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"Focuses" or "Focusses"?

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There is some dispute over whether this article should use the word "focuses" with one S or "focusses" with two. There doesn't seem to be anything in the Manual of Style about this, but only 773 articles in Wikipedia currently use "focusses", compared with 296,977 uses of "focuses".

Chambers Dictionary doesn't allow the double-s form at all. The Oxford English Dictionary has this to say (specifically about the verb formation): "Against the broad rule that final consonants are not doubled after short unstressed vowels, inflected forms with -ss- are attested, especially in British English, but are nonetheless considerably rarer in current usage than forms without doubled final consonant; in the British National Corpus, the ratio of -s- forms to -ss- forms is about nine to one. P. Peters Cambridge Guide Eng. Usage (2004) notes that in a recent language usage survey in the United Kingdom, over 75% of respondents endorsed single-s inflected forms."

It doesn't seem controversial to me to use the much more common single-s form. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:08, 13 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks OpenToppedBus for that. I prefer the -s- form myself too. I see no controversy but just wonder if it is worth starting a crusade over a preference, though; what we seem to be saying is that, in BrE at least, -ss- is not actually wrong. I looked at ODE (my OED access is broken but I'll take your word for it!) as well as ODWE and Fowler and, perhaps disappointingly, they all quite cheerfully give houseroom to -ss-. So if it is not wrong, why change it? I am concerned that we don't really need to make spelling consistent across Wikipedia anyway, due to our old mate ENGVAR, so I'd have thought there were plenty of real spelling errors to address and that this might be preferable to correcting something which is not an error but merely a variant. When I say that I'm a supporter of -ize spellings in BrE you will probably see where I'm coming from ... Finally, I am not sure that this Talk page discussion is really the right venue for this, but YMMV. Cheers and happy editing DBaK (talk) 16:13, 20 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Disagree; no reason to change.2A0C:5BC0:40:107B:FDA5:2A6D:95AC:8BA8 (talk) 12:03, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Merriam-Webster: "focuses" ~ ToBeFree (talk) 12:07, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
So what? Are you just ignoring the discussion above? Did you see it? MW is not the only source, and you are not the only judge. DBaK (talk) 14:37, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered: Sorry if this appeared to be "pointy". I boldly threw in my third opinion, and I'm even basing it on the guideline you've mentioned yourself:
  • Use universally accepted terms rather than those less widely distributed, especially in titles.
  • Use a commonly understood word or phrase in preference to one that has a different meaning because of national differences
  • When more than one variant spelling exists within a national variety of English, the most commonly used current variant should usually be preferred, except where the less common spelling has a specific usage in a specialized context
(from WP:ENGVAR)
I further see that "focuses" appears in 297,319 articles; "focusses" appears in 2,912. That's about 100:1, which I would call "common" or "universal". I then looked it up in Merriam-Webster, which made no mention of "focussed" at all. What originally brought me to this page was the following edit:
https://wiki.riteme.site/w/index.php?title=Shon_Faye&diff=846874959&oldid=846575130&diffmode=source
...OpenToppedBus's original edit summary: "More usual spelling, as per uncontested suggestion on talk page"
Reaction by 2a0c:5bc0:40:107b:fda5:2a6d:95ac:8ba8: "Undid revision 846575130 by OpenToppedBus (talk) No consensus reached."
That appeared really, really strange to me, especially after verifying "focused" in Merriam-Webster. What I did not notice, however, is that there had already been edits and reverts about this topic about a week ago. I would not have made a revert else.
I see no reason to keep the unusual spelling variant preferred by the page creator. I also see no reason to have a lengthy conflict about this absolutely minor one-character change. Nobody owns an article, hence I don't like the argument "if you disagree with the page creator". If you, as an experienced user, feel so strongly that it has to be "focussed", then I won't stand in your way. I didn't expect you to, however. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:29, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough, and thank you for the nice reply. I'm certainly not up for a fistfight over this; indeed I wasn't aware of that last point you quote, which is an absolute killer! I'm not sure I'm happy about it, but there it is in, er, green and white so I am not about to start an anti-policy-based row here ... happy editing, I'm gone! Cheers DBaK (talk) 21:48, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@DisillusionedBitterAndKnackered: Hey It's all right, there is no need to feel bad about this and I should probably have explained this properly before doing the edit. I was a bit surprised that this would actually start a larger discussion, but I've seen waaaay stranger discussions in the depths of the Wikipedia archives already. People sometimes get really mad at each other over trivialities, and I'm definitely not immune to this effect either.
I'm curious if 2a0c:5bc0:40:107b:fda5:2a6d:95ac:8ba8 will continue to restore their preferred version; at least they can't insist on "taking it to the talk page" anymore. I don't yet know if I care enough to undo their change if they do... I guess/hope someone else would do it instead, completing the consensus. Can't hurt. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 23:14, 21 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I should probably pop back in here as the person who started this talk page discussion. I must admit, when I saw that a Wikipedia page had been created for Shon Faye, I fully expected that it would be controversial and would end up with edit wars. I absolutely didn't expect that this would be the issue that caused them! I also don't like the "disagree with the page creator" argument but this certainly isn't a hill I'm prepared to die on - I've probably done all the reverting I'm planning to do here for now (though I might keep making this same change on other pages). Thanks to ~ ToBeFree and DBaK for your contributions and your civil discussions. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 09:11, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Merriam-Webster is an American English reference. This is a British article. 2A0C:5BC0:40:107B:E1F4:FE7:315:E06A (talk) 09:28, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

See wikt:focusses for the British spelling. Jim1138 (talk) 09:41, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Have you read the discussion above, Jim1138? I'm not going to bother reverting again, but as is clear from the info above referencing Chambers Dictionary and the OED, it's absolutely wrong to describe the -ss- form as "the British spelling". It's a variant form which is perhaps marginally more acceptable in British English than in American English, but is less preferred than the -s- form in all Englishes. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 09:53, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
My apology, it's a variant, not the defacto. I'll stand down. Cheers Jim1138 (talk) 09:55, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Someone with a grammatical mistake in their username ("open" and "topped" are acting as a compound adjective and so require a hyphen) really shouldn't be commenting on SPAG. 2A0C:5BC0:40:107B:E1F4:FE7:315:E06A (talk) 10:57, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, dear, then we are pretty much all stuffed then, aren't we? :) DBaK (talk) 11:30, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Made my day.
That said, do you have objective arguments against using the quoted guideline? Thanks in advance.
~ ToBeFree (talk) 16:42, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Suggestions: "deals with" "centers on" "is concerned with" "discusses" - all of these have universal spellings, which is preferable per MOS:COMMONALITY. There is nothing special about "focus" that requires its use here. 2600:8800:1880:91E:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 23:17, 22 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wow, that seems to be a good solution we have not thought of! And nobody needs to complain about not having their specific spelling of "focus(s)es" used. ~ ToBeFree (talk) 01:28, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Good idea – so please can I now start a new row about "centers"??? Kidding! Kidding!! Best wishes to all DBaK (talk) 12:22, 24 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Wow. No offence to anyone involved, but the above discussion surely belongs on Lamest edit wars. Robofish (talk) 22:18, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]
+1. Also, I notice that after all this discussion, the article was using both spellings, inconsistently ("focuses" once and "focusses" once). 🙄😩 That's definitely wrong. I've reworded it to sidestep the issue... -sche (talk) 22:29, 23 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Repeated removal of image

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A succession of anonymous IP addresses keep on removing the picture of Faye from this article. They claim that the image is not of her but this is obviously nonsense. The image she uses on her Twitter profile shows same person. The image we are using is sourced to a screenshot from this video where she is clearly identified as being Shon Faye. This image removal is disruptive and tedious and it has to stop!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the image we are using. It is definitely her. It is a decent quality picture. It is not excessively out of date. If anybody feels that they have any better suggestions for the image to use then feel free to suggest them but if people continue to just remove the image, without a reason or citing a bogus reason, then this is going to lead to warnings for vandalism and/or the page being protected from anonymous editing, which is not ideal because it also prevents any other anonymous editors who might want to contribute constructively from editing. --DanielRigal (talk) 12:38, 14 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Pinkwashed"

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I've removed a mention of a supposed book published by Faye entitled "Pinkwashed: How Gays Sold Queer Liberation". This doesn't seem to exist - it has an ISBN number, but appears never to have been in stock at any bookseller, and the supposed publisher makes no mention of it on its website. Best guess is that it was planned at some point but got cancelled before publication. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 15:04, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted the initial removal because a cursory search suggested that the book was real (ISBN, listings on Worldcat and Amazon) and I didn't dig any further. On slightly closer inspection, the situation does indeed seem to be as OpenToppedBus says. I may have been a bit hasty to revert due to the recent history of anonymous editors removing valid stuff for spurious reasons. I'm happy for it to stay removed for the time being. If anybody has any proof that the book really was published, or is scheduled to be, then it can be put back. --DanielRigal (talk) 20:22, 1 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]
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