Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Chess notation

I have a couple of questions about Chess notation on Wikipedia. See Chess notation and Algebraic notation (chess). A good example of current usage on Wikipedia is at Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov. The official rules are at http://www.fide.com/component/handbook/?view=article&id=125 (FIDE Chess Handbook, E.I.01B (Appendices), Appendix C (Algebraic notation). I believe the United States Chess Federation prefers the FIDE notation but allows descriptive as well.

My questions are:

Hyphen, en dash or em dash? Move 8 of Deep Blue versus Garry Kasparov, 1996, Game 1 (Which I will call DBvK for short) shows a 0-0 (Castle) with an ASCII 2D (hyphen).

Space after period; required, allowed, or forbidden? DBvK has no spaces.

Leading zeros; required, allowed, or forbidden? DBvK has no leading zeros, nor has any chess book I have ever seen. Some chess-playing programs use leading zeros, but that went out of style with MS-DOS.

Capture; small letter x or multiplication sign? Or some other character?

May I assume that Wikipedia's standard is the algebraic notation required by the FIDE with English piece names? Or are figurine piece names also allowed? --Guy Macon (talk) 00:23, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

[I have posted a message at WT:CHESS, with a link to this discussion.

—Wavelength (talk) 00:57, 22 May 2012 (UTC)]

[Editors are invited to see User talk:Tony1#chess notation (version of 01:08, 22 May 2012).

—Wavelength (talk) 01:17, 22 May 2012 (UTC)]

• Hyphen or dash - most rulebooks don't say, but Schiller Official Rules of Chess says dash. But I haven't seen an em-dash used for decades. But Schiller also says to use zeros for castling whereas most of the rulebooks use a letter O.
• Space after period - as far as I can tell, anything goes.
• Leading zeros - certainly not required and they are rarely seen.
• Algebraic notation is the world-wide standard. The USCF allows games to be recorded in descriptive notation, but nothing has been published in that for about 25 years. I don't think this has been discussed, but the English piece names are used instead of figurines. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:50, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

• I think this arises from threads on my talk page and that of Ihardlythinkso, where I've listed some sources:
• Pitman (in Modern Chess Openings): proper symbol (×) and en dash
• Bell: proper symbol (but uses a kind of em dash, it seems: certainly not a hyphen)
• Penguin: proper symbol and en dash
• Chess Digest: proper symbol and en dash
• Batsford: proper symbol (but uses hyphen, not en dash)
• Arco: proper symbol and en dash
• Imprint Capablanca (heavy-duty chess publishers): proper symbol and en dash
• Digest: proper symbol and en dash

Tony (talk) 03:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I looked at two more books, Kasparov on Kasparov, Everyman Chess and The Mammoth Book of Chess. In both of them, I could see no difference between the symbol they use for capture and the letter x. As far as hyphen or dash in castling, definitely not m-dash, but I can't tell the difference between a hyphen and an n-dash in print. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:06, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, they are pretty short so they look like hyphens to me. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:09, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

If you want to use the same characters as used in the sources, I would argue that the characters used in the official FIDE laws of chess or USCF rules of chess trump some random chess book. FIDE (ref above) uses these characters:

# Octothorpe (ASCII 23)

+ Plus Sign (ASCII 2B)

- Hyphen (ASCII 2D)

0 Zero (ASCII 30)

= Equal Sign (ASCII 3D)

x Lower Case X (ASCII 78)

USCF (example http://main.uschess.org/content/view/11741/141/ ) uses the same characters except for one:

O Upper case O (ASCII 4F)

One notable primary source looks like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fischer_Score_Card.jpg

Good luck with that one.

While they don't specifically mention chess, If you look at MOS:HYPHEN, MOS:DASH, MOS:EMDASH, and MOS:ENDASH, I think it could be argued that the correct character to use here is the hyphen. Hyphens indicate conjunction, and the use in chess notation (particularly long algebraic) is a lot more like a conjunction than it is like anything in the dash descriptions. --Guy Macon (talk) 08:09, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree and think we should follow the FIDE algebraic notation, which USCF says they use too. Btw, here is another link for USCF [1] Other symbols: Castling- 0-0 ; Queenside castling- 0-0-0 ; Capture- x (i.e. BxNf6 means bishop captures knight on f6) ; Check- + ; Checkmate- ++ OR # ; White wins- 1-0 ; Black wins- 0-1 ; d pawn promotes to a queen- d8=Q ; Good move- ! ; Bad move- ? ; Brilliant, soul searing move- !!  ; Blunder- ?? ; Interesting move !? ; Dubious move ?! . I have checked their official rule book (preview in amazon) and it is the same there, except the use of the letter O in castling. Voorlandt (talk) 09:13, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

That looks like the best solution. I think we can ignore the USCF O and use 0 - every other country except the US uses FIDE rules, including New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK. One other detail; FIDE uses capital letters for pieces (B for Bishop) and lower case letters for squares (square b4). --Guy Macon (talk) 09:51, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

The FIDE source is a web page, and web pages tend to stick to ASCII. That doesn't mean that a print source would stick to ASCII. Also, for castling they use a spaced hyphen, which is a conventional ASCII substitution for an en dash. Given all the print sources which use ⟨×⟩ and ⟨–⟩, that's probably what we should do here. — kwami (talk) 10:42, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

It is a good point that web pages tend to stick to ASCII, so here are links to the print versions of the rules of both FIDE Appendix C and USCF: USCF, page 214-..; regards, Voorlandt (talk) 10:49, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Any Wikipedia copyeditor familiar with WP:ENDASH would expect 1–0 (White wins), along with 0–1 and ½–½, using a dash because they resemble a sports score. Art LaPella (talk) 14:26, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree, but reporting the result of a game or tournament is not actually part of chess notation, which serves to document the moves made in the game. FIDE-standard algebraic notation only uses a hyphen for castling (0-0 and 0-0-0), but long algebraic notation uses a hyphen for most moves (Nb1-c3) as does reversible algebraic notation.

Alas, baseball doesn't seem to use "1-2, 2-3" to indicate two runners on 1st and 2nd base advancing to 2nd and 3rd base, but if it did, I suspect that it would use a hyphen. The closest analogy on Wikipedia I could find was at Odds, where I find "a more common use is "odds against", of the form 6 to 1, 6-1, 6:1, or 6/1 (all read as 'six-to-one')". --Guy Macon (talk) 17:28, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

As far as hyphen versus dash (either one) and the "x" used in capture, I suggest that the ones that are available on a standard keyboard be used, i.e. a hyphen and a lower-case letter x. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 22:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I would also note that while the FIDE Laws of Chess(Appendix C, pages 18-20) appears to specify 0 - 0 - 0, the sample game at the top of page 20 makes it clear that 0-0-0 is to be used. --Guy Macon (talk) 02:17, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

To me, specifying 0 - 0 - 0 and then using 0-0-0 in the sample, makes it clear that whoever wrote that doesn't consider spacing to be an important difference, and it seems unlikely he cares about hyphens vs. dashes either. Art LaPella (talk) 02:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Wholly agree w/ Art. There are so many absent notation standards needing attention, why waste this good opportunity seeing "ghosts" in minutae (Tony1's "scrutinizing sources" for diffs between "×" vs "x", castling hyphens vs endashes)? Are we gonna blow this opportunity now that the topic of notation convention finally has attention? Or set some standards for uniformity, of which there are precious few? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 03:32, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Take-aways

OMG! The discussion is seeming to center on what s/b uniform notation conventions, across all articles. (I hadn't presumed that from Tony; it wasn't clear to me he wasn't meaning article-specific styling to mirror what's in respective sources.) But the topic of an agreed consistent notation for WP chess articles is a great topic IMO (since I for one think uniformity across articles is a good thing for readability).

How about some "take-aways" from this discussion!? Updating either MOS for chess, or ProjChess conventions!? (There is a ProjChess convention "White/Black" refer to players; "white/black" refer to pieces, but little other strong conventions, beyond the obvious, like B = bishop, etc. And I'd assumed "x" for captures, and hyphens for castles, were in the obvious camp, until now, since they've never been questioned until now. I assume they won't change.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Will we have any "take-aways" on any of these (consensus for ProjChess conventions, or MOS guides), or do we just let all this get archived and forgotten about? Tony1 made changes to Morphy versus the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard regarding item 'n' (changing captures, e.g. "dxe5" to "d×e5") and 'm' (changing castles, e.g. "0-0-0" to "0–0–0"), I questioned him on it at his User Talk, he was insistent, even though his notation styling is inconsistent w/ 99.99% chess articles. I opened the issue on the article Talk, but someone opened a thread here, and Tony1 asked if discussion could be moved from article Talk to here (although I don't see any participation by Tony1 here). That is why there is this discussion here (it wasn't my idea to open a thread at MOS, only at article Talk). So, what happens back at Morphy versus the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard as a result of this thread, which replaced the discussion at article Talk? Will we determine consensus on at least items 'n' and 'm' below so Morphy versus the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard can be resolved? Or will it be allowed, through lack of whatever, that yet another notation styling—am pretty sure not seen before in any WP chess article—to add to the convention inconsistencies WP already has, documented below? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 12:34, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Without conclusion(s) drawn regarding consensus on the item(s), other than on some which seem to be governed already by MOS (like "1–0" versus "1-0"), there'll be no ProjChess convention or MOS guide to prefer any of the options listed over other option(s). In that case, one would like to think precedence should be honored (e.g., "exd5" occurring in 99.99% articles, not "e×d5"), rather than the chaos (inconsistencies) whereby any editor reverts any other based on personal preference (for whatever reason). But in some cases there isn't a clear precedent (e.g., there are plenty of "O-O-O"s in articles as well as "0-0-0"s), so there's nothing to stop the chaos (inconsistencies) brought on by repeated reversions. (Which *does* happen. Ditto for "1... e5" versus "1. ... e5", etc.). This MOS thread was supposedly opened to resolve one or more of these differences of preference. Has it? Will there be any take-away result(s) (consensus)? (If not, is there a WP Guide giving preference to existing precedent in articles, when there clearly is one? Or is it assumed editors should respect any overwhelming precedent already in-place?) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 11:27, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

a. 0-0-0 vs. O-O-O

(It'd be nice to get some policy on it, so editors stop reverting one another based on personal taste! My own "kinky" preference is that 0-0-0 is always used, but O-O-O for pre-1900 games, to make them look "antiquish". But I realize that sounds silly, and my own preference isn't important anyway. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

Portable Game Notation uses letter O, in contrast to most publications. Personally, I just write circles, but I prefer letter O to zero. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:23, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The Laws of Chess and their Interpretation by Golombek uses O. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:39, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I personally draw Os when recording a game, but when playing over games (reading), I prefer to see 0s. (It looks more "modern". Plus WP's own reference for this, article Algebraic notation, uses 0s not Os – see section Castling. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 13:19, 28 May 2012 (UTC)) But if the WP future is figurine notation and PGN (as [here]), then are we best off positioning for that now, with "O–O–O"?! Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:13, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

0-0-0 per FIDE Laws of Chess Appendix C. (OTOH, note that USCF rules and Portable Game Notation use O-O-O) --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The appendix is ambiguous. They imply <0–0–0>. — kwami (talk) 18:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

That's not true. Look at the top of page 20. The PDF uses the binary code for ASCII 0, not ASCII O, and ASCII -, not Unicode –. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:11, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it fair to say there is no CONSENSUS, therefore editors should feel free in WP chess articles to continue reverting one another till the cows come home based on personal taste? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:11, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

b. (1.e4) vs. (1. e4) vs. (1 e4)

(It'd be nice to get some policy on it, because as can be seen here, some editors have personal taste that is different: Semi-Slav Defense. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

(I really think this difference [1.e4 vs. 1. e4] s/ *not* be standardized, I think that's going too far. [I've changed my view of this, at first I thought a standard would be good. But I now think that's too inflexible. Sometimes w/o space works best, sometimes with, for different situations. There are many situations, making a hard rule too blunt: horizontal gamescores, vertical gamescores, horizontal gamescores sliced w/ commentary, ditto vertical, use in section titles, infoboxes, etc. All of them have different effects, making the issue too complex for one-size-fits-all. {The original idea to have *both* for diff situations was not mine, but another editor in discussion on notation styles at ProjChess. The idea seemed odd to me when I read it, but after more editing experience I see he was right!}] But I do think that in horizontal gamescores where moves are all in bold, "1. e4" s/b preferred, to give all that crowded blackness some breathing room, for easier-on-the-eyes reading. But an influential member at ProjChess disagrees with that. Anyway! I say not to touch this, the downside being, there may be back-and-forth reverts between users on personal preferences – in fact the reason I opened a discussion on ProjChess was due to a back-and-forth reversion! I think this issue is really complex, and is really confusing therefore. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

I don't like the period to be omitted, and I think it is rare. I prefer a space after the period. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:26, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I think I agree. (Especially for bold.) Chess Life uses the space consistently. But User:MrsHudson prefers without the space (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/FAQ/Format#Notation.) I wonder how dropping the space came about, and why. I can see advantage in big blocks of horizontal gamescore for compactness/space savings, and you can get "more in" a given line in an Infobox, circumventing spillover to a new line. But in columnar presentations (e.g. intro moves in most openings articles), the space is always used. But in TOCs, the space in section titles makes things look more confusing ("2.1 1. e4" vs. "2.1 1.e4"). So I think blanket application is probably a mistake; too many situations. (Not sure what's best!) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC) p.s. I agree "1 e4" is bad of course. (But at least a couple ProjChess members, including User:Quale, thought it looks best: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Chess/FAQ/Format#Notation.)

I agree that the space does make a TOC entry confusing, so don't use a space in a section title. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 04:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The FIDE Laws of Chess Appendix C. (top of page 20) specifies 1. e4 (FIDE website mostly conforms to this, but occasionally does not[2]) --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd use 1. e4, with a non-breaking space. Maybe a thin space would look better (1.e4), but the KISS principle applies. ― A. di M.​  13:41, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

di M., is the "thin space" supposed to be less wide than a non-breaking space? (Because on my computer, it is creating *more* separation than the non-breaking space, not less.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 21:26, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Re "1 e4":
Is it fair to say there is CONSENSUS to never use that notation style (without dot) in WP chess articles?

Re "1.e4" vs "1. e4":
(I'm staying out of this topic, as noted above.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 21:04, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

c. (1...Nf6 or 1 ...Nf6) vs. (1. ...Nf6 or 1. ... Nf6)

c. (1...Nf6 or 1... Nf6) vs. (1. ...Nf6 or 1. ... Nf6)

(There's plenty of discord regarding which s/b used, and I've seen reversions back-and-forth based on personal preference also. I'm sure the first will be chosen, but would be nice to have some policy on it, to resolve the matter. [Chess Life uses the latter, a decision I don't understand, but hey!] Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

Also 1... Nf6 is used (like the second one, but the space is after the three periods). I've flip-flopped on this, but for the last couple of years I've preferred 1... Nf6. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

That's my fault (I meant 1... Nf6 but incorrectly typed 1 ...Nf6 in the subsection title). Sorry for confusion. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

1...Nf6 when a number is specified, ...Nf6 if no number per FIDE usage[3] --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it fair to say there is CONSENSUS to always use 1...Nf6 or 1... Nf6 for notating Black moves in WP chess articles, and not 1. ...Nf6 or 1. ... Nf6?

d. (1–0, 0–1, ½–½) vs. (1-0, 0-1, ½-½)

(Again I assume the first will be chosen; I agree w/ Art. But it would be nice to have a standard in policy, so there's no question. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

I prefer the one that we have on a standard keyboard. But I do strongly prefer ½-½ to 0.5-0.5, or he scored 6½ points over 6.5 points. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:30, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I prefer fractions too, but just discovered this: "The use of the few Unicode symbols available for fractions (such as ½) is discouraged entirely, for accessibility reasons among others." (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Fractions. Have I misinterpreted it!?) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 07:39, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Excellent find! Now we have a third answer. Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Fractions does not say we should use

½ ( Unicode VULGAR FRACTION ONE HALF [ UTF-8 Hex C2 BD = &frac12; = &#189; ] )

or

1/2 ( ASCII 1, /, 2 ).

It says we should use

1⁄2 ( WikiMarkup {{frac|1|2}} ),

which gives us

¹⁄₂ ( Superscript ASCII 1, Unicode FRACTION SLASH [ UTF-8 Hex E2 81 84 = &frasl; = &#8260; ] ), Subscript ASCII 2 ).

--Guy Macon (talk) 12:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Not a part of chess notation, so MOS rules for reporting scores of sporting events apply. FIDE use is inconsistent, sometimes 1-0, 0-1 and 1/2-1/2[4], sometimes 1-0, 0-1, ½-½[5]. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it fair to say there is CONSENSUS to use endashes (as according to MOS) when reporting these scores in WP chess articles, and not hyphens?

What part of MOS? --Guy Macon (talk) 12:53, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

MOS:ENDASH. "2. In compounds when the connection might otherwise be expressed with to, versus, and, or between. Here the relationship is thought of as parallel, symmetric, equal, oppositional, or at least involving separate or independent elements. The components may be nouns, adjectives, verbs, or any other independent part of speech."

In the list of examples given, this one: "a 51–30 win; a six–two majority decision" Ihardlythinkso (talk) 18:43, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

e. (+5 −1 =3) vs. (+5−1=3) vs. (+5 =3 −1) vs. (+5=3−1)

(For match and tournament scores. Again I assume the first will be chosen. That's why I've spent time on several articles on major players [Fischer, Alekhine, Karpov, Kasparov, Lasker, Steinitz, etc.] making them uniformly +W −L =D, following the lead of some of the more consistent major articles. But it was a lot of work! [And not complete for those articles.] And there are different ways to report scores in RSs [e.g. The Oxford Companion uses +W=D−L]. Of course I personally prefer the former [wins & losses are more "dramatic" and s/b listed first IMO], but again my preference is not important; consistency is the desirable goal, and a policy now could help that end. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

I brought this up at the Chess project talk page. Some non-chessplayers don't understand what the = means. I prefer something like (W5,L1,D3) - much clearer. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:32, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Not a part of chess notation. Is there something in MOS that specifies win/draw/loss for sporting events? FIDE uses +W=D-l[6]. All variations seem confusing to newcomers. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Probably should hold of on "spending time on several articles making them uniform" until a consensus is reached as to what we should standardize on. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:20, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I've understood my time might so be wasted, but my expectation that an agreed-upon standard will be reached is that this will occur sometime in the year 2025 (or like the song, "in the year 2525, if Man is still alive"). Ihardlythinkso (talk) 21:25, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

f. (+/−, −/+, −+, +−) vs. (+/-, -/+, +-, -+) vs. (+/–, –/+, +–, –+)

(I assume the first will be chosen [the arithmetic minus sign]. But there is no policy now for evaluation expessions, as well as for Black [−/+ vs. -/+]. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

I prefer the one that a standard keyboard has. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The problem with sticking to ASCII is that it looks amateurish. You can always write it in ASCII, of course, and s.o. will clean up after you. Also, when we mean 'minus', we already have the standard of writing it as minus rather than as a hyphen. — kwami (talk) 04:26, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Really? I think ASCII looks modern - as if a computer was used instead of 19th-century printing technology. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 05:01, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Well, I think Unicode looks even more modern – as if modern fonts were used instead of 20th-century character encodings. ;-) (And the hyphen looks mismatched to me.) ― A. di M.​  13:45, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The minus is at the same level as, and the same length as, the horiztal bar in "+", so to me minus looks hands-down "cleaner" (neater, more organized). (WP provides the special char clickable, of course, below the edit summary box.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This is widely used in engineering and statistics. Is there already a MOS entry for it? --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Previous discussions: Manual of Style and WikiProject Chess.

Text readers will say the correct words if the real minus sign is used instead of the hyphen. Everything in the manual of style points to using the correct symbol, not a shortcut. Binksternet (talk) 16:08, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, what Binksternet wrote above settles the issue. We do not make decisions that make things harder on the visually impaired because we like the way they look. Not only is designing for screen readers the right thing to do, we are required by the Americans with Disabilities Act to make reasonable accommodations for users with screen readers. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:30, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Article Punctuation (chess) gives =/∞, +/=, +/−, and +−. I guess in this "take-away" I'm asking if we can make that policy, so when hyphens are found in articles they can be replaced (with minuses). In this ProjChess discussion, User:ZeroOne points out ± and ∓ are available, but no equivalents with "=" (except that User:Casaschi explains how to make them, giving an example/link). In the same discussion, Quale preferred English prose over evaluation symbols in WP articles, reserving symbol use for wikibooks:chess. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 22:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Good find! I strongly agree with you about standardizing. For example, we can standardize on hyphens. We can standardize on en dashes. We can standardize by saying "retain whatever is already there", like we do with US and UK spelling. Any of these will avoid having editors revert each other over this. --Guy Macon (talk) 06:10, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Concur. (Anything is better than senseless reverts & re-reverts.) Maybe when done here we can bake some cookies (make some policy)? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:45, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it fair to say there is CONSENSUS to use arithmetic minuses in symbols +/−, −/+, +−, and −+, in chess articles when they are used, and not hyphens or dashes? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:28, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

g. (Fischer vs. Petrosian) vs. (Fischer vs Petrosian) vs. (Fischer v. Petrosian) vs. (Fischer v Petrosian) vs. (Fischer versus Petrosian)

(Too "sticky" and complex! Because it occurs in diff places, each w/ diff effects: prefix to gamescores, inline references, in article text, ELs, diagram headings, section titles, etc. Have fun! Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Abbreviations#Miscellaneous shortenings (version of 06:41, 9 May 2012) says the following about "vs./v.”

Shortening	Expansion	Notes
vs./v.	versus (against / in contrast to)	They do not need to be linked. Prefer "vs." except in legal contexts, where the usage is "v." Not italicized, since it has long been assimilated into the language as an English word.

—Wavelength (talk) 23:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

In the body of text, I prefer to spell out "versus". In a caption I prefer "vs.". But I strongly prefer these to the common dash or hyphen, so that there won't be confusion with hyphenated names. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

"vs." per MOS Misc. shortenings --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Doesn't British English use "vs" with no period? ― A. di M.​  13:30, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I checked some British case law (here). Trawling through the text, I saw that the preferred abbreviation was "v" - no period, no "s". Of course, that might just be what this particlar judge prefers. Martinvl (talk) 13:37, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

h. d8Q vs. d8=Q vs. d8(Q) vs. d8/Q

(For WP, do we prefer one of these? If not, we'll get all of them! Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

The first one is mainly used only where you are trying to save paper (Informat is an example), so I think it is the least preferred on WP. Then =Q is my first choice and (Q) is my second choice. (Note that you can't put an = in a caption unless you enclose it in two sets of braces.) Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:42, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess I'd agree, that d8=Q is best (with other conventions already assumed standard, like inclusion of "+" for check, and "x" for captures). (And I just noticed that Chess Life also uses "=Q".) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

d8Q per FIDE Laws of Chess Appendix C. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

OK. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

But we aren't obligated to follow suit w/ the FIDE handbook. For example Chess Life uses d8=Q, and I think that convention would be less confusing for new readers than d8Q. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 13:25, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Here's another argument to consider: Minimal algegraic notation (MAN) uses ed5 or ed instead of exd5, and Qh7 instead of Qh7+. MAN also uses d8Q. Wouldn't it be advisable and/or consistent then, to continue the pattern of differentiation from MAN in WP chess articles, by using d8=Q (or d8(Q) or d8/Q) instead of d8Q? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:50, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

i. (gxh6 e.p.) vs. (gxh6e.p.) vs. (gxh6 e.p.) vs. (gxh6 (e.p.)) vs. (gxh6(e.p.)) vs. (gxh6)

(Do we or don't we want to notate e.p.? And if so, how? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

gxh6 e.p. per Rule C.9 of the FIDE Laws of Chess. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I guess I would agree gxh6 e.p. is the best expression (in conjunction w/ already assumed standards of "+" for check, and "x" for captures). Out of curiosity I checked Chess Life, and they use: gxh6 e.p. (italicized!). (Feb 2012 Chess Life, p. 49.) WHICH WOULD REALLY MAKE SENSE for WP too, since term en passant is always italic. (I've added italic to the comparison choices above.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 05:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it fair to say there is CONSENSUS to use the first option consistently, in WP chess articles? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 21:15, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

j. (White will maneuver Nb1–a3–c2) vs. (White will maneuver Nb1-a3-c2) ... or ... (Black will react in the center by pushing his pawn ...e7–e5) vs. (by pushing his pawn ...e7-e5)

(It's never been explicitly stated before, but in WP articles, I've assumed longhand algebraic is never implied by these kinds of expressions, rather, endash means "from square x to square y". [If it were really longhand algebraic, then I assume ...e7-e5 would be correct [not ...e7–e5]. But I've never seen a case in any article, where the meaning needed or intended to be longhand. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

Again, I prefer the one I can type on my keyboard. Except for the ½ character, I'm not going to put things I can't time (dashes or the other form of x). Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:44, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

"White will maneuver Na3, then Nc2." or "White will maneuver Na3, Nc2." Use standard algebraic notation. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Bubba, you can write it however you like. The MOS is for the style we expect for an FA. If you want to use hyphens where we expect dashes, that's fine: someone will come along later to convert them. It's no big deal, and you don't need to go out of your way to follow the minutiae of the MOS. — kwami (talk) 18:04, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The Mammoth Book of Chess[7] (App. B) says, "In long algebraic notation ... a dash [is] placed between the departure and arrival squares". — kwami (talk) 18:20, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

But I don't think the sample descriptions intend to be actual longform notation. Rather, they are just a shorthand in lieu of more lengthy English text descriptions. (This type of technique is used in lotsa openings articles, lots! For example, here it's used four times in the first couple paragraphs: Sicilian Defence, Dragon Variation#The Yugoslav Attack.) I don't think WP needs to have even one occurrence of actual longform notation – just like there's never a need for occurence of another notation system, like descriptive, in any article. (Except of course in context where such system is described/explained.) I think MOS applies when using the shorthand, as it does in "the a1–h8 diagonal", "[ECO] C55–C56", "page 38–39", etc. (The reason am making the distinction at all, is that it's not certain to me that longform algegraic shouldn't use hyphen!) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:07, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Right - there is a difference between a sequence of moves like this and the long form notation. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:36, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Not really on the topic of MOS Chess Notation, but is it even legal under either USCF or FIDE rules to record your game in long algebraic or reversible algebraic?

Is it fair to say there is CONSENSUS that when these type descriptions are used in chess articles, and according to existing MOS, dashes are to be used, not hyphens? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:21, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

k. + vs. ++

(I don't think I've actually seen ++ for "double-check" in any article, so this is really picky, but for completeness while we're on the topic, how about making + standard when there's a double-check, instead of ++? ["++" is probaby just very old-fasioned. Let's help it die!] Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:43, 22 May 2012 (UTC))

To me, ++ means checkmate, so double check would be confusing at best. Art LaPella (talk) 00:49, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree. But see Double check. (It might cause reverts, w/o a policy.) Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 01:25, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I think ++ is used for double check in some other articles. I use # for checkmate, and I normally don't indicate double check, so I prefer just a single + for double check. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:48, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I use "X" for checkmate (ala ECO oops! – I don't remember where I picked up use of "X"; ECO uses "#"), but for WP, "#". I agree, ignore notating double-check. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:51, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

There is no "+ vs. ++". "+" means check and "++" (or "#") means checkmate per FIDE Laws of Chess Appendix C --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I'd be unambiguous and use # for checkmate, and just + for double check (except in unusual circumstances such as the double check article itself). ― A. di M.​  13:47, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree with that - generally don't indicate double check, except where it specifically needs to be noted, as in the double check article and conceivably a few others. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 23:39, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it fair to say there is CONSENSUS that only + be used for double-check in chess articles, save one (the Double check article)? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 20:16, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

l. (28. Qxh7# 1–0) vs. (28. Qxh7#)

(Really picky again, but it crops up on occasion. Is "# 1–0" redundant? Or should an endashed result follow *all* completed gamescores? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 00:24, 23 May 2012 (UTC))

It is redundant, but I don't mind it being there. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:50, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I think looks more professional & "complete" having 1–0 there. (For sure gamescores are consistent too, whether mate or not.) I just noticed Chess Life uses "[move], Black resigned.", "[move], White resigned.", "[move] mate.", "[move], Draw.", and "[move], Draw agreed." (But hey!) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 04:54, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

This needs more discussion. The two have different meanings. # means checkmate, wheras 1-0 means a win, which could be through resignation, a 1-point bye, time loss, etc. In theory, # 0-1 is possible (White checkmates and loses). This could happen if an abitrator observes White's flag falling, followed by White checkmating Black before the arbitrator could announce the time loss for White. It could also happen if cheating was discovered. The FIDE rules do not specify how to record an accepted draw, but 1/2-1/2 or ½-½ is usually used. --Guy Macon (talk) 05:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The two options listed are meant to be mutually exclusive (picking one or the other, when "#" occurs in a WP gamescore). Since "#" is in both, resignation, 1-point bye, and time loss, don't apply. Regarding White checkmating and losing, assuming that's really a gamescore possibility, it would be so rare, that without clarifying text, "28. Qxh7# 0–1" would be interpreted by the reader, or an editor, as a typo. (So, there'd always *have* to be clarifying text. So again, that add'l text wouldn't relate to which of the two above choices should be selected.) Ditto "cheating" (assuming that is a possibility in a gamescore, too, another rarified event demanding accompanying explanatory text). How to express draws is a valid item, but would be its own different item, not this one. So I don't see anything needing discussion here, regarding the orig two choices listed in this item. Ok, Ihardlythinkso (talk) 10:38, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

m. (4. dxe5) vs. (4. d×e5)

(For completeness, what Tony brought up originally. I think most have already weighed in; I assume we won't be changing the standard "x" currently in use in articles. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC))

I can't remember ever seeing the times sign for this, and I also think it looks mismatched (it doesn't vertically align with the lowercase letters surrounding it). ― A. di M.​  13:35, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

dxe5 per FIDE Laws of Chess Appendix C. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:33, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

But FIDE doesn't distinguish <×> from <x>, so that doesn't mean anything. — kwami (talk) 18:00, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean "FIDE doesn't distinguish <×> from <x>"? In every FIDE document that I have checked, FIDE only uses x (lower case letter x). --Guy Macon (talk) 20:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

They have <8 x 8>, which means they aren't distinguishing <×> from <x>. Their use of <x> is therefore not evidence that it should be <x> rather than <×> (which maybe it should be). — kwami (talk) 22:48, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

In the MENSA Guide,[8] they do have the multiplication symbol in <8×8>, but still use the letter ex for capture. Though they don't bother much with typography, so that isn't as convincing as it might be. — kwami (talk) 18:12, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

The Mammoth Book of Chess[9] says, "A capture is indicated by a multiplication sign (or simply a letter x) before the arrival square." (App. B, p 553) — kwami (talk) 18:20, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Totally agree with A. di M. Plus, if the eight books listed by Tony1 were intended to be basis indicating what's used by chess sources generally, um, the number of chess publs past & present make a sampling of eight stack up to less than 0.01 of one percent. (I'm sure I could list five times that number of books as counterexamples given a half-hour, just out of my own personal library.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 21:49, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

WP's own reference for this, article Algebraic notation, doesn't even mention the multiplication symbol – see section Notation for captures. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 13:03, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

If 99.99% of WP chess articles use dxe5 (is anyone finding a single article using d×e5 beyond the article Tony1 changed?), then doesn't the burden to change notation in articles (from x to ×) fall on the proposer(s) for the change? Tony1 presumably attempted to meet the burden by listing eight chess books as sources, and User:Kwami has pointed out The Mammouth Book of Chess says × or x are acceptable. Do these arguments sufficiently meet the buden to warrant introduction of a new notation for captures (×) inconsistent with all existing WP chess articles? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 19:57, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, we are allowed to make decisions at MOS that require changing large numbers of articles, and we are not bound by what has been done before - although those are certainly considerations. I agree with your conclusion, but not with your reasons. We should standardize on the lower-case X instead of the multiplication sign because FIDE does. --Guy Macon (talk) 20:25, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Not that we are *bound* by what is in 99.99% chess articles already – just that the burden of demonstrating that massive precedent should be changed, should fall on the proposers of the change. (Rather than reverse logic, of placing a burden on others to defend why a massive precedent already in place, should be kept.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 19:02, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

n. (12. 0-0-0) vs. (12. 0–0–0)

(For completeness, what Tony brought up originally. I think most have already weighed in; I assume we won't be changing the standard "0-0-0" [hyphens] currently in use in articles. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC))

I'd prefer dashes with Os (O–O–O), but I'd be OK with hyphens and zeros (0-0-0), whereas 0–0–0 and O-O-O would look mismatched to me. ― A. di M.​  13:38, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

0-0-0 per FIDE Laws of Chess Appendix C. --Guy Macon (talk) 16:34, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Actually, no. They have <0 - 0 - 0>, which is presumably intended to be <0–0–0>, just as their <8 x 8> in §2.1 would normally be formatted <8×8>.

Look at the top of page 20 and tell me what you see. Also, the characters you keep using to enclose examples is driving the Wikipedia editing screen nuts. I have to keep replacing them with < and > just to reply to you. --Guy Macon (talk) 22:00, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

They have <0-0-0> in the example, but <0 - 0 - 0> at the bottom of p19 where they define the symbols. — kwami (talk) 22:46, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

I don't know what would be mismatched about dashes and zeros: that's how a score would read. — kwami (talk) 17:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Barnes[10] has <N–QB3> etc. for descriptive, and <0–0–0> for castling. — kwami (talk) 18:28, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

WP's own reference for this, article Algebraic notation, uses hyphens not dashes – see section Castling. No WP chess articles I'm aware of, save Morphy versus the Duke modified by Tony1, uses dashes. (That kind of consistency has got to mean something, and count for something! If 99.99% of WP chess articles use 0-0-0 [does anyone find a single article using 0–0–0 beyond the article Tony1 changed?], then doesn't the burden to change notation in articles from hyphens to dashes fall on the proposer for the change? Has the burden been met, warranting introduction of a new notation for castles inconsistent with all existing WP chess articles?) I think dashes look odd and are a distraction when playing over gamescores, waste horizontal space for no reason, and are inconsistent with 99.99 percent current chess articles. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 13:13, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

o. (e-pawn, f5-square, g-file) vs. (e pawn, f5 square, g file)

(Maybe just a MOS thing, most editors already hyphenate these expressions, but not all; w/ be nice to have explicit convention supporting "always hyphenate". Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC))

I think so too, and the same with the next one. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:23, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Is it fair to say there is CONSENSUS on the first option for convention for chess articles?

p. (White will place his rooks on the d- and e-files) vs. (on the d and e-files)

(More MOSSY stuff. I assume the first is correct. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC))

Is it fair to say there is CONSENSUS on the first option for convention for chess articles?

q. (The best White move in the position was QxQ.) vs. (The best white move) ...and... (After 9.d5 Kasparov concluded the White side was superior.) vs. (the white side was superior)

(ProjChess has convention "White/Black" refers to players; "white/black" to pieces. But what if reference is to moves? Or to "sides"? Answer: confusion & inconsistency! [These examples could be rewritten to circumvent of course, but often times players do talk and write like this.] Ihardlythinkso (talk) 08:33, 24 May 2012 (UTC))

I think it would be the "white side", just as the "white pieces". I think it should be a "White move", just as "a move by White", or "a Karpov move". Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 06:31, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Ok ... For "white side", I assume these would all fall in the same bushel basket: (white) "position", "center", "king's wing/queen's wing", "setup/configuration/structure", "castle position", etc.? And for "White move", these are in the same basket: (White) "combination", "attack/defense", "fork/pin/trap/shot/sacrifice", "strategy/plan/idea", "advantage/edge/initiative", etc.? (Maybe this is starting to make so much sense, it's scary!) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 09:09, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a tough area. I've had cases where I didn't know which to use. Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 01:25, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Using the sources

I haven't found a convincing reason that the multiplication sign and en dash shouldn't be used in WP's chess articles. The most authoritative sources almost all use both. As someone points out above, the MoS does discuss changes that involve a large number of articles, and it's particularly relevant when the notation has not been properly discussed before.

A script could easily be written to manage the changes. Tony (talk) 00:01, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

"Easily" is exaggerated. It would need to change "12. Bxc3 N(5)xc3", "15 ...fxg", "R(a)xe2", "Nxh6+", "55. Kxg5!" "Qxh7#", "Why not 23. fxg5?", "43. bxc e. p. fxe1=Q", and "Kasparov should have played exf, immediately", but not change "Qf7 X" (one editor said he used X for checkmate), "6. examine each entry", "setup.exe", "license plate BXC3", "stock symbol GXH", "|title=How New AXB Regulations Affect You|", or "call sign EXF32 on a DX-pedition". And anything else I wouldn't anticipate until I tried it. I think I'd rather fix problems like speling first. Art LaPella (talk) 02:07, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

"The most authoritative sources almost all use both." Wow. Please quantify that. (What do you consider "the most authoritative sources"?) If you found eight books using "×", would you like to see a list of 80, that don't? And a logic question: How does "sources almost all use both" justify using a script to change a massive number of chess articles over to a lesser-used symbol? Ihardlythinkso (talk) 03:31, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Tony1, may I ask ... To what extent is chess in your life? (Because, it seems obvious to me, the reason "×" vs. "x" in notation "has not been properly discussed before", is because most players wouldn't find that worth discussing – knowing "x" to be normal and best.) Ihardlythinkso (talk) 03:55, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

I used to run a chess club, but was the worst player. Although I don't read chess notation much at all, I could see the clear discrepancies between those two aspects of formatting in WP articles and the predominant practice in the authoritative sources. I have a PhD in the psychology of reading, and to me, what most of the major publishers do (including Penguin, if you please) makes sense. WP should follow professional examples. Tony (talk) 06:10, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Um, Penguin is not anywhere close to being a noted publisher of chess books. (You know that, right?) They may be a "major publisher", but of chess books, certainly not. "Predominant practice in the authoritative sources" sounds mightily impressive, but what does it really mean? (I've asked prev if you could quantify it. It's hard to believe you mean the eight books you listed. What do you mean exactly?) I've checked a few dozen books in my library, publishers Batsford, McKay, Macmillan, Dover, Oxford, Chess Digest, Thinkers' Press, R-H-M, and many others. Mostly it's "x". But other times, a "thin/fine cross" is used (sans detail). Mostly the cross is at least as large as a small-cap letter, sometimes as big as capital "X"! I found only *one* example that used a smallish cross, it wasn't as tiny as WP's "×". For me, I have no problem with the fine, sans detail crosses – they looked okay. But crosses and "x"s occurred unpredictably (both) in different books even within a major publisher (like Batsford; though most of my Batsfords use "x"). If WP did want to consider the thin, sans detail cross, it would have to add a symbol like that to its arsenal. (Reason? Because the current tiny "×" symbol, for gamescores, really sucks!) Cheers. Ihardlythinkso (talk) 10:06, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Which guideline for citation style?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Should questions of citation style be covered by the Manual of Style and its sub-pages, by Citing sources, or all of these? This question was triggered by the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#WP:CITE and by a proposal at that same talk page which would create new mandates on citation date format. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Threaded discussion on which guideline

I suggest it creates an intolerable contradiction to state in WP:Citing sources

...Wikipedia does not have a single house style. Editors may choose any option they want; one article need not match what is done in other articles or what is done in professional publications or recommended by academic style guides. However, citations within a given article should follow a consistent style....

but to go on to give citation style advice in the MOS that contradicts the style that is used in many printed style guides or used, consistently, in many existing articles. So I believe "Citing sources" should be recognized as the primary style guide for citations and the MOS should only summarize "Citing sources". Jc3s5h (talk) 13:43, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• The proposal here is that WP:CITE should enjoy primacy over WP:MOSNUM as to the form of dates in the reference sections, but it's not at all clear why WP:CITE should enjoy primacy. I believe WP:CITE was set up to give guidance as to correct provision of citation content, and Manual of Style exists to guide the format of that content and appearance on the display window or printed page. There is nothing wrong nor contradictory for WP:CITE to re-emphasise that date formats ought to be consistent. WP:CITE does have a role to play in governing what parameters are required to achieve the aims of WP:RS and WP:V, amongst others, but it should not pretend a role in determining the ultimate permissible form of those parameters, particularly date format. The combinations of which formats are deemed acceptable has involved consensus developed over a long period. MOSNUM is apparently more restrictive than WP:CITE with respect to dates, but I see no problem in that because WP:CITE ought to concentrate on the substance and cede on matters of form. One consequence of giving WP:CITE primacy over WP:MOSNUM in the matter of date formats that immediately springs to mind is to allow chimera articles where the date formats in the body of an article on a US subject is referenced according to the MLA Style Manual (use of dmy dates in the citations, including access dates). To my mind, that would not be a desirable state of affairs. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 14:27, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• The fact that Ohconfucius wants to deprecate usage called for by a printed style manual means that he wants to move toward establishing a house style, which has been repeatedly rejected (for better or worse). Also, there are many automated tools available to implement citations in the the various printed style manuals; one such tool is Zotero. By forcing certain aspects of these styles to be altered for Wikipedia makes the automated tools unusable, and channels development of improved citation methods for Wikipedia in one direction (citation templates) and isolates Wikipedia from improvements that might be made elsewhere. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:36, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• Do the tools such as Zotero render dmy, mdy and yyyy-mm-dd dates correctly? And how would having our dates more uniform be detrimental to the evolution of such bibliographic techniques? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:41, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• My very limited experiments suggest Zotero will change the date stored as metadata in the Zotero program to the format called for in whatever output style the user has selected. And any ruling that says go ahead and use APA style or MLA style or any other style, except make (whatever) change, effectively rules out any automation that is not compatible with citation templates. Jc3s5h (talk) 17:08, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

• Seeing that Zotaro, and probably most other programs performing a similar function, are all capable of parsing our three permissible date formats in whatever combination (ie dates don't even need to be consistent at all), it seems that you have discounted one major argument for permitting the multitude of 'citation methods'. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 00:15, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• I deny that there are three permissible citation date formats; there are as many permissible formats as there are citation styles. All we have is a prohibition against all-numeric formats except YYYY-MM-DD.
• There is no guidance about what format editors should use to store their dates within any citation software the editor may choose to use on his/her computer. Unless Wikipedia adopts some kind of source database in the future, there is no need for such guidance. All that matters is the format that is placed in the article.
• The allowance of all consistent citation styles is firmly established; this RfC is about allowing contradictions between guidelines. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:10, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• "I deny that there are three permissible citation date formats" You would do... you've been strongly advocating the supremacy of CITE over MOSNUM, which only permits three. I say there's no contradiction, especially as there seems to be no longer a valid reason for encouraging this diversity of formats within any given article. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:25, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• WP:CITE says APA style is allowed. APA style gives the following example of a publication date in a citation: "(1993, September 30). (p. 200). Your statement "there seems to be no longer a valid reason for encouraging this diversity of formats within any given article" is incompatible with WP:CITE, established consensus, and WP:MOSNUM#In references. Jc3s5h (talk) 01:50, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• I am not opposed to having dmy dates in the reference sections; I personally have no gripes with a US subject's article being entirely in dmy format, as that would seem to avoid the problem. But that would create a problem with the general convention that US articles should have mdy dates. If you can resolve that, I'd back you.

  If anything, the respective scopes of WP:CITE and WP:MOSNUM should be more clearly defined and narrowed (if needs be), to avoid the conflict. WP:CITE ought not to encroach upon WP:MOS in matters of style. There should be no question of a power-grab. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:06, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

• A thought: the APA problem seems easy enough to resolve by ringfencing psychology articles, just like we already do for US military articles, which are almost universally dmy. But what about MLA? --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:05, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

(Noticed this idea while re-reading the section, hence the comment after almost two weeks.) Ringfencing psychology articles to limit APA date styles won't work; though originated by and maintained by the American Psychological Association, APA style is widely used throughout many different social sciences, not just psychology, and also in some natural science writing. That's why it's usually one of main citation styles taught in American secondary schools and higher education. In short, it's too widely known and used to depreciate as a valid style here, unless we mandate a house style, which has indeed been rejected in past discussions.oknazevad (talk) 05:07, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I am opposed to any interference whatever in the established citation styles, unless the established citation style is so badly designed that it will create inordinate confusion in articles. For example, to the best of my knowledge, no printed style manuals have authors stupid enough to suggest referring to today as 4/7/12, and WP:CITE has forbidden this practice to cover any existing consistent use in any article out there. The reason I oppose any interference except in extreme cases is because interference breaks automated tools that produce citations in the various styles, disrupts the habits of editors that learned some of these styles at school, and prevents cut-and-paste of citations from outside Wikipedia. For example, just as Wikipedia suggest how to cite a Wikipedia in many different formats, some articles from outside provide these helpful suggestions.

That said, the contradiction between the present version of WP:MOSNUM and WP:CITE is not as great as you suggest, because you have not correctly interpreted WP:MOSNUM. That guideline has a separate section, "In references", which discusses date formats in citations, which has a "See also" pointing to WP:CITE. I suggest that only the material within WP:MOSNUM#In references applies to citations, and other material in WP:MOSNUM does not. The only contradiction between "In references" and WP:CITE is that the former says an access date or archive date must either be in YYYY-MM-DD format, or the same format as publication dates. Since publication date format is not specified within "In references", the publication date may be in any consistent format, independent of what the rest of the article uses. So there would only be a conflict if there is a style that uses, for example "2012, May 7" as a publication date but "May 7, 20012" as an access date. I have not found a style guide that calls for differing format between publication and access date, so this contradiction is only theoretical.

The reason this is an issue is that proposals are constantly being made, especially at WP:MOSNUM, which would create contradictions that would be real, not theoretical. Jc3s5h (talk) 03:36, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Often MOS trespasses on other areas and style in MOS is used to trigger bot changes. Why it is that an RFC was held in the MOS to force through a change that all footnotes next to punctuation should go after punctuation? BTW why does Wikipedia:MOSNUM#In references gives examples that it for the sake of consistency that it is OK to use "Sep" but not "September"? -- PBS (talk) 07:26, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It's making a point about consistency, not the use of one or other form ("Sep" vs "September"): don't use "Sep" and "September" together. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:30, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not a "trespass", it's MoS's purpose. It's our style guideline (and subguidelines). CITE is a content guideline; everything it says about style needs to come from MOS, or CITE is exceeding its mandate. As for "Sep" vs. "September" we should not ever be seen as advocating "Sep" as allowable here, since non-native English speakers are often not going to know what such abbreviations mean, and that wasn't even a properly formatted abbreviation anyway (try "Sep."). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:43, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

There seem to me to be two different issues mixed up here. Wikipedia:MOSNUM#In_references allows two kinds of date format inconsistency:

1. The consistent style used for publication dates in references can be different from the consistent style used for dates in the running text of the article.
2. The consistent style used for access and archive dates in references can be different from the consistent style used for publication dates in references.

The arguments in favour of (1) are not necessarily the same as those in favour of (2). It would be a significantly smaller change to insist on a consistent style for all dates in references. Changing (1) only makes sense in the context of a much wider change to limiting the allowed referencing styles, which is simply not going to happen. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:47, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

True. And the arguments for (1) are only marginally less weak than those for (2), which border on asinine WP:ILIKEIT nonsense, that (as usual) smacks of a good deal of WP:SSF (the tired old "the journals I read in my field do it this way, so Wikipedia has to do it this way, or I'll stamp my feet and threaten to quit" nonsense). — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:43, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

If by "significantly smaller" Peter coxhead means the issue will occur in a much smaller number of citations, I agree. Until today, I was not convinced that any printed style manual existed that called for a different format between the publication date and the access date. I had looked through the APA style guide and found the recommended publication date format was like "(2010, February 22)", and that access dates were discouraged unless the content was likely to change. I could find no example of an access date format. But today I experimented with Zotero and found that if you specify an access date and order Zotero to produce an APA reference list entry, it will format the access date like "March 6, 2012".

Which doesn't necessarily mean anything at all about anything other than "what does Zotero do?" If the APA's own style guide doesn't provide a specified style for access dates, but does provide one for other types of dates, then the obvious conclusions are a) APA access dates are formatting like publication and other dates; b) Zotero's output is incorrect on this point; c) we DGAF, because, per WP:ENGVAR, we use either "2 December 2012" or "December 2, 2012" date formats, and per WP:MOSNUM use one ENGVAR date format consistently in the article, don't support weird-ass date formatting like "2012, December 2", and per WP:NOT, we don't do what random other publishers do (WP is not APA). The fact that pushers of various specialist styles have been improperly adding loosey-goosey "do whatever you want" style advice to the non-style, content guideline at WP:CITE needs to be stopped and reverted, because it's an abuse of process. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 08:43, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

This example on the official APA style blog settles the matter of the access date format for APA: it's like "May 13, 2012". As for MOS controlling citation style, it doesn't today because it does not provide any citation style. All it does is provide style for regular text, a little bit of which could be forced onto citations. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:42, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

Are there any other date styles that guidelines allow/encourage using not so far discussed here (i.e other than the "2012, May 25" endorsed by APA)? I ask this because we seem to be veering down the path of philosophical objection to having a unified format based largely on a theoretical practice. In my travels across Wikipedia, I have never seen an entire article 'properly' or predominantly formatting dates in this [APA] fashion. Yes, I have seen the odd (i.e. one or two, and five at the utmost) APA style date used in articles and always co-existing with dmy/mdy and ISO formats. On that basis, I am pretty confident in saying there are no more than a small handful of article in our database with any such APA-style date. That makes this point moot, because for the sake of global consistency, there can be no point in allowing what is clearly a fringe date format as far as WP editors are concerned. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 01:51, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

The citation templates were originally based on APA. All those articles out there that you might think are hand-typed citations that look like the template citations could equally well be regarded as imperfectly typed APA citations. If there is ever a desire to automate those with software that is also used outside Wikipedia, there is a good chance software that correctly implements APA would be used. But placing a requirement on date formats would prevent the same software from being used inside and outside Wikipedia. Sort of reminds me of the National Geodetic Survey, which has locked itself into its own software with data formats based in IBM punched cards. Jc3s5h (talk) 10:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

• 'MoS: Like all style issues, the central "authority" is and must remain MoS. Even WP:AT policy derives its style requirements from MoS (e.g. it says to use P. T. Barnum not P.T. Barnum or PT Barnum because of what MoS says about handling initials; the naming conventions did not arrive at a style decision like that independently). WP:CITE is essentially a how-to page, even if labelled a content guideline. To the extent that it really is in fact a content guideline, it is a content not style guideline, so by definition it yields to MoS on style matters.. That said, it should certainly repeat relevant style advice, mirroring what MOS says on the matters that come up, so people don't have to go read all of WP:CITE, then just to figure out a few style questions about citations, have to come read all of WP:MOS and its subpages, and try to interpret it all as it could be applicable to citations. We can collectively do that interpretation once and save it for everyone at WP:CITE. And that definitely needs to be done, done well, and frequently checked for consistency with MoS. I see boatloads of badly-formatted (from a WP standpoint) citations, with messy crap like Smith PJ, Garcia B, et al, that someone lazily copy-pasted and didn't clean up (it should be Smith, P. J.; Garcia, B.; ''et al.'', and not abbreviated to initials at all if the names are actually known; also, many citation template fanciers would want to see this done with separate |last1=, etc., templates, not a lazy |author= block.)

There's no more (or less) justification to italicize "et al." than "etc.", "i.e." and similar terms. See MOS:Ety – the term is in the online Merriam-Webster here. But this comes down to SMcCandlish's point, which I agree with, that WP:ILIKEIT arguments and "if you change citation policy I'll stop editing" threats have ensured that Wikipedia has wildly inconsistent citation styles. Unless and until this changes, messing about with date style in citations is pointless. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:45, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

• CITEVAR—This is a content issue, not a style issue. Different citation formats present radically different informational concepts and are field specific. Moreover, any citation style chosen will be wrong, as no one citation style fulfils the general requirements of citation, and in particular even highly complete citation systems such as Turabian (ie: a citation style system that would produce the fewest number of incorrectly expressed citations) are beyond the capacity of automated implementation let alone Wikipedia's editorial public who can't determine who an author is. Fifelfoo (talk) 02:16, 15 May 2012 (UTC)
  • Moot, surely? It seems that Turabian is so specialist and esoteric that it is unlikely ever to be employed in Wikipedia. ;-) --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 02:43, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

• Turabian is Chicago style, but modified for student papers. It's simplified compared to Chicago. Wikipedia has always confined the use of printed style manuals to the citations, and used its own MOS for the body of the article. All these printed style manuals contain advice about the body of articles as well as the citations. The biggest difference between Chicago and Turabian is in the body of the article; Chicago is all about creating a manuscript to be turned over to a publisher, while Turabian is about creating a finished product to be turned into a teacher. For Wikipedia purposes there is no need to distinguish between Chicago and Turabian. Jc3s5h (talk) 10:54, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

• What a storm in a teacup. WP:CITE should be the primary source on how to do citations. The main thing I think missing about it a rationale that might help people in choosing a citation style. For instance in an article which is based on only a few sources but there are many references with the sources then harvard style works out best. However for articles based on a multitude of different sources with not all that much need to refer to different pages in the same sources then a more straightforward citation style is better as the user can get to the information directly. It's horses for courses. We most definitely do not have to follow book styles because we have hyperlinks. As to dates in citations I'm not at all fussed if these are different from the main body of the article. Dmcq (talk) 11:29, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose. To actually implement this would need a much wider discussion than a backwater MoS page and very broad consensus would need to be achieved. It will be a nightmare to get all the different disciplines, used to citing in their own particular way, to agree on one common style. I confidently predicy that attempting to do it will lead to months of unnecessary anguish with a net result of "no consensus". SpinningSpark 16:04, 16 May 2012 (UTC)

• Support WP having a citation style that is defined by the MOS. I believe it is a service to our readers to be able to present a consistent (as possible) style for referencing syntax so that they can easily find and decipher similar information as they move between articles. We are already effectively getting a "house style" with the (vastly increasing) use of the various {{cite}} templates, so we may as well have a defined standard that editors can turn to as a default. I don't see the problem with taking the formatting guidance out of the Cite guidelines and making them a sub-page of the MOS since the MOS is the most likely venue editors will turn to for formatting advice of any kind. I don't believe that this is as much of a content issue as others are suggesting, however I'm not against variants to an eventual MOS style as long as those variants are clearly shown to be necessary based on content (and I fully expect such exceptions to be eventually worked into the MOS). GFHandel ♬  02:34, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Citation styles

Seems to me that it would be useful to list the varying styles. Please update as seen fit. Please add only styles known to be in use on the English Wikipedia. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 21:24, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

In-text citation style:

• Non-template

• APA style
• Chicago Manual of Style footnote style

• Footnotes
• Shortened footnotes
• Parenthetical referencing
• Template:Fnote3

Footnotes defined (as used):

• In-text defined
• List-defined references

Full citation style:

• Non-template

• APA style (date format sometimes modified)
• Chicago Manual of Style footnote style

• Template
  • Citation Style 1
  • Citation Style 2
  • Citation Style Vancouver
  • Linguistic Society of America

Citation title style:

• Title case
• Sentence case

Citation template format (where used):

• Horizontal
• Vertical

Citation author style (Western names):

• Case
  • Standard
  • Smallcaps
• Name order
  • Last First
  • First Last
• First name
  • Full
  • Intials

Citation date styles:

• Same as body
• YYY-MM-DD

Citation access dates

• All citations with URLs
• Only for web pages with content likely to change

Reference list style:

• Font size
  • Standard
  • Smaller
• Columns
  • Single
  • Multiple
• Indent
  • None
  • Hanging

Summary

As I read it, the following editors have expressed a preference for which guideline should control citation style:

Citing sources	Manual of Style
Jc3s5h	Ohconfucius
Fifelfoo	SMcCandlish
Dmcq	unsigned
	Tony
	1exec1

In addition GFHandel expressed a preference for a house style contained within the MOS. Jc3s5h (talk) 11:34, 24 May 2012 (UTC) updated 6 June 2012 13:50 UTC

Please add me to the MoS preferrers. That's much easier for editors. Tony (talk) 13:10, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Please note that "which guideline should control citation style", a style guideline or a content guideline, is a self-answering question. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ   Contrib. 00:31, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Just on a slightly different topic, I've just had the unsavoury experience of making an edit in New York State Route 227, an article that is so crowded with templates in the running prose, many of them citation templates, that it took minutes to locate the item I wanted to edit. No wonder new editors leave. Why were these hideously long and cumbersome inline citation templates ever allowed? Tony (talk) 00:05, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Technical limitations. Rmhermen (talk) 01:06, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I prefer MOS too. 1exec1 (talk) 10:59, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Dashes in article titles and mojibake

It seems to me that people who link to Wikipedia frequently go to the article page and then copy the URL they land on. Normally, this is fine, but occasionally things go pear-shaped when the article title has a dash that gets turned into mojibake. I can't be the only person who has been momentarily confused from seeing "Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name" due to a corrupted URL. Is there any way we can make the URLs use hyphens in place of dashes in the article titles? (Sorry if this should go somewhere else, but I don't know where to put it.) --Poochy (talk) 18:40, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

• I can't reproduce the problem: the Mexican–American War (with a dash) URL works for me.
• Maybe someone else's browser would change that to link to the Mexican-American War (with a hyphen) redirect, but it doesn't say there's no such article; it presents a link to the article.
• If an article with a dash has no redirect using the same title with a hyphen, then that redirect should be added, as specified by the MOS:DASH guideline. Art LaPella (talk) 00:42, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
  • The problem is that someone else's browser might change that link to "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mexican–American_War" or otherwise replace the dash with some other equally unpredictable gibberish. And we can't possibly create a redirect for every single possibility, since every single possible combination of encoding and mismatched decoding choices could potentially result in a different set of gibberish in place of the dash. --Poochy (talk) 12:30, 25 May 2012 (UTC)
    • Don't tell me this is yet another Internet Explorer (7) problem. It's an execrable browser that has already caused us grief, restricted what we can do. Tony (talk) 13:12, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Does MOS:IDENTITY apply to credit for works?

More practically: Should the director for The Matrix be listed as "Larry Wachowski" or "Lana Wachowski"? Kaldari (talk) 20:46, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

MOS:IDENTITY suggests the latter, but ... in contexts that don't have room for a lot of elaboration, I'd probably lean towards formulations such as "Lana Wachowski (as Larry Wachowski)", or ""Lana Wachowski (credited as Larry Wachowski)", which are not uncommon formulations. --joe decker^{talk to me} 20:59, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Surely, we can cut the proverbial cake and say "Larry Wachowski (now Lana Wachowski)"? Hopefully, I won't offend anybody if I suggest that there's a parallel with pseudonymous works: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is written by Lewis Carroll, the pseudonym of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. The article on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland says it was "written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll" and lists Lewis Carroll as the author in the infobox.

On the transgender issue specifically, I've been drafting some guidelines about how we can handle transgender issues more sensitively on-wiki. See User:Tom Morris/Write about gender identity sensitively. —Tom Morris (talk) 21:03, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

In contexts like the Matrix infobox, I think there's a real value to the reader to including both names. Nice work with that draft essay, by the way, I may drop a comment or two, but at a glance, it appears completely in-line with my own views on the subject. --joe decker^{talk to me} 21:23, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

I think there is a large difference between pseudonyms and gender identity changes. In the case of a pseudonym, we have no reason to the believe the author would object to the use of their real name. In the case of gender identity changes, it is often the case that the person prefers to never be referred to by their old name (even in historical contexts). I think a closer analogy would be Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam, and even that isn't quite the same situation. Kaldari (talk) 21:57, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

It's not a biographical article. It's one thing to change references from he to she or a name change in their own specific article or in updated works to represent them as they are in their own bio. If Steven Spielberg changes his name to Pierre Lamar Sanchez, it wouldn't do to change E.T. from "directed by Steven Spielberg" to "directed by Pierre Lamar Sanchez" and it certainly wouldn't be practical to change it to "directed by Pierre Lamar Sanchez formerly Steven Spielberg". It's Common Name and common knowledge that Spielberg = E.T. like Wachowski Brothers = Matrix. Wachowski Brothers is how they are credited on the film, they aren't even credited individually and I find it wholly improper to essentially alter history to give an updated credit when all MOS:FILM guidelines say that it should represent the film as it was released. Blade Runner's plot does not reflect all the updates, only the initial release. That Larry or whichever one became Lana has no bearing on The Matrix or relevance to its history and has no need to be mentioned, nor its history distorted to reflect it. You can follow through to their article to find that out. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 22:23, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Kaldari, I think you have that quite right. --joe decker^{talk to me} 23:04, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Except that he just undermined himself when all of Cat Stevens works are credited to Cat Stevens and not Yusuf Islam. EDIT: And only on his post Yusuf works is he credited as Yusuf (formerly Cat Stevens).Darkwarriorblake (talk) 23:14, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

@Darkwarriorblake: But in this case, "Lana Wachowski" is gradually achieving WP:COMMONNAME (unlike Yusuf Islam or your fictional example). Already, sites such as IMDB[11] and Metacritic[12] credit The Matrix to "Lana Wachowski". As the Wachowskis continue to make movies, eventually "Lana" will fully overtake "Larry" as the more commonly cited name. I haven't done enough research to determine which name is actually more common at this point, but considering MOS:IDENTITY as an extenuating circumstance, I don't think it would hurt for us to go ahead and make the change (or at least mention both names). There is ample precedent for us listing "actual names" rather than credited names for movies on Wikipedia, especially in older black and white movies where the crediting was somewhat haphazard. Kaldari (talk) 23:22, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

IMDb and Metacritic use databases and tags. That is it. To preserve different names they would have to create two accounts for one person, splitting hteir work history and making their job harder than just changing the name on the particular record entry in the database. This is not some encompassing endorsement, it's a technological practicality of running a database/website. That Lana MAY become the common name does not, again, change the credit or history. That Larry is now Lana has no affect on The Matrix, it isn't part of it, or its history and would require inserting an unnecessary confusing tangent where none is required. The film is TWELVE years old, there is no mass confusion about this issue because as I said, it has no bearing on that film. Darkwarriorblake (talk) 23:32, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

• Note: Concurrent discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#The Matrix - Larry to Lana. --IllaZilla (talk) 03:04, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

The "official" director is the one that rolls in the credits. In terms of it not being "right", it's not much different than a film directed by Alan Smithee - even if we know who we know who the "true" director is, the director of the movie is the name listed in the credits. Of course, just like a move directed by Alan Smithee, if there is other relevant information about the director that should be included in articles as appropriate, but not replacing the director's name shown on the credits. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:06, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

In most of the Alan Smithee films on Wikipedia, we list the real director, not "Alan Smithee". In many cases, however, "(credited as Alan Smithee)" is added after the real name. Kaldari (talk) 04:56, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Just list both names, e.g. “Larry Wachowski (now Lana Wachowski)” or “Lana Wachowski (then Larry Wachowski)”. FWIW, while the situation is not fully analogous, Geno Washington & the Ram Jam Band lists “Geoff Pullum aka Jeff Wright” (he went by Jeff Wright as a musician but now goes by his real name Geoffrey K. Pullum as a linguist). ― A. di M.​  10:00, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

(Modified and expanded from earlier version)

Wendy Carlos is an interesting example, having both film and music album credits, and being famous both before and after reassignment surgery. Consider how we credit her various works:

Switched-On Bach: Text = "...by Wendy Carlos (originally released under the name of Walter Carlos)..."

The Well-Tempered Synthesizer: Text = "...a 1969 album released by Wendy Carlos..." Album cover shows "Wendy" (which raises the question as to whether Wikipedia was right to show an album cover and use an artist name that were not what was on the album when it was released: http://www.flickr.com/photos/djwudi/4886318732/)

Walter Carlos' Clockwork Orange: "Walter" in the title and on the album cover, but the text says "Wendy" with no explanation.

A Clockwork Orange (soundtrack): Text = "...music composed by Wendy Carlos (who, having not yet undergone sex reassignment surgery, was credited as 'Walter Carlos')..."

The Shining (film): Text = "...brief electronic score by Wendy Carlos..."

And, of course Wendy Carlos. Lead: "...Wendy Carlos is an American composer and electronic musician..." Career section: "...Carlos was born Walter Carlos..."

Do we really want these different pages about the same person following different rules set out by Wikipedia:WikiProject Film, Wikipedia:WikiProject Music and Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography? I say that we don't. Instead, each WikiProject should contribute to a unified and decision made at Wikipedia:Manual of Style. --Guy Macon (talk) 15:47, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Yes, we are certainly inconsistent in these areas. It seems that our current practice is a mix of WP:COMMONNAME, MOS:IDENTITY, and what is actually written in the credits. The claim that we just follow what's written in the credits is incorrect. We seem to always fix misspellings (see my list at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Film#The Matrix - Larry to Lana) and we often favor WP:COMMONNAME over actual credits (see any of the numerous songs that Prince wrote under his 5 different aliases for example). Kaldari (talk) 04:40, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm a fan of a "X (as Y)" construction whenever a person is known as X but credited as Y: this would apply for legal name changes (e.g. Wendy/Walter Carlos), psuedonym changes (e.g. Mos Def/Yasiin Bey), or Alan Smithee-ing. Sceptre ^(talk) 17:24, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

The "X (as Y)" method suggests a deliberate pseudonym to me, not a name change that was to happen later. I agree with Carl that the name in the credits, on the title pages, etc., is the "official" name. I'd prefer to use that name with the latest legal name or better-known name in parentheses. A little-known pseudonym can be in quotation marks. The one place where I don't think this works is those village Smithees.

• Switched-On Bach is ... by Walter Carlos (now Wendy Carlos).
• ... directed by Larry Wachowski (now Lana Wachowski)
• An Other Cup is an album by Yusuf (formerly known as Cat Stevens) [which is how that article starts].
• Tom Sawyer is... by Mark Twain.
• ... directed by Charles B. Wessler (credited as Alan Smithee)
• Members: ... "Jeff Wright" (Geoffrey K. Pullum)

For the last one, I wouldn't object to

• Members: ... Geoffrey K. Pullum (as Jeff Wright), with or without quotation marks, with or without "credited". —JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:22, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

Why don't you just follow the same pattern that you would use for any other legal name change, e.g., what you do when a woman changes her name as a result of getting married? WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:45, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

That would be Begging the question. You are answering the question "Does MOS:IDENTITY apply to credit for works?" with the answer "Why don't you just apply MOS:IDENTITY to credit for works?" --Guy Macon (talk) 06:01, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

ENGVAR templates

Do we really need the WP:ENGVAR talk page templates, and their associated categories? Given the provisions of ENGVAR, do we really have to spell this out? Or should we be encouraging greater use of them? One user of Template:Indian English whom I keep coming across has a well documented nationalist pov, for which they have been topic banned, and I cannot help but think that the purpose of its inclusion is sometimes related more to making the point of national ownership than to any genuine guidance. It is not widely used (335 articles), and there are equivalent templates for other English versions, eg: Canadian (1247), British (3042) and American (1141). I guess that given the scale of articles written in each English variant, these templates are seriously underused ... but the project seems generally to get on perfectly ok without them.

In fact, my gut feeling is that the templates might act as an obstacle to improvement of articles. For example, it is common knowledge that there are swathes of poorly written India-related articles but on those where the banner exists, it may well act as a deterrent to improvement of prose by those with a better command of written English (in any of its forms). - Sitush (talk) 10:11, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

NB: I hesitated before posting here. If WP:VP or somewhere else would be better then just let me know. Thanks. - Sitush (talk) 10:12, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Their prime value seems to me to be where there have been edit wars over ENGVAR issues. E.g. Cactus was at one time plagued with editors changing from American to British spellings – so much so that the article had to be protected. I'm not sure that the template prevents such edit wars, but it makes it easier for other editors to revert improper changes. Perhaps the message could be slightly altered. What we want to say is something like "Don't hesitate to improve this article even if you are not familiar with this ENGVAR and are not able to write in it, but don't change the ENGVAR of existing text without broad consensus." Peter coxhead (talk) 10:50, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

There really is value in these templates, especially to identify to editors that the vocabulary and usage found in the article may not match what they are used to. If the template is misused, then by all means remove it, but for e.g. when someone visits R. K. Narayan, the fact that words used within the article or for that matter even some phrases may not match standard AE/BE. Many, many Indian articles would use words such as lakh or crore which without the template would just result in being changed to millions etc. If we wish to standardize on one (or two) variant(s) of English, that's a different matter, but as long as ENGVAR exists in its current form, these templates provide a value. But like Peter notes above, these templates shouldn't indimidate an editor, just provide context. —SpacemanSpiff 12:49, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I've generally found that terms such as crore and lakh are linked when they occur. I have no particular opinion regarding whether or not we should be aiming for a greater standardisation. - Sitush (talk) 13:04, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

If one comes upon an article with mixed usage, the template provides a quick way to determine which version the article should be corrected to. The templates would be better if there a way to link to the edit that established the variety, or a link to the talk page thread that established the variety. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:56, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

I find the template useful, and apply it to India related articles. The template indicates that there would be words which are specific to India used in the article, a fresh example comes to mind: "judicial custody" - which is an Indian legal term, though I wouldn't be surprised if it is also used in UK. Another is "card carrying communist" which I assume to be more common in India as the editor who brought this discussion about was stumped by it. There are many words of Indian origin which are freely used in the Indian media and they are used in Wikipedia articles when such sources are used. The template acts as a "note" that a particular style of English may be encountered. I see no reason to imagine that the template would act as an obstruction in improving articles, I just present one recent example of the quality of editing, of the editor, who has brought this discussion about: "In 2011, Kulkarni was remanded to judicial custody for a period and In November of that year was released on bail." With his professed concern for quality it is he who has reverted attempts to correct the above statement. It should also be noted that Indian English isn't some obscure creole but the dialect in which the world's most widely circulated English language broadsheet newspaper is written in.[13]Yogesh Khandke (talk) 11:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Jc3s5h the subject of the article ought to be a good guide to the variety of English used to write the article. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 11:42, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Yogesh Khandke, that's only true if the article is about an English-speaking country or a person or company associated with one English-speaking country. It does not help with an article such as Algebra. Jc3s5h (talk) 12:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

True. I have used the template for Indian (from India) subjects, you are right, the template may create controversies if used say for example at Segregation in concrete, an article I created for which I used no template. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 12:40, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

One of the templates would be ideal for Segregation in concrete. For this article, the choice of variety of English would be completely arbitrary, so it is helpful to notify future editors which variety was chosen. For an article like New York City there is no need for a template because it should be obvious which variety to use. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:15, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I have written most of the article, I write in Indian English, yet it wouldn't be fair imo to mark the article Indian English, I hope that there had been an International English language. Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:13, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

There is no international English; English readers just have to learn to read all varieties. Jc3s5h (talk) 14:43, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

Right. With online search the most obscure terms can be understood. However aren't we discussing the predicament of how an article like Segregation ought to be templated by a variety of English? Yogesh Khandke (talk) 14:49, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

{{od|8}At the moment, Segregation, a disambiguation page, does not seem to have any words that differ among varieties of English. If any such words are added in the future the editor who adds them could apply the template for the variety of English that the editor chooses. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:02, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

“With online search the most obscure terms can be understood”, but it's still an inconvenience. If there's a term which is understood in some English dialects only and an equivalent term which is understood in all English dialects, then we should use the latter, per WP:COMMONALITY. ― A. di M.​  19:12, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

It's a little bit unfortunate that, frankly, that Indian English is considered parallel to other varieties. India is really kind of marginal as an English-speaking country; the community of first-language speakers is very small. On the other hand, they do tend to be disproportionately influential. --Trovatore (talk) 21:33, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

MOS on Zoë Baird

I have mentioned this topic before. I personally am of the view that clearer guidance, and clearer visibility and linking for existing guidance, would reduce disruption and controversy on en.wp. A User has recently come to grief on the (widely acknowledged to be) inadequate guidance given by MOS and MOS subpages on a very basic area of conflict between diacritic-enabled and diacritic disabled sources. MOS starts to address this area in MOS:FOREIGN, and then continues with guidance in sub-pages:
Linked from WP:MOS

• Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) has the most extensive section WP:DIACRITICS
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Text formatting - example: "Gustav I of Sweden liked to breakfast on crisp bread (knäckebröd) open sandwiches.."

Not linked from WP:MOS

• Wikipedia:Article titles does give guidance re "Besançon, Søren Kierkegaard and Göttingen, but Nuremberg, delicatessen, and Florence.",
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographies twice gives "(from François Mitterrand): François Maurice Adrien Marie Mitterrand (October 26, 1916 – January 8, 1996) ..." under both WP:OPENPARA and also under WP:FULLNAME
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Proper names has an extensive section including "For example, the name of the article on Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős is spelt with the double acute accent, and the alternative spellings Paul Erdös and Paul Erdos redirect to that article."- although the entire section has recently been removed without prior discussion of the change on April 19 then restored. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:55, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

• The content of Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Proper names is under dispute because it contradicts this page, and at the moment you are rejecting any changes to that page to bring it into harmony with this one.
• I do no think that there is "widely acknowledged to be) inadequate guidance given by MOS and MOS subpages on a very basic area of conflict between diacritic-enabled and diacritic disabled sources" can you provide evidence of this?
• Please give diffs for the statement "A User has recently come to grief".

-PBS (talk) 07:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

related: WP:IRS on Zoë Baird

As WP:DIACRITICS indicates this is partly, perhaps primarily a WP:IRS issue.

• Zoë Baird - diacritic enabled sources (pick one from article, e.g. New York Times)
• Zoe Baird - Time Magazine website (assuming diacritic disabled?) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,977802,00.htm

Note also that the Computer Security Act of 1987 (repealed by the Federal Information Security Management Act of 2002 but still referenced for diacritics below in 2010) prohibited names like Zoë Baird in birth certificates and SSA documentation; as also the ICAO prohibits names like Zoë Baird in passports of any country.

QUESTION: Can accents be used in a child's name on the birth certificate? ANSWER:No.

Federal Public Law 100-235, also known as the "Computer Security Act of 1987" require[d] that all federal databases follow the standards determined by the National Institute of Standards and Techology (NIST) and use the 26 letters of the alphabet without diacritical marks. A diacritical mark is a mark added to a letter to give it special phonetic value; e.g. the two dots placed over the

letter u, (Note hyphens and apostrophes are acceptable). The Social Security Administration is required to follow the above law. www.dshs.state.tx.us/vs/field/docs/fall2010newsletter.pdf

Proposal - I propose to add Zoë Baird as an example to WP:DIACRITICS, with all 4 of the above sources as footnotes. The reason I'm making a pre-proposal here on WT:MOS, the page which links to it, is there may be objection that WP:DIACRITICS is not the correct place to make this proposal. In ictu oculi (talk) 23:55, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

You are confusing the scope of the MOS and that of the WP:AT policy. The MOS makes it clear that for article titles as opposed to usage within an article that the AT policy guidance should be followed, a better example to use would be the Brontë family rather than an article like Charlotte Brontë. Links exist on this page to WP:AT and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). If you want to discuss the content of WP:DIACRITICS that should be done on the appropriate talk page (Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)) not here. If you want to discuss the content of WP:AT then do so at [[[Wikipedia talk:Article titles]].

As an aside, primary sources should not be used for deciding on the spellings to use in names unless they have been published in reliable secondary sources (see WP:PSTS), so what is or is not on someone's birth certificate is not usually relevance in deciding a name and I do not think we need to discuss birth certificate guidance). -- PBS (talk) 07:39, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Hi Philip

Thanks, I will follow your suggestions unless others advise otherwise.

In ictu oculi (talk) 08:29, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

The source given for the ICAO policy prohibiting names with diacritics doesn't seem to me to do so: it says that UK passports do not allow names with diacritics. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:59, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

Spaced mdash and ndash vs unspaced (templated)

As is currently being discussed on Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/Hazard-Bot 10, is it better to:

1. Remain as we are now, with {{Spaced ndash}} and {{Ndash}}, as well as {{Spaced mdash}} and (possibly soon to come again) {{Mdash}}
2. Manually add space between dash templates (depreciate {{Spaced mdash}} and {{Spaced ndash}})
3. Substitute and/or have these automatically substituted these dash templates.

As for the first, there are issues with the reading of the source of the page itself (seeing foo{{spaced ndash}}bar is not very nice). For the second, it (the page source) would be "easier" to read (foo {{ndash}} bar is considerably less of an eyestrain to read). The third would lead us to having — and – all over the wiki.  Hazard-SJ  ✈  01:42, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

We should never ever use spaced em dashes. There is no grammatically correct usage of spaced em dashes. Not in lists. Not in sentences. Not in navboxes. All uses of spaced em dashes should be replaced with regular em dashes or spaced en dashes, preferably non-templated (unless they're in a horizontal list). Kaldari (talk) 03:05, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The WP:DASH guideline says "Do not use spaced em dashes", so it isn't just Kaldari's opinion. We shouldn't have both a guideline and also a spaced mdash template to help people violate that guideline. Art LaPella (talk) 04:51, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

The point of using {{spaced ndash}} rather than {{ndash}} with manually added spaces is that with the former the space before the dash is non-breaking. So the right comparison is not between foo{{spaced ndash}}bar and foo {{ndash}} bar but between foo{{spaced ndash}}bar and foo {{ndash}} bar. ― A. di M.​  10:18, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Em dash spacing is not an issue of grammar — it is an issue of style. It is stylistically correct and is used on the websites of The New York Times, The Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and many others. Here at Wikipedia, the community decision is to use unspaced em dashes — a decision I regret, but must abide by in the article space. — Anomalocaris (talk) 17:28, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Use of "the late"

Are there any WP policies that specifically address when (but more specifically if) the form "the late X" is ever to be used for a deceased individual? There is a dispute at Powhatan language that relates to this. Thank you. --Taivo (talk) 22:12, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

I do not know whether there are any Wikipedia policies that address your question, but here are two external links.

• http://www.formsofaddress.info/Names.html#066
• http://howtowrite.weebly.com/how-to-write-an-obituary.html (sections 4 and 5)

—Wavelength (talk) 00:10, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Coincidentally, I have just posted a WP:ERRORS report on the main page describing someone who died in the American Revolutionary Wars as late.

It is, I suspect, more a phrase used in social convention than encyclopaedic, formal, euphemism-avoiding tone. It dates the article, as it will eventually become redundant, and so is a form of recentism, and is equivalent to describing, for example, an archbishop or an earl as "your grace": it might be socially appropriate, but it is not encyclopaedic. Kevin McE (talk) 09:42, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Contradiction again

My usual complaint. [[MOS:#Bulleted and numbered lists]] still conflicts with several similar guidelines in the subpages on how to punctuate the end of a list element. Discussed here. Art LaPella (talk) 23:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)

Capitalization and punctuation in song titles

I have a question about capitalization as connected to punctuation in album and song titles. There are the standard rules about parentheses, and I assume (although I couldn't find a reference to it in the MoS) that the rule holds true for colons and periods inside of song names.

"Oh, Bury Me Not (Introduction: A Cowboy's Prayer)" a song from Johnny Cash's American Recordings--I'd leave that "A" untouched because it's next to a colon.

But what about a song that had a comma or another piece of punctuation in its title?

Specifically, I'm wondering about the Lucinda Williams album "Live @ The Fillmore." The only possible reason I can surmise that someone would capitalize "The" is because it's next to an "@" sign. But should it be an @? Even though that's the character they use on the album cover, does Wikipedia choose to use it, or should it be "Live at the Fillmore"? I haven't been able to find a page dealing with special characters. Or is there an authoritative source for whether or not we'd use a special character in an album name?

I'm new to editing Wikipedia, but as a basic copy editor I like to clean up capitalization when I see it.

67.142.161.21 (talk) 03:16, 2 June 2012 (UTC) Melissa Jenks, 6/1/12

I believe this guideline applies to the @ sign, from WP:TRADEMARK:

• Avoid using special characters that are not pronounced, are included purely for decoration, or simply substitute for English words (e.g., ♥ used for "love"). In the article about a trademark, it is acceptable to use decorative characters the first time the trademark appears, but thereafter, an alternative that follows the standard rules of punctuation should be used:
  • avoid: Macy*s, skate., [ yellow tail ], Se7en, Alien³, Toys Я Us
  • instead, use: Macy's, Skate, Yellow Tail, Seven, Alien 3, Toys "R" Us

Art LaPella (talk) 05:50, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that the trademark rule applies to special characters in album names and song names? Should that be put in the Manual of Style for music?

Oops. Just noticed this note in MoS for Music: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Music#Capitalization

It makes specific mention of the trademark rule. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I'll change the Lucinda Williams album, and others I find. It doesn't answer my question about capitalization connected to colons and other legitimate punctuation, however. I'm also unable to find the rule for ampersands. For instance, should an album be listed by "Bob Dylan and the Band"? "Bob Dylan and The Band"? Or "Bob Dylan & The Band"?

From what I can find, it seem that Bob Dylan and The Band is used, primarily, with erratic capitalization of "the" (e.g. The Basement Tapes). But what about folk groups, like Ian & Sylvia, commonly referred to using an ampersand? It seems like a choice for an authoritative source, or the band itself. What authoritative sources are best to use for variations in a band and album name, anyway? I believe I found a page making reference to ampersands at one point, but I can't find it now. I must say that the MoS is difficult to use for a new aspiring editor.

67.142.161.21 (talk) 03:16, 2 June 2012 (UTC) Melissa Jenks, 6/1/12

I think you're looking for MOS:&, which says "Retain ampersands in titles of works or organizations, such as The Tom & Jerry Show or AT&T." So my AWB software changes a list of publishers like Simon and Schuster to Simon & Schuster, after determining that those organizations use the ampersand in places like their logo.

[[MOS:#Colons|Our guideline on colons]] doesn't mention titles, so maybe someone else here can tell us what other style manuals say about that situation. This heated but dated discussion may be helpful.

I certainly agree that "the MoS is difficult to use for a new aspiring editor". Among other proposals, I have often urged that the search box labeled "Search the MoS" (near the upper right corner of the main MoS page) should be the main focus of that page. I suppose you would have found guidelines like MOS:& that way. Others have objected that a comprehensive table of contents that includes all the subpages would be more useful. Well then, we should do one or the other, or both! Art LaPella (talk) 01:35, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit-page header

Did anyone raise the inclusion of the message that appears at the top of the edit-box of this talk page? It says: "The purpose of this page is to discuss Wikipedia:Manual of Style. If your post is about a specific problem you have, please ask for help at the Wikipedia:Help desk or see the New Contributors' Help Page."

Consensus is required, I believe. Tony (talk) 06:26, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Do you mean: did anyone object to that message? Not that I know of. I presume that message is intended to discourage questions like "Should there be a space after the first period at Miyagi Gakuin Women's University?" The help desk would offer enough consensus to settle that question. Art LaPella (talk) 19:46, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Did anyone announce it was going to be put there? I've only just noticed it, when it was brought to my attention by another editor. The example you provide is trivial and would deserve to be left unanswered. This page has been the site of many interesting and valuable questions that have had not a little impact on the evolution of MoS over the years. I think the notice should be removed. Tony (talk) 07:57, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

This is the standard editnotice that is present on all Wikipedia talk space pages that (except maybe those that have a specific message written). See Template:Editnotices/Namespace/Wikipedia talk and Template:Wikipedia talk navigation. Apart from that, this is a wiki, so consensus is not required before making changes. —Kusma (t·c) 08:08, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's correct, and it's gobsmacking to observe that an admin thinks that no consensus is required on a wiki before editing a template that affects hundreds of pages for developing WP's policy and guidelines. The lead of MoS itself says "Any issues relating to style guidance can be discussed on the MoS talk page," linking directly to this talk page; whereas the talk-page template as currently worded contradicts that invitation. Or it appears to—the wording is ambiguous:

"The purpose of this page is to discuss Wikipedia:Manual of Style. If your post is about a specific problem you have, please ask for help at the Wikipedia:Help desk or see the New Contributors' Help Page."

So, does "a specific problem" concern a perceived need to change the MoS, or the application of one of its points, or a general stylistic issue in English?

When was this template plonked onto talk pages in Wikipedia space? By whom? With what consensus? Where is the template accessible, and what technical action applies it to a page? Tony (talk) 10:31, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

This template seems to be directing people in exactly the wrong direction - like it or not, the MOS pages is the place to go to ask questions about style issues on Wikipedia - not WP:Help Desk or the new contributors Help page. The danger is that users will either get sent in circles (i.e. be directed from here to one of the help pages and from there back to here) or be given advice that conflicts with the guidance that he or she would get here (or even what MOS itself says). this standard edit notice is not really appropriate here, as effectively this page is acting as a help page. The talk pages for the cite book etc. templates redirect to Help talk:Citation Style 1 - so maybe that is the way to go? Nigel Ish (talk) 14:24, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

If the content of the editnotice is bad, it will go away if we create a specific one for this page. More information is at Wikipedia:Editnotice. The editnotice you are complaining about was added on May 9, and you can check in the links I gave above who added it. As with everything on Wikipedia, the user interface may at all times be boldly edited. Admins do not have to ask for permission to edit the interface, just like nobody has to ask for permission to edit articles. If your version does not have support, you'll get reverted, then you discuss. Nothing more gobsmacking about it than the concept of an encyclopedia that anyone may edit, really. —Kusma (t·c) 14:31, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

That would be May 9, 2011, actually. It's been there for over a year with no complaints -- just a couple of technical questions in discussion archives you can find with "What Links Here". --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:34, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I certainly don't mind when people come here to ask about the finer points of English expression. It seems to work out quite well. Darkfrog24 (talk) 18:36, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Kusma, again you show yourself to be blind to the normal process of seeking consensus for major changes, such as has been unilaterally actioned in this case, over countless pages. Tony (talk) 05:44, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I am certainly not blind to that process, but we seem to differ about when it should be used (as sparingly as possible, and only in cases where WP:BRD is unlikely to produce a good result: here, it seems to have worked reasonably ok for the last year). Anyway, we can discuss our wikiphilosophical differences elsewhere. The question is: should this page have an editnotice (and if yes, what should be on it), or should the default editnotice be disabled here? I don't have a strong opinion (that is why I have not boldly implemented something already). To conclude: if there is a problem with the current editnotice, this link allows you to {{sofixit}}. —Kusma (t·c) 07:53, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

• I !vote no edit-notice, and as second choice if we have to have one, change the text so it's not ambiguous and not a turn-off to editors who seek higher-level advice here. Tony (talk) 11:07, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
• I !vote if it ain't been broke for the past year, don't fix it. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 17:06, 5 June 2012 (UTC)
• I !vote kindly chuck the notice. It's unnecessary and contradicts one of the most useful functions of this page. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:09, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Hyphen in requested move

Hey, I was hoping for some opinions on a hyphen in an article title. There is a requested move for Racist music to be renamed as white power music (as this type of music is the focus of the article). My thinking is that it would be more appropriate at white-power music. The specific example I gave was that there is a huge difference between white-power metal and white power metal. However, I'm not a punctuation expert, hence this note. Please leave any opinions at the discussion. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 20:20, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I am revising the heading of this section from "Hypen in requested move" to "Hyphen in requested move", in harmony with WP:TPOC, point 13 (Section headings).

—Wavelength (talk) 21:30, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

You are correct, I don't actually need any help with "hypens"... except for, obviously, spelling them. ▫ JohnnyMrNinja 21:34, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Leading ellipses

It's not completely clear to me from the guidelines if a leading ellipsis is required or recommended if a quote is truncated. For example, if source says: "Spongebob exclaimed "The implementation of this archaic design policy totally sucks."" Would we write

Spongebob said that the policy "totally sucks." or

Spongebob said that the policy "... totally sucks."

Thanks in advance. Sasata (talk) 19:41, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I see a lot of leading ellipsis points that are quite unnecessary (they're visually disruptive, so need a good reason for their insertion). My view is that they should be inserted only where it's important to emphasise that the quotation is drawn from part of the way into a text/sentence. Tony (talk) 05:49, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Agree with Tony. Kaldari (talk) 06:07, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Concur with Tony and Kaldari. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:05, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposed MOS for Religion, and, maybe, related social sciences

There is a comparatively new MOS draft at Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion/Manual of style. I believe it is worth at least mentioning here. I also think that it is very possible that this MOS might be applicable to a variety of "secular faiths" and other "ethoses" (if that is the right plural) and would very much welcome any input that editors here might want to give. John Carter (talk) 22:35, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

I've posted comment about the draft's bloat and redundancy. Tony (talk) 05:42, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

So far as I can see, no religious WikiProjects other than the Christianity one have been consulted. Surely they should take part in this?

When it was proposed concerns were raised that some of it read as "seemed like policy-exemptions dressed up as MOS."[14]. An obvious example is the section on the lead, part of which reads "The lede of an article on religion or religious subjects should be comprised entirely of an objective description of the religion/subject. It should not contain critiques or criticisms of the religion/subject, and it should not contain apologetics for the religion/subject. A critique, in this context, means stating that the religion/subject is false or mistaken. A criticism, in this context, means stating that the religion is bad or harmful or deceitful or just plain wrong." This violates our WP:NPOV policy and obviously WP:LEAD. Dougweller (talk) 13:55, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Scripted style manglement

The advisor.js script at User:Cameltrader/Advisor has nearly automated the violation of MOS:DASH by encouraging editors to put spaces in odd places relative to em dashes. I noticed and reverted this edit before understanding that it was just one in a line of rampant dash spacing edits. See recent contribs of Banej for edit summaries containing "nbsp", many of which are added to em dashes, or are spaced hyphens converted to spaced em dashes. I have alerted this editor, but there's a lot of cleanup to do, and who knows how many other editors doing similar damage with that script. Dicklyon (talk) 14:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

The author of that script appears no longer to be trading. Since I use it (and quite like it despite various irritations) I will have a look "soon" and see if it is possible to improve the handling of mdash without a total rewrite. --Mirokado (talk) 15:36, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

I've never written javascript, but it's easy to see how to fix at least some parts of it, like changing mdash to ndash (\u2013), or removing the spaces, in this bit:

 start: m.start + 1,
 end: m.end - 1,
 replacement: ' \u2014 ', // U+2014 is an mdash
 name: 'mdash',
 description: 'In a sentence, a hyphen surrounded by spaces means almost certainly an mdash.'

Even better, substitute the spaced ndash template there. Some of the other bits are more complicated. And the script is protected, at least from me, so I can't give it a try. And note that the talk page shows other dash-related problems, like replacements in file names and in math. It might be best to just disable some of those edits. Dicklyon (talk) 16:29, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Editors are responsible for their edits, regardless of the tools they use. I have been using this script for years— It is incredibly useful, but I no longer use the dash features. I had not realized that Cameltrader has not bee active for four years. Ohconfucius has some similar tools— perhaps he could take this over. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 19:02, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

In fact I can't edit that page because (I think) it is a user .js page. Can administrators edit it if I leave an edit request? --Mirokado (talk) 21:04, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I am in the midst of undoing the edits. Guess I should no longer use the dash features. ♠♠ BanëJ ♠♠ ^(Talk) 02:24, 6 June 2012 (UTC)