Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

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Contents

Paragraphs in block quotations

WP:MOSQUOTE recommends using <p>...</p> paragraph tags around each paragraph in a block quotation. An easier workaround is to nest a single div, then wikitext respects the line breaks correctly. So the example becomes:

<blockquote><div>
And bring us a lot of horilka, but not of that fancy kind with raisins, or with any other such things—bring us horilka of the purest kind, give us that demon drink that makes us merry, playful and wild!

—Nikolai Gogol, Taras Bulba
</div></blockquote>

Result:

And bring us a lot of horilka, but not of that fancy kind with raisins, or with any other such things—bring us horilka of the purest kind, give us that demon drink that makes us merry, playful and wild!

—Nikolai Gogol, Taras Bulba

 —Michael Z. 2008-06-12 04:33 z

En dashes in page names

Why was the following removed as "nonsense"?

When naming an article, a hyphen is not used as a substitute for an en dash that properly belongs in the title, for example in Eye–hand span. However, editors should provide a redirect page to such an article, using a hyphen in place of the en dash (e.g., Eye-hand span), to allow the name to be typed easily when searching Wikipedia. See also Wikipedia:Naming conventions (precision). The associated talk page name should match the page name exactly.

Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think the better question would be why it was ever included to begin with. : - ) Using en and em dashes in page titles ruins everyday page linking and needlessly creates redirects. A standard hyphen is surely sufficient, and balances the need for a dash with the need to be able to link to a page easily (most keyboards don't have an en dash key). Is there any reason for the MoS to prescribe that en dashes be used? --MZMcBride (talk) 07:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Only if the title is acutally an en dash. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 07:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Certainly. But that's a rare case. Mexican-American War does not require the use of an en dash, and nothing is lost by using a standard hyphen. It's certainly easier to link Mexican-American War than it is to link Mexican–American War or Mexican—American War.

I went crawling through the page history and isolated the diff that changed this rule from being merely a suggestion to being the law of the land. (See here.) There doesn't appear to be any consensus or discussion behind the move, and as such, I propose changing the language back to being a suggestion, rather than being a requirement. Thoughts? --MZMcBride (talk) 08:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

  • [multiple edit conflicts]v Where were you two when this gained clear consensus, ages ago? McBride, do not make substantial changes to MOS without raising them here first. I haven't heard of the inclusion of em dashes in article titles (can't imagine why that would occur), but en dashes have a quite different meaning to hyphens; the main text in such articles needs to follow the MOS guideline, so why should the title of the article clash with this? Who wants internal inconsistency (may as well use British spelling in the title and US spelling in the opening sentence)? The need for redirects is there anyway, whether en dashes or the erroneous hyphens are used; redirects are just a fact of life in an efficiently run site. And no, "Mexican–American War" certainly does require an en dash, despite the renegade reversions of the change back to hyphen that I've heard about. That issue is going to have to be dealt with sooner or later. Now, if you're really foxed about how to produce an en dash on your keyboard, see this. I'll pipe the link in the MOS section now (it's unpiped to the whole dash article at the moment). TONY (talk) 08:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • PS Why are you presenting erroneous red links in an attempt to bolster your position? An em dash is totally wrong in that context. TONY (talk) 08:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
    • (even more edit conflicts) I am afraid that the honourable colleague focuses exclusively upon the technical side of the matter, and in so doing forgets the work-arounds which have been devised in order to address an equally, if more, important issue: accuracy. This is an encyclopaedia, ladies and gentlemen, and it is of paramount importance to say things as they are. En dashes improve legibility and often show fine differences in meaning or indicate important technical details. Discontinuing their usage while it creates no disruption (What's wrong with redirects? And why can't links use en dashes?) is at least counter-productive. (PS: Em dashes are wrong in pretty much all contexts in titles; I have yet to see an exception, even though I guess there must be one somewhere.) Waltham, The Duke of 08:10, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

(ec) Look, the linking thing is a red herring; there's no problem with using a redirect as a link. Similarly for navigation--just type the name with the hyphen into the search box and you'll get to the right place. So the only question is, which form do we want to see at the top of the page? In the case of Mexican–American War I have no strong feelings, but I suppose there's some utility to the endash to make it clear that it wasn't (or at least not especially) a war about Mexican-Americans, but rather between Mexicans and Americans. Similarly the Michelson−Morely experiment wasn't performed by a single physicist named Michelson-Morely. --Trovatore (talk) 08:12, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The issue is that people should be able to type the title without the use of redirects. And now that people have taken to using automated tools to attempt to change thousands of page titles, this becomes a larger issue quite quickly. Tony: I see no consensus (as I tried to demonstrate with that diff) to make the MoS require en dashes. In fact, for years, it was merely optional – a suggestion, really. And the claim that the need for redirects is there anyway is a bit silly. I doubt many people are searching using en dashes, eh? So I really don't understand why the bit about page titles can't go back to being a suggestion rather than a mandate. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:18, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

The use of en dashes has been well established on WP for some time. Go take a look at the FAC room. If you really don't understand the important difference in meaning, the improvement in the reader's comprehension of the relevant compound items (even if they don't quite understand the formal set of rules), and the improved visual appearance, I'm very willing to give you free private lessons. It's really not hard, and serious WPian writers/editors (particularly those preparing featured content) seem to have no problem in grasping the concept and the keystrokes. More broadly, most good styleguides (for hard-copy text) insist on the use of en dashes; on-screen, where the display is often rather small, hyphens are often difficult to discern when not merely joining two words, but signifying apposition or opposition between them, as in the title of the unfortunate war, and in ranges. TONY (talk) 08:27, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Apart from the other things that I have mentioned above, Mr McBride seems to ignore the speed with which events unfold on Wikipedia. Two years can make the place largely unrecognisable; the whole site has reached this point in seven. I daresay that we are driving fast (although not necessarily fast enough) towards professionalism in many aspects of article-writing, and that many of the old guidelines have had to be modified along the way to conform to our changing demands for quality. Inline citations used to be an unknown concept, and look at them now; is it hard to believe that this can also happen with dashes? Waltham, The Duke of 08:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
The difference there was that inline citations were a good idea. This change made no sense to begin with, and has no consensus support anywhere. Look, I really don't care what sort of dash you use in articles. However, until you convince computer manufacturers to put the en dash on conventional keyboards, this does not belong in article titles. It's ludicrous to create a situation where our readers can't physically access thousands of articles without the assistance of redirects due to the concern of a tiny handful of users about the proper length of a line. It badly interferes with the usability of project for its readers for absolutely no good reason. People generally overlook these issues because they generally don't matter, but this is one thing that you're going to actually need to establish a consensus to do if you don't want every move to be vigorously opposed. I dare you - take this to the village pump or any communal discussion space that isn't solely frequently by the MOS fanatics and see if this proposal lasts five minutes. There was no consensus when this was put in place, there's no consensus here, and there's sure as hell no consensus on the broader project for this. Rebecca (talk) 10:54, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Right. Consensus is only what Rebecca from Adelaide thinks. The fact that you "don't care what sort of dash" is used in articles kind of excludes you from the discussion, doesn't it? En and em dashes are on keyboards, and genius is not required to use them. Do you want a private lesson in it? I'll willing give you one. But no one else on WP requires that. What kind of keyboard do you have that makes it incomprehensible? TONY (talk) 11:20, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
No, consensus is demonstrated support among a decent sized group of people, rather than the support of a very vocal group of three people with not insignificant opposition. And no, you don't get to exclude me from the conversation because I'm not going to get rabidly worked up about the length of a line except where some buffoon tries to force the project to use a character that isn't on keyboards in article titles instead of a perfectly usable one that is. I think the fact that you suggest a lesson is needed to find out how in hades one uses one of these precious extra-special lines is telling: the fact it isn't actually marked on the keyboard suggests that the vast majority of our readers ain't getting it either. Rebecca (talk) 11:55, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Talking about consensus: Can we at least agree that, in the prose, the repeatedly cited Mexican–American War uses an en dash and not a hyphen when the correct type setting is applied? Trovatore has nicely pointed out that in this specific case the en dash is in deed required to produce the intended meaning. It would be a good starting point if Rebecca and McBride could make clear that we are not arguing about the necessity of the en dash for this example in the prose.
Assuming agreement on the above point, I would then conclude that it is the correct type setting for the title of the article, if this was not an online encyclopedia. Remains the objection about functionality or usability of the Wikipedia. I agree that (almost!) nobody would type an en dash in a search window. Therefore, if we use the en dash in the title we must create a re-direct using a hyphen. OK, is there a way out of this compulsory re-direct? Can we use the hyphen in the article title—thereby introducing a typesetting mistake which is considered minor by many? The claim is that everybody would easily find the article even without re-direct. I hope I understood the argumentation correctly. Otherwise, corrections will be most welcome.
Well, I disagree that a re-direct can thus be avoided. Why? Don't forget that some people use copy paste plus search box to search for new articles and the copy function will likely (if used on a good quality article) collect the America–Mexican War spelled with an en dash.
For this case a solution is also necessary. I think it is clear from this argumentation that one re-direct is needed anyways. So, I think that the MoS should suggest to use the correct type setting also in the article and declares the creation of a re-direct as mandatory. Tomeasytalk 12:08, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
As I said above, I have no particular concern either way which dash should be used in the text, or which would be used in a hypothetical non-online encyclopedia. My sole concern here is the functionality issues created by moving thousands of articles to titles that cannot be accessed by most people without redirects. It looks ugly as hell to consistently have to see the redirect warning on every single page a reader goes to with a dash in the title, and there's no good reason to have to do that.
What I'm challenging here is the need for the compulsory redirect: we can have a technically very minor typesetting mistake that makes no difference to the functionality of the encyclopedia, at least until computer manufacturers decide to stick the en dash on their keyboards. I am not fussed at the prospect of having a redirect from the en-dash, but it would seem like a lot of work considering virtually no one is going to go to that title directly. Rebecca (talk) 12:31, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Forgive my technical ignorance, but is a redirect obvious to the visitor? I'd have thought it seamlessly led to the right destination. Isn't it the type of thing that the creator of an article (or someone who comes along after, or a bot) can do in ten seconds? I don't see the problem. And yes, Mexican–American War should be fixed so it has an en dash. Trovatore points out above the very reason the correct punctuation should be observed. TONY (talk) 12:51, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Yes. Whenever you've been redirected from a page, you have a notice in largeish font at the top of the page informing you of the page you've been redirected from. It's a helpful thing in the vast majority of cases, but it becomes a downright nuisance when it starts appearing on every single page with a dash in the title. It's one time when it would be really helpful for you folks to suck it up and say "okay, it's not 100% technically perfect, but it does interfere with the usability of the pages and there's no other alternative, so we'll let it slide." Rebecca (talk) 13:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
    (edit conflict) I congratulate Tony on his use of irony, in the classical sense; but of course redirects are obvious to the visitor; there's this tag, right under the title, saying (Redirected from Mexican–American War). As Tony knows, from the last time (or was it the time before?), some editors find this a visual defect. I don't care so much myself.
  • I am not fully persuaded by Trovatore's semantic argument, although it is infinitely better than the WP:IDONTLIKEIT all too common on this page. The compounds in question are Mexican-American War and Mexican-American population, which latter is customarily abbreviated Mexican-Americans. These are compounds of the same type, and fundamentally of the same meaning: "From both sides of the boundary between Mexico and the United States". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Rebecca, I understand what you're saying. But the problem then arises that we have a hyphen in the title and thenceforth an en dash in the very same compound item throughou the main text. This was one of the most frustrating aspects of the don't-care regime until about a year ago when the proscription against en dashes in titles was, thank god, ended. And I think folks here should be most unwilling to allow a technological deficiency at WikiMedia (yes, another one) dictate a downward slide in our formatting standards. Let the redirect issue stand, I say, so that when we finally persuade WP and Wikimedia to overhaul their program, this will be dealt with. It's a small price to pay. Anderson, I'm not as well-read as you are, nor as versed in classical knowledge, so you can't expect me to understand what "classical irony" means. And ... um ... the grammar of your last clause needs a good look. TONY (talk) 13:27, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • See, why is having a hyphen in the title and an en dash in the text going to be a problem? It's something that isn't going to be noticed by 99% of users, and those who do notice are generally going to know why it is the way it is. The problem here isn't with the Wikimedia software - it's just that it isn't (and can't be) designed to have forty thousand redirects from to make up for the fact that computer manufacturers don't put the en dash on their keyboards. It's a slight thing that for once I really wish you might consider overlooking, Tony. Rebecca (talk) 13:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

←Rebecca, by "computer manufacturers don't put the en dash on their keyboards", I presume you mean that they don't allocate this function to a single keystroke, as they do the hyphen. Do I see a show of support for not using the degree symbol just because it requires two fingers simultaneously, not one? Or parentheses? And while we're at it, no more superscript please; and those monstrous non-breaking spaces are out – they require SIX keystrokes. Really, we're all aspiring to a professional standard of writing and formatting, aren't we? TONY (talk) 13:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

As far as I understand, it has been appreciated that in any case we need a re-direct, no matter whether the article is name with an en dash or a hyphen.
So, comes the new objection that the re-direction message is ugly. Personally, I am not fuzzed about this message whenever it appears. I think it is even informative for the reader, as they may find out that who the compounded word is correctly type set, if they are interested in the re-direct message. If they aren't, then I do not see why they would bother about this message, but just read over it.
What worries me a bit in this discussion is that some do not even acknowledge that it is for good that wikipedia discriminates hyphens and dashes. From my point of view, n terms of style, this is a simple pre-requisit of any high-quality reference. Tomeasytalk 13:44, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
I think it is important to have correct punctuation in article titles. I find the small and grayish redirect message nearly imperceptible, but if people really find it annoying, perhaps someone can design a stylesheet that makes it even grayer and smaller, moves it somewhere else, or hides it outright. --Itub (talk) 14:52, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Or ask the developers to make hyphens in the search box go to en dashes automatically (without even a redirect), like initial lower-case letters currently go to capitals.--Kotniski (talk) 14:58, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
On the principle that we should devote time to important things in preference to unimportant things, I'm not going to get worked up about this. No one is going to be shocked, shocked to see a hyphen where they were expecting an en-dash and vice versa; Wikipedia has bigger problems than this. There are good reasons both ways, and since people are doing more and more of their own publishing these days, the general trend is in the direction of hyphens, but we haven't arrived there yet. A few relevant facts:
  • AP Stylebook has given up on recommending that en-dashes ever be used to link two words; there's no mention of this use in the long sections on hyphens and en-dashes.
  • Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, which is one of the most commonly-used dictionaries in the US, uses a hyphen in its own name in a place where current WP:MOS guidelines say to use an en-dash.
  • Chicago does mention a variety of uses for en-dashes as links, but they give exactly one example below that supports our recommendation of en-dashes to link words (London–Paris train) and one that contradicts it (U.S.-Canadian relations), in a long list of other uses for the en-dash (principally, to connect numbers, and to connect with a phrase instead of a word):
Her college years, 1998–2002, were the happiest in her life.
For documentation and indexing, see chapters 16–18.
In Genesis 6:13–22 we find God’s instructions to Noah.
Join us on Thursday, 11:30 a.m.–4:00 p.m., to celebrate the New Year.
The London–Paris train leaves at two o’clock.
I have blocked out December 2002–March 2003 to complete my manuscript.
Her articles appeared in Postwar Journal (3 November 1945–4 February 1946).
Green Bay beat Denver 31–24.
The legislature voted 101–13 to adopt the resolution.

Professor Plato’s survey (1999–) will cover the subject in the final volume.
Jane Doe (1950–); or Jane Doe (b. 1950)

the post–World War II years
a hospital–nursing home connection
a nursing home–home care policy
a quasi-public–quasi-judicial body (or, better, a judicial body that is
   quasi-public and quasi-judicial)
but
non-English-speaking peoples
a wheelchair-user-designed environment (or, better, an environment
   designed for wheelchair users)

(Abbreviations for compounds are treated as single words, so a hyphen, not
   an en dash, is used in such phrases as “U.S.-Canadian relations.”)
 
the University of Wisconsin–Madison
the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

I suggest that we acknowledge that there's a large, pre-existing base of GAs and FAs that follow the long-standing WP:MOS guideline, that this guideline is and was based both on a nice simplicity (hyphen for "and", en-dash for "or" and "between"), and on a solid foundation of the way things were done in the publishing world for a long time, that this issue is not all that important, and that we revisit it from time to time as journalists move gradually in the direction of converting to hyphens. I'll be happy to discuss it in January, but I'm not going to discuss it every month. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:39, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Hah! I notice that <pre> completely mangled that, representing hyphens and en-dashes as being the same length. More evidence, if needed, that people are paying less and less attention. Let's try again. It's all en-dashes, except for:
  • the post–World War II years
  • a hospital–nursing home connection
  • a nursing home–home care policy
  • a quasi-public–quasi-judicial body (or, better, a judicial body that is quasi-public and quasi-judicial)
  • but
  • non-English-speaking peoples
  • a wheelchair-user-designed environment (or, better, an environment designed for wheelchair users)
  • (Abbreviations for compounds are treated as single words, so a hyphen, not an en dash, is used in such phrases as “U.S.-Canadian relations.”) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:46, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
One more thing. This dash issue is brought up from time to time as evidence that the people that wrote the long-standing rules are out-of-touch rules fascists. Even though my personal position is somewhere in the middle, what I take away from the discussions I've read is exactly the opposite. Although things are gradually becoming simpler, rules for dashes have traditionally been very difficult. A variety of intelligent people talked about it and decided that, even though it's a little bit of an over-simplification, the rules could be simplified down to "hyphen, and, en-dash, or and between", and that would come very close to representing traditional publishing practice and be a hell of a lot easier to explain. Encyclopedic writing also is much better when it doesn't use a lot of extra words to represent a simple concept, and en-dashes are great for representing a simple concept in a simple way. The rules were designed for ease of use and to benefit a crisp encyclopedic style, and not for any other reason, that I can see. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
There could be many worse recommendations, and if these were phrased and treated as recommendations, I could nearly agree with Dank's argument; for one thing, that would include acknowledgement that there are other legitimate methods of doing things. But look how WP:DASH is treated in FA reviews, and you will see demands for unthinking compliance with these rules, at least nine times out of ten. (That, of course, is in the minority of cases it is cited at all; whether mindless control of punctuation is worse than no review at all is a matter of taste, but we should aim for a middle ground.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
Many issues in MOS require a lot of explaining, and the challenge is just to do it as simply and briefly as possible. I can't imagine Capital letters tossed off in a sentences. TONY (talk) 16:06, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
We could try for as clearly and accurately as possible, but there seems to be consensus against that...Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:14, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Why are you all ignoring the fact that the naming conventions, which are policy, dictate that en-dashes are to be used in article names? And have done so for over a year? This conversation should be happening there. In any case, my argument has been iterated many times above: They look better, redirects are not even remotely a big deal, etc. There is no accessibility issue. Also Mexican-American war was moved to the hyphen version because of a technical restriction. Not because of any of the issues opposers on this page have brought up.--Dycedarg ж 17:16, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

  • What technical restriction? If there is a technical restriction, we should document it.
  • What WP:NC (which is the only naming convention to be policy) says is: For use of hyphens, dashes and hair spaces in page names, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes), which redirects here. If the policy is to be discussed, this is where to do it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:22, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
It says that, and when you look here it gives the instances in which en-dashes are to be used. Explicit statement on that page that that's what it means, when such is obvious, shouldn't be necessary. The technical restriction hasn't existed in over a year; what I was saying is that the specific example of Mexican-American War is moot because it was moved back for technical reasons, not because any consensus existed at the time that the current name was more correct.--Dycedarg ж 18:29, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Hmmm. so I assume that this clause in the naming conventions policy gives MOS policy status on the issue of dashes. TONY (talk) 17:28, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Not really, even for page names. WP:NC refers to its own subpages in the same manner, and they are, like this page, guidelines. Only assertions specifically made on that page are policy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:34, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I'm wholly in favour of using the correct en dash where it should be used by proper style in article titles. With redirects, there's no reason not to do it. —Nightstallion 21:25, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

  • Using the correct en dash where it should be used by proper style in article titles verges on a tautology. Where is that? For example, is Merriam-Webster a good source for proper style in its own name? Nothing in NS's post answers that. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:35, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • But it only verges because it ignores Rebecca's arguments. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:35, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
From where I stand, as long as
  1. the usage of en dashes in text is not disputed, and
  2. there is no way to prove that more people will reach an article through the go button rather than through a link or a search page (especially in the cases of many lists, which have long names difficult to get right the first time),
it is impossible to know that with using hyphens in the titles we shall have fewer redirects. As style in articles is steadily improving and a great percentage of links now makes provision for en dashes, moving articles back to hyphenated versions will either create redirects (avoiding which is the entire point of the discussion, although, for the record, I don't mind them at all) or force us to pipe-link where it is hardly necessary, making things realistically harder for editors (in contrast to the implications of having a line saying "redirect" below the title, which the honourable colleagues have failed to actually present to us).
And all this is said without considering the advantages of accuracy and clarity that the usage of dashes offers. Ignoring them in order to gain something in terms of usability is an argument, even though I categorically disagree that not seeing redirects is such a gain; ignoring them only to end up with nearly as many redirects constitutes a pointless sacrifice resulting in net loss. Waltham, The Duke of 23:02, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
As far as I understand Rebecca's argument, she's not objecting to the existence of redirects, but to readers arriving at the article through a redirect. This will happen when they type the simple hyphenated form and arrive at the endashed one. I write subject to correction, of course. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:14, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Certainly, that's what I meant. If my phrasing indicated otherwise, I apologise. Waltham, The Duke of 02:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Then I don't see why the creation of redirects from the endashed form to the hyphenated form matters; readers won't use them. That's what misled me. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:09, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I meant that if we were to use hyphenated titles instead of en-dashed ones, then the en-dashed links would have the readers use redirects almost as often as they would through the search box for en-dashed titles. Therefore, no real gain. Waltham, The Duke of 19:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't see arriving at an article via a redirect as a usability problem. The only usability problem I can envisage is that people will create redirects to the hyphenated titles, thus unknowingly creating double-redirects. But the days of having to fix these problems manually are long gone - this is easy fodder for a bot. Hesperian 00:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
It's ugly, and it's unnecessary. Let's put it this way: we can have fifty thousand redirects that the ordinary reader is going to notice and think "eh, what happened there?" - or fifty thousand hyphens which about thirty people on the project find a stylistic gripe with. The issue doesn't arise with text; the reader doesn't notice it, and it's easy enough for the ordinary editor to cover it, but it's madness to force article titles to use a character that the vast majority of our readers have no idea how to actually enter. Rebecca (talk) 01:51, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
How can you arbitrarily declare that more people are annoyed by redirect notices than care about whether or not dashes are used? Do you have some way of polling the general population of readers you haven't shared? I have never heard someone complain that redirect notices are ugly, nor seen a thread in the village pump asking the devs to make them prettier. Don't think village pump readers are too petty for something like that either, there was a massive thread about whether or not the little guy who appears next to usernames at the top of the page in monobook was racist. You don't know whether or not people would like dashes more, nor have you demonstrated that they dislike, or are confused by, redirect notices.--Dycedarg ж 02:01, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
It's not a matter of "liking dashes". It's a matter of the vast majority of the population not knowing the difference; hell, before I came on Wikipedia, I'd never met anyone who knew the difference, let alone cared about it. Redirect notices are generally fine - they alert you to where you've been redirected from, and it does its job. It's just when you have to have one pop up every single time one accesses a page with a dash in the title that it becomes very annoying. As far as the vast majority of our readers are going to be concerned, they're going to be constantly getting irritating redirect notices that appear to have redirected from exactly the same title. While I get that there's something of a bias on this particular page towards people who are absolutely fascinated by things like the length of a dash, it's just bad practice to force the tens of thousands of commonly-accessed pages to use a character that the vast majority of our readers cannot type on their keyboards. Rebecca (talk) 02:11, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Every single time? Hardly. You have practically ignored my comment above; people might reach an article through a link or a search page as often as they do through a direct, successful request at the search box. And if en dashes are used in text, they are used in links, and if the article has been moved to the hyphenated version, the reader will have to pass through a redirect.
Oops. That's what you were trying to avoid, right? Waltham, The Duke of 02:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Er, no. What I'm suggesting is simple, and what is still actually done in practice in most areas (witness the links to Mexican-American War cited above); keep the article title and the links to it at the one that people can actually type, and do whatever the hell you like with the rest of the text. It is of course true that there are other ways to access the article, but why is it so unreasonable that one should actually be able to access the article by normal means without the use of a redirect? I've yet to see a compelling reason to enforce this on the project besides WP:ILIKEIT - there's just no good reason why can't make a practical exception for article titles. Rebecca (talk) 02:56, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I think what people here would like to consider a compelling reason to enforce this on the project is "It is grammatically incorrect, and this is an encyclopaedia". Hesperian 03:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
So, if I understand correctly, Rebecca has moved from "keep en dashes in the text" to "keep en dashes in the text except for links". And then we are forced to either compromise professional writing by creating massive inconsistency within articles, or we have to flood them with avoidable and meaningless pipe-links, complicating the edit window more than is warranted. Unless I am imagining these problems—and I have good reason to believe that I am not—they have probably flown right past the honourable colleague. The thing is, the further we pursue this discussion, the more insane and convoluted Rebecca's suggestions sound; this profound lack of simplicity and common sense is not the mark of a sound proposal.
Neither is the fact that a simple style issue which might as well be fixable by a script asserts precedence over Wikipedia's mission as an encyclopaedia. Waltham, The Duke of 04:52, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

←Now that Rebecca has calmed down from her earlier hysteria (referring to me as a "buffoon", etc, and to many of my colleagues here as "people who are absolutely fascinated by things like the length of a dash"); and now that it's apparent people here don't go along with Anderson's characterisation of MOS as being ruled by a few obsessive zealots, let's examine the latest assertions. While considerably down the shock-horror scale, they are nonetheless on a par with what spin doctors for politicians come up with:

Redirect notices are generally fine – they alert you to where you've been redirected from, and it does its job. It's just when you have to have one pop up every single time one accesses a page with a dash in the title that it becomes very annoying.

It's as though half of the articles had an en dash or required one. Um ... no; it's a rather tiny proportion. If they really make your sides ache, your cache settings should prevent the display of the redirect where you need to access a page more than once in a session. Mine do.

to use a character that the vast majority of our readers cannot type on their keyboards

But ... they don't have to type it. Nor do readers have to write good prose; we have to.

... before I came on Wikipedia, I'd never met anyone who knew the difference, let alone cared about it

Yeah but no but yeah but. We're engaged here in what is effectively the business of publishing on a scale never seen before, not of writing substandard undergraduate essays. Publishing houses have to deal with these matters; ordinary readers don't, but will benefit even if they're unfamiliar with the finer points of the en-dash vs. hyphen issue. TONY (talk) 03:20, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

I honestly don't see any consensus for having it be a requirement that page titles use en dashes instead of hyphens. It can be a suggestion, it can be part of the featured article guidelines, but it really shouldn't be mandatory (which is how it is being interpreted currently). What is the issue with keeping it optional? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Confusing inconsistency? Bad writing practice? We might have all sorts of mistakes in our articles, but the titles are more important, more prominent, and harder to change; these should be paid more attention. And what does, in any case, "optional" mean? A lease of time? Because if a format is better, then sooner or later it will be adopted. And we'll have an inconsistent mess all the way until then. We've had it so far; let us bring about some order now. Waltham, The Duke of 06:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Precisely. In my opinion, as far as style and precision is concerned, Wikipedia should not follow "do what others do" (i.e., WP:COMMON and similar things), but rather should try to follow the highest standards of typography, precision, etc. possible. —Nightstallion 13:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I agree. It's not as if anyone's going to be thrown off Wikipedia for breaching punctuation guidelines, but we can ensure that clear guidance is there for those who do care, and that we have a community document to appeal to if people start opposing or reverting stylistic improvements to articles. --Kotniski (talk) 16:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
You are asking what this same "clear guideline" means, a couple sections below. The answer is: it doesn't mean much. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
(German accent) The Manual of Style rarely means much to P. M. Anderson. I, Dr Sigmund Fraud, expert psychoanalyst, have concluded that Mr Anderson is experiencing intense suffering stemming from repressed memories connected to a traumatic incident involving the Manual, which prevents him from comprehending it or even wanting to attempt to understand it. I suggest a series of very expensive therapy sessions, which will mostly work by boosting Mr Anderson's morale and self-esteem, as well as in other ways I have yet to study, as my professional skills are rather dubious, really. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 22:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Motion to close

The arguments in favour of retaining the guideline in question are overwhelming, as is the support towards it, even from people who do not frequent these noble halls of style. There are issues here of high-quality encyclopaedic writing, internal consistency, and usability, and unless there is a satisfactory reply to all these concerns, I am removing the "disputed" tag from the page on 27 June. I request that it should be retained until then, so that no objections can be raised on grounds of due-process violation, contempt of the community, hostile environment causing bias, etc. We want to be fair. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 19:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

In a month or two we will have another complaintant. The solution is to word this as a recommendation rather than a prescription; but if we are going to treat this vague buncombe as a Higher Truth, which needs no justification or evidence but our lordly say-sos, I don't suppose that will happen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
"word this as a recommendation rather than a prescription" \o/ Couldn't have said it better myself. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:54, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
If there is another complainer, they should be referred to this discussion. It is not so much how the guideline is worded here; rather, it is the context thereof that one must understand. In text, we do not force any editors to follow the Manual of Style—if someone wants to apply it, they do so; if they are unaware of it or prefer not to bother, they are free to ignore it. What they cannot do is revert edits that apply the Manual, so sooner or later its provisions will be applied on text. But the vehicle for this application will be the free will of editors.
(Featured Articles are the exception here, but why? Because FA is a process, and if one wishes to participate, one has no choice but to follow the criteria of this process. If the most important thing for a person is to write hours as 07.00 AM, they can do so, but under two conditions: they should not revert edits changing it to 07:00 am, and they should not visit FA.)
An exaggeration, fortunately. But that's not the problem; rather the problem is reviewers who post as though writing "07:00&nbsp;am" were the only important thing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:14, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
For them it might be, but there is, thankfully, something called specialisation. Let them worry for the hard space (which is an improvement, by the way, so it is not a bad thing to have someone point it out in a FAC), and other editors will take care of the rest. FAC is such a good process exactly because there are people to comment on everything, offering a more spherical view of the article examined and its deficiencies. Waltham, The Duke of 03:43, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
On the other hand, titles are not simply a way to write things; they represent the location of pages. This is above plain grammatical conventions, and is connected to the way Wikipedia's fundamental unit of information is organised, namely articles. Accuracy, brevity, consistency, and clarity are of paramount importance, and individual initiative is, and should be, minimal. This is why Naming Conventions is policy and the Manual of Style is a guideline. It's how things work around here. Waltham, The Duke of 22:03, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
And which of "Accuracy, brevity, consistency, and clarity" are affected by the section at issue? Not brevity; endashes are longer, if minimally so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:06, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I was speaking generally. I shall be more specific, then: en dashes offer more clarity, and the guideline not naming hyphens as an equally valid option offers consistency. Accuracy is also gained, as Wikipedia clearly uses en dashes, and should therefore use them properly, and not in a confusing and haphazard (and confusing in its haphazardness) fashion. Waltham, The Duke of 03:43, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I really don't understand why this discussion is still going on. It is clearly a good thing to have a certain uniformness in our articles. There are a lot of other things that are more important, but I am not aware of any that would contradict this particular prescription. We could prescribe the opposite; but that would be worse. We could make more complicated rules; nobody seems to want that.

No articles are deleted for failure to follow the MOS. No editors are banned for obstinately ignoring the MOS prescriptions. It's even possible to be an extremely active editor in ndash-infested articles without ever writing an ndash, so long as you don't revert ndashes back to hyphens just for the sake of doing it. We have a choice between ever so ugly redirects appearing when we enter something into a WP search form, or when we follow a link from WP or Google. --Hans Adler (talk) 22:22, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Because of his Grace's admission above, which would be more accurately phrased "if editors are not willing to spend endless time changing every jot and tittle of an article to the preferences of the handful of dogmatists at MOS, they might as well not visit FA." That is one of Wikipedia's major problems; that there is no reward for actually writing excellent articles, because our reward system has been taken over by reviewers who do not discuss content, but who have unlimited demands on punctuation. Let these pages be written so they are recommendations at FA as well as elsewhere, and I will be content;if this page concedes that it is a handful of preferences and recommendations, which are neither necessary nor sufficient for a professional standard of prose, I will take this page off my watchlist. When FA actually discusses content intelligently, it is one of Wikipedia's best processes; let it do so more often. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:50, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I am surprised indeed that Mr Anderson should have so low an opinion of one of our most important processes. FA status does not exist for the sole purpose of rewarding hard work, and although I am not claiming that diligent editors should be content with a barnstar, the view that Featured Articles should be anything else than the best that Wikipedia has to offer to our readership—from all aspects—is sadly mistaken. This community is like every other society in that it allows for specialisation and delegation of work; even if there are some editors who can single-handedly bring stubs to FA status, this is not the rule. Every editor has strengths and weaknesses, and while some are good with sources, they might be awful writers—and vice versa. There is nothing wrong with contributors soliciting the aid of colleagues in order to ensure the elevation of articles to the class of our very finest content, and there are both the editors with the knowledge and interest to help and the means to find them. If nominators don't do so, then they might end up discussing punctuation more than content, but this at least means that the content is not so bad, or it should certainly take precedence.
Even so, the quality classification system is being modified to make the class designations clearer, and put in place a site-wide project-based system for both B-class and A-class articles; if it works well, content concerns will have been mostly addressed before an article is listed as FAC. Waltham, The Duke of 03:31, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Is it is one of Wikipedia's best processes a low opinion? But FA varies unpredictably between too lax and too stringent, and many reviewers appear to stray into pinuctaion, not because nothing is wrong with the content, but because they don't know anything about the content. If this resulted in a comment and abstain, it would be mildly helpful; but all too often it is an oppose. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:53, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
No, "there is no reward for actually writing excellent articles" is. Please re-read the first paragraph of my message above, especially the second and fifth sentence.
FA is not infallible. From my limited experience with the process, the technical criteria do seem to be on the forefront; on the other hand, remember that they are easier to determine, and there are so many of them anyway: section length and balance, grammar and style, images (suitability, copyright, captions), reference and footnote consistency... In any case, I cannot say what should be done in the FAC process, but articles there have made a long trip and are more likely than not to have only minor content problems, or none at all. And I've mentioned the strengthening of A-class, haven't I? Waltham, The Duke of 20:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Hans: It's pretty simple, really. This is being discussed because someone is trying to use a bot to move thousands of pages under this "policy." (Nevermind the fact that this page isn't policy. ; - ) ) Rebecca, me, et al. are trying to stop is this page and in particular this piece from being enforced as the word of God. The goal is to ensure that people don't interpret this particular clause as a requirement, and instead as a suggestion that can be applied if the editors on a particular talk page agree or if the article is going through FAC or something. But the practice shouldn't be mass-implemented as it's annoying to editors to be redirected constantly. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Which bot? There are other ways of dealing with bots. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:15, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
For the last time: The naming conventions are policy. If you don't like the statement "For use of hyphens, dashes and hair spaces in page names, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes)." than get it changed. Until then, my running of my bot is justified. No consensus has thus far been demonstrated that I shouldn't do so, except the objections of the two of you. The objections of two people are neither consensus nor an indication that consensus does not exist. If in 24 hours you can't get consensus here or elsewhere that I shouldn't be doing this, my bot will run. Period. You can't block an approved bot operating within the bounds of demonstrated consensus, and should you choose to do so I will take this elsewhere.--Dycedarg ж 02:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes) redirects to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Dashes, which has a disputed tag in it, specifically in the en dash section. As I said on your talk page, making threats like this is plainly a bad idea. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:27, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I put that disputed tag there because I thought it better than Rebecca's brilliant idea of removing half the section. It shall be removed when this issue is addressed, and am quite confident that this will happen soon, as I cannot see you thinking of any argument other than "I don't like redirects". Although I do not approve of Dycedarg's tone here, he is right in that you have no case. Using en dashes in titles is a policy-endorsed and very much justified trend, in that it offers great benefits while keeping side-effects to a near-zero; it is also practically irreversible, in that full title hyphenation would be a massive setback for the project and the source of significant problems. The bot simply follows the times and speeds up the process, saving us human editors some unnecessary trouble—the style side of the matter covered, all technical aspects of the bot have been evaluated, resulting in its approval for operation. The bot in question is perfectly legitimate in every way, and the continued support towards it by people unrelated to the approval process demonstrates this aptly. Before repeating the same arguments, Mr McBride, I strongly suggest revising the above thread, where every single one of your points is refuted; perhaps you will then realise that stopping now will save us all time for doing something more constructive than arguing what is normally taken for granted. Good day. Waltham, The Duke of 06:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
(left) But does Dycedarg understand that this section, vague though it is,
  • Supports some hyphens: but a hyphen is used in Mon-Khmer languages, which marks no specific relationship, and in Sino-Japanese trade, in which Sino-, being a prefix, lacks lexical independence.
  • And that we failed, the last time we discussed this, to decide exactly where the line should be drawn.
This seems a most undesirable situation to address with a bot. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
As long as each case is checked, I see no problem. The wording was made clearer a few months ago: is it still unclear? I can provide a private lesson for you, Manderson, if you wish. TONY (talk) 13:32, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Ooh, thanks, Tony; you're so kind! Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:18, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

But quite seriously, the present wording is the undefined term disjunctive with a list of examples. We concluded, last time we were asked, that we weren't sure exactly why Mon-Khmer was hyphenated, and we'd have to wait for Noetica to decide how far that example extends. Is this clarity, or is it mud? (But as long as the bot doesn't work faster than it can be watched, that may work in practice.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:18, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

I was just complaining to Waltham that examples in WP:DASH need improvement, but I think en-dashes should be required. There is a good reason why MS Word automatically corrects them. They are a sign of a good, academic writing and should be enforced. Renata (talk) 20:02, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
(edit conflict) We have long drifted off-topic. As long as neither the policy status of the naming conventions nor the appropriateness and utility of en dashes in year ranges is disputed, nothing changes for the bot; all it does is to "convert" hyphens to en dashes in year ranges. If people want to discuss the particulars of the guideline on en dashes, very well; but it should be made clear that the bot may resume its operation undisturbed. Waltham, The Duke of 20:07, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Which bot is it?
  • Are its operations to be confined to year-ranges? This is the first anybody's said so here, and it's not where this topic began. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:37, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
The bot in question is DyceBot, and yes, its operations are to be confined to year-ranges. Nothing else has been discussed yet. Personally, I feel that we have a very long way to go until the moment when robots will be sophisticated enough to successfully edit text (if they ever will); it would require a tremendous degree of analysis and I should want to see extensive materials samples of its ability to do such a task before supporting it. Words have a meaning, which differs from case to case, as does dash usage, and unless one can understand the meaning of the words, one cannot make accurate evaluations as to whether a hyphen or en dash should be used in a title. This is not true for number ranges, however, as all of them need en dashes. It is a very sweeping rule. And given that there are hardly any numbers in titles connected by dashes that are not ranges requiring en dashes, it is only once in a while that a false positive will surface. That is a risk that we can take, if we can reach general consistency earlier and with less human resources expended in so tedious a task as moving pages. Waltham, The Duke of 01:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Then that should be less of a problem. Most date ranges will be in parenthetical disambiguation, which nobody will be expected to search for. Can it create redirects with hyphens where they don't now exist too? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:33, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I have no idea, but I suppose not; redirects are created as a result of moves, and the bot mostly does that. I assume that, for articles created straight with the en-dash version, someone must create the redirects as well, if not at the same time then soon, realising that using the hyphen takes them to a search page.
Meanwhile, I should like to express my disappointment at you for trying to circumvent the consensus here; failing to change the guideline in MoS, you are now trying to have the policy on article-naming changed. I believe this is exactly the kind of behaviour the term forum shopping has been coined to describe. Waltham, The Duke of 04:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I regret disappointing Your Grace; but in fact this is precisely what Dycedarg envisioned above; I think the old wording on WP:NC less than ideal, and I took it there, citing this discussion. We'll see what happens. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:13, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
What? Whereon do you found this assertion? The man said: "If you don't like the statement 'For use of hyphens, dashes and hair spaces in page names, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes).' than get it changed." I should hardly refer to such a statement as a "vision", and it is highly misleading of you to do so. Waltham, The Duke of 00:12, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
His Grace should be preparing for His exams, not tangling with Anderson. TONY (talk) 05:42, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't like it (as I said there, I doubt hair spaces belong in titles at all); I brought it up for discussion, and it is now different, although I don't see a great change in policy. I will be glad to discuss this with His Grace when exams are over, and I wish him fortune. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:02, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
Too late. :-)
Fresh motion for closure: if no well-founded objection is filed by the end of the current month, I am removing the disputed tag on 1 July. PMAnderson has taken the matter to the policy page, anyway. Waltham, The Duke of 20:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Does "too late" mean that His Grace has failed His exams, or just that the exam period is over? TONY (talk) 08:16, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Too late not to tangle with Anderson. :-) The exams are almost over, and the results are mixed. They would be much better if I were to be examined on Wikipedia-related matters, but nobody is that lucky. Waltham, The Duke of 05:23, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I have removed the tag. This discussion is officially closed. Waltham, The Duke of 08:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Query

Edit mode toolbar


Insert: –(endash) —(emdash) ... ‘ “ ’ ” ° ″ ′ ≈ ≠ ≤ ≥ ± − (minus sign minutely larger than the hyphen) × ÷ ← → · § Sign your username: ~~~~ (on talk pages)


Am I right? Or have I misunderstood

  • [—] ie. Emdash = The long dash in the edit mode is emdash and can also be obtained by typing &mdash;
  • There are other ways of entering an emdash directly from your keyboard, described at Dash. They aren't all listed in MoS because the method differs depending on your system. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Never spaced
Usage: Wikipedia—one of the most popular web sites—has the information you need
  • [–] ie. Endash = Also available in the edit toolbar or type &ndash;
  • Same for above; for example, both of these (en and emdash) can also be entered from Internet Explorer by using an alt keypad combo of 0150 or 0151. Depends on your browser; see Dash. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:29, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
    • Mainly for disjunction
    • Spaced or unspaced
Usage: pp. 12–45
  • [-] = Hyphen = Available on the keyboard.
  • To join words and to separate syllables.
    • Never spaced
Usage: non-violence (word), atti-tude (syllable)

Now the queries

  • When to use spaces while using endash? (WP:MOS#Dashes is not clear to me)
  • How to use the space? Whether the html entity &nbsp; or the spacebar space?

KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 15:25, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Personally I space the en dash when it's used to separate parts of sentences (i.e. in the role which can also be performed by an unspaced em dash). Also in a few special cases like 1 January 1999 – 2 February 2004. Otherwise it generally shouldn't be spaced. I believe it's recommended to use a no-break space before the dash, but a spacebar (breaking) space after.
Only if it actually breaks wrongly, which will rarely happen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:57, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
By the way, can anyone refer to a dictionary definition of "disjunction" which shows that it means what it's supposed to mean in the en-dash recommendation? It doesn't seem to fit any of the normal meanings of the word.--Kotniski (talk) 16:43, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Disjunction does not have to involve an OR; the OED's first, general, definition is The action of disjoining or condition of being disjoined; separation, disconnexion, disunion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:00, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Meaning that we write "Mexican–American War" because wars tend to disunify, and "blood–brain barrier" because barriers tend to separate? But would we not equally be urged to write "Mexican–American Union" and "blood–brain coalescence", if such concepts existed, despite the lack of any implication of disconnexion?--Kotniski (talk) 18:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
I think that's the intent: Mexico and the United States, bloodstream and brain, are two pairs of disjoint things. As I read the section, it might encourage hyphens in your second examples. But do remember that I oppose the section as vague nonsense, and this sort of thing is why the endash, a printer's invention, is re-uniting with the hyphen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:19, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Or Tony1–Manderson sniping. TONY (talk) 13:48, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Sure: "blood–brain barrier", "Mexican–American War", "3–1 win". But as below, if there's a space within one or both of the items, the en dash needs to be spaced: "3 August 1980 – 15 September 1991", but "3–7 August". TONY (talk) 17:45, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Requirements for nbsp are discussed at WP:NBSP. When the surrounding elements have spaces (such as full dates), the endash is spaced. Example:
  • 1950–1951 (unspaced endash because no spaces in surrounding elements)
  • July 1950 – June 1951 (spaced endash because of spaces in surrounding elements)
Also, any of the methods for entering the correct dash can be used interchangeably (there was a recent FAC where it was stated that an html endash must be used, and the nominator unnecessarily replaced all of the correct endashes with html endashes. This wasn't necessary; any input method can be used, as long as the correct dash results. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:33, 24 June 2008 (UTC)
Well now I feel a bit more confident about dashes! Sandy ain't the FAC delegate for no reason. She knows a lot of stuff! KnowledgeHegemonyPart2 (talk) 17:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Unnecessary pictures

Quick question: Where's the guideline that says "don't use pictures if they don't add anything to the article"? Thanks, Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 16:01, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

WP:OFFTOPIC. I doubt it says anything about images in particular, but does it have to? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
Anderson's link is useful. But we have the warning in FA Criterion 3 already: "It has images and other media where they are appropriate" (my italics). FL Criterion 6 says "it has images if they are appropriate to the subject". We're safe! TONY (talk) 17:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
It should be common sense. Images are visual cues for the reader that tell them their attention is needed. Why disrupt their reading for decorations? --Laser brain (talk) 17:42, 25 June 2008 (UTC)
I should like to note that, while FA criteria may give an idea of what great articles should be like, they do not have guideline status. For future reference. Waltham, The Duke of 04:56, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
His Grace makes a good point; I answered as though this were FAC talk. Matthew, do you have examples of overuse and/or gratuitous/unnecessary use? TONY (talk) 08:45, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
This revision, of gold, silver and bronze pictures in the tables. They've been removed now, but something to reference when this thing occurs would be helpful, especially when not dealing with FAC/FLCs. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 20:12, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
I don't know what Laser Brain will think, but those look like visual cues to the reader to me. If there is consensus they're clutter in these tables, fine; but it doesn't look like we need guidance for this matter of taste. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:51, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

←I agree with Anderson that this is hard to pin down in a guideline. People, reviewers, can appeal to common sense and the disadvantages of visual clutter to persuade, yes? TONY (talk) 05:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

Sometimes it's useful to have one or two "artistic" pictures relevant to the topic, which may not be as informational as others, simply to create an impression of quality. There is consensus on not including decorative fair-use images, since this risks falling afoul of fair use law. Dcoetzee 00:39, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Block quotes: four lines or four sentences?

The following issue came up during the peer review of Golden Film. What is meant in the following phrase: "A long quote (more than four lines, or consisting of more than one paragraph, regardless of number of lines) is formatted as a block quotation, which Wikimedia's software will indent from both margins." More than four lines doesn't make sense, since this depends on your browser window size and display type. More than four sentences would make sense, since this is calculable by counting full stops and question marks. – Ilse@ 16:41, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Presumably what is intended is more than four lines of standard text (somewhere around 300 characters), but what do we want to say? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
It's not well worded, is it. "(four or more lines, or a paragraph of any length)"? I suspect that the intention was not "five or more", which is the current indication; people often write "over 18 years old" to mean "at least 18 years old", and this may suffer from the same looseness. TONY (talk) 08:49, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
The last time we talked about this, I was talking to myself, as I recall. I see 1.5- and 2-line block quotations in magazines all the time, though never in newspapers. I wouldn't mind a guideline that says something like this: "A general principle of layout is that a little white space is fine and a lot of white space is not. If there are blank lines nearby, then (repeat current guideline). If there are no blank lines nearby, then block quotations that are two lines or more in most browsers are fine, if you want to draw attention to the quotation." - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:33, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

No break dashes

Similar to how we use nbsp for say "22 miles", is there an nb-dash for "1992–present" so they appear on the same line? Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 17:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

A "prevent line-break" function? I doubt it. You're raising this because of frequent line-breaks of this type of expression in tables at FLC? I'm not surprised, but a solution may lie in getting tough on the management of column widths instead. PS, I think "22 miles" now doesn't need the hard-space. See Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Non-breaking_spaces, which was changed last month. TONY (talk) 08:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Partly for tables, but also for prose where the first year of a span is on one line and the second on another. Matthewedwards (talk • contribs • email) 20:08, 27 June 2008 (UTC)
Not such a problem in running prose, is it? After all, numbers followed by an unspaced en dash at line's end flag a range to the reader. TONY (talk) 05:45, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

If needed, there is {{nowrap}}. JIMp talk·cont 04:42, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Navbox section request

I've just come from the help desk after answering a question about infoboxes and nav boxes (you can see that here). Whilst I was able to find a MOS section on Info boxes, information about Nav boxes is rather limited and hard to find - it took several minutes of searching before I found the section Template:Navbox. Is there a guideline page about how and where to use such boxes as there is for the info box? If so, could you add the link to it to the MOS contents page? Also, could you please add to the information I gave at the Help Desk, as I fear that I may not have given enough information. Thanks! StephenBuxton (talk) 11:17, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

I fear that there is not much to see here; both navboxes and succession boxes are relatively unregulated (with the former slightly better-off). The one basic guideline concerns the navboxes' position, and can be found here. You might also be interested in the comparative study of categories, lists, and navboxes. I don't think there is anything else about navboxes in the guidelines. Wait for a second opinion, though; I don't know the guidelines by heart. Waltham, The Duke of 10:50, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

k. d. lang

See Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Capitalisation. Whether or not to capitalize all proper nouns comes up from time to time. The current vote is 3-0 in favor of "k. d. lang" on the talk page. My understanding is that the only current exceptions to capitalizing a proper noun are for a few companies that have a trademark capitalizing the second letter, such as iPod. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 16:13, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

My feeling is that kd is in the same boat as iPod, and that the exceptions should be widened. TONY (talk) 08:21, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
We've got consensus agreeing with you, it looks like. With permission, I'll copy your input over there, to keep the !votes in one place. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:08, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Names of articles in multiple languages and bolding in the lead section

Posted at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and Wikipedia talk:Lead section I have a question about bolding the name in the lead section of an article. At Kosovan Serb Assembly, I have put that name in bold as well as the two Serbian spellings of the name in its original language. Is this proper, or should only the English name be in bold? Please respond on my talk. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:21, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Administrative divisions of a country

What are the procedures for referring to an administrative division of a country. Should we name the administrative division with a comma then the country or should we just put the name of the admministrative division? Is it Alabama, USA or just New York? Is it Alsace, France or just Alsace? Can you point me to whether there is a style guide for something like this? Pocopocopocopoco (talk) 03:41, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I believe that this is not as much a matter of style as it is a matter of context; if there is a strong national context in an article, then the country is usually redundant. And so on. This is mostly an editorial decision. That said, a certain consistency should exist within each article, as usual. Now, what could be regulated by the Manual of Style is something like this dilemma: [[Portland, Oregon]] versus [[Portland, Oregon|Portland]], [[Oregon]]. I don't think I've ever seen any relevant guideline, although the latter option seems to be preferred (so that the state may be included), and I've even seen a template creating it, {{city-state}}. Perhaps the existence of other, similar templates could indicate the trend for such cases; I shouldn't know. Maybe some one else here does. Waltham, The Duke of 04:00, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Yes, context, definitely, and hard to legislate on. But please, let's remember that we're not writing addresses on envelopes according to postal conventions: where a place is well-known to English-speakers, avoid the humdrum trotting out the ever larger concentric circles around a location. "Paris, France" is tedious. Alsace might need contextualising, though. TONY (talk) 08:20, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
More to the point, unless there is some special reasion (a list of capitals, or being explicitly contrasted with Paris, Texas), it is redundant and unidiomatic.
I find [[Portland, Oregon|Portland]], [[Oregon]] a useless tic; Portland, Oregon is the name of the article, and it links to Oregon if anybody wants to go there. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:57, 29 June 2008 (UTC)
Agree with all of that. Sometimes you'll need a good copyeditor on this one, but just try to put yourself in the shoes of the likely reader for the article and ask yourself what they're likely to need to be told. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:03, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Ambiguity regarding references to articles about people with initials in their name

I had inquired at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Naming_.28and_referring_to.29_articles_about_people_with_initials_as_their_.22common.22_first_name as to a clarification about naming (and referring to) articles about people with initials in their name. The current Wikipedia convention is to use a full stop after each initial, correct? That seemed to be the consensus at the Pump, but it was suggested I bring it up here so the MOS can clarify the Wikipedia policy. Thoughts? — X96lee15 (talk) 02:10, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes. WP:NAME (or is it WP:Naming conventions (people)?) gives "H. G. Wells" as an example. And WP:NAME is policy; we grovel in its presence. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:58, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
The simple problem is that we kneel before an example; there is no actual guideline regulating initials. Which is why we still have cases of unspaced initials. On the Village Pump discussion it has been mentioned that it is a matter of common usage whether to apply spaces or not between the initials; I consider it strictly a matter of punctuation, where house rules should apply. D.J. White is wrong because D.J. is not an acronym, and the cases where it should be allowed not to have spaces after full stops should be very limited indeed. Waltham, The Duke of 09:49, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Simple, logical, I like it. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:44, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

When one comes from two different countries, how do you spell it?

The politically correct term for describing people of mixed descent eludes me at the moment. In any case, I am unsure as to the precise hyphenation practices of compounds like African-American. I have not managed to find a relevant guideline in the Manual, and unless there is one which I have failed to locate, it seems to me that this is an omission which should be taken care of; especially considering that I have received intelligence according to which the articles concerning such terms are inconsistent in their spelling. Please advise. Waltham, The Duke of 10:26, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Hyphenation is customary; I am not surprised that the unfortunate manner in which WP:MOSDASH is used in reviews has led to hypercorrection. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:32, 30 June 2008 (UTC)
Noetica corrected me the other day: it's "African–American". Manderson, you won't see the difference because you insist on displaying a funny font. TONY (talk)
Take a look at Hyphenated American Roger (talk) 12:42, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
At least hyphenating is light-years ahead of no hyphen, which I saw recently. This article is embedded in the typewriter and pre-typewriter era, of course. Standards have risen since. TONY (talk) 13:59, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
AP Stylebook and NYTM both use a hyphen in African-American, and I have never (until now) seen it with an en-dash. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 14:43, 1 July 2008 (UTC)
  • Noetica needs to be horse-whipped, then. TONY