Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 167

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Archive 160

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Archive 165

FAQ additions

Latest comment: 9 years ago48 comments5 people in discussion

Sourcing and proof

I added a point to the FAQ, at WP:MOSFAQ#SOURCE. TL;DR: Consensus is the source, we don't cite external works for each point, and it doesn't take finger-pointing at other editors to add something. This is in response to several years of two different kinds of conceptually similar misapproaches, and discussions on two different MOS talk pages jogged my memory to write it up.

~~Why isn't the Manual of Style sourced?~~

The Manual of Style, like the rest of the Wikipedia policies and guidelines, is not encyclopedia content governed by WP:Verifiability. Such pages are sets of internal rules (in the broad sense) developed by editorial consensus of the Wikipedia community about what is best for the encyclopedia and its audience and editors; no third-party source can verify our internal decisions. External works are occasionally mentioned as sources of additional information, but they are not the sources of any rules or recommendations on Wikipedia. Consensus discussions about style in particular often compare the approaches of various external style books and usage guides. This is not required in order for Wikipedia to come to consensus on whether to include a particular point, nor what to recommend regarding it or how to illustrate it with examples. Similarly, "proof" that a style issue arises frequently, to some arbitrary measure, is not required to determine whether a particular point is worth including. Sometimes frequent errors are trivial and harmless. Sometimes infrequent problems are very disruptive. Clear reasoning and common sense are generally enough for consensus to determine whether a clarification is needed.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:23, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

No, it's you overreacting to my request regarding the new text you want to add to the MoS. There are two problems with your new addition to the FAQ.

1) The question. FAQ is about frequently asked questions. Its purpose is to forestall repeated debate by providing newcomers with information that might address their concerns: "Why isn't the MoS based on sources?" isn't a frequently asked question. I happen to think it's a valid one, but it doesn't come up that often.

2) The answer: Your text wasn't geared toward newcomers. It was geared toward me personally. One editor's personal response to another editor does not belong in the FAQ. Write an essay if you feel strongly about it. That's what essays are for. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Why MOS isn't sourced, or variants of this question, "Why does it say X? What's the source for that?", and "Why does it say Y, when [my preferred source] says not-Y?", are frequently asked questions. The second of these is the basis of every WP:SSF style dispute that ever arises on Wikipedia. So it's arguably the most frequently asked MOS question, in one form or another (often presented as an assertion "MOS is wrong because [my preferred source] disagrees". 2) It was not geared toward you personally. It was largely in response to another discussion elsewhere, about "proving" with diffs that something to include or not include in MOS:WTW, or that a problem arising from inclusion or exclusion of something, is "common enough" to satisfy some filibusterer, when it's a simple common sense consensus question. That the unreasonable "cite an internal source" demands dovetail nicely with similar "cite an external source" demands is fortuitous, since it leads to a single concise FAQ example. The entry is geared toward newcomers, whose first reaction to MOS rules that conflict with their expectations is "where are they getting this from?" The second point in it wasn't at first in a new-editor-friendly way, but I've revised it, above, to fix that.

"No, it's you overreacting to..." is an accusation that I'm a liar. Please retract it. I'd originally written it only about the internal demand, so your assumption that it's a reaction to your circular-reasoning textwall above is false; you simply made me realize that the same principle could cover two problems in one entry, and which one was more important to lead with. So, thanks for that, I guess.

Let's see what others think. I'm tired of you arguing with every thing I do or say, and would appreciate the input of someone else who doesn't have a personal bone to pick with me. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:39, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

No it is not an accusation of you being a liar. It is an assertion that you are overreacting. You don't always understand what I mean when I say things. That's why I do so much rephrase-and-repeat. In our earlier discussion, I was saying, "If you want my support for your changes, here's how you get it: show me a source or a non-hypothetical problem that this new text would solve." You seem to think I'm waging war against you when I'm actually telling you under what circumstances I would be on your side. You hear "NO!" when I really said "if." That is what I mean by overreacting.

I don't see "Why isn't the MoS sourced?" as the same thing as WP:SSF. I could get behind adding a question to the FAQ to the effect of "Why does the MoS follow general-English practice rather than specialist practice?" but I don't think you and I have the same answer to that question. We could do what we did with the LQ question and list the positions that people hold on this matter. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:48, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Also, please quit complaining about the textwall. My initial response to your proposal was quite short and you asked me to explain further. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:50, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I didn't say they were "the same thing". Editors support changes because they make sense, not because they've been given what they demand in a horse-trading negotiation. What your reasoning is in another discussion isn't pertinent to this discussion.

Your opinion has been registered. Again, I'm curious what someone else has to say for a change. Please take your personal dispute to user talk. I did you that courtesy, remember? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:56, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Oh, I see. I wasn't trying to get you to horse trade. To use your terms, I was trying to tell you what would make your changes make sense to me.

Per your comments, I narrowed the FAQ question to deal with the specialist style controversy. You're right that that comes up enough to merit an entry in the FAQ. However, I've only added one of the many positions on this issue. Care to add another?

Actually, I don't remember. The way you allude to things often eludes me (heh). I don't happen to know what you're talking about. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:09, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The most current thread on your talk page rings no bells, then? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

No it didn't. 1) You made that post a while ago. 2) It's not always clear why you do things, what you consider personal and what you don't. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:34, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Brevity: I'm thinking two cases of "consensus to determine" could be shortened to "determine". New arrivals need to know that consensus is how decisions are made, but we probably don't need to keep using the word so much. Or is it important to reinforce, especially given the nature of this FAQ point itself?
Another copyedit might be changing 'Similarly, whether a style issue arises frequently, and whether there's "proof" it does to some arbitrary measure, are not required' to simply 'Similarly, "proof" that a style issue arises frequently, to some arbitrary measure, is not required'. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:06, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
- I took out the middle mention of "consensus", tightend the other passage. I've updated the displayed version above. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:33, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

While the text is under discussion, it should be here on this talk page, not already in the FAQ. I'd like it if you took it down for now. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Done. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:18, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:26, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

There are a number of problems with the proposed text.

"Why isn't the MoS sourced" is not a frequently asked question.
The answer does not reflect an existing consensus. We haven't had discussions specifically about whether the MoS has to be sourced or about whether we should have to prove whether problems are non-hypothetical. Wikieditors have provided sources to support their positions and some of the people who come here for help cite specific problems or points of confusion.
The fact that the MoS isn't sourced is its key weakness. It's part of the reason why there's so much less respect for it—and for us—than there should be. Regardless of whether or not we should change it, we should not be drawing attention to the fact that the MoS is not WP:V-compliant.
The answer is not likely to placate a newcomer. "Well why don't you guys have to find sources?" is here met with "Because we don't."
I feel that SmC added this specifically because I asked for this kind of information in an ongoing discussion. This really looks like it's addressed to me personally, one editor's opinion of another editor, and the FAQ is not the place for that. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:43, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I've already addressed why it's a frequently asked question. See WP:IDHT and please stop engaging in proof by assertion when you are refuted. The entire idea that the MOS has to be sourced is irrational, and yes we do have a consensus against that, namely a huge MOS that work and is accepted already. That someone wants to change it to be sourced point-by-point is not evidence of anything. It doesn't show lack of consensus that MOS isn't externally sourced (which is relevant), nor lack of consensus that MOS can't and shouldn't be sourced. You're filibustering factual statement of the status quo on the basis that you'd like to change how it all works in the future. The idea that MOS is "weak" beacuse it unsourced is a hypothesis, that nothing to do with whether it is sourced (it isn't) and how MOS is, in the real world, edited, even if you want to change that. Anyway, the text here clearly distinguishes between WP:POLICY and encyclopedia content, one based on consensus decision-making about what is best for the encyclopedia, the other based on consensus about what the sources say. This is not even a fact about MOS, but about all of policy [in the broad sense], but people only seem to be confused on this point when it comes to MOS. If you think this could be explained even more clearly, then how? Suggest wording instead of reverting warring to prevent any mention of this entire concept. Your position seems to be that it's impermissible for us to even attempt to state this fact clearly. Your "addressed to me personally" accusation: We've been over this already, so this is more IDHT again. Also, you've made this false accusation three times in the space of about an hour. If you do it again, my ability to continue to assume good faith is going to be quite eroded. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:18, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

SmC, you say things like, "I already explained this" and I have no idea what you're talking about. Sometimes two ideas are closely connected in your head, but I'm afraid your thought process is not obvious from over here. You think the idea of sourcing is irrational. You assume that that's why we don't talk about it. FAQ questions should show a general consensus, not what one person thinks and assumes. And since you brought up WP:DUCK, yes it really does look like you made a special FAQ entry just for me, and I don't like it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:26, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: you say things like, "I already explained this" and I have no idea what you're talking about – Exactly. I'm taking that to user talk because your discussion comprehension issues are not an MOS matter.

"[W]e don't talk about it" (i.e. about "sourcing the MOS"). I know. Glad we've established that. Thank you for also clarifying [a bit later] that you simply refuse to assume good faith here. And for confirming that your rationale is "I don't like it". I don't actually need to assume anything about why WT:MOS doesn't talk about sourcing. The fact is that it doesn't. Good enough for me. Moving on. The previously-unstated obvious: Any motivation behind the FAQ point is irrelevant. It is accurate and it does address some very common new-editor concerns. Your personal mission to "source the MOS" isn't even affected by this. Go write your version. If WP likes it better in a proposal, then consensus will have changed. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:30, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

SmC, you need to stop making assumptions about why I do things. I have no idea where you were standing before you jumped to "Darkfrog's rationale must be WP:IDONTLIKEIT."

If we at WT:MoS don't talk about why the MoS isn't sourced, then where are you getting your answer to "Why isn't the MoS sourced?" That's my problem with this. With the other questions, we can dig through the archive and look at what people said. No so here. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't have a problem comprehending issues. I have a problem understanding you. Your thought process is very different from mine. You make leaps from fact to conclusion where I would put more steps in between. For example, what does "We don't talk about it" have to do with refusing to assume good faith? It is not remotely clear how you think those things are connected. There's something in your head that didn't make it into your post.

They're not related. I was responding to your points in turn. (There were also some typos in my second sentence, that I've since corrected. But I don't think this is about that sentence.) The good-faith point is in reference to what you said after the "we don't talk about it" point, namely your statement that "yes it really does look like you made a special FAQ entry just for me" bit (i.e. your third refusal in a row to accept that this isn't just about you). I don't see how that's hard to follow at all. Read your own post: You make the "we don't talk about it" point, which I responded to; you made a point about "FAQ questions should show a general consensus" which no one would controvert; you make a point about how it's all me trying to get at you, to which I responded; you concluded with "I don't like it", to which I responded. 1, 2, 3, 4. See my user talk message to you. You severely bog down discussions here (and elsewhere) because you don't follow simple, orderly responses, and then can't seem to follow the explanation of those responses, for the same reason. I give up. And no, this is not just about you. Peter_coxhead agrees this is a common problem, and my main problem with his edit was that it removed the point I cared about most, the "prove it it's harmful!" wikilawyering, unrelated to your "source the MOS" stuff at all. [sigh] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

My "I don't like it" refers to "I don't like that there is a FAQ question that at least appears to be aimed specifically at me." Is that where you got the idea that my rationale was WP:IDONTLIKEIT? I was not saying, "I WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT" per the FAQ question." Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:32, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

To clarify what's in my head: I wouldn't call it a personal mission. I especially wouldn't say someone else is on a personal mission just because they asked me if there was source support for my new text. Have I made a formal proposal that the MoS be overhauled for sourcing? Even once? Darkfrog24 (talk) 10:33, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea. I take long wikibreaks, and I don't stalk other editors. You've been filibustering two threads at once on this page to advance that "MOS must be sourced" proposition though. Whether you put a "Proposal" heading on top of it is irrelevant. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

The answer is NO. I was not formally proposing that we start sourcing the MoS. I was telling what you could do to convince me that you were right. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:40, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Whether it's a frequently asked question is a moot point, but it's a frequently raised issue in MOS-related discussions, so I think it's a good idea to add it as a FAQ. However, SMcCandlish's version could do with some shortening (as often with his contributions :-) ). I suggest something like:

The Manual of Style, like ~~the rest of~~ other Wikipedia policies and guidelines, is not encyclopedia content governed by WP:Verifiability. Such pages are sets of internal rules (in the broad sense) developed by editorial consensus of the Wikipedia community ~~about what is best for the encyclopedia and its audience and editors; no third-party source can verify our internal decisions~~. ~~External works are occasionally mentioned as sources of additional information, but they are not the sources of any rules or recommendations on Wikipedia~~. Consensus discussions about style ~~in particular often~~ may compare the approaches of various external style books and usage guides, but this is not required in order for Wikipedia to come to consensus ~~on whether to include a particular point, nor what to recommend regarding it or how to illustrate it with examples~~. Similarly, "proof" that a style issue arises frequently, to some arbitrary measure, is not required to determine whether a particular point is worth including. Sometimes frequent errors are trivial and harmless. Sometimes infrequent problems are very disruptive. Clear reasoning and common sense are generally enough for consensus to determine whether a clarification is needed.

Peter coxhead (talk) 07:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

That seems to give us: The Manual of Style, like other Wikipedia policies and guidelines, is not encyclopedia content governed by WP:Verifiability. Such pages are sets of internal rules (in the broad sense) developed by editorial consensus of the Wikipedia community. Consensus discussions about style may compare the approaches of various external style books and usage guides, but this is not required in order for Wikipedia to come to consensus. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it is needed at all, but if we have to add something, it needs to be more along the lines of Peter's recommendation. GregJackP Boomer! 07:59, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

We've lost any reference to "sources" but that's easily fixable. Aside from that, it sounds reasonable, but it's lost a crucial point, the one about wikilawyering I was originally trying to make: Inclusion is not tied to proof of harm or frequency; common sense is enough. It's the proof / evidence part that is key. A recurrent theme (especially when a new editor first encounters something in MOS they don't recognize or like and remove it and get reverted, is "if you can't prove is really a problem, it has to go" a.k.a. "Cite me a bunch of examples of this ever being a problem" etc. (It's stupid, because if the rule has been working, there won't be any such "proof" that can easily be found!) I encountered this argument three times this week alone. MOS is not based on keeping a shit-list of past transgressions; this isn't a noticeboard. And MOS isn't somehow disempowered from making preventative rules anyway. It's important that people understand this.
Anyway, if we're going for this much concision, drop the parenthetical and some other fluff, too. Something like this:
The Manual of Style, like other Wikipedia policies and guidelines, is not encyclopedia content governed by external sources. Such pages are sets of internal rules ~~(in the broad sense)~~ developed by editorial consensus of the Wikipedia community. Consensus discussions about style may compare the approaches of various external style ~~books~~ and usage guides, but this is not required ~~in order~~ for Wikipedia to come to consensus. Inclusion depends on neither external authority nor internal proof of an ongoing problem. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:07, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Peter's version isn't as problematic as the original, but it doesn't answer the question. The question is "Why isn't the MoS subject to WP:V?" We should only put an entry in the FAQ if we can come up with an answer to that question that will satisfy the asker. Otherwise, we shouldn't draw attention to the issue. Darkfrog24 (talk) 10:33, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Because '[MOS], like other Wikipedia policies and guidelines, is not encyclopedia content governed by external sources. Such pages are sets of internal rules developed by editorial consensus of the Wikipedia community'. The content policies apply to the encyclopedia's content; that why they're called that. What wording would you tweak? I.e., what about it is "not likely to placate a newcomer", as you said above? Keeping in mind that the MOS FAQ can't do the job of the WP:POLICY page. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't tweak it; I'd leave it out entirely. When I say it's not likely to placate a newcomer, I mean that the newcomer wondering, "Why don't we source the MoS?" is likely to meet "Well, because it's a policy and not an article," with "What difference does that make?" It's not obvious why a policy should be held to a lower standard than articles. "Why should I have to do what the MoS says if it's all just made up?" "Why should I have to do what the MoS says if I learned otherwise in school/do otherwise at work?" aren't satisfied here. The truth is that we don't have a flattering answer to this question. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:39, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: What do you think of my more concise reintegration of the point about "prove the harm!" wikilawyering? The overall message of the whole piece is intended to be "MOS (like the rest of WP:POLICY) is based on consensus, not argument to authority". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 11:41, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I'm convinced it's a good idea to say that the MOS doesn't need to be sourced. Any style manual ultimately has to make autonomous choices. I'm not (yet) entirely convinced of your second point. The MOS needs to be as succinct as possible so that editors are willing to read it. So if there isn't an ongoing problem over an issue, why is it in the MOS? We need to be willing to remove out of date material. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:09, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Specialized style

Darkfrog24 has added (by way of replacing the entire above FAQ point; both have been reverted pending discussion) a completely different point: Why doesn't the Manual of Style follow specialist practice?

The issue of specialist vs. general style has also come up many times, most notably with respect to how to present the names of birds and other animal species. The editors who write the MoS often consult and compare the approaches of many external style books and usage guides, including both guides designed for specialist professions and purposes and guides designed for general English. One major position is that although Wikipedia contains a large amount of specialist content, it is written for general audiences. While specialist publications, such as scientific journal articles, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for the way to present those facts to non-experts. In fine, if you want to know a bird's wingspan and feeding habits, ask an ornithology journal. If you want to know whether or not to capitalize its name, ask a general-English style guide.

— SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:25, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I agree an entry of this sort could be helpful, but it's addressing different issues than the one above. The one above explains that MOS is derived from internal consensus (which often considers external sources) about what we need, not from external rule-book thumping, or from wikilawyering. This new FAQ entry is about MOS's (and WP's) audience. I would rewrite this in several ways, but the most obvious issue is focusing on species. It doesn't help anyone much less new editors to pick at the scabs of old dispute wounds. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:25, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
The specialist vs generalist issue comes up frequently and therefore merits inclusion in the FAQ, and there are many previous discussions that we can mine for answers to that question. "Why isn't the MoS sourced?" does not come up frequently and the answer contained only one editor's opinions, presented as if they were generally accepted, as in "This is how it is." (Counterrexample: The answer to the WP:LQ question lists several of the most common positions that have been taken in that debate and presents them in a neutral, descriptive manner: "Supporters say X. Opponents say Y.") I certainly think that this specialist answer has room for improvement, but I feel this is a good start. As for the species, I feel that the example makes it clearer, but if you think it's too inflammatory, go ahead and replace it. The whole point of the FAQ is to head off fights before they happen. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:34, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

You're using two sections to argue against one inclusion, after I asked you to pause and let others have some input on that other inclusion. Please give it a rest. The fact that both inclusions relate in some way to some of the issues behind the authorship of WP:SSF (I would be the #1 subject-matter expert on that particular question, since I wrote about 95% of it! >;-) isn't very important. There are other reasons for the other inclusion. The fact that some part of the SSF essay relates in a different way to MOS and you can write a FAQ entry about that, doesn't invalidate the earlier entry. Which this section is not about. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 04:58, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

SmC, I notice that you say you don't want me to answer you in the same post in which you direct a comment, question or sometimes even an accusation directly at me. You need to pick one or the other. Also, if you think new participants will be intimidated by too many posts, you might want to make fewer of your own. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:08, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Its a problem of relevance and tendentiousness, not intimidation. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:24, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I integrated these comments into a revision, below. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC) Quick take on the content: The SSF essay isn't intended for new editors, it's written to address long-term, OWNy, tendentious editing patterns. I wouldn't "cite" it here. Term: It's specialized, not specialist really. "Most notably with regard to how names of things are styled" is sufficient. "One major position is that" can be dropped. We aren't contrasting multiple positions, we're answering a FAQ with an affirmative answer. "In fine, if you want" doesn't parse. What is "in fine"? The final sentence misses the point; try "If you want to know whether or not to capitalize its name in a general-audience publication". The whole point behind the BIRDCON debate was that their sources very explicitly say exactly whether or not to capitalize the names and how. That was the direct cause of the attempt to force it on WP. The logic break was that the IOC and other ornithology sources have no effect on everyday English or even other journals, and are limited to ornithology texts, even if their proponents wished they were universal. With some tweaking like this, I think this could be a very useful addition. PS: "The issue of specialist vs. general style has also come up many times" is written in a way that suggests it's a follow-on sentence to something else, but it's not; the FAQ points are all self-contained. The use of "vs." here is also unnecessarily and unproductively polarizing: It sets up the idea that there's a side to take, on which one can entrench and go to war. Wording to play with: "MOS does not simply copy the style used in specialized publications on a topic". The three main reasons we don't are that it often conflicts with the style used in general-audience publications and thus with reader expectations; it can be so jargonistic as to be directly confusing, including to specialists from other fields; and more than one field may be relevant to any given topic, leading to stylistic disputes between fields. I'm not sure what of that to work in and how. The third of those points is probably the least important to new users, though it's one of the most important for why "let specialized styles run free" is a useless idea. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Absolutely not. For one thing, this would turn several writing areas on their head. Although this is a pet project of SMcCandlish, it is not something that is needed in WP. GregJackP Boomer! 08:03, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
- @GregJackP: Huh? Why are you making this about me? Darkfrog24 wanted to include this FAQ point instead of what I proposed in previous thread. I even said 'The SSF essay isn't intended for new editors, it's written to address long-term, OWNy, tendentious editing patterns. I wouldn't "cite" it here.' How does that make DarkFrog's proposal my "pet project", when it's against my own proposal, and I'm arguing against mentioning my essay? Anyway, what does "turn several writing areas on their head" mean? What did you have in mind in particular? My main concern was that some particular technical-ish topical MOS pages are not accurately encompassed by this write-up. I've laid out reasons for some copy edits and will try Peter coxhead's approach of "auto-diffing" a draft, when I get back from the store. [Actually, too much of it had to be rewritten to use the strike-through approach.] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 09:24, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

If we also added a FAQ entry about this, and not as a competitor to the completely different FAQ being developed in the thread above this one, then something more like this:
Q. Why doesn't the Manual of Style always follow specialized practice?
A. Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field are excellent sources for facts about the subject, they are not the best sources for how to present the topic to non-experts. The Manual of Style incorporates much usage that is preferred in technical standards and field-specific academic journals, but may not when they conflict with most usage in reliable, more general-audience sources.
That keeps the key points of DarkFrog24's original, stops picking on birds, removes reliance on some essay, compresses a lot, and ties it to sources (notably including non-specialized world-class journals like Science; it doesn't say "secondary sources"). This reflects actual practice, not just among "editors who write the MoS" as the original said, but across Wikipedia. This is basically a nutshell summary of the BIRDCON close, and of how RMs that bring up this kind of issue are decided, and why things like "mibibyte" are not standard usage on WP despite being part of an international tech standard, as just a few examples. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:46, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

This looks great, much sleeker than my version. I'd keep the wikilink to WP:TECHNICAL, though. I'd swap "much" out for "a great deal of"; little things like that. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:42, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I like the thrust of DF's original (but "in fine" I don't get—if Latin, perhaps italicised?), and I was about to come down here to propose a shorter version). SM's is shorter, yes (73 vs 143 words); but I'd rather avoid the word "conflict" ("inconsistency" would be preferable); and I've ironed out a few negative-type expressions. Isn't DF's original piped link to WP:SSF useful? This one is a tweaked version of SM's. One non-trivial change is my addition of the phrase I've italicised to identify it here, which I think is an important part of the rationale: "but may not when they're inconsistent with each other, or inconsistent with usage in reliable, more general-audience sources":
Q. Why doesn't the Manual of Style follow specialist practice?

A. Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it's written for a general audience. While specialized publications are excellent sources for facts, they're often not the best sources for how to present a topic to non-experts. The Manual of Style incorporates much usage that is preferred in technical standards and field-specific academic journals, but may not when those sources are inconsistent with each other or with usage in reliable, more general-audience sources.

As a general point about this FAQ style, if the question uses a contraction ("doesn't"), can't the answer do the same? I presume the more informal, "friendlier" style is appropriate to a genre based on explicit interpersonal exchange, and it does make a welcome change from the necessary formality in MOS itself. What do people think about the three contractions I introduced? Tony (talk) 03:37, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Tony (talk) 03:37, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

The link to SSF might be useful, but SmC pointed out that SSF is an essay and says it's outdated. A link to WP:TECHNICAL, which is a guideline, would probably be better. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:52, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Now that this new version has had time to kick around in my head, I'm not sold on "may not when those sources are inconsistent." Using inconsistency as a litmus test for when to switch away from specialist guidance would be a good way of doing things, but it's not what we actually do. Our methods are much closer to random. I'd keep, "The Manual of Style does incorporate some specialist practices but often defers to more general-audience sources" but I would not leave in the rest. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:55, 20 June 2015 (UTC)

Commas and full stops (periods) inside or outside

Latest comment: 9 years ago30 comments7 people in discussion

The style given is just not being followed by WP editors and anyway is not the custom in the U.S. and Canada, so I was WP:Bold and simply deleted it. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 23:54, 23 May 2015 (UTC)

For the record, BeenAroundAWhile, I reverted you because, while Wikipedia editors generally do not follow WP:Logical quotation, this subject has been repeatedly debated at this talk page and attempts to achieve WP:Consensus to remove that text have repeatedly failed. There should be WP:Consensus for its removal. Flyer22 (talk) 00:01, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree with the revert. Community consensus is established by discussion leading to guidelines, not by individual perception(s) of what's commonly done. ―Mandruss ☎ 00:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree with BeenAroundAWhile that WP:LQ needs to be replaced; disagree that "just be consistent" is enough instruction. The English language has two systems for dealing with this, and we should tell people how to use them correctly. WP:LQ is the single most challenged part of the MoS for good reason. As for consensus, 1) The last RfC we had on this issue was written in a biased manner; 2) while a majority of participants said that we should use only British punctuation, the majority of sources said the opposite. Wikipedia's not a democracy. We're supposed to care more about what's verifiable than about what people happen to like. The MoS shouldn't have personal preferences up there as rules. There's no reason not to use ENGVAR for punctuation. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:00, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Mandruss, if you're concerned about compliance and individual perception, we actually did check the last time this came up: [1]. Compliance with WP:LQ is pretty low. Darkfrog24 (talk) 04:06, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Darkfrog has campaigned for internal punctuation on the internet more widely, seeing it as a nationalistic issue. But she fails to account for the fact that it crosses the boundaries of national variety. Tony (talk) 05:23, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

1) Tony I have no idea what you're talking about, "campaigning widely on the internet"? When WP:LQ comes up, I support changing it. 2) Don't make claims about how I do and don't see things. The way I see this matter is that requiring people to do things incorrectly is really mean and makes the encyclopedia look unprofessional. In American English, leaving periods and commas outside closing quotation marks is wrong, just like how spelling "harbor" without the U is wrong in British English.

3) No it does not cross boundaries of international variety. We found one American source that required British, one. All of the others required American, a 16:1 ratio: [2] Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:22, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

That was a little unfair of me personally. Retracted. Tony (talk) 05:45, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Nevertheless, Darkfrog24, a sampling of articles says nothing about how many editors even know about the guideline. In my experience, even when an editor edits per MOS:LQ, they rarely bother linking to it in their editsum, so it appears they are just editing per their personal preference. This does nothing to educate other editors, and it's unwise to cite non-compliance to justify the elimination or modification of any guideline. ―Mandruss ☎ 05:29, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Compliance is high enough to keep LQ, for its precision. Editors like me regularly fix TQ when we encounter it. It's been this way for years. The sky has not fallen. A large proportion of MOS's guidance is expected to not be followed by casual editors, and implemented in cleanup by MOS gnomes; that's true of everything from date formats to spaces between measurements and unit symbols (and non-breaking ones at that), insertion of non-breaking spaces in various other cases, using the {{sic}} template, and on and on. "Not everyone does it" isn't a valid rationale against MOS recommending any particular best practice. Reversing it to a preference for typesetter's quotation (commas inside, sometimes referred to erroneously as "American style") would be a huge hit to accuracy and the precise parseability of quoted material, while not actually fixing anything. It would simply result in about as many non-North-American editors using the not-recommended style, as we presently have of North American editors doing so. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 08:37, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Mandruss, I wouldn't say it says nothing about how many people know about the guideline Since we can't read their minds, looking at what they do is a good indicator. I guess we could figure out a survey if we need to. SmC, "not everyone does it" might not be enough, but "only about 60% compliance, even in featured articles" is a little stronger than "not everyone."

SmC we're on the same page that Wikipedia shouldn't just flip it around and ban British and require American. That would be just as disrespectful of British editors and British English as the current situation is to American. ENGVAR is a proven policy. We should use that. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:22, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

For cases where MOS:LQ is not observed, looking at what they do is an excellent indicator that one of the following is true: (1)(anarchy) They are aware of the guideline, disagree with it, and don't observe guidelines that they disagree with. (2)(apathy) They are aware of the guideline and don't feel it's worth worrying about one way or the other. (3)(ignorance) They are not aware of the guideline. It tells us absolutely nothing about which of the three is more or less common than the others. You're correct, we could conduct a survey, but we haven't yet, so we can't deduce anything at all from the degree of non-compliance. Instead of a survey, we might as well just run another RfC. Guidelines represent community consensus and they should be followed except in the rare case where there is good reason to deviate, as determined by local consensus—whether we agree with them or not. We !vote in RfCs, and we live with the results even when they don't go our way. That is the meaning of consensus. ―Mandruss ☎ 11:55, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we don't know which of those reasons people use, but all three of them indicate that this isn't a great rule. Actually, per WP:NOTDEMOCRACY, no it's not about the votes, or at least it's not supposed to be. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:40, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

We don't have any rules. Whilst the MoS is a guideline, no one is required to follow the MoS when they create an article. That was mentioned above. RGloucester — ☎ 12:48, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Exactly. No one is REQUIRED to obey MOS when editing. It's not a WP:DE problem unless someone goes around preventing others from complying with it (e.g. by editing articles to remove compliant style). So of the three possible cases for non-compliance, #1 and #2 simply don't matter, while #3 we really can't do anything about. Everyone ignores something in MOS either because they hate it or just can't be bothered (more like 50+ "somethings"). Like all style guides, MOS has more details than any normal human will remember; it's a reference work for polishing stuff after it's written, not a list of stuff to comply with before you write. It is not a content policy. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:14, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

That is not true in practice. I wasn't preventing anyone from doing anything and got brought up on ANI solely for using American punctuation, in articles that were already using it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:48, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

Were you actually punished? As with lawsuits, anyone can start a complaint at a noticeboard, but it doesn't mean it'll go their way. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:39, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Since the word "RfC" has come up, I'd like to say that if we do get to the point where we have one, we should engage a neutral third party, like a mediator, to work out the wording with us. Last time, there was a huge problem with finding middle ground. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:40, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Darkfrog, you're on this warhorse at least once a year. Every time you ramp it up, and every time you don't succeed. It is pure disruption. Tony (talk) 14:09, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
You mean a complete stranger challenges WP:LQ at least once a year and I say "you're right." Then I provide sources that back up the position. If you don't like that, you're on the wrong site. Stop acting like this is about me. Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:25, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

It is about you. Your forum shopping, canvassing, and circumvention of consensus has been made apparent many times in many contexts. If you keep this up, I'm sure someone will take you to AE. RGloucester — ☎ 15:04, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

RG, lay off the personal attacks. For the umpteenth time, publicizing an RfC is not WP:CANVASSING. Creating a new proposal when an old one fails is not circumventing consensus. You have your way of interpreting the rules, but that doesn't mean I'm breaking them.

Everyone else, RG is talking about his proposal to create a style noticeboard, which I publicized on related talk pages—it may be relevant that I supported the proposal. He is also talking about my proposal to endorse the MoS for Q&A, which I made after the noticeboard proposal did not get approval. These things are not only allowed on Wikipedia but encouraged. I don't know where he's getting forum shopping.

Note that none of this has anything to do with BeenAround's changes to the MoS or with WP:LQ. We should keep it on that. Darkfrog24 (talk) 15:59, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, we should keep it on topic, and be mindful of the discretionary sanctions warning at the top of the page (which RG is close to transgressing by personalizing commentary and, ironically, making AE threats. I was just reading an AE thread regarding Gerda, and RG was warned very, very clearly about both battlegrounding and frivolous AE complaints, so should probably refrain from "going there". Anyone who would invite the hammer of admins, many of whom are not sympathetic to MOS/AT to get involved in punishing people for how they argue at WT:MOS is making a terrible, terrible mistake.

So, back to the topic: The fact is that LQ has been stable on WP for years and years and years. A few people don't like it, but there are probably zero line items in MOS that a few people don't like, so that indicates nothing at all. It works for WP, even if it's mostly made consistent incrementally and after-the-fact. The forum-shopping element to this (no matter who raises it) is "LQ is British, and the other way is American, so it's should be an ENGVAR matter." This has been discussed to death and beyond, and every single time it's conclusively proven to be false. Various British publications use typesetters' quotation, and various American ones use logical quotation. People can bring up this bogus ENGVAR argument 10,000 times per day, and it will never change this fact. LQ is used when precision is important, by all sorts of reputable publishers all over the world, more so, not less so, as time goes on. WP consensus is that precision is important in Wikipedia, and that LQ is helpful in this regard. As I say about twice a day, MOS is an internal style guide for how to write this encyclopedia, period, end of story. It is not a style guide for the whole world, so there are no WP:GREATWRONGS to right with regard to LQ on WP. This perennial noise about it is among the WP:DEADestHORSEs we have. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:14, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

It depends on what you mean by "stable," SmC. This think keeps getting challenged and not always for the same reason. Sometimes challengers cite lack of compliance, as here, but the fact is that it directly contradicts the overwhelming majority of the sources on correct English writing and many of Wikipedia's other polices, like WP:COMMONALITY and WP:V, and yes WP:ENGVAR. As of our last RfC on the subject, even with the biased initial wording, it was a lot more than a few people who thought it should be changed.

As for the "LQ is another name for British style" and "the current rule directly contradicts the rules of American English" those things have been proven true, not false: [3] [4] [5]. And those are just the sources that I had on hand. When did you think it was proven false? I'm not being rhetorical SmC. I want to understand why you think this. (And yes I've heard of your essay; it didn't help with this question much.) Darkfrog24 (talk) 14:46, 3 June 2015 (UTC)

If "lack of compliance" were a valid argument against any WP policies or guidelines, we would have no policies and guidelines left. So, it does not keep getting challenged for different reasons that actually matter, only one, which has also been debunked. Your selective citation to two things that agree with your nationalism on this topic doesn't undo years of prior debate proving that selective citation of this sort is misleading on this question, and that the nationalistic arguments are false. We have the MOS:REGISTER for a reason; see in particular MOS:REGISTER#Punctuation inside or outside. The idea that one style "is American" and the other "is British" has been exploded repeatedly. Your repeated pretense that this is not the case, and attempts to push anew an argument to this nationalistic effect that has already been debunked, is, I would wager, the principle reason that people make WP:NOTGETTINGIT and WP:FORUMSHOPPING allegations in your direction. If you look at RfCs and other discussions on the matter, the "more than a few people" against MOS recommending logical quotation almost uniformly do it on the same, false nationalistic basis. WP is neither a vote nor a democracy; consensus on this is not changing, since the rationale for undoing LQ on Wikipedia doesn't hold up to scrutiny, and no amount of drum-beating about it is going to change that. If we were actually going to entertain an ENGVAR argument about quotation marks, it would be use of single quotes in British English, long before we'd get to the LQ question. And we've been over that, too, many times, with the same result: The belief that single quotation mark style "is British" is simply false.

In both cases (inside/outside, double/single) all of the following have been demonstrated:

neither style leads to intelligibility problems for anyone;
usage of one style happens to be more prevalent in one variety than the other, but not universal in any;
one style is used more frequently in sources that value precision (logical quotation in the inside/outside debate, and double quotes in the single/double debate), with no connection to nationality, for easily discernible reasons that apply directly to Wikipedia (the short version: typesetter's quotation style leads to more quotation errors and misinterpretations; single quotation marks are easily confused with apostrophes and several other marks);
no editors are required to comply when they write (with these or any MOS "rules"); and
failure to comply has no serious effect, because gnome editors, often with AWB, will clean it up over time, as with a zillion other MOS points people often don't manually bother with, like non-breaking spaces between measurements and their unit symbols, etc.

(All of the above other than the false nationalist argument also applies to curly vs. straight quotes, another perennial quibble that consensus keeps not changing about.)

This all indicates clearly that continued fist-shaking debate about this is a pointless waste of time. Some minority of editors refuse for personal reasons to comply, and the rest of Wikipedia and the world couldn't care less. Feel free to IAR, and we'll just clean it up later. There is no impediment of any kind to your or anyone else's editing by MOS having line-items that a few people don't agree with. Every single point in MOS has people who don't agree with it, and who ignore it (there are plenty of MOS "rules" I don't bother with myself). This is absolutely inescapable because of what MOS is, a compromise between divergent rules that no one agrees about off-WP. We pick one or the other because one serves our readers' interests better, and having a "rule" results in fewer stupid style editwars. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:43, 7 June 2015 (UTC)

PS: I've updated MOS:REGISTER#LQ to include the last year or so of relevant discussions, and in the course of doing so, I noticed that it really is one editor predictably "on this warhorse". While sometimes other editors bring it up, they generally get an answer about why WP uses LQ, and move on. The distracting debates are generally always engendered by one editor, month after month, year after year. Someone above suggested that this qualifies as WP:Disruptive editing; it must surely be getting close. I note that WP:FORUMSHOP doesn't say anything about being the one who first started a thread, it just addresses repeatedly "raising essentially the same issue", in general terms. When mostly one editor is the source of "challenges", then "WP:LQ is the single most challenged part of the MoS", a claim made by that editor, is disingenuous. Cf. WP:FAITACCOMPLI, WP:POINT, and the fallacy of proof by assertion. (It's not even true anyway, despite that pattern of activism; MOS:CAPS/WP:NCCAPS lead to far more disputes, especially at WP:RM, because of the near-universal pattern of specialty sources uses capitalization as a form of emphasis or marker of terms of art, in a style not acceptable in general-audience works like WP.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 01:32, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to answer me, SmC. I'll try to keep my response organized.

SmC, I notice that you say "lack of 100% compliance is no reason to disregard WP:LQ," but then you immediately turn around and say, "because of a lack of 100% compliance, we must completely disregard the national split on punctuation." Yes The Guardian uses American style and the American Chemical Society uses British, but what this means is that there are exceptions, like a sign in Texas that says "Town Centre." It doesn't mean that "centre" isn't correct British spelling.

Can I say with confidence that when you say, "The national split has been debunked" you are referring to these exceptions/lack of 100% compliance? I am asking because I want to understand you when you speak. It's not anything else in addition to this that makes you believe the split isn't real?

There are several problems with your point #3: First, no it has not been proven that British style is "preferred by sources that value precision." Second, it has not been proven that that it would be desirable for Wikipedia to weight those sources more heavily. We write in an encyclopedic style for general audiences, so we should use general-audience rules. We do it for bird names; we should do it for punctuation. Third, in all the times we've debated this rule, no one has ever provided even one example of American punctuation causing even one error or misinterpretation on Wikipedia. You shouldn't claim that something happens when it doesn't. Fourth, I personally got called up on AN/I solely for using American punctuation, so no users are not free to IAR and contribute how they please, but the whole rules-vs-optional-guidelines thing is a separate issue affecting the whole MoS rather than WP:LQ alone.

Were you under the impression that I had only three sources that referred to these styles as British and American? Heavens no! Those are only the ones I had handy. There are far more! If anyone wants I can make a long list of them here, but they more or less line up with these: [6]. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:48, 9 June 2015 (UTC)

If you think I am the only one who has repeatedly and energetically supported efforts to change WP:LQ, then you are reading the archive far too selectively. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:47, 10 June 2015 (UTC)

Re: "because of a lack of 100% compliance, we must completely disregard the national split on punctuation" – That's not even related to the argument for LQ, which is precision. The observation that plenty of (precision-focused) American publications use LQ, and plenty of (fiction and news style) British publications use TQ is simply a refutation of the claim that one "is American" and the other "is British". A refutation by party A of party B's argument against X is not necessarily party A's argument for X. And please note that it's been shown before that the LQ-like style of some British sources isn't always LQ, but just similar. British press sources have actually criticized WP's article on quotation marks for conflating the two! That's reliable sourcing that LQ isn't "British style". There are multiple, severable refutations – more than one thing debunks your nationalist premise; see the collapsebox above, and previous discussions. I'm not going to be drawn into another time-wasting regurgitation of all those details. Yes, it has been shown that even American sources increasingly use LQ for precision, and even the most conservative American style guide, Chicago, has finally admitted this. This all, too, has already been covered in detail. Not going to re-source it for you here. Of course WP weights precise sources over others when it comes to precision. All over the place we make the point that WP is not written in news style. And so on. We've been over all this before. So of course the nationalist split isn't real, for multiple reasons, and you've been shown this, by multiple editors many, many times. I'm skeptical that you really can't understand; this looks like an attempt to WP:WIN by a long game technique of just wearing and wearing away incessantly until you get what you want (your AN & ANI track record, see below, demonstrates this conclusively). That's the very definition of tendentiousness. I doubt your claim that no one's given examples of TQ causing errors or interpretation problems in article, but I'm not going to read through 18 miles of old debates to prove you wrong. This page doesn't exist for "sport debate", and I don't need to. Whether anyone has give you examples you'll accept is irrelevant. Our own examples in MOS already illustrate how it happens, and external reliable sources writing about quotation marks style also illustrate it clearly. If you really want, I'll be happy to save some examples from actual WP article for you next time I correct some of them, which is fairly often. But they really don't determine anything, and I won't go out of my way to do it, because you obviously won't be swayed no matter what. I don't need to find an actual, live-in-an-article example of something like "The Empire State Building is very tall" for us to have rules against that. The point of MOS rules is to prevent crap from happening. You can't try to invalidate a rule because it's been working and you can't find that particular bad crap happening right now!

"I got called up on AN/I"... Yeah, yeah, you've mentioned this at least three times on this page alone lately. It is irritating to get pilloried at a notice board; I understand. That should not be an entrenchment motivation. I do not believe your spin that it's just because you used TQ in some article. Let's go look. Here it is: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/IncidentArchive544#Darkfrog24: Tendentious contravention of MoS. No action was taken against you. So what's the issue? Anyone can make a complaint at ANI about anyone for any reason, stupid as some of those reasons may be (and WP:BOOMERANG helps curtail that). But the reasons weren't stupid. You were changing things to TQ. MOS was cited. You tried to change MOS to get your preference. That wasn't accepted, so you just went back to changing articles to TQ again because you felt like it, even knowing this wouldn't fly. You then acted surprised that you were at ANI. It concluded with "Resolved: Darkfrog24 said he'll stop." Have you? This relates also to Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/3RRArchive210#User:Darkfrog24 reported by User:Amadscientist (Result: Protected), which evidences the same pattern of not getting what you want because of a rule, trying to unilaterally get rid of the rule, not succeeding at that, and then going back to editwarring to get your way. The four Oathkeeper-related AN / ANI actions against you (some resulting in blocks) involve a similar pattern of recalcitrance, though don't seem to be style-related. This is clearly an editorial behavior issue, not a consensus problem, nor bad-rule problem. And you did not get ANI'd "solely for using American punctuation", but for imposing it on content that already existed with LQ. No one will ANI you if you go add new content and don't follow some MOS nit-pick. You're just not allowed to make content worse from a WP perspective by un-MOS-ing it. I'm running out of patience, just skipping to the end now: No one cares if you have 3 or 30 sources that say that TQ is called "American style". It only takes one fact to disprove that there's actually a national English variety split (like there is for color vs colour), and we have lots of facts disproving it. I think our text already says that it's sometimes called American style, so there is no point to press in that regard. PS: The "Town Centre in Texas" example is silly false equivalence. Things done for cutesy, old-time evocation are not comparable to editorial decisions publications make that govern their precision and reliability. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:39, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Let me see if I have this. Your position: "Because not all British publications use British style, said style is not really British." Please correct me if I am still not understanding you properly. My position: "Just because one or two British publications prefer American style does not mean that British style is not really British." Please ask for clarification if you still don't understand me. It is not that I didn't hear you. It's that I find the argument unconvincing. British style is also British because most British publications use it and because it was invented or at least popularized by two Brits (Fowler and Fowler in The King's English in 1906), and these are not the only things that make it British. American style is used by almost all American publications and required by almost all American rule books, so it's American. It is not that I was shown proof that the national split isn't real; it's that no such proof was shown. (NOTE: This does prove that usage isn't universal, which is certainly true.) However, sources have been offered to show that the split is real: [7]. Are you refusing to hear the message or do you just not agree?

If you're claiming that Wikipedia's current rule is neither British nor American, then we shouldn't be using it at all. I'd rather use correct British style than incorrect British style. In fact, a few months ago, we had a discussion about how to make WP:LQ more correct, and the changes were implemented.

You also have your facts wrong in a few places:

"American sources increasingly use LQ for precision" Nope. The American Bar Association used and then abandoned it.
"Even Chicago has admitted this" Nope again. The 16th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style continues to require American style in American English writing. The editor's take on the matter is here [8]; it's called a "writing and editing fashion," and they stipulate that British style is likely to be best for British English writing.
Yes I did get brought up on AN/I solely for using American punctuation. There were no edit wars. There were no (false, in the case of Oathkeeper) accusations of posting unsourced material. (The Oathkeeper mess is not relevant here. If you want to talk about that, see my talk page.) I found articles that were already using a mix of American and British punctuation and fixed them so that they were internally consistent—changing some to all American and others to all British. All of this was in keeping with the MoS's rule about internal consistency, which I supposed at the time would trump WP:LQ.

That's just it: WP:LQ doesn't work. It's routinely ignored, and even when articles do use British style, it offers no advantage. It's okay if British style feels better to you or appeals to your sense of logic, everyone has their personal preferences, but it doesn't do anything for us that American style doesn't do just as well. It's no better than a "cutesy old-time evocation," to use your words.

"No one cares if you have 3 or 30 sources that say that TQ is called 'American style'" And that's the real problem. Do you know how rare it is to see American style called anything but "American" anywhere but here? You call it "TQ" because that's the name you like. Even if you don't care that more sources call them "British" and "American," then from your perspective, I'm doing the same thing that you are, and you should not complain. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:24, 22 June 2015 (UTC)

Euphemisms

Latest comment: 9 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

Should the use of euphemisms be restricted in wikipedia articles?-WikiTryHardDieHard (talk) 22:39, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

@WikiTryHardDieHard: Yes. See WP:EUPHEMISM. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 22:47, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Great. Thanks.-WikiTryHardDieHard (talk) 22:49, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Living vs. deceased trans people

Latest comment: 9 years ago13 comments6 people in discussion

A reference to BLP is made in the paragraph in this project on how do deal with trans people. This implies that it applies only to living trans people, and that deceased trans people should be referred to with the terms consistent with most reliable sources. This would mean that we can currently use Chelsea Manning, but that if, after she dies, at least 90% of all reliable sources revert to using the name Bradley (with the only event that cannot pre-date her death is the dis-establishment of Wikipedia,) Wikipedia should revert to the name Bradley. Any correction to what I'm saying?? Georgia guy (talk) 14:51, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

As with any name change, IF a significant majority of sources written after her death revert back to calling her "Bradley"... then, yes, BLP would no longer apply and we would follow the sources per WP:COMMONNAME. However, that "if" is a very unlikely scenario. I would not worry about it unless it actually happens. Blueboar (talk) 15:23, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Now, does WP:COMMONNAME refer to objects or to people?? Georgia guy (talk) 15:43, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I think I see the key term here: "after her death." That seems to be what people are overlooking. Assume that currently more sources say "Bradley" than "Chelsea," but because of BLP, we say "Chelsea" and "she." Now assume that Manning has died this minute.

Do we use the name-gender used by the preponderance of reliable sources, which would in this case mean reverting to Bradley-he?
Do we use the name-gender used by the preponderance of only those reliable sources written after Manning's death?

Specifying that it's #2 and not #1 would solve the problem.

WP:COMMONNAME definitely does refer to both objects and people. The trans naming issue is an exception, though I note that the policy doesn't specifically say so. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:19, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Wait, why would we look at only sources written after Manning's death if Manning died? It seems clear to me why we would — and did, in the discussion about moving the article — focus on sources written after Manning's transition: namely, it's trivially obvious that sources from before then all uniformly use "Bradley" (we don't have to look at them because we already know what name they use). But even if BLP were acting as a sort of "trump card" and leading us to use "Chelsea" without regard to common usage (which is not what happened: in fact, the giant RM determined that common usage was "Chelsea" and that "Chelsea" better accorded with BLP, IDENTITY, etc), why would Manning's death cause us to stop including sources from during her post-transition lifetime in our calculation of what her most common name was? (One could even argue that sources from her whole life, including her pre-transition life, should be considered in the weighting.) -sche (talk) 18:30, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

If we're to use a cutoff, post-transition does make more sense. Before that, sources couldn't use the post-transition identity even if they wanted to. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:48, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

For clarification on why death is involved here, the key statement is that the L in BLP stands for living, which points towards the idea that deceased transgender people should simply be referred to by the most commonly used name. Georgia guy (talk) 18:55, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

I think post-transition is an obvious cut off, living or dead. That should agree with sources, but in some cases the sources are trying to stick with a their own views on the transgenderism, failing to recognize the subject's clear intent. However, going back in time, to say that Chelsea did the things Bradley was arrested for, rewrites historical fact. Now in jail, any future events, it is Chelsea. I have been saying all along we have a good precedent in voluntary name changes already. Cassius Clay went through a transition. He was Cassius X for a while. Some racist papers (our sources) at the time deliberately chose not to recognize the announced change to Muhammed Ali. But we have contravening sources. That is all reporting we should do. But there was no dispute as to his name when he won the gold medal or even when he defeated Liston. There is a clear timeline of events available in sources. We have people making accusations that the sources deliberately misgendered Jenner in 1976 or even in during the Kardashian era starting in 2007, using this MOS as an excuse, Caitlyn or transgendering was never mentioned until 2015. We have a clear date. Trackinfo (talk) 19:40, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Additionally, within the subject's article, there is due a perfectly valid paragraph, or section regarding their transition and how long in life they had these feelings. It just should not affect the existing, known, public history. Trackinfo (talk) 19:44, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

OK... I am going to once again ask that we mentally separate the issue of NAME from the issue of GENDER. Let me address the issue of NAME first. I will start by explaining how we deal with name changes for everyone other than a trans-gendered person (saving the debate about why we treat trans-gendered people differently for some other venue). When the subject of an article changes his or her name, we don't rush out and immediately change the article title (or every reference to the person in other articles) ... we wait to see what the sources do... paying attention to the sources that are published after the name change took place (The reason we pay attention to those published after the name change - and thus ignore sources published before the name change - is that the older sources automatically become outdated as soon as the change is announced. They can't reflect the change even if they wanted to)

Most of the time the sources will begin to reflect the new name very quickly... sometimes it takes longer... and occasionally the sources actually reject the new name completely and continue to use the old name. Wikipedia follows the source usage... which means most of the time Wikipedia will change it's article title soon after the name change is announced... but sometimes it takes longer... and occasionally we continue to use the old name.

OK... Now, suppose we set all the politics and angst about gender identification to one side, and adopted the exact same standard for trans-gender people that we do for everyone else. What would happen? Exactly the same thing. Most of the time, the sources (and by extension Wikipedia) will start to call the person by the new name very quickly... Sometimes it will take a bit more time. And occasionally it won't happen at all.

What happened with Manning and Jenner are actually good examples... As it turned out, an overwhelming majority of sources reflected Manning's desired change from "Bradley" to "Chelsea" within a few days of when it was announced. The same occurred with Jenner's change from "Bruce" to "Caitlin". Our article titles would have changed, even if we had not had all the debates about them. Looking at more recent sources, it is clear that the sources continue to refer to Manning as "Chelsea", and Jenner as "Caitlin"... so (to get back to the question that started this), there is no reason to think that the sources will suddenly reverse course and go back to "Bradley" or "Bruce". Sure, it could happen, but I doubt it will happen. And unless it does happen, our article will remain at Chelsea.

So much for NAME changes... GENDER change (ie the pronoun issue) is a different issue. That is where BLP comes into play. Like it or not, there is a consensus of the community to respect the wishes of a living person on all sorts of sensitive issues... gender identification is just one of them. There is also a consensus that we don't have to be as respectful once the person dies. Once the person dies, we follow source usage... and we won't know how what that will be until the person dies. Will sources continue to treat Manning and Jenner as female after they die? Probably... but there is an outside chance that they won't. We won't know until it happens, and will just have to wait and see. Blueboar (talk) 21:01, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Is there a problem with linking to both WP:SELFPUB and WP:BLPSELFPUB?

I proposed to link to both the WP:SELFPUB and WP:BLPSELFPUB policy sections, as they seem relevant in a paragraph on self-designation (not only the name, notably the content of these policy sections).

In the discussion above I see nobody opposing the insertion of these links, only a question on how it applies.

FYI, WP:SELFPUB and WP:BLPSELFPUB have the same content (check it out), so when a person with a gender that "might be questioned" (as the MoS has it) dies, no effects are anticipated.

For a general policy discussion on what happens (and when it happens) when a person "stops to be a BLP", see WP:BDP. If questions, this talk page is hardly the place to sort it out, WP:BLPN or WT:BLP seem more appropriate places to find out how it works in particular circumstances, or point to issues with the current policy, respectively. --Francis Schonken (talk) 08:36, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

In the diff you link to ([9]), you did considerably more than add links to SELFPUB and BLPSELFPUB: you also fundamentally changed nature of the paragraph from operating as "An exception to" other guidelines, to being confined "Within the contours of" the two above-named, not-very-relevant pages. You also dropped "even when usage by reliable sources indicates otherwise", which is a key piece of the guideline that has stood the test of past discussions. (You express the point of view, on WP:VPP, that it conflicts with policy, but in the numerous other RFCs which have been held on MOS:ID, that point of view has never persuaded very many people.) I oppose all of those changes (and see no consensus for them, either above, in WP:VPP, or in previous discussions). I am also not convinced that it is necessary or good to add links to SELFPUB and BLPSELFPUB at all. Has a subject who was notable enough to have an article ever expressed in a self-published source that they were trans, and not had that announcement subsequently covered by other sources? If not, this seems like a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist. I anticipate that it would mostly just cause trouble because certain people would argue over whether a particular person's coming out was "unduly self-serving" or "an exceptional claim", and would bicker about "reasonable doubt as to its authenticity". (I can even see people arguing over whether someone's coming out "involve[s] claims about third parties", given the debate in the Jenner article's talk page over whether her coming out says anything about her wife's sexuality.) In the unlikely event that a notable person does make a reasonably-doubtable claim to be trans, surely we can invoke those selfpub policies without them being specifically noted in the MOS by name. -sche (talk) 09:06, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The other part (removing infringement of policy) is discussed at WP:VPP#Unilateral changes to MOS:IDENTITY. The BLP link I added is discussed here. I claim no policy reason to add these suggested links to the MoS, so, afaik, only subject to consensus on this page. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:13, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

Sub-national varieties of English?

Latest comment: 9 years ago48 comments16 people in discussion

Are "sub-national" varieties of English, such as Scottish English or Southern American English acceptable as national varieties of English for use in articles?--Prisencolinensinainciusol (talk) 06:14, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Scottish English is (see Template:Scottish English), but note that Scotland is sort-of a nation (albeit not independent). I don't think Southern AE is. -sche (talk) 06:22, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps Yorkshire dialect would be a better UK example. AlexTiefling (talk) 06:56, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Or perhaps this?

This page is written in Cockney Rhyming Slang and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

:) --Guy Macon (talk) 07:34, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I'd go with no. Most of what we're calling sub-national varieties in the U.S. are either incorrect standard English or easily mistaken for such. We want to be intelligible to any reader of English and appear professional while doing it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:15, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

As a Scot, there is no "Scottish English". Standard formal written English in Scotland is no different from standard formal written English in southern Britain. The standard variety should be the determination, not various sub-dialects or spoken slangs. RGloucester — ☎ 15:17, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

There is no such thing as "standard" English. All that aside, how is written Southern American English different from other sub-dialects of American English? I don't think SAE even exists as a written dialect, does it? Would it not be exactly the same as American English? Dustin (talk) 15:56, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

There is a standard formal written British English, which is taught in schools. You are correct in saying that there is no standard written Southern American English. Formal written American English is the same, wherever one is in America. Likewise for British English, and other national varieties. RGloucester — ☎ 16:11, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps I simply misunderstood? When you say standard, you are referring not to standard for the language as a whole, but standard for the United States and standard for the United Kingdom? On a side-note, that template above is categorizing this talk page in Category:Wikipedia articles that use Cockney Rhyming Slang. Dustin (talk) 16:15, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

That's correct. RGloucester — ☎ 16:17, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I just went to look up how to suppress the categorization, then I noticed that someone had already fixed it for me. it turns out that all you have to do is to add "nocat=true". --Guy Macon (talk) 00:18, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

So the formal sign pictured in the Scottish English article using 'outwith' instead of 'outside' is... what, exactly? Even in its most formal register, Scottish English has some notable differences from (Southern) English English. AlexTiefling (talk) 17:20, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

"Outwith" is a colloquialism, and does not belong in formal written English. British formal standard written English is unified. RGloucester — ☎ 17:40, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

In a lot of cases, sub-national variants would use a lot of slang, which we seek to avoid. Also, god help us if we wrote articles in Newfoundland English. OR, more accurately, if we had spoken word versions of articles in it. /s Reso lute 16:17, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

This is an encylopaedia. We write in formal written English, whether British, American, or Australia, &c. RGloucester — ☎ 16:18, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

As long as it's comprehensible to a general audience, why no? Am I getting the feeling that we're fixing an unbroken cart? Jimp 17:43, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

The reason I'm bringing this up is because some of the logic behind WP:USPLACE uses the idea that representing cities etc. as "city, state" is somehow intrinsic to American English. I'm trying to see if this same logic can be applied to dialects of American English, such as the fact that a speaker of New England English would refer to Hartford, Connecticut as just "Hartford".--Prisencolinensinainciusol (talk) 18:26, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Spoken English is irrelevant. This is about formal written English. In formal written English, which does not imply a context (as Wikipedia does not), it would be unlikely that the city would be referred to as merely "Hartford" without giving further qualification, as other cities of the same name also exist. When we speak about English varieties, we do not mean whether a speaker says "Hartford" over "Hartford, Connecticut," in casual conversation because of proximity, but the differences in spelling and lexicon. RGloucester — ☎ 18:37, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Formal written English in New England for other people in New England (for example a Connecticut state law) would refer to the city as just "Hartford". The reason I use this example is because Hartford automatically redirects to "Hartford, Connecticut" because consensus has determined that city is the most common use of the word.--Prisencolinensinainciusol (talk) 21:11, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

Again, we don't assume a context. Just because an article is written in American English or British English does not mean that we write the article only for Americans or Britons. It is merely a matter of orthography and lexicon. RGloucester — ☎ 21:37, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

I largely agree with RG here, but I'd like to express it in a different way: The reason an article like that would say just "Hartford" is because it is written for New Englanders. Wikipedia's audience is much wider, so we must be more specific. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:27, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Yep. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:25, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

Dah language weh yuh proud a,
Weh yuh honour an respec –
Po Mas Charlie, yuh no know se
Dat it spring from dialec!

Kaldari (talk) 19:26, 11 June 2015 (UTC)

1) See comments in next thread. These huge talk page banners are divisive and self-defeating. We should be using the unobtrusive alternative templates, like {{Use Canadian English}}, etc., not these fight-picking, in-yo'-face banners. 2) No, we don't need any for subnational varieties of English, and we already have too many for national varieties that are essentially patois/creoles and shouldn't be used in an international encyclopedia anyway. Agreed with RGloucester, there's no such thing as written Scottish English, at least not in a formal register; it's the same as the rest of written British English. This is probably true for WP purposes for the rest of Commonwealth English, aside from Canadian, which is an intergrade between British and American. We could probably reduce all of the "Use x English" templates to American, Canadian, Commonwealth, and Commonwealth (Oxford), redirecting all the rest, mostly to Commonwealth. Most of the time, we don't need to use any of these (see thread below) unless there have been editwars; where an article isn't seeing any issues other than date format "correction", the {{use dmy dates}} / {{use mdy dates}} templates are sufficient. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:34, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, I agree that Wikipedia shouldn't be using sub-national dialects like Southern AE and Scottish. (The only distinctive feature of Scottish I've seen used in articles is "outwith", which is the sort of unnecessary, confusing dialectism which WP:COMMONALITY already advises us to avoid regardless of whether Scottish English "standards" are being used or not.) -sche (talk) 16:49, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

The suggestion to avoid "words [...] that are unnecessarily regional" seems to also cover "outwith". -sche (talk) 06:12, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

I believe there has been an unwritten acceptance of the notion that standard native English varieties are the norm in WP articles, unless there's a compelling reason to depart from the choice of one of them. Let's put aside any sniff of racism and say simply that our readership is international, and we need to maintain internationally understood forms. Tony (talk) 04:35, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Proposal to deprecate Template:English variant notice

I propose that {{English variant notice}} (see example usage just above – it creates huge banners on article talk page) be formally deprecated. Then replace with the unobtrusive versions (e.g. {{Use British English}}; these go at the top of the article and do not display anything). Then take {{English variant notice}} to WP:Templates for discussion and delete it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:32, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Support – This proposal would make things simpler and less combative. RGloucester — ☎ 17:25, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Support I could hardly agree more. They serve as an eyesore which does little other than arouse negative thoughts in editors which may result in arguments and combative behavior. I'm not going to say I can't flex in any way, but as it currently is, I think the benefits would outweigh the possible wetbacks with this proposal. Dustin (talk) 18:04, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
Mixed opinion I think it helpful to have some sort of displayed notice at the top of an article that alerts readers to the fact that an article is using a particular National Variation ... but I also agree that such a notice should be unobtrusive and discrete. I am thinking of something more like a hat-note. The current banner is rather large and ugly. Blueboar (talk) 18:35, 17 June 2015 (UTC)
- That would be a major change, unlike either of the current template types. One silently adds a category (and sits in source code as an editors' notice at article top, or where ever someone moves it) in the article, the other is a big talk page banner. Neither insert content like a hatnote into the article, which supposes that there's an interest in telling readers the article is written in a particular English dialect. Where's the consensus to do that? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:47, 19 June 2015 (UTC)
Support Already listed on the article page with the above said template. I'm not really convinced that talk page notification is required or useful to conversation. I actually think the Use British English and Date Format templates should be placed at the bottom of the page, as most people well-trained enough to read through the template code will know the score, and to novice users who might benefit from it it's just more template waffle – a better approach would be for these templates to populate somewhere as an editnotice. I think {{EngvarB}} is worth deprecating as well, as superseded by those templates. SFB 19:28, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

EngvarB seems to be used by some script. Not sure it relates to this stuff. It seems only to mean "no North-Americanisms found as of the date this was added". — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:47, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

I oppose the "editnotice" approach, as this is even more "in one's face" than the talk page templates, and strikes the tone of WP:OWN. I can only see use for editnotices in cases where there has been repeated wrangling over WP:ENGVAR, not for general use. RGloucester — ☎ 00:44, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Agreed, especially colored edit notices. They look like some kind of error message. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:47, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

If the notices were only there to tell article editors which variation of English to use, I could understand the idea of placing the notice to the talk page, or as a hidden note... but its not. It's also there to be informative for readers of the article, so they understand why the article uses the vocabulary and spelling it uses. Something has to be on the actual article page, and not hidden away. It does not have to be a great big honking in-your-face banner... but it has to be viewable by the reader. Blueboar (talk) 01:46, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I believe that the only purpose of the templates is to tell editors what variation to use. Readers do not require such notes. In fact, dragging the readership into this nonsense is the last thing we should be doing. RGloucester — ☎ 02:01, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

I concur. Ir can't be the case that they're for readers, since neither class of template shows anything to readers. And I don't believe the community would agree to labeling articles as one dialect or other other in a reader-facing way in the article. It's probably been proposed and rejected before. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:47, 19 June 2015 (UTC)

Support I think these templates go well beyond a simple editing notice into marking territory territory. Timrollpickering (talk) 12:35, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Varieties of English templates

When I'm mindless I do spelling correction. While doing that one has to figure out the endemic English to set/reset expectations. It occurred to me that, having figured that out, I could 'stamp' the article with the found variation. The only discussion regarding appropriateness I've found so far (I must suppose there've been others) was When to use talk page language templates from 2009, and which seemed to slide towards 'meh...'.

What is the operative (determined before now) stance on whether 'stamping' unstamped articles is

okay
worth it (i.e. avoids trouble later)

I'm not much invested in either yea or nay. Shenme (talk) 05:21, 12 June 2015 (UTC)

There's already a whole family of un-obtrusive templates for this; they sit silently in the wikicode at the top of the page, and categorize the article into, e.g. Category:Use British English. Adding them programmatically seems like a lot of effort for little gain, and is likely to start disputes instead of prevent them. I wouldn't add one unless there's been editwarring over ENGVAR-relevant spelling/style, and a first-major-contributor (or talk page consensus) ENGVAR is undeniable, and there are no rational reasons to change the ENGVAR (e.g. there is one when BrEng is used to write about an intrinsically American topic, or whatever). I.e., if you're absolutely certain what the proper ENGVAR is, and there have been problems, then tag the page, e.g. with Template:Use British English or whatever template from that family is most useful. The talk page banner templates for this sort of thing are divisive, WP:OWNy, and should probably be WP:TFD'd. People who come to an article's talk page to discuss how to improve an article don't need a message box in their face about a dispute they probably WP:DGAF about, especially since it tends to beg the question, and inspire people to think about whether they agree with the ENGVAR chosen, leading to more debate instead of less. The idea in the thread above to add even more of these things for subnational dialects is worse than impractical. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 03:19, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

I strongly agree with SM, here. I think we need to establish specific demarcations for these templates, and also to proscribe "sub-national varieties of English" templates. I'd say that they should only ever be used if there has been a particular and long-running dispute over the variety used at a given page. The likes of {{Use American English}} or {{Use British English}} are much more useful for merely "marking" the variety used in a given article. The talk page templates, on the other hand, are largely redundant and cause various problems. RGloucester — ☎ 01:29, 16 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the less intrusive the better. Tony (talk) 04:36, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Ah, from SMcCandlish's remark I looked at a likely example, Tea, and indeed there is a {{Use British English|date=January 2014}} at the top of page. I think that is what I was seeing done by some editors, and somehow thought it was the talk page thing. Thank you for the pointer. A follow-on question, and related to RGloucester's comment, should that template be used on India-related articles, where the article is obviously using the carried over English? Shenme (talk) 05:45, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

Cool, but we do actually have big talk page banners, that look just like the joke Cockney one above. I mean to TfD those, not the unobtrusive ones. Re: India – there's a separate Indian English one. I'm skeptical about it, since I don't think there's a real difference between Indian and British/Commonwealth English, in an Encyclopedic register. We're not supposed to write in colloquial dialect. So, I'm not sure I would want to pick and fight over whether the tea article should have the British English template. The article text itself probably wouldn't change, but tempers would. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 07:00, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

See template deprecation proposal, one thread above this. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:33, 17 June 2015 (UTC)

In my experience the Indian English template comes up disproportionately in articles with titling disputes. Although this relates to titling rather than content I feel it has the same effects. In recent years a number of Indian cities and other geographical landmarks have been renamed in English and this brings numerous disputes and RMs over whether the article should use the name commonly used in English in India or whether it should be the older name that is still used a lot in the wider world, often complicated by people trying to dismiss the validity of English used in India in a way that a renamed place in, say, Australia would never draw. At times it feels the template is deployed as a counter to this and an assertion of ties.

(And the proper names arguments have implications for content elsewhere - e.g. the names used in list.) Timrollpickering (talk) 11:07, 18 June 2015 (UTC)

Unilateral rewriting of MOS:IDENTITY

Latest comment: 9 years ago3 comments3 people in discussion

A user has unilaterally rewritten MOS:IDENTITY in the midst of an ongoing, unclosed RFC. Rather than get into an edit war, I have started a subsection on the topic in the as-of-yet still unclosed RFC. -sche (talk) 18:10, 23 June 2015 (UTC)

Was this sudden change with consensus? And there are a few things I don't like about the text that has survived: "isn't", the shift from "Wikipedia should" to a direct command "[you] use ...", and "the term that person or group". Tony (talk) 09:28, 26 June 2015 (UTC) [relocated from the wrong section. Tony (talk) 09:38, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

That particular diff doesn't show a change in terminology (except that "to the above" was changed to "to the previous point"). It shows one bullet point split into two. Did you mean something else? Maybe this Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:45, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Indefinite article before "hypothesis"

Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

The choice of indefinite article ("a" or "an") before "hypothesis" is being discussed at Wikipedia:Reference desk/Language#An hypothesis (version of 19:23, 26 June 2015).
—Wavelength (talk) 19:51, 26 June 2015 (UTC)

Large RM on decapitalization

Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

FYI

– Pointer to relevant discussion elsewhere.

Please see Talk:Lindy Hop#Requested moves of the remaining inconsistent dance-related articles, 27 June 2015 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 17:35, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

Quotes and archaic / obsolete spellings

Latest comment: 9 years ago3 comments2 people in discussion

I recently ran across a spelling correction of a quote that used obsolete spellings. The original quote is "The originall or primary colours are Red, yellow, Green, Blew, & a violet purple; together with Orang, Indico, & an indefinite varietie of intermediate gradations." See scan of writing, or transcription. The quote currently is a mixture of the original spellings: originall, and varietie; and modern spellings: blue for blew, Orange for Orang, Indigo for Indico. I've been considering changing the spelling to the original, but not sure if using older forms of words might be a hinderance to the reader. Suggestions? PaleAqua (talk) 06:18, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

WP:SPELLING has a section on archaic spellings. Keep the original, archaic spelling within the quote. Per WP:QUOTE, archaic glyphs are to be modernized even within quotes, but archaic spellings are not. Darkfrog24 (talk) 11:33, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Thanks. PaleAqua (talk) 15:13, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Poll and discussion on ʻokina use

Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

A discussion and poll at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Hawaii-related_articles#ʻOkina could use additional feedback from those familiar with the main MOS – czar 19:28, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

MOS:HOWEVERPUNC

Latest comment: 9 years ago2 comments2 people in discussion

From my search for "however it", I checked the first 1,000 results, and corrected 163 articles for compliance with MOS:HOWEVERPUNC. There are more than 50,000 search results, so by the same proportion there would be more than 8,000 articles (from those search results) needing similar corrections. Searches can also be made for "however he" and "however she" and "however they". Someone else may wish to continue my routine of correcting punctuation with "however"; I have other plans for the present and for the near future, but I might return to this in the indefinite future.
—Wavelength (talk) 00:53, 16 July 2015 (UTC) and 01:12, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Pick up here: [10] Darkfrog24 (talk) 10:47, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

WP:SHE for steam locomotives as well as ships

Latest comment: 9 years ago22 comments13 people in discussion

It's recognised that there is a long tradition of regarding ships as "she", and this is echoed (usually) at Wikipedia. It is not always enforced, particularly for male-named ships, but it is recognised.

This tradition is also applied to steam locomotives. Perhaps not quite so widely, as even more named locomotives have an implicit male gender. However it is still commonplace. We also have a source for this right back to the start of their history. At the 1830 opening of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, actress and diarist Fanny Kemble gives us this well-known letter,

“

We were introduced to the little engine which was to drag us along the rails. She (for they make these curious little fire horses all mares) consisted of [...]. She goes upon two wheels, which are her feet...

”

We should extend WP:SHE to cover locomotives, where appropriate, as well as ships. This is to clarify reversions such as this, obviously one I wouldn't support. Andy Dingley (talk) 20:00, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Can you show that this use of "she" has continued into modern times in non-specialist publications (that it is not only steam engine enthusiasts who use "she")? A Google search for "style guide"+"ship as she" produces many relevant results but "style guide"+"steam engine as she" produces none. Widening my search to "style guide"+"engine as she" (no "steam") gave only one relevant site, a hobby magazine site, which only mentions pronouns in passing and at first glance may not meet Wikipedia's WP:RS standards. Do you know of any style guides that say to use "she" or any formally published books that do?

For the particular diff that you cited, Redrose was actually reverting a categorical change from "it" to "she," putting the article back the way it was. Even if we extended WP:SHE to steam locomotives, that would only mean that Wikipedia would have two acceptable practices, so it is Redrose's version that would stand because it was there first. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:39, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

The Rail Safety and Standards Board (RSSB) maintains their own style guide, as does the Australian Railway Historical Society. Neither mentions the gender of locomotives, suggesting that this convention isn't even widely used by specialists. Pburka (talk) 23:47, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Do a Google search on "locomotive as she". --Guy Macon (talk) 20:11, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

That seems to show that the usage fell out of favour sometime before 1915. In fact, there's an amusing (and dated) note in this journal of Railway and Locomotive Engineering noting (in 1910) that locomotives are no longer called "she." Pburka (talk) 00:19, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Given the evidence above that using "she" of trains is obsolete, I oppose expanding WP:SHE to cover trains; I support continuing to refer to them as "it". -sche (talk) 00:23, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

So we don't have coverage before 1915? If there really is evidence to indicate that this form is obsolete after 1915 (or whenever), or a regional thing, or only applied to locos with feminine nameplates, or only applied to locos with neutral names, then we can qualify the guideline accordingly. Andy Dingley (talk) 01:39, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

We don't write in period dialect, regardless of the topic. Can you imagine how bizarre it would be if we wrote about Elizabeth I in Shakespearean English? Pburka (talk) 02:14, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Verily. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:02, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

"She" for anything beside a female still sounds like a quirky fringe habit to this landlubber. Ships, trains, floating logs and rolling logs are "it". But yes, there's a shaky consensus for ships. I won't help build one for trains. InedibleHulk (talk) 02:24, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

There is (in Britain at least) a certain kind of man who likes to call his motorcar "she", but most people don't. Isn't this a rather similar case? -- Alarics (talk) 13:00, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Here in Canada, too. And for their motorcycles, snowmobiles or any other "real beauty" they ride. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:38, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

"There is (in Britain at least) a certain kind of man who likes to call his motorcar "she"..." Sounds like a bit of a snide, sexist comment. My mother calls her car "she"! Not because she's a woman, but because she considers it traditional to call all vehicles "she". So it's not just men being sexist. -- Necrothesp (talk) 17:47, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

I only just found out about this discussion - and it's my revert being discussed. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:59, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

It Is Not All About You. An issue you seem to have trouble with.

This is a general principle. So it's raised on a general style noticeboard, where such issues of style get discussed. Look above, a whole bunch of editors who seem to be interested in such things have managed to see it. It's of relevance to a project too, so it's raised there.

You very clearly have no problem in finding my other edits and either reverting them or changing them to your one true way. Don't expect personalised notifications too. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:45, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Are there multiple parallel discussions in progress? That's probably undesirable. Please share links. Pburka (talk) 17:08, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

@Andy Dingley: You mean Bob Essery? If you look at its history, you'll see that I have made five edits over as many years; when I edit a page, I often watch it. I "found it" today because it was already on my watchlist; and since it was edited today, it showed in my watchlist today. The fact that it was you that edited is immaterial: I'm certainly not "hounding" you (if I had been, perhaps I would have found this thread 36 hours earlier?). @Pburka: see User talk:Andy Dingley#Bob Essery. --Redrose64 (talk) 17:19, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

User talk discussions don't count as undesirable parallel discussions. And a whole ship load of the above invective needs to relocate to user talk, BTW. Heh. If you two want to accuse each other of stalking, sexism, and other interpersonal malfeasance, it's not an MOS matter. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:01, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Oppose as unworkable for locomotives. Whilst ships generally have neutral or feminine names, this is not the case for locomotives. Could you refer to King George V as "she"? Flying Scotswoman perhaps?! Optimist on the run (talk) 17:16, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
Oppose extending the use of feminine pronouns to railroad locomotives. I support the continued use of feminine pronouns for vessels, but oppose their use for locomotives. The distinction is obvious based on the almost non-existent usage within the modern railroad industry vs continuing and still prevalent usage within the English-speaking navies, shipping industry and yachting community. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:52, 3 July 2015 (UTC)
Oppose. This fails the WP:SSF test. We permit the practice for ships because it's in fairly common (though declining) usage still in everyday English. The fact that various other camps have adopted the practice for some other conveyances, in their specialized in-group context, isn't comparable. I know lots of [US] Southerners who refer to their cars, rifles, and all sorts of other things as "she" and "her", but we don't go with that "convention" either (not even as an ENGVAR matter. >;-) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 23:01, 13 July 2015 (UTC)
Oppose—referring to vehicles or machines with female pronouns is all about male ownership of women. And RGloucester, digging up etymological niceties is irrelevant: if it looks sexist to many people, it is sexist. It's about time we called a halt to language that normalises being-male. Does anyone care about the gender-gap crisis on Wikimedia projects, incidentally? Tony (talk) 11:55, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Please alter section "Gender-neutral language"

Latest comment: 9 years ago79 comments15 people in discussion

Although I myself support gender-neutral language in Wikipedia, I just can't control the fact that many Wikipedians don't, and the important thing I must realize is that it is just an essay. But this particular page (specifically 16.2) is talking about it as if it were policy. Please try to alter the section (not the words describing the link to the essay, but the main paragraphs in the article) to make the words it uses consistent with the fact that it's just an essay. Georgia guy (talk) 19:04, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

To clarify what was going on, I tried to alter the term "man-made" (which is gender-generic man) in the article Swimming pool and I was reverted. Although I tried to explain the meaning of my edit in 3 different Wikipedia pages (the talk page of Thomas W (the user who reverted my edit,) the talk page of the GNL essay, and the talk page of Swimming pool.) But the users who disagree with my edit tried even harder to say "no, we need to keep the term man-made". Any thoughts on what to do?? (Note, this time the actual thing I'm suggesting is to alter the words in section 16.2 of WP:MOS so that they match the fact that it's not a policy.) Georgia guy (talk) 19:22, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Looks like forum shopping to me. Thomas.W wasn't the first editor to revert you, an IP was. Georgia Guy didn't use BRD but went to WT:GNL and made two threads and when BRD was pointed out to him, he said "I didn't really think about taking it to the talk page of Swimming pool as a better choice than taking it here; I was informed of the statement that only people interested in swimming pools would participate in revealing their thoughts." but failed to produce a diff when asked. Then he took it to Talk:Swimming_pool#Man-made...and now here. I joined in at WT:GNL originally and went to the other talk page after his much less than neutral posting.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 20:22, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

At best, Georgia guy's post here is an overreaction, proposing changes to a site-wide guideline which also covers e.g. "generic he" because of a single dispute about the phrase "man-made". -sche (talk) 20:33, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

The key statement is that they're telling me that WP:GNL is an essay, not a guideline. They understand that "man-made" breaks WP:GNL, but note the key statement. Georgia guy (talk) 20:52, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

It's an essay. It also happens not to provide a suitable alternative for "man-made", so it's actually a useless essay in this case. IMO man-made is gender-neutral, but I took a shot at changing the page anyway. (@Thomas.W: since you were unmentioned here (lovely forumshopping, indeed).) I see no reason to change the MOS for this single dispute. --Izno (talk) 21:09, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Yes, it is forumshopping, and an essay that is being repeatedly waved at people as if it was a policy. "Artifical" is better than "made by people (as opposed to being natural)" as Georgia guy wanted it to read, but "man-made" is definitely better. And also gender-neutral, as we have repeatedly tried to make Georgia guy understand, to no avail. First on my talk page, started by Georgia guy (referring to WP:GNL as if it was a policy), then on Wikipedia talk:Gender-neutral language (started with a lie about me by Georgia guy, probably to make me look really bad there in order to get sympathy and support), then on Talk:Swimming pool and now here. Thomas.W ^talk 21:28, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Actually, "use gender-neutral language" is guideline-level. Only the details in the essay are essay-level. If we should change anything, it would be to upgrade the best-supported parts of the essay to guideline status. As to whether "man-made" in particular counts as gender-neutral, I'm all for consulting sources, but if there's an even better word, like "artificial," then why not use that? Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:45, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

I normally would, but some Wikipedians like "man-made" better. Any actual reason?? (Note: this discussion really makes me feel we need more female Wikipedians; it should rise to at least 25% sometime soon. The fact that 85% of Wikipedians are male is one part of what makes so many Wikipedians not consider GNL important.) Georgia guy (talk) 21:49, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

Well "man-made" strikes me as sexist, but I think we should follow the sources. American Heritage Dictionary, says it's sufficiently gender-neutral, but NCTE [11] and Canada Language Portal [12] say otherwise. What that means is that if someone suggested taking "man-made" out of the GNL essay, I'd be willing to dig up sources that address the word specifically, and I'd support removal if that's what they said. But even if the sources say it's okay, that doesn't mean that we have to say "man-made," not when a truly neutral alternative is available.

It seems to me that the best thing to do at Swimming pool is ~~acknowledge that no one broke any rules by saying "man-made" and then maybe they won't be so defensive~~ line up the sources and see if "man-made" really does fall under "use gender-neutral language" or whether it's a bad example.

Where do they keep track of who's male and female? Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:41, 30 June 2015 (UTC)

This is exactly the sort of reductio ad absurdum logic which drives most Wikipedia editors to distraction and brings MOS and MOS regulars into disrepute. Is the time-tested phrase "man-made" gender exclusionary in some way? Can it be reasonably interpreted to exclude female swimming pool builders? Is someone actually offended by the term "man-made"? If so, may I suggest that you stop searching for offense where none was intended, no offense may be reasonably inferred, and the intended meaning is clear? To reasonable persons, the phrase "man-made" is sufficiently gender-neutral, so let's close this silly discussion and stop encouraging edit wars among ideologically motivated advocates who create little and disrupt much. If not, let's go ahead and bowdlerize Neil Armstrong's moon landing quote, too, because "mankind" may be interpreted to exclude 51% of the human population using the same sort of "logic." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 18:10, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

In response to your statement that "man-made" is a gender-generic term, do you mean that this is true even to the strongest advocates of GNL?? Note that the essay lists situations GNL does not apply to. "The Ascent of Man" is the title of a work and GNL should be ignored. For some reason, I appear to be one of the few Wikipedians who really thinks GNL is important despite it saying to do so in section 16.2 of WP:MOS. Georgia guy (talk) 18:43, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

No, lots of editors feel that gender-neutral language is important, me being one of them. Very few of those editors seem to share your interpretation of what is and what isn't gender-neutral, though. Thomas.W ^talk 19:22, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

The essay agrees with me totally. You must realize it's important not to confuse gender-neutral language with "gender-neutral" meaning "referring to both genders" as a definition of a term. The word "man" referring to both genders is not gender-neutral language. "Human being" is. Georgia guy (talk) 19:44, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

EDIT CONFLICT: However many Wikipedians (including myself), and Oxford Dictionaries, NCTE, and Purdue, to name a few. Georgia Guy isn't pulling "Man-made is sexist" out of nowhere. Still, because there are other source that do not treat "man-made" as sexist, I wouldn't support a rule banning the term from Wikipedia. "Artificial" is available, though, so this issue is moot. "Aeroplane" doesn't need to be the worst word ever for us to replace it with "fixed-wing aircraft." Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:49, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Now, how is the word "aeroplane" related to gender-neutral language?? I don't see any way it relates to GNL. Georgia guy (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

"Aeroplane"/"fixed-wing" is an example of a word that is replaced with another word not because anyone who uses "aeroplace" is a malicious Anglophile who hates the American spelling but rather because "fixed-wing" renders the need to consider national variety moot. WP:COMMONALITY serves as a good model for words like "man-made," for which the sources are split on whether it is acceptable or not. Because "artificial" definitely isn't sexist, it is preferable to a word that, if interpreted very generously, reminds people of sexism. It sets a precedent for, "Okay, assume that I'm wrong and I'm just overreacting to 'man-made,' and everything that says it's sexist is being misguidedly PC. Humor me and say 'artificial' anyway." Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:28, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) @Georgia guy:"The word "man" referring to both genders is not gender-neutral language" is exactly the kind of interpretation that very few editors here seem to share. Thomas.W ^talk 19:52, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Now, what words do you think using to refer to both genders is gender-neutral language?? Common answers to this question include human being, human, and person. Georgia guy (talk) 19:57, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Per personhood, "person" isn't distinct enough to replace "human". Per my own senses, hearing or reading "human-made" makes me think of gender neutrality, rather than whatever the sentence it's in is about. "Man-made" doesn't make me think about adult male humans in the same distracting way, because it's merely a long-established term for synthetic or artificial.

If we're replacing "man-made" with anything, I'd go for "synthetic" or "artificial". InedibleHulk (talk) 22:56, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

I would as well. But any words you have difficulty replacing with anything to follow GNL?? Georgia guy (talk) 23:43, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. InedibleHulk (talk) 01:59, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Feminazi is neutral as far as GNL, right? After all it may be applied to either males or females or whatever someone identifies as.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 00:22, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Neither "synthetic" nor "artificial" are suitable substitutes for "man-made", as they rely on foreign roots that are complicated for the anglophone to understand. "Man-made" is clear and Germanic, and requires none of foreign confusion. RGloucester — ☎ 00:49, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Using your rule, "cow meat" is better than "beef". "Beef" is a word of Latin origin; "cow" is a native English word. Georgia guy (talk) 00:57, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Cow meat - it's what's for swæsende! Blueboar (talk) 01:15, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Now, please make sure you know what I mean correctly. This has nothing to do with how cow meat tastes. It's an analogy to RGloucester's statement that "mad-made" is a better term than "artificial"; it's merely about the terms "cow meat" and "beef". Georgia guy (talk) 01:24, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Using your logic, "cow meat" isn't gender neutral as cow refers to females of the species.

— Berean Hunter (talk) 01:46, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Can we still call this sort of thing bullshit, or does that offend the bigger half of the domestic English bovine market? InedibleHulk (talk) 02:01, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Ha! On the off-chance that BH here is serious, I'd say no it's not sexist to say "cow" literally because "cow" is still commonly used to refer to all domestic bovines and "man" is not used to refer to all Homo sapiens, at least not anymore.

@RGloucester: "artificial" was already around in Middle English [13]. I don't think we need to worry about confusing anyone with foreign terminology in this case. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:42, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

That's udderly ridiculous. See the note; it is gender neutral only when the plural cows is used but cow "unambiguously means the female".☺
— Berean Hunter (talk) 03:09, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think you herd me. Hoof it on over to meaning 1.1 [14]. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:42, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Artificial is also about 10x more common than man-made, which suggests that anyone who is familiar with man-made will be familiar with artificial. -sche (talk) 02:49, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

That's because "artificial" has a more specific and academic meaning, not because "man-made" is more in line with the English of the Folk. RGloucester — ☎ 04:15, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Nowadays it is just about unacceptable to use gender-exclusive language. On WMF sites we have a gender-gap crisis, too, which may not be on the radar of the men who want to keep old-speak alive and kicking, but we need to move on. Sexist language should not be tolerated by the editing community. Tony (talk) 02:56, 4 July 2015 (UTC)
- So we are uncensored but should be intolerant? Are you referring to article space or everywhere in general?
  — Berean Hunter (talk)

If it weren't indented as a reply to Tony's comment, I wouldn't be able to tell whether you were suggesting that criticism of gender-neutral language was intolerant, or criticism of non-gender-neutral/sexist language was intolerant. Point being: critics of gender-neutral language have no room to accuse critics of sexist language of "intolerance". -sche (talk) 03:49, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't view "man-made" as sexist, given that "man" refers to mankind. It is gender neutral etymologically: "man" in the gender neutral sense existed prior to sex-specific meaning of "male men". There are no legs to stand on for those that think "man-made" is "sexist", because the "man" in "man-made" has never referred to male men. If we were really to go down such an absurd road, we'd have to remove the "man" from "woman", would we not? Absurdity building on absurdity, that's all it is. RGloucester — ☎ 04:15, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Except that you're wrong: before the Interpretation Act 1850, the wordings "he" and "man" were interpreted a "gender-neutral" "when there was a penalty to be incurred but never when there was a privilege to be conferred"—precisely because, in everyday speech, "man" was not gender-neutral. That it was is a myth based on usage in non-English langauges. As Baranowski points out, "The rationalisation that 'man embraces woman' was virtually unknown in the fifteenth century"—and where it was known was likely limited to those who spoke French or Latin. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 11:32, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Your explanation is wrong. You are going back to the Victorian period, rather than to the appropriate time. The gender neutral definition of "man" is much older than the Victorian period. Male men are weremen and female men are women (an evolution of wif). Both are men. RGloucester — ☎ 17:52, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Is a wereman a wolf that turns into a guy for full moons? InedibleHulk (talk) 22:24, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

The 15th century is "the Victorian period"?! Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:58, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Is that really how anglophones use those words today?? Georgia guy (talk) 18:35, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

"Vicious" used to mean "subject to vice" but it doesn't mean that now. That "man" had a non-sexist origin is not in dispute. The state of the matter is that some reputable sources on English usage maintain that "man-made" is sexist and others actively maintain that it is acceptable (which was not the case with the generic he). I certainly prefer non-sexist terms—and "man-made" is sexist—but I wouldn't want a rule banning it at this time. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:42, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

That "man" had a non-sexist origin is not in dispute.: no, it's disputed: read what I wrote above. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:06, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

How about "not relevant"? Hmmm... "Academic"! That's the one. It's fun and informative but does not immediately pertain to the outcome of GeorgiaGuy's request. On that vein, I have seen Wikipedia-threshold RS supporting the claim that the pre-modern-English version of "man" meant "human." Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:03, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It kinda-sorta did: the Anglo-Saxon mann meant "person". Anglo-Saxon is as English as Latin is French, and man had ceased to be gender-neutral already by Chaucer's time, by which time both the "singular they" and "he or she" were standard English, attesting to the foreigness of the idea that "man" or "he" could include "woman" or "she". Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 05:47, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Even if it did, it no longer does. Basically saying it's not sexist anymore is etymological fallacy. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 02:12, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, that's what I mean. The "was the root gender-neutral?" is the academic part of this discussion. Darkfrog24 (talk) 05:04, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It still does. You do not determine that perfectly good words are eliminated because of your own skewed take on what they mean. When someone says "man-made", they do not mean to say that women could not possibly make such a thing. They mean that the object was made by man. Regardless, I once again presume to ask you why we should not eliminate "women", as the "man" in said word has the same origin. Take your politics and thrust them away. We've no room here. RGloucester — ☎ 05:13, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

It's politics that made "man" legally gender-neutral in the first place, as I've already provided a source for, and your appeals to "folk" usage got tiring long ago—especially since "folk" usage has a centuries-long preference for gender-neutral terms like the "singular they" and rejects "man encompasses woman" usages such as "man" for "people" and "he" for "he or she" as an unnatural, bookish affectation. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 05:39, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Regarding “I once again presume to ask you why we should not eliminate ‘women’”: Has anyone ever used “women” (or “woman”) in a gender-neutral way to mean people in general? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 10:32, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

First of all, Curly, you once again fail to recognise that the word "man" began as gender neutral word, long before that one minor political document. Secondly, IP, it isn't about "gender-neutrality", clearly, because if it were there would be no objection to "man" at all. It is about what others here describe as "sexist language". If "man-made" is sexist because it contains "man", surely "women" must be sexist? RGloucester — ☎ 14:36, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I "failed to recognize" no such thing—what you've failed to recognize is that (a) "man" ceased to be neutral at least as early as the late Middle Ages; and (b) mann was only gender neutral in Anglo-Saxon, an anscestor language to English that is so far removed from the modern language as to be unrecognizable as English (or are you going to berate us for failing to decline as nouns as the oppressed "folk" are wont to do?) Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:18, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

You're wrong. "Man" has been used in it's gender-neutral original meaning into our times, and is still being used in that meaning: [15], [16], [17], [18] and many more. Even here on Wikipedia, with Evolution of man being a redirect to Human evolution and Origin of man being a redirect to Anthropogeny. Redirects that exist because of people typing those terms when looking for those articles, with roughly 1 out of 7 looking for Anthropogeny going by way of Origin of man. Thomas.W ^talk 21:32, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Please try to follow what people are saying—at no point has anyone claimed that "man" has never been used in a gender-neutral fashion in our times. The claim is that such usage is exceptional, that "man" has long ceased to be inherently gender neutral, and that the vast majority of English speakers consider "man" inherently male, even if their textbooks try to convince them otherwise. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:54, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Okay, I think I understand the problem… you’re trying to apply rigid logic to a social matter. “Man-made” isn’t considered sexist because it contains the letters M-A-N in it, or because it shares the same etymological root as a word for male humans, or for any similar reason. It’s considered sexist because a majority of irrational people (as most of us are) feel that it’s sexist—regardless of whether other stuff exists. If human language were a completely rational beast, things like etymological fallacy (which someone else mentioned) would generally not be possible. But they are, because it’s not, because its users are not. This approach won’t work for much the same reason that a systematic approach to something like COMMONNAME won’t work; there’s too much grey, too much uncertainty. So we (as the consensus) choose to go with what seems, to us, to be the most widely accepted in modern usage, regardless of traditional usage. I hope that all makes sense, but I’m basically explaining that we don’t make perfect sense and that isn’t likely to change. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 15:15, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Great. So now we know that there is nothing behind the drive to eliminate "man-made", and similar words, other than emotion, and an encylopaedia is no place for emotion. Leave your passions at the door, or don't enter into these halls at all. The majority of people do not think "man-made" is sexist. It is a standard construction, used by most people on a daily basis. The bizarre emotions of a few disruptive agitators does not change the meaning of a word. RGloucester — ☎ 16:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

RG, no one said that the only reason for this rule is emotion. As for emotion's role, getting pissed off because someone used racist or sexist or politically problematic language distracts the reader from our content. And it's not a few disruptive agitators who don't like sexist writing. It's Oxford Dictionaries, the National Council of Teachers of English, Purdue Owl, and many, many Wikieditors.

But you did raise an interesting thought question about "woman." It is sexist to use a gender-specific word to mean "everyone" because that makes it look like people of the other gender aren't there. Here's a case in which using "women" would be sexist: "All the nurses in our hospital are capable, professional women." 1) If the hospital has even one male nurse, then he's just been cut out. 2) This suggests that the nurses are capable and professional because they are female. It equates womanhood with professionalism and so disservices even men who aren't nurses at that hospital. "Capable, professional people" does not have either of these problems. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:21, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

No, "man" is not gender-specific for the final time. That's why it is in "woman". "Woman" is an evolution of "wifman" (wif being the equivalent of modern "wife"), meaning "female man". The original male counterpart was "wereman". The "man" that exists in "woman" is exactly the same "man" that exists in "man-made". They have the same origin. If one is supposedly sexist, the other must also be sexist. There is no way around this. All arguments that "man-made" is sexist are rubbish, absolutely. There is simply no basis for such a construction, other than that people like you enjoy muckraking for your own benefit, not because someone who says "man-made" means that the such an object is made only by male men. This is a grand semiotic failure. RGloucester — ☎ 17:32, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Language changes. It is no longer neutral. Most style guides recommend to avoid use of "man" or "he" as neutral. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 17:49, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

+1 to EvergreenFir's comment of 02:12, 5 July 2015 (UTC). I must assume that many of the participants in this discussion are cretins who are certainly not nice -- by which I mean, of course, the original meaning of those words, good Christians who are not ignorant. Nonetheless, it does seem to be falling into etymological fallacy... -sche (talk) 22:23, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

So who was criticizing? I asked two questions. We differ in our opinion on gender neutral...I contend that mankind and man-made are gender neutral...and I'm not accusing; he's the one that said that certain language shouldn't be tolerated but as far as I can tell, no one has used any sexist language in this thread. So, I'm asking because it sounds like he's implying that if it isn't gender neutral then it must be sexist (why was sexist brought up here at all?). The question about whether he means in article space or everywhere in WP/WM space is also valid. Too many people either take offense or feign offense, so they would rather risk offending others by telling them they need to change their language. Sounds hypocritical to me that minority subsets that once wanted tolerance and seem to have gotten it have now developed intolerance for others. One more thing, our gender gap "problem" isn't related to anything in this thread or "men who want to keep old-speak alive and kicking". There have been quite a bit of unqualified inferences for which I'm asking clarity. I also agree with RGloucester's comment above.
— Berean Hunter (talk) 05:05, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

There is a difference between being intolerant of people or of ideas and being intolerant of certain actions or practices. Wikipedia is intolerant of rapid re-editing, what we call edit-warring, and that it is so is to my knowledge entirely uncontested. People who would ordinarily like edit-warring are welcome on Wikipedia so long as they don't edit war here. Even some people who do edit war are still welcome so long as they don't overdo it. Sexist language is another undesirable activity, and rejecting it does not require rejecting any particular person. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:42, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

The article that prompted this thread, Swimming pool, has been changed in a way that seems to satisfy most people. The thread itself shows no consensus to alter the section its title suggests altering, probably because we haven't even been discussing changes to that section (we just bogged down in discussion whether or not "man-made" is gendered). Is there a use to continuing this discussion? Is there a use to continuing it here? We do have a sister project devoted to discussing and defining words. If people want to work on a summary of what style guides and other authorities have to say about whether or not man is gendered, it could make a good addition to wikt:man#Usage_notes — as a longtime Wiktionarian, I'm happy to help with formatting, etc. Darkfrog already started a summary of assessments of man-made which I'm going to make use of. -sche (talk) 07:18, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Outdented from RGloucester’s reply above. Where did all of that extra indentation come from? Anyway, you’re right that we shouldn’t be getting emotional over things like this. But we still have to deal with the results of emotion, such as certain words falling out of accepted use, or a particular writing style being considered offensive. We accommodate our readers. That means we actively try to avoid causing offense in the prose of an encyclopedia article, where reasonable. That also means we do not rigidly hold to any ideals of language when they are not borne out in modern practice.

As to whether “man-made” is generally considered sexist, I don’t know. Some sources have been cited in this discussion, and they’re mixed. We could pose the question in an RFC maybe? —67.14.236.50 (talk) 17:10, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Raising an RfC would mean making a rule or at least setting a precedent for whether or not "man-made" is acceptable. Considering how zealous people on Wikipedia can be about rules and anything else that looks like a rule, I'd rather not. "Man-made" strikes me as sexist, but so far we've only found one problem on one article, and it's run its course without a fuss. Let's not make this a bigger deal than it is. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:24, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Re @RGloucester 17:32, 5 July (which exceeds my indentation limit): Once again, etymological fallacy. It’s irrelevant where the word came from or what it used to mean. It is the word we use for a male person. There is an equivalent but different word that we use for a female person. Thus, it’s gendered. “Man-made” is another different term from “man” and must be judged on its own merits, not on its etymology. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 17:54, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

What words do I use instead of "human" and "woman"? I must know, so as to liberate myself from the sexist language that is a disservice to my own person. RGloucester — ☎ 17:57, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Assuming you are male, “man” works. Or if you want to be gender-neutral when referring to the individual of yourself, “person” or “homo sapiens” or “this one.” Use your imagination.

But individuals are gendered, so it’s broadly acceptable to refer to individuals as the genders that they are (unless it may be considered demeaning, somehow. People are weird). Or if you were asking about using GNL in general, we have an essay for that. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 18:02, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

I am not "male", and that has nothing to do with what I asked you. Once again, if "man-made" is no good, I clearly cannot use either "woman" or "human" in prose. Please, elucidate. What words should I replace these two with, so as to avoid the sexist "woman" &c., which are clearly derived from word "man", and which can clearly only refer to male men? RGloucester — ☎ 18:08, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

No. If “man-made” is no good, then other stuff exists and is irrelevant. Don’t use the words in the contexts where they have fallen out of favor; continue to use all the other words. Also, I’ve already said that I don’t know which category that word is in. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 18:17, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Nothing is a fallacy. There is no such thing as fallacy, only pure fact. There is no evidence that "man-made" has fallen out of favour anywhere, and it hasn't done. Nothing can be irrelevant. If one is no good, the other is no good. There is no potential other option. Make up one's mind, please. RGloucester — ☎ 18:20, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

That’s… not how our language works. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Our language works however one wants it to work, and this is simply the only manner in which we are able to use it. RGloucester — ☎ 18:30, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

More accurately, it works however the masses want it to work, or else we won’t be understood as intended. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 18:40, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Evidence that "man-made" has fallen out of favor: Oxford Dictionaries (see usage note; hit CTRL-F "sexist") [19]; the National Council of Teachers of English [20]; Purdue [21], and there are more. I also did find one source, the American Heritage Dictionary, that actively said that "man-made" was still okay, but no, RG, we're not making this up.

As for "woman" and "human," no they're not automatically sexist just because they have "man" in them. English is not always logical.

As for an RfC, I don't think that's necessary. An RfC could be interpreted as hard precedent, and "man-made" is already mentioned in the GNL essay. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:56, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

"Oxford Dictionaries" is not evidence. Evidence is inside the mind of Joe Bloggs. Ask your local joiner today! RGloucester — ☎ 21:08, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

Wow, that's a lot to catch up on. Starting with the OP first. Yes, "artificial" is better than "man-made" (which looks weird hyphenated to me, anyway). But "manmade" is not terribly objectionable; it's clearly the same "man" in "mankind" and "the Rights of Man", "One small step for a man ...", etc. It isn't in the same class of latent sexism as using "he"/"his"/"him" as [not-really-]gender-neutral pronouns. So, while I think it's very slightly objectionable to revert change from "man-made" to "artificial" as some kind of anti-p.c. WP:ACTIVISM, we don't need a counter-WP:ADVOCACY campaign to sweep WP of every use of "man-made"/"manmade" either. The change is too trivial to bother with on a large scale, and too likely to lead to editwars if done en masse. The problem with reverting an isolated change of this sort is that it's WP:POINTy (I mean from "man-made" to "artificial", not "man-made" to "made by people (as opposed to being natural)", which should be reverted as bunch of blather), and thwarts our principle that anyone may edit, and that improvements should stick. It's undeniably a (very minor) improvement, because "artificial" has absolutely zero "public relations" problems in such a context, but "man-made" obviously does or this heated discussion, and that editwar, would not exist. It's a cold, hard fact that some number of editors do think "man[-]made" is objectionable for WP:BIAS reasons (even if that view isn't entirely reasonable), while zero think that about the other word, yet both are synonymous in this context, so there is no defensible reason of any kind to perform such a revert.

Moving on, MOS:GNL is not an essay, so of course we're not going to label it one. We don't need to be adding verbiage anywhere saying "this is not a policy!". The {{Style-guideline}} tag on the page already demonstrates that it's not a policy. Nothing without {{Policy}} on it (put there by consensus not personal opinion) is a policy. This, too, is a cold, hard fact. Anyone who can't understand the difference between guidelines and policies is simply missing some reading material, and a 5-minute perusal of WP:POLICY will cure that for them. We don't add weird disclaimers all over the place to counter people being "differently clued". We simply give them the correct clue. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:33, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

RGloucester: no, just no. Tony (talk) 11:57, 16 July 2015 (UTC)

Use of commas at the Cougar (slang) article

Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Talk:Cougar (slang)#Incorrect and/or improper usage of commas. A WP:Permalink for it is here. Flyer22 (talk) 11:53, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

WP:Collapse

Latest comment: 9 years ago8 comments5 people in discussion

Why can't the collapse feature be used to hide a complete bibliography that is longer than the biography? The wording says it can only be used in tables, which I assume means having rows and columns. Why tables and nothing else? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 21:18, 3 July 2015 (UTC)

Because of accessibility of article-proper content. The reference to tables is probably for infoboxes, navboxes, and sidebars. --Izno (talk) 00:49, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

If I can collapse a filmography section because it is a table, why can't I collapse a bibliography. What makes rows and columns special? If I format it as a table the effect will still be the same. I have never seen a table within a "infoboxes, navboxes, [or] sidebar". The result was the deletion of the section, since it wasn't allowed to be collapsed. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 02:05, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

Infoboxes, navboxes and sidebars are also tables; each may contain "child" infoboxes, navboxes etc. which since they use the same code are sub-tables of the main table. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:36, 4 July 2015 (UTC)

If the rule was meant to cover "infoboxes, navboxes and sidebars" it would explicit say so. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 03:20, 6 July 2015 (UTC)
- Yes, it is, and yes, it should. I've already twice in the last few months run into instances of editwarring to hide (non-nav) table content in articles, using the vagueness of this guideline's wording on the matter as the excuse. "I think this table's data is boring" is not a rationale for making it difficult to get to (especially on mobile devices) for those to whom it's more meaningful. Normal tables of in-article data (such as filmographies) should never be arrived at in a collapsed state (either by default with collapsed or conditionally by the presence of other tables with autocollapse. It's perfectly fine for them to be manually collapsible. This is a basic Web usability matter, as well as an accessibility issue, and a matter of simple encyclopedic presentation. WP is not some clickbait blog, and we do not bury the lede in any way, including the contents of tables. It also interferes with in-page searching, linking to anchors in tables, printing, etc. It's just a terrible idea to ever have article content collapsed upon arrival.
  Whether a references section is longer than a stub's actual article content is irrelevant. WP is not about how vertically balanced anyone thinks the page layout is – WP isn't an artsy design showcase site, either; it's entirely about the content and the sources for it. While some grocery store clerk looking for the episode list of their favorite TV show probably doesn't care about source citations, many users care primarily about the source citations on WP, including most students using WP as part of their initial research for papers. The primary use of WP by students (while doing school work, not goofing off), is getting a handle on what sources to look for in their university library and its journal search resources. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 21:03, 13 July 2015 (UTC)

Why pick on grocery clerks? EEng (talk) 04:38, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Not picking on anyone. I selected it as an "average person" kind of reader, i.e. someone looking for information in the main article body, not someone looking primarily for source citations for material to obtain for their own research. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:10, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Example needed

Latest comment: 9 years ago1 comment1 person in discussion

We need an example after "Values and units used as compound modifiers are hyphenated only where the unit is given as a whole word; when the unit symbol is used, it is separated from the number by a non-breaking space" that illustrates capitalizing the first letter at the beginning of a sentence. I provided one and someone who didn't seem to understand it reverted it[22]. So, what's a better one? — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 12:09, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

MOS:GNL and the term actress

Latest comment: 9 years ago42 comments18 people in discussion

MOS:GNL from the WP:MOS states that Wikipedia should use gender-neutral language. I note that the MOS does not give any guidance regarding whether the gender neutral term "actor" is preferred over "actress" to refer to female thespians. Following the general guidance in MOS:GNL, I propose that the MOS be amended to include a statement that the gender neutral term "actor" should be used for female and male thesps. In 2010 the UK Observer and the Guardian put out a joint style guide which stated "Use [actor] for both male and female actors; do not use actress except when in name of award, eg Oscar for best actress." The guide's authors argued that "actress comes into the same category as authoress, comedienne, manageress, 'lady doctor', 'male nurse' and similar obsolete terms that date from a time when professions were largely the preserve of one sex (usually men)."^[1] OnBeyondZebrax • TALK 22:54, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

"Actor" is gendered male only, and hence is not gender neutral. RGloucester — ☎ 23:57, 18 July 2015 (UTC)

It was gendered, RG. Now it's moving to the center. English isn't always logical or consistent about these things.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary,^[2] "the suffix [-ess] gratuitously calls attention to gender when there are often neutral words ending in -or or -er. The implication of the feminine ending varies. Sometimes it implies that the task at hand somehow differs when performed by a woman than by a man or that the task is rightfully the realm of men." It mentions "actor" specifically.

According to Oxford Dictionaries,^[3] "[In the 1660s], female performers were then called either actors or actresses—it was only later that actor became restricted to men—and it seems that we are returning to the original situation."

So we can say with confidence that "actor" is a gender-neutral term. Here's the necessary question: do we need a rule about this? Remember how seriously so many people take rules on Wikipedia or anything that looks like a rule. This would be a correct change but is it a necessary one? Would it cause more fights than it prevents? Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:19, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I believe, then, that "actress" is a gender neutral term. All those who act must be termed "actresses", regardless of gender. RGloucester — ☎ 02:53, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

You believe no such thing, nor does anyone else. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 04:12, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

No, "actress" is gender-specific.

I see what you're getting at: "Why is it sexist to write 'he' as if it meant all people, male and female, but not sexist to write 'actor' as if it meant all people whose profession is acting, male and female?" Because that's how it worked out. English usage isn't always logical and consistent. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:57, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

English is logical. It is only illogical to those who choose to make it so, and those are not people that we may follow here. RGloucester — ☎ 14:54, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Unlike in most professions, male and female thespians are not interchangeable. A male and a female banker, doctor, or truck driver do the same things and each could normally be replaced by the other. But in western culture at least, male roles are played almost exclusively by males, and female roles by females. Thus there are very few roles which an actor and an actress can actually compete for, and the gendered term tells you a great deal about the kinds of roles that a person might take on. It is still the first piece of info that a producer would want to know before hiring someone. Therefore it is misleading and incorrect to fail to use "actress" for a female, just as much as it would be to use it for a male. In most cases I am all for gender-neutral language, and have been using it for many years, but this case is one of the few where it simply doesn't work. DES ^(talk) 04:08, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

It is sexist to use a marked form for females and an unmarked form for males. It is one of the ironies of such a binary that it should evolve to the unmarked form as gender-neutral; but it has done, and this should be common practice on en.WP. I agree with Darkfrog. Tony (talk) 11:55, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Actor is generic when applied to groups, and can be when applied to individuals, but this isn't the preferred usage for everyone.. Usage has not sufficiently shifted in the real world that zero readers find it jarring, so I don't think MOS should try to decide one way or the other. This is not the case with some other terms; "Jane Smith is an aviatrix" sounds like it was written in 1920. There's no principle by which we must apply an allegedly gender-neutral term that isn't gender-neutral in majority usage in sources. That said, we don't need separate categories for actresses vs. actors, even if we end up preferring "actress" in running prose or in disambiguations for female actors. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 22:13, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Comment I think this is a context issue rather than a MOS isue. Generally, "actor" can be applied to female performers (and indeed, some actresses prefer to be referred to as actors) and in the interests of gender neutrality we probably should make efforts that way when we don't have a good reason to use "actress". What good reasons are there for using the term "actress"? Well, the industry still makes that distinction for one, like with the oscars. I recently saw Meryl Streep referred to as an oscar winning actor (not on here), which misrepresents her i.e. she won a Best Actress oscar, so even if we generally refer to her as an actor she's still an oscar winning actress. Also, I absolutely loathe the Guardian style "female actor" terminology? What? The whole point of using "actor" for women is to remove the gender identification from the occupation so how is "female actor" any better than "actress"? That seems to be argument for using a different word, to me. As someone points out above, actresses tend to play female characters so there is a major functional difference between an "actress" and "actor" (in the male sense) which is captured at a categorization level. Therefore, there are plenty of good reasons why we would refer to someone as an actress and the MOS shouldn't attempt to prohibit natural usage of the word "actress", but when the distinction truly doesn't matter then perhaps we should default to "actor". Betty Logan (talk) 23:59, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Betty about this being a context issue and that some actresses prefer "actor." And I agree with Darkfrog24 and Betty that "actor" is increasingly seen as gender-neutral these days. The Actor article also addresses a bit of this. I also agree with everyone who thinks that we should not have the WP:MOS prohibit use of the word actress. Flyer22 (talk) 00:28, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Things that make you go hmmm, and should cause others to pause: Academy Award for Best Actress, Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, British Academy Television Award for Best Supporting Actress, Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series, BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role . . . shall I list them all? There are many, many more, but I believe these are the most prestigious awards given to actors of the female gender within the industry. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 01:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
- That's actually totally meaningless in this context. The fact that some award categories are gender-divided and that this leads them to use "actress" and a gendered meaning of "actor" has nothing to do with whether it is or isn't okay to refer to an "actress" as an actor in contexts where no such division is being forced. Some of the very same film industry people handing out those awards use "actor" in the generic sense all time. Cf. the name of the Screen Actors' Guild. It's not the Screen Actors and Actresses Guild, and as the SAG it is not limited to male membership. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 02:15, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
  - Not really, SMcC. Not at all, in fact. When the hyper-over-sensitivity is at war with the real world language, someone needs to periodically point out the logical inconsistency in taking the gender neutrality movement's good intentions to their illogical extremes. The English-language film, television and entertainment industry is one of the most progressive, culturally sensitive subcultures in the Anglophone world; yet not one single award within the industry -- not a single one -- has been restyled to "best female actor". That says a great deal: the word "actress" simply means a woman who acts, nothing more, nothing less; you can write "female actor" if you want, if you feel the need, in circumstances that require the distinction between actors of opposite genders. But female actors are not lining up to return their "best actress" awards, nor refusing to accept those awards in 2015 because they are offended by the word "actress." I think Betty Logan and Flyer22's statements above embody good sense: gender neutrality is a worthy goal, and the gender-neutral word "actor" may apply to either gender in 2015, but when circumstances of the text require the gender distinction between male and female actors (e.g., "Hollywood's highest paid actress"), the word "actress" bears no "sexist" stigma in that context. And repeating the sexism! mantra -- over and over again -- does not make it so. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:07, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
    - Except I already pointed out why they're not logically inconsistent. This comes across as a personal political issue for you, due to pejoratively labeling such concerns "hyper-over-sensitivity". Resistance to censorious pseudo-liberal nonsense cannot be knee-jerk, or it conflates the nonsense with legitimate issues just because they occasionally converge on something. The reason not to "enforce" actor for women except in formal titles of awards, etc., isn't because "hyper-over-sensitivity", but because the linguistic-descriptive (not usage-prescriptive) facts don't support such a move yet. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:52, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
      - "personal political issue"? For me? No. You've confused me with other editors -- on both sides of this issue. In fact, you've missed the point entirely: for the overwhelming majority of occupational descriptors and professional titles -- e.g., author, aviator, doctor, executor, lawyer, manager, officer, president -- there is simply no reason to draw a gender-based distinction, and such constructions as aviatrix and executrix sound archaically quaint to the modern ear, and are wholly unnecessary because there is no material difference in the job description of an aviator and that of an "aviatrix." Lady lawyer or doctor woman, on the other hand, do have a vaguely condescending and distinctly sexist ring to them in professions where the job description has nothing to do with gender. But let's compare that with the acting profession, where most acting roles are specifically written for actors of a particular gender. Meryl Streep is a fine actor, but she cannot reasonably be expected to play Franklin Roosevelt with any measure of on-screen credibility. Likewise, no serious producer is ever going to cast Daniel Craig as Catherine the Great. In the context of the acting profession and entertainment industry, gender-based roles are the norm, not some artificial gender-based distinction because someone thought it cute to add trix, ette or ess to the end of the job title in the 18th or 19th century. "Actress" remains a perfectly acceptable alternative to "female actor" within the profession and industry, as well as in the mainstream of English-language writing; that does not make the word a good candidate for Bowdlerization in the name of gender neutrality. Context matters, SMcC, and I do expect more nuanced comments from someone of your erudition. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:17, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
- It's not unusual for proper names to reflect archaic or outdated usage. These awards were mostly established decades ago when gender roles were more strictly defined and enforced, and may not reflect current usage. At best, they provide evidence of the state of language when they were established. Pburka (talk) 02:42, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
  - Pburka, but the award titles are not outdated: see my comment above. Not a single industry award has been restyled "best female actor" or anything remotely similar. Not one. Would you like me to list them all -- in every English-speaking country? Or have I made my point? And there are occasions when the gender distinction does matter -- in gender-based award categories, in particular. As I said above, "actor" may be used for either gender, but it seems silly to refer to Meryl Streep as best "female actor" when we already have a perfectly fine single word that means exactly that. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:18, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
    - As with my argument, you don't seem to quite understand the one Pburka is making. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:52, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
      - Wrong: I understand Pburka's rationale perfectly well. That said, the word actress is not "archaic" or "outdated," and remains in widespread, every-day usage in the English-speaking world. I refer you to the definitions of archaic and outdated, which are being used above as pejoratives contrary to present mainstream linguistic reality, to advance the knee-jerk purge of the the word "actress." Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 14:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Ignoring the nonsensical comments, I'll point out that GNL says "Use gender-neutral language where this can be done with clarity and precision." While there is a shift in using actor as a gender neutral term, it's by no means universal. I think we'd be jumping the gun at this point. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 03:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
- Sure, and you may write "actor" instead of "actress" in most circumstances, but where the context requires a male-female distinction "actress" should remain an acceptable option instead of "female actor". Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:07, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
  - Absolutely. EvergreenFir (talk) Please {{re}} 04:22, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
    - EGF, then we're on the same page. I feel in very safe company with you, Flyer22 and Betty all in agreement. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 04:37, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
      - And this one, even if our rationales differ a bit. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:52, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
Keep both actor/actress, if this is some kind of request for comment. I don't feel feminine/masculine words are sexist in the least; many languages have gendered nouns and there is nothing "sexist" about it! (in French swimming pool is feminine, desk is masculine, letter is feminine, etc!). It's just the way language evolved. People can see from my contribs that I very much support personal gender identity (I created the articles for both I Am Cait and I Am Jazz) but I don't see any reason for this obsession with gender-neutral nouns. The few gendered nouns we have in English are not offensive in the least and should not be stripped from our language. —Мандичка^YO 😜 08:36, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
- Please don't make the error of conflating grammatical and biological gender. The biologically female "actress" is in no way parallel to a grammatically feminine "piscine". Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 09:32, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
  - - In my view, "actress" should be gently discouraged, without making strict rules about it at this stage. A good defence would be if the subject herself insists on the term, or if an editor who has invested in an article takes a strong stand against a change from "actress" to "actor". Mass changes from "actress" to "actor" should be discouraged, given that some editors still vehemently object. Tony (talk) 08:55, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
      - Yes, respect subject wishes here. The subject is the most reliable source for what their own occupational term is (aside from edge cases, e.g. astrologers claiming to be "scientists"). WP:ABOUTSELF applies here, as does the logic behind WP:IDENTITY. This is broadly applicable. If someone identifies as social psychologist, we should not relabel them a socio-pstchologist, psycho-sociologist, psychological sociologist, anthro-ethologist, etc., even if one of these terms can be sourced as equally accurate to describe the subject's notable output. The differences may be meaningful in the context of the subject and their professional life. If I'd pursued what I actually got a degree in, I'd be a cultural anthropologist, and absolutely not an ethnologist, even though these words are often treated as synonymous. As with the sexual politics of "actress" vs. "actor", there a field-internal politico-academic difference between ethnology and cultural anthropology. Context matters, and we can't always accurately predict when or in what way. The "follow the sources" maxim is important in this regard. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 10:52, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

One point that hasn't been made yet. The Guardian/Observer style guide is not a neutral arbiter of the English language. It is one style guide among many, for a newspaper group that has a particular political stance. If a consensus of style guides for publishers across the opinion spectrum were to agree on a particular usage, that would be persuasive. In this case, the Guardian/Observer is an outlier and not representative of usage generally. --Nicknack009 (talk) 18:25, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, a simple Google News search of "female actor" pulls just shy of 4000 hits for me. "Actress" pulls 30,000,000. Real world usage still very clearly favours "actress". Resolute 18:36, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
- Resolute: nobody advocates replacing "actress" with "female actor", which would defeat the purpose. To find out how prevalent use of "actor" was for females, you'd have to go through a statistically significant number of hits for "actor" and find out how many of them refer to females. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 20:39, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
  - Granted. However, I suspect the outcome would remain the same. Certainly my very small sample look at ET Online's recent movie stories regarding female actors uniformly calls them actresses. Resolute 20:48, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
    - TitanTV, a convenient TV schedule for multiple channels, seems to consistently use 'actor' as a gender-neutral form. No idea if they are leading or following. Gah4 (talk) 21:14, 20 July 2015 (UTC)
      - "As anyone who follows entertainment news has become aware over the last decade or so, most thespians of the female persuasion now refer to themselves as actors, not actresses."—Los Angeles Times. January 18, 2009.—Bagumba (talk) 22:52, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:PROPOSAL, proposals should reflect existing practices: "Most commonly, a new policy or guideline simply documents existing practices, rather than proposing a change to them." As a start, perhaps supporters should look first to change the lead sentence of bios to use actor instead of actress. For example, Tina Fey uses comedian in its lead sentence instead of comedienne, but uses actress instead of actor. Presumably, the gender-specific form is not needed in the lead. Come back with an MOS proposal when this becomes a generally accepted practice for bio leads.—Bagumba (talk) 19:27, 20 July 2015 (UTC)

Comedienne is going the way of aviatrix. It's rarely encountered in modern, high quality sources, but more like People magazine and TV Guide, in the same kind of prose in which a party is a "gala", a singer is a "chanteuse", and so on. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 05:56, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

I completely disagree that anyone should start systematically changing "actress" to "actor" on actresses' article pages. There is clearly no consensus for such actions here and they would be highly disruptive. The distinction between the generic and specific usages of "actor", and the still-widespread usage of "actress" when referring to an individual (as in award titles) has been clearly given above. Many actress articles also have reliable sources such as interviews referring to them as "actresses", including for example Helen Mirren where some editors have insisted on referring to her individually as an "actor" without providing a reliable source for that, leading to a slow edit war against the many readers (like me in the past) who decide to correct what looks like a typo. I would have no objection to the usage of "actor" when someone has decided to self-determine herself as such: the suggestion is that Mirren has, but there is no reliable source provided to support that which would prevent the edit warring, and sources in the article use "actress" to describe her. --Mirokado (talk) 23:26, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Consensus seems to be that "actor" is better than "actress" but "actress" should not be banned. Do any of you think we need to take any other action, like explicitly state that both terms are allowed? (This would be appropriate if, for example, someone was brought up on AN/I for using "actress," even if no punishment was given or if there have been edit wars over the terms.) For my part, I think we're good for now. This is an English-in-transition matter. We can always change the MoS in a few years if things get more solid. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:04, 21 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, Darkfrog, I think that sums up the discussion quite nicely: conventional thinking is that "actor" is more gender-neutral, but "actress" is still in common and accepted usage. No, further action at this time is not desirable. And if anyone gets taken to ANI for using the word "actress," please ping me, so I can throw stones at the silly person(s) who initiated the complaint. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 22:50, 21 July 2015 (UTC)
Agreed, though ANI is still possible (and reasonable) if someone is doing disruptive things like trying to eradicate one usage or other en masse. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ 06:00, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

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References

[1] ttp://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2011/sep/25/readers-editor-actor-or-actress

[2] ttps://ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?id=E5221200

[3] ttp://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/actor

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