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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]
      Perhaps that was meant to be "stuck", the synonym for "put". —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 23:58, 13 August 2021 (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]
    • I'm surprised to see the above quote from MOS:NUM (WP:UNITNAMES): "a normal space is used between a number and a unit name". Personally, I would find a line break within the example's "29
      kilograms" rather ugly. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 00:05, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Me, too. The position "you're pretty much saying every number anywhere must be followed by an nbsp" that EEng spoke against earlier actually seems to me to be the best practice. Your example of a break between 29 and kilograms not only looks "ugly", but makes me think that there has been a misprint of some sort causing me to have trouble understanding what is written. --Khajidha (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Somewhat related, but since the discussion here is almost-exclusively referencing insertion of NBSPs, I wanted to re-raise this previous discussion where I advocated for using Template:nowrap instead of NBSPs. The simple reason being that (at least on my system / in my browser) {{nowrap}} has the same effect as the insertion of NBSPs, without affecting spacing of the text the way NBSP does (again, at least on my system). Here's the example I presented:
    Bare Wikilinked
    Using {{nowrap}} World War I World War I
    Using &nbsp; World War I World War I
    Looking at that on my screen, the &nbsp; version has a much larger — in fact, uncomfortably large — space between "War" and "I", whereas the {{nowrap}} version is spaced normally. If we can protect phrases against wrapping without making the formatting look weird, I figure that makes the decision on when/whether to do so a bit less fraught. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 02:52, 15 August 2021 (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.

    Improve Controlling line breaks section

    It seems that it would be good if the example markup of 5° 24′ N included a non-breaking space between the 5degrees and the 24minutes and the N. DGerman (talk) 21:18, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I can't seem to find any guidance on the appropriate way to style footers for collages, such as those found on city pages like Washington, D.C. I assume that either "clockwise, from top" or "From top, left to right" is acceptable. But should it be From top, left to right:, (From top, left to right)[line break], or something else? Should entries be separated by commas or by {{hlist}}? This seems like something we might want to agree on just for consistency. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:38, 14 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I did bring up a simliar question [2] about whether caption 'pointers' like "(left)" "(pictured)", etc should be in italics but it seemed MOS did not have an answer.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 00:19, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    ...because, indeed, it's not clear is needs to have an answer. (I actually think it does need an answer, but until it becomes clear that it needs an answer, it's premature to formulate it. Sort of, when the student is ready the master will appear, some shit like that.) EEng 03:14, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Hmm, interesting. The advice that it's not worth the drama is worth considering, although sometimes this stuff is easier than we might expect. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 01:08, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • something we might want to agree on just for consistency – No, no, a thousand times NO. "Just for consistency" is the weakest of arguments for adding a rule to MOS, and it's very seldom sufficient. Different articles, different collages, may have different needs. Let a thousand flowers bloom in the captions of various articles, tended and nurtured by the editors of those articles. See WP:MOSBLOAT. EEng 03:14, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      @EEng: Fair point. Consider this idea withdrawn. I would still appreciate if editors have any thoughts about what they personally prefer. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 16:21, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Collages usually have four to six images; so long as the descriptions are concise, keeping it in prose form looks good to me. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:24, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • So the tl;dr here seems to be leave it up to editorial discretion to be determined by consensus on a case-by-case basis. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:11, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      We could possibly add that somewhere in the MOS, no? I.e. either way is acceptable as long as it is consistent throughout the whole article.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 16:25, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      MOSBLOAT MOSBLOAT MOSBLOAT MOSBLOAT MOSBLOAT MOSBLOAT MOSBLOAT MOSBLOAT MOSBLOAT! What problem or issue (real, not hypothetical) does this solve? EEng 19:25, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      @EEng: I could not find a shortcut to MOS:BLOAT (guessing you meant WP:BLOAT?). There have been a few occassions where I wish I had something like this added to MOS so I can cite when editors revert the italic style the other way which would be helpful. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 19:33, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      It's my Pulitzer-nominated essay WP:MOSBLOAT. (The "Closely related principles" section is SMcCandlish's.) EEng 02:18, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      @EEng: Ah I see thanks. But do you see what I mean in this case it may be good to have brief mention that italics or no italics is alright. Nice to be able to quickly cite MOS in an occassion like this [3] where an editor may not be aware that either way is fine. Regards  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 19:09, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      I do see, but if we say that, then "You can do it either way" itself becomes a guideline. What MOS is silent on, it is silent on, and we need to keep it that way or we have just another form of MOSBLOAT. To be a broken record: unless you can show me that substantial editor time is being wasted because of the lack of a guideline (even a guideline saying "You can do it either way"), I'm going to stubbornly resist adding anything to MOS. Think of me as the boy with his finger in the dike. EEng 23:13, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      That'd be nice, as otherwise someone else is likely to come back asking again at some point. Another place we could put it is the documentation for {{Multiple image}}; I'll do that. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 17:02, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Well, like I've said, I think this is the sort of thing that probably could stand being standardized, but there needs to be a critical mass of trouble that will be avoided in the future in order to make such an exercise worthwhile, and to act as grist for the discussion mill. EEng 19:28, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Possessive forms of biblical names ending with "s"

    For probably their entire existence, the Jesus and Moses articles used " Moses' " as the possessive form until I changed them to " Moses's ". The other day I came across an article on Merriam Webster that says specifically that biblical names are an exception to this rule and should be written " Moses' " and " Jesus' ", but an editor won't let me change it back. I noticed the first time I was making the edits that certain quotes used the " Moses' " form (for example Moses#Artapanus), which I left as is, since quotes shouldn't be changed obviously. I also noticed just now that the footnotes on Jesus still use the " Jesus' " form because I missed them the first time around. Should the manual of style be updated or does Merriam Webster not know what they're talking about?

    I think they might be right because people always say "in Jesus name, amen", they don't say "in Jesuses name, amen" Akeosnhaoe (talk) 16:08, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Wikipedia follows its own manual of style; while it may be influenced by others, it doesn't need to adhere to them. MOS:'S recommends adding 's to singular nouns ending in s, including proper names (which I personally find abhorrent to look at), but suggests rewording a sentence if adding the 's would make the name harder to read. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 16:19, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I think Akeosnhaoe is aware of what the MOS says. The question isn't of what the MOS says but whether the MOS should say what it says or if it should be amended. The MOS itself can't be used as an argument against such a question..now, I personally don't understand why only biblical names should have such an exception (I would that this were the standard), but if that truly is the practice, I think it's worthy of consideration. Firejuggler86 (talk) 03:47, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, since you've asked about should, the apostrophe represents a contraction, hence singular uses a apostrophe-s (contracting "his", "hers" or "its") whereas the plural form does not (contracting "their"). That's why it does not apply to personal pronouns; they are already spelt out in full. I don't know why there was an exception made for Biblical names; but it was a common style to omit the "s" when it was not pronounced. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:49, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    That’s not actually correct, Hawkeye7, see Saxon genitive. The idea that it’s a contraction was a popular folk etymology in the early modern period.
    The current rule has consistency on its side - there’s no actual reason not to always write ‘s and there are style guides that prescribe it including for names like Moses and Jesus. It’s not a question of correct usage, just standardization in a particular written document. I personally prefer to write all names ending in -us with just an apostrophe, but that’s only one option. I don’t see any reason to change the current rule.—Ermenrich (talk) 22:55, 16 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There isn't a rule for how to handle possessives for non-plural names ending in s, right? I generally go by how its pronounced, and I suppose most people do.. Mr Franks' bunny pelts, Jits's walloo.
    The Bibilical names thing is just tradition. Certainly for Jesus -- people always say "In Jesus' name" rather than "In Jesus's name". I guess preachers talk that way. Since that's how people in the real world do, so should we. Even Strunk & White carved out a exception for that (they prescribed the 's form for all other instances). For Moses the possessive is just pronounced that way, I guess: "By Moses' whiskers, I shall be avenged". Maybe because three esses in a row sounds awkward. So that's not an issue. Are there other important Biblical names ending in s? Herostratus (talk) 03:27, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well, Lazarus comes to mind. Silas, James, Tobias, Amos, Matthias, Genesis, Phineas, Gluteus Maximus. And the possessive form of Methuselah – is it Meh-thooze-uh-luhz or Meh-thooze-uh-luh-zez (or -zuz)? And what's the possessive of Lourdes? I don't even know how to pronounce Lourdes itself. EEng 04:39, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Phinehas "distinguished himself as a youth at Shittim". I think that's all we need to know. Martinevans123 (talk) 07:34, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The only one for which I actually hear anyone not saying the 's is "Jesus' name". And even there I do hear some people say "Jesus's name". I'm not sure why anyone cares about pronunciation when the question is about spelling, though. It's not as if English doesn't already have gobs and gobs of silent letters. Just stick the 's on all of them and continue pronouncing them however you already do. --Khajidha (talk) 13:08, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It has nothing to do with a Biblical exception. It's just English. The possessive of James is very often written as James' rather than James's, for example. But both are technically correct. I don't think we should be changing one to the other except for consistency within articles. It may even be that there's a WP:ENGVAR issue here, as British English certainly often prefers the apostrophe without the terminal 's' on these names (as per the given example, St Thomas' Hospital). -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:35, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Keep in mind that Biblical names are actually Aramaic, Greek or Hebrew rather than English, and the English names are often significantly different from the original, e.g., Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה, romanized: Moshe, lit. 'Moses', Hebrew: פִּינְחָס‎, romanized: Pinchas, lit. 'Phineas', Hebrew: שְׁלֹמֹה, romanized: Shlomoh, lit. 'Solomon'. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:48, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    As Ermenrich and others above have said, the MoS standard that singular names carry an ‘s in the possessive is simple, clear, and widely used elsewhere. I don’t see any reason to be making any exceptions for biblical names. The London hospital exception is actually not an exception - the change in its punctuation is relatively recent and reflects that there were two St Thomases associated with the hospital. It doesn’t indicate anything about British English, where ‘s for the singular possessive is the common standard. MapReader (talk) 18:15, 19 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    This is already addressed by MOS:POSS. It does not make exceptions for Biblical names, which would be a gross PoV-pushing exercise. Nor is that an idea found across other style guides, which have widely divergent ideas about this: use 's in every case; use 's except after a trailing s; ... after a trailing s or z; ... after a trailing s or ss or z; ... after a /s/ sound however spelled (including x, sse, and other things in various cases, but not s or z if silent or pronounced /z/); ... in all cases except after a trailing s [or any of the variations just mentioned] in a Biblical name; ... in all cases except after a trailing s [or any of the variations just mentioned] in a name from antiquity at all; ... insert 10 other pseudo-rules here.

    We need to stop rehashing this stuff. It is guaranteed that every single editor is going to disagree with something in MoS (as they will in every other style guide in existence), and it is also guaranteed that every single MoS line-item will have at least one editor disagreeing with it. This needs to stop being an excuse for perennial "fix the MoS my way or else!" rehash. It wastes both our time and a considerable amount of editorial goodwill. The central purpose of MoS is to present consistent content for readers, and its secondary purpose is forestalling editorial conflict over style trivia. Engaging here in cyclical editorial strife over style trivia is therefore contraindicated. Just accept that fact that MoS is never going to say 100% of the things you'd like it to say. And "just do whatever you're used to" defeats the main purpose of MoS. Instead, just follow MoS and stop picking style fights. If you write an article for The New York Times, then follow the NYT style guide. If you submit a paper to an American Medical Association journal, then follow AMA style. This is not F'ing rocket science.
     — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:34, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Question About Fonts for Non-Latin Scripts

    I am trying to mediate a dispute about what style of letters to use for native names in a non-Latin script, in particular in Arabic. I can't find a section in the MOS that addresses this question. Where in the MOS would there be guidance on what style of letters (that is, what fonts) to use for the native Arabic names of places and people whose native names are in Arabic? Robert McClenon (talk) 18:56, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    If it makes a difference, I believe the dispute is over non-Arabic languages that use Arabic script. Sorry to be pedantic, but there's a chance it'll matter since Nastaliq script is more commonly used in the languages of Afghanistan/Iran than in the Arabic language. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 19:48, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't worry about being pedantic. Here at MOS, pedantry is our stock in trade. EEng 20:10, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Full transparency: 20% of me was sorry for being pedantic and 80% of me was excited. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 20:12, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Correction noted. The question is about languages other than the Arabic languages that are normally written in the Arabic alphabet, just as many Indo-European languages, such as English, besides Latin are normally written using the Latin alphabet. Yes, User:Firefangledfeathers knows what the dispute is. Where dpes or should the MOS address the question of what font or fonts should be used for non-Latin representations of the native forms of foreign names? Either the appropriate section of the MOS addresses the issue, or the appropriate section of the MOS should be developed. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:36, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The MOS is pedantic in its own way, so that it excludes other styles of pedantry. Robert McClenon (talk) 20:36, 23 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Most browsers and operating systems will see your text as Unicode characters and then try to display it in the current font. If a character is not present in that font then the system will hunt for the most similar font on your device that does have that character. If it still can't find a font containing that character then you will see a small rectangle.
    If you instead try to declare a particular font then it will try to use that font. But if the user doesn't have that font then it will do the above searching anyway. So there's no need to worry about it. Declaring the specific font just clutters up the wiki mark-up in the article for no real benefit.
    Just type it in and the system will work it out for you. For proof, find an article with many language links on the left. Right click and view the page source. You will see many non-Latin languages with no particular font selected. It just works.  Stepho  talk  02:17, 24 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    User:Stepho - Thank you for the general advice about using fonts for non-Latin alphabets. That is probably helpful to someone who is trying to add to an article. That wasn't my question. My question was about whether the MOS says anything about a dispute between two other editors about what font to display non-Latin letters in. Robert McClenon (talk) 05:31, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Perhaps I'm missing something. If we don't need to specify a font at all then surely there is no dispute to worry about. Can you point us to where the dispute is?  Stepho  talk  11:35, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't see any sections about the use of either the Arabic alphabet or expanded forms of the Arabic alphabet. Is that because there are no sections, or am I missing something? Robert McClenon (talk) 05:31, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    MOS:FONTFAMILY might be relevant here. pburka (talk) 17:28, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Thank you. I will try to explain, User:Stepho-wrs, User:Pburka. The dispute is currently at DRN, the Dispute Resolution Noticeboard, and it is font-warring about articles related to Afghanistan. One user objects to the use of the Nastaliq font. What I would like is a guideline that says that the Nastaliq and Naskh fonts are permitted. Otherwise resolving the dispute comes down to saying not to be disruptive, and if necessary invoking discretionary sanctions, which would be an ugly way to resolve an ugly dispute. Is there any guideline that says either what fonts are permitted, or that says that font-warring is not a good idea? If there is an MOS page about the Arabic script in general, we could put something there, but I don't see anything about the Arabic script. Robert McClenon (talk) 00:34, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The MOS is quite clear that you shouldn't override the default font family. pburka (talk) 00:40, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, I understand a bit better now. The choice is to force the article to render with the font Nastaliq (eg کابل ), or the font Naskh (eg کابل‎ ) or the default font chosen by the viewer's browser (eg کابل ). On the face of it, they want their choice for aesthetic reasons - it looks prettier to their eyes. Kind of like someone preferring Calibri vs Times new Roman whenever British town names are mentioned. The downside of an editor forcing a font is that all readers no longer have a choice - they get the editor's choice regardless. If no font is forced, then the reader's browser can choose the font - including the reader's option of custom CSS styles. MOS:FONTFAMILY says don't force the font due to this loss of flexibility - although it doesn't go into the details I just gave about how the flexibility is lost.
    From '(3rd) Statement by Danre98', there is a faint hint of cultural suppression where a minority culture is being forced to use the script of a dominant culture (kind of like if all British articles were forced to use American spelling). It would explain the fervour involved. But neither side explicitly listed this reason and it might just be my imagination.  Stepho  talk  11:47, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Is using 'Latter' and 'Former' a bad idea?

    Is using 'the latter' of 'the former' (as the subject of a sentence, not a point in time) a bad idea? Or indicative of a sentence that needs re-wording anyway?

    For example in:

    Rio 2016 Olympians Shōhei Iwamoto and Natsumi Tomonaga confirmed places each in the men's and women's event, respectively, with the former finishing fourth and the latter second among those eligible for Olympic qualification at the 2019 Asia & Oceania Championships in Kunming, China.

    — https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Japan_at_the_2020_Summer_Olympics#Modern_pentathlon

    I would prefer something like:

    Rio 2016 Olympians Shōhei Iwamoto and Natsumi Tomonaga confirmed places each in the men's and women's event, respectively, with Iwamoto finishing fourth and Tomonaga second among those eligible for Olympic qualification at the 2019 Asia & Oceania Championships in Kunming, China.

    My objections:

    1. It's poor for readability, you have to scan back and forth when reading, especially bad for screen readers and audio recordings, and even then the subject is often still unclear.
    2. It's brittle, if someone adds another example to a list or re-orders the list, then the whole construct has to be re-written.
    3. It's potentially harder to understand text out of context for e.g. 'did you know'

    I'm tempted to edit these out whenever I see them, is there any existing discussion/guidance on this that I should take into account?

    JeffUK (talk) 17:15, 25 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    There isn't anything fundamentally wrong with latter and former when referering to things that are sequential. But when one is referring to a sequence of words in the sentence, then it can be a sign of verbosity and complexity that could be eliminated with a rewrite. The proposed sentence is way too long and confuses the reader by combining "came fourth" and "came second" about separate events. The facts:
    • Both Shōhei Iwamoto and Natsumi Tomonaga were Rio 2016 Olympians.
    • Both compete in the modern pentathlon and sought qualification at the 2019 Asia & Oceania Championships in Kunming, China
    • Iwamoto came fourth in the mens event
    • Tomonaga came second in the womens event
    • Both successfully qualified to compete at the 2020 Summer olympics.
    There are lots of way to write this to minimise redundancy while keeping separate things separate. In particular, I think it is important to keep the mens/womens events/results separate. For a data-heavy article like this, it is probably best to err on the side of short simple sentences, than attempting beautiful flowing prose. The reader is skimming for facts, not reading to be entertained. -- Colin°Talk 15:10, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I think it should be avoided wherever possible. I'm not talking about zero tolerance, but to only resort to it when repetition of the names/terms becomes truly clunky and repetitious. This was an example I found unnecessary – imo, the use of former/latter there came across as affected, and so caused more problems than it solved. WP:ELEVAR makes some good points, I think, because there's nothing worse, as a reader, than coming across a page that reads as if it's been authored a little too fussily. JG66 (talk) 15:54, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Olympics etc: "400 metres" or "400-metres"

    Some recent edits have been putting in "400-metres" for Olympic events, e.g. Ariarne Titmus. While it agrees with WP:HYPHEN, in my opinion it should be trumped by the fact that the Olympics and other sporting events rarely if ever include the hyphen. Thoughts? Adpete (talk) 09:17, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    We don't strictly follow sources' style guides. It also helps clear ambiguity: are we talking about a freestyle that is 400 metres long, or 400 freestyles that are a metre long? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 20:44, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Surely WP:COMMONNAME applies, though? And while WP:COMMONNAME generally only applies to titles, we are left with the situation that the text doesn't match the title, e.g. Swimming at the 2019 World Aquatics Championships – Women's 400 metre freestyle, which in my opinion is poor style. Adpete (talk) 23:39, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think COMMONNAME applies really - not only is it just about article titles, but it's also about choosing the name that we're going to call something by, not about how to punctuate it (so it requires that we call our article 'Triple jump' rather than Hop, skip and jump). From my reading of MOS:HYPHEN, these changes are correct, and titles without the hyphen probably ought to be changed. (Or, if people don't like hyphens, per MOS:HANGING it's OK not to hyphenate if the units are abbreviated, so 400 m freestyle would be.) Girth Summit (blether) 14:10, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    COMMONNAME does not apply. That only applies to article titles (which is why it's in the article titles policy and not the MoS), and it does not apply to style questions anyway. COMMONNAME is the policy that tells us to use a particular article title (in one spelling or another, which might be determined by MOS:ENGVAR or some other MoS criterion), e.g. [[David Johansen], rather that some totally different name, e.g. Buster Poindexter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:38, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Terminal punctuation in table cells

    Should trailing punctuation be added to table cells? Someone already made that edit for me (which also impacted image descriptions which is only vaguely relevant here,), which is 1035992478 which should demonstrate nicely what I mean. My personal opinion on that is that there should not be any in "special encasings" or however you want to call them, which include tables, image descriptions and similar templates. This discussion should be primarily about tables if possible since I saw a lot of inconsistencies in similar tables.

    -- NetSysFire (talk) 21:41, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    MOS:CAPFRAG says to not put periods at the end of sentence fragments for captions (which that diff did). Not sure if that would apply to table entries but that's where my intuition takes me.  Stepho  talk  10:57, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Sentence fragments should not have terminal punctuation, regardless of where they are found. Primergrey (talk) 12:06, 29 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed. Rather than post a new pointless argument about that here, just look at what several million other articles are doing. They are not putting periods/points at the end of table entries or headers, or list entries, or image captions, or table captions, or etc., except where they end with abbreviations that take a dot.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:41, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    WP:NavFrame is a long-deprecated collapsing technology. Efforts over the past several years have trimmed down its use or made it such that when it is finally turned off in our Common.css/js, it will be accessible to users in non-article spaces (simply by uncollapsing its content permanently; see also User:IznoBot#Task 3). There are about 70 pages left to work on in non-article space to swap it for its replacement so there is still some to do there.

    However, there are some 1400 pages in the mainspace that employ NavFrame. Noting that WP:COLLAPSE says not to collapse content in mainspace generally, would there be support for a mass removal of this specific class and related HTML in semi-automated fashion (not the content held inside it)? Or to finish removal, must the uses be converted to use NavFrame's replacement technology (or one of the various collapsing templates)?

    If it is of interest, the remaining use of NavFrame is generally in a series of sports articles to hide long tables that I would argue violate WP:NOTSTATS, but I'm not interested in article deletion right now. ;)

    I am willing to leave a nice "here's how to 'revert' this activity constructively" in the edit summary, if that matters, indicating how the interested user can swap to the more correct class. (And more or less did so in the context of IznoBot task 3.)

    (This may need a wider audience a la RFC, or possibly a more general question, since that section was written largely when collapsing stuff was not broadly accessible, and while there may be rationale for its continued existence, accessibility is not it today as collapsing these days is a case of progressive enhancement.) Izno (talk) 21:44, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi @Izno:. This automated edit has left a bit of a mess on 2015–16 Coupe de France Preliminary Rounds. I would hope you can fix this before implementing the edit on any other Coupe de France articles, please. Cheers, Gricehead (talk) 19:27, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, I caught that myself and didn't go back to fix it. When I get back to my PC I'll take care of it. Izno (talk) 22:14, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Re. MOS:RANGES

    There's an ongoing discussion at Talk:Body mass index#Boundaries between categories that may benefit from some attention from experienced MOS editors. Essentially, BMI categories like Normal and Overweight are variously described by reliable sources, with some using ”18.5 – 25” and ”25 – 30”, respectively, while others use ”18.5 – 24.99” and ”25 – 29.99”. MOS:RANGES doesn't actually recommend how adjacent ranges of values in a continuum should be displayed. The article had previously used the former style, but it's now been changed to the latter, which arguably leaves gaps. Also, using a decimal precision of 0.1 (or 0.01) when it comes to BMI values is like weighing a fart. The discussion, such as it is, is like watching ping pong. As I see it, there's no real consensus either way at the moment, so the more opinions the merrier. Cheers. nagualdesign 22:54, 1 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Is man-made undesirable gendered wording?

    I moved "List of man-made disasters in South_Korea" to "List of human-caused disasters in South_Korea". I note the Gender-neutral language section overleaf.

    Now there's friction at the talkpage. Anyone care to give an opinion (here or at that talkpage)? Tony (talk) 09:22, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Nothing wrong with man-made. It is still the most common usage in English, and believe it or not, it IS gender neutral. Masterhatch (talk) 13:44, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I would generally agree "man-made" still is one of those terms that is recognizes as not pushing a gender, and the switch to "human-made" is awkward. In this specific case, it may be possible to suggest "List of anthropogenic disasters..." if there really is issue with that. --Masem (t) 13:49, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I also would prefer "anthropogenic". Putting aside the gendered aspect, it seems awkward to describe ferry accidents as "man-made" or "human-made" disasters. Humans were involved, but the only thing they made was a serious error. pburka (talk) 13:55, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Per [4] man made: "manufactured, created, or constructed by human beings", not sure how that excludes women. "Man-made" is short for mankind, i.e. humans as a whole for just "men".  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 13:59, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    In some cases artificial works as a synonym (as at swimming pool). I don't think that particularly works in that title there. --Izno (talk) 14:52, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    True, but sometimes that carries the wrong implications. I think "man-made" is still ok, per others above. It's much clearer than the alternatives in most cases - how many people understand "anthropogenic"? I think "human-caused disasters" is the best for that page though, though User:Tony1 was completely (and typically, I'm afraid) wrong to move it without discussion. He can't have thought that would be uncontroversial. Johnbod (talk) 14:56, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And Johnbod is being (typically, I'm afraid) insulting. Tony (talk) 00:04, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't dodge the issue - if you stop doing this stuff, I won't need to keep pointing it out. It wasn't relevant to mention how rude you often are yourself (see ANI archives) - perhaps now it is. Johnbod (talk) 03:47, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    yeah, he's been around long enough to know about the MOS retaining existing styles. Masterhatch (talk) 15:06, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Right, as regard "anthropogenic". Nobody knows what that means. Step outside your shoes here, people. (On the proximate matter, "human caused" is preferable IMO, but only because "man-made" seems a bit off in this particular context). Herostratus (talk) 15:08, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Erm, we have a strong predilection to the gender-neutral. MOS:RET doesn't apply in such cases. Izno (talk) 15:42, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It's WP:RM that applies, and that makes no concessions to supposed PC. Johnbod (talk) 16:09, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    RM is neither policy nor guideline; WP:BOLD is. (Mind you, I don't care about this particular article - simply commenting that the RM process is not mandatory.) Wikipedia:Article_titles#Considering_changes is policy I suppose, so take that fwiw. Izno (talk) 16:13, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    As an interesting point on "anthropogenic", I was looking at what other articles started with "list of man-made..." and found that the redirect List of man-made disasters points to Anthropogenic hazard. So we sorta already support that. (The other two cases, List of man-made objects on the Moon goes to List of artificial objects on the Moon (which makes sense from above) and List of man-made mass poisoning incidents which is just there). --Masem (t) 16:20, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Anthropogenic hazard is a man-made disaster of a title! Johnbod (talk) 03:47, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Can we use “man-made” if all the items listed were made by human males? Blueboar (talk) 15:58, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "man-made" has not just been applied to disasters. Once upon a time, it was applied to ice. Man-made ice was different from the one transported from the arctic and stored in ice houses. Now because pretty much all ice consumed by humans is human-made we just call it ice; "artificial ice," is now reserved for the one underfoot in rinks. In the early days of rayon or nylon, it was called man-made fiber; now it is just artificial or synthetic fiber; man-made grass or turf is artificial turf; man-made lakes are artificial lakes; man-made flavors are imitation flavors; man-made leather or fur is faux; man-made flowers are fake or artificial; man-made gems are imitation gems. So man-made has been continued to be replaced by gender-neutral terms for nearly 100 years now. And it doesn't just apply to Homo sapiens. The national bird of India used to be the peacock. But on WP it is now peafowl based on the principle that a national bird can't be born of a mother who is not. The European Parliament says in its pamphlet on gender-neutral language, "the use in many languages of the word 'man' in a wide range of idiomatic expressions which refer to both men and women, such as manpower, layman, man-made, statesmen, committee of wise men, should be discouraged. With increased awareness, such expressions can usually be made gender-neutral." I think the page move was needed because gender-neutral terms are inevitable. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 23:56, 2 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "Anthropogenic" sounds good to me. Tony (talk) 00:06, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    "Anthropogenic" is too sesquipedalian to be used in an article title. WP:COMMONNAME y'know. ~Anachronist (talk) 04:27, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, we should avoid 'man-made' per existing language in MOS:GNL. I can't immediately generate an example of a usage of 'man-made' that wouldn't clearly or precisely be covered by 'human-made', 'human-caused', or a similar construction. If there continue to be 'man-made'-specific style disputes, I would support an explicit mention in GNL. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:30, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Fiber, grass, and lakes listed in my post above have been purposefully made by humans. Disasters have typically not. So, "anthropogenic" (OED: originating in or caused by human activity) is certainly more accurate independent of the gender bias issue. "Anthropogenic" is applied to climate change (OED example: 2008 S. Vanderheiden Atmospheric Justice i. 38 By the time George W. Bush took office in early 2001, the existence of anthropogenic climate change was acknowledged by broad scientific consensus.), or to deforestation (OED example: 1963 E. Pyddoke Scientist & Archaeol. iii. 67 West has suggested that at Hoxne a phase of deforestation might be anthropogenic.) But in terms of human purposefulness, a disaster is somewhere in between fiber and climate change. That is why this morning, I'm leaning more toward "human provoked disasters," (which has some currency in the literature). They were provoked by human activity or agency. Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:22, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    PS So in terms of preference, I'd say: 1. "human provoked disasters" 2. "anthropogenic disasters" 3 "human-caused disasters." All are better than man-made. I don't buy that "anthropogenic" is unfamiliar. It might be a little, but probably not much more than "pandemic" was in 2019 (as opposed to epidemic). Fowler&fowler«Talk» 12:32, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    All three of these (as well as "man-made disasters") seem to be used in reliable academic sources, so they satisfy WP:COMMONNAME. All three also satisfy MOS:GNL so I'd be fine with any of them. pburka (talk) 16:32, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I probably should have clarified: my position above is focused on interpretation of our MOS, and the possibility that new language needs to be added to it for clarity. If I start to have an informed opinion on the list that's generated this discussion, I'll share it at the talk page. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 18:44, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There is generally no problem with "man-made" in terms of gender neutrality, unless discussing specific objects made by an individual person. However, as noted above, there are in many cases different terms that are better for other reasons. Thryduulf (talk) 00:50, 4 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Under my interpretation of MOS:GNL, I would support using 'human-made' instead of 'man-made,' although I must admit it does sound a bit awkward, likely because it is not used in mainstream lexicon. However, using 'human' avoids either he/she, as set forth by MOS:GNL. Perhaps for each individual circumstance, we can consider alternative wording altogether, such as "artificial," which a user above has suggested. I also agree that 'anthropogenic' is an appropriate term in this case, which removes the need to use 'man-made' or 'human-made' at all, if causing contention. Alternatively, maybe in some cases, labelling something more specifically, like 'industrial disaster' avoids the issue, too. All in all, though, while there are alternatives, I see no reason to stick to the term 'man,' especially when MOS:GNL advises as such. Broadly, I see no harm done in using more gender-inclusive terminology in the English language more generally. Kind regards, PinkElixir (talk) 01:50, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support either man-made (pithy, very common, and an alliteration that humans tend to like) , or human-made (more gender neutral, and still straightforward). Anthropogenic has its semantic merits, but as mentioned above is sesquipedalian and not commonly used in this context ("anthropogenic climate change" yes, "anthropogenic disasters" no).
      • A key question is whether wikipedia wants to follow the literature per our basic pillars, or be at the forefront of leading the change in the use of language according to new mores. Al83tito (talk) 03:24, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd support either man-made or anthropogenic. I feel I have to dip in here - I may be a trans guy, but trans I still am, and though the sentiment is admirable, this feels like a strange move to make.
    'Man', in this instance, seems to refer pretty obviously to humans in general, in the same sense of the phrase "when man first landed on the moon"; though gender neutral language is something I pick up on, I don't think I'd be alone in saying this isn't relevant to gender neutrality, because the usage of the word is not in a gendered context. I feel it's far less gendered than a phrase like "you guys", to the point where I wouldn't classify 'man-made' as gendered at all. People refer to humankind as 'man' on the whole. Though it is in somewhat of an edging-on older, more grandiose sense, it's not an egregious turn of phrase.
    However, I *would* imagine that 'anthropogenic' is a more *specific* turn of phrase than 'man-made'. I don't think it's too sesquipedalian for usage here at all. 'Anthropogenic' is close enough to 'anthropology' and 'anthropological' to be pretty clear at the very least what it probably means; something to do with humans, and human-caused disasters.
    At any rate, 'human-made', though it doesn't have the word 'man' in it, doesn't feel like an improvement towards gender neutrality, it just feels like a sideways change. I'd much rather see people focus on replacing 'he or she' with 'they'...-- Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 16:18, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, shit. 'Human' does have the word 'man' in it. There's a reason I didn't go to University for English Language Studies... -- Ineffablebookkeeper (talk) 16:19, 8 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Template:Anchor documentation boldly changed; some unaddressed objections in preceding discussion, however

    Moved to Template talk:Anchor § Documentation boldly changed; some unaddressed objections in preceding discussion, however

    Please refer to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_222#Instructions_on_the_placement_of_"Anchor"_templates.

    Template:Anchor's documentation was boldly changed with this revision; however, I see some unaddressed objection in the discussion. It seems to me that placing the anchor in the previous section just above the next heading is the best option. While it does have the problem that a section could be moved with the anchor then being in the wrong place, I think this is better than the result of substituting the template in the heading of the section the anchor links to.

    Please let me know your thoughts. Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 10:08, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Regardless of where it is used, there should not be two pages that decide where it goes. Seeing as it is a template, that place should be Template:Anchor and its talk page. Perhaps it would be valuable to document the previous discussions here on its optimal location. Izno (talk) 14:15, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I've started a section for it there now: Template talk:Anchor#Documentation boldly changed; some unaddressed objections in preceding discussion, however. If anyone reading here would like to participate, please feel free. Thanks, DesertPipeline (talk) 15:18, 9 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Repeating person's position in article

    After someone is initially introduced in an article that isn't their biography, how should they be referred to?

    e.g. say the article is about 2018 Russia–United States summit and Trump is introduced as "U.S. President Donald Trump", in the rest of the article is he referred to as "President Trump" or just "Trump"? I think there's a MOS about this but I can't remember which one. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 10:23, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    It depends on the context. If "Trump" by itself is ambiguous somehow (say it could be the Trump organization, or one of the Trump family if any of them were mentioned also), then it needs "President" or "Donald" in front of it to disambiguate it. If it isn't clear that the reference to Trump is before or after his presidency, then "President Trump" would be used only for anything pertaining to his time in office. Use the least amount of words that still makes the intended meaning clear. ~Anachronist (talk) 11:59, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Let me pick a better example so we’re not getting into questions of ambiguity, say repeated usage of “Prime Minister Arden” at Christchurch mosque shootings or “Prime Minister Johnson” at COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 13:20, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    MOS:LASTNAME may be what you were looking for. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 12:29, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Agreed; we already have this in MoS. And Anachronist is correct about context, i.e. about WP:Use common sense.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:42, 11 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I was pinged to this discussion, but now I can't find that ping. Anyways, FWIW - I don't see why we'd have to keep repeating Prime Minister (for example) in front of the occupants name, unless there's another person being mentioned in that article with the same full name or same last-name. GoodDay (talk) 14:43, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    GoodDay, Here's that ping [5]. I got one too, no idea why. As stated above, MOS:LASTNAME already handles this and we seem to have a consensus here that reflects that. Odd that this discussion is still continuing TBH. WaggersTALK 14:59, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah, ok, we were pinged to the discussion below, not this one! WaggersTALK 15:00, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I was confused too. The edit added a section heading. Apparently, the ping software doesn't recognize when a ping is for a newly-created section. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:18, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
    Speedy close - this is going over the same ground as this discussion a couple of months ago, isn't surfacing any new points, and is turning confrontational. I suggest everyone steps away and takes a deep breath. The Land (talk) 10:59, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Whilst I am aware that a previous attempt to address the issue ended in no consensus, it seems to me there are two distinct issues with how articles relating to either people from the UK or places in the UK are treated on this website, compared with other countries. These issues are deeply unsatisfactory and ought to be resolved.

    1) Historical articles: It is the standard across Wikipedia, when adding birth and death places to inboxes, to accurately record the country at the time that the birth/death took place. E.g. at Vladimir Lenin, we see that the birthplace is correctly marked as being in the Russian Empire, as it was pre-1917, and that the death place is equally correctly marked as being in the Soviet Union, it being post-1922. The only biographical articles this is not the case for are people from what is now called the UK. For example, at Robert Walpole, the pre-1707 Kingdom of England is correctly cited in the birthplace, but the equally accurate and correct post-1707 Kingdom of Great Britain is not included in the death place, and is in fact being removed by editors. Why is there an inconsistency here? Why is it that only for people from what is today the UK, but has previously been either Great Britain or England/Scotland etc., is this historically accurate standard not applied? I would suggest that in order to be consistent with the standard laid down across this website, the changes of country (pre-1707 England, Scotland etc., 1707-1801 Great Britain, 1801-1922 UK of GB and I, 1922-present UK of GB and NI) ought to be noted, exactly as they are in other articles. Could somebody please give a clear, concise and logical reason as to why this should not occur? Nobody appears to have done so.

    2) Inconsistency of contemporary figures' infoboxes: The standard used across Wikipedia is very clear. When citing a birth or death place in a biographical article, the format is: City/town (or similar), wider local authority (be that some form of federal state, county or similar), country. Subjects of biographical articles from the UK are the only country of all UN member states that this is currently not the case for. There ought to be a clear and specific reason as to why the UK should be treated differently from the other 192 member states of the United Nations. To put it simply, either the UK is a country or it isn't. Since it clearly is a country, and is recognised as such, can somebody give a clear, consistent and logical reason as to why "UK" ought not to be added to articles? Nobody is asking for "England" or "Scotland" or similar to be removed, simply that the articles be made consistent with ALL other biographical articles on this website. Why is an exception made for the UK alone?

    Clearly there are two distinct issues here - I think it really ought to be for somebody to justify why we should not immediately address issue 1) given that all other articles take account of this. On the second, a case ought to be made why the UK is the only country in the world to face erasure from infoboxes as standard by certain editors.

    Those interested may include: DeFacto, Chipmunkdavis, Calidum, Johnbod, Oknazevad, Sgconlaw, FOARP, Bretonbanquet, Fyunck(click), Timrollpickering, S_Marshall, The_Gnome, BarrelProof, GhostInTheMachine, Spy-cicle, No_Great_Shaker, Imaginatorium, MB, Tony1, JG66, Nagualdesign, Pburka, Alanscottwalker, Keith_D, Ghmyrtle, Angry_candy, Llewee, Mabuska, AussieWikiDan, DeCausa, Francish7, Roger_8_Roger, Snowded, Pelagic, Waggers, GoodDay.

    Vaze50 (talk) 14:40, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    • The claimed "consistency" in biographies of people from other parts of the world is nonsense. Standards are particularly variable relating to historical people from Italy, Germany, France, North America, Central Asia, India, China, and the Islamic world generally, often understandably so. Vaze50's vandalistic repeated imposition of his preferred solution, despite objections from many editors, should not be allowed to stand. And, by the way, "England" should not be linked. Johnbod (talk) 15:10, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      That's true, but two (or six, or more) wrongs don't make a right. Clearly there's a lot of subjectivity here but we have to acknowledge there's a difference between a person's national identity preferences and the objective facts regarding citizenship, origins, UN-recognised sovereign states, etc.
      Whether she likes it or not, Nicola Sturgeon is British and was born in the United Kingdom - these are objective facts independent of politics; but equally it is very well referenced that she has a desire to reject that nationality and to be Scottish instead. The quandry that gives us is that sovereign states and citizenship are well defined but "Scottishness" isn't.
      Does one have to be born in Scotland to identify as Scottish? Can someone who has never set foot in the place but with Scottish ancestry be Scottish? Is someone with no Scottish ancestry but who now lives in Scotland, Scottish? If so, how long do you have to live in Scotland for to qualify? Can someone with none of those things, who just "feels" that they are Scottish, be Scottish? The truth here is that it's completely subjective, there are no rules at all other than to find verifiable references about what the person says their identity is (or what others say it is) in each individual case. Without those references, or if we want a more consistent approach, sticking with UN-recognised sovereign states seems a sensible way to go for contemporary figures. WaggersTALK 15:24, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Johnbod So you admit that actually the vast majority of biographies DO contain accurate historical information? Covering Europe, North America, Central Asia, India, China, and the Islamic world...so...that's the entire world then. Seriously, do us a favour, and tell us exactly why you think people from the island of Great Britain should be subjected to a different standard? Elaborate on "understandable so". What exactly is the distinction and difference between Britain (which has changed political constructs numerous times in the last few centuries) and France, which you gave as an example, and which has also changed political constructs many times? Please, do tell us. I await your specific reason eagerly... Vaze50 (talk) 15:36, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      It looks like you may have misread Johnbod's comment. They listed those countries and regions as places with "particularly variable" standards. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 15:40, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      What, Firefangledfeathers, makes France, an example Johnbod used, "particularly variable", and the UK (which has gone from occupation to multiple separate kingdoms to several separate kingdoms to multiple different types of unified kingdoms, with a brief commonwealth along the way) not "particularly variable"? What standards are you applying here? Are there even any? It feels unbelievably arbitrary. Vaze50 (talk) 15:45, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      If I'm reading Johnbod correctly , they mean variable in the sense that other regions/countries, not just the UK, have inconsistent information. I think it's fair to say that the standard we're currently applying is "no real standard". It's find to register that as a problem and to work toward solutions. I feel you will be more successful with less of a battleground mentality. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 16:56, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Yes, French historical biographies typically just say France, Chinese ones China, and so on. German ones usually say Germany or the rather dubious Holy Roman Empire, rather than the actual mini-state of the time. For Central Asian ones there is often no real state to link to. Johnbod (talk) 17:47, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      You admit therefore Johnbod and Firefangledfeathers that there is "no real standard", to use your words. It's difficult to avoid a battleground mentality when it is so painfully obvious that there is only one country a particular type of editor is absolutely determined to airbrush from this website wherever they can. French historical biographies do NOT typically just say France Johnbod - even a moment's research on that would demonstrate to you that they clearly distinguish between the different political states of the time. So again, explain to me why it is that the UK (a country like France) should be removed, when the likes of France are included? I note you haven't actually given a specific and clear reason why yet... Vaze50 (talk) 09:27, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      I don't think that's true. I picked some random pages from Category:19th-century French people and it's about 50% 'France' 50% 'No infobox' and I found one that said "Second French Republic". Firefangledfeathers (talk) 14:32, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      (ec) Exactly! We must have several thousand French historical biographies, so "a moment's research on that" isn't going to get you far. Anyway, I did it. The first 6 bios I looked at had no infobox at all (& one was born in Belgium), but #7 Joseph Boulnois and #9 (next with a box]], Louis Adam, #10 Auguste Franchomme all just said "France" (mostly not linked, correctly). Johnbod (talk) 14:38, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • While I had suggested using "UK" in infoboxes in the RFC, my real concern is the lack of consistency between it and most other countries. I would actually prefer we remove country names from American, Canadian and Australian articles. Is it really necessary to say Justin Trudeau was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada? -- Calidum 15:25, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      An interesting question, but surely we need to be consistent. Perhaps it would be right to remove country names, but if we aren't going to remove them from Canada, Australia, USA etc., why would we remove them from Britain because people like Johnbod and Ghmyrtle decide Britain isn't a country? Vaze50 (talk) 15:40, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      That's why I supported including UK in the prior RFC. Now that the RFC is over, however, I think it is time to consider whether the country name can be removed from other infoboxes like those of American, Australian or Canadian subjects. The vast majority of readers will know Quebec and Ontario are part of Canada or that New York and California are part of the US -- just as they would know England and Scotland are part of the UK. -- Calidum 15:48, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      For what it is worth I agree with you that it would be worth removing them in all of those instances. However, without a consensus to do so, at the very least I think that UK pages should be treated with consistency, and not treated differently for entirely unexplained reasons. You'll note already that Johnbod has failed to provide a single actual reason as to why they should be. Vaze50 (talk) 15:53, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      It all comes down to the numbers, @Vaze50:. In practical terms, there's just too many editors involved in this topic, who have opposed & will likely continue to oppose using UK or United Kingdom, in post-1707 British bios infoboxes. GoodDay (talk) 05:34, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      My guess is, you'd get less resistance in American & Canadian bios if you went with city, sovereign state (i.e. deleting California & Ontario, for examples). But would get greater resistance in attempting to establish city, sovereign state, in the post-1707 British bios. GoodDay (talk) 16:14, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      GoodDay, your guess is not correct. Nobody but nobody says or writes, "Boston, United States" or "Miami, United States". It is always "Boston, Massachusetts" and "Miami, Florida". There are dozens of cities and towns named "Oakland" in the US, and "Oakland, California" is the largest and best known. Cullen328 Let's discuss it 19:43, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      But, "Boston, Massachusetts, US", would be more acceptable to American editors, then "Cardiff, Wales, UK" would be to British editors. GoodDay (talk) 20:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      In most contexts, GoodDay, I would think that "born in Boston, Massachusetts" would be perfectly adequate especially if the personal is identified as "American" in the lead sentence, but if another editor thinks that adding "United States" to the mix is helpful, then I am not going to get bent out of shape at all, as long as they don't delete "Massachusetts". I think about the needs of younger readers new to English language topics in far flung areas of the world, so sometimes we need to explain things that are obvious to more sophisticated English language readers. Should we really expect that a 14 year old student of English in Malaysia or Venezuela will know that Wales is part of the United Kingdom? Why not just add it so they know? Cullen328 Let's discuss it 05:57, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      One would think, what's so big a deal about adding US or UK in those infoboxes? They don't take up much room in their abbreviated form. Alas, as far as British bio infoboxes are concerned, there's just too many (mostly) British editors who haven't & never will accept it's addition. I partly blame it on the fact that England, Scotland, Wales & (some times) Northern Ireland are called countries, which (IMHO) causes some to confuse it with sovereign states. If only my old proposal of using constituent country at those four articles, would be adopted. But it won't, as it'll just be opposed by the same editors :( GoodDay (talk) 06:29, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I was pinged. TLDR and not particularly interested - but this seems to be something about using English etc over British in the United Kingdom article, which is apparently inconsistent with other country articles. If that’s what this is about…don’t care either way but “consistency” is generally an overused and overrated argument on WP. It should be about what the RS do in any particular case. DeCausa (talk) 15:53, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Agree. Consistency is overrated and broad rules (e.g. "only use sovereign nations in infoboxes") often have unintended consequences, such as erasing identities of colonized communities. pburka (talk) 17:38, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      As I mentioned above, there'd likely be less resistance to implement city, sovereign state in the bios of Canadians & Americans. But in the post-1707 British bios? Well, I've been down that frustrating road, before. GoodDay (talk) 17:44, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      San Juan, United States, Pago Pago, United States, and Manila, United States would all, I imagine, be quite controversial. pburka (talk) 18:07, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      So first of all GoodDay's point is confusingly worded, given that the United States (but not Canada) at least notionally recognizes a form of dual sovereignty, in which the several states are partially sovereign. (The notion of "partially sovereign" does not make sense in British legal theory, but it does in American theory.) So it's not clear at first reading whether the proposal is to write "Los Angeles, United States", or "Los Angeles, (the sovereign state of) California".
      From context I gather that the proposal is to write "Los Angeles, United States", which is frankly very jarring to American ears. I don't know why GoodDay thinks that this would meet "less resistance", but I seriously doubt that that's true. I would change that to "Los Angeles, California" if I came across it. --Trovatore (talk) 18:14, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Betcha "Los Angeles, California, US" would be more acceptable, then "Edinburgh, Scotland, UK". GoodDay (talk) 19:06, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      That I wouldn't know. I agree it's less jarring than "Los Angeles, US". But it still sounds a little silly. --Trovatore (talk) 20:33, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • The basic problem is that Vaze50 has an incomplete understanding of how a "country" is defined. They appear to think that the sole definition of "country" is "sovereign state", which is not true. Historically, and now, England, Wales, Scotland and (in many respects) Northern Ireland are defined as separate countries though not separate sovereign states. The reasons are primarily historical. Most countries - the US, Canada, Germany, Italy, etc. - are, by British standards, relatively recent creations. Within the supranational state called Britain (or the UK), the four countries that it contains are the most meaningful areas of community and national identity. Describing a place in Britain as, for example, "London, England, UK", is, in British English (the language in which these articles about British people are written), nothing other than absurd. I recognise that many people in the rest of the world find this inconvenient if not incomprehensible, but it is nonetheless true. Also true is that, within each of the four countries, the town or village, and the county, are important, and part of the problem with Vaze50's edits (alongside the edit-warring, and the ad hominem attacks on editors' motivation) is that, often, they removed all mention of the county level - which it is essential to retain except in the case of those cities which by size or history are recognised at national level - for example, "Oxford, England" is preferable to "Oxford, Oxfordshire, England". That brings me to another point - that pure consistency, and a strictly uniform approach, is unattainable, because everywhere - every country and every sovereign state - has different characteristics, and an encyclopedia should recognise and accept that. Two final points. Firstly, I have never suggested that Britain (the UK) is "not a country"; it's just a different definition of "country" to, say England. And, to DeCausa - the issue here is not about English or British nationality - it's about whether the letters "UK" should be added to birth and death places in infoboxes, which is a different matter. Ghmyrtle (talk) 18:16, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Point of information: This discussion is effectively a reopening of the discussion closed less than two months ago as "no consensus". Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:21, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Gmyrtle, you likely remember this. Years ago, we had to change the article List of countries to List of sovereign states, in order to get an editor (since passed on, RIP) to stop inserting England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland into said article. So indeed, that's how emotionally charged this topic can get. GoodDay (talk) 18:26, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Ghmyrtle: ok, that being the case I find it exceedingly difficult to care. In terms of providing information to WP readers what difference is there in an infobox that says (a) “born Edinburgh, Scotland” (b) “born Edinburgh, United Kingdom” (c) “born Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom”, with wiki linking? I think the answer is ‘none’. It should be similar to WP:ENGVAR or WP:ERA: unless there’s some sort of special circumstances whatever style was there first should stay. DeCausa (talk) 19:47, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    DeCausa - I agree. The sole reason this debate has reopened is that another editor has failed to follow that suggestion. Ghmyrtle (talk) 08:32, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • The idea that the UK is especially unique and should be treated especially different is for the birds. Plenty of other countries have a level of governance defined as “country” (the German Lande is normally translated as “state” but but can be translated as “country” just as easily). The idea that people identify with the “country” more than they do with the UK as a whole is something that unionists would disagree with quite a bit.
    But in terms of what to do here: let’s not pretend that there’s a consistent rule. Do whatever makes sense in the context you are talking about, don’t go around changing articles to conform to an essay-level guidelines as this is extremely pointy. FOARP (talk) 18:43, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Ignore or overturn WP:UKNATIONALS? Good luck with that, you'll need it. GoodDay (talk) 18:50, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If you want to promote that essay to a guideline, then please go ahead and do so. Until then, it remains an essay - nothing more. FOARP (talk) 04:15, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I despise that essay, but we're forced to abide by it. GoodDay (talk) 04:21, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Probably an obvious point to most, but this discussion is not about WP:UKNATIONALS. It's about infoboxes. Ghmyrtle (talk) 19:00, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    There are ties to it. The core discussions. GoodDay (talk) 21:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Ghmyrtle You are wrong, the UK is not a supranational state called Britain, it is a sovereign state, a founding member state of the United Nations, a COUNTRY. It isn't any more complicated than that. Describing a place in Britain as being in Britain is not "absurd" - explain why? Instead of just stating it, actually try explaining why for a change? Your desire to keep the UK off such infoboxes would appear to be simply because you don't see it as being legitimately included. You haven't given any other actual reason. So tell us why the UK along among countries should be treated differently? State your reasons. Vaze50 (talk) 09:32, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    If your statement that "It isn't any more complicated than that" were true, this discussion would not be happening. I've explained my position - you seem to be unaware that the word "country" has many subtleties of meaning, not simply the one you prefer. And please stop trying to attribute motives to editors with whom you disagree. Ghmyrtle (talk) 07:48, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Pinged. We are talking about information boxes, so to begin with, imo, we should not be averse to a bit more information in the 'where' fields. With that as background, imo, because this is an international project, our general guidance should be in the 'where' fields, including: the locale, 'in-county-where', and the internationally recognized nation-state (____, ____, ____). In the old days when international mail-letters were a thing, people had little problem including the nation-state, where they would never do that for domestic mail -- do it for people a world away. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:08, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • There is no inconsistency. Walpole's place of birth was England, which is and I think was, the common name for the highest level country at the time, not Kingdom of England. You say that Lenin was "correctly" noted as being born in the Russian Empire. I suggest this is incorrectly noted because just Russia is all that is needed, because that was and is the common name and because I do not think there ever was an entitity formally called the Russian Empire. I do not see any real issue with this whole problem in WP articles. Just remember two words: Anachronism and common-name. They will deal with 99.9% of articles. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 20:37, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      How about another headache. The bios of Latvians, Lithuanians & Estonians whose infobox (and intros) deny 'ever' being a part of the Soviet Union. -- GoodDay (talk) 20:46, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      Roger_8_Roger The common name today would be UK. That's what should be included. But that's what certain editors, for blatantly political reasons, are attempting to keep off. It's an issues that needs to be addressed. Vaze50 (talk) 09:36, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I assume this is just a repeat of the discussion in Archive 22 started on 10 April 2021 and closed as no consensus on 19 June 2021. Nothing has changed. England is still a country. London, England is still correct. London, England, UK is still excessive and to be avoided — GhostInTheMachine talk to me 20:52, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      GhostInTheMachine Nothing has changed. UK IS STILL A COUNTRY. Why are people like you obsessed with scrubbing that fact out? This is supposed to be an objective website, not subject to political bias. Why on earth is the inclusion of the country that London is in (guess what? That's the UK. The country it is the capital city of) "excessive"? Give an actual reason for once instead of just arrogantly dismissing it. See if you can. Vaze50 (talk) 09:34, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Personally, I find "Los Angeles, California, US", "Edinburgh, Scotland, UK", and "London, England, UK", annoying. I think most readers should be assumed to know what country California is in, and sometimes that doesn't especially matter to the subject, or the article is about a subject that would primarily be of interest to readers with some context awareness. If they don't know and are curious, the city name is usually linked so they can click on it and learn more about the place. I think the state level in the United States or the big four parts of the UK (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) are sufficiently identified without adding a higher level. I often get the impression that some Wikipedia editor is trying to make a WP:POINT by appending the largest entity – either trying to make some nationalistic or anti-nationalistic political statement or trying to tell readers that Wikipedia should have a policy of consistently including that info for all places without assuming general knowledge about any particular countries. However, I discovered some time ago that not all Wikipedians share my view on the matter. I doubt we can agree on a clear and consistent rule. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 22:02, 13 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • My view is that we should always start with "town/city, United Kindom" (or just "town/city, UK") and then insert only what is important and absolutely necessary to the context of the article before "UK". The purpose of a location is for readers from around the world to be able to picture the geographic position of a place on the globe. We cannot assume that all, or even most, readers understand the relationship between the UK (the sovereign country which is a member of the UN and to which the Union Flag and "God Save the Queen" applies) and its constituent countries, or even know (or care) that it has constituent countries or what they all are. What we need to guard against too, is the use of the location field for the pushing of a political or nationalist agenda - all towns and cities in the UK are, from an international point of view, geographically in the UK, whether they are in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, or Wales is not of primary importance. We must avoid the confusion or conflation of self-identified nationality and location of birth or settlement too, of course. It is factually correct to say that a person born in, say, Pwllheli, who self-identifies as Welsh, is a Welsh person born in Pwllheli, UK. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:17, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      IMHO, today's "I'm (Scottish, Welsh, Northern Irish/Irish, English) not British" etc bit, has become old & archaic. But, like I mentioned earlier, it's the number of editors that are deciding these things. If enough editors take the stand that 'red' is 'blue'? we end up with 'red' being 'blue'. GoodDay (talk) 19:50, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Oppose for the reasons laid out in the last discussion. Country is perfectly sufficient and using "England/Scotland/etc, UK" is redundant, etc, etc, etc, laid this out all in the previous discussion. Rehashing the discussion after a no consensus results seems like WP:IDONTLIKEIT. It seems reduntant,. we are general purpose English encylopedia we are not expected to teach every reader the obvious that England is in the UK, it is irrelevant that it is not a "sorverign state". Country is perfectly sufficent. to accurately record the country at the time that the birth/death took place We do that already. You seem to suggesting the adding England/Scotland to end does not do this. England, Scotland, and Wales are countries... You seem to suggest only by adding GB that we are able to achieve this which is not true. The inconsistency argument is also flawed. When listing the Netherlands for example Ahold Delhaize We say more often say "Zaandam, Netherlands" rather than "Zaandam, Netherlands, Kingdom of the Netherlands" as the latter is again redundant. But it is getting increasingly tiresome dealing with this editor becuase
    • "a) they cannot respect consensus of the lack of it (so WP:NOCON), and b) whenever anyone disagrees with Vaze50 they bad faith assume it is for "blatantly political reasons":
    • "People like you who are, for blatantly political reasons, intent on erasing the UK/Britain from this website as much as you can are being allowed to get away with your agenda, not on the basis of consensus being behind you doing so, but on there being a split opinion."[6]
    • "That's what should be included. But that's what certain editors, for blatantly political reasons, are attempting to keep off. It's an issues that needs to be addressed."[7]
    • "you are - for obvious political motivations - seeking to erase the country from this website which is intended to be accurate, not politically motivated." [8]
    • "This is blatantly politically motivated by you" [9]
    • Thus it is getting increasing tiresome trying to reason with this Vaze50.  Spy-cicle💥  Talk? 20:14, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • My own take is to avoid the childish game that most people did as children of listing their address as street, city, state, country, continent, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way Galaxy, the universe. Tedious and childish. Listing city, country is fine. I looked at Encyclopedia Britannica and it says that the UK is a country. Making Edinburgh, UK perfectly acceptable. Britannica also says that England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are constituent units of the UK but also calls them countries. Which means Edinburgh, Scotland is also perfectly acceptable. Notice that both forms link to the same place. Either form works and avoids the tedious long form that helps nobody. I think it fair to assume that any unit that is big enough to be an actual country is big enough to be known in its own right. So, either of the 2 short forms is plenty good - just try to be consistent within the same article and don't flip-flop between them - ie, similar rules to WP:ENGVAR, WP:RETAIN, WP:DATERET.  Stepho  talk  02:42, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Consistency is not really that important for International Wikipedia, vs writing a book edited and published in England or the US rather than a mix of countries round the world. We already recognise this by accepting English language variants. Scotland and England are not just "called" countries, as some people above have written, they are countries. I read some nonsense about being Scottish only a "desire" of some nationalists. The UK Census gives the options "Scottish; English; Welsh; Northern Irish; British; Other, please describe". The 2011 census demonstrates clearly that the great majority of people in Scotland identify as Scottish and in England as English and in Wales as Welsh, not as British. This isn't some deviant belief only held by Nationalists, but how the great majority of people identify, and something Wikipedia should respect. The two regions where "British" identity is stronger are in Unionist areas of Northern Ireland, and London (which has a significant immigrant population). I agree with the comments above that writing "England, UK" is an embarrassment of ignorance. If you ask someone in these countries which country they were born in, they will say "Scotland" or "England". Nearly nobody says "Britain" or "the United Kingdom". -- Colin°Talk 08:18, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    That's one of the core problems, why so many British editors keep opposing the usage of "British" in the bio intros & "UK" in the infoboxes. Been through it all before & know full well, you ain't 'ever' gonna get'em to change their position on this topic being debated. GoodDay (talk) 08:44, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I think we can all see that the problem here is if you think this is a problem and you consider British editors to be a problem. Vaze50, can you stop making personal attacks about the motivation of editors here. Similarly, GoodDay, try to avoid grouping editors like this as it is a sort of mass personal attack. The arguments here can be made on their merits and references, and don't need to consider the personal beliefs, assumed motivations or nationality of editors. -- Colin°Talk 10:22, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

    Closed quite quick. I absolutely agree with the points raised. The issue primarily around the inclusion of United Kingdom after E/S/W/NI is the result of nationalist editors seeking to prevent the name being associated with their region. It is also an attempt at trying to portray that E/S/W/NI are actual sovereign countries in the way that the USA, France, China etc. are. They however are not.

    In regards to historical names. I agree as well that the contemporary entity should be used, but then again the issue comes down in many aspects to nationalist editors taking offence over history and reality. Irish editors of nationalist persuaion frequently censor Lordship of Ireland, Kingdom of Ireland and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from infobox locations and replacing it simply with Ireland. This creates an anomaly in that other places are not treated like this and lumped under a geographical entity. Mabuska (talk) 14:48, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    One wonders, why don't they just call it the "Disunited Kingdom". GoodDay (talk) 20:06, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    That's not really helpful GoodDay and you already have had plenty to say after almost every comment. My response is simply because this was hastily closed and was focused on the issue raised. Mabuska (talk) 23:14, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Difficult to pronounce

    Currently we have If a name ending in s or z would be difficult to pronounce with 's added (Jesus's teachings), consider rewording (the teachings of Jesus). Maybe it's me, but "Jesus's" is not particularly difficult to pronounce. The possessive seems to become more difficult to pronounce on multi-syllable words with stresses on the final syllable, say manganese's properties, which might make a better example. (Or Sisyphus's struggles, perhaps.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Lazarus's lethal legalisms. Methuselah's memorable mercury montages. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Sad Sue certified Sisyphus's struggles similarly silly. EEng 00:11, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Doing the OP the favour of taking the point seriously, personally I agree and would delete that provision entirely. Whether something is difficult to pronounce is subjective, and in any event, since when was ease of pronunciation the criterion for deciding how written text should be punctuated? Rewording is always an option that editors have, and shouldn’t need providing for by specific reference within the MoS. Failing deletion, an alternative example would at least move us away from the recently aired misapprehension that there is some sort of exception (to the general rule of adding ‘s) for biblical references. MapReader (talk) 05:19, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    None of those seem hard to pronounce to me. Just put the 's on and leave it to the reader to pronounce or not. I mean, it's not like English doesn't already have boatloads of words with silent letters.--Khajidha (talk) 10:31, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Why is “difficult to pronounce” even a consideration for something that’s written? Are we expecting people to gather round to have articles read out to them? (Or is the concern those that need to move their lips to read to themselves??) DeCausa (talk) 15:49, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't know what the original rationale was, but we do have a commitment to WP:ACCESSIBILITY. Some of our users do, indeed, have articles read out to them. pburka (talk) 16:57, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    'Difficult to pronounce' is a subjective value judgement that should not be present in the MoS. Different people speak English in different ways, and what might be difficult for some is easy for others. RGloucester — ☎ 16:59, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, we often gather round the piano in the front parlour and sing the Today's Featured Article to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:48, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    True, although I still maintain that having a rule about written punctuation that rests upon how something might be pronounced if spoken is, as you would say, dumb… MapReader (talk) 05:35, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd only say so if it was, indeed, dumb. Writing is fundamentally a visual embodiment of speech, so considering how something is spoken isn't dumb. In English we're used to orthography being all over the map, but in other alphabetic languages it would seem bizarre not to consider pronunciation. EEng 18:47, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    For what it's worth the Chicago Manual of Style mentions pronunciation a reference point for whether or not to include an "s" in a possessive, and advises against punctuation such as "Etta James' singing", because this "disregards pronunciation in the majority of cases". --Lord Belbury (talk) 07:17, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    A lot of style choices are subjective, but that's not really the issue here. The point is that this phrase does not make sense because its assertion about what is 'hard to pronounce' is unverifiable (because what each person can pronounce is different, depending on dialect, ability, &c.), and will likely ring false to many people consulting it for guidance. While this is not the place for a linguistic discussion, I strongly contest Mr EEng's point that 'writing is fundamentally a visual embodiment of speech'. This is entirely incorrect, and rooted in a phoneticist viewpoint that should not be embedded into the MoS. There are many examples the world over of cultures that use seperate written and spoken forms that completely deviate from each other. Please refrain from making such strange and offensive assertions here! RGloucester — ☎ 19:52, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Well I'm afraid you've made it a linguistic discussion, one in which you don't know what you're talking about. That writing (in natural languages, anyway) represents that which can be spoken is a bedrock axiom, even if such representation is often rough and confusing, or (as in Chinese) there are multiple, widely divergent recognized ways to speak out a given piece of writing. These things can make discussing how something is pronounced complex, sometimes even futile, but they don't mean the general goal isn't worth pursuing where possible. EEng 20:33, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I believe I do know what I am talking about, thank you. Perhaps you are not familiar, but there are languages that are capable of being read, written, and understood without any knowledge of an appropriate verbal way to express that language. Written language is capable of conveying ideas, without sound. Given that I read and write in one such language, I find your continued attempt to impose phoneticism appalling. But, I will not sully this talk page any longer. RGloucester — ☎ 20:40, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And I'm quite sure you don't, you're welcome. You've taken on with characteristic rapidity your familiar role of overwrought scold ("offensive", "appalling", "impose phoneticism", "sully") staking out some eccentric position. Go ahead: show us a natural-language writing system that isn't meant to be read out orally. That one might conceivably learn a language's writing with no idea of how it's spoken is obvious – here's an artificial example that's actually intended to be learned that way – but to move from the conceivable to the practical: did you learn Japanese that way? Like I said, go on and tell us; we really want to hear it (or read it). EEng 21:34, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    No answer. Huh.
    On reflection it's occurred to me that maybe you're confusing the proposition that all writing represents speech (which is what I'm saying) for the proposition that all writing represents speech phonetically, or alphabetically, or something like that (which is obviously not true, and not what I'm saying because... well, because... y'know... I'm not a moron). EEng 00:08, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Of course we should consider pronounceability. For example, tongue twisters or rhymes in formal prose are generally inappropriate because they distract the reader. And, as I mentioned above, some of our readers are, in fact, listeners and we should consider their needs. But I'm not sure we need this specific rule. The guidance to "[use] plain English" and "avoid ... unnecessarily complex wording" in the introduction is probably sufficient. pburka (talk) 20:29, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Difficulty of pronunciation isn't mentioned, but the exceptions to adding an 's' to a singular possessive ending in 's' (or sibilant, especially if followed by same, e.g. could "for goodness(') sake" ever be "for goodness's sake"?) are given in both Strunk & White (under rule number 1, actually) and Fowler. I think some rule making allowances for such exceptions should be kept. Dhtwiki (talk) 05:41, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Again, if you don't want to pronounce it, don't But that is not a reason not to write it. Or do you say "kuh-nig-hit" for "knight"? --Khajidha (talk) 13:37, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Just because English has very difficult spelling doesn't mean we should make it worse. EEng 14:42, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Seems to me it would make it better, because 1) it would be more predictable and 2) it would more closely match the pronunciations I use and most often encounter. --Khajidha (talk) 16:31, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It's more like kuh-neekt if you're trying for a Middle English pronunciation of, say, Chaucer. Acknowledging standard spelling variants here should be helpful when such variants are encountered in sources. Dhtwiki (talk) 21:38, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Does this impact Spoken Wikipedia at all? Martinevans123 (talk) 14:59, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Even if we accept that "reword phrases that are difficult to pronounce" is a reasonable command or suggestion for the MoS (on which I'm not committed; I suspect we could do without it), I think there's a real question of whether it is a concern that is that 's-centric that the suggestion should be in this section, or whether this is a more general concern that deserve's a section on its own. --Nat Gertler (talk) 01:03, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Agree Remove the “difficult to pronounce” guideline from this MoS. Frankly, though, when I begun speaking English (as a second language) it was difficult to pronounce for me, so I would suggest to move this phrase to simple: WP: MoS. ‑‑ K (🗪 | ✍) 07:23, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I have gone ahead and removed the sentence, as that appeared to be the consensus (despite the heat of people arguing over things that were not that question.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 00:19, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    And @EEng: has decided to single-handedly overrule this consensus, despite (as near as I can tell) not having put forth any statement that this particular sentence should be kept (at least that I can find in his large amount of text here). On August 20, his objection was that we should "Give it a couple of days" -- we gave it another week, and not only were there not new folks saying "no" to the deletion, there was at least one additional call supporting the deletion. Consensus looks clear. Does anyone besides EEng feel that consensus has not been reached? (And the edit summary that he used of course misstated the situation; it's not just a mere case of "A couple of people saying they don't get the point" -- it looks like we have actual calls to delete from @MapReader:, @Jochem van Hees and Jochem van Hees:, @Kai Burghardt:, @RGloucester:, and myself.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 03:16, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Does anyone besides EEng feel that consensus has not been reached – Apparently the answer is yes. See below. EEng 04:45, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • It's standard advice that native speakers should rely on pronunciation to guide this kind of spelling, example (see it's mention of Chicago MoS). Perhaps their example (Euripides's plays) might be used, but asserting that pronunciation has no application in written English is a mistake. Johnuniq (talk) 03:55, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      That another style guide does so might be evidence to support an argument, but I’m not seeing an argument. Things would be much simpler and clearer without such provisions, which I struggle to see the sense of, particularly as neither Jesus’s nor Euripides’s with the ‘s voiced appears particularly difficult to pronounce to me. It’s a shame there was a revert based on scant opposition, but as it’s the MoS how about a proper survey of views? MapReader (talk) 05:41, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    @Johnuniq: The question of whether the possessive of Jesus includes the added s, which is what the article you point to discusses, is not the matter of the deletion being discussed in this thread (though you may wish to look to the Bruno Mars thread.) Even though the discussion started with questioning the choice of example, the topic quickly moved on to whether we should even have the suggestion that we should consider avoiding having a possessive at all for cases where it is hard to pronounce. (Myself, while I am somewhat open on the question of whether we should recommend rephrasing things to avoid hard-to-pronounce sentences, I see zero logic on having that concern applied specifically and solely to singular possessives, rather than making it its own general MOS entry.) Do you have a position on the deletion being discussed? (Forgive me if you think it clear that you were making no comment on that matter but another editor just used your entry into the discussion to make claims about the deletion discussion.) --Nat Gertler (talk) 13:46, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • Can we do the bold edit now then? Very few objections have been raised and they have all been countered. As far as I can tell EEng is the only one who wanted to continue the discussion but has not provided any arguments himself. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 10:20, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      At this point it's not really a bold edit, since there's been plenty of time for people to comment. As someone guessed, I don't actually care about this particular provision, but I'm very surprised no one else seems to either. EEng 11:13, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    It wasn't a bold edit when it was done after a week of discussion, either. Given how you responded to that by undoing the edit, misdescribing the discussion, and obnoxiously calling me "pilgrim", it's reasonably to wonder if you're going to appropriately respond this time. --Nat Gertler (talk) 22:29, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Don't take it so personal, pilgrim. I've participated in, and often guided, a whole lot of discussions here, and have a pretty darn good idea of how the community will react to certain kinds of things. In this case, I judged that there would be significant controversy over the change, even if for some reason it hadn't manifested yet; but in this case my crystal ball failed my badly. So sue me. EEng 00:47, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    So you entered this thread to do a little joking around -- and little joking I have no problem with. But you stayed on insulting other editors, overriding consensus, sliding the goalpost, misdescribing the discussion repeatedly and now, having seen that I would prefer not to be called "pilgrim", chose to attack me with that again. Is that all to be blamed on your malfunctioning crystal ball? You may want to consider whether you are interacting here in ways that encourage participation, or whether you are letting Wikipedia:Civility fall by the wayside. --Nat Gertler (talk) 02:11, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    No, no, no, no, no, no and, um ... no. I entered the thread, and reverted the edit, for exactly the reason I stated above. If it upsets you to see Gloucester make a fool of himself, talk to him about it. The stuff about goalposts and "misdescribing" is just shit you made up. EEng 04:43, 31 August 2021 (UTC) You're a persistent cuss, pilgrim![reply]
    Count this as a gentle reminder to all involved that conversations about user conduct are best held at user talk pages. Will new entrants to this discussion, looking to make up their minds about this point of style, benefit from reading this exchange? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 02:29, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Do-gooder. EEng 04:43, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Pilgrim. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 04:46, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    MOS:RETAIN at Bridget Burgess (racing driver)

    Hi all

    Not sure the most appropriate place to post this, but an IP editor has been edit warring with me over a change to the English variety at the above article. The subject is Australian-born, but has lived in the US since the age of seven, which makes me think she does not qualify for "strong national ties" for either US or Australian English. She appears to identify as "Australian made, American raised" according to her Instagram.[10] As such, without a strong reason to prefer one or the other, I think we should stick to US English as the first variant used in the article, per MOS:RETAIN. I'm at two reverts now though, so seeking more opinions here. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:21, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    You’ve also reverted GiantSnowman too, rather than it just being you v an IP. There is an open thread on the talk page too. - 2A01:4C8:46D:2DFF:5CB:46F7:4F12:4CCC (talk) 09:27, 21 August 2021 (UTC) Resigning to activate proper ping 2A01:4C8:1075:2F3F:1854:D8FA:8876:3F5B (talk) 22:21, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    There's a discussion at Talk:Bridget Burgess (racing driver)#Language and date format.—Bagumba (talk) 13:48, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    ?No there isn't! I think she has "strong national ties" to both US & OZ, therefore it's first come first served, per MOS:RETAIN. Johnbod (talk) 14:44, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Because (I think) of a recent move, the discussion is actually at Talk:Bridget Burgess#Language and date format. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 14:53, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    MOS:Possessives at Talk:Bruno Mars

    There is an ongoing discussion regarding the possessive form of Bruno Mars. Should the possessive form of Mars contain only an apostrophe (Mars') or an apostrophe and another 's' (Mars's), per MOS or should this be an exception just like Jesus is and reword whenever it is possible? Any input is welcomed.

    Kind regards, MarioSoulTruthFan (talk) 22:47, 25 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Contradictory wording of "Punctuation inside or outside" subsection

    Currently we have the following wording at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Punctuation inside or outside: 

    Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark. For the most part, this means treating periods and commas in the same way as question marks: keep them inside the quotation marks if they apply only to the quoted material and outside if they apply to the whole sentence.

    The second sentence above contradicts the following: 

    When quoting a full sentence, the end of which coincides with the end of the sentence containing it, place terminal punctuation inside the closing quotation mark.

    See the corresponding examples. This is clearly different from the treatment of question marks.

    I recommend simply deleting "For the most part, this means treating periods and commas in the same way as question marks: keep them inside the quotation marks if they apply only to the quoted material and outside if they apply to the whole sentence."

    Winston (talk) 04:35, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Could you give an example that could expose the contradiction? Firefangledfeathers (talk) 04:40, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Here is an example from the subsection itself. In Did Darla say, "Here I am"? the quotation mark applies to both the quoted material and to the whole sentence, and is placed outside. In Marlin said: "I need to find Nemo." the period applies to both the quoted material and to the whole sentence, and is placed inside. Winston (talk) 04:51, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think Darla said "Here I am?", meaning the question mark doesn't apply to the quoted material. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 04:54, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Ah wait I'm incorrect. The question mark in Did Darla say, "Here I am"? applies to the whole sentence only. Still, the manual says "outside if they apply to the whole sentence", but the period applies to the whole sentence and is placed inside. Winston (talk) 04:55, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    My first thought is that the first quoted paragraph lays out the general rule ("For the most part") and the second lays out a specific rule that serves as an exception. I have more thinking to do on whether the removal you're proposing would hurt or help. Hopefully others will chime in soon. Firefangledfeathers (talk) 05:14, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I suspect that was the intention of its author, but the OP is right that it does fail, because what is presented as a general rule is both qualified in a way that makes it meaningless (“for the most part”…) and isn’t really the general rule at all. It is the examples below in that section of the MoS that make clear what we are supposed to be doing. Taking first the part that Winston highlights, it is misleading because it gives two scenarios that are not mutually exclusive: it is possibly for a full stop (period) to apply BOTH to the whole sentence and be present in the original material. The phrasing suggests that in such circumstances the full stop goes outside, but the MoS examples make clear that in many cases it’s the opposite that we should be doing. However the first part of the section that Winston quotes above, but doesn’t propose for deletion, is also badly worded, since it suggests that we should be including the full stop within the quotation if it was present in the original material - yet, here again, the examples make clear that this isn’t what we should be doing, since any end of sentence fragment that is quoted will clearly have the full stop at the end yet this then goes OUTSIDE the quotation marks. “Otherwise” is used totally inappropriately in that sentence! What it (the first sentence) is trying to say is “never include punctuation within quotation marks unless it was present in the quoted material” - which IS a general rule! - The second part is trying to say “the general approach is to include punctuation within quotation marks if it applies solely to the quotation and outside if it forms part of the overall sentence” but I would add for clarity at the end, covering off terminal full stops which is the most common scenario: “, terminal periods (full stops) should be included within quotation marks if an entire sentence from the quoted material is being quoted in full, but otherwise put outside”. These would be my own proposals, but it would be just as good to use the wording we already have elsewhere in WP that sets out the general rule: “include within quotation marks only those punctuation marks that appeared in the original quoted material and in which the punctuation mark fits with the sense of the quotation, but otherwise to place punctuation outside the closing quotation marks”. The AND inside that is doing the heavy lifting, but it is at least correct and clear. MapReader (talk) 05:57, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    I've thought about this some more (typed this up before seeing MapReader's comment, they make good points too). I believe the issue is mainly with the wording of the explanation, which could do with some logical refinement. Here's my thoughts.
    A question mark goes inside if and only if the question mark applies to the quotation:
    • Did Darla ask, "Where am I?" (question mark applies to both the whole sentence and the quotation)
    • Did Darla say, "I like dogs"? (question mark applies to whole sentence only)
    • Darla asked, "Where am I?" (question mark applies to the quotation only)
    Thus when it comes to question marks, "keep them inside the quotation marks if they apply only to the quoted material and outside if they apply to the whole sentence" should instead be "keep them inside the quotation marks if and only if they apply to the quoted material".
    I think the explanation could also be reorganized. We should first explain fully the rules for question marks, then introduce the heuristic of mostly treating periods and commas in the same way as question marks, followed by further explanation for commas, periods, etc. In this case, there may be enough exceptions to the heuristic that it may not even be helpful to some people.
    An example of such an exception is that if a period is placed inside, then it applies to the quoted material, but if a period applies to the quoted material, it is not necessarily placed inside. (So we have here a one-directional material conditional rather than the biconditional "if and only if").
    Basically, we need to be extremely clear and explicit with logical terms such as "if", "only if", "otherwise", and with the exceptions (if we can even call them that at this point). We should also try to organize the explanation in the most effective way (although what's effective is subjective). I suggest diving into the precise details with examples first, perhaps organized by type of punctuation, and then summarizing at the end. Currently we have an inaccurate summary followed by (correct) examples. Winston (talk) 06:14, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    • I strongly urge that examples be found that might conceivably arise in actual article editing. The current guideline spends most of its time on encyclopedically impossible cases. No article is (or should, anyway) ever say something like "I need", said Marlin, "to find Nemo." EEng 14:21, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      We could say “The film”, commented Hollywood Reporter, “is very good”. But I’d think we can credit editors with some ability to extrapolate from the examples we already have. Winston risks complicating things by trying to revise the examples as well, which are currently not broken being pretty clear. We’d do better simply to come up with something better to replace the opening paragraph. MapReader (talk) 17:16, 26 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      No, it's inconceivable that an article would read “The film”, commented Hollywood Reporter, “is very good”; that's for novels, historical fiction, and Sunday-supplement pieces. ("'Ask not what your country can do for you", the young president challenged his listeners, "ask what you can do for your country.'" – I'd love to be a fly on the wall while you guys hammer out how to punctuate that one.) If you can't find an actual article-editing situation to which the principle exemplified by an example arises, then the example not just can be junked, but needs to be junked. See WP:MOSBLOAT. EEng 00:25, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      The purpose of an example is to help the reader understand the general principle, and whether or not the words used are true to real life isn’t a critical criterion. In your example the final period clearly goes outside the quotation marks, because the wording within your second set of quotation marks is a sentence fragment and not an entire sentence. MapReader (talk) 05:46, 27 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
      I'll say it for the third time: if you can't supply an example that would actually arise in an article, then "the general principle" doesn't need to be understood, and shouldn't be bloating MOS. EEng 06:03, 27 August 2021 (UTC) P.S. There's a lot more going on with the Kennedy passage.[reply]

    Requesting inputs

    Greetings

    Requesting (brainstorming) inputs regarding Manual of Style proposal @ Chronological listing of coastal townships

    Thanks and warm regards

    Bookku, 'Encyclopedias = expanding information & knowledge' (talk) 07:14, 29 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Query about extra spaces

    I'm a little hesitant to venture into MOS territory with your 200+ archived talk pages but here goes. I'm coming across some old pages that have titles like "Wikipedia talk / Manual of Style" with two extra spaces, one on either side of the slash/diagonal. I checked the article and these spaces aren't repeated in the article when the subject is mentioned. I fixed the first incident I came across because I thought it was a mistake but now I'm running into other examples and so I thought I'd check here and ask if this is standard practice (or was) and I should not correct the unnecessary spaces in the article titles when I come across them. Thanks. Liz Read! Talk! 05:36, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Just in case you wanted to see an example, one would be Aoraki / Mount Cook. Liz Read! Talk! 05:39, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Just a guess here: maybe its a New Zealand thing? I go to the New Zealand MoS and there's an example. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (New Zealand)#Dual and alternative place names under dual names. Not sure if it's policy or what, though. Masterhatch (talk) 09:47, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    A forward slash in an article title indicates a subpage; there are no spaces around the slash because the slash is there to separate the subpage name from the main page name. However, subpages are not a thing in the mainspace, where article titles are supposed to have natural English titles. So it is perfectly fine to put spaces around a slash there, following English punctuation rules. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 10:30, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    Okay, then, that's what I needed to know. I won't go around around and "correct" elements that aren't obvious mistakes. I thought I received a good education but I clearly didn't learn all the English punctuation rules so I'm glad there is a talk page here to ask. Thank you. Liz Read! Talk! 23:21, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    Adjacent places

    On some articles about places I see text diagrams describing which places are nearby. Examples:

    Is this stuff honestly helpful for a reader? Maybe in ~2005, but these days (given Google Maps exists and so does Wikipedia:Mapframe maps in infoboxes) I feel like it's a really hard-to-parse format with zero benefit to readers. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 18:52, 30 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

    I only know "Localities around …" from {{Infobox Australian place}} where there are widely used. I'm not aware of any discussions to remove them from the template. Given the increasing number of Wikipedia readers on mobile devices, presenting this information in an infobox is preferable to a navigation box which is not visible on mobile devices. Mapframes don't seem to work for most locations using {{Infobox Australian place}}. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:26, 31 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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