Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 178

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Looking for MOS of Talkpages

I am looking for an MOS of Talkpages. BTW while looking I found this instead Help:MOS - which I believe needs some work - don't you? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 14:29, 2 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

See WP:TALK and WP:INDENT and WP:THREAD.—Wavelength (talk) 16:32, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Right. Those are as close as you'll get. MoS applies to encyclopedia content, not talk pages.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

@Wavelength and SMcCandlish: what I had in mind is something like MOS for talk-pages: for example should wikiproject banners appear before or after oldxfd templates etc. Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 16:50, 8 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

I'd raise the issue at WT:TALK. It's not an MoS matter. MoS is about mainspace content.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:08, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Help:Mos looks like interestingly obscure help pages. Looks like one guy's 3-week project from 2010, hopelessly incomplete and out of date. What would you propose doing with it? Dicklyon (talk) 17:18, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

That Help page may indeed need some work; however, it should be remembered that it is part of a series of Help pages, as seen at the bottom of the /5 page and at H:GS. Happy New Year! Paine  19:47, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

User:Tony1/Beginners' guide to the Manual of Style would make sense as a replacement for Help:MOS. The incomplete one is not very helpful, and its tabular navigation is almost unusable (you have to click exactly on a single character).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Daria Gleissner

Consensus at Talk:Daria Gleissner was to keep the Gleissner instead of Gleißner. However, I have noticed several other wikipedia articles whose titles include ß (Marith Prießen, Nadine Keßler, Verena Faißt, Lena Goeßling, Lisa Weiß, Jennifer Harß, etc). Should they all be changed to ss, or should Daria Gleissner be changed to Gleißner. I think they should either all be ß or all be ss. Joeykai (talk) 09:34, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Comment my preference is for "ss" consistently, but this does raise the perennial issue of how far we anglicize the spelling of foreign names, and there seems to be no consensus on this. For a somewhat more extreme example, we have Võ Nguyên Giáp, Battle of Nà Sản and Điện Biên Phủ, but Battle of Dien Bien Phu and Ho Chi Minh (not "Hồ Chí Minh"). So the default seems to be article-by-article consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:44, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Should be ss, because English-language sources consistently use that. The ß character isn't a diacritic, so the diacritics rationale doesn't apply to it. There are a few other characters (Icelandic, etc.) that probably also need to be addressed.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:10, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

The (or one) relevant section of the MoS states

"Foreign proper names written in languages which use the Latin alphabet can include characters with diacritics, ligatures and others that are not commonly used in present-day English. Wikipedia normally retains these special characters, except where there is a well-established English spelling that replaces them with English standard letters."

Formatting for clarity, I presume it is to be understood as

"Foreign proper names written in languages which use the Latin alphabet can include

1. characters with diacritics,
2. ligatures and
3. others

that are not commonly used in present-day English.

Wikipedia normally retains these special characters, except where there is a well-established English spelling that replaces them with English standard letters."

Though "others" is apparently intended to mean other special Latin characters, such as ß (LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S, Unicode 00DF) and Þ (LATIN SMALL LETTER THORN, Unicode 00FE), the way the sentence is formulated, it is not really coherent English.

At the very least, it is not a model of clarity, so it probably needs rewording.

--Boson (talk) 23:49, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

See German orthography reform of 1996#Sounds and letters: "ß and ss".

—Wavelength (talk) 23:54, 8 January 2016 (UTC)

Template:Infobox US university ranking

There is a discussion about a possible formatting change to {{Infobox US university ranking}}, here. It was suggested that I get MOS input. ―Mandruss ☎ 03:55, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

endash and ranges

(not a native speaker) I wonder if endash means a range? I have often seen articles moved from e.g. hydrogen-sodium protein to hydrogen–sodium protein (made up example to make it clear) with the reason WP:ENDASH. But I read that as a range, e.g. hydrogen, lithium, sodium protein. Any comment? Christian75 (talk) 06:39, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

The en dash has many more uses than ranges. Many style guides specify it for chemical bonds, for example. More generally, it connects things that are similar or symmetric, e.g. the termini of a bridge, the sides of a border, the ends of a route, the ends of a range. A hyphen, on the other hand, suggests that the first modifies the second, as in a "second-hand store". Dicklyon (talk) 06:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

A tool for converting capitalized section headings

See the section "Section headings".

Often times one comes across articles which have all or most of their section headers capitalized. As of right now one has to change those manually one by one. In these cases instead of this a simple tool to lowercase all section headings would be more efficient. One would only have to look through all headers to check if there's some book title or alike in there that's actually supposed to be capitalized. I'm not sure if such a tool already exists - if it doesn't this is simply a suggestion for a new tool (or the extension of an existing one).

--Fixuture (talk) 23:53, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

degrees Kelvin

See the featured article section of WP:ERRORS. Does any MOS page have something to say about "degrees Kelvin"? I'd also be open to dropping the "Kelvin", and linking "degrees" to Kelvin, if that would help. - Dank (push to talk) 05:15, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Errors in use of SI unit#Unit names are not a matter of style. Dicklyon (talk) 05:29, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Or perhaps I'm too hasty, after ready Dank's comments there. I'd say that WP style is, or should be, to use SI unit names correctly per the prescriptions of the BIPM since 1968: [1]. I've never seen anything in WP suggesting otherwise. Dicklyon (talk) 05:35, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Going with kelvin, still interested in feedback. - Dank (push to talk) 06:30, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Here's a bit of feedback: "degrees kelvin" is always incorrect and should never be used. Period. The unit's name is the kelvin. It is not a disambiguator to indicate which scale, it is a fixed quantity in and of itself. If you ever see "degrees kelvin" in an article, fix it immediately. oknazevad (talk) 18:44, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

PS, dropping "kelvin" and linking "degrees" to kelvin is ass backwards, sorry.

PS, this isn't a style issue, it's a factual issue. oknazevad (talk) 18:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks, the answers have been loud and clear. - Dank (push to talk) 18:56, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Seems to have been resolved. Just to confirm there's a degree Celsius and a degree Fahrenheit, but degree Kelvin? No way. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 20:38, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Yes. - Dank (push to talk) 20:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Concur it's a factual matter, though MOS:NUM also addresses this already.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:57, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Wavelength and "at five years old"

I noticed this morning on the Tim Buckley album that User:Wavelength had corrected "at five years old he began listening to his mother's progressive jazz recordings" to "at the age of five years he began listening...", with the edit summary "(rewording: "five years old" (adjective phrase) —> "the age of five years" (noun phrase) after "at" (preposition))" and I reverted it because "at five years old" is perfectly good English, and "at the age of five years" is awkward, not at all how a native speaker of English would express it. We might say "at the age of five", but "at the age of five years" is rarely heard. I looked at the user's contributions page, and it seems he/she has been making scores of similar edits over the last few days, removing "x years old" and replacing it with "the age of x years", with the same rationale. Looking at Wavelength's user page suggests someone for whom English may be a second language, and who has an interest in the Manual of Style. Perhaps someone with some standing here might have a word? --Nicknack009 (talk) 10:18, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

I am a native speaker of English, but my editing is more prescriptivist ("by the book") than descriptivist ("by the street").

—Wavelength (talk) 16:39, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

There are other editors who use the form "at the age of ... years".

• "at the age of six years": 41 search results
• "at the age of seven years": 44 search results
• "at the age of eight years": 49 search results
• "at the age of nine years": 42 search results
• "at the age of ten years": 32 search results

—Wavelength (talk) 20:19, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

IMO, it's more important to sound natural to a native speaker than to be strictly correct, especially when that strict correctness is itself a matter of opinion. We're not talking about slang here, and both "at the age of five" and "at five years old" sound more natural to my native ear than "at the age of five years". Also IMO, if someone makes widespread edits of this kind, they shouldn't object to equally widespread reverts per WP:BRD. ―Mandruss ☎ 21:32, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Wavelength, your searches show that others have used the phrase, but don't show that others have used it well in the context of good English writing.

For example, the second article in your search for "at the age of six years", Julia Willand, uses it in the following context: "Willand was born in Nuremberg, West Germany, and came at the age of six years with her family to South Africa." That looks very like a literal translation from German, and certainly isn't good idiomatic English. Likewise for another German, Marc Zwiebler, who "started at the age of six years to play badminton", or Sabina of Bavaria, who "was promised at the age of six years for strategic reasons by her uncle, King Maximilian I, to Ulrich of Württemberg".

Another example is Björn Runström: "He started playing football for Enskede IK at the age of six years, Runström's time in Enskede went well and at the age of 12 years he was rewarded with a move to a bigger club; Hammarby." I don't know any Swedish so I don't know if there's a translation issue, but that's a run-on sentence with a misused semi-colon, so it's not good English. Or we have the fictional character Sam Vimes, who "was born at the end of the events in Night Watch, is about fourteen months old by the time of Thud!, and at the age of six years by the time of the events of Snuff", another pretty rotten bit of writing, with "at the age of six years" being the most egregious part of it. The first example in your "at the age of seven years" search is Ralph Evans (boxer), where it appears in the sentence "At the age of seven years the family moved to Waterlooville, Hampshire, where later his father set up and ran the Waterlooville boxing club (still in existence today)." That's a pretty badly written sentence, quite apart from the phrase in question.

"At the age of x years" is poor writing. If the grammatical rule you are attempting to apply leads to poor writing, then either it's a bad rule and should be discarded, or it is misunderstood or misapplied, leading to hypercorrection. --Nicknack009 (talk) 22:18, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Nicknack009, your second paragraph mentions three articles, and the expression "at the age of six years" is used correctly in each of the excerpts you cited. (I would use such forms in a letter or in a résumé or in a speech or in a telephone conversation, and perhaps I already have done so.) Your third paragraph mentions three articles, of which the first uses the prepositional phrase "at the age of six years" correctly, despite the misused semicolon. The second one uses the same phrase incorrectly. The third one uses the phrase "at the age of seven years" incorrectly, because it is a dangling modifier. Please see Modifier Placement.

Although it has been used incorrectly in some articles, the phrase itself is correct English and naturally agrees with the principle that a preposition should be followed by a noun or a noun phrase or a pronoun or a nominalized adjective. If the incorrect form ("five years old" after "at") seems natural to you, then probably you have been influenced by people who have not learned how to use prepositions correctly.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:01, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm going to play you at your own game, not because I agree with it but because it's the only way I'm likely to get through to you. You say a preposition must be followed by a noun a noun phrase, a pronoun, or a nominalised adjective. Your edit summaries show you object to "at x years old" because "x years old" is an adjective phrase. So: it's a nominalised adjective phrase! Problem solved.

However. This section of Wikipedia is the Manual of Style, not the Manual of Grammatical Correctness. We are not discussing which of "at the age of x", "at the age of x years", or "at x years old" is grammatically correct, we're discussing whether they're good style. Language is not a branch of logic, it's an art form, and whether or not something is well written is not solely determined by whether it conforms to a set of rules. If you want a phrase that does conform to your set of rules, whatever authority they have, then "at the age of x" is better style than "at the age of x years", because it reads like actual English rather than a word-for-word translation from another language or a hypercorrection. However, "at x years old" is perfectly good style, and there is no need for an indiscriminate campaign to replace it in every instance, particularly not with a phrase that is bad style. --Nicknack009 (talk) 10:15, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I tend to agree with User:Nicknack009 both on the broader principles and the specific phrasing in question. If Wavelength could point others to a definitive rulebook on how to use or not use prepositions that supports their proposition, especially in this context, rather than simply asserting certain uses are wrong, that would help. In reality, there is nothing "wrong" with any of the formulations in standard, idiomatic English. "At the age of three" or "At three years old" are fine. As a matter of style, my eyes and ears happen to find "At the age of three years" to be at the clunkier end of phrasing; there's certainly nothing to be gained from making mass bot-style changes to impose that construction – or indeed any rigid, uniform construction – across multiple pages. N-HH talk/edits 12:34, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I too agree with User:Nicknack009: what we need in Wikipedia is good English. Not a slavish adherence to theoretical rules of grammar, but language which is considered appropriate by the majority of educated native speakers in the context of writing for an encyclopedia. "At the age of five years old" reads like translated text, perhaps from French. It is not natural English. Certainly no-one should be bulk editing to change other editors' choice of language from "At the age of five" to the inferior "At the age of five years". @Wavelength: Please stop making these changes. Thanks. PamD 13:06, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"At five years old" and "at the age of five years" are both correct and intelligible English. We don't need to choose between being fluid and being correct. Both purposes are served with both phrases. They're so similar to each other that I had to read them over and over to detect any difference in fluidity. I see "At five years old" as a little better but not critically so. Why is this an issue? It's an editorial decision, not a rule-based decision. Just hash it out on the article's talk page with other editors who've worked on the article. Darkfrog24 (talk) 23:40, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

"At five years old he began ..." requires a comma after "old", but is otherwise idiomatically fine in English, as would be the shorter version "At five, he began ...". However, "At the age of five, he began ..." is more formal and surely preferable. But "At the age of five years, he began ..." is pointlessly redundant, and not normal English. We don't count people's ages in other than years (except for infants, in which case we specify days, weeks or months), so there is no need to add that (this is why "At five, he began ..." is also workable). Zero editors will ever think either shorter construction meant "at the age of five weeks", etc.; just leave the "years" off. I concur with the observations above that the "at the age of X years ..." examples look like poor translation, not native English. It has the same clumsy character as constructions like "the employer for whom she is doing a job" and "the 17th day of the month of July". Editors should not be making mass-scale fiddly changes like Wavelength's even if they're convinced they're right, since nothing is actually wrong with the other constructions, and multiple editors object to his long-winded and redundant version. I'm pretty sure there's a guideline about this somewhere, but I forget the shortcut (both WP:NOTBROKE and WP:DONTFIX cover specific cases of it, but not the general principle; someone jog my memory please).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:22, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Comment: "At five" is perfectly fine English, understood by everyone, and requires fewer words. I like fewer words. Popcornduff (talk) 03:29, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

• Comment. Not to play like in too much, but this sounds to me like someone who takes the idea that good writing follows the rules of grammatical construction a little too far. That is normally true, but not when it results in unidiomatic writing; I think we can all agree that the English language is a bit funny when it comes to keeping to its own rules. "At five", "at age five", "at the age of five" and "at five years old" are all perfectly valid, idiomatic English constructions and none should be changed into "at the age of five years", which is unidiomatic and over-pedantic. Indeed, it's exactly the sort of straining for formality that the the MOS warns against. oknazevad (talk) 06:55, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

Looking for MOS of Talkpages

(Second go - I tried this before here on 2 January 2016, but was instructed to post my question at WT:TALK which I did on 9 January 2016, but there is no discussion AT ALL there)

Are there absolutely no MOS rules for talkpage anywhere on Wikpedia? Can anyone decide in what order to place items such as oldXfD/DYK/etc templates, wikiproject banners, user comments? Thanks in advance, Ottawahitech (talk) 01:51, 18 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me

WP:TALK has the guidelines for talk pages. Sorry there's no action on its talk page. Dicklyon (talk) 02:04, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

• @Ottawahitech, re: your second question, Wikipedia:Talk page layout should have what you want czar 02:32, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

double vs. single quotes

I notice that WP:MOS#Reasons to prefer double quotation marks to single quotation marks is different than it was a year ago (when it said "... double rather than single quotation marks as primary" [are recommended]). Now (and for most of this year), it says they're recommended for quotes: "In most primary or top-level quotes double rather than single quotation should be used." But then it gives an example that isn't a quote:

Searches for "must see" attractions may fail to find 'must see' attractions.

So, which is it? Does MOS recommend double quote marks (except for quotes-within-quotes and a handful of specific exceptions) for all the usual uses of quote marks, or only recommend them for quoted material? (I'll be happy either way, I just need to know.) - Dank (push to talk) 04:05, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

I've heard no change from the advice, nor noticed any. Not sure who has been hacking on the "reasons" section. Ah, here is the problem. See if you can patch it. Dicklyon (talk) 05:42, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for researching that. Although some clarification at WP:MOS would be nice, I can live with it as is (since the example given makes the point clear, I think), as long as I know how people interpret it here at WT:MOS ... I know that in the articles I've copyedited the past year for FAC, there's been no change in practice. I was reverted in some work I did at FAC yesterday, and I want to make sure I'm on solid ground before I say anything. - Dank (push to talk) 15:10, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

It's recommended in general, not just for quotations in the literal sense. There are exceptions, such as non-interlinear glosses, that we already cover. We definitely are not implying that people should use double quotation marks for quotations and single ones for 'scare quotes', or something to this effect, though incautious changes to the wording have probably made this less clear. I'm not sure whether we should just revert to the older wording, or fix the current wording in some way, but the current wording is clearly problematic.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:02, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

BTW, The New Hacker's Dictionary (a.k.a. the Jargon File) is the primary vector for the usage of single quotes for 'scare quotes' with double quotes for "quotations". It claims that "some authorities describe this as correct general usage", but I've yet to run into a style guide that does so. Anyone ever seen one? We should probably document this at Quotation marks in English. My suspicion is that the book/file isn't lying, but that the sources in question are old ones.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:16, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Can we get a definitive list of geographic entities not to link?

I feel like editors are not linking to many counties and sub national areas that aren't common knowledge to people, for example I've seen Uttar Pradesh and Cambodia unlinked on major articles before. Heck, I wouldn't even be surprised if over half of the world's population is unable to identify France on a map, even though the guidelines tell us not to link it.--Prisencolin (talk) 02:03, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

No, just in the US. Most civilized countries have reasonable education systems. Guidelines would be nice, but this seems to be the wrong venue to discuss it. WP:OVERLINK is not part of the MOS.... — Arthur Rubin (talk) 21:00, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, as it points to WP:MOSLINK, it is part of the MOS, albeit on a subpage. And, frankly, what chuffs me in regards to some of the delinking in regards to OVERLINK is the assumption that all English speakers know the same geographic knowledge, which only reinforces WP:SYSTEMICBIAS, while at the same time making assumptions about the importance of some places over others to all English speakers. Plus the removal of definitional links, that is removal of links to places that are of key relevance to the article in question just because it's an OVERLINK elsewhere. But that's something I've long had a problem with: editors who systematically remove all links to a place (often with a script assist) regardless of the appropriateness to that particular article. oknazevad (talk) 03:21, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

It totally depends on context and should not be done with a script. Some are a little too zealous over OVERLINK ... Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:47, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Somehow I managed to click on the wrong talk page, darn my American education has failed me again.--Prisencolin (talk) 21:13, 20 January 2016 (UTC)

There's a been a lot of conflict about this over the years, and it's not even always about the same thing. Some of the views I've encountered:

• We should always link every location on first occurrence in a page.
• We should always link every location at each "major occurrence" in a page (e.g. in the lead, in the infobox, in image captions that stand alone content-wise from the section in which they appear, in the first occurrence in a table, on first appearance in a section that is redirected to and might be a stand-alone article at some point, after several sections (or even just one section) has gone by since the last time it was linked, on first occurrence in a reference citation, etc., etc.
• In tandem with one of the above viewpoints: We should link every part of the location name separately (Chicago, Illinois, United States), because each is independently notable and of severable interest to the reader.
  • And we should always include in full and link every part (as just shown).
  • Or, we should include (and sometimes abbreviate) but not link anything we think is obvious to the average en.wiki reader (perhaps based on WP:PRIMARYTOPIC): Chicago, Illinois, US
  • Or, we should elide anything we think is obvious to the average en.wiki reader: Chicago.
• In tandem with one of the above viewpoints: We should use only one link per location (Chicago, Illinois, United States), because in that particular context the average reader only cares about the location as a unitary entity.
  • And we should elide anything we think is obvious to the average en.wiki reader: Chicago.
  • And we should even de-link the obvious ones, because the purpose of these links is identification, not rat-holing readers away into mostly off-topic geographical articles: Chicago.
• We should never link locations in reference citations, because every link added to a ref that isn't to the source or to an article on the author of it is basically an annoying distraction.
• We should always link every location in every single reference citation, because each citation should be treated as a discrete entity, like a stand-alone document.
• We should not link (maybe not even include at all) more than the first occurrence of a location in citations (and elide "understood" parts, the way most citation styles do); if the source order changes, some gnome will fix it later.
• And so on; there are probably at least half a dozen additional views on this. They can even vary depending on whether it's in the lead/infobox or in the body, etc. Personally, I'm not 100% certain it's safe to assume that everyone vaguely familiar with, say, North American placenames can remember if they're US or Canadian. How many non-Europeans will score 100% on a test asking them to name the countries in which are found Sofia, Prague, Minsk, Bucharest, Budapest, Vienna, Samara, Belgrade, Cologne, Zagreb, Riga, Rotterdam, Tallinn, Aarhus, Catania, and Castile and León? How many Europeans will, for that matter?

  One can hold multiple views about this simultaneously. E.g., one might want to see full listing with full linking in the infobox, full listing with one link in the lead, and lack of redundant linking and specificity in the body (unless in a section linked to from an {{R with possibilities}}); plus for references only consistent "City, Country" (or "City, State, Country") versions with no linking; and always using "US" and "UK" abbreviations. Or whatever.

  I think it's multiple questions at once, and we should probably work toward answering them in a way that keeps the maximum number of readers happy by addressing actual reader needs, contextually. A one-approach-fits-all-situations attitude is why date linking and auto-formatting turned from an experimental idea into a huge mess, a nasty fight, an ArbCom case, repeat RfCs, and a mass de-linking that was controversial despite the RfCs and other discussions (especially since it took auto-formatting with it). Use of automated tools to link or de-link this sort of thing sounds like a bad idea to me.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:29, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

Seems "Chicago, Illinois" is already covered by WP:SEAOFBLUE.—Bagumba (talk) 23:08, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

• This whole thing is damned nonsense and always has been damned nonsense, one of the childhood diseases of WP. (Note that "childhood diseases" have long been among the major killers in human society, generally exceeding war for example. Draw a few of your own analogies as preferred.) The linkage issue has long ago degenerated into obsessive WP:SEAOFBLUE zealots exploiting weaknesses in the system and indulging their distaste for highlighting of any sort, where some participants sabotage any linking whatsoever, some sabotage linking on the assumption that they themselves could not possibly mistake the reason to show a link , and therefore no one else would have a right to desire a link, and some on the assumption that if they dislike blue, no one else should be permitted to see blue (or red!)
  Given the nature of the needs, the personalities of various users and editors, and the available mechanisms, what is needed is not a bit of adjustment to or argy-bargy about what the MOS says or should say, or who has the right to link, or remove or add or even see links, but some options for people who want links to decide whether to see them or not, and in which formats if so, and for people who do not, not to see them at all. Quite detailed proposals were made years ago, for facilities that would have required quite trivial penalties and minor investment in programming, and they were opposed on nonsensical grounds such as that readers who printed articles could not see the links. (In every other sense of course, printed articles would be indistinguishable from the computer screen...) JonRichfield (talk) 15:53, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

• Platform preferences would be fine with me. I know little about the factors involved with it's implementation, except that MOS is not the forum where it will be decided.—Bagumba (talk) 21:23, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, that's a WP:VPTECH matter. If you're competent with CSS and Web accessibility/usability, I've found that it's possible (rarely) to convince the gatekeepers at Mediawiki talk:Common.css to implement classes that allow people to use WP:USERCSS to customize display. I think, however, that much of what's desired would require Javascript. Ergo, the thing to do would be to develop and test scripts that do what you want, then propose that they be implemented as User Preferences "gadgets". Most of the ones we have were never VPTECH proposals, but just "look, I made a tool, it works, so please make it available". Not everything on WP has to be a big debate, and just making stuff that's functional is often enough. Most of the template namespace is proof of that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:24, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

MfD: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Register

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Register is at MfD: Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Register (2nd nomination). Johnuniq (talk) 09:38, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Plot and secondary sources

The plot summary for a work, on a page about that work, does not need to be sourced with in-line citations, as it is generally assumed that the work itself is the primary source for the plot summary. However, editors are encouraged to add sourcing if possible. If a plot summary includes a direct quote from the work, this must be cited using inline citations per WP:QUOTE. Sometimes a work will be summarized by secondary sources, which can be used for sourcing. Otherwise, using brief quotation citations from the primary work can be helpful to source key or complex plot points.

(Emphasis mine.) Do we really not prefer secondary sources for the plot when they feasibly exist? It's just all the same that it's sourced or unsourced? – czar 22:58, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction is a ghost town, so I'm bringing this here. Does anyone have more information on our general/historic practice of leaving plot sections unfootnoted (with the assumption that it is sourced to the work itself)? I understand that the footnote is omitted because it's sourced to the work itself (which has its own issues), but I don't understand how this is reconciled with due weight, in which we cover an aspect of a topic in proportion to its degree of secondary source coverage. Why do Plot sections get carte blanche for paragraphs of unsourced detail in situations where not a single secondary (or, hell, primary) source found the plot aspects worth covering? My watchlist is littered with IP editors deciding of their own accord what plot details are important rather than, as we do with everything else everything on the encyclopedia, looking to secondary source guidance on the work's important plot points. I don't see why plot is exempted from our standard practice. At the very least, are we not in agreement that we prefer to source plot sections to reliable, secondary sources over primary sources like the work itself? czar 04:03, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Czar, my only contributions to fiction pages have been rock operas (not sure, possibly only one rock opera, and I did not source the plot summary), so I'm not pretending I know. I'm just responding on principle to the valid point you raise. I think there are at least two reasons secondary sourcing can be important in a plot summary. The first is the issue you raised about what plot points should be included. Without external guidance, it's just opinion vs. opinion, unless an actual consensus can be formed. We cannot consider ourselves authoritative on this issue, so no individual should be the gatekeeper for plot summary content. That would beWP:OWN anyway. It sounds like a little WP:BRD is the only option without secondary sources or existing consensus, unless there is actual guidance on the matter that I missed when I wrote my one plot summary.

The second reason secondary sourcing can be important is when things are implied or in some way not made explicit. We cannot interpret things without violating WP:OR, so interpretations have to be sourced. Some writers use ambiguity intentionally to give readers their own experiences, or to prolong interest in the work once the reader has finished reading it. Character motivations are often obvious, but if the author does not connect the dots explicitly, that also has to be sourced. (I recall reading this in some guideline... I think. It was a while back.) Anyway, that's my $0.02 worth. Spend it wisely :P Dcs002 (talk) 05:34, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

I've done TV shows and episodes, so I think I can comment here. It's easy to find secondary sources if the sources actually cover plot points. If they don't, what should be used in lieu to it? You can't just omit the plot summary because it would be unsourced. The TV's MOS group had developed a set of guidelines which allows the episode to be used as a primary source without it developing into a free-for-all. SciGal (talk) 14:25, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

Dcs and SciGal are both right. I've worked on some episodes for books and TV shows, and both those issues are real.

The plot description is considered "straightforward observations of facts," which are allowed under WP:PRIMARY and, let's face it, WP:COMMONSENSE. Including basic summaries of works of fiction in articles about those works is just something that encyclopedias are expected to do, and, like SciGal says, most of the reliable sources include reactions to the plot, not summaries of it. In most cases, some plot summary is necessary to the article. How is the reader supposed to understand the social impact of Frankenstein if we don't tell them that it's about a doctor who makes a monster and that the monster was actually well-behaved for most of the book? Now, I could say, in one sentence, "The monster was naturally good and only turned to violence after years of rejection, which only happened because its creator had abandoned his responsibilities," and that's concise, but am I right? Even if I am (and I am), it's still original research. It is far better to simply relate the events of the book: where the monster went, what attempts he made to make friends, how people reacted to him, and let the reader come to his or her own conclusions.

For the plot section, the big editorial decision is how much detail is warranted and which facts and events are important enough to earn the space (fans of a book or show tend to want to include a lot of information). This is where secondary sources come in. If multiple articles or reviews mention the scene in which the monster reads the Bible, then you can use that as evidence that the scene is important enough to mention in the plot summary, that it is not an excess or inconsequential detail. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:57, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

To come at it from a different angle, it is recognized that encyclopedic coverage of a work of fiction is not comprehensive without a concise plot summary. However, rarely do published works outside of classics and popular contemporary works do detailed analysis of a plot come from secondary sources. Since the work itself is primary, but verifyable, a concise plot summary with implicit sourcing to the work itself is reasonably acceptable. As long as the plot does not engage in OR, the plot can be verified by anyone that otherwise can access the work. But if OR is needed, or additional information that is not clearly obvious to the causal viewer (eg we're not going frame-by-frame to capture one tiny plot detail) then that does need sourcing even if to, say, a director's commentary or an extra featurette that is not part of the primary work. --MASEM (t) 17:04, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

• Precisely. I'll explicitly cite plots of works to secondary sources when the work may be lost etc. But if I have the work in question, and I have read it, I do not explicitly state that the reference is the work itself, as that is already implied. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 17:22, 7 January 2016 (UTC)

it is recognized that encyclopedic coverage of a work of fiction is not comprehensive without a concise plot summary

My question is mainly about proportionality. I think MOS:PLOT should reflect the weight premise of the encyclopedia that a plot is covered in proportion to its importance as determined by secondary sources. This is to say that the Film WikiProject's guideline of 400 to 700 words makes sense for their plot-heavy feature films, and perhaps even for a book or game that has sources that reaffirm the plot's central importance to the work (ideally with a litany of think pieces discussing elements of the plot, for modern media at least). But for other novels, academic books, games, and art films, for example, the plot—or whatever exists of one—may have no central importance to a work, and which directly opposes the quoted statement's declaration of plot importance to all fictional works. Not all fictional works need plot summaries: the plot summary should be proportional to the plot's degree of coverage in reliable, secondary sources (and if that's not enough, then also proportional to the standard for the medium, e.g., that early fighting games rarely have plots). czar 05:58, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction is not a ghost town; well, not completely one. I saw you there, but editors have been over the sourcing aspect of plot sections a lot, which is why MOS:PLOT addresses it. Also see Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Archive 63#How wide is the "original research" exception for articles on fictional works?, which shows a recent discussion concerning this topic. The television show, film, play or book is the source; therefore, we usually do not need to add inline citations to plot sections. If someone engages in WP:OR, it is usually fixed by someone who has seen or read the material. The WP:OR policy is not simply about material being unsourced. The reference currently in its introduction states, "By 'exists', the community means that the reliable source must have been published and still exist—somewhere in the world, in any language, whether or not it is reachable online—even if no source is currently named in the article. Articles that currently name zero references of any type may be fully compliant with this policy—so long as there is a reasonable expectation that every bit of material is supported by a published, reliable source." As for WP:Due weight, that can apply in some plot cases, but I don't think we should state that we shouldn't add plot material because sources aren't interested in covering the plot detail in an in-depth way. Sources are usually more so focused on the WP:Real world content in relation to the fictional content. And WP:TVPLOT and WP:Film plot are guidelines that exist partly to keep plot summary lengths under control. I think "art film" can fall under WP:Film plot. I'm not sure about the "other novels, academic books, games" aspects you are worried about; you can see how WP:BOOKS, WP:Games and WP:Video games do things, but I would think that academic books and games that are not video games do not need a plot section. Our video game articles (and their characters) do have plot sections, though. See, for example, Metal Gear Solid and Cloud Strife; those are sourced. Video game plot summaries are commonly sourced with inline citations, often to the video game itself. Popcornduff recently tagged the Metal Gear Solid Plot section as too long, but that is a long game and I don't see what can be safely cut from that section. Then again, it's been a long time since I played that game. Soap opera plot summaries can also be a different story, for reasons I noted in the "How wide is the 'original research' exception for articles on fictional works?" discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:41, 10 January 2016 (UTC)

Readability is more important than plot comprehensiveness, IMO. If making sections a reasonable length (ie shorter) means cutting even significant details, so be it. Besides, in my experience, plot summaries are often overlong thanks to bad writing as much as too much detail. Take the opening sentence of the MGS example, for example: "The story is set in 2005..." can simply become "In 2005...". That's over half the words from that sample cut right there. (I'd trim the summary myself but I haven't played it in years either.) Popcornduff (talk) 16:50, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Popcornduff, that's where we disagree. I'm all for readability, but usually not at the expense of important detail. Leaving out important detail is not reasonable to me unless there is simply too much plot to cover all the big points. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:27, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Actually, I think you're right. If a detail is significant, then by definition it needs to be covered. On further reflection, I think I painted a false dichotomy in the first place: it's rare, really, to have a story of such length and complexity that it can't be summarised in a reasonable length. So I put my money where my mouth is and significantly trimmed the MGS summary, and yeah, I think the problem was dodgy writing, not the story's length or complexity. There are still some issues with it, but they'd be better discussed on the article's talk page than here. Popcornduff (talk) 13:26, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Popcornduff, thanks for clarifying. And, yeah, I saw that you trimmed the Plot section of the Metal Gear Solid article. As for "it's rare, really, to have a story of such length and complexity that it can't be summarised in a reasonable length.", like I've stated on my talk page, including to Bignole, and in the aforementioned "How wide is the 'original research' exception for articles on fictional works?" discussion, I've found daytime soap opera plot summaries difficult in that regard; this is because, in America at least, daytime soap operas commonly air five days a week with a new episode each day, and usually don't play reruns (if the reruns happen, it's usually on holidays). Soap opera characters have commonly existed for decades with so much plot information to cover. When it comes to the Todd Manning article, which was recently elevated to featured status, I came around to wanting a plot section (I'd previously rejected having one) and Figureskatingfan was against having one. We came to a compromise: I should include Todd's most significant plotlines, and leave the rest of the plot information to other sections in the article that discuss the material with a WP:Real-world context. I considered having the plot section have a lot of real-world context, so that it's similar to the Pauline Fowler article, but doing that would have been too much work and Figureskatingfan and I wanted to go ahead and finish up our work on the Todd Manning article. So I settled for the Appearances style noted at MOS:TV (see WP:Manual of Style/Television#Role in "SHOW NAME"), which is seen with articles like Jason Voorhees and Jack Sparrow, except that the Todd Manning article uses the "Storylines" title, has years as subsections, and two real-world quotes. I know that you probably think that is a lot of plot in the Storylines section of that article; I considered pinging you to that talk page for advice on how to trim the material. But Figureskatingfan and I knew that I was more familiar with Todd's plotlines, and we had confidence that I could relay his most important storylines without having people (at least not too many) complain about that section's length. So that's what I did. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:43, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I'll just add that the Plot section doesn't need a running string of references, but character articles and lists, even if they have a Plot or Role in series section, should have references to the appropriate chapters, episodes and profiles where it is not a singular work referenced. For example "Darth Vader reveals that he is Luke's father." without the surrounding context would require a reference, but "In The Empire Strikes Back, (other general plot) Vader then reveals that he is Luke's father." would not require the ref. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 01:05, 16 January 2016 (UTC) 01:20, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

AngusWOOF, you know that I always appreciate your commentary. But why do you feel that the Plot or "Role in show" section in a character article should have inline citations? Many articles do that, especially as far as primetime shows go, and especially if they are WP:Good or WP:Featured. But some don't. Same goes for some television series articles. For example, the Jason Voorhees, Jack Sparrow and Darth Vader articles all do that. So do the Buffy Summers and Cordelia Chase articles (the Cordelia Chase article is a WP:Good article). But the Friends, Lewis Archer, A Town Called Mercy and 420 (Family Guy) articles don't (they are also all WP:Good articles; the latter two are episode articles). And in the case of daytime soap opera articles, like Todd Manning or Lewis Archer, it is difficult to cite the episodes in the plot section because there are so many episodes...far more than any primetime show dishes out. Trying to locate the airdate that a daytime soap opera character did something can be daunting. For daytime soap opera characters, the most we can usually hope for when it comes to sourcing such a section is a character profile that is not a fansite. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 05:08, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

Regarding the Friends article, you can look at Rachel Green and see how in her Plot section whenever there is some major event or something out of the blue that there is a cite episode attached to it, and when there's general stuff over the flow of the series, it isn't really necessary. For Jason Voorhees, it's overkill to state the movie, present the plot and then cite the movie. Details such as "he kills X and then Y, but dies when Z kills him are not needed as that's just rehashing play-by-play plot. But I see a lot of character descriptions where they write details that could be contested like "lives with his mother" or "is actually a former smoker" and there the citation helps. The citations can be vague though or span multiple episodes if it's a soap opera where details are hard to pinpoint. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 08:16, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I would disagree that it's "overkill". It's overkill to have 5 sources when one would suffice. In this case, the inline citations contain information about the film (release, credits, etc). Maybe as a "researcher" (and you have to take this approach and not ignore it simply because it's film) I'm not familiar with any particular film. Instead of forcing them to go to every single film page to find that information, it's all right there in the inline citation. Otherwise, you're argument would be if I give you the journal number and date, then who cares who wrote it, because you can just look that up yourself. This is even more true for TV articles, because most people don't know where "Episode X" falls, because most episodes have an actual title. It's a little unprofessional in writing to constantly say "Christmas time, the third episode of season five, featured...."  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 22:03, 16 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree it's a balance, as yes, you wouldn't want to just say that it is in the journal/season and good luck finding it, while on the flip side not every line of plot needs to be cited down to the specific timestamp. Meanwhile, some general stuff like "Scooby-Doo is a brown dog with black spots" falls in WP:BLUE. Anyway, I find secondary sources useful for referencing catchphrases and schticks, although if such sources aren't available, multiple episodes can be used or the character profiles on their official website. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 23:10, 17 January 2016 (UTC)

• This may be off-topic here. If we want to change the sourcing requirements for plot summaries and synopses, that's a WP:CCPOL matter and should be raised probably at WT:V (though WT:NOR could also be a valid venue). The MOS subpage on fiction isn't setting a sourcing standard, it's applying existing ones (namely WP:ABOUTSELF and WP:PSTS – a primary source is sufficient for non-controversial material about itself, and no citation is actually required for non-controversial material; the material has to be sourceable, not sourced). As soon as someone inserts something dubious into a plot summary (most often something that is a subjective interpretation of something the author left vague, i.e. it's potential original research), it's no longer non-controversial and no longer auto-sourced by the work itself, so more detailed sourcing would be expected. Most notable works of fiction have been summarized in various abstracts and reviews. It's probably enough to cite the original work itself, up to the point of the controversial material, cite third party sources for the controversial claim about the plot, then cite the work itself again for the rest of the summary. When it comes to including trivial details that aren't controversial, but which don't seem encyclopedically relevant, that's more a poor vs. good writing matter, not a style matter in the sense usually meant here, and is a matter for editorial discretion at the article.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:12, 17 January 2016 (UTC)
• I still don't think we've addressed the issue of proportionality, but I don't want to raise the same point a third time. I'm unwatching the page, but feel free to {{ping}} if you have thoughts. czar 16:08, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

Image size discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#Fixing images below the default size. A WP:Permalink for it is here. The discussion concerns whether or not we should keep the following wording: "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default (users can adjust this in their preferences). If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding." The latest aspect of the discussion is the 1.4 Amended proposal (2A) subsection. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:00, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

This discussion has progressed to a WP:RfC: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#RfC: Should the guideline maintain the "As a general rule" wording or something similar?. A WP:Permalink is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:41, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Hyphens after standard -ly adverbs – added verbiage

Resolved

On 13 July 2015 this text was added to the MoS section on hyphens by SMcCandlish (talk · contribs): "Exception: use a hyphen even for standard -ly adverbs if it improves clarity. This most often the case when a -ly adverb and a participle form a compound adjective that is juxtaposed with one or more additional adjectives: a strongly recommended practice, but a strongly-recommended new best practice." The edit summary was "documenting a case I see sometimes several times per day". I could find no discussion to support this addition, and I was unaware of it until a day ago.

I think this addition should be removed.

• It is well understood by most writers of style guides, especially by the community that maintains this style guide, that standard -ly adverbs are automatically understood by readers to modify the word that immediately follows. "As he walked along, he saw newly built stone houses where there had been fields only the year before" needs no hyphen; "newly" is taken to modify "built", not "saw", not "stone", and not "houses".
• The example given, "a strongly recommended new best practice", needs no hyphen, and there is no confusion; "strongly" is understood to modify "recommended", with or without a hyphen. Nor does that example actually appear anywhere in WP.
• If cases are seen several times per day where this hyphenation is thought to be needed, some real-life examples should be provided here for discussion.
• The MoS section on hyphens was already so lengthy that many editors do not take the time to read it in its entirety and understand it. This addition only bloated the MoS and provided encouragement to editors who tend to overhyphenate.
• I have adjusted hyphenation in many thousands of articles, and can not recall any cases where such hyphenation was needed for clarity. If an editor sees such a need, perhaps other punctuation or rewording would better.
• We already had WP:IAR. That covers exceptions that are very few and far between.

Chris the speller ^yack 05:18, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Hmm.

• Except that this isn't the real case, it's just the idealized one. No amount of prescriptive wishing will get around a problem of actual usage. It's very common to encounter something like "the organization alleges that the livestock were inhumanely housed, transported, and slaughtered", and the obvious implication is that "inhumanely" modifies the entire chain of verbs. This kind of case isn't even slightly unusual; it's normal everyday English. It simply is not plausible than anyone will interpret this as meaning "...alleged that the livestock were inhumanely housed, and also that they were (presumably humanely) transported and were slaughtered". My typically, a -ly construction does only modify what immediately follows. Sometimes it doesn't. So the rationale Chris the speller provides is invalid. Sometimes the use of a -ly word in a long string of modifiers makes a sentence harder to parse without a hyphen to group together a compound modifier. The very reason this is helpful is that sometimes -ly constructions affect more than one thing following them; hyphen-binding a -ly word to what it modifies obviates the reader needing to do any kind of analysis to see whether the -ly might apply to more than one term. Chris appears to be a approaching the question from the perspective of whether there's a any question what is modified by the -ly adverb, when no one raised that issue in the first place. It has more to do with parseability of the entire sentence.
• So use a better example. "I don't like this example of the use of this item" is never a rationale against any item in MoS (or anywhere else).
• Encouragement of over-hyphenation is a subjective what-iffy objection. Is there any evidence of over-hyphenation occurring as a result of this line item? What objectionable cases have you found? See, demands for example go both ways, which is one of the reasons I've long suggested we move way from such a discussion tactic at MoS. Length? The MoS section is as long as it needs to be to cover what editors think should be covered. If we think that having style rules that some editors will not read is a big problem, we should just delete all of MoS entirely. Seriously, MoS does not exist for every editor to read and memorize. It exists primarily to settle specific nit-picky disputes that arise, and secondarily for gnome editors to absorb in detail and apply in cleanup efforts to make the encyclopedia more consistent. This is the principal reason it so irritating when one editor here or another there fixates for years on some minor stylistic bugbear as if MoS interferes with their ability to write. Really, everyone WP:DGAFs how you write; just go make content. If MoS people tweak it for consistency later, who cares? Just move on and make more content. Easy.
• "My anecdotal experience is meaningful, but yours is not" is not an argument that is going to convince anyone of anything.
• Someone who denies the existence of the exceptions isn't in a position to also judge how frequent they are, pretty much by definition.

I don't see the point in providing additional examples of something I originally provided an example of, and just did again, above. If you're already convinced that no confusion could ever result from such a construction, producing additional examples seems likely to simply result in a repetitive denial, and be a waste of my time and that of anyone reading this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:45, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Sounds solid to me, Chris. I'd say remove it for now. If SmC has a good reason for making this change, we should all hear him out. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:11, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I already gave the reasons, both in the text of the material and the in the edit summary. You auto-opposing whatever I support here and supporting what I oppose is tiresome, not helpful to the project, and always seems to be predicated on a demand to provide that which has already been provided.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:45, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

I support the removal.—Wavelength (talk) 21:14, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

On what basis? I've already disproved Chris the Speller's "a -ly adverb only modifies the word that immediately follows it objection to the item in question. Did you have some additional rationale Chris didn't think of?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:45, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

As someone who recently disagreed with User:Chris the speller about such a hyphen, I do appreciate the explicit exception, although it could certainly be weakened. In our earlier discussion I link to a couple of dozen articles and style guides on such hyphens, and while most say "no" or "never", some (like National Geographic's style guide) acknowledge the rare need. (It's certainly more like a few times a year, not "several times per day"!)

A couple of good examples from the guides I dug up:

• "clearly-labeled stand-alone tutorial"[2]. Much good discussion here, including of the alternative with a comma: "clearly labeled, stand-alone tutorial".
• "...flies technically-advanced aircraft for general aviation."[3] This is a trickier case. "technically advanced" doesn't need the hyphen, but without it, one could think that "technically" modifies "flies".
• "our newly-issued Budget Tax Facts Cards" (Fowler's Modern English Usage). The hyphen helps clarify that the cards are newly issued rather than the budget.
• Also, two guides[4][5] suggest that hyphenating such constructs is more common and accepted in British English. I want to be sure of this before enshrining an Americanism in the MoS. (It's worth noting that the Guardian and Observer style guide, clearly for a British audience, disagrees.)

I'd certainly be very happy with a much narrower exception, e.g. "In rare cases, it may be necessary to make an exception if a genuine ambiguity cannot be resolved by adding a comma instead. For example, 'he cultivated slowly-growing heirloom varieties.'"

71.41.210.146 (talk) 22:26, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

P.S. I agree with Chris that if User:SMcCandlish sees it occur "several times per day", then some examples (plural) are a very reasonable request. The "inhumanely housed, transported, and slaughtered" example is an illustration of where a hyphen would make things worse, but I'd like to see some where it would constitute an improvement. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 22:38, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

In that first example, "clearly-labeled stand-alone tutorial", the upshot was "That first hyphen isn’t necessary". Chris the speller ^yack 22:36, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

That's why I mentioned that alternative, but there are several eloquently expressed points of view in the discussion there, and I didn't feel up to summarizing it accurately. 71.41.210.146 (talk) 22:41, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

SMcCandlish ☺, my reply at 21:14, 18 January 2016 (UTC) preceded your simultaneous replies at 21:45, 18 January 2016 (UTC). If we are going to use hyphens to disambiguate adverbs before coordinate adjectives, then are we going to use them to disambiguate adjectives before coordinate nouns?

• "inhumanely housed, transported, and slaughtered"
• "inhumanely housed, inhumanely transported, and inhumanely slaughtered"
• "inhumanely-housed, transported, and slaughtered"
• "inhumanely-housed, -transported, and -slaughtered"
• "yellow roses, tulips, and daffodils"
• "yellow roses, yellow tulips, and yellow daffodils"
• "yellow-roses, tulips, and daffodils"
• "yellow-roses, -tulips, and -daffodils"

—Wavelength (talk) 00:22, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

You don't seem to understand hyphens, or SMcCandlish's comments, or both. The only hyphen that might make sense would be "inhumanely-housed, transported, and slaughtered" in the exceptional case that the inhumanely was intended to apply only to the housed, and not to the other adjectives. If you wanted to apply yellow only to the roses, and not to the tulips and daffodils, you would not use a hyphen to do that, as yellow-roses is nonsensical. You'd instead say tulips, daffodils, and yellow roses. In the default reading where yellow or inhumanely applies to all, no hyphens would be needed for clarity. Read again SMcCandlish's point in bring up that example: that "the rationale Chris the speller provides is invalid." It is invalid; excpetions are now and then useful to clearly indicate the intended meaning. Removing the statement that such exceptions might exist is likely to cause over-enthusiastic wikignomes to move things in a bad direction. I'd leave it. Dicklyon (talk) 00:37, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, I was pretty explicit that the "inhumanely..." example wasn't a case where a hyphen was needed, just an obvious proof that "-ly adverbs always only modify the one thing immediately after them" claim is false. It isn't necessary for the proof that the claim is false to also be a good example when to hyphenate, only that the rationale provided against ever hyphenating is invalid. Analogy: If one said "All pet cats should be euthanized because they're cruel, wanton killers of indigenous small animals", it's sufficient to show that various indoor-only cats have no effect on wildlife, and even at least 30% of indoor-outdoor cats don't hunt wild animals, even if some of these cats should be euthanized for other reasons, e.g. FIV infection. The argument for a blanket rule is demonstrably wrong, regardless of whether any particular individual case is a good example of an exception.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:09, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

If chronological order is important, then a different example of an adjective before coordinate nouns might be more appropriate.

• "inhumane housing, transport, and slaughter"
• "inhumane housing, inhumane transport, and inhumane slaughter"
• "inhumane-housing, transport, and slaughter"
• "inhumane-housing, -transport, and -slaughter"

If you would re-arrange the words to say "tulips, daffodils, and yellow roses", then would you likewise re-arrange the words to say "transport, slaughter, and inhumane housing"? (Also, where is it stated that, in the default reading, the modifier applies to all the modified elements?)

—Wavelength (talk) 02:42, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

[I meant to ask: Also, where is it stated that, in the default reading, the modifier applies to all the coordinate elements?

—Wavelength (talk) 04:58, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Suggestions that include components like "inhumane-housing" just confirm your lack of awareness of how hyphens are used in English. Why would anyone ever use a hyphen in that position, between adjective and noun, unless it was used as a modifier of something else? And how does that relate to what we were talking about? And none of this stuff has anything to do with chronological order. If your question is how to clarify whether inhumane applies just to housing, or to all three things, that's not a question about hyphens. It would appear to apply to all three. As to your "where is it stated" question, I have no idea. Dicklyon (talk) 02:52, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Hyphenation is unnecessary in each of those examples.

• inhumanely treated (in housing, transport, and slaughter)
• were inhumanely housed, and were transported and slaughtered
• yellow flowers (roses, tulips, and daffodils)
• yellow roses and other flowers (tulips and daffodils)
• inhumane treatment (in housing, transport, and slaughter)
• inhumane housing and other treatment (transport and slaughter)

—Wavelength (talk) 05:52, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

This site has a good discussion of the rule and exceptions, and the example "a not-so-sharply-worded reprimand". Dicklyon (talk) 02:17, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

The MoS already had that exception covered: "unless part of a larger compound (a slowly-but-surely strategy)", but, yes, it is a good discussion. However, it does not provide other examples recommending hyphenation after a standard -ly adverb. Chris the speller ^yack 03:35, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

Many of the not-from-me examples provided above gets at precisely what I was trying to get at, and obviate any need for me to provide more of them. Yes, many of these constructions can be reworded, but that is not always the best approach every time, and hyphenating for clarity is not "wrong". If it's thought that what I added is too vague and needs to be tightened, then let's tighten it. I'm just wary of a blanket do / do not statement by MoS on this kind of point. It's precisely the kind of prescriptive grammar PoV pushing that sets a lot of people's teeth on edge. It's fine for MoS to be prescriptive as an in-house style guide, on what we have consensus to advise editors do, as a matter of best writing clarity for our audience, to convey material in accordance with our mission. It's not OK to use the MoS as a platform to advance external, Victorian prescriptivism memes of what various language "sins" are. Now that's it's been demonstrated that others here, and other sources off WP, acknowledge that these constructions are occasionally hyphenated (not because the construction needs it innately, but because the sentence as a whole needs the clustering/linking effect of the hyphen), I'm less concerned about exactly how we address this. I was concerned before that it would not be addressed at all due to the two-party denialism that the issue ever even arises.

PS: If I state that I have encountered the problem multiple times in one day, and had days like this more than once in a certain time span, there's no basis on which to imply I'm a liar or being hyperbolic. I added the provision specifically because I'd run into it so frequently in so short a span of time, when I went looking for it. Keep in mind that MoS regulars often go out of their way to search for and deal with very specific forms of communications problem in our articles. (E.g., remember that people denied anyone would actually write "he gave birth" or "she became a father" in any of our articles, until I went and proved it with about a dozen then-extant examples?) Of course the problem addressed in this material only arises in National Geographic articles a few times per year; they're written by professionals, while most of our text is written by high school students, store clerks, Web developers, chefs, mechanics, veterinarians, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:01, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

• Wroe, Ann, ed. (2015). The Economist Style Guide (11th ed.). London / New York: Profile Books / PublicAffairs. pp. 74, 77–78. hyphens  There is no firm rule to help you decide which words are run together, hyphenated or left separate. ... 12. Adverbs: Adverbs do not need to be linked to participles or adjectives by hyphens in simple constructions [examples elided]. But if the adverb is one of two words together being used adjectivally, a hyphen may be needed [examples elided]. The hyphen is especially likely to be needed if the adverb is short and common, such as ill, little, much and well. Less common adverbs, including all those that end -ly, are less likely to need hyphens [example elided]. Please note that "less likely to be needed" ≠ "never, ever used". I have already used this source to improve Hyphen#Use in English.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:42, 21 January 2016 (UTC)

I think something should be done to the part of the MoS that was added so that it does not too strongly encourage adding a hyphen every time an editor has a trace of a doubt about the clarity of a construction. I might go along with keeping that exception if the guide says it would be good to first consider other methods of resolution, such as adding other punctuation (commas, parentheses) or recasting the sentence. Several editors above (including me) asked for real-life examples in WP that show where such hyphenation might be needed. None of the requests seemed to imply that you are a liar or being hyperbolic. I am sure you have seen cases where you thought the hyphen would help. It was not my intention to put you on the spot or embarrass you. I thought you would be able to come up with one or two cases that would show why editors might feel the need for a hyphen. I might not be the only editor who would be more receptive to adding a half a paragraph to the MoS if we knew exactly what we need to deal with. I think trimming it down or softening it would be a sensible move, considering that these cases seem to be quite rare compared to the opposite situation, where hyphens are used for no reason at all ("The school has a fully-equipped gym"). Chris the speller ^yack 03:02, 23 January 2016 (UTC)

Works for me, and I'll go try to rectify that if no one's beaten me to it. I just don't want to see a potential tool removed on the rationale that it's not found in every single style book some people favor. :-) It took me only about 10 minutes to find the source I did (for the article's benefit). I agree that hyphenating a -ly construction can and should usually be written around, and in most cases a hyphen found in fooly-bar can just be removed. What we don't want is for people to flush large amounts of time away trying to re-craft sentences desperately to avoid a hyphenated -ly (often with more awkward results than they started with) when it's not actually "wrong". That hyphen is deprecated in most style guides because it's usually unnecessary, not because its presence produces any form of problem.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:56, 24 January 2016 (UTC)

@Chris the speller: Where the changes adequate to address your concerns?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:14, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Excellent. A vast improvement. I went looking for the Concision Barnstar; didn't find it, but I know a deserving candidate. Chris the speller ^yack 15:26, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@Chris the speller: Doood, you'd have a violent revolt on your hands if you ever gave me a concision barnstar! The #1 criticism I've received in my 10+ years here is "posts too long" (it used to be worse, too; I try, and incrementally improve).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:10, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: I meant for the MoS work, not for the posts, of course. Happy editing! I'll mark this resolved. Chris the speller ^yack 20:46, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

MOS:CAPS#Acronyms cleanup

I did some cleanup in that section of the caps subpage. Highlights here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Acronyms section cleanup.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:30, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Bizarre comma argument

At Languages of the United States, there's an odd edit war going on between people who understand commas and poeple who don't (I'll let you all decide which are which), and who are referencing MOS. Perhaps we should talk about it here? Dicklyon (talk) 02:47, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

I didn't do it. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 02:50, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

The comma after the state name is required in phrases like "Derpsville, Nebraska, is the largest town in Hurpleflurp County". RGloucester and the IP editor are right on this. The MOS is very clear on the issue. Reyk _YO! 08:34, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

You needn't worry, Mr Lyon. The editor who was disputing the correct usage, Beyond My Ken, has desisted. The matter was only brought to my attention after BMK filed an AN/I report, which he has now archived. RGloucester — ☎ 17:27, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

• The editwarring over "Orange County, California, is home to ..." (normal English) vs. "Orange County, California is home to..." (SMS-style expediency) is the same dispute as "The September 11, 2001, attacks were ...", vs. "The September 11, 2001 attacks were ...". Most style guides call for including the second comma, as closure of the parenthetically bracketing use of commas. This is – in a very limited way – argued against by one style guide I know of, Garner's Modern American Usage by Bryan A. Garner (and its abridged pocket version, The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style; both are published by Oxford U. Press's New York office, seemingly as a challenge to Chicago Manual of Style's North American hegemony). I've argued elsewhere (at Talk:Comma, if I recall correctly) that Garner seems to be relying on other sources, but does not name them, and I haven't identified any yet, though have not gone looking much. I suspect that one or another of the journalism style guides may also be dropping this comma, at least in particular constructions (if that's the case, MOS doesn't care, because WP is not written in news style but academic style). While our article on comma usage needs to remain neutral, and treat Garner's view as a notable but minority opinion, without WP:UNDUE weight, it is clearly a minority usage, and MoS should probably discourage the dropping of this comma, as it makes parsing the sentence correctly more difficult. The argument in favor of it is that when used this way, as a compound adjective, a construction like the date in "the September 11, 2001 attacks" has become a unitary item, September 11, 2001 in which the comma is simply part of the string and no longer serving a parenthetically bracketing purpose; Garner feels the text flows stylistically better without it and claims that various unspecified "stylists" agree with him. This is a really weak "function should follow form, looks are more important that substance" argument, which is probably why it seemingly can't be found in any other style book. And even Garner would still write "On April 2, 2015, two armed men ...", because the use is not adjectival.

  Which brings us back to the present case: "Orange County, California, is home to ..." is not adjectival use either, so even the stand-out guide that is occasionally against the closing comma would not support dropping it in this case, leaving seemingly zero evidence that dropping it is standard usage in formal writing. I would again encourage people not to do sourcing dumps at WT:MOS; it's a waste of editorial time and energy. If you think you can prove that this comma (even in a noun-phrase construction) is conventionally dropped in some styles of writing, and this "rule" is codified in reliable sources, then add this information and sources to Comma#Uses in English. (Even then, it won't necessarily force a change at MOS; consensus here is liable to continue to decide that clarity, consistency, and ending WP:LAME style editwars in mainspace like this one are more important than being excessively permissive with regard to every discoverable writing style variation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:14, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

  • The instruction we give is "In geographical references that include multiple levels of subordinate divisions (e.g., city, state/province, country), a comma separates each element and follows the last element unless followed by other punctuation." That seems clear enough. This coincides with the Comma article, though we use a couple of sources there (as we must). Perhaps a local consensus could override the MoS for some special usage (such as the adjectival use mentioned above) but that doesn't seem to be the case here. I can't see that any MoS clarification or amplification is necessary. Perhaps the fact that in edit mode we see the double square brackets appearing to make one phrase out of [[Orange County, California]] is misleading editors? --Pete (talk) 15:18, 5 February 2016 (UTC)
    • I bet that does have something to do with it, though Garner has his fans (including many who misinterpret him as meaning to drop the comma even when it's not a unitary compound adjective). Probably a combination of the two effects.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:33, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the MOS is behind the times on acceptable comma usage in English. There have been several arenas across WP where the necessity of a final comma has arisen over the past couple of years - geographical names, MDY dates, Jr./Sr. names, to name a few. The question is especially interesting when the above are used as adjectives, as there is very little explicit guidance in that situation. The bottom line, though, is that a cursory review of professional copyedited publications (not texts or websites) shows that the final comma is by no means mandatory anymore - especially in adjectival phrases. There are logical arguments for both its inclusion and exclusion, but the language on the ground is telling us clearly that both are acceptable - which is why so many editors in so many different areas scratch their heads when the final-comma police show up. If it's acceptable to language professionals in the real world, why not accept it here on WP? That would seem to be the way to prevent rampant WP:LAMEness of edit-warring. Dohn joe (talk) 16:08, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

• Examples of academic dropping of final commas:

• Nature
• The Developing Economies
• Journal on Quality and Patient Safety
• Options Politiques

Dohn joe (talk) 16:30, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

• I don't have a strong opinion about this either way (though I definitely have seen the comma dropped in many respectable publications for as long as I can remember)... but I'd just like to express a preference for more modern, less stuffy prose across Wiki generally. Popcornduff (talk) 16:33, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

"Dropping the final comma" is not "less stuffy" or "more modern". It is simply incorrect, and not recommended by any style guides (WP:OR of usage within publications themselves is unacceptable, and may show typographical errors as opposed to being representative of an agreed upon style). The comma is necessary to preserve the flow of the sentence, and for clarification of meaning. It is often the case here that people's own perceptions of what is "modern", or whatever, are being used as the basis for guidance when these perceptions are not grounded in actual fact.

The Economist, which is known for its very forward-looking style guide, has a good page about commas. It is here. I very much appreciate what it says on the matter, which I believe a certain Mr Lyon has also said. The essential bit is "Use two commas, or none at all, when inserting a clause in the middle of a sentence". One cannot just have one comma, breaking the logical flow of the sentence. More relevantly, this guide clearly states "Commas are essential (and often left out) after the names of American states when these are written as though they were part of an address: Kansas City, Kansas, proves that even Kansas City needn't always be Missourible (Ogden Nash)". As the guide says, it is not an uncommon error to leave out the comma in this manner, but that does not change the fact that it is an error, and is indeed indicated as an error by every relevant style guide. RGloucester — ☎ 16:46, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. It's not "stuffy" to write in a way that precludes misunderstanding. And science journals are not language authorities; their editors care that the science is right, not punctuation quibbles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:56, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

@Dohn Joe:, I don't understand your examples. None of them appear to address this. Do they drop some commas? That happens, as we call observe. The "modern" way in things like "Jr." is discussed at length in some style guides, which come down clearly as indicating that if there's a comma before there needs to be a comma after. They recommend dropping both in the case of "Jr." and the like, but wikipedians seem to have rejected that as too modern. Dicklyon (talk) 07:18, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Generic pronoun "one"

An anon recently added explicit recommendation to use "one", and a poor example of when to do it [6]. Because previous discussions here have been against actually recommending use of "one", because it frequently results in unnecessarily stilted wording, I've moderated the change into something that I think actually represents current consensus usage of and opinion about the usage of "one" in that sense, plus a better example. Diff of change from anon's wording: [7]; diff of change from pre-anon wording: [8] (including additional tweaks, like link first not second occurrence). I hope this meets with approval. If not, it can either be tweaked for something minor, or just reverted back to the pre-anon version.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:58, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

• I've recently grown attached to "a body" and have been considering an RfC to have it enforced Wiki-wide. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:54, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

• Your changes are an improvement. Good example, too. I wouldn't imagine that we use one in this sense much, and it would be rare that we can't find some alternate phrasing that doesn't sound stilted. One possibility is to phrase a statement in the negative and use no one or "nobody". --Pete (talk) 08:48, 30 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Yeah, it rarely does a body good to use it.  ;-) I usually try to re-word "one" when I encounter it, but occasionally it seems to be the best option.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:28, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

The revert elicits one's approval.Pincrete (talk) 19:39, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Notice of discussion at VPP

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Article titles § Question about various "naming conventions" pages

It has come to my attention that we have two guideline pages that deal with essentially the same issues: MOS:CAPS and WP:NCCaps. When you have two guidelines covering the same territory, there is obviously a high potential for conflict between the two pages. Since the potential for conflict involves more than one page, I have raised the issue at WP:VPP#Guideline duplication (the potential for conflict) for broader community input. Please share your thoughts there. Blueboar (talk) 18:52, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

Update: This was closed as duplicate discussion; the thread is ongoing at WT:AT, as linked in the hatnote above.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:03, 10 February 2016 (UTC)

The plural of “runner-up”

Background

A reader wrote to Wikimedia (OTRS) noting that they found an article with an incorrect plural of runner-up. The corrected one instance, found another, then realized there were quite a few. I offered to do some research, and begin the process of correction, if warranted.

I reviewed a few dictionaries, and grammar sites, and concluded that “runners-up” was preferred to “runner-ups”. I began making some changes, slowly. An editor, active in the tennis area, challenged the changes on the basis that the tennis editors had discussed this in the past, and reached a consensus in favor of “runner-ups”. (I also mistakenly changed the capitalization in a few cases, since corrected.) I did a little more homework, including looking for this consensus. The combination of more homework, and the failure to find this consensus appeared to persuade this editor. See User_talk:Wolbo#Plural_of_runner-up.

I used AWB to made replacements, and began making more changes. Another editor objected, with the argument (in my own words) that there are two ways to form a plural:

1. Multiple people reaching the status of runner-up
2. A single person achieving that status multiple times

This editor suggested that, in the first situation, use “runners-up” while in the second, use “runner-ups”. I stopped editing, asked for a source for that intriguing distinction, and, although no source was forthcoming, decided to halt editing and ask here.

• NOTE – I disagree with the characterization of the question. The dispute came from headings like Women's doubles: 10 finals (3 titles, 7 runner-ups). I would argue that runner-ups is here NOT a plural of runner-up, but rather the plural "runner-up positions" with "positions" elided. As such, the question of how to fix it is not the same question as how the form the plural of runner-up (which is really not in dispute as all your sources and responders agree the plural is runners-up). So you've put a lot of energy here into asking the wrong question. I'd suggest fixing it this way: Women's doubles: 10 finals (3 titles, 7 runner-up) or Women's doubles: 10 finals (3 title, 7 runner-up). Dicklyon (talk) 15:44, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Stats

• “Runners-up” occurs almost 40,000 times in Wikipedia

• “Runner-ups” occurs about 2,000 times in Wikipedia (I have made roughly 200 edits; these numbers reflect those edits.)

These numbers aren't being proposed as proof, but simply provided as evidence of current usage.

Informally, it appears that “runner-ups” is very common in tennis articles, perhaps because many articles about tennis players follow a semi-standardized formats in counts of titles and runner-up status are very common headings.

Dictionaries

• Oxford Dictionary noun plural runners-up
• American Heritage Dictionary n. pl. run·ners-up
• Dictionary.com noun, plural runners-up.
• Merriam-Webster plural run·ners–up play\-nər-ˌzəp, -ˈzəp\ also runner–ups (If I understand my dictionary conventions, this suggests that the second option is acceptable, but less preferred.)

Grammar usage sites

N.B. Many of these will not qualify as reliable sources, but merely offered to show what some common sites say.

• Quora
  • Definitely "Runners-up".
  • Apparently it's runners-up. If you run some Google searches, you'll see that's what everyone uses. Virtually no exceptions, from what I could see.
  • Runners-up. "Runner" is the noun in this phrase, and it is the runners that are multiple, not the up. This reverse noun-adjective structure also exists in Attorney General (Attorneys General).
  • As the answers indicated, it's the noun "runner" which is made plural. 
  • Runners-up. The noun is runner and it is plural, which is runners. The other example like this is passers-by where the noun is passer and making it plural would be passers. With every hyphenated set of words, the noun needs to be identified first to make it plural. The verb is never pluralized.
• usingenglish.com
  • Runners-up is just the plural of runner-up. You can use it when there is more than one runner-up.
• answers.com
  • The correct plural term is runners up.

Multiple people versus multiple event

Note that the Dictionary.com entry includes runners-up, the competitors who do not win a contest but who place ahead of the majority of the contestants and share in prizes or honors,as those who place second, third, and fourth, or in the top ten. which supports the usage in the case of multiple people, but tantalizing is is silent on usage involving multiple events.

However, I have searched in vain for a site, reliable or otherwise which clearly makes the distinction. I have noticed that some places avoid the term and use a different locution .e.g who has more runner-up trophies?

Complications

In addition to the two main options, I have seen other formulations:

• Runners up
• Runners Up (often in headlines)
• Runners–up (en-dash Rare, but occasionally in Wikipedia)

Unless I hear otherwise, I plan to treat each of these as incorrect

Options

1. Accept “runners-up" as the correct plural in all cases
2. Accept either “runners-up" or “runner-ups" but require consistency within a article
3. Accept “runners-up" or “runner-ups" depending on whether it is multiple people or multiple events
4. Accept “runners-up" in the case of multiple people; rewrite to avoid a plural in the case of multiple events (needless to say, far form trivial to implement, but offered in the sense of completeness
5. Other options I haven't considered --S Philbrick(Talk) 14:35, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Survey and discussion

• Option 1 with a bit of 4 in cases where people feel that's an improvement. I've searched web and books and see less than 5% use of "Runner-ups", and no evident association with tennis or anything else; it's simply a common error. Get rid of the en dash and all the unnecessary capitalization (I presume you didn't mean to suggest capitalizing "Runners" except when it's the first word in a sentence or heading). Dicklyon (talk) 15:06, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Fixed for clarity, yes, I mean to capitalize only at the beginning of sentence.--S Philbrick(Talk) 15:24, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Followup – Option 4 is really closer to addressing the point in dispute; the relevant cases being argued (see discussion below Reyk's response) are not really about the plural of runner-up; they are about the plural "runner-up finishes" with "finishes" elided. Just use "runner-up" and the problem goes away. Dicklyon (talk) 15:27, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

• Option 1 For the case of multiple people finishing in equal second place, "runners-up" is clearly correct IMO. For the second, I would say that "runners-up" is also more correct but I am actually having a hard time thinking of a sentence where it would actually be pluralised on its own. Like, when would you ever say that Joe Bloggs was "runner-ups" or "runners-up" in a variety of events? Would it not be more correct that Bloggs (there is only one of him) is the singular runner-up in those events? Or have I misunderstood the question? Reyk _YO! 14:58, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm thinking it might be something like "She scored 4 runner-ups." I'd rewrite with something like "4 runner-up awards" or "4 runner-up finishes" or "4 runner-up positions" in such cases. Dicklyon (talk) 15:11, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Looking back at what started this, which SPhilbrick didn't clearly tell us, it was in headings like "Women's doubles: 10 finals (3 titles, 7 runner-ups)". I agree it's not clear what would be a great fix. Maybe it's OK as the plural "runner-up positions" with position elided? Interesting question now that I see what it is. Maybe I'll reformulate my original answer? Maybe not. Dicklyon (talk) 15:16, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Probably it would best be fixed as ""Women's doubles: 10 finals (3 titles, 7 runner-up)", for "runner-up positions" with positions elided. Dicklyon (talk) 15:17, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Good point, and I also agree with your suggestion. Reyk _YO! 15:21, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

""Women's doubles: 10 finals (3 titles, 7 seconds)", maybe? --Pete (talk) 15:22, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe add this:

6. For a plural noun phrase such as "Runner-up finishes", when the noun is elided, use "Runner up"; making the modifier plural is unnecessary here. Dicklyon (talk) 15:24, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Dicklyon (talk) 15:24, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

Maybe "Women's doubles: 10 finals (Winner: 3, Runner-up: 7)" ?Tvx1 04:32, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

• Option 1 (Runners-up everywhere) – "Runner-ups" is simply lazy and ignorant. Compound plurals, such as brothers-in-law, can be difficult, and seem odd. But, at least in my corner of the globe, runners-up is correct, and runner-ups draws a wince. Maybe the language will change with usage – I hear "governor-generals" more and more frequently nowadays, when "governors-general" is correcter - but for the time being runners-up is correctest by far. --Pete (talk) 15:20, 27 January 2016 (UTC)±
• Option 1 - This should not be that complicated: this is the same syntactical rule applicable to "mothers-in-law," "ambassadors extraordinary and plenipotentiary," and "attorneys general," and all other scenarios in English where a plural noun is followed by its modifier. The reversed order of noun and modifier is a carryover from Norman French into middle English, but in French there would also be plural agreement of both noun and the trailing adjective or modifying phrase to clarify what is being modified. Indeed, many of these phrases are Norman French in origin, and are often so-called "law French" phrases that have passed into the English vernacular. Bottom line: if we're going to use grown-up words, then we need to use grown-up syntax. That's the winningest way to do things, right, Pete? Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 16:55, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
• Option 4, and don't have a cow about option 3 if it happens, for an event name and the like with "Runner-Ups" in the name (for a case like "Women's doubles: 10 finals (3 titles, 7 runners-up)", use "runners-up", as any dictionary will tell you). Do not permit option 2 (an ENGVAR argument would be false); option 1 is syntactically faulty. "Runners-up" is the plural of the natural sense of this compound: the runners-up to a prize; it's those who are running up to it, figuratively. If another thing that refers tangentially to runner-up competitors as a categorization is called the runner-up (as a short form of "the runner-up playoff" or whatever), that has become a unitary noun, and takes a final -s ending. The exact same case would happen if, say, a pigeon breed were named "the passer-by pigeon" (or Passery-by pigeon, if you like to capitalize breeds); in short form, birders would call them "passer-bys" in the plural, not "passers-by". This kind of thing happens all the time. See Toronto Maple Leafs. It's a natural feature of the English language. However, it's hard to think of a case where "runner-up" is both a) not referring to competitors and b) cannot be rewritten to be less awkward. Even if it's a proper name: The Annual Foo Runner-up could be pluralized with -s in, e.g., "the victor in seven consecutive Foo Runner-ups", but also reworded, e.g., "the victor in the Foo Runner-up seven times consecutively".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:07, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
  • In the case of the Leafs, it's because they were named after a WWI military unit, and because of the old convention of not changing the spelling when pluralizing proper nouns. Just as if I was talking about former NFL quarterback Ryan Leaf and his family, I wouldn't refer to them as "the Leaves", but as "the Leafs". oknazevad (talk) 20:35, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
    • Which is exactly the same linguistic process. When the word "leaf" becomes a name (or part of one), it loses the syntactic properties of the word, and picks up those of the name class, along with the morphology of that class. A family of people named Leaf are not "the Leaves". (This is why the "Proudfeet!" joke at the beginning of The Lord of the Rings is funny; native speakers innately understand that it's weird for the Proudfoots to insist on such a one-family "rule", even if the linguistically untrained among them can't quite explain why). When "runner-up" moves from descriptor of the status of individual competitors and becomes a label (name) of the category of them, the syntactic morphological rules of names apply. Different example: The plural of "child" is "children". I form a band called Crazy Child. In a different city, you also form a band called Crazy Child. Someone notices this, and says "Hey, look, there are two different Crazy Childs in different cities." They don't say "Crazy Children".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:48, 28 January 2016 (UTC) 23:47, 28 January 2016 (UTC)
• When referring to a finishing position, perhaps it is simplest to just say "second place finishes". isaacl (talk) 17:16, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
• Option 4, per Isaacl immediately above. It is too awkward to pluralize "runner-up" to mean that a person was the runner-up (i.e. second place) multiple times. Use a different word or phrase when this meaning is intended. – Jonesey95 (talk) 19:22, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
• Option 4 per Isaac. Which is exactly what I also suggested at WT:TENNIS. The players who achieve second place finishes this week at the Australian Open are runners-up, but the didn't achieve runner-ups. That's just poor English. oknazevad (talk) 20:34, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment - I would go with option 1 because it makes it easier to explain to new editors. Yes runners-up is correct when talking about multiple people, but I have also searched in vain for a definition when using multiple events. No grammar source has made this clear. We are taught it's runner (the noun) that is pluralized in hyphenated words but actually, in the case of winning multiple runner up trophies it's not so clear. In that case there aren't multiple runners. Think of it this way. In a report, if you are totaling the number of times you use the words "Fred", "orange" and "runner-up", you would tally that as 7 Freds, 13 oranges, and 27 runner-ups. You are taking runner-up as an entity instead of modifying the term runner. I could see where if we start totaling Roger Federer's runner-up trophies, that it could be argued as 35 runner-ups. But as I said, I have never seen a grammar source talk about multiple events so I'd have to go with the only option I have seen, runners-up at all times. Of course, if it's two hyphenated verbs it goes on the end, like sit-ups and push-ups. Strangely, if runner-up ever becomes runnerup (as hyphens have a way of disappearing in English), then of course it would revert to runnerups. Per advice from two university grammar depts I have to change my preference to option 3. Use "runner-ups" when tallying the number of "runner-up" events. Fyunck(click) (talk) 21:42, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
• Option 4. The others are bizarre. Dondervogel 2 (talk) 22:54, 27 January 2016 (UTC)
• Comment. Determining the correct writing of a noun should not be achieved through gauging the personal preference of a group of editors. The only way to find out the correct writing is by consulting the rules of the language involved, which we have to obey. I will note that in every of the dictionary sources that have been provided, only the usage of runner-up to refer to a person and a group of people for the plural is being discussed. Not a single one of them deals with using runner-up to describe a thing (in this case a result). Dicklyon has correctly pointed out that in the case of the section titles it is not runner-up (as in the competitor) that is being pluralized but rather the expression "runner-up position" with position being simply left out to save space. In that case there is no reason to treat it any different than set-ups, clean-ups, start-ups, warm-ups, round-ups, match-ups (e.g. The match-ups for the Australian Open's Men's Singles Semi-Finals are Djokovic–Federer and Murray–Raonic.) and the aforementioned sit-ups and push-ups. It seems  — SMcCandlish ☺ made somewhat the same point as me. I do agree that it's better to try to avoid runner-ups in prose, but in those section titles it does not seem avoidable however. Tvx1 04:28, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

  None of those phrases however are pluralized as *s-up. I have never heard "sets-up", "cleans-up", "starts-up", "warms-up", "rounds-up", "matches-up", "sits-up", or "pushes-up" as plurals (without dashes to indicate a standard verb, surely, as in "he cleans up"). So I'm not sure how these are relevant.

  The section headings honestly shouldn't go into such detail. Take Venus Williams career statistics for example: the section "Singles: 14 (7 titles, 7 runners-up)" (I'll note this is incorrectly "runners-up", just as "runner-ups" would be incorrect) could just as easily and more summarily be "Grand Slam singles", leaving the detail of the section to the section rather than jamming it into the heading. In other words, this is bad header writing. --Izno (talk) 12:54, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

  In words such as "warmup", the prefix "warm" is a verb, and so it is not equivalent to this scenario. isaacl (talk) 13:30, 28 January 2016 (UTC)

  Yep. They're superficially similar, and that's all. The -up in these constructions serves a completely different linguistic function. However, Tvx1's and my reasoning above actually converge on exactly the same point: The original expression has transitioned from a description of something (a competitor) to the name of a class of them, and the syntactic rules change along with that transition. It thus doesn't matter which was originally a verb, or what kind of function -up originally served there; those distinctions only apply to the pre-transition context. I agree with Isaacl that "Grand Slam singles" would be a sufficient heading in the specific case outlined, this thread is about the general question.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:27, 29 January 2016 (UTC) Clarified, 04:07, 30 January 2016 (UTC)

• Option 4 is the best option. --Izno (talk) 12:55, 28 January 2016 (UTC).
• Option 2 is the least disruptive and in the spirit of WP:ENGVAR. --Jayron32 02:29, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

That doesn't track; it's the opposite of ENGVAR. ENGVAR is following strong national ties. There are no such ties here, so it would be following "random editor whim". The opposite of something with a rationale is something with no rationale. The very reason we have rules like ENGVAR is that following random editorial whim when people have strong opinions about what is permissible in a dialect is disruptive. Here, the situation is that people have strong opinions about what is permissible in the language as a whole. Divergent scenarios.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:32, 29 January 2016 (UTC)

No, the spirit of ENGVAR is "Don't fight over inconsequential inanities, and the way to avoid that is 1) be internally consistent and 2) don't change it if someone is already doing it one way, even if you personally like the other way". That is, whatever is picked, keep it the same, and if it's already one way, don't change it to the other. When choosing between two arbitrary choices where it doesn't matter which we use, just pick one and go with it, and if someone before you already picked one, don't change it just because...--Jayron32 16:41, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Absolutely not. The section title of ENGVAR clearly states "National variaties of English". That's not even remotely the issue here. This is not a case of picking arbitrary choices at all. It's a case of determining the correct writing of a word belonging to a language to convey the correct meaning where intended. Using the incorrect of two possible plural forms of the word in question in the wrong situation doesn't even create a different meaning but rather a pure linguistic error. Someone has now provided a couple of university opinions substantiating this. Tvx1 04:15, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

• Comment Obviously just two university opinions, but I took it upon myself to contact the University of Purdue Owl grammar dept, and Princeton University style guide. My query was:

  I could not find this discussion in grammar books so I though I would ask the experts. We all know the plural of runner-up is runners-up, because we pluralize the noun in hyphenated words. Two hyphenated non-nouns like sit-up and push-up get the last part pluralized (sit-ups, push-ups). But runners-up grammar is correct when used in a general sense of multiple runners being the runners-up. When making a tally of words written in a report, I assume we'd write: there were 17 Freds, 12 oranges, and 23 runner-ups, since we are taking the term "runner-up" as a whole. My main query is what if we are talking multiple events instead of multiple runners? Roger Federer at Wimbledon: (7 titles, 3 runners-up) or (7 titles, 3 runner-ups)? I would say runners-up, but we are actually tallying all his runner-up events. It's a little tricky for me and I can find no source that specifically addresses this issue.

  Princeton was short and sweet. "On researching this particular usage, you are incorrect. Runner-ups is used for tallying." Purdue was a little longer: "The situation you're describing is very unique, and seems to elude the regular rules relating to 'runner-up.' Since 'runner-up' is usually defined as a specific person, not a title (like first or second place), it's technically unusual to refer to multiple instances of Roger Federer receiving second place at all. However, since Federer received the status of 'runner-up' multiple times, it would actually be proper to use 'runner-ups.' This is a situation where a particular grammatical rule is unlikely to emerge. But given the nature of the situation, 'runner-ups' is better." This is the first time I have seen anything on this subject. Others can certainly contact different style guides (like Chicago's) to see if perhaps there is disagreement, but these universities have flat out told me I am wrong in using runners-up for tallying purposes. Obviously not as good as have a direct source we can link to, but this was the best I could do. I'll send out a few more emails to see if there is general agreement on this. Fyunck(click) (talk) 03:07, 1 February 2016 (UTC)

So why not just avoid the problem with something like "7 runner-up"? Dicklyon (talk) 07:23, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

That's a linguistic error. You can't have a singular noun after a plural ordinal. Tvx1 21:43, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

It could be certainly done as an adjectival, if the construction was parallel: (3 first-place, 7 runner-up).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:35, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Precisely, find a way of avoiding a problem, (the position being plural) which is otherwise almost inevitably going to look like a 'clanger' or a typo. Pincrete (talk) 22:45, 6 February 2016 (UTC)

Addition. The AP Style Guide answered that I had to pay/join to get an answer, so that was useless. I contacted the Chicago Manual of Style and told them the situation (along with what Princeton and Purdue had told me). Answer today was: "CMOS itself is silent on this issue, but we agree with Princeton and Purdue. - CMOS staff." Not sure the authority of "the staff" but it would seem the CMOS guide is not going to rush out with an addendum describing our situation. It really looks like I've been writing it wrong all these years and that it should be corrected to runner-ups or perhaps changed to something else like "15 2nd places", "15 finals", "15 runner up finishes" or something that eludes me. I think runner-ups is fine per what I'm being told, and that using "15 runner-up" would be just as wrong as using "15 runners-up." I assume this affects relatively few projects so this is perhaps best dealt with by the individual projects in how they want to handle the exact wording, but the editor who is currently systematically changing everything from runner-ups to runners-up should stop. Fyunck(click) (talk) 05:23, 7 February 2016 (UTC)

I have the current AP guide and many, many others. If you need an answer from one of them in particular I can probably get it for you (lots of others who are regulars here probably would, too). I hope the website access cost less than the book.  :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:44, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Billboard Hot 100

Simply asking if [[Billboard Hot 100|''Billboard'' Hot 100]] is the correct format for this chart. The format can be found over multiple pages such as Template talk:Singlechart/Archive 1#Citation position, Wikipedia talk:Record_charts/Archive 8#Billboard component charts (in the chart table), Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Record charts/Archive 10#Accessibility Issues, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Discographies/style#Chart name abbreviation, as well as pages such as WP:BILLBOARDCHARTS and Template:Singlechart. An editor recently changed the format into [[Billboard (magazine)|''Billboard'']] [[Hot 100]] here but it doesn't look correct to me. Synthwave.94 (talk) 11:55, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

• Billboard is the magazine title (italicized), and the "Hot 100" is an article/feature in it (quotation marks). If the actual title of the feature in the publication uses all three words, we'd render that "Billboard Hot 100". This has come up before. If the publication name is integral to the title of the feature, include it (e.g. was included as #34 on the "Maxim 100 Hottest Women of 2015" list (or whatever; I don't know what the actual title is). If it's not, something like: was profiled in People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" feature in 2015. If it's used as a title/award, not a reference to an article, no markup except on the publication: was declared Person of the Year by Time magazine.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:13, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately, that's not what the edit-warring at Money (That's What I Want) was about and what I think Synthwave.94 is asking here. It seems to be a question of whether there should be one link or two,

    Billboard Hot 100 or Billboard Hot 100,

    with a subsidiary question of where to point that last link (straight to the Billboard Hot 100 article or to the redirect Hot 100). I'd favour the single link which I believe serves the reader well, as the name is clear and the opening sentence of Billboard Hot 100 even clearer. NebY (talk) 18:41, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

    • Yes, SMcCandlish, the chart name uses all three words, but is always stylised as Billboard Hot 100. Synthwave.94 (talk) 21:17, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
      • Here, that seems to be the case. In the real world, it varies. I even see cases of "Billboard" Hot 100 out there. Quotation marks seem rare, so there's no reason for MoS to insist on a convention that treats popular music charts as minor works of the quotation-marks-bearing sort, when used as a ranking system, if there's no actual trend this direction in the real world (similarly, we don't italicize the names of fashion collections or other product lines, but do the titles of art gallery exhibitions [shrug], following real-world usage). If there's a conceptual difference between a pop chart as a struggle against competition, like positioning in a league tournament chart, vs. the actual chart as a document, that's fine. If it's cited as a source, however, the source is the article either in the print edition or the Billboard website; our citation templates will automatically quotation-mark those, and that's correct in our and any other citation styles that use quotation marks around article titles. (It's very similar to the distinction between "this was published in WebMagazine.com on 3 July" and "I started working at WebMagazine.com on 3 July" (publication being cited vs. corporate entity being referred to; sometimes this distinction is more obvious, e.g. The New York Times vs. The New York Times Compay, but it's rare for us to have two separate articles like that, and we don't redundantly cite the latter in |publisher= when the same are substantially the same. Which is directly relevant to the sea-of-blue matter raised here: If it's good enough that the NYT article links to the publication company, it's good enough that the Billboard Hot 100 article links to the Billboard (magazine) publication.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:03, 14 February 2016 (UTC)
    • Thanks for your answer, NebY. I also don't see any reason to use two links instead of one. Synthwave.94 (talk) 21:17, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
    • I'm really annoyed about how Synthwave94 described our conflict here in this thread. It was very misleading and unacceptable. Thank you NebY for clearing up this matter. Caden ^cool 23:37, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Tempted to say that the reader will be interested (if at all) only in the chart. If interest then extends to the magazine, that can be very easily be found from the chart article. A mistaken click on the first part of the name (not realising there are two link parts) will take the reader just to the magazine, which may be confusing. A single link also has the advantage of making the markup less dense. But no strong view really. Martinevans123 (talk) 21:31, 13 February 2016 (UTC)
    • Single link per WP:SEAOFBLUE. As Martinevans123 stated, the Billboard link should be in the Hot 100 article if anyone wanted more info on the company.—Bagumba (talk) 22:52, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

      Nah, I'm sure you're thinking of WP:SEAOFLOVE by Phil Phillips (No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, 1959): [9] Martinevans123 (talk) 22:59, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

• Single link per WP:SEAOFBLUE. And we avoid directly juxtaposing links like that whenever we can, since the reader can't tell they are separate links without hovering, thus they are likely to click "Billboard" and expect to get an article on "Hot 100". If it's necessary to distinguish between two similarly named charts and the organizations that publish them, e.g. to explain differences between their nature and methodology, then come up with a way to split the links up, e.g. the [[Billboard (magazine)|Billboard]] (US) [[Billboard Hot 100|Hot 100]] and the [[Whatever...]] (Madagascar) [[Whatever... Hottest 100]]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:03, 14 February 2016 (UTC)