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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by EEng (talk | contribs) at 20:19, 23 March 2021 (→Is there a rule somewhere on whether to use "actor" for all thespians, or just male ones?: +). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Style discussions elsewhere

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.

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

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Non-breaking spaces with written-out units

As a follow-up to topic-specific discussions at Talk:Hassium and User talk:DePiep#MOS and NBSP, it seems that the current MOS guideline on the usage of non-breaking spaces when separating numbers from written-out units (e.g. 5 kilometers (instead of 5 km); 118 elements) is open to interpretation. It advises to use non-breaking spaces when line breaks are awkward, which they seem to be in this case; however, implementing this would apparently require making heavy changes to lots of articles, as it is not strongly established as are the examples given in the MOS section.

I thus ask, should the same guideline for quantities and abbreviated units be followed for fully spelled-out units? Should non-breaking spaces be used only with abbreviations, or always with units and quantities? I would like to establish a more definite MOS guideline, in which one or the other is widely agreed upon as common practice. ComplexRational (talk) 00:46, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • I really, really wish people would stop jumping straight into a project-wide RfC before working with other editors to frame the questions to be posed. I urge you to withdraw this. And MOSNUM is probably the right place for this. (Main MOS vs subsidiary pages is a longstanding problem.) EEng 01:26, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Where else would you suggest discussing this, seeing as its outcome is not specific to the articles for which this was discussed, and the question is pretty straightforward from these discussions? If it can be held elsewhere, I will withdraw; however, I don't think that place is MOSNUM because this issue pertains to MOS:NBSP, which is not its own MOS sub-page. I'm open to ideas. ComplexRational (talk) 02:02, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'd suggest discussing it right here (or at Talk:MOSNUM, but since ultimately it's an aesthetic, not technical, issue I guess here is fine.) There are plenty of people here who have thought a lot about formatting issues, and many have outside professional experience, and with their participation I suspect the issue can either be resolved or boiled down to a clearcut question. Open-ended RfCs like you've started, which pull random people from all over into an unstructured discussion, just end up a mess. EEng 03:28, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I withdrew it as an RfC. Let's play it out as a regular discussion now; I apologize for being unaware of this potential complication. ComplexRational (talk) 09:53, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Ping to prevent archiving. EEng 12:49, 27 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I don't see the "jumping into an RfC" that EEng is referring to here. I do see a reasonable description by ComplexRational of a MOS detail to be clarified somehow. Do I miss some invisible redacted editing? Please clarify. As it stands now, the OP is correct and relevant to me. -DePiep (talk) 00:01, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, obviously, like the OP said: he had set this up as an RfC but later withdrew it at my urging. EEng 00:28, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, that 'obvious' part is not visible then?, like in an talk edited afterwards (ouch)? Must I do homework research to see it? -DePiep (talk) 00:34, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Jesus Christ, the OP wrote, just above here: Okay, I withdrew it as an RfC. 01:46, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the point that is puzzling both DePiep and me is there seems to be no trace of the !RfC for us to see what issues had been raised. Starting an RfC and then withdrawing it should surely leave something in a history somewhere. There are no links, nor anything in contributions that I can find. What am I missing? --RexxS (talk) 14:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The most recent diff before I withdrew upon EEng's suggestion was [1]. All that changed since then was removal of the RfC template; the content of my original post is the same now as it was then. ComplexRational (talk) 14:43, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

In traditional typography, typesetters would ensure that sentences didn't break onto another line at a point where the result was a new line starting with something that didn't make sense alone, or where the break would produce a semantic dissonance. So they would avoid lines starting with an abbreviation:

  • something something ... a distance of 15
    km

as well as lines that changed meaning when the next line was read:

  • something something ... a cost of $5
    million

In electronic document processing, when line length can change with screen resolution or window size, the non-breaking space was used to prevent those sort of breaks from happening. I don't believe there has ever been any rationale for placing a non-breaking space between numbers and normal recognisable English words, because those don't produce problems, other than in cases like the second example. There is really nothing wrong with seeing:

  • something something ... a distance of 15
    kilometres

and it is especially ludicrous to extend the fetish for non-breaking spaces in quantities to normal counted items. There is nothing wrong with reading:

  • something something ... a squad of 24
    football players

The examples at MOS:UNITNAMES reflect these simple principles, and I can't see what other interpretation could be made of the present guidance:

  • Use a non-breaking space ({{nbsp}} or  ) between a number and a unit symbol, or use {{nowrap}} ...
  • ... and a normal space is used between a number and a unit name.

If somebody wants to change those guidelines, then they really should be proposing what changes they want made and the reasons for them. --RexxS (talk) 19:07, 27 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Just for the record, I wasn't proposing a change. I was merely asking for clarification, and if any disagreement were to arise, then firmly establish one way or another. What is written here makes sense, now I only propose that it is made crystal clear for other (copy)editors in the MOS:NBSP section (to use only with abbreviations). ComplexRational (talk) 00:10, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) @RexxS:, these examples are undisputed, and are clear by WP:NBSP and WP:MOSUNIT. Minor detail: your example of 15<regularspace>kilometres is not in the MOS explicitly, but well observed, also by {{Convert}} — end of detail.
Note: for simplicity, an "_" (underscore) says NBSP.
A question arose when reading in MOS:NBSP: It is desirable to prevent line breaks where breaking across lines might be confusing or awkward. -- note the criterium "awkward". The examples given are (1) unit symbols - no problem, see before, and (2) exampes of number-in-proper-name (Boeing_747).
Some editors state that the "awkward" situation may also occur in situations with a number inline, i.e. in running text. Examples (in here): element_114, the expected magic 114_protons, ....
My (opposing) point is that such number-word combinations are not awkward, can reasionably occur in any running sentence, are part of a reading habit, and so are not 'awkward' and do not allow an NBSP. Otherwise, this whole enwiki could require a MOS-change in ~every article, or have inconsistent styles between articles re this line-breaking.
So, first question: do we recognise this is a Good MOS Question to discuss? -DePiep (talk) 00:25, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
There's long been a need for the nbsp/nobreak guidance to be improved. I've never done anything about it because I realized some cases would need a discussion. EEng 00:28, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@DePiep: It certainly seems that something ought to be done to educate editors about when to use (and not use) non-breaking spaces. I just looked at the Island of stability article you pointed out. Over 200 non-breaking spaces. Seriously? I've just removed four that you could see at a glance occur at places where the line could never break. No doubt somebody will revert me, citing MoS instead of thinking for themselves. I'm not sure repeating the already crystal clear guidance in MoS is the solution though. Either they never read MoS or they don't understand what a line break is. Either way, tinkering with the MoS won't have any effect on them. As for your actual examples, I've long ago given up trying to convince others that there's absolutely nothing wrong with reading
  • Flerovium, with the expected magic 114
    protons, was first synthesized in 1998
Although to get a line break there, you would have to be viewing on a screen with a maximum line length of less than 40 characters. Even my 1978 vintage TRS-80 could manage that. --RexxS (talk) 03:06, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • If 114 protons can't be broken, then you may as well say that every number has to be followed by an nbsp, always, and that would be silly.
  • I do think Z = 112 shouldn't break, though that would be better coded as {{nobr|Z = 112}} than the current Z&nbsp;=&nbsp;112
  • I'm not sure that all the examples at MOS:NBSP belong there, and I wonder if there shouldn't be some other cases listed.
EEng 04:20, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
User:RexxS: that is my understanding of MOS:NBSP too, including its background (typography). It's just, I stopped editing because of EW, started a talk, and involved editors correctly started a wider talk here. But I see no need to admonish other editors, instead we could use a clearer MOS text and explanation here, for fellow editors. -DePiep (talk) 08:28, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I now see that the section title here is a much narrower issue than the wide one ComplexRational and I were discussing/editing. As the Island of stability example show, it was and is about all of MOS:NBSP. This complicates/disturbs this talk flow, I must excuse. (how to proceed?). -DePiep (talk) 08:32, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@EEng and DePiep: Apologies, I was too focused on the quantities issues and not enough on the general nbsp guidance, which does seem to be missing. IMHO, we should have a guideline that says something like
  • Numbers followed by an ordinary English word (not an abbreviation, or similar) do not require a non-breaking space between them in normal circumstances.
There are also many circumstances where a non-breaking space is unnecessary because a line break can't happen there. There are three examples in Island of stability: in the caption of the infobox (the width is fixed, regardless of window size); in reference number 5 (too close to the start of a line for a line break to be possible); and in the table caption "Most stable isotopes of superheavy elements (Z ≥ 104)" (the table can't become narrow enough to wrap the caption onto another line). I've tried pushing the zoom up to 250% and narrowing the window to its minimum, but I can't find a setting that could cause a line break where one had been placed. Nevertheless, I don't suppose that is anything we can, or should, try to give guidance about in MoS for fear of causing more confusion. --RexxS (talk) 14:06, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
In the first image, a line break appeared at 70% zoom on my computer screen, and indeed was awkward. What exactly are you suggesting would risk more confusion? The MoS is supposed to make things as clear as possible, and I wouldn't have started this thread had it been clear from the beginning (echoing EEng – There's long been a need for the nbsp/nobreak guidance to be improved.). ComplexRational (talk) 14:40, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for explaining how you got the line break in the image caption; I hadn't considered zooming out that far. But do you think anybody actually reads Wikipedia at 70% zoom? I can't even get any of my browsers to zoom at 70% to see the effect. Still, it's possible, so best to leave in the {{nowrap}} in that case. The general point about infobox images with captions shorter than the image width is worth understanding, though.
What I am suggesting is that there are many cases where we simply don't need a non-breaking space, i.e. whenever it's not possible for the line to break at that point, but that it's difficult to try to give foolproof guidance to cover those cases, so I don't think we can come up with a form of words that would be helpful. Can you?
Do you agree with my suggested clarification above: Numbers followed by an ordinary English word (not an abbreviation, or similar) do not require a non-breaking space between them in normal circumstances. and if not, why not? --RexxS (talk) 16:33, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense, I understand what you're saying about captions. Would it then also be better to use {{nobr|1=''Z'' = 114}} (for example) throughout the article, if this would be preferred to a pair of nbsp's? (On an unrelated note, maybe a new template should be created following whatever this discussion establishes, as this is pretty common in chemistry and physics articles.) ComplexRational (talk) 18:18, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with this wording, it addresses the elephant in the room and is easy enough to follow. I would specifically use it as an antithesis to the MOS points advising nbsp with units (70_km) or parts of the name (Airbus_A380), though I suppose saying "not an abbreviation" already addresses that. The only thing that may raise questions is "normal circumstances" – I'd rather leave that out and add an additional bullet point saying something along the lines of Non-breaking spaces are not required in fixed-with table cells or image captions, especially when the text is not long enough to wrap., or else work out through discussion what the most common exceptions would be (that would otherwise confuse editors unfamiliar or too familiar with MOS). ComplexRational (talk) 18:18, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Most editors, in my experience, prefer {{nowrap}} over multiple consecutive non-breaking spaces in a phrase. It makes the wikitext more readable for other editors (the same reason we prefer to avoid html entities where possible).
The "normal circumstances" would be to cover exceptions like
  • ... his fee for the service was $50
    thousand.
where a non-breaking space between the number and the next word would avoid giving the reader the impression the fee was $50 until they read on to the next line. But I'm happy to accommodate other views such as giving examples of specific exceptions instead of stating "normal circumstances".
While I think about it, there is a good case for what I called the "semantic dissonance" to be noted as a rule in other places as well:
  • ... the great-grandnephew of Queen Mary
    II
To anyone familiar with Tudor/Stuart history of England, it first reads as Mary I of England, then as Mary II of England when the next line is reached and obviously should be avoided. That represents one of the very few phrases where I would have no hesitation in recommending the use of a non-breaking space for cogent, rather than aesthetic reasons.--RexxS (talk) 19:26, 1 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
This is already covered at MOS:NUM, to the extent any of this needs any rule-mongering. It advises using non-breaking spaces in strings like 5 cm, but it does not advise doing this when using spelled-out words. It doesn't advise against it, either. Like most things, it is left to editorial discretion. Nothing is broken. No, we do not need another template, since {{nobr}} and {{nbsp}} work fine. So does just using &nbsp;. Yes, it is WP:Common sense to non-breakify certain strings like "$50 thousand", and "Mary II". No, we don't need a rule about it, or we would've already had one by now. No, we do not need anyone going around inserting non-breaking spaces robotically in proximity to every number they see, per WP:MEATBOT ("ain't broke, don't 'fix' it").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  11:29, 3 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

NBSP for numeric followed by words

Hi all, I recently put up Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/1985 World Snooker Championship/archive2 for FAC. SandyGeorgia commented that there should be some additional non-breaking spaces for items such as "15 seeds, 103 entrants, 32 participants". I don't really mind putting these in, but wanted to clarify our MOS, and how it effects these types of phrases. My understanding at WP:NBSP is that we should use these on names, such as World War 2, and measurements, such as 10 Miles. However, should we also use these on regular expressions, such as "20 people"? I don't mind either way, but wanted to clarify before I do wholesale changes. Best Wishes, Lee Vilenski (talk • contribs) 14:19, 10 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The guideline gives patchy and somewhat conflicting advice on this entire subject. I'm going to give you what I think will be useful guidance, but we must brace ourselves for people to leap out at us from all corners of the project to denounce what I say as at best the product of unfathomable ignorance, and at worst detrimental to the moral fiber of the nation.
There are two (maybe more, but two I can think of offhand) things we're trying to prevent:
  • (1) You don't want tiny fragments that look odd alone stranded on the start of a line. Thus World War{nbsp}2 and Henry{nbsp}VIII.
  • (2) You don't want two things separated by a linebreak if the reader, seeing just the first part, will be momentarily misled and have to back up and rethink when he sees the bit on the next line. Thus $2{nbsp}million, because if the million goes on the next line the reader first thinks "Two dollars", and then when he sees the million he has to back up and think "Oh, wait, Two million dollars". (This is a peculiarity of the fact that money symbols go at front of quantities rather than at the end as with other units. Can anyone think of a similar example not involving money?)
(3) Notice that the logic of (2) doesn't arise with normal quantities like 15 seeds or 2 million dollars (i.e. no nbsp used in these cases) because as the reader scans "15<linebreak>seeds" there's nothing misleading about 15 alone at the end of the line, and the same for scanning "2<linebreak>million dollars" or "2 million<linebreak>dollars". When you think about it, if you required nbsp in constructions like that, then you're pretty much saying every number anywhere must be followed by an nbsp, and that can't be right. So I would not put {nbsp} in your examples.
(4) Units of measure are a special case. By the logic of (3), there's no {nbsp} in 10 kilometers. However, I think the guideline does recommend an {nbsp} in the case of 10{nbsp}km, because at the start of a line km looks weird in a way kilometer doesn't. (km is what's called a unit symbol, whereas kilometer is what's called a unit name, and there are several other ways in which unit symbols and unit names are treated differently, so there's nothing odd about treating them differently here.)
Perhaps the principles laid out above can be the start of a revival of this thread. EEng 03:04, 12 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Or perhaps not. In the meantime, here are some other places I think (comment invited, of course) nbsp would be needed or not needed. Probably some or all of these are give by others in the posts above but I want to get them down while they're on my mind.
Needed:
  • In DMY dates e.g. 28{nbsp}May or 28{nbsp}May 1935, because at least some readers will find separation of the day-in-month from the month odd. (Further explanation on request as to why this is different from the case of 10 kilometers.)
  • In MDY dates e.g. May{nbsp}28, 1935, because "28, 1935" looks ludicrous at the start of a line.
  • He responded, "Better you than{nbsp}I." or The smallest reading was{nbsp}5.
  • 9:30{nbsp}a.m. because I think it's somewhat analogous to a unit symbol (see above); and definitely 9:30{nbsp}am, because "am" alone and separated from the "9:30" could cause the reader to trip and fall.
  • several{nbsp}.22 shells, because starting a line with a . looks weird
  • <certain image caption situations, details to be supplied (centered captions, left-aligned captions)>
  • Ellipsis or other fragments at the start of a quotation: He listed them as "1.{nbsp}Good goals, 2. Good planning, 3. Good execution; or The torn fragment read, "...{nbsp}for the love of God!"
  • July{{nbsp}}28, 1942 ????
Not needed:
  • 123 Main Street
EEng 00:48, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I ask people here: how often have you struck a dangling numeral at the end of a line? Me: not that I can recall. Tony (talk) 07:08, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    By struck do you mean "run into/happened to find" or "struck out/had to get rid of"? EEng 16:14, 14 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • I could see having a summary section somewhere (hopefully not in the main page, maybe in MOS:TEXT) about "Appropriate uses of non-breaking spaces" or some heading title like that, in which we could suggest these sorts of cases, without implying that they're required. People already rankle at the currently fairly-strongly-recommended ones in MOS:NUM and a few other places. So, there's opportunity to cry "WP:CREEP!" here if this discussion produces more rules, rather than optional tweaks for polishing up text for maximum usability.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:30, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]
    Definitely for FA-level polishing, mostly, but there's one situation where I've found it worth the trouble to apply nbsp/nobr fairly liberally: in image captions, because their short line length means bad breaks do occur now and then unless you prevent them. EEng 03:45, 15 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Something from somewhere else

From User:Tony1/Monthly_updates_of_styleguide_and_policy_changes / WP:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-07-07/Dispatches --EEng 15:34, 18 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Non-breaking spaces. The narrower scope for using non-breaking (i.e., "hard") spaces was significantly clarified. They should be used:

  • in compound expressions in which figures and abbreviations or symbols are separated by a space (17 kg, AD 565, 2:50 pm);
  • between month and day in dates that are not autoformatted (August 3, 1979);
  • on the left side of spaced en dashes; and
  • in other places where displacement might be disruptive to the reader, such as £11 billion, 5° 24′ 21.12″ N, Boeing 747, and the first two items in 7 World Trade Center.

Stress marks in Russian words

Stress marks

Stress marks discussion

There is a dispute on whether the Russian terms and names should include the accents that mark the stressed vowel, as in "Никола́й Андре́евич Ри́мский-Ко́рсаков", or should the correct spelling be preferred ("Николай Андреевич Римский-Корсаков"). In fact, these accents are not part of the regular Russian orthography, it's rather a kludge that exists to compensate for the lack of a full IPA transcriptions. The problem is that most readers unfamiliar with Russian don't realize what it is, they just think that the words are spelled correctly. "Because I've copied it from Wikipedia!".

For a couple of years I've been cleaning the articles from that, and by request of one of the curious users I wrote an essay that describes the matter: Stress marks in Russian words. However, recently I've met a significant population of users (by the number of two) who oppose to my edits so strongly that I have to draw your attention now. Please see the current discussion and express your opinions.

See also:

Ideally, we should form a statement to be included in MoS, so that the controversies no longer arise. Even if we don't, any input will still be helpful. — Mike Novikoff 13:00, 23 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Taurus Littrow, who wrote an excessive amount of comments below, is now indeffed and furthermore globally locked (see CentralAuth), which ultimately resulted from his attitude to this very dispute. So I've taken the liberty to boldly mark his comments with <s>, in hope that the uninvolved users, whom I encourage to comment, can read the discussion. — Mike Novikoff 02:29, 12 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Important Note: Unlike claimed above, both spellings (stressed and unstressed) are correct. Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:47, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not exactly. The whole point is that the stress-marked variants are used very seldom and only on certain occasions, and thus do not represent the common spelling. You may call them "correct" only in a narrow sense.
And I strongly oppose that you edit the essay before gaining any consensus to do so. It now looks like I wrote something that I actually didn't. :\ — Mike Novikoff 12:34, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The use of stresses is a different question. And what is "common spelling"? In encyclopedias, we have one common and accepted spelling (with stresses), and in books, another common spelling (no stresses). But you can't say that one spelling is correct and the other is wrong. That would be utterly misleading. Stresses are not mandatory, but they are not forbidden either. "Not mandatory" and "forbidden" are two different things. P.S. The essay doesn't belong to you; it's in common space, and some other users actually asked me to edit it. One other user edited it before me, anyway, and another after me (I also included a sentence suggested by a third user). You can give a link to the old version here, and we can discuss the whole thing on the talk page. Anyway, I tried to include both points of view, and I didn't remove most of your arguments (save for the irrelevant or misleading stuff). Let's not complicate things. Taurus Littrow (talk) 12:48, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You didn't word this invitation neutrally. So I'll try to help clear up the situation a bit.
You have tried to get rid of stress marks in the Russian Wikipedia and failed. Here: ru:Википедия:Форум/Архив/Общий/2018/09#Ударения в русских словах. So it is not only two users. The whole Russian Wikipedia opposes you. --Moscow Connection (talk) 18:11, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd like to echo this. This statement is certainly not neutrally worded, especially w.r.t. the mischaracterisation of accents marks. The description above could be interpreted as meaning that are an invention of Wikipedians, which is false. It is true that they are not a part of standard common everyday written Russian as is found in newspapers, books, signage etc. that is intended for normal L1 Russian speakers; however, they are common in texts for younger L1-speaking children or beginning L2 learners and, more relevantly here, have precedent in certain Russian-language encyclopaediae and dictionaries aimed at adult L1 speakers. Stephen MUFC (talk) 21:21, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, Mike Novikoff's statement is clearly very biased, one-sided and derisive. Frankly, I've got quite tired of this discussion, and I already listed my arguments for using accents (see the above links), so I will be brief this time and just say that using stress marks in Russian encyclopedias and dictionaries (in entries) is at least 200-year-old common practice which is still in use (see the Great Russian Encyclopedia in 36 volumes, published only recently, between 2004 and 2017, by the prestigious Russian Academy of Sciences). Stress marks are also used in all polysyllabic words in books for young Russian children and in reading books for foreigners. I guess that solves the issue. Taurus Littrow (talk) 13:51, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
> The whole Russian Wikipedia opposes you.
That's not even remotely true. The discussions on this matter appeared there since at least 2011 ([1], [2], [3]) when I hadn't even been there. @Jack who built the house: ping. — Mike Novikoff 08:09, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Both discussions concern dictionary words. While what you do is removing stress marks from people's names. No one in the Russian Wikipedia would ever agree to that. --Moscow Connection (talk) 11:10, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Just like in that old joke on the Russain army, where an officer says: "Hey, the three of you! I tell you both! Yes, you, man!"
In fact, there were much more than three discussions, some of them even successful, but I'm not going to reveal everything so that you don't go and edit war there now. I guess you are having enough fun there already, aren't you?
Back to the topic, there's no use to look at a non-consensus (there has never been one!) of a barbarian wiki that in 2021 still practices SOB-formed datelinks and infobox flags. They are copulating with geese, you see. — Mike Novikoff 13:50, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'd dare to suggest that your joke is completely irrelevant here. Also, please avoid personal attacks like this one: "I guess you are having enough fun there already, aren't you?" — No personal attacks or harassment. Let's be polite. Thanks. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 16:01, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I agree, this can be a real problem for those unfamiliar with the Russian orthography, who confuse the stress mark with other diacritics. Mike made a pretty strong argument in his favor. On the part of opponents, I see the argument that stress marks are used in Russian-language encyclopaediae and dictionaries (especially for children). However, here is an encyclopedia for adults in English.
P.S. At the same time, I have no opinion about the stress marks in the Russian Wikipedia, perhaps Mike really had no arguments to remove them in ru-wiki, but here is another case.--Nicoljaus (talk) 14:56, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nicoljaus "stress marks are used in Russian-language encyclopaediae and dictionaries (especially for children)" – There has been a misinterpretation on your part. Stress marks are used in: 1) encyclopaediae and dictionaries (which are intended both for adults and children); 2) books for small Russian children; and 3) reading books for foreigners (both adults and children).
"However, here is an encyclopedia for adults in English." See 3) above. Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:09, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I don’t understand what you’ll argue with. Here, in any case, not a book for L2 learners. Give an example where a common English-language encyclopedia uses the Russian spelling with stress marks.--Nicoljaus (talk) 15:20, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly don't you understand? I explained that your statement re. children is wrong. And why don't you give an example of a common English-language encyclopedia that doesn't use stress marks? Note that stresses are used in Russian-English and English-Russian dictionaries (in Russian words), including those published in English-speaking countries. Can it be considered a strong argument for using stresses? One way or another, there is nothing wrong in using stresses in Russian words; they are just not used in "normal" books, newspapers, magazines, etc., where they are considered excessive. But even in those texts accents are still used in some words (e.g., to help distinguish words which are written the same). I repeat: it is not a mistake to use accents in Russian words. And stresses are used on a large scale for guidance purposes, including in texts intended for non-Russian speakers. I'd dare to say that English Wikipedia can be considered such a text. Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:34, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And why don't you give an example of a common English-language encyclopedia that doesn't use stress marks? -- Well, for example see: Russian-English Geographical-encyclopedia there is nothing wrong in using stresses in Russian words -- I am not saying that using the stress mark is something wrong. I say that when a person, who does not know that this is a stress mark, sees such a spelling in the English Wikipedia, they will think that this is a common variant of Russian orthography. While this is a variant that is rarely used, only for special purposes. This can lead to confusion and you need to think about how to avoid it. At the same time, the information on where to put in stress is already given by the entry in the IPA.--Nicoljaus (talk) 16:03, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OK, thanks. However, stresses are used in the English-Russian Russian-English Medical Dictionary and Phrasebook, published only recently, in September 2020. It only supports my statement that there is nothing wrong in using stresses.
Whether the IPA can be used to replace (rather than complement) the stresses has already been discussed elsewhere (see the links above), so I won't repeat the arguments pro and contra (I've got quite tired of this stuff).
"This can lead to confusion and you need to think about how to avoid it." – OK, we can discuss that, but just removing stresses (which are of great help) is obviously not a very good solution. We could probably write a notice to this effect and put it in some visible place, probably in the Russian language article. Taurus Littrow (talk) 16:27, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Would a hover-over notice briefly explaining the situation with stress-marking accents be appropriate perhaps? Stephen MUFC (talk) 16:35, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
It sounds like a good idea. Whatever way we choose, I believe we could write a bot that would do the necessary changes automatically in all the articles. Taurus Littrow (talk) 16:38, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Could it not just be added as a feature of the template used to demarcate Russian Cyrillic in the wiki code? Stephen MUFC (talk) 16:40, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That would be perfect, sure. Taurus Littrow (talk) 16:54, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If we were to follow the same kind of logic ("it's confusing, so remove it"), we could delete the patronymics as well. They are not used in "normal" texts either. Taurus Littrow (talk) 16:54, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Taurus Littrow:However, stresses are used in the English-Russian Russian-English Medical Dictionary and Phrasebook -- Yes, in dictionaries sometimes spelling with a stress mark is done instead of IPA, but I have never seen that both are used at the same time, this is really confusing. In encyclopedias in English I have never seen Cyrillic with stress marks.
We could probably write a notice to this effect and put it in some visible place, probably in the Russian language article. -- If you mean the Russian interwiki article, then I don't think this is a good idea, since it is unlikely that an English reader will go there. The notice ("a feature of the template") seems like a better idea.--Nicoljaus (talk) 13:10, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nicoljaus If you mean the Russian interwiki article – No, I meant the Russian language article on enwiki (where the use of stresses is actually explained). But I agree that "a feature of the template" is a much better idea. Taurus Littrow (talk) 13:29, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oops, I'm sorry for my misunderstanding.--Nicoljaus (talk) 14:37, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
If even the Russian Wikipedia disagrees with stripping these marks, that's suggestive that we should keep them as well. But the real question for en.WP is what do most modern, high-quality, English-language sources do, when they also present these names and terms in Cyrillic? And not dictionaries, since they may be including them for pronunciation-guide reasons. If it's usual to include them, then WP should include them. If it's not, then it's not.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:04, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think usually English-language encyclopaediae actually either don't include the Russian-language name at all or only use a transliteration rather than Cyrillic. Stephen MUFC (talk) 21:16, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Which is one of the reasons I said modern, high-quality, English-language sources, not English-language encyclopedias.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:00, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The two aren't mutually exclusive but apologies for too hastily reading your post. It is also true, however, that even history or politics books in English about Russia(ns) don't tend to provide Cyrillic but may give a transliteration. I can't say for certain that there are sources which do use Cyrillic - I'm sure there must be some out there - but I can't remember ever having encountered any and, although I'm not an expert, I (have) read a fair amount of relevant material. Stephen MUFC (talk) 22:55, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Sure, I didn't mean they're mutually exclusive, but that one is a large class and the other a subset (which we already know is doing it for pronunciation reasons).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:43, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SMcCandlish I believe that English-language sources (other than dictionaries and reading books) don't include Russian spellings (with or without stress marks) at all. You can only see Russian spellings in bilingual dictionaries and reading or learning books, and they are almost universally accompanied by stress marks, whose main reason is indeed to help with the pronunciation. So if you do add Russian spellings here or in an another encyclopedia, I don't see why you should exclude the stress marks. There's no harm in adding them other than a possible misunderstanding as to their use in normal texts, which can be easily solved by adding an explanatory note. Taurus Littrow (talk) 21:22, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm skeptical that serious works of biography, etc., never provide the Cyrillic of anyone's name. I don't read a lot of Russia-related stuff, but it's certainly common in academic sources to include the Greek-alphabet name along with the Latin-alphabet transliteration when writing about Greek subjects. I'm not even suggesting this need be done on a case-by-case basis. If, for example, very few English-language sources on a new Russian movie star gave their Cyrillic name, that's irrelevant if lots of English book sources do give Cyrillic names of Russian politicians, generals, composers, authors, etc., and a dominant style (with the marks, or not) can be discerned from modern works of this sort. If a source analysis of this source proves fruitless, then I'm not sure I know what to !vote here. I like being consistent with ru.WP, but if they're only doing it as a pronunciation aid, because their equivalents of WP:NOTDICT and WP:AT are very different, then that wouldn't be a good rationale to apply at en.WP. But if these marks are common in everyday works like newspapers and adult books in Russian, that would refute the claim these are only used as pronunciation aids for children's/learners' materials and dictionaries.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  22:00, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SMcCandlish Well, I've read a lot of Russian-related stuff in English, and I don't remember seeing Russian spellings. They just transliterate and translate anything written in Russian, including titles of books in bibliographies. Just checked some books on space exploration, and that's indeed the case; I could find nothing in Cyrillic in them. One book is actually a translation from Russian, and even its original title was transliterated. So the situation is completely different from that for Greek-related subjects. Weird, but true.
But if these marks are common in everyday works like newspapers and adult books in Russian – They're NOT common there, that's the point. Nobody uses them in Russian newspapers and books for persons older than 7 years or so.
that would refute the claim these are only used as pronunciation aids for children's/learners' materials and dictionaries – Well, this exactly what they say in the above-mentioned Russian-English Medical Dictionary and Phrasebook: "Russian words are provided with stress marks for proper pronunciation." Taurus Littrow (talk) 22:30, 25 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Alright, then. This "Weird, but true" situation is unfortunate, but I guess it is what it is. Unless there's some big trove of sources and facts we've missed, I'm more swayed by your argument. It sounds more and more like ru.WP is lacing its article titles with pronunciation information, which might be entirely normal under their own policies but is not under ours. One of the reasons I've held out a bit on this is that in the case of Spanish diacritics, they were originally introduced for a similar reason, and slowly became a norm of the language. But if there's no evidence this is the ongoing case in Russian, and considerable evidence to the contrary, I can't see a reason to treat these on en.WP as actual diacritics that are part of the natural language, even if we're normally skeptical of attempts to suppress diacritics (and "para-diacritics" like Vietnamese tone marks, which are part of the standardized language, not something limited to kids books and dictionaries).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:43, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Please note that patronymics are not part of the natural written language either; they are only used in personal documents, such as passports, and you can barely see them in common English-language sources. In Russian, they are used sometimes in oral language, usually as a polite address (first name + patronymic; no surname). So one can take the arguments against using stress marks on English Wiki and apply them to patronymics. Same thing with the "Old Style" for birth and death dates, the pre-reformed Russian spelling for names, etc. Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:31, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Greetings, SMcCandlish. No, the situation in Russian is completely different from Spanish. At first, stress marks were required in every word (and there were three types of them), but gradually they died away. In Russian encyclopedias (on which the ru-wiki is oriented), a variant with stress marks is traditionally given in the title of the article to clarify the pronunciation. It also can be used for some other cases. There is some information about this in the book: A Reference Grammar of Russian by Alan Timberlake. Also, this book says: "If stress is marked generally - it usually is not, but it can be, for example, in dictionaries or pedagogical texts for foreigners..." Taurus Littrow is right, and the use of Cyrillic in English books is quite rare, but I have found several variants and they are usually unstressed. The Russian-English Geographical-encyclopedia was mentioned above. Here's another one: The Osprey Encyclopedia of Russian Aircraft. By the way, I see that the Cyrillic alphabet is also used in educational books without stress: [2], [3].--Nicoljaus (talk) 14:33, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Stress marks will never die out in Russian-language encyclopedias, because without stress marks there will often be no way to determine the correct pronunciation.

The stress in Russian words is most important. A misplaced stress may alter the meaning of a word (зáмок – castle; замóк – lock), or render it incomprehensible.
— http://russianlearn.com/grammar/category/stress

I can give more examples. Take Alexandra Trusova, for example. "Trúsova" means "Cowardova". But "Trusóva" would mean something like "Pantiesova". It wouldn't be nice to call her like that. --Moscow Connection (talk) 17:49, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
without stress marks there will often be no way to determine the correct pronunciation -- It's true for Russian-language encyclopedias, but here we have IPA--Nicoljaus (talk) 08:24, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I already pointed out that, in my opinion, IPA can be used as an additional tool, but not as a replacement of such an easy and elegant solution as stress marks. Is there a rule that prohibits using both stresses and IPA? I don't think so. P.S. Note that the article you mentioned, IPA, actually uses stress marks. Taurus Littrow (talk) 08:55, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Stress marks are the best choice if you know they are stress marks. The only thing that worries me is that in the overwhelming majority of languages there is no problem with stress at all (it is always in the same place) and the acute sign does not mean stress, but something else.--Nicoljaus (talk) 09:01, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I already mentioned that the possible misunderstanding can be solved by adding an explanatory note or (as proposed by SMcCandlish below) by indicating both spellings, with and without stresses. But I definitely don't like the "confusing so delete" approach. Note that Russia-related articles are generally very confusing, especially if they are about people who lived before 1918: two birth dates, two death dates, two Cyrillic spellings, etc. etc. The patronymics are very confusing, too. I keep seeing serious sources using and misusing the patronymics. Some foreigners believe they are mandatory, while others treat them as if they were a second American name and abbreviate them (e.g., "Sergey P. Korolev" - we never do it in Russian). Taurus Littrow (talk) 09:15, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
tl;dr completely irrelevant to the topic. — Mike Novikoff 17:50, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OK, I apologize for that. Anyway, some of the stuff in your essay on stresses is also completely irrelevant ("Russian Wikipedia (that has a series of similar technical cargo cults, such as reverse name notation [Surname, Name] in article names, as if there's no DEFAULTSORT [Wikidata shows that ruwiki is the only Wikipedia that has it], and so on"). --Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:09, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
something like "Pantiesova" – I see you are mostly concerned of the biographical articles. Once again, as Nicoljaus already said, "here is an encyclopedia for adults in English", not Simple English Wikipedia for children or people with disorders. There are many names (in various languages) that may seem funny to someone, or that someone may try to make fun of, but doing so is completely childish, and a reasonable adult won't even think of it. Remember what Wikipedia is not: "not a complete exposition of all possible details" (WP:NOTEVERYTHING), and in particular not a dictionary. Articles on persons are about persons, not about their names. It's necessary to give the correct spelling of a name (readers do search for names, and do copy names from Wikipedia), it's optional to give the pronunciation (that's what IPA is for), and to deal with the name's etymology is out of scope. Even a dictionary won't do that, unless it's a specialized dictionary of proper names. — Mike Novikoff 09:19, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, it is usually impossible to determine the correct stress placement in a Russian family name. I know this by experience. In October I renamed a number of Russia-related articles in the Spanish Wikipedia, and it was more than often that I had to go to YouTube to search for news announcements, interviews, etc. (Cause the Russian Wikipedia didn't have all the stresses marked. And it doesn't have many articles that the English and Spanish Wikipedias have. This is because the Russian Wikipedia is not as developed as the Spanish and English ones. And because it has stricter notablility rules.) --Moscow Connection (talk) 18:34, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Potential solution: This appears to be analogous enough to different ways of transliterating Chinese, etc., that we already have a functional, well-accepted way to approach this: The article title should be in the Latin orthography that is most common for that particular subject in English-language reliable sources. The lead sentence of the article should give that spelling first, then parenthetically provide the bare Cyrillic and the stress-marked Cyrillic. It need not provide a stress-marked variant of the Latin-alphabet transliteration unless this is also showing up in sources (or, I suppose if that one does show up, but stress-marked Cyrillic hasn't been found in a source yet, then omit that one). Basically, just account for the variants found in sources, and make sure that for the Latin-script ones that they redirect to the same article. Maybe we can even create a template (or add features to {{lang-ru}}) to indicate with little links what these different orthographies are, as we do in {{lang-zh}} for different Chinese transliteration orthographies.

I think this would be an encyclopedic approach, since these marked-up spellings are attested in RS (for specific purposes today), and at one time, if I'm understanding Nicoljaus correctly, were much more common, such that older people or people reading older materials may be specifically expecting or searching for those spellings. So, we should just provide them all without trying to decide is one is "right" and the other(s) "wrong". WP:CONSISTENT is just one criterion and we have to treat it with WP:Common sense: It's perfectly fine if, for whatever reasons, some particular subject has become better known with those marks in the name than without them (in either orthography or both, though only the Latin orthography will matter for article title determination purposes at en.WP). But by default, we would not be adding the marks just to indicate punctuation the way ru.WP does; it's clear that their title policy is very different from ours.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  20:51, 26 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I agree with this solution, in general lines (minor details can be discussed). We definitely must use an encyclopedic approach since this is an encyclopedia. Just to clarify one thing: I don't know what kind of period Nicoljaus is referring to (when stress marks were mandatory), but these must be very old times, like 300 or so years ago. I've read many 19th-century books, and they don't have stress marks. So you have to be really old to expect to see stress marks in books, lol. Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:34, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I was referring to the times before Peter the Great. The stress mark in handwritten texts (which were less affected by Peter's reforms) fell out of use in the second half of the 18th century (see paper in Russian).--Nicoljaus (talk) 08:21, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's what I thought. Peter's reform of the Russian alphabet (1708–1710) is actually described here. Taurus Littrow (talk) 08:32, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you both for clarifying the origins of the subj, I didn't know that. Very interesting indeed. So for us contemporary Russians they originate in the first grade of elementary school, and historically they are from the epoch before Peter the Great, being abolished by him. Let's remember that for making any further decisions. — Mike Novikoff 10:30, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Peter the Great didn't abolish the stress marks, their use just ceased to be mandatory. Taurus Littrow (talk) 14:32, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
There are no two Cyrillic Russian orthographies today, there's only one. And, unlike Chinese, it's not a transliteration of something else. I can't even imagine a subject that is "better known with those marks in the name than without them". For instance, they are never used in official documents that identify people (birth certificates, passports, etc). — Mike Novikoff 09:12, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Note that birth certificates and passports always use patronymics. Does it mean we should use them on enwiki, too (in the name of an article, not just in the lead)? Taurus Littrow (talk) 09:19, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I guess neither patronymics nor article titles are subject of this discussion. — Mike Novikoff 09:41, 27 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
then parenthetically provide the bare Cyrillic and the stress-marked Cyrillic. – Just no. We have too much WP:LEADCLUTTER already. Have in mind that {{lang-ru}} names are commonly provided for subjects associated with neighboring languages ({{lang-uk}}, {{lang-be}}, {{lang-kk}}), and having two near-identical Russian renderings next to each other would be a solution of a non-issue that would contribute to a much greater problem. No such user (talk) 10:03, 28 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
SMcCandlish, greetings, and thank you for your approach. I've always thought you are against redundancy, just like me (and isn't it one of the main goals of MoS overall?), and now I have to agree with the user above: double rendering of Cyrillic Russian would be awfully redundant. I'm always fond of consistency too, so I'm for the consistent implementation of the IPA throughout the Wikipedia, regardless of the language.
And one more thing: there is no legitimate "stress-marked variant of the Latin-alphabet transliteration", it's a madness done by those who just don't know what they're doing. That's why I often refer to WP:RUROM that describes the correct current practice of transliteration from Russian. — Mike Novikoff 12:22, 30 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
it's a madness [sic!] done by those who just don't know what they're doing. Please read Civility: "Avoid condescension. No matter how frustrated you are, do not tell people to "grow up" or include any language along the lines of "if this were kindergarten" in your messages." // That applies to everyone. Let's keep this discussion civil. Thanks. – Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:21, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Mike Novikoff: Well, okay. If they're just not used enough to really matter, then don't put them in the lead after all. Just create redirects so they work in getting people to the right page. I decline to stress about this. :-) PS: Can someone tell me the Russian term for this kind of "pronunciation markup" (in Russian and romanized), and is there a ru.wikipedia article about it, or section at least, if we don't have anything on it at en.wikipedia? Would like to read more about it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:18, 13 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish: The Russian terms are ударение (udareniye) and знак ударения (znak udareniya). See also Stress (linguistics) § Spelling and notation for stress. — Mike Novikoff 06:20, 16 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I do not have an opinion but want to set out the argument as I understand it. An example of the issue is diff which changed three {{lang}} instances including from the first of the following to the second.

Russian speakers refer to the schism itself as raskol (раско́л), etymologically indicating a "cleaving-apart".
Russian speakers refer to the schism itself as raskol (раскол), etymologically indicating a "cleaving-apart".

Should the article show how to spell a word (раскол) or how to pronounce it (раско́л)? According to comments above, Russian dictionaries etc. (and ruwiki) show the pronunciation for a word. The ruwiki equivalent of Old Believers in the example above is ru:Старообрядчество and it seems to use the example word without stress marks. @Kwamikagami: I've seen you working on things like this; do you have an opinion? Johnuniq (talk) 02:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Johnuniq: The ruwiki equivalent of Old Believers in the example above is ru:Старообрядчество and it seems to use the example word without stress marks. -- Have a better look: the Russian word does have stress marks, and so does the second Russian term: "Старообря́дчество" and "Древлеправосла́вие". Anyway, even if some Russian pages don't have stress marks in the entry word, that's because nobody bothered to put them, not because they are not necessary on ruwiki. P.S. Note that both Russian terms are a mile long, so it would be virtually impossible for a foreigner to tell where the (main) stress falls. – Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:27, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I edited Mike Novikoff's essay on stresses to make it more neutral. I removed the irrelevant info and added both points of view. Everyone is welcome to leave their constructive comments and suggestions on the essay's talk page. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:45, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
When I search the wikitext of ru:Старообрядчество for the word "раскол" I get 10 hits (there are 39 hits for the text including not as a whole word). However, there are no occurrences of "раско́л". If you see something different, perhaps you could quote a few words so others can see it. That seems to support my above summary, namely that "раскол" is used to spell the word while "раско́л" is used to pronounce it. Do you disagree? Johnuniq (talk) 22:38, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Johnuniq: I was talking about the word "Старообрядчество". It is stressed in the lead, the first time it appears, in bold: "Старообря́дчество, или Древлеправосла́вие, — совокупность религиозных течений". No other words (including "раскол") in the article are obviously stressed, since the stress is only placed upon the entry word(s) and only once. No disagreement as to the spelling vs. pronunciation; the intention of the stress mark is to help with the pronunciation, that's correct. P.S. Just to clarify: Both spellings (stressed and non-stressed) are technically correct, so I wouldn't oppose the spelling to the pronunciation (if that is your intention). Stresses can be (and are) used, but only in certain texts. Please read the new version of the essay: Wikipedia:Stress_marks_in_Russian_words for more explanations. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:58, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"раскол" is used to spell the word while "раско́л" is used to pronounce it – the short and simple answer is yes. — Mike Novikoff 22:55, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Not true. Didn't I ask you on your talk page not to mislead non-Russian users? To show pronunciation in Russian, one obviously uses phonetic transcription, while the placement of a stress mark helps with the pronunciation (to pronounce a word in Russian, you basically only need to know where the stress falls). And one can't claim that a stressed word is not a valid spelling or something. Any spelling is used to spell, that's kind of obvious. I already explained all this stuff slightly above, anyway. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:19, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You seem to be just playing with words. Your "helpful" variant exists solely for the pronunciation, and it's a special one, not the regular. — Mike Novikoff 09:30, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
No, I'm not "playing with words". A stress mark helps with the pronunciation but doesn't constitute a pronunciation as such. That would be the IPA or the Cyrillic phonetic transcription or something similar. A sign on an office door stating one's name, e.g., "John Smith", doesn't mean that this sign is actually John Smith. It only means that the office belongs to John Smith. Same thing with the stress. Anyway, both spellings are valid and correct; whether they are special or regular, that's a different question. P.S. In a nutshell: A stress mark shows the phonetic stress, nothing more. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 10:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Phonetic. — Mike Novikoff 10:39, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
That's what I said. And I doubt that a foreigner with very little knowledge of the Russian spelling who sees, for instance, металлообраба́тывающая ("only" 11 syllables) would be able to pronounce it, even if the word comes with a stress mark. So you cannot quite tell that the above spelling shows one how to pronounce the word in question. You'll need a proper transcription for that. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 11:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure what you're arguing. Of course stress marks are phonetic (so they are about pronunciation), and of course IPA is much better. — Mike Novikoff 11:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ruwiki is a very poor example since it never had a guideline nor even a consensus on these stress marks. The only thing that can be told for sure is that they never include them in article titles. The rest is chaotic: someone "bothers to put them" in leads just because they feel they should, and then gets very surprised to learn that there is no such requirement. — Mike Novikoff 14:30, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Those who remove stresses on ruwiki also get quite astonished when they are told that removing the stresses that were already placed "is not welcomed", to put it mildly. Adding stresses on ruwiki is OK, while removing them, not so much.
  • They never include them in article titles. — That would have been preposterous indeed. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:29, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe a single repetition of the word in accented Cyrillic, with a footnote to explain that the stress marks have been added for the benefit of the reader, and aren't normally found in print?

My opinion is that we should make WP as useful as possible. That's the general criterion I try to follow when deciding on things like this. And the accent marks are undeniably useful. Russian stress is unpredictable. Even disyllabic grammatical words include minimal pairs that differ by the position of the stress. (Not long ago I had to ask a native speaker about such a word, because it fit two dictionary entries and without stress marking I couldn't tell which.) But Russian orthography is otherwise close to phonemic. So if you are even slightly familiar with Russian, you can read it, as long as someone tells you where the stress lies. Without the stress assignment, you won't know how to pronounce the vowels, because they change drastically depending on stress. (E.g. unstressed a and o are pronounced the same, as are e and i.)

As for the contrary argument, that accent marks will confuse readers who don't know Cyrillic, I wonder why they'd be using Cyrillic in the first place. The situation is very much like English technical dictionaries, that mark stressed syllables and expect you to be able to pronounce Latinate words once that is given. Like Russian, English Latinate orthography is close to phonemic apart from stress. And I suppose that because of that convention, some people might conclude that English orthography includes an acute accent mark, but I would expect readers to educate themselves when they come across something new. There's only so far we can dumb things down.

Another parallel is vowel marking in Arabic and Hebrew, which is similarly useful in making written words pronounceable to L2 speakers but is otherwise only used for children and dictionaries.

I support stress marking in the Cyrillic, but would reluctantly accept removing it if the remover added the IPA to compensate, just as I would for English technical vocabulary. (I would prefer to keep the stress marking, in both Russian and English, and add the IPA as an additional key.) Or, as proposed above, have parallel Cyrillic with and without stress marking, parallel Arabic and Hebrew with and without vowel marking, etc.

The problem is Cruft. (Click if you dare.)

The problem with these other solutions is cruft — they can lead to a ridiculous delay before you get to the topic the article is supposed to be about. And they tend to bloat over time. In a dictionary, you can skip the pronunciation, orthography and etymology sections if you're not interested and go directly to the definition. On WP they're all glommed together. I find it annoying to start the lead, and encounter a paragraph of detail about the keyword that has nothing to do with the subject. Repeating the keyword once in Cyrillic/Arabic/Hebrew/Devanagari/IPA is easy enough to skip, while being highly informative — that is, if we keep it short, there's a high ratio of utility to inconvenience. Repeat it two or three times, for Cyrillic with and without stress, or Arabic with and without vowels, or English with both IPA and respelling (or stress marks and IPA), and the utility ratio starts shifting the other way. I'd prefer a single repetition that covers orthography + pronunciation, and supply further detail if needed in a footnote.

— kwami (talk) 22:34, 31 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Maybe a single repetition of the word in accented Cyrillic, with a footnote to explain that the stress marks have been added for the benefit of the reader, and aren't normally found in print? — Adding an explanatory note is an excellent solution in my opinion. I actually proposed it in this discussion already, and some users agreed with it. Just to clarify: we better only include the stressed word(s); the version without stresses would be redundant and confusing. Thanks.
  • Both the IPA and the stress(es) can be kept, sure enough. If you have a car (IPA), it doesn't mean you are forbidden to walk (stress).
  • Thanks for the information on stresses in English words; very useful and revealing. It looks like it's not "madness [sic] done by those who just don't know what they're doing", after all.
  • Your other arguments and suggestions look very good to me. (I won't list them and won't comment on them so as to keep this discussion short.) Thanks much. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:31, 1 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
English technical dictionaries, that mark stressed syllables – Can you please name a few? I think I've seen some in my life, namely FOLDOC and The Jargon File, and they don't mangle the words with accents. The latter does this at most. — Mike Novikoff 23:57, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I ... would reluctantly accept removing it if the remover added the IPA to compensate – That could be a feasible compromise, if we don't reach anything else. Another user had already suggested it: stress marks should not be used if IPA is present or added. It would also be in line with MOS:REDUNDANCY that says "keep redundancy to a minimum in the first sentence". (Most articles that I care about have the IPA already.) — Mike Novikoff 05:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This would actually be no compromise at all, not on your part at any rate. This is something you have been claiming here for months if not years and which you mentioned in your essay: no stresses, including when we have no IPA. No, just nyet. The stresses should stay whether we have the IPA or not. There's no harm in using them. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The dramatic track five of Battleship Potemkin. :-)
No matter what I've been claiming, I'm now ready to agree on something different. — Mike Novikoff 16:50, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • A stressed spelling would only be redundant if we indicated it along with a non-stressed one (раскол, раско́л), so that's really a non-issue. We do use respelling H:RESPELL for English words, after all, and nobody claims it's redundant. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 06:56, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Another possible solution: Stressed vowels can be emphasized in some different way, e.g., by using bold: "Александр Сергеевич Пушкин" ("Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin"). Aamof, some Russian dictionaries underline stressed vowels, but, as far as I know, it is not recommended to use underlining on wiki. P.S. @SMcCandlish, Moscow Connection, Nicoljaus, Johnuniq, and Kwamikagami: What do you think? — Taurus Littrow (talk) 12:21, 2 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Acute accents are the standard convention for marking stress in Russian, and I see no reason not to follow it.
I don't care for emphasis by formatting. It's not stable, for one thing -- someone might want to copy these names into their own work, and the stress would be lost. It's easy enough to remove the stress marks if they want to, since they're combining diacritics and all they have to do is hit backspace.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't we have one person who wants to change consensus, and everyone else keeping to the existing consensus? He's brought it up, didn't get any support, so he needs to follow consensus. He can continue to campaign for a change, of course, but meanwhile the current consensus is valid. It's not really up to us to convince him, but up to him to convince us. — kwami (talk) 06:43, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You couldn't be more correct as far as that user's behavior is concerned. I also agree with your arguments regarding the use of accents vs. the formatting. Stresses are much more stable and common, indeed. I just tried to find a solution which would please every user, including the person you have just mentioned, but it appears that nothing would ever please him other than his own solution. Thanks. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Are we discussing my behavior? And can you please stop flooding? — Mike Novikoff 07:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Novikoff, please choose your words. I'm not "flooding", just explaining things. Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:40, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Kwamikagami: What "consensus" you are talking about? There hadn't been one so far, not even in ruwiki. I do have some support already, and the discussion is far from being over. BTW, you didn't answer my question above. — Mike Novikoff 07:28, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
The consensus is that we've been doing this for 20 years without a problem.
As for English tech dictionaries marking stress, sorry, I never bothered to keep track. Too trivial to think twice about. You could probably find something as easily as I could.
I do remember seeing this in guides to Roman and Greek names, both historical and mythological, where the only guide to English pronunciation was an acute accent. I believe there are two reasons for doing that: (a) there are different traditions for how to pronounce Classical names in English, and it would create a mess to try to give them all, while upsetting people if the editor took sides, and (b) those pronunciations are generally predictable as long as the placement of the stress is known, so there's no need to give the pronunciation beyond that. The latter is exactly our situation with Russian. — kwami (talk) 07:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Novikoff, please stop misleading people. Other users and I have already commented on the alleged lack of a consensus on ruwiki. This is what I wrote: Those who remove stresses on ruwiki get quite astonished when they are told that removing the stresses that were already placed "is not welcomed", to put it mildly. Adding stresses on ruwiki is OK, while removing them, not so much. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 07:38, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OMG, what a chaos. :(( You may repeat everything you've said some more times, in all possible threads, then it certainly becomes more convincing. :\ — Mike Novikoff 08:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Please see WP:CIVIL: Avoid condescension. No matter how frustrated you are, do not tell people to "grow up" or include any language along the lines of "if this were kindergarten" in your messages. — One way or another, even if I repeated a couple of my arguments, I only did so because this thread is very long and people might fail to notice them. Another reason for doing so is to rule out any possible misunderstanding; the fact is that some users tend to make clearly misleading arguments, which is not OK. P.S. I already asked you in this thread you to be civil, several times, but you keep ignoring my warnings. Should I ask an admin to intervene? — Taurus Littrow (talk) 08:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
In Hebrew Niqqud, e.g., vowel marking, is normal in, e.g., dictionaries, grammar texts, but is rare in, e.g., news, nonlinguistic texts. Would it be appropriate to make a similar distinction for stress marks? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:09, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Chatul: I'm all for it. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 15:36, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia is not a dictionary — Mike Novikoff 16:25, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Nobody claimed that it was. Wikipedia is, however, a collection of articles on diverse subjects, some of them on aspects of linguistics for which stress and vowel markings are appropriate. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:10, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Should a translation show its pronunciation?

Would someone not involved in the dispute please offer an opinion on my question at 02:38, 31 January 2021 above. Rephrased, that question concerns Old Believers which concerns a schism between groups with different religious beliefs. After defining "Old Believers" and giving its Russian equivalents, the lead says:

Russian speakers refer to the schism itself as raskol (раскол), etymologically indicating a "cleaving-apart".

My question: should the translation of schism show how to spell the word (раскол) or how to pronounce it (раско́л)? It is conventional for pronunciation to follow the lead words that mirror the article title, as done at Raskol. However, that does not apply to schism. The MOS at this subpage includes "Normally, pronunciation is given only for the subject of the article in its lead section." That suggests the Russian word for raskol (раскол) would not indicate pronunciation. The counter view is that stress marks for pronunciation are useful for the reader. Does MOS have guidance on this? What should happen—an RfC? Johnuniq (talk) 09:05, 3 February 2021 (UTC) [reply]

Comments from the involved users
I'm very sorry to intervene, but as far as I understand, pronunciation is this: 1) pronounced [rɐˈskoɫ] or 2) /ˈvɛnɪs/ VEH-niss. As to the stress mark in Russian words, it only shows where the phonetic stress is to be placed, nothing more. A stress mark helps with the pronunciation (basically, it's the only thing you need to know to pronounce a Russian word), but a stressed word doesn't constitute a pronunciation as such. That would be the IPA. The Russians have their own phonetic transcription which uses Cyrillic symbols: 1) [рʌско́л] or 2) /трʌнскр'и́пцыэjъ/ (IPA: /trɐnskrʲˈipt͡sᵻjə/). See Russian Phonetic Transcription Translator and Pronunciation Dictionary or Orphoepic dictionary (in Russian). On the second site, just type the Russian word in and click the first button on the left (ПОИСК = search).
For "raskol", the second site says: Транскрипция слова «раско́л»: [рʌско́л]. Translation: Transcription of the word «раско́л»: [рʌско́л]. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 09:55, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Kwamikagami: Any comment on this? There seems to be a misunderstanding as to what pronunciation is. (I'll take all the blame for calling an involved user, lol.) — Taurus Littrow (talk) 10:15, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The pronunciation is already there in the article linked to. But personally I think it would be nice to show where the stress is here too, so readers won't need to follow a link to know what sound should be in their heads when they read this article. Many readers won't and might end up hearing it as "rascal", so I'd add an acute accent. But since we're giving a transliteration, it might be better to put the accent mark there instead: raskól (раскол). But that's just a suggestion. — kwami (talk) 10:24, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment. I noticed that the Venice article includes both the IPA and the "pronunciation respelling key" (H:RESPELL), so it looks like it's not really forbidden to use both the IPA and other pronunciation keys (that would be a stress mark in Russian words). Therefore, the argument "No stresses, only IPA!" is void. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 12:23, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

P.S. I wonder what would happen if someone started removing respelling from all the articles, arguing that this stuff "is not part of the regular English orthography", "doesn't represent the common spelling", "there's no consensus to use it", "it's madness done by those who just don't know what they're doing", etc. etc. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 12:33, 3 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's such an obscure situation, to a general English-speaking reader, that it is not possible to resolve this by adopting some standard style for Wikipedia (and bearing in mind that readers hardly ever read the Wikimedia Manual of Style). So it would be necessary to indicate one of the symbol sequences is the word in Cyrillic script, and one of the symbol sequences is a pronunciation (and indicate which system of pronunciation symbols was used). Jc3s5h (talk) 19:22, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from the involved users
@Jc3s5h: I'm compelled to intervene once again and repeat that "раско́л" is not a pronunciation but a word. Please read my explanations in the collapsed section above. This looks like a case of misinterpretation on Johnuniq's (and apparently your) part. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 19:43, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Misinterpretations all around! Can we just let the uninvolved users talk without us? That's what this section is apparently created for. Without you and me, in particular. — Mike Novikoff 20:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Like I said in the edit history, I'm not commenting on the MoS as such here, just clearing up an obvious misunderstanding. Oh well, I hope the two above users saw my explanations. P.S. Also, I didn't notice that your comment was there, so you really need to calm down. — Taurus Littrow (talk) 21:10, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly you are doing The Most Important Thing Possible, which is above anything. — Mike Novikoff 22:20, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Yevgeny Petrosyan — Taurus Littrow (talk) 22:46, 4 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

RfC?

@Johnuniq: This topic is going to be archived without any decision in a couple of days, and it worries me much. One of my opponents once said that he just wants to stop me, and exactly that is going to happen. (That's what ruwiki is infamous for, and that's why their content is always so poor: they have a rule to discuss almost everything, as an amendment to the fundamental WP:BOLD, and then they do bludgeoning or even a filibuster). I still deeply believe that every Russian term should be shown in its common spelling reflected in RS, yet I'm now prone to be accused of not having a consensus for such edits, so I'll probably cease to edit (and perhaps to even read) any articles containing my native language altogether, to save me a trouble. Which would be much pity indeed. And the articles would inconsistently have one kind of spelling or the other. Can we somehow arrange a wider discussion to reach any determined conclusion? — Mike Novikoff 05:00, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Novikoff: The "stop me" diff does not necessarily mean to stop you—it can be read another way, namely that the editor disagrees with edits which remove stress marks, and wants to stop that removal. Re the issue, I naively imagined that my question at #Should a translation show its pronunciation? above would get a clear answer from uninvolved MOS addicts who are normally very resilient and able to make themselves heard over bickering. However, the uninvolved replies have been very hesitant and I think the only outcome would be that there is no consensus to systematically add or remove stress marks. If you want to start an RfC, I suggest a new section where you focus on the issue to be discussed and minimize mention of past discussions (adding an RfC to this section would be very unlikely to get a reasonable response due to the lengthy and convoluted debate). I would suggest including three diffs with example edits where the question would be whether the edit is helpful. From the response so far, I would guess that removing stress marks is not going to get consensus. That might change if some source were available that supported removal. Johnuniq (talk) 06:37, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Having mulled this over for a while, my conclusions are that:

  • WP (en.WP, anyway) should just use normal Cyrillic language and markup, since this is what we do for all other langauges, and is what the majority of reliable sources do (both in Russian and in English when writing about Russian). To the extent children's and other learners' works use the pronunciation markup, WP has no reason to care, because those are categorically unreliable sources (see WP:CHILDRENSLIT, WP:TERTIARYUSE).
  • To indicate pronunciation where this is actually important (mostly in the lead of an article on a Russian subject, in linguistic material when comparing phonetics between dialects, etc.), use IPA markup (see {{IPA-ru}}). For sight-impaired readers, one of the purposes of {{lang|ru}} and {{lang|ru-Latn}} is triggering screen-reader software to switch to a pronunciation appropriate to the language in question instead of trying to parse it with default English phonetics (and in this we're dependent on the makers of the screen readers doing a good job of this; I know of no evidence that these marks would help them do it better, and it might actually confuse them).
  • Our own article at Stress (linguistics)#Znaki udareniya says it all: "In general [Russian/Belarusian/Ukrainian] texts, stress marks are rare, typically used either when required for disambiguation of homographs (compare в больши́х количествах 'in great quantities', and в бо́льших количествах 'in greater quantities'), or in rare words and names that are likely to be mispronounced. Materials for foreign learners may have stress marks throughout the text."
  • For any unusual case in which the pronunciation marks are provably the overwhelmingly preferred version in reliable sources with regard to a particular subject (e.g., maybe a Russian singer insists on spelling her name with them, or whatever), then we would use that version in that case; this is already covered by MOS:DIACRITICS, MOS:TM, etc.
  • So, I don't think that any rule needs to change (there is no contradiction or other error in the guidelines), nor that efforts to force en.WP to use the spellings (in Cyrillic or in Latin-alphabet tranliterations) that have pronunciation marks as a general matter are defensible. Their pedagogical nature is at odds with WP:NOT#TEXTBOOK.
  • That said, I have no particular objection to the guidelines being updated to say that we by default do not use these marks. It's really pretty close to the opposite of Vietnamese, which kinda-sorta can be written without the language's tone marks, at least for common terms like pho, but which usually is not in RS, so we do usually include the tone marks. It's a regular feature of that language, not a tack-on for learners like these Russian marks are. It's even more directly parallel to Japanese and Korean "ruby" markup, which WP has debated and decided against using, in general. The language at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Japan-related articles#Ruby is a good model: "Do not use the <ruby> tag to further annotate the kanji with ruby characters, except in articles about ruby characters themselves, or where they are needed to accurately quote something that includes ruby characters." Something like this could be added to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Russia-related articles#Orthography. While that is just a draft guideline, it's a good place to put it.
  • If we wanted to add this stuff to the main MoS, I would suggest putting a combined line-item about both ruby and the Russian markup, and anything similar (so we don't have to do it again when some dispute breaks out about Elbonian or Kerblachistinian orthography), at MOS:FOREIGN. Maybe something like this, just after the material about diacritics:

    Do not use optional stress marks (including Japanese and Korean "ruby" characters and Russian, Ukranian, and Belarusian znaki udareniya), except: where they are needed to accurately quote something that contains them; where they are used (e.g. for disambiguation of homographs) in the predominant spelling of a particular term or name in reliable sources other than pedagogical material; or in content that is about these symbols themselves.

    This would be consistent with actual practice, in agreement with (though more precisely worded than) other guidelines, and compliant with policy like WP:NOT#TEXTBOOK and WP:NOTDICT (the equivalents of which ru.Wikipedia clearly lacks).

 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:14, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the thoughtful analysis which I imagine Mike Novikoff would want to see. @Mike Novikoff: The above is currently just an opinion and I would not use it to purge pronunciations just yet. Johnuniq (talk) 05:31, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The capitalisation of "Internet" (referring to the global interconnected network generally used today)

Hi,

I had a discussion with another person on the talk page of the article In Rainbows about the capitalisation of "Internet" (referring to the global interconnected network generally used today), as they changed the capitalisation back from how I had edited it (to capitalise the "I"). They mentioned that as there is no formal decision on this, people editing Wikipedia can do as they like, so it may be capitalised in one article and uncapitalised in another, depending on the consensus of that particular article. However, I consider this to be something of a problem. I think it looks rather strange if we have no formal consensus on this.

My position on this is that the word should be capitalised when it refers to the Internet (the one we are using right now) as opposed to an internet; this makes sense to me, as it makes for an easy distinction between "merely 'an' interconnected network" and "the main interconnected network most are familiar with".

The other person's position is there is no reason to consider Internet as a proper noun; therefore, it should not be capitalised. They cited some sources recommending that people no longer capitalise Internet (the talk page of the In Rainbows article contains the links to the sources in question).

So, there are three options here:

  • (A) Capitalise the word internet whenever it refers to the global interconnected network most commonly used today
  • (B) Don't capitalise the word internet in any case
  • (C) Per-article consensus on the matter, as it is now

Please indicate which option you prefer below, explaining why if possible. Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 12:43, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Addendum: Another way of looking at this, as Gah4 helped me realise with their comment in the Discussion subsection below, is that "Internet" is a name; "internet" is a term. DesertPipeline (talk) 05:33, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Survey

Option A (Capitalise when name; lowercase when term)

  • Capitalize the proper noun name of our favorite network of networks, (also known as internets): The Internet or just Internet. As noted below, I don't know why it didn't get a nice name like everything else. Talking to someone who actually wrote the book about Ethernet (which is also capitalized as a proper noun), it seems that no-one thought about naming it before it was too late. Gah4 (talk) 06:01, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Right-pointing arrow This comment has been responded to in the Discussion subsection: link to response.
  • Capitalize when used as a proper name, otherwise lowercase. Blueboar (talk) 21:20, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Capitalise if we're talking about the medium in which users can communicate globally. Otherwise, standard all-lowercase works for talking about the kind of network. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 22:02, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Capitalize in reference to the Internet; lowercase when referring to generic technologies (usuable on an intranet). We've been over this again and again and again (and the "give me lower case or give me death" folks really need to stop WP:FORUMSHOPping this again and again and again in hopes of getting the answer they want). It does not matter that various newspapers and bloggers and so forth are too ignorant to know that the Internet is a proper name and that an internet is not, and that they are not the same subject. Wikipedia knows better, and our job is to be factual and to communicate clearly, not to immitate lazy, confusing style found in other publishers with lax standards. For those not aware of it, an internet is an (i.e., any) inter-network, what is more commonly called a WAN (wide-area network) today. This question also applies to [W|w]eb: Use Web when it means the World Wide Web. It's fine to lower-case both terms when used as modifiers and as generic technology descriptors, since they can refer to protocols from the Internet and the Web usable in an isolated intranet circumstance: "internet-technology server", "web developer", etc. When fully compounded, also use lower-case: website, webpage, internetworking (these terms are not proper names so should not be capitalized). Remember also that Internet of Things is a proper name. As a subset of the Internet, it would not be a proper name if the Internet were not one itself. And some modifier cases will remain capitalized, because they refer to (and may be definitional of) proper-name the Internet: "the Internet protocol suite", etc. See also Internet Standard, which is a proper name (a formal IETF spec); this is distinct from "an internet standard" a vague term we should not use which could mean "any standard pertaining to internet technology").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:14, 22 February 2021 (UTC); revised 10:30, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Right-pointing arrow This comment has been responded to in the Discussion subsection: link to response.
  • Capitalise is correct for The Internet and lowercase is correct for a general internet. However, Wikipedia is not about being correct — it is about reporting the sources — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 13:24, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Right-pointing arrow This comment has been responded to in the Discussion subsection: link to response.

Option B (Lowercase always)

Option C (Per-article consensus)

  • Per-article It really depends on the usage. For example, I do a lot of work on video game articles from an historical perspective and it is important to talk about the arrival of the capital I Internet (the global network), as well as the fact the video game consoles gained access to lower case "i" internet functionality. I would agree that if we are talking in the present tense in all sense, the lower-case "i" internet makes reasonable season, but the historical aspect needs to be considered. Hence, per-article consensus needs to be reviewed. --Masem (t) 04:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Right-pointing arrow This comment has been responded to in the Discussion subsection: link to response.
  • Hell no. This will just cause "slow-editwar" and WP:CIVILPOV activity by obsessives who want to eventually force all uses to lower-case or all of them to upper-case, and we'll have the same squabble break out page after page after page. The second purpose of MoS (after consistent and professional-looking output for readers) is forestalling repetitive, time-wasting editorial disputes over style trivia – not generating a perpetual stream of them. This really has nothing to do with what page the term appears in, but rather the contextual meaning. If what is meant is the the Internet then that is a proper name. If what is meant is internet-technology networking in general, including on an isolated intranet, then lower-case is appropriate. Same goes for [W|w]eb; if you mean the Web, then it's capitalized. If you mean web technology like HTML and CSS and HTTPS and whatever, then lower-case is fine. I.e., distinguishing between name and description, between the global network and the technologies that enable it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Many publications are switching to lowercase as someone mentioned above, so I think that should be the default. Just be consistent within the article. I would only distinguish the two (Internet v. internet) if it is absolutely necessary for the subject matter (I don't know, say talking about the early days of the internet and what people called it). Otherwise the distinction is likely to be distracting. Fredlesaltique (talk) 01:10, 24 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dear God, why? 207.161.86.162 (talk) 06:21, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Discussion

People should search before making proposals. 2020, more 2020, more 2020, 2019, 2012/2014, 2010, 2008, 2004 (eesh on that last). --Izno (talk) 16:28, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, it's the exact same editor as a half dozen of those discussions. Popcornfud, that you're still having this issue and across multiple pages doesn't look too good for you. Please stop pushing it until there is an actual consensus on the point. --Izno (talk) 16:29, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
"Half of a dozen of these discussions"? I think one - maybe two? edit: OK, three (though those were kind of all the same discussion).
I am not the one who is pushing anything; DesertPipeline wants to make this change to an article. Per the lack of consensus I see no reason to deviate from the WP:STATUSQUO. If a consensus emerges to change it (on that article, or at a MoS-wide level) then I will follow that consensus. Popcornfud (talk) 17:03, 17 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My apologies for starting another discussion on this when there's been so many; Popcornfud did mention that it's been brought up here before but always ended in no consensus. I guess discussing it so soon after the last time is probably not going to result in anything different? Also I'm not sure if I'm at the right indentation level and in the right place here to be replying to User:Izno... sorry, I still don't really know how talk page threading works exactly :( DesertPipeline (talk) 04:47, 18 February 2021 (UTC) Struck last part as I'm now at the right indentation level – I hope :) 05:20, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ha, I skimmed the struck-out text and initially misread it as I'm not sure if I'm at the right indignation level ... to be replying. Pelagic ( messages ) – (17:46 Sat 27, AEDT) 06:46, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I don't downcase it when I come across the cap, because I don't like complaints; but in my view it should be lowercase; and where some subset of the internet is intended, that should be clear from the context. Few readers appreciate the significance of the I vs i, anyway. Tony (talk) 05:17, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, it's not that the Internet is "a subset of the internet"; the article Capitalisation of Internet explains it quite well – "the Internet is an internet, but an internet is not the Internet". I do realise that nowadays most people don't care about this sort of thing, but I don't feel like we should lowercase the "I" in a context where it should be capitalised just because that's how most people do it. My opinion on this is that as an encylopedia, which should strive to get things correct as much as possible. To me, it would be like Wikipedia writing "COVID-19" in lowercase simply because most people do that nowadays, and fortunately we aren't doing that. DesertPipeline (talk) 05:26, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Just to be sure, even though it says right in the Internet article, an internet is a network of networks. That is important for the scaling of network architectures, such that each host doesn't need to know the path to all others, but just to a router that knows which way to route it. Many large companies have their own private internet, and many are worldwide. Some companies need the security of not connecting their internal internet to the Internet. Many companies will name their internal network after the company. What does seem strange to me is that the Internet doesn't have an actual name other than Internet. Gah4 (talk) 10:04, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    What does seem strange to me is that the Internet doesn't have an actual name other than Internet. The Internet used to be also called the World Wide Web, but I think that name has fallen out of use a few years ago. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:58, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    No, the Internet and the World Wide Web are two very different things. It is true that there are commentators who lump them together, but they don't understand what either is. The WWW is an application that uses HTTP over IP, and no more the Intenet than Gopher, NNTP or SMTP. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 18:47, 18 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • I was actually able to think of a much better reason for capitalisation thanks to Gah4's comment. "Internet", referring to the Internet, is a name; "internet" is a term. Would anyone say that provides a better case for standardising capitalisation? Also, I've added a discussion subheading and a survey subheading. DesertPipeline (talk) 04:47, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Addendum: I also have to wonder if the sources that Popcornfud linked which recommend not capitalising the word don't realise that it is a name, rather than simply a term in all cases. I haven't read them though, so I'm just speculating here :) DesertPipeline (talk) 05:01, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "the Internet is an internet, but an internet is not the Internet" I don't see how that means that "the Internet" is a proper noun. Seems pretty parallel to the statement that "the atmosphere is an atmosphere, but an atmosphere is not the atmosphere". --Khajidha (talk) 19:30, 3 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes. Like Microsoft naming their word processor Word, our favorite internet is named The Internet. It might have had a fancier name, but it seems not. Gah4 (talk) 06:36, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And even LibreOffice fell victim: They called theirs "Writer" :) DesertPipeline (talk) 06:42, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I also have to wonder if the sources that Popcornfud linked which recommend not capitalising the word don't realise that it is a name, rather than simply a term in all cases. I haven't read them though, so I'm just speculating here
    Yes, the history of the term as a proper noun is discussed in those sources (here are some of them again: NY Times, Wired, New Republic, the Verge).
    I have to say that the fact that you didn't bother to read these - which I provided because you asked me for an explanation - and are now typing things to the effect of "I wonder what those sources arguing against my position say? guess we'll never know!" is sort of causing me to faceplam. Popcornfud (talk) 20:51, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sorry, Popcorn :( The reason I didn't read the sources you provided is that I feel paranoid about visiting websites I haven't before – and I know the ones you linked are trustworthy, but my fear is just irrational. I thought you might be frustrated if I said I didn't read them, but I didn't want to act as if I knew – because I don't. I could read them with Lynx, a terminal-based browser, if you'd like me to (although my paranoia is such a problem that I even hesitate to do that, despite the fact that I installed Lynx specifically for situations like this). DesertPipeline (talk) 06:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    DesertPipeline, OK, that sounds tough. If you're curious, I would be happy to summarise what those articles say on your talk page, just let me know. Popcornfud (talk) 10:44, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If you don't mind doing that, then sure, and thank you :) DesertPipeline (talk) 12:48, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Lower case per Capitalization of Internet#Usage examples. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:19, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi, would you mind putting this in the Survey subsection above and adding (B) to the beginning of your comment? Thanks, DesertPipeline (talk) 05:28, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    OK, added it there as well. Randy Kryn (talk) 05:40, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks :) I also decided to add subheadings for each option so hopefully things will be more readable. I moved your comment to the corresponding subheading (Option B). DesertPipeline (talk) 05:44, 19 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Pinging everyone who participated in the discussion so far (except Gah4, because I mentioned it on their talk page and was intending to do that for the other participants but then realised it was way less efficient than just doing it here and using pings): User:Izno, User:Tony1, User:Tenryuu, User:Chatul (I think that's everyone). If you don't mind, can you add which option you're in support of to the survey? :) If you already gave your explanation in this section, you can just say something like "see my comment in the discussion section". I just want it to be clearer for whoever closes this what option each participant was for :) Thanks, DesertPipeline (talk) 05:12, 20 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lower case always since I can't see any uses that I would think of as proper names. Like radio, television, and the mail, it's a medium through which businesses and individuals communicate globally. So what? No particular reason to ignore our own style guidelines on this one. Dicklyon (talk) 00:34, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
    I wouldn't really say that radio, television, and mail are good comparisons – they're not words that can either be a term or a name. In this case, though, "Internet" is the name for the global internet we're using right now – and "internet" is just a term meaning "interconnected network". As someone (me? I can't remember) said previously: "The Internet is an internet, but an internet is not the Internet" :) DesertPipeline (talk) 06:25, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I do understand that you want it to be a name. But I disagree that it is ever that. Dicklyon (talk) 06:49, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I'll be honest: I don't understand why you think it isn't a name. I'd like to know why you think this way. Do you think you could explain to me? Thank you, DesertPipeline (talk) 10:14, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And I don't understand why you think it is. A lot of things have names, like the Internet Engineering Task Force, Internet Protocol, ARPANET, but this thing we call the internet is just the agglomeration of everyone's networks. Nobody named it; they just took to capping it to indicate that if you're not on it, maybe you're on some other internet. That's a use of caps that's outside the uses that WP's and many others' style guides recommend. Dicklyon (talk) 04:37, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I'll admit... I thought I read somewhere that someone had officially named it Internet, but... apparently that's not the case, at least according to the article on Internet :) Still though, language is just something we invented of course, so we could say "its name is Internet now because people call it that, even though it wasn't officially named that". Then again, maybe humanity should have a vote to decide on an official name, like... well, I don't even know what it could be called, but I guess it'd be less confusing if it wasn't called "Internet" :) DesertPipeline (talk) 05:38, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, I think humanity did take a vote. Or least the part of humanity that issue style guidelines has pretty much converted on lowercase. Dicklyon (talk) 05:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd argue that the most likely reason style guides usually recommend lowercase nowadays is that they don't realise that it is a name (or at least that some people consider it a name)? I'm not sure though :) DesertPipeline (talk) 05:49, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    You don't think they looked long and hard at the issue before changing their guidance? They just don't "realise that it is a name"? Yeah, that must be it; probably a bunch of new grads running that department now. Dicklyon (talk) 06:22, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    ...But would you be so shocked if that was the case? ;) DesertPipeline (talk) 06:29, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Per-article It really depends on the usage. For example, I do a lot of work on video game articles from an historical perspective and it is important to talk about the arrival of the capital I Internet (the global network), as well as the fact the video game consoles gained access to lower case "i" internet functionality. I would agree that if we are talking in the present tense in all sense, the lower-case "i" internet makes reasonable season, but the historical aspect needs to be considered. Hence, per-article consensus needs to be reviewed. --Masem (t) 04:50, 22 February 2021 (UTC)

    If I'm reading this right, I think you may actually be in favour of option A? I agree with you that it should be capitalised only when referring to the Internet and uncapitalised when referring to any other internet :) DesertPipeline (talk) 05:47, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I think he's saying that there may be historical contexts in which that distinction might still need to be represented via caps, but that most current stuff not. I'm not sure I get why, though. I don't know what video game consoles gained access to lower case "i" internet functionality means. Dicklyon (talk) 06:07, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Not to suggest that I can read minds (that would probably make life a little easier :D) but I think what's meant is that video game consoles gained access to internets in general – i.e., any interconnected network :) Maybe you're starting to see why some consider the distinction between capitalised I and uncapitalised I important now? ;)[note 1] DesertPipeline (talk) 06:13, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I didn't say anything about it not being important; just not capitalization relevant. But what internets did videogames have access to? Dicklyon (talk) 06:20, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, any :) If a computing device can connect to a network, then it can connect to any internet, including the Internet, although some manufacturers of video game consoles might try to prevent connection to internets they don't authorise – P.S. I'm not an authority on this subject if it wasn't already obvious, so my explanation isn't very good, sorry ;) DesertPipeline (talk) 06:25, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"It behooves us" – Neigh!
Bees don't have hooves, silly!
But they apparently have the best knees.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 
They have bee feat.
"A shetland pony,
a bee, and a beefeater
walk into a pub...."

  • Capitalize in reference to the Internet; lowercase when referring to generic technologies (usuable on an intranet). ... — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:14, 22 February 2021 (UTC); revised 10:30, 22 February 2021 (UTC)
    One quick question SMcCandlish: Is it then correct to say "Web page" (as opposed to "web page")? When I see "web page" I usually change it to "Web page" – although I do feel like "webpage" sounds better :) DesertPipeline (talk) 12:51, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The fully compounded "webpage" has been the most common since the early 2000s, maybe even the late 1990s. I don't think anyone's arguing for retaining the capital letter when it's used in a combining form like this. If one were to write it as "Web page", then the "W" would arguably belong, but this seems a bit archaic at this point (in Internet time, anyway). Same with "website" and "Web site", etc. Various terms like "web development" can probably go lower-case, because they are about web[site] technology in general, and equally pertain to intranet websites, not just the [World Wide] Web. Used in a generic enough way, even "web page" and "web site" would work for that reason, though again "website" and "webpage" seem to be the dominant spellings now.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:29, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    S, I never proposed "death" as the alternative, but it seems to me that treating "Internet" as a proper name is out of step with most modern style guides, so it behooves us to discuss when/whether to re-align with them. Dicklyon (talk) 01:01, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I never proposed "death" as the alternative – But those of us following this thread are openly pining for it. Oh sweet release! EEng 04:29, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Admit it, EEng – you're just envious that I made a joke in this section before you, aren't you? ;) DesertPipeline (talk) 05:05, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Au contraire. It delights me to see other editors taking up the jokester's banner. EEng 05:56, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Another task ticked off the bucket list – "checkY Have work approved by EEng" :) DesertPipeline (talk) 06:06, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Congrats. All I got from him was some pix to mock my verb choice; et tu. Dicklyon (talk) 01:54, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Sorry, but I have standards to uphold. EEng 07:35, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Dicklyon, I seem to recall you being among those of us who regularly point out that "is a proper name" and "is capitalized in some proportion of publications" is not a 1:1 relationship. We know news-writing style in particular takes a large number of liberties with capitalization (mostly dropping it at every chance, even when the results are confusing, e.g. "Nato" and "the Aids virus", and lately "Covid-19" or even just "covid"). It's one thing for a eponym to lose capitalization when it becomes "divorced" from the namesake ("our platonic relationship", "draconian workplace policies", "french fries"), but nothing like that has happened here. The Internet is no less the Internet now than before, and if anything it's more: more a prominent part of our lives, and more the Internet, as it grows to integrate with our phones, our watches, even our refrigerators and doorbells. I'll repeat what I've said in several other variants of this debate: if we decide this has somehow become "the internet", then we're also going to have to down-case Internet of Things. This is a very good example of why not to trust newspapers when it comes to style questions. They'll happily drop a capital letter from a common proper name, to save a sliver of typing time, then insist on capitalizing something simply because it seems new and important (MOS:SIGCAPS). Can't have it both ways. When the very same sources directly contract themselves on whether to capitalize [I|i]nternet, and do it only when used as a modifier (i.e., the exact opposite of actual trends in English usage, which is to start decapitalizing modifier usage, which may or may not then spread lower-case to the noun form), then they are not reliable sources for the style question.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:40, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree completely with SMc here honestly – just because other style guides are getting it wrong it doesn't mean we should follow in their footsteps ;) DesertPipeline (talk) 03:38, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Someone mentioned universe, which it seems is not capitalized and not a proper name. There might be some astronomers who disagree, (that is, that we live in one particular Universe), but it reminded me of Earth and Mars, which it seems are proper names, though earth (synonym for dirt) is not. It might be that mars is a synonym for dirt if you are Mars. I don't see any discussion for capitalization in talk:Earth, but instead whether it is Earth or the Earth. Somehow that question was avoided here. In any case, I still believe that Internet is the proper name for out favorite internet, like Earth for our favorite planet. Gah4 (talk) 02:34, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Sometimes I see "earth" when it really means "Earth" (in an article where it was capitalised before) and I usually correct that. I've heard that in casual usage, people will just type "the sun", "the earth", "the moon" (etc), but weirdly enough I don't think that's done in the case of the other planet/celestial body names. I wonder why that is? P.S. I fixed the indentation of your comment :) Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 03:21, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "Sometimes I see ..." – Yes, we know. There is not a single line-item in MoS (or any other style guide) that you can't find some people ignoring (on-site or in RS material). That really has no bearing on the matter. MoS is not about what "is" "correct" (English doesn't have a set of hard rules governing it); it's about what to do on WP, so that we have consistent and semi-formal output for readers, and a reduction internally in tedious strife over style trivia.

    "I wonder why that is?" It's because "earth", "moon", and "sun" have many figural usages ("to till the earth", "When the moon hits your eye / Like a big pizza pie", "shining in the sun") and pre-date common understanding of celestial bodies. Most of our other astronomical bodies were named much later, after thing that were in and of themselves proper names (mostly mythological figures), and do not have much in the way of figural/metaphoric usage.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:23, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • I'm going to do some refactoring with the discussion. The intent was that the Discussion subsection would be for any replies, including to replies in the survey section, for better readability, but even I forgot to do that at first :) I'm going to try and organise all the (initial) replies to bullet points in the Survey section by time posted when putting them in this section. Someone have a mop ready, because I can't guarantee that this will go smoothly... but I'm going to try my best :) DesertPipeline (talk) 06:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    checkY Refactor complete. If anyone else wants to check to make sure everything that existed before still exists now, I'd be grateful, because this stuff makes my head hurt :) DesertPipeline (talk) 07:04, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • Lower case I'm from the networking world and know that technically "Internet" is correct to distinguish the world-wide internet from all the others. However, it's a lost cause as explained at Capitalization of Internet and it's time to follow common usage. Johnuniq (talk) 2:10 am, Today (UTC+0)
    User:Johnuniq: I'm curious as to why you think it's a lost cause. Could you elaborate on that? As said before, many people get it wrong nowadays, but at Wikipedia, we don't have to get it wrong as well. In my opinion, considering people are getting it wrong consistently nowadays, I almost feel like it's Wikipedia's duty to get it right – an encylopedia is supposed to be educational, after all, and we could induce some positive change by capitalising it when it should be capitalised in all cases, perhaps. Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 09:09, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Johnuniq: ...I really seem to be having trouble getting pings to work lately :) At least, the notification system isn't telling me it sent. I hope it isn't silently doing it so I'm double-pinging people. DesertPipeline (talk) 09:13, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    By lost cause I mean that the tide of common usage has risen and trying to oppose it will not be successful and will only make us look like pedants. For readers, there is no difference between Internet and internet except that the former looks like someone inadvertently pressed the Shift key in the middle of a sentence. Johnuniq (talk) 09:58, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Johnuniq: Would you disagree that if we don't take that attitude, there's still hope? Think about it this way: If we do nothing, then yes, the correct capitalisation for the Internet will probably cease to exist at some point. However, if we do do something, then there is at least a chance that things can change for the better. Even if it's a small chance, I think it's worth it, especially considering it requires little effort on our part. DesertPipeline (talk) 10:26, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Wikipedia is not here to right great wrongs. Popcornfud (talk) 13:54, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment: Microsoft doesn't capitalize [4]. Nor does Google [5]. Nor does Apple [6]. I guess all these companies are wrong too - it's up to Wikipedia to lead the way now! Popcornfud (talk) 14:42, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Popcornfud: Come now, you must recognise why "everyone else is doing it" is a poor reason :) Just remember that no matter how popular something is, that doesn't always make it correct or right. (The world is in a lot of trouble because there are many people doing things that are popular but ethically wrong, usually in order to make money.) Also, in response to your above comment where you mention WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS: There is a difference between "righting great wrongs" and "not making things worse" :) The same problem applies in another area that I've been trying to deal with: Wikipedia has a lot of loaded or confusing words on it (such as "consumer" and "intellectual property") – my opinion there is the same as here, which is that while we're not here to right great wrongs, we can at least not make things worse. If a capitalised I in Internet – referring to the Internet – is indeed correct, which according to Johnuniq, it is – I'm from the networking world and know that technically "Internet" is correct to distinguish the world-wide internet from all the others. – then I really think we should be following what's correct, rather than what's popular. Although I do want to ask: In your view, is "Capitalised I for the Internet is correct" not a factual statement, but an opinion? I might be repeating myself in a sense here... my apologies if so, my brain is not good at keeping track of so many things :) DesertPipeline (talk) 03:34, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There is really no "fact" when it comes to what is "correct" in language. The closest you'll get is the fact of what's more commonly used or not, or what's considered standard or non-standard by big-cheese publishing houses et al.
    "Everyone else is doing it" is the perfect reason, though. As others say: Wikipedia follows, it doesn't lead. Wikipedia reflects sources. Wikipedia has no responsibility to uphold your preferred version of the universe. And as I said right at the start of this discussion, we have a policy for this: WP:MOSCAPS: Only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. In other words: only capitalize if "everyone else is doing it". Popcornfud (talk) 12:09, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Popcornfud: Well, the lead of MOSCAPS also says primarily needed for proper names. The lead of Proper noun (which Proper name is a redirect to) says A proper noun is a noun that identifies a single entity and is used to refer to that entity – does that not apply to Internet, since it's a single entity? It goes on to say as distinguished from a common noun, which is a noun that refers to a class of entities which applies to internet. By the way, I would like to ask, what is your reasoning behind wanting to do this because everyone else is doing it? Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 12:23, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The entire point of this disagreement is that most style guides no longer consider it a proper noun, so you saying "but it's a proper noun" misses the point. As for what is your reasoning behind wanting to do this because everyone else is doing it, I just explained that. WP:MOSCAPS: Only words and phrases that are consistently capitalized in a substantial majority of independent, reliable sources are capitalized in Wikipedia. In other words, "Do what most reliable sources do" - even if you think it's wrong - sorry. Popcornfud (talk) 12:30, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Popcornfud: I just don't personally believe that what is and what isn't a proper noun can be defined by popular opinion, though. Surely it is or it isn't, regardless of what people think, based on what the article on proper nouns says? DesertPipeline (talk) 12:40, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • However, Wikipedia is not about being correct — it is about reporting the sources — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 13:24, 20 March 2021 (UTC)
    User:GhostInTheMachine: Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm not really sure that applies here. We can obviously report that some people don't capitalise the I when referring to the Internet according to the sources, and that some do, but when we're just referring to it generally, shouldn't we be capitalising the I if that's the correct way to do it? :) DesertPipeline (talk) 03:44, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • Joking moved out of the !vote section (with copy of what it's a response to), per user talk request:
  1. ^ "I can tell you right now, Dave... that monkey is indeed being cheeky!"

Rewording of hyphen section

I want to propose a simplification of the section on hyphens.

Current

=== Hyphens ===

Hyphens (-) indicate conjunction. There are three main uses:

  1. In hyphenated personal names: John Lennard-Jones.
  2. To link prefixes with their main terms in certain constructions (quasi-scientific, pseudo-Apollodorus, ultra-nationalistic).
    • A hyphen may be used to distinguish between homographs (re-dress means dress again, but redress means remedy or set right).
    • There is a clear trend to join both elements in all varieties of English (subsection, nonlinear). Hyphenation clarifies when the letters brought into contact are the same (non-negotiable, sub-basement) or are vowels (pre-industrial), or where a word is uncommon (co-proposed, re-target) or may be misread (sub-era, not subera). Some words of these sorts are nevertheless common without the hyphen (e.g. cooperation is more frequently attested than co-operation in contemporary English).

Proposed

=== Hyphens ===

Hyphens (-) indicate conjunction. There are three main uses:

  1. Personal names (Daniel Day-Lewis)
  2. Certain prefixes (vice-president, ex-boyfriend). Note that general usage tends to avoid hyphens for many prefixes (subsection, nonlinear). Use a hyphen in the following situations:
    • If it changes the meaning (re-dress dress again versus redress set right)
    • To separate the same letter (non-negotiable) or vowels (pre-industrial) unless doing so goes against general usage (cooperation not co-operation)
    • To avoid misreadings (sub-era not subera)
    • Uncommon words with no established usage (co-propose)

Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Fredlesaltique (talk • contribs) 04:44, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I think "personal names" is too telegraphic and open to misinterpretation. We only use hyphens to separate parts of the personal name of a single person; we do not use them to separate names of two people. The current text is worded circularly and doesn't clearly indicate this but the new wording is worse in this respect. —David Eppstein (talk) 08:29, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@David Eppstein: I don't think such a misinterpretation is likely, and rewording would probably add to confusion. We could add a second well-known name for clarity, though. Fredlesaltique (talk) 10:04, 21 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with the general trust of this, but concur with David (especially on his main point, that people will misinterpret this to mean "write Comet Hale-Bopp"; we know for a fact that various editors are perpetually confused about en-dash usage with human names so we do have reason to avoid worsening it). Given that names like Day-Lewis have a term for them and we have an article on it, at Double-barrelled name, just use that term and link to it. However, not all such surnames are hyphenated any longer. And it's not always surnames; hyphens are common between Chinese and Korean given names (in either family-name-first or Western order), and among some French and Southern US given-name clusters. So what we should probably say is something like the following (and I even managed to find someone with a hyphenated forename and a hyphenated surname):
  1. A double-barrelled surname or compound give name that is hyphenated for a particular subject in most reliable sources (Daniel Day-Lewis, Yu Myeong-Hee, Jean-Louis Vieillard-Baron)
    • For use of the en dash between names of two entities, as in Dunning–Kruger effect, see below
This wording accounts for the fact that (especially for Asian cases) source treatment may differ as to the spelling, and we should use the dominant one in RS. And we should use cross-references more liberally, to avoid restating rules (which provides an undesirable opportunity for WP:POLICYFORKing). I notice that MOS:DASH not once but twice makes the point that double-barreled surnames take hyphens, and this would be better done with cross-references to the rule rather than restatements of the rule.
Next, "cooperation not co-operation" is flat-out wrong. The original text was correct about frequency of usage, but the revised version goes too far in marking one as an error. "Co-operaticon" "Co-operation" is a very well-attested spelling, and there's nothing wrong with it. Plenty of editors and readers prefer it. This vowel-separating hyphenation is only commonly used when pronunciation might be uncertain (esp. to a non-native speaker or school child) because the combination forms a common diphthong. The e[-]u case seems to be among the least frequently hyphenated, so a better example would be the following:
  1. ...
    • ...
    • To separate the same letter (non-negotiable) or vowels (pre-industrial) unless doing so goes against general usage (reunion not re-union)
Basically MoS shouldn't be prescribing against a usage that still has currency in formal writing, but should illustrate avoidance of a misusage that almost all readers would take to be an error.
Finally, remove "Note that"; just say "General usage tends ...", or "However, general usage tends ..." if we think that reads better. We should actually search all the MoS pages for "note that" and similar phrases, and remove them. We advise avoiding their use in articles, so MoS should practice what it preaches. PS: The footnote (to what MoS means by "recent", "current", "modern", etc.) will probably no longer be needed, given how this is being revised, so I've removed it (including from the original quote, since it throws an error here on the talk page due to the note itself being missing).
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:04, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Co-operaticon (noun): A joint convention of fans of both Italian and German opera. EEng 15:41, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Ha ha.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:31, 23 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Personal names: I think that lengthening the wording on personal names would make the principle more convoluted than it needs to be.
As I see it, the guide should simply answer the question "When do I use a hyphen" with "in personal names." In other words, if a personal name has a dash-like symbol, then it should be a hyphen. I don't think it needs to mention what all the specific examples of hyphens in names are; by keeping it simple they are all included anyways. The current and proposed wordings make no mention of when to remove a hyphen or keep it, since that is a separate issue. I also think that introducing new terms like double-barreled surnames is pertinent but not strictly necessary, and should be avoided to keep things concise.
What about changing the wording to "in personal names"? Then the question "how to combine two personal names" is neither raised nor answered, as far as I can see. Putting a note mentioning that the answer to this separate question is below, like one of you proposed, seems like a good solution, though I worry it just makes things more confusing. (Also I noticed John Lennard-Jones is used elsewhere as an example, so should not have been removed.)
  1. In personal names (Daniel Day-Lewis, John Lennard-Jones)
Prefixes: We can change the wording on prefixes to be less prescriptive, I was trying to make it more cut-and-dry but I may have gone too far. What about this?
  1. ...
    • ...
    • To separate the same letter (non-negotiable) or vowels (pre-industrial) unless doing so goes against general usage (reunion not re-union). Note that some words commonly lack a hyphen (cooperate versus co-operate)
Note that: the Manual of Style states "Avoid such phrases as remember that and note that, which address readers directly in an unencyclopedic tone and lean toward instructional." Since the manual is not an encyclopedia article but rather a guideline that is meant to instruct, I don't think using "note that" is an issue.
Wow that was a lot longer than I intended. Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 13:08, 22 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that concision on this matter would be an improvement. On the MoS-should-do-as-it-advises matter, I don't think you've been around long enough, or you'd know that any time MoS doesn't do as it says people who don't agree with the line item in question leap on that as an excuse to claim it doesn't have consensus, yadda yadda (the "fight against MoS" b.s. we've been deailing with for nearly 20 years. Everyone has at least one bone to pick with MoS (an every other style guide there is), so we should not feed them opportunities to manufacture drama over style trivia.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:04, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
MOS doesn't apply outside project space, in particular not to itself. Nor should it. Nonissue. EEng 23:17, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Post–World War II or Post-World War II?

I left a message at Talk:Post–Cold War era#En dash or hyphen? —hueman1 (talk • contributions) 02:16, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]

HueMan1, I agree with Fredlesaltique; should be a hyphen (particularly item 3). —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:54, 25 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Good point; I hadn't thought of it like that. — Christopher, Sheridan, OR (talk) 08:19, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
And oh, another thing, about PTSD. Why should it be an exception to the MOS? —hueman1 (talk • contributions) 08:07, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not arguing for or against the dash in PTSD on WP, but noting that the hyphen is overwhelmingly common usage in reliable sources, which is another WP principle. It's just because this rule or principle (like many) doesn't get applied consistently. If I were writing it for my own publication, I'd probably use a dash (and my editor would probably change it to a hyphen anyway). The "post-election pendulum" is a pendulum after the election, so the premodifier post-election is simple + simple (i.e., one word + one word), so it's just a hyphen, the same as "a man-eating shark" or "a well-cooked steak". Doremo (talk) 10:28, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Doremo: I agree, I guess a majority would oppose its hypothetical RM (P-TSD to P–TSD). Thank you for your response! —hueman1 (talk • contributions) 13:44, 26 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's a hyphen in PTSD because it's a stress disorder that arises after trauma, not a disorder of trauma stress. I could be wrong. Good Ol’factory (talk) 22:49, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. "Post—traumatic stress disorder" would seem to be an awkward adjective or adverb meaning "after one has gotten over 'traumatic stress disorder', whatever that is". PTSD is a disorder involving trauma-induced stress. The post- is modifier only of trauma.
In general for hyphens and dashes, I would say 1. if something is technically correct but overly-distracting, then ignore it and 2. deference should be given to reliable sources. Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 11:13, 27 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
My great-grandmother had a saying: "Straining at gnats and swallowing horses". If we're gonna keep up the insistence that page ranges must use endashes instead of hyphens, then we're damn sure not gonna give a pass to pre-World War artillery, as is there was war artillery before there was a world. EEng 01:58, 28 February 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe more to the point, Fredlesaltique's argument is trebly faulty.
  1. There's no evidence that en dashes versus hyphens are, to readers or to editors, "overly distracting". (Note the lack of a hyphen in that, by the way; anyone who hyphenates after a -ly adjective isn't in a position to be offering hyphen-related advice.) At most, they're faintly inconvenient to some editors who are neither Mac users nor (on Windows or *n*x) users of keyboard macro utilities, and who also don't use the "Wiki markup" or "Insert" utility right underneath the editing window. If this sort of minor expediency matter were a valid rationale, we'd also drop all MoS matters about the minus symbol, em dashes, ×, non-breaking spaces, language markup, diacritics, mathematical symbols, etc., etc. "It's not one of my default keyboard-layout characters" isn't a reason we take seriously. (And typing efficiency is the reason that news publishers eschew en dashes; it's not because it's "more correct" to do so, it's simply a matter of deadline pressure. Same goes for all the punctuation- and capitals- and space-dropping, the avoidance of diacritics, the clipped grammatical structures, the formulaic "newsspeak" clichés, and other hallmarks of news writing. News style guides have had virtually no impact on MoS for good reasons.)
  2. Second, CMoS and other off-site style guides are not reliable sources for how to write Wikipedia; only our own internal consensus in developing MoS (and AT, and the naming conventions guidelines, etc.) is that, and it already takes all the major off-site style guides into account. Carol Fisher Saller, Bryan A. Garner, and the handful of other people who determine the content of CMoS – and fail to fix factual errors in it a decade after they're reported >cough cough< – don't dictate how WP is written. And no style guide in a vacuum is an authority on English, even as source for encyclopedia material like Comma#Uses in English; they have to be used in the aggregate because they all contradict each other on hundreds of points (even when they don't contradict themselves internally, which is too often).
  3. Last, and most obviously, CMoS doesn't even say not to use en dashes for this, it just observes that some don't use it. CMoS makes many observations of this sort, as do most other style guides. Many of them have been bending over backwards the last 20 years to be more descriptive, which kind of defeats the purpose of being a style guide; New Hart's Rules under Waddingham's editorship and Fowler's under Butterfield's are especially crappy in this regard. This throwing up of the hands by some particular other publication (which amounts to "we give up, so just do whatever the hell you want") has no effect on whether MoS advises, deprecates, or avoids addressing any style point. (The main impetus of this new wishywashiness in some style guides that were formerly bastions of a particular "academic" writing style appears to be pressure to be inclusive and permissive of some news-style and business- or marking-style writing habits, to sell more style guides. Paper publishers are under increasingly intense pressure to drive up sales any way they can to survive at all in the 21st century, and it tends to result in dumbed-down, least-common-denominator results. The effects are more obvious in this niche than in many others because the traditional divide between styles has a long history and – until lately – rather sharp lines, so their sudden blurring stands out.)
The perpetual "style warfare" people bring against MoS line-items they don't personally care for, however, is very much a distraction from editorial productivity (theirs and everyone else's). Editors have to understand that there is no one who agrees with 100% of the statements in this or any other guideline or policy, and there are no guideline or policy rules that have agreement from 100% of editors. Perfect unanimity is not possible to achieve, ergo lack of unanimity about any given line item is not an argument against it. Consensus can change, but WP:IDONTLIKEIT is a codified fallacy on this site. So are WP:OTHERSTUFF and WP:CONTENTAGE and WP:NOTFIXEDYET, which are frequently also thrown up as anti-guideline lobbying points; the fact that no policy or guideline line-item has 100% compliance, and some failures to comply are in articles that haven't been corrected on the matter for years, is not reasoning against a rule's existence and applicability, or the whole project would be unworkable. Cf. WP:NOTPERFECTION, WP:NODEADLINE, WP:NOTUNANIMITY.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:15, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
and fail to fix factual errors in it a decade after they're reported >cough cough< May I ask to what this is referring? 207.161.86.162 (talk) 07:01, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

"Early" hyphenation question

Do we write "the early 20th-century upper class" or "the early-20th-century upper class"? Wolfdog (talk) 15:43, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • The Chicago Manual of Style recommends late nineteenth-century literature, stating that it is "clear without a second hyphen" as an adjective modifying a compound, but a mid-eighteenth-century poet because CMS classifies mid- as a prefix. (CMS 16th ed., §§ 7.83, 7.85) Following this recommendation, it would be "the early 20th-century upper class". Doremo (talk) 16:33, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, it depends on the larger context:
    The early 20th-century upper class considered sexuality propriety paramount. but
    He subscribed to the early 20th-century upper-class attitude that sexual propriety should be paramount.
    EEng 17:24, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Right. I meant "upper class" as a noun. Wolfdog (talk) 23:14, 8 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      • This seems reasonable to me on first approach. However, the more fully compounded style ("early-20th-century") is clearly well-attested, and we have no reason to legislate against it. MoS should not impose a rule that serves no practical purpose. There are probably 10,000 things would could have a new rule about (given the size of the major off-site style guides), but we keep MoS constrained to only those things that matter for reader comprehension and an encyclopedic tone, or which we need to have a rule about to stop constant infighting.

        Anyway, I think usage on this exact question is going to vary even by individual, depending on context. For example, I would be more likely to use "early-20th-century" when it proceeded another modifier. Ex.: "early-20th-century nationalistic movements", because it is in fact clearer for the reader, that "early" is modifying "20th[-]century" not the entire string about the movements. And they were not in fact early nationalistic movements, but direct outgrowths of late 19th-century proto-fascism. But that last clause makes me notice for sure something that I suspected: I'm disinclined to do it if what follows the construction also contains a hyphen, because lots and lots and lots of hyphens become more of a problem than a help. I would feel compelled to add it anyway in a case like "late-19th-century proto-fascist sentiment" (modifier modifier noun), again because it was not late proto-fascist sentiment but early (even taking into account that proto- implies early – the proto-fascist period lasted well into the 20th century). Nor do me mean "among the proto-fascism examples toward the end of the 19th century, select only last few of them". We just mean "proto-fascism examples toward the end of the 19th century", the end. In messy cases like that, however, I would strongly consider just rewriting, e.g. "proto-fascist sentiment of the late 19th century" which has only one hyphen (required because proto- is a prefix not a word).

        In short, I would oppose making a rule requiring or even recommending "early 20th-century", since it should be left to editorial discretion, and MoS is already overlong with examples, so we don't need to add a new block of "sometimes do this, sometimes do that" stuff, especially given that there are no recurrent knock-down, drag-out fights about this stuff. If someone does what to fight with you about it, just rewrite to avoid (it's the first rule of MoS!), as I did in an example here.
         — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  03:47, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Italics in captions question

I have question about how MOS handles italics in captions on mainspace articles. Should words or phrases be in italics when in brackets when it is something like "(pictured)" or "(left)" in captions, etc? I have seem this kind of implementation around at WP:TFA Examples or WP:DYK Examples or in some mainspace GAs (e.g. D'oh-in' in the Wind, 200 (South Park)) but it seems to be inconsistent. Kind regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 15:10, 10 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I know this will sound incredible, but MOS is silent on this; there have been discussions but no resolution (unless it happened the month I was comatose). Thus you and your fellow editors are free to write (r) or (r) or (right) or (right) (though I suspect fewer will mind if you use italics than will object if you don't). If you want to open at discussion aimed at standardizing this sort of stuff, do it at WT:Manual of Style/Captions. But I don't recommend it. Really I don't. EEng 01:21, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Your warning not to discuss it is a bit (sinister). pburka (talk) 02:27, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Get involved in enough generally unnecessary MoS arguments, and you'll understand the warning. It's WP:DRAMA we don't need. People can be amazingly emotive and petty about their WP:BIKESHED nit-picks.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:28, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the response, I'll keep that in mind. It is tempting to want to start an RfC on such a matter but your warning is convincing.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 08:46, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
While not entirely relevant to the question of italicization, I'm not sure that (r) and (r) would be compliant with MOS:ABBR. 207.161.86.162 (talk) 07:23, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Good point. EEng 17:47, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I would say our rules on text formatting tend toward conservative. That is, use less, not more. --Izno (talk) 03:38, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Right. It's usually "don't use it unless there's a reason to use it", that is, not purely on stylistic grounds. —El Millo (talk) 03:49, 11 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
People do this because WP style is to italicize self-references, including "talking at the reader" (e.g. all our hatnotes, all of our inline cleanup/dispute templates, etc.). We don't do it for large blocks of stuff like menus, navigational templates, and the whole "See also" section. But we do it a whole lot in mid-article, where the instructional commentary is being distinguished from the content per se. This is really a grey area, yet another of those cases of "conflicting consistencies" that cannot really be resolved to everyone's perfect satisfaction. E.g., we have dispensed with the obnoxious italicization habit of various bibliographic styles that italicize all cross-referential interpolations ("See Johnson 1938 p. 3", etc.), which tends to come off as inappropriate emphasis and really serves no practical purpose (I always hear it in my mind as some browbeating schoolmarm trying to force homework on me!). But bibliographic citations are metadata, not part of the article content proper. One can kinda-sorta make that argument about image captions, but it's pretty weak, and we generally treat the contents of them as part of the article content (e.g. subject to MoS rules that citations can sometimes skirt, either by being subject to a more specific cite-specific rule, or by the article using an established citation style that diverges from MoS's expectations).

In the end, given that people are apt to keep italicizing these things, and there's not a burning need to legislate against this, nor to require it, we should probably have a template for them ({{caption note}}, shortcut {{capnote}}, using the {{inline hatnote}} meta-template) that marks them up with CSS classes like hatnotes and other claptrap get, so they are distinguishable from the real content, including by WP:REUSE tools, by user CSS, and so on. They are basically inline hatnotes, of a sort similar to {{cross reference}} and its shortcuts: {{crossref|printworthy=y|see [[#Brobingnagese language|below]]}}, or {{xref|For additional details, see [[Lilliputese dialects]].}}
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:28, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

En dashes and merged jurisdictional names

We have a long-standing problem of confusion about whether to use a hyphen or an en dash in names like Travancore–Cochin (AKA Thiru–Kochi or State of Travancore–Cochin), a merger of the formerly separate Travancore/Thiru and Cochin/Kochi. Despite MOS:DASH being for a long time eminently clear to use an en dash for mergers between coeval/comparable entities (and in other cases involving them, such as relations between or collaborations involving separate entities), there keeps being regurgitative debate about this at WP:RM. I've traced this perennial conflict to the addition of the following to MoS (the MOS:DUALNATIONALITIES subsection of MOS:DASH), seemingly without discussion:

Wrong: Austria–Hungary; the hyphenated Austria-Hungary was a single jurisdiction during its 1867–1918 existence

That's a nonsense "rationale", as every merged jurisdiction (or dual-named meta-jurisdiction) like Travancore–Cochin is "a single jurisdiction during its ... existence". I.e., someone has forced the guideline to directly contradict itself. I've commented out this line, pending further discussion, but believe that it should simply be deleted. I think what has happened here is that someone got confused about Austro-Hungarian Empire using a hyphen, and assumed it must also apply to Austria–Hungary then made up a rationale to get that result. But Austro-Hungarian uses a hyphen for an entirely unrelated reason: Austro- is not a word but a combining form. It's the same kind of construction as Afro-Cuban and Franco-Prussian.

Despite this confusion, the majority of RM discussions have understood the overall gist of MOS:DASH and have concluded to use the en dash for names of merged or superset jurisdictions that have the names or parts of the names of component places in the combined name and which use short horizontal lines to separate those components (thus Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, etc., etc.). But the injection of this "Austria-Hungary" pseudo-rule has caused and continues to cause confusion and counter-argument, which defeats the purpose of having a clear and consistent guideline. And it has produced some inconsistent results, e.g. North Rhine-Westphalia (which is not northern "Rhine-Westphalia" but North Rhine combined with Westphalia), and Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu Province, though these do not appear to be the result in most cases of RM discussions being misled by the line quoted above (they mostly seem to be article titles chosen before MOS:DASH existed, or more recently by editors who have no read it).

PS: This stuff has no effect on Wilkes-Barre or Guinea-Bissau or Vitoria-Gasteiz, which are hyphened for entirely different reasons and which are not merged jurisdictions or supra-jurisdictional names. (The first is a place with two kind of randomly chosen namesakes that had nothing to do with the place or each other, and which could as easily have been named Badger-cake or Hospitality-Socrates or Pottery-Holstein. It ended up hyphenated just because it did, and if had been established recently it probably would not be since we don't use hyphens that way in contemporary English. But it has no reason to take an en dash. The second is due to a French convention of using a hyphen to stand in for something like "containing" or "related to" or "associated with"; it means 'the Guinea that has Bissau', basically. German has a directly reversed convention where such a name is applied to the enclosed place not the surrounding one: Berlin-Charlottenburg, meaning essentially 'the Charlottenburg of/in Berlin'. The handful of places with these sorts of names take hyphens are are all former European colonies or are in Europe. The third is a case of two languages' names for the same place being given at once, in this case Spanish and Basque. Various places with names of that kind don't take hyphens, e.g. Papua New Guinea.)
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  13:22, 13 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Defining common abbreviations

In many fields, abbreviations and acronyms are used quite commonly. Sometimes this such an extent that the full name is not so well known, sometimes the initialism and the full words are used interchangeably. People might search for information using the acronym. Where an article is giving scope to some area it may be helpful to list both the full name and the acronym, even when the abbreviated form isn't used elsewhere on within the article. This appears often the case where the abbreviated thing doesn't necessarily have (or warrant) its own page.

Is there a correct way to handle this?

Options may include:

  • (A) Tea cannot be made in a Chocolate Teapot (CT).
  • (B) Tea cannot be made in a CT (Chocolate Teapot).
  • (C) Tea cannot be made in a Chocolate Teapot. [ we have a #REDIRECT to the article on a new page "CT", so people can at least find when searching with "CT"]
  • (D) Tea cannot be made in a Chocolate Teapot, commonly referred to in the industry as a CT.
  • (E) Tea cannot be made in a CT (the common industry shorthand for a Chocolate Teapot).
  • (F) Tea cannot be made in a Chocolate Teapot. [You're out of luck if you search using "CT"]
  • (G) Tea cannot be made in a CT. [You're on your own trying to find out what CT means]

Are there further options?

What is our preferred stance on this? And what types of evidence should be considered when choosing an approach to this?

For options (D) and (E) above, will we need to find a WP:SECONDARY to demonstrate that the acronym is indeed commonly used? Or would a definition on some primary source be acceptable? (Perhaps counts of google hits may be inaccurate, or indeed for some short initialisms they may be tricky to disambiguate.)

Considering relative frequency of use of the full term versus initialism would be sensible, but again what level of evidence is required? Chumpih. (talk) 06:38, 14 March 2021 (UTC) + edits to clarify 11:46.[reply]

  • Can you please give an actual example from an actual article -- ideally two or three? I'm having great trouble appreciating the issue from this farfetched hypothetical. EEng 07:03, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • This discussion was started (and I was pointed to it) after I undid the addition of the initialism ECJU (for Export Control Joint Unit) to Export control. Per MOS:1STOCC "When an abbreviation will be used in an article, first introduce it using the full expression." If we are not using the term elsewhere in the article there is no need to introduce the initialism at all. As far as I am concerned, It should not matter if the term is commonly used in a particular field. There are thousands upon thousands of such industry-specific abbreviations and initialisms. In this case the term "Export Control Joint Unit" is not used elsewhere in the article, and in fact, it is not used anywhere else in English Wikipedia. It is clearly not a common term in general. Meters (talk) 20:04, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • There are two three issues you raise: firstly whether a commonly-used initialism is worth spelling out on some page, even when there is no further reference on that page, and the other is whether ECJU is a common term. ECJU is out of scope on this talk page, and should be discussed on Talk:Export control. MOS:1STOCC doesn't clarify the situation on commonly-used initialism being shown on a page, and having some clear policy in this area would be appreciated. You state "If we are not using the term elsewhere in the article there is no need to introduce the initialism at all.", and for a commonly-accepted initialism that is debatable. Chumpih. (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • And regarding the initialism 'ECJU' not appearing elsewhere on English Wikipedia, it is precisely because of this that there is reason to include the initialism on that page. In this example, if someone were to conduct a search using 'ECJU' they will then find some relevant information about a UK government department, as opposed to turning up empty-handed. (It's open to debate if that gov't department is of sufficient importance to warrant its own Article.) In the hypothetical example, if someone were to search for "CT" then they woud at least find a page including references to chocolate teapots.
    There is an attempt at a policy for initialisms that don't get a second mention on Talk:Export Control, which basically permits (A) style above. It offers justifications. It's only for that page. Is it plausible? Chumpih. (talk) 22:57, 14 March 2021 (UTC) + highlighting 07:30 15 March.[reply]
  • I sometimes find it helpful to see how other style guides treat the issue. Here's what the Associated Press Stylebook says for Abbreviations and Acronyms:
"A few universally recognized abbreviations are required in some circumstances. Some others are acceptable, depending on the context. But in general, avoid alphabet soup. Do not use abbreviations or acronyms that the reader would not quickly recognize.
"Abbreviations and acronyms should be avoided in headlines.
"Guidance on how to use a particular abbreviation or acronym is provided in entries..."
The stylebook will usually say a particular term is 1. acceptable on all references (HDMI), 2. acceptable on first reference, but should be explained in the story (HDR, "high-dynamic range"), 3. acceptable on second reference (HD, "high-definition"), or 4. where possible, avoid using the term (HIPAA).
So basically, it depends on the term and what is most comprehensible for the reader. I would err on the side of spelling it out, as Wikipedia's Manual of Style suggests. Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 02:17, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
OP? But... Optimus Prime is not real, how did he get in this discussion. But right, do we need a written down rule, just use common sense, mnmh? User:Meters points out that the question came up when "I undid the addition of the initialism ECJU (for Export Control Joint Unit)" per some rule. Well easy solution there: if it's a matter of undoing a recent addition, just WP:BRD it back out if you want; ball's in the other person's court. Per WP:1Q you obviously only do that if you feel that adding the ECJU is a bad thing on the merits; if you don't, just ignore the rule. If the EJCU had been standing material, maybe leave it alone; some editor thought it was good to have and there's no need to gainsay her on minor matters of form. Or remove it if you like, if you don't get BRDed back you're good, if you do move on. If an article's an alphabet soup, that's different. It doesn't sound like this article was broken. Herostratus (talk) 23:52, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

MOS:COLLAPSED seems wrong / misleading

The notion that tables shouldn't be collapsed upon the loading of a page seems to be based on some incorrect ideas and some misleading positioning of sentences. The current wording gives the impression that the mobile version of the site will strip auto-collapsed tables; this is false, only navboxes are stripped from the mobile view.

Any information hidden in this way when the page loads will be irreversibly invisible to the aforementioned classes of users, as well as a growing number of low-bandwidth users in Asia who reach a Wikipedia article via Google.

The second half of this is crystal balling and outdated. Google Lite is only available as a hidden "advanced" feature in the mobile version of Chrome, that was barely announced beyond 2016. No data shows that this number of users is either A) significant or B) growing. Also, Google cached pages / LITE searches display the exact same as their mobile and desktop counterparts on my phone. Disabling javascript simply displays collapsed data as uncollapsed. I think this section needs to be updated as it seems unnecessarily regressive. - Floydian τ ¢ 15:32, 14 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • I've confirmed that even without JS and CSS enabled, the mobile website now defaults to showing collapsed tables at least - I didn't have examples handy to test it on other collapsed things and am not familiar enough with how collapsing is done outside of the table class to comment on those. However, the iOS app defaults to collapsing all tables, and it is reasonable to assume that, for various reasons, third parties may utilize collapsing of tables/data via CSS classes to not download that data at all. While it's great that the mobile website now "un-auto-collapses" tables/various things and that the site does so as well when JS/CSS are not active, that does not eliminate other reasons to avoid collapsing things in articles. On the subject of the "lite" versions, there are many places in the world where Google caching is not the primary means of reducing bandwidth - thus I would welcome input from users who may have knowledge of whether or not non-Google/WP low-bandwidth technologies display this content.
    There are also other reasons to discourage/prohibit auto-collapsing in articles. As the second-to-last sentence of the section states: If information in a list, infobox, or other non-navigational content seems extraneous or trivial enough to inspire pre-collapsing it, consider raising a discussion on the article (or template) talk page about whether it should be included at all - and this is what should be made the focus of that section if any changes are made. I would also welcome input as to whether there are accessibility issues that involve CSS classes which provide collapsibility - examples being screen readers and other software/devices which automatically alter/change the way content is produced. Furthermore, we must (per MOS:PRECOLLAPSE) remember that Wikipedia content can be reused freely in ways we cannot predict as well as accessed directly via older browsers and adding complexity via collapsing things when there is a better solution is contrary to that goal of WP. If information is important to an article, it is important to the goal of Wikipedia that virtually any reasonable reuse-of-content case be able to obtain a complete picture of the important content of said article - which auto-collapsing may prevent by suggesting the content is not important. The better solution is listed in MOS:COLLAPSE already - either un-collapse the content if it is important enough to be in the article, change the way in which it is presented to make collapsing or not a moot point, or remove the content altogether.
    To summarize, I do not support altering MOS:COLLAPSED to decrease guidance against (auto-)collapsing things in articles, but I do support revisiting why it's important and rewording the section accordingly - including clarifying that current modern browsers and official websites display the content even when CSS/JS are not used. I also think that it should be made clear that auto-collapsing is not a means for "visual" changes to an article - i.e. making an article "flow" better, or allowing people to "skip" tables/etc - but is instead only to be used as a way to include information which is relevant and has a good reason for inclusion, but outdated or supplementary - the prime example being historical data on pages it is not likely to be the primary topic, but is still useful for historical data. We must primarily remember that we are not an indiscriminate collection of information, and information which is "hidden" by default should be evaluated with serious weight given to the idea that maybe that information/data is not in line with Wikipedia's purpose. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 02:52, 20 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • "There are also other reasons to discourage/prohibit auto-collapsing in articles." Yes, and the devs messing around again with what the mobile version is doing by default (always a moving target) does not change this. We cannot depend on it remaining even that much semi-functional. And it really is just semi-fuctional, since it will have no effect on other kinds of collapsed content.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  04:35, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Use of em dash in latin abbreviations such as —e.g., and —i.e.,

There is an absence of guidance on how to format exempli gratia (e.g.) and id est (i.e.).

In my internet research on typography and style guides, the most formal presentation when immediately following a sentence is with the use of an em dash and comma like this: —e.g.,

Ironically, the strongest source of information I could find on the use of various types of dashes is Wikipedia itself. But this article doesn't yet cover the use case of —e.g.,

As of March 2021 the Wikipedia editor's text field erroneously renders the em dash as an en dash. In other words, if you are authoring an article in the text editor, you go to Advanced > Special characters > Symbols and click on the em dash button (or you can press the keyboard shortcut for an em dash), then an en dash is erroneously displayed in the text field. However, if you publish your changes, the resulting HTML page correctly renders the em dash with the correct unicode character. This is a call to action that there is a bug that needs to be fixed in the editor but I don't know where to report it. Also, I'm not yet sure if its a browser bug or wikipedia/MediaWiki bug.

Note, this is not an invitation to debate if i.e. and e.g. should be discouraged or avoided. That ground has been covered in archived discussions here. Likewise, the use of commas ( here, here, here, and here), full stops, italics, and even brackets have been debated. There are a lot of external links here.

The MoS itself is not internally consistent with the typography of e.g.. It varies from using hyphens before e.g. and commas following it. It even has an instance of a colon following e.g.

Two proposed actions:
1) fix the editor bug
2) create a bot that judiciously changes wikipedia to use an em dash before e.g. but only in cases where it starts a new clause but not in cases where it does not create a new clause such as where it may appear following an opening parenthesis or the beginning of a table cell, etc.

Chris Murphy (talk) 10:17, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

  • en dash is erroneously displayed in the text field – There is no bug. It's a longstanding problem that hypen, minus, ndash, and mdash (respectively: - • − • – • —) are hard to distinguish as they are rendered in the edit window some edit windows. That doesn't mean they're the wrong charater.
  • The MoS itself is not internally consistent – MOS is an ecumenical zone where various WP:ENGVARs and other style choices coexist side by side in peace and harmony. I quote from User:EEng#A_rolling_stone_gathers_no_MOS:
    In the last 48 hr I've become aware of a simmering dispute over whether the text of MOS itself should be in American or British English. With any luck the participants will put that debate (let's call it Debate D1) on hold in order to begin Debate D2: consideration of the variety of English in which D1 should be conducted. Then, if there really is a God in Heaven, D1 and D2 will be the kernel around which will form an infinite regress of metadebates D3, D4, and so on -- a superdense accretion of pure abstraction eventually collapsing on itself to form a black hole of impenetrable disputation, wholly aloof from the mundane cares of practical application and from which no light, logic or reason can emerge.
    That some editors will find themselves inexorably and irreversibly drawn into this abyss, mesmerized on their unending trip to nowhere by a kaleidoscope of linguistic scintillation reminiscent of the closing shots of 2001, is of course to be regretted. But they will know in their hearts that their sacrifice is for the greater good of Wikipedia. That won't be true, of course, but it would be cruel to disabuse them of that comforting fiction as we bid them farewell and send them on their way.
  • create a bot that [etc etc etc] – You say This is not an invitation to debate but – trust me – that's an invitation to debate. Anyway, I don't know who's going to develop this bot that knows what a clause is and so on.
EEng 22:21, 15 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  • are hard to distinguish as they are rendered — Thank you, your user experience helps to isolate where the bug may reside. For you, the en and em characters are merely hard to distinguish in the text editor, but for me, they are pixel for pixel identical. Therefore, you must be on a different platform or browser from me and that then suggests that this is possibly a browser bug, not a bug in MediaWiki. What OS and browser are you using?
  • I don't know who's going to develop this bot that knows what a clause is — The bot can skip areas where the em dash is not appropriate. As I said, the beginning of table cells, after opening parenthesis, etc. The bot doesn't need to know what a clause is to accomplish this logic. I would be willing to work on it eventually, if granted the authority to do so.

Your concern about British English is slightly germane to the e.g. debate, but localization is not an important aspect of the issues I raised. If it's important, maybe someday there can be a read-only ben.wikpedia.org with reasonable BE translation. Chris Murphy (talk) 11:03, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I use Windows 10 + Chrome, and you can avoid whatever problem you're having by using templates like {mdash} instead of literal characters. The quote about British vs. American English was simply to dramatize that MOS is consciously inconsistent in the styles and formats used in its own presentation. It's a waste of time to keep talking about a bot until you get agreement that everything should be conformed to the one style you describe, and that's never going to happen. EEng 16:17, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is not a bug. Your operating system and/or browser simply does not have/is not loading a font which differentiates the horizontal straight line (to your liking). You can add personal CSS which selects some saner font for the window in question. Izno (talk) 01:42, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
@Chris Murphy: For the US, I can give two guidelines. The Chicago Manual of Style recommends commas before and after, except in contexts where a semicolon, dash or parenthesis is appropriate (see here and here). The Associated Press Stylebook only states they are "always followed by a comma."
I can't speak for British usage or other style guides, but it seems like there is no hard and fast "rule" about what comes before. Personally I don't think it's worth articulating one in the Manual of Style. Fredlesaltique (talk) 03:12, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
This is basically not an MoS issue:
  1. If there's an actual bug with one of the available editing interfaces, that should be reported via WP:PHAB; MoS regulars and other WP editors, who are not also among MediaWiki's developers, have no way to fix such a problem.
  2. I rather suspect this is actually a browser problem of what font is being used in the editing window. Make sure you have downloaded a monospace "programmer font" that takes pains to distinguish between all similar characters, and tell your browser to use that for monospace, and maybe even force the matter in your user CSS on this site; see Help:User style#User CSS for a monospaced coding font. A dead giveaway that this is the issue is you are seeing "the wrong character" in editing mode but not when you save. I don't think it's actually possible for what you think is happening to actually be happening (the software certainly would have been coded to sneakily change – input into — output to mess with you then change it back to – upon saving.
  3. Aside from that stuff, the underlying "—e.g." question ... just kind of "isn't a thing". What there are, are various ways to set off a parenthetical, all of which are valid: "Blah blah, e.g. yak yak, snort snort." "Blah blah – e.g. yak yak – snort snort." "Blah blah—e.g. yak yak—snort snort." "Blah blah (e.g. yak yak) snort snort." All of these are also valid at the end of a sentence instead of mid-sentence. It simply isn't the case that one of these is "correct" and the others are "wrong". Your "—e.g." thing is just a preference of whatever writer(s) you've been reading lately. It's perfectly valid, but WP would never require that version, since doing so would directly conflict with other parts of MoS, e.g. MOS:DASH. And in fact you should not (per MOS:DASH) use that version if the article already has an established style of using spaced en dashes instead of unspaced em dashes, for the parenthetical dash function. (As for "e.g. yak yak" versus "e.g., yak yak", that's another editorial-discretion matter. Some editors always use the comma, some never do, and most of us do so when it seems to aid clarity, e.g. when what follows "e.g." is long and complex. It's even possible to do "e.g.: ..." when introducing a list of stuff.) Remember that English has no formal rule-making body that dictates its stylistic particulars.
PS: Please use <br /> not <br>; while both will parse in HTML 5, the latter breaks the editing-mode syntax highlighter (at least the one available under the Preferences menu).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:00, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Reviving MOS:IDENTITY

I found interest in reviving discussion of this failed proposal, which is not covered by any current guideline and includes points that are not explicit in any existing guideline; for example, the use of the dated and inaccurate term Caucasians for White people. A major factor in its failure was being mislabeled as a proposed naming convention for articles. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 17:35, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I am confused... MOS:IDENTITY is currently a shortcut to an existing section of our main MOS, not to a failed proposal. Are you asking whether it should be hived off into its own MOS subpage? Blueboar (talk) 20:06, 17 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I think what is meant is Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Identity (failed proposal). It was originally created as a draft naming convention, but spent very little verbiage on naming and was almost entirely about style matters in article content, so I moved to a more appropriate name, then proposed (after cleaning it up some) that it be integrated into MoS (rather than sit for more years as a moribund proposal). The response what not exactly positive: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 194#Merge draft WP:Naming conventions (identity) to MOS:IDENTITY?.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  09:07, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
You could rename it as an essay and remove the failed-proposal tag. Then at least people could quote from it or point to it to explain their opinion. Which I guess if you do that to a failed proposal will not have much impact. It's a lot of words, are the problems occurring which this would help address? If not, leave it as an essay maybe. (My take on on the general subject is that persons are mediocre sources for information about themselves, for various reasons, particularly self-dealing. If "When writing an article about specific groups or their members always use the terminology which those individuals or organizations themselves use" means we have to call the Proud Boys "freedom fighters" or whatever in our voice, I'm not in favor of that.) Herostratus (talk) 09:49, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the clarification. I would agree that making it an essay would be the right way to go here. I too would oppose reviving it as a guideline. My feeling is that we should always note what labels people or groups apply to themselves, but we should also note the labels others (reliable sources) apply to them. When these conflict (and especially when they are controversial), we should bend over backwards to avoid stating ANY of the labels in WPs voice. Attribute, so the reader knows who applies which label. Blueboar (talk) 11:58, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

CfD regarding MOS:SUFFIXDASH

Category:21st century-related lists has been nominated for possible deletion, merging, or renaming. A discussion is taking place to decide whether this proposal complies with the categorization guidelines. If you would like to participate in the discussion, you are invited to add your comments at the category's entry on the categories for discussion page. Thank you. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 11:11, 21 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Language order

If there is a geographic object which is split between two countries with identifiable language/translation each, which language/translation should be given first and is there a policy/guideline/RfC/etc to determine this? — CuriousGolden (T·C) 15:47, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I’ll add to the question, also based on what the translation order should be determined? --ZaniGiovanni (talk) 17:13, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a rule somewhere on whether to use "actor" for all thespians, or just male ones?

In other words, is the term "actress" deprecated, or not, or is there nothing in the MoS about that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Herostratus (talk • contribs) 22:53, 22 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There once was a male lesbian Thespian from Nantucket
Whose gender was no drop in the bucket
But rather than quibble
With lesser minds that spew dribble
He is now simply known as Pat.

😊 Atsme 💬 📧 12:36, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Hey, that's pretty good, considering the material you have to work with. EEng 18:51, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There was a Young Person of Thespiae,
Whose toilette was so grim to espy;
She dressed in a some jeans,
Spickle-speckled with greens,
That ombliferous person of Thespiae.

(with apologies to Edward Lear). Martinevans123 (talk) 19:02, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure an apology is enough. EEng 20:19, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Preferred term for romantic partner?

When speaking about a romantic partner, what set of terms should be employed? "Boyfriend"/"girlfriend" or just "partner"?

I believe it should be the latter, for two reasons:

  1. It has (in my opinion) a more encyclopedic tone.
  2. It is gender neutral, which improves readability.

Envysan (talk) 03:46, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There's nothing written in the main Manual of Style. As far as I know, terms like boyfriend/girlfriend are generally acceptable, as is partner. It depends on context.
I would use whatever is appropriate for the article in question, and check how the subject is treated in reliable sources for guidance. Just be consistent within that article. Cheers, Fredlesaltique (talk) 04:30, 23 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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