy (talk) 06:04, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

• I follow the second and third schools of thought. MOS applies until such time as we change it. MOS requires that secondary elements of a geographical designation, or the year in the case of the MDY format, be set off in commas: a comma precedes and follows (unless followed by other punctuation or the end of the construction). I agree with this policy. MOS should also apply to titles (why not?), but any justifiable exception should be clearly explained on both the MOS and WP sides. The desire to minimize commas in titles is, I think, largely due to an optical problem in that the commas are more conspicuous and intrusive the shorter the phrase (such as a title) is. The best solution for titles is to avoid the question by placing the name or date at the end. Jmar67 (talk) 04:22, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  The problem with "MOS should also apply to titles" and "avoid the question by placing the name or date at the end" is that the MoS is a prescriptive formatting guideline, but WP:Article titles are named based on other considerations, especially WP:COMMONNAME, which may or may not follow that MoS. To a certain degree, WP:TITLES even supersedes other main policies like NPOV as indicated in WP:NPOVNAME. Now, in those situations where Wikipedia has some leeway in naming, looking to the MoS for some guidance can solve some debates, but you can't ever broadly say that MoS applies to all titles. As an example, the article Washington, DC Metropolitan Area Special Flight Rules Area is named precisely after the official and common name of the topic. It is "against" the MoS, but is absolutely the correct title to use per WP:TITLES. -- Netoholic @ 08:49, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  I understand. For the purpose of this discussion, I will treat the example as a justifiable exception (as I noted above). My point is that, in the interest of clarity and avoiding disputes, these agreed exceptions need to be addressed in the MOS and WP:TITLES. Jmar67 (talk) 10:09, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  WP:TITLES should defer to MOS on style questions but declare exceptions or address special cases, one of which could suggest placing names and dates at the end to avoid double commas. Jmar67 (talk) 18:27, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  Jmar67, then, if I'm following this logic chain correctly, you mean that MOS and TITLES should specifically note different rules applying here. I certainly agree that whatever we decide, it must be clearly stated in both. But supporting a different rule for each doesn't follow the second school of thought you opened with, as the 2nd implies that MOS and TITLE must use the exact same location comma rule no matter what. Only the first school of thought implies different rules for MOS sentences compared to TITLES, right? Unless I'm missing something, your closing and opening comments here are in conflict, and should be clarified. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 14:11, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

  I want MOS to apply to article titles to the extent that it can. However, there may be exceptions (such as the Flight Rules Area example above). In this case, WP:TITLES should address this exception by saying that titles using proper names override MOS, in this case permitting omission of the comma after "DC". (That exception should of course also apply to the article body.) But MOS should not mandate the trailing-comma form "city, state," or "month day, year," in titles if repositioning them to the end is agreeably better. Jmar67 (talk) 00:17, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

• Definitely the third one for the reasons given. The first is grammatically incorrect and the second looks plain weird (although maybe that's just to non-Americans like me). -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:16, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  Reordering the description just to avoid applying MOS is a poor solution -- actually no solution at all. It's like forcing phrasing like "up with which I will not put". Title are supposed to be clear and succinct, standing on their own. Applying the third "solution" runs directly counter to the purpose of the title. It's simply this: titles are not sentences, and should in no way always require exactly the same rules. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 18:59, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

  It also requires possibly hostile encounters with the editors of the articles concerned, "of which there has already been enough". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Roy McCoy (talk • contribs) 19:26, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

  True. To avoid that, perhaps we need some rules about how to avoid MOS rules.  ;) --A D Monroe III^(talk) 14:18, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

  Could be. Sorry about forgetting to sign that last comment. I was trying to be brief and succeeded too well. (I see, however, that other quick messages have also gone unsigned in the past – which isn't to say that I plan on repeating the error, and I hope I won't.) Later, after that posting, I was reading about apposition in the archives and found an interesting piece by EEng in Archive 143: ... Oh dear, I can't find the funny one about the helicopters and the men in black. I do find, however, his straight assertion that the year 2001 in "September 11, 2001" "is not an apposition, just a part of the date". I say it's just part of the date too, and that the fact that it isn't an apposition is obvious from the definition of apposition itself. I also find in the same place sroc's interesting confession: "Other editors agree that the year is in apposition in MDY dates; in fact, I learned that explanation from other Wikipedians." And then he went on to exploit this purported rationale incessantly. It's comical and sad at the same time.

  And here's another thing I found recently. I was trying to get to the talk page here, guessing at a shortcut and tried MOS:TALK. This led me, however, not to here but to WP:TPG, where I read in the first paragraph: "The purpose of an article's talk page (accessible via the talk or discussion tab) is to provide space for editors to discuss changes to its associated article or WikiProject. Article talk pages should not be used by editors as platforms for their personal views on a subject. When talk pages in other namespaces and userspaces are used for discussion and communication between users, discussion should be directed solely toward the improvement of the encyclopedia." This marked a further stage in my recent WP education, and I will keep it in mind. In fact I have pretty much always been motivated primarily by MOS concerns – I haven't been completely off-topic, at least – but I will try to be stricter about this from here onward. Let it be perfectly understood: Like Garner, I despise both the geocomma and the datecomma, however "grammatical" they may be regarded; and I would want both out of the MOS if possible. If this is impossible, I accept representing a possibly minority viewpoint (in this group! and okay, in style guides though there are some of these opposed to the commas that we haven't yet seen cited). Anything I may say that seems anecdotal or chatty will, I hope, be subordinate to this basic position – which implies, I believe, a fourth option in the... forthcoming RfC? I got one thank for my previous proposal that the current thread be considered the talk-page overture of a definitive RfC, but otherwise it remained unclear – at least to me – whether the present link-only RfC was the definitive one or not. This should be clarified, shouldn't it? Thanks. –Roy McCoy (talk) 15:40, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

  The black helicopters are at User:EEng#Museum_of_Seeing_the_Forest_Instead_of_the_Trees (skip down one or two subsections). EEng 17:49, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

  Thank you! I reread immediately and recommend the same to others. –Roy McCoy (talk) 17:58, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

• @King of Hearts: What is your brief and neutral statement? The statement as it stands (which terminates at the 00:56, 29 May 2019 (UTC) timestamp) is far too long for Legobot to handle, and so only a link is shown at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia style and naming. This problem also means that the RfC will not be publicised via the WP:FRS. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 11:22, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

  Was this an RfC? Please excuse my inexperience and consequent ignorance, but I didn't have the impression that a definitive wording for publication was intended. If it was, and something didn't get properly published, I think we nonetheless have a good discussion going here. I wanted to do some research and post on this tonight, but unfortunately had something to write and got into editing an article afterwards. I seem to remember seeing something about 24 hours in relation to this discussion, but I hope it can be extended if it's continuing to be fruitful and the stated problem remains unresolved. Thanks, ╠╣uw and everyone. –Roy McCoy (talk) 06:31, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  @Roy McCoy: At the top of this section is a box beginning "An editor has requested comments from other editors for this discussion", this is created by the template {{rfc}} and it also links to Wikipedia:Requests for comment. This thread is clearly intended to be an RfC even though WP:RFCBRIEF has not been observed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:42, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  Thank you, Redrose64. What do you recommend be done now? –Roy McCoy (talk) 13:09, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  ​I've followed your links and now get what you mean, thanks again. Can we consider the present thread as the pre-RfC talk-page discussion, withdraw the presently listed link-only RfC, and place a more definitive, in-compliance RfC at a later point? –Roy McCoy (talk) 15:57, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  That is not a decision for you or me; it is for the initiator, King of Hearts, to make. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:36, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  Granted, but if you have a good idea it might be helpful. You spotted the problem, so maybe you've thought of an appropriate solution. I didn't mean to suggest that you or I hijack anything, and I'm sorry if I did. –Roy McCoy (talk) 23:01, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  Okay, here's what I wanted to get and post, though I'm not sure it quite rates being called research: I just went back and found out when the MOS:GEOCOMMA discussion and addition took place. Editor sroc (who's still around, I think) introduced the topic on 1 May 2013. Several days of discussion followed, following which sroc declared a consensus and, apparently with no opposition at the time, posted the GEOCOMMA addition on 7 May. I stepped through the diffs, which wasn't hard because there wasn't much else going on that week; but the whole discussion can be seen in one piece at the point of the addition. Reference was made back to an earlier discussion, but this one was very short, with only four short messages from three editors. Interested parties may want to read the longer pre-addition discussion, and everyone should read the article talk-page discussions listed at the beginning of this thread if they haven't already. Hope this helps. –Roy McCoy (talk) 20:03, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

• King of Hearts: Thanks for getting this moving. For the same reasons as others have expressed above (Roy McCoy in particular), I also favor #1 as it relates to titles — the "address-as-adjective" approach. If not consistent with the letter of grammatical rule, it is at least consistent with much common usage and is a more sensible practice for our titles. ╠╣uw [talk] 13:41, 29 May 2019 (UTC)
• @King of Hearts: Thanks for the ping. Whatever we decide will have a considerable impact not only on the titles of articles but also on the prose within them. For example, consider the first sentence of James Holmes (mass murderer): “James Eagan Holmes (born December 13, 1987) is an American convicted murderer responsible for the 2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting in which he killed 12 people and injured 70 others at a Century 16 movie theater on July 20, 2012.” As you mentioned, the rule is clear when it comes to prose within articles, so “2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting” should be changed to “2012 Aurora, Colorado, shooting” within the article; however, since this is blue text that is linked, this would lead to a redirect, so would we simply change it to [[2012 Aurora, Colorado shooting|2012 Aurora, Colorado, shooting]]? That would be somewhat unnecessary. Therefore, I suggest that we insert the additional comma in titles of this nature. And, honestly, I suspect that people will eventually just get used to it. Some, notably Americans, might say that even Wikipedia’s mandated use of logical punctuation as opposed to aesthetic punctuation (“John wrote, “Hello.” v. “John wrote, “Hello”.) looks “odd.” --WikiWinters (talk) 15:52, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

@WikiWinters: There's nothing wrong with linking to a redirect when WP:TITLES disagrees with the MoS for article text. In this case, the article would stay the same and a redirect would be created with {{R from alternative punctuation}}. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:45, 29 May 2019 (UTC)

• Guidelines should be superseded when they aren't helpful anymore and in cases where we are trying to find newer policy, there is no point keeping one foot in the past and letting older consensus prevail over the situations now. Coming to MOS:GEOCOMMA, it would be an understatement to say that naming articles along its lines, for e.g. "Aurora, Colorado, shooting" is not suitable. So, the sensible course of action is to adopt something that we can make sense of, probably something along the lines of point 1 and less simplistically, point 3. Point 1 is clearly the easiest solution to the problem, and without arguing the semantics at hand, I am confident that "Aurora, Colorado shooting" is so much more intuitive than the other options being presented. Would I be open to other options? Surely, but is option 1 already doing the job at hand? Definitely. All we would need to do is to carve out an article titles exception to GEOCOMMA and have a separate policy in TITLES supersede it. --qedk (t 桜 c) 13:59, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
• It should match the guidance for prose. If not, prose will end up matching the title. For the options available, I vote for two. I guess I vote for three as well but I don't think that the comma after the state looks weird. I do, however, think that packing on modifiers does look and sound weird. I would rarely describe a shooting in Aurora, Colorado, in 1993 as the 1993 Aurora, Colorado, shooting. We are not limited for space and then the title is awkward to bold in the first paragraph because the title does not flow easily into a sentence to describe the article. So then it isn't done, which is fine, but really ends up being different than most articles. PopularOutcast^talk2me! 14:20, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  Prose "will end up matching the title" only if we dogmatically insist that there is only one rule to rule them all. If we state in MOS for prose and TITLES that there are differences (which we already do for things like not ending titles with full stops), then this won't happen. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 14:26, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

• I'd certainly go with the first school of thought. What's required in proper, full sentences can be disruptive in titles. (Should we end titles with full stops, and require a verb?) "Aurora, Illinois, shooting" looks like "lions, tigers, bears" -- a title of three different things that related for some reason here, while "Aurora, Illinois shooting" looks like a noun phrase, which is exactly what the title is supposed to be -- a single thing described by the three words. In fact, "Aurora Illinois shooting" (with no commas) reads just fine, and is still clear and unambiguous. I wouldn't say commas never go in titles ("I, Robot" would be wrong written as "I Robot"), but they should only go where they help clarify. Like robots, rules should serve us, not the other way around. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 16:46, 30 May 2019 (UTC)
• I have no opinion on whether we should use the closing comma in attributive nouns, but whatever is decided should apply to both titles and prose—or are we going to have a separate MoS for titles? Title styling has impact on article prose via hyperlinks, so they can't be separated.
  I get sick of seeing WP:COMMONNAME whipped out with regard to punctuation and other styling issues—those aren't issues COMMONNAME was ever meant to solve, and would only end up with more endless bickering over trivial titling issues—with, I imagine, a pseudorandom number of articles named "1980's in XXX" after several archives worth of talk-page "discussion". Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:48, 30 May 2019 (UTC)

  For sure. The idea of explicitly stating in the MOS and TITLE pages that the MOS applies to title text just like it does to other heading levels and article text has been brought up many times, and if I recall correctly generally got majority support, but not judged to be a consensus. Some editors explicitly claim commonname somehow trumps using our own style, though that argument seldom wins in actual title discussions. Dicklyon (talk) 00:59, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  It does win, though. Japanese has multiple competing romanization systems: the name 大野 can be romanized Ōno, Ôno, O-no, Ohno, Oono, Ono, and probably other ways. Sometimes names appear somewhat more frequently in one than another, usually because they appear more frequently in publications with a particular house style than in others with a different house style. Moves have succeeded based on one style being statistically slightly more prevalent than another, citing WP:COMMONNAME to override MOS:JAPAN. This is not an area WP:COMMONNAME was ever meant to deal with, and it makes a mess of our articles when we link to names in conflicting romanizations. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:58, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

• I am firmly in the #3 camp. We should probably discourage attributive nouns in titles as a general practice, but if they must be used for some reason, they should include the closing comma. I am in complete agreement with Curly Turkey that COMMONNAME is invoked entirely too often (and in my opinion incorrectly) in style discussions regarding titles. It would be nice to have a definitive discussion to settle the issue, at least as settled as things get around here. CThomas³ (talk) 00:06, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
• I am firmly with Cthomas3 on this, too. I had removed some unnecessary state disambiguators from some titles to avoid the geocomma problem, and most of those were fine until a guy got pissed at me for opposing his technical requests and dug up 5 of my moves to revert. See this. Dicklyon (talk) 00:55, 31 May 2019 (UTC)
• Picking up on a previous comment by Roy McCoy: While MOS:GEOCOMMA refers to commas separating geographical subdivisions, likely because that is the common method of separation, it is conceivable that parentheses could replace the commas in titles, e.g. "2012 Aurora (Colorado) shooting". Parentheses are frequently used in titles for disambiguation, and this is a form of disambiguation. Jmar67 (talk) 01:34, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  Yes, that would fix the problem, but probably wouldn't be considered natural. Another proposed fix was "2012 shooting in Aurora, Colorado". I like that better. Dicklyon (talk) 02:28, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  On the "3 schools of thought" point, they're all valid, except that in the thought that "City, State" is always a valid drop-in replacement for "City" one may need to add some appropriate punctuation, namely the closing comma, if the phrase continues without other punctuation. This is true in text, and titles are no different. If one thinks that the matching commas look weird, one can either just get over that or re-order the title to look less weird. It's not that hard, and need not bring up any conflict between MOS and TITLE as Netoholic wants to do. Dicklyon (talk) 02:49, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  Strangely enough, I too agree with Jmar67 – but only in a case such as this, where there is an Aurora, Colorado and an Aurora, Illinois, and a genuine occasion for parenthetical distinction. (I just now inadvertently created a good example of where a comma after a state – i.e. "Colorado" – would not be wanted and possibly omitted by just about everyone, even those who generally favor the rule in question, as with the comma a three- rather than two-element series would be implied.)
  

  So this is what I've been wanting to say. Is there anyone among us who honestly feels that "Columbus (Georgia)" is actually equivalent to "Columbus, Georgia"? But that's what the purported logic of the rule requires. As sroc said at the beginning: "My view is that they [the final elements of geographical references] should be followed by a comma as the final element is effectively treated as parenthetical, that is, the commas are used in place of brackets. For example: Portland, Oregon means Portland (Oregon) [...] ". Except it doesn't, at least not exactly, and any difference is enough to invalidate this reason.
  

  When it's not parenthetical, the state is argued to be appositional; but this too is dubious. Appositional elements refer to the same thing, while "Aurora" and "Colorado" clearly do not. And it's the same with dates: "April 17" and "2013" quite clearly do not refer to the same thing, as I'm sure we will all agree.
  

  And what have all of us actually learned? (Aside, that is, from a minority who have familiarity with the obligatory-comma rule – I never noticed it myself before now, and I was a professional typesetter, proofreader and editor for nearly fifty years.) We've learned, simply, that "27 Hillcrest Drive, Jeffersonville, Ohio" is an address, nothing more (the same as "April 17, 2013" is simply a date). Nobody ever said anything whatever about parentheses or appositives, and it would have seemed rather silly to do so. These are only justifications for a rule that seems to have popped up somehow for no genuinely good reason. I mean, what's in apposition in the cited address? Is "Jeffersonville" in apposition with "27 Hillcrest Drive"? And then "Ohio" with "Jeffersonville"? So you've got three elements, all in apposition with one another? It just doesn't make sense, and the comma intruded on the basis of this pretext clutters the texts concerned. Remember Garner, who disapproves of comma, state as adjective but apparently hates it with the comma: "To make matters worse, some writers place a second comma after the state. Thus, using a city plus the state as an adjective [with the comma –Roy] disrupts the flow of the sentence [...] Such constructions contribute to noun plague, lessen readability, and bother literate readers." That's it in a nutshell. They bother and annoy, grammar rule or not. States and years are neither parenthetical elements nor appositives, and so no bracing is needed or called for. I say scratch the heretofore sacred geocomma and datecomma, perhaps even making that rather than titles-only the subject of the RfC. Then you wouldn't have to be bothered with exceptions, having something one way in one place and another way in another, having to (try to) reword common titles, etc. –Roy McCoy (talk) 03:23, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  I think I disagree. The secondary parts of geographic names and dates are logically parenthetical elements with a defining function and therefore need to be set off, with closure of some sort. The address format is based on this successively defining nature of the elements and is not "just an address". Also, I do consider the Columbus and Portland examples as equivalent. The parentheses are just an alternative method of setting off. Jmar67 (talk) 03:59, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  And the tertiary parts? Portland (Oregon) (USA)? –Roy McCoy (talk) 04:03, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  04:03 (May 31) (2019)? –Roy McCoy (talk) 04:07, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  Good style would call for (Oregon, USA) and (May 31, 2019). Jmar67 (talk) 04:20, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  That's okay on the address, but I've never seen anything like "04:03 (May 31, 2019)". I think we have another debunking of the parenthetical business when we go to quaternary: "53 Main Street (Portland, Oregon, USA)"??? That's hardly equivalent, and barely imaginable. –Roy McCoy (talk) 04:32, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  In the proper context, I can imagine it. Jmar67 (talk) 04:42, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  So can I, but we're stretching them parentheses. –Roy McCoy (talk) 04:45, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

• Here's a serious question. Does anyone here think that apposition is identical to parenthesis? Please say so if you do. If no one does, it will be taken as commonly agreed that it is not. This is clear enough to me, but perhaps someone thinks otherwise. The relevance of the question will be demonstrated. Thank you. –Roy McCoy (talk) 13:23, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  Please don't take silence or failure to agree with your strawman as a more general agreement with your position. The point is that parenthesis are one way to set off a disambiguating term, and commas are another, not that they are identical or that apposition is the relevant concept. Dicklyon (talk) 15:49, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  You seem to understand rather well, Dicklyon, and I don't think I'm underestimating you. I'm certainly trying to be as sympathetic as I can to your grammatical viewpoint, which I completely share in regard to possessive it's, for example (assuming that we actually share the same opinion on that, which I think is a fair assumption). I'm sure we have enough in common that we can continue to discuss this, but first I'm going to wait and see to be sure that no one thinks apposition and parenthesis are the same. I'll give this a couple of hours before coming back to it. I haven't, by the way, used any straw-man argumentation, but (at least at this point) have merely asked a germane question. –Roy McCoy (talk) 16:27, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  Roy McCoy, I don't think the two are identical, but they are definitely in the same ZIP code, so to speak. Certainly Portland (Oregon) is only a disambiguator, while Portland, Oregon could also be considered an alternate aggregate name (or potentially an address, as you have previously stated). Not fully congruent to be sure, but one could be a substitute for the other in many circumstances. Certainly if I came across Portland (Oregon), especially in a title, I don't believe I would think it looked odd or out of place. CThomas³ (talk) 16:33, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

  Okay, we're all agreed that apposition is not identical to parenthesis. The two are in the same area, as Cthomas3 has noted; and we don't necessarily agree about anything else, as Dick has correctly observed. But we do also agree that an address – or geographical reference, to use sroc's term – is a series of elements, right? (street, city, state, country, etc.) I again invite disagreement, if anyone disagrees. –Roy McCoy (talk) 02:21, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

  And do we also agree that a date – or temporal reference, to adapt the other term – is a series of elements (hour and minute, month, day, year, etc.)? –Roy McCoy (talk) 15:45, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

  Dick is correct that apposition is not the relevant concept for the geocomma, the basic topic of discussion here. I didn't remember – excuse me – that the confusion between apposition and parenthesis was centered primarily around the datecomma, a tangential though related issue. The relevant geocomma concept is then parenthesis – about which we will remember Cthomas3's recent observation that "Portland (Oregon) is only a disambiguator", with which I agree wholeheartedly.
  

  But what I want to do quickly here, aside from observing that we now have tacit agreement that both addresses and dates are series of elements (which is about as hard to argue against as that apposition and parenthesis are distinct concepts), is to further express my sympathy for Dick – and, by extension, for the other hyper-grammarians here. I previously stated that I shared his odium for glaring grammatical errors such as possessive it's, but I've thought about it since and my sympathy now goes beyond that.

1. Again, I too hate grammatical errors that I regard as glaring, and I similarly wish to correct them or see them corrected.
2. Though I don't like certain MOS provisions and the way they have been applied, are being applied and may continue to be applied, I nonetheless can assume that Dick's good-faith edits have largely been proper and worthy, so that in the end I should likely be more appreciative and less critical of such corrections – i.e., they may well have generally been for the good. (How magnanimous of me. :-)
3. Dick has properly corrected me before, as on my apparent assumption that others shared my aversion to the width of the en dash in number ranges. I therefore have to grant that he can be right and I can be wrong sometimes.
4. He seems to have been occasionally victimized by his advocacy, and one generally has to grant some respect to those willing to continue to stand up for their beliefs regardless of the consequences.
5. If I start to regard the hyper-grammarians as a somewhat sad group of persons who have lost their ability to believe in anything else and thus grasp onto grammar as if it were a religion or political creed, well... I suppose I'm such a person myself and that's likely why I'm here, rather than elsewhere trying to win souls or promote revolution or defeat plastic or whatever.

And that's the end of that list and this post. Its purpose is to promote consensus, as I think mutual respect is a precondition for consensus generally, and especially in forums such as this one with a history of acrid contention. –Roy McCoy (talk) 17:46, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

1) There's no such thing as a grammatical "error". There just isn't. There are different ways of writing things, is all. There are ways of writing things that are rare (or unique) enough to not be appropriate. Because they would be distracting or confusing. If I decide to write my articles with an interpunct (·) between each word, that's not an "error": it's exactly what I intended to do. However, you could describe it as "confusing" or "distracting" or "unhelpful" or "disruptive" or whatever, and roll it back on that basis. But its not an "error". The word "error" is not helpful in the context of discussing punctuation usually. (The exception would be when a person writes something that they themselves didn't intend.) If it is confusing, that is a problem. If it is distracting (which would probably apply to most rare and highly idiosyncratic stylings), that is a problem. It the meaning is clear and the usage is not outlandish, then what's the problem.

2) "Tucson, Arizona" is a unitary name that happens to have a comma in the middle of it. Some names do have punctuation in them. will.i.am is a unitary name that has two periods in the middle of it. Panic! at the Disco has a bang in the middle of it. And so forth.

India.arie has a period in it. Does that mean that "India" is the end of one sentence, and "Arie" the beginning of the next? Of course not. The period is part of the name. If the person had chosen to use a comma in her name instead, would we have to match it? Instead of "A new album by india,arie was released...", would we have to write "A new album by india,arie, was released..."? Of course not.

Well "Tucson, Arizona" is best treated in the same way. "Tucson, Arizona" is best treated as a unitary name that has a comma in the middle of it because that is how it is perceived and used: it refers to a place called Tucson (the one in Arizona, to be precise). If our language had developed slightly differently, maybe we would be writing "Tucson-in-Arizona", and the meaning would be the same.

This is probably why if you treat "Tucson, Arizona" as a unitary name with a comma in the middle of it, you can write more clearly, and you don't have to worry about apposition or other pettifoggery, and you don't have spend energy worrying about whether the First Gods, emerging from the mists of chaos at the beginning of time, intended the term "article" to include article titles or not. If the MOS says different, meh. There are a lot of rules, and some of them are silly. Herostratus (talk) 21:12, 2 June 2019 (UTC)

I both agree and disagree with you, Herostratus, but I don't immediately know how to express either my agreement or my disagreement. I think it's more a question of how we want to express our agreement, namely in the MoS if possible – that being, again, what the discussion on this page is supposed to be about. Are you, or could you be, another advocate of the stated fourth school of thought, that the MoS be modified to permit the absence of the second comma in both titles and article text, and thus to obviate the necessity for either violation, exception, or enforced rewording? I myself can allow for differences between text and titles, the latter for example not requiring end punctuation or a verb (per A D). Not acknowledging , however, the legitimacy of the current geo/datecomma rules (or even their existence in the minds of an apparently large majority of writers), I see no need for an exception or differing policy in this regard. So I hope you'll come back and bring it a bit more home here, thanks.

As for the disagreement, I think you're overstating the case and that certain things may be properly considered grammatical errors. Your exception is "when a person writes something that they themselves didn't intend", but that may immediately be extended to "something that other people don't understand" – or that trips them up unnecessarily, or that violates firmly established spelling norms, etc. I maintain that a degree of error exists, however, and I don't share Dick's "that's absolutely wrong!" attitude when it relates, for example, to a construction used by ten times as many writers/editors (see the Norfolk, Virginia – example above!) as the purportedly correct form.

Anyway, I hope to hear from you again. I need all the help I can get. We need all the help we can get. And the Wikipedia readers and editors clearly need all the help they can get. –Roy McCoy (talk) 17:56, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

• Orthography is not grammar. In printed or electronic text we can use whatever typographic conventions are clear . The actual grammar of a sentence is the same regardless of what punctuation is used. Titles are furthermore a special form of writing, to which some of the normal grammar rules do not apply., and certainly the usual orthographic rules do not apply. It doesn't make sense to consider the use as an analogy. Personally, I would find it clearer to clarify all place names with parentheses at least in titles, regardless of possible conflicts. we could equally well use a dash, or a subscript--its just a typographical convention. (We have unfortunately decided not to do any of these, but they would serve to indicate the title is a special non-sentence expression.) Myself, in titles here I write both commas. I always write paired commas in such cases, but it's just a habit. I don't care what other people do, and I see no needto fix those that are done differently. DGG ( talk ) 02:14, 4 June 2019 (UTC)
• Basically agree with DGG. Titles are not article prose, and they have their own quirks as to how they're styled. And basically each case should be assessed on its merits, with reader clarity the number-one priority. That means titles like Rochester, New York, shooting are out. Just call it Shooting in Rochester, New York or whatever.  — Amakuru (talk) 11:15, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Flagicons

Hi, there is a discussion regarding the use of {{flagicon}} on the MOS:FLAG page. Please could you comment there regarding updating this part of the MOS. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski ^{(talk • contribs)} 10:34, 31 May 2019 (UTC)

Hyphens bite!

And always will.

"Hyphens in paper titles harm citation counts and journal impact factors"
article at Phys.org at ieee.org DOI: 10.1109/TSE.2019.2915065

Shenme (talk) 14:28, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Then I shudder to think of the effect of semicolons. EEng 19:56, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Curly symbols

Can anybody here provide further assistance regarding this issue? Thanks in advance. Greetings--Hildeoc (talk) 15:16, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

What issue? Single quotes are used in wiki markup for italics and boldface, and they're also used as non-markup for apostrophes and normal single quotes. So it's not immediately obvious if the final single quote on ''Jones''' is inside or outside the italics (it's outside). A similar phenomenon happens when naively writing sets using naked braces inside the {{math}} template (among others) – the closing brace isn't the one you want it to be. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 15:35, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Yes, we can help – agreeing to delete the third list item, which is not a practical reason for which straight quotes are used on the English Wikipedia. Support for that. –Roy McCoy (talk) 15:38, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

There are apostrophe templates created for this purpose, {{'}} or {{'s}}, As in "Dynasty's first season premiered on ..." (wikitext: ''Dynasty''{{'s}} first season). These templates are noted in the section Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Apostrophes, but perhaps the third bullet point should be replaced with an additional explanation of these templates.— TAnthony^Talk 16:57, 4 June 2019 (UTC)

Okay Hildeoc, Deacon Vorbis, TAnthony and anyone else interested. I got rid of the non-reason third list item and put its content and that of TAnthony's message into the main text. Anybody who doesn't like this can change it, but don't revert it because it's better than it was before. –Roy McCoy (talk) 02:46, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

(Thanks for the ping; I certainly don't mind). –Deacon Vorbis (carbon • videos) 02:54, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

You're welcome, Deacon Vorbis. I think the reworking is okay, but I might have made a technical goof, and perhaps the January, 2016 Internet Explorer thing could be updated. (Just kidding about January.) –Roy McCoy (talk) 03:04, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Discussions on MOS subpages

I recently added two subpage discussions to the "Style discussions elsewhere" section above. Should there be (or is there already) a policy of having all MOS discussions here in one place? I did not realize until now that watching a page does not include subpages. Jmar67 (talk) 11:28, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Reverted revert

@EEng: Concerning this edit and revert of mine. The phrase "is uniformly continuous" is a standard assumption in discussing a function in a mathematical context. That the function "exists" makes no sense. Such a discussion cannot assume that something exists. Please restore the original wording. Jmar67 (talk) 13:36, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

The current example (Throughout this proof we assume that f exists) says nothing about a function, just that something exists. The old example (Throughout this proof we assume that the function f is uniformly continuous) adds verbiage for no purpose. Anyway, this is MOS, not a math textbook. EEng 14:25, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I changed the example to We construct S as follows, which avoids your concerns. But since I'm in a pissy mood I'll just add that if you really think it doesn't make sense to say that a function exists, you shouldn't be editing math-related content. EEng 15:36, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

This is not math-related content, it's MOS-related content. Martinevans123 (talk) 15:56, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I suggest you vanish, buster. EEng 17:15, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I have a degree in math and I know what I'm talking about. The original example was fine. It was intended to illustrate scientific writing. Jmar67 (talk) 17:38, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, well, I have a degree in math as well -- and mine's from [name of breathtakingly prestigious institution redacted] -- and it's quite obvious that you do not, in fact, know what you're talking about. Example: Define f(n) to be the polynomial with integer coefficients which maps each integer n>0 to the nth prime; but f does not exist (a fact which I certainly hope I need not explain to you). QED. EEng 20:25, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I have The Three Degrees and I generally haven't got a clue what I'm talking about. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 17:46, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I had a vinyl copy of Q.E.D. once too, but I traded it for some Wu-Tang Clan. Martinevans123 (talk) 20:34, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

I doubt anyone here thought you didn't know what you were talking about. The point however should be illustrative and short, as this is a MOS, and not anything else. --Izno (talk) 18:06, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Well, actually, I am suggesting he doesn't know what he's talking about. EEng 20:25, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

• @Redrose64: Concerning link to edit: I work on mobile and was not aware that a link generated there would cause problems. Jmar67 (talk) 19:59, 5 June 2019 (UTC)

Long Play Album (LP)

Is there an established style guideline for how to identify a music album as 'long play' or LP? I see references to 'CD' or 'EP' in places. Or should a release simply be characterised as 'album'. Given developments in music sales, songs could be released on multiple formats, e.g. single, LP, CD, or music file, etc…. I think it bears noting the original format at least. I couldn't find guidelines other than the formatting of an album title versus a song title.

Example: "AC-DC was a song on the 1974 LP …" Thanks, ogenstein (talk) 00:27, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

Whenever possible, stick with the most general term. The physical format is usually not relevant—an album remains an album whether it's an LP, 8-Track, casette, CD, DVD-Audio, or collection of digital files. The "AC-DC" example should thus read:

"AC-DC" is a rock song by Sweet from the April 1974 album Sweet Fanny Adams ...

... unless we're talking about something that appeared on only one format of the album (for example, the Minutemen's cover of "Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love" appeared on the LP of Double Nickels on the Dime, but not any of the CD releases). Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:46, 6 June 2019 (UTC)

That makes sense. I can work with that and will modify that page. Thanks for the clarification. ogenstein (talk) 01:42, 6 June 2019 (UTC)