Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

See also
Wikipedia talk:Writing better articles
Wikipedia talk:Article titles
Wikipedia talk:Quotations
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/quotation and punctuation

Compromise on WP:REFPUNC?

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (footnotes)#Compromise on WP:REFPUNC? -- Jeandré, 2011-03-21t12:46z

Any problem with using hyphens and never dashes in titles?

Is there any problem with requiring the exclusive use of hyphens - never using ndashes or mdashes - in article titles? This is a rule that applies to images already. What's the downside? The upside of using hyphens exclusively are, at least:

1. Easy to type (everyone has a dash on their keyboard).
2. Don't have to go through a redirect to get to your article when entering a search using a hyphen, thus avoiding the ugly "redirected" message.
3. No trying to figure out if it's hyphen or dash when linking to it - know that it's a dash.

So, what would be the downside? --Born2cycle (talk) 21:33, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The downside is that it doesn't conform to various style guides. I'm not saying this is compelling, but the current MOS rules were largely based on those sources. Tijfo098 (talk) 21:42, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

You're right about it not being compelling. If nothing else because, as far as I can tell, none of those styles guides is very strict about use of dashes, except maybe for ranges, and even then that's not that clear. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:01, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

It just seems to me that we should use Occam's razor, which in this case would be to always use hyphens consistently and never use dashes of any kind, in article content or titles (for consistency and credibility), unless there is a very good reason to use a more complicate approach. I see no very good reason here. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:28, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

It's OK to have that opinion, but then as a person who doesn't understand en dashes and disrespects our MOS guidelines about them, advocating a policy to never use dashes, you shouldn't be the one closing a debate on that topic. And Occam is not a very respected source on punctuation (defined by Merriam-Webster's collegiate dictionary as the act or practice of inserting standardized marks or signs in written matter to clarify the meaning and separate structural units); most style guides recognize the value of standardized marks to clarify the meaning. Dicklyon (talk) 00:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

If it's spelt with a dash in the body text, then it should be spelt with a dash in the title. Having the spelling in the title differ from the spelling in the body text looks sloppy. --JN466 22:59, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes. That's a good reason to spell it with a hyphen in the body as well. An alternative would be to get a tweak to the MediaWiki software. It should be no problem to tell DISPLAYTITLE that a hyphen and a dash are equivalent, so that we can make hyphens display as dashes. Hans Adler 23:11, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

And also make en dashes appear as hyphens, so that we can make as many articles wrong as possible? I don't get your point. Nobody thinks hyphen should appear as dashes; nobody want to disallow hyphens in titles; nobody is arguing to change hyphens to en dashes, just to allow dashes where they are the right answer per the MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 04:17, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Not commenting on the specifics at this point, but I think everyone would have to agree that in hindsight, this decision does not appear to have consensus in a lot of discussions and that it appears to cause more acrimony between editors then necessary. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:22, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Which decision? I'm just trying to understand what argument, if any, someone might have against the consistent use of hyphens, not dashes, throughout all text and titles in Wikipedia. --Born2cycle (talk) 23:50, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

The decision to replace hyphens with en and em dashes. Vegaswikian (talk) 23:59, 3 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, yeah. When did that happen? Is there any record of the decision? I can kind of see it being slightly preferable in a publication where someone has total editing control, but no way in Wikipedia. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The Mexican–American War article family were stable with the en dash for about three years. The MOS:DASH recommendations have been stable for at least four years. Is that what you meant, or is there more behind the question about "decision to replace hyphens with en and em dashes"? I don't know of any such decision; hyphens that are correctly used should be left as hyphens. Dicklyon (talk) 00:28, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

And with all due respect, a large number of cancer-related articles were stable with no dashes for years as well, which is consistent with the vast majority of the scientific literature. That is, until someone decided to (more or less unilaterally) insert several thousand dashes here and there without consensus. So the "stability" issue - if it indeed is an issue - should (in fairness) cut both ways. Regards:Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 00:43, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The alternative wouldn't work, because sometimes a hyphen in a title should be a hyphen. I don't see this as a big deal – editors who can't be bothered to type Alt-0150 on a PC, or Alt-hyphen on a Mac, can just use a hyphen. Another editor who cares about the typography can fix it later with a redirect. --JN466 00:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Alt-0150 does not work on this PC (running Chrome under XP with Gigaware keyboard). Anyway, what is the standard by which we decide whether a given dash "should" be a hyphen in any particular case? Is it reasonable to expect all editors to know this and care about it? You say it doesn't matter, because someone who does care will fix it, but the reality is then you end up with a hodge-podge of both. Even if Dicklyon is right about the en dash usage being stable in the Mexican-American War family of articles for years, that's undoubtedly because someone chose to address that particular issue in those articles, and policed it consistently. Can we depend on that occurring in every instance where hyphens "should" be dashes? If not (and I say the answer is clearly no way since we don't have the kind of editorial control and stability that would be required to pull that off), we end up with an unprofessional hodge podge, which is the exact opposite of the only justification with going with dashes in the first place (a professional consistent look).

On the other hand, if we decided to use hyphens consistently, except in those truly rare exceptional cases (like in an article about dashes), then a bot could easily enforce it, keeping our usage looking professional and consistent throughout WP. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:40, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

No, not all editors need to know how to punctuate properly. Just like not all editors need to know all the rules of grammar or have perfect spelling. If we required such high standards of all editors we'd become like Citizendium, a ghetto where few contribute. But they are the rules of grammar, spelling and punctuation, so it's reasonable to hope they are used by all who can use them, for consistency and correctness, including correcting errors within reason. The encyclopaedia looks and reads better for it.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 00:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

And as to the policing issue that Born2 asks about, no, we can't count on getting to consistency. Just as we don't have consistency of spelling, grammar, style, verifiability, notability, and lots of other things that we specify in policy and guidelines. But we don't tear down the guidelines just because achieving perfection will take infinite effort, nor because disputes arise from time to time. But when disputes arise about the guidelines themselves, we should discuss them in that context, and not keep generating skirmishes to undo the work of editors who are trying to move toward satisfying the guidelines. Yes, it takes effort to keep changing 'color' to 'colour' and vice versa to enforce WP:ENGVAR, but we don't abandon it and say all spellings have to use the fewest number of letters, so we can enforce it by a bot. Dicklyon (talk) 01:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Do you guys really think "spelling, grammar, verifiability, and notability" are comparable to hyphen/dash usage in terms of how consistently we are about enforcing these things? I suggest that hyphen/dash usage is a special case because the only reason to use a (fancy) dash instead of a hyphen in certain cases (where appropriate) is precisely to look more professional and credible, and (2) it's not nearly as clear-cut as the other issues in terms of what the "right" answer is, and to how many it's clear-cut. Look at the Mexican-American example below. It's a mess. There is nothing consistent, professional or credible about how we use dashes or hyphens; it's counter-productive with respect to the main reason to even use dashes. And unlike the other cases, there is a clear better alternative: just consistently uses hyphens ever where (except maybe in a few very isolated special case situations). It's apples and oranges, really. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Born2cycle, you say, "Alt-0150 does not work on this PC (running Chrome under XP with Gigaware keyboard)." Could you try the following? You need to have Num-Lock switched on (so that if you type a number key in the numeric keypad, you get a number rather than a cursor movement). Then press and hold down the Alt key, enter 0150 in the numeric keypad (not the number row at the top of your keyboard), and then let go of the Alt key. If you do that, you should have typed an n-dash. (Alternatively, you can click on – below your edit window.) Does that work? --JN466 20:33, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) JohnBlackburne, but grammar, spelling and punctuation is something that is consistent and well-known, most editors know it, so they get it right the first time, or, if they don't, the next editor to see it is likely to fix it.

Knowledge of proper dash/hyphen usage thing is way more obscure than that, and, yet, they're widely used. Even with Mexican-American War, there are tons of examples of links to both Mexican–American War (ndash) [1] and Mexican-American War (hyphen) [2], and that's supposed to be a well-managed example. Yet it's horribly inconsistent. The truth is that it is practically unmanageable in WP to consistently maintain hyphen vs. dash usage according to any standard that calls for hyphen in some cases and dashes in others, so if we try, we are doomed to fail. That does not help WP in terms of being credible and professional. --Born2cycle (talk) 01:26, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I prefer to aim high, not low. Therefore I support dashes. Ozob (talk) 01:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

So we should use an ongoing edit war as a guide how to handle MOS issues for the whole of WP? Er, no.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 01:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

No, we should not use an ongoing edit war as a guide. I haven't verified, but it is my understanding that it was a mess when this war started, and that the inconsistency in usage is what is ultimately behind this. That's the guide. That is, it's not like all references to the M/W war were all consistently using dashes, and then someone started changing them to hyphens. It was that it was a mix of hyphens and dashes, and when someone tried to change the usage to be consistently hyphens, that's when the war began. Is that not right? --Born2cycle (talk) 03:45, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Where did you get the impression that inconsistency of usage was behind this? All of the relevant article titles, and most of their text, were consistent for years until Pmanderson attacked. This is not the first place he has attacked for en dashes, but is the one where he raised the most stink because he managed to get an improper move done to convert from a consistent set to an inconsistent set. Dicklyon (talk) 04:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

One could just as well say it is practically unmanageable in WP to consistently maintain comma vs. semicolon usage according to any standard that calls for comma in some cases and semicolon in others. Dashes are a just a bit more "obscure" than other grammar rules, mostly because most writers have not traditionally needed to use them. The en dash had no representation on the typewriter, so decisions of typography were usually made by the typographer and the editor, working from the author's typed manuscript. As computers came to be widely used, people largely took over being responsible for their own typography, and bifurcated into two main types: those who learned how to do dashes and those who didn't. The ones who did include most of the technical writers, who largely use TeX and LaTeX to produce their manuscripts (en dash and em dash have been entered as -- and --- in TeX since the 1970s) and those who adopted the Mac when it came out in 1984 and read a bit about how it worked and weren't afraid to use the Option keep when needed. Those who did not learn to use en dash include most Windows and Word users, since Microsoft made it hard, and provided a standard shortcut for em dash for not for en dash. So, yes, there are large numbers of people who don't do en dash. But it's not unmanageable, and if you look around Wikipedia you'll see that in very many cases, the right dashes are used, because there are enough editors who know and care about the rules of grammar and typography who want to make it right; and it gets better every day, except in rare cases. It's unfortunate that those who are less familiar with en dashes are so determined that they should not be used. What's up with that? Dicklyon (talk) 01:41, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The problem is the editors who drag out long-failed experiments in typography, and insist that everybody use them when no-one outside Wikipedia does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

We don't need to be micromanaging aspects of style on otherwise good pages. We need to be macromanaging the waves of crap coming through the gate at New Pages. That is all. Carrite (talk) 02:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Then we need a revision here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - "Mexican-American" and "Mexican–American" clearly convey different meanings, so it makes little sense to use a blanket hyphen as a 'one size fits all' solution for the ambiguity (or having to read into the context to parse) that is likely to cause. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 03:15, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  In fact, both mean something that is both Mexican and American; which is why the distinction is vanishingly rare ourside Wikipedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  This editor has now twice taken it upon himself to edit my reply without permission. Is it the author's opinion, then, that his remarks will not survive criticism? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  That comment of yours was a racist jibe, and I would be surprised that as educated a person as Anderson wasn't aware of it. Then he has the nerve to complain that I removed it, saying it was fair comment because he was paraphrasing me. I never had him for a bigot before, but the above is making me revise my opinion of him rapidly (although I'm sure he doesn't care). --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 04:04, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Actually, he has been fairly consistently xenophobic, dissing sources and ideas that are not sufficiently American. He doesn't like the Oxford dictionary of American usage and style, for example, because of its publisher. Dicklyon (talk) 04:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  For the record, what I have said is that Mexican-American War has strong ties to the United States, and should therefore, where it matters, be written in American on the basis of American sources. That's WP:ENGVAR, one of the few bits of this guideline to have actual consensus. If this is not retracted, I will consider what other methods of dispute resolution are suitable to those who make ungrounded personal attacks instead of discussing an issue. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Septentrionalis has repeatedly argued that "English" should be our standard, and "anglophones" is just a variation on that theme. I don't think it's significant that this time he happened to address it to someone whose native language isn't English. I would rather assume good faith unless he says "I am a racist" or "I hate Chinese", etc. Art LaPella (talk) 04:37, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• I can't see any way in which the idea that English is by definition what English speakers speak—whose negation I would expect to be pretty much logically impossible—would be racist. (FWIW, I've meet highly educated native English speakers from East Asian, Black, and Semitic backgrounds as well as Caucasian people unable to understand such sentences as “Seven one-way tickets to Ventimiglia, please.”) ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Dashes are customary usage as punctuation; they are fairly frequent, and useful, in relatively limited circumstances, in making compounds; much less often than their enthusiasts say. Ideally that would be enough. But this proposal is compatible with that; useful dashes would be exceptions, coming under IAR. Therefore, while not ideal, I must support this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

See, here's the problem. Pmanderson wants to set policy about how to use en dashes, while demonstrating his ignorance of the distinctions that they signify by stating "both mean something that is both Mexican and American". Mexican-American is the adjective form of Mexican American, about Americans who have Mexican heritage. Mexican–Amercan is about some something between the countries, as in a "to" or "versus" or "and" relationship; a border, a war, a highway or a cruise ship perhaps. Editors who aren't able to understand the distinction in meaning have no business arguing against the en dash where it conveys the intended meaning, as the MOS says we should do. It's a good MOS, consistent with best practice of English publishers, for example as represented in the style guides of the American Chemical Society and the The Oxford dictionary of American usage and style. These are typical best practices. Dicklyon (talk) 04:00, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

See, here's the problem: I don't want to set policy; I would rather like this guideline to follow what English actually does - or in this case what American actually does. Dicklyon and a few others would prefer this guideline to enforce a failed experiment of a century ago, which is not now followed consistently by anybody outside Wikipedia - or on Wikipedia. In order to do this, he is willing - as above - to engage in groundless personal attacks. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I didn't mean to actually propose anything (yet); I was just wondering what the objections might be if something like that was proposed. So far I've seen nothing significant. --Born2cycle (talk) 03:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

These comparisons of various 12-point fonts illustrate the typical relationship of lengths of dashes relative to the hyphen. In some fonts, the en dash is not much longer than the hyphen, and in Lucida Grande the en dash is actually shorter than the hyphen, making this font typographically nonstandard and confusing. In traditional fonts like Times, Arial, and Helvetica, the differences are unmistakable.

Are you being obnoxious on purpose, or do you not actually understand how you insult good-faith serious editors by dissing their concerns as "nothing significant"? Dicklyon (talk) 04:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't mean to diss anyone's concerns much less insult anyone. I'm just calling them as I see them. I mean, let's list the concerns stated so far.

• "doesn't conform to various style guides. I'm not saying this is compelling, ..." (editor himself admits it's not compelling... not significant, IOW)
• "most style guides recognize the value of standardized marks to clarify the meaning." (no dispute there is some value, the debate is about how much value, especially in the context of the apparent inability to standardize on dashes/hyphens in particular in WP, so this does not seem significant to me)
• "if it's spelt with a dash in the body text, then it should be spelt with a dash in the title" (not significant because if text is consistently using hyphens as well titles, this is a non-issue)
• "... sometimes a hyphen in a title should be a hyphen. I don't see this as a big deal ..." (again, editor himself doesn't see it as a big deal)
• "I prefer to aim high, not low. Therefore I support dashes. " (a preference many of us share - to aim high - that's not a distinctive reason to support dashes.)
• "Mexican-American" and "Mexican–American" clearly convey different meanings (not to 95+% (guessing) of English readers)

Did I miss anything significant? None of these seem significant to me, honestly, for the reasons given. Anyway, that's all I meant by, "so far I've seen nothing significant." --Born2cycle (talk) 04:25, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I'm with B2C here. All I can see is a bunch of hot air. There's no compelling argument for... well, anything.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:35, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

You are very wrong if you think only 5% of readers of English understand that a dash and a hyphen mean different things. I would put it at more than half. But it's also worth noting that the easiest way to learn how these things are used is to read English written using them. Given WP's popularity I would not be surprised if it has done more than the majority of sites to promote a good understanding of English. So by using dashes correctly we help promote their use and understanding both on WP and more generally, and so increase WP's value as an English reference.--JohnBlackburne^words_deeds 04:38, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't speak for B2C, but is the issue here really impacted by one figure that he used in what appears to me to be a facetious manner? Say it is 50%... so what? How does that change his point, above?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:47, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, I think 5% is much too high. I read Wikipedia for years before I ever noticed any consistent difference between how hyphens and dashes are used. I'd run a survey, but this discussion would leave me behind before I talked to anybody. Remember, readers, not MoS regulars. Art LaPella (talk) 04:49, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

“[M]ore than half”? Seriously? Try asking a dozen random people. ― A. di M.​^plé​_dréachtaí 15:02, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think general illiteracy is a good argument for dumbing down our conventions. By that argument, we should purposefully misspell words which are difficult to spell. Hell, we could even create a bot to go through WP and misspell all the difficult words that were inadvertently input correctly. Instead we have a bot to correct misspellings. The same is true for commas, quote marks, and other bits of punctuation. I also don't think that the lazy editor argument has much value. By that argument we shouldn't capitalize anything, because that places an undue burden on editors by asking them to keep track of which words are capitalized. WP is supposed to be for the utility to the reader, not to the editor. As long as en dashes don't interfere with anything—and they don't—I don't see any purpose to dumbing down an encyclopedia because some editors are unfamiliar with them or don't want to bother entering them. (Not that anyone has demanded that they do.) Now, if we were to decide that we don't want to use en dashes for particular purposes, or even to use them at all, based on the merits of the dashes themselves, that would be a different matter. IMO that's where the discussion should be based. — kwami (talk) 04:50, 4 May 2011 (UTC)4

Be careful what you suggest, you just may get it. :)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Let's try to retain the context in which statements are made when we respond to them. The issue here is about whether "Mexican-American" and "Mexican–American" clearly convey different meanings is a significant reason to use dashes as well as hyphens in our titles and articles. Why is that a significant reason if the different meanings are not clearly conveyed to the vast majority of English readers?

  Whether we should be educating the ignorant masses about dash/hyphen usage is a separate issue... and was not a reason listed when I made the statement that no significant reasons for doing this were given (not that this one seems significant either). --Born2cycle (talk) 05:08, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

It's significant because there are literate people who care and for whom it makes a difference, and because we have adopted a manual of style that says we'll strive to do it that way. If it's not significant, why should we let the en dash haters tear it down? Does it harm anyone? Confuse anyone? I don't see how it could. Dicklyon (talk) 05:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

To address Kwami's out of context point above, ignorance about the nuances between dash and hyphen use is but one of the main reasons to not distinguish dashes and hyphens in WP because that ignorance is not only widespread among our readers, it is widespread among the editors, making it impossible to reliably implement a consistent distinction in WP. Despite being in MOS for years it has not happened, not even close. It's simply ignored for the most part, except for a few style wonks who make a valiant effort in a few isolated areas, but it's simply not catching on. The reasons for this, as far as I can tell, is 1) not only editor ignorance about the usage, but 2) a general lack of clarity in what the usage is supposed to be in all kinds of contexts, and 3) due to the freewheeling nature of WP a lack of an editorial "decider" who can quickly resolve what to do in unclear cases (the result is quagmire). Which to use often comes down to a matter of personal preference, about which editors will never agree. I see three choices:

1. Continue to try to refine MOS to be as specific as possible about when to use hyphen, mdash, ndash, and bring most of WP into compliance.
2. Leave things as they are - sometimes used dashes, sometimes hyphens, but don't really worry about the inconsistency.
3. Abandon dash use almost entirely, except for in very special cases (like the content (not any titles) of the article on dashes), and consistently/automatically change all dashes (except the exceptions) to hyphens, so usage in WP is consistent, reliable and professional, mirroring many other published works that use all hyphens.

I really don't see (1) as a practical possibility for reasons specified above. (2), which is essentially what Dicklyon seems to be advocating, is the current mess we're in and highly undesirable. It's harmful because it hinders WP's ability to appear consistent and professional, which makes us less credible. And credibility is one of our top priorities. (3) we haven't tried and I think is very promising with very little downside, and far preferable to (2), which is just a hopeless mess.

Also, both (1) and (2) suffer from the problem of creating articles which cannot be reached directly (without going through a redirect), unless one knows to enter dash instead of a hyphen, and how to do it, resulting in the ugly redirected from ... message, which is undesirable, IMHO. --Born2cycle (talk) 05:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

An example of how "lack of clarity" prevents an edit: See "Burmese-Siamese War" at Template:Did you know/Preparation area 1, which will become the Main Page Did You Know in a couple days. Although I often change hyphens to dashes, I didn't change that one because it resembles the hotly debated Mexican-American War. Art LaPella (talk) 05:45, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Art, do you agree WP, editors and readers would all be better off if we just used hyphens in all cases (except a few very specific rare exceptions)? --Born2cycle (talk) 06:00, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if we changed the guideline to match. Whatever the rule is, it should be settled here, as long as this page is considered a guideline on that issue (I have often said I wouldn't object to making the entire Manual an essay.)

More on the 95%/5% statistic, to connect us to the real world on that issue: My kids started using Wikipedia for school at about age 9. But long ago, when I proofread a satellite report written by graduate students and beyond, I was considered a grammar expert long before I knew anything about dashes. So with few exceptions, much fewer than 5%, our readers don't know the difference. Art LaPella (talk) 14:11, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

And for the many editors here who tend to confuse expressing an opinion on this talk page (never mind the Manual) with magically changing Wikipedia's 3 million articles: I wish you would show more interest in making the Manual accessible. Art LaPella (talk) 14:31, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

For the record, generally I'm actually all for pursuing the (1) methodology, above. However... look, I think that I'm a fairly good writer, and have slightly above average knowledge regarding grammar. The fact is that I don't have a good feel for when to use each type of dash, even after reading about it. More damning for the dashes is the fact that, really, I just don't see it as a big deal. I see the differences between the styles of dashes, and I do understand the usage differences, but... when it comes right down to it, I just don't care that much. To this point, I really think that I represent the hypothetical "average editor" on this issue. On the other hand, B2C brings up a compelling (in my opinion) point about creating articles that are unreachable except through a redirect. It's not completely true, since the search box and links can get you there without hitting the redirect... sometimes; but still, I think that it's an important issue to address. I can state with certainty that "accessibility" is an issue that many editors "out there" are concerned with. Actually, I think that my position is something of a hybrid: Avoid anything other then hyphens in titles where possible (using a "for technical reasons..." rational), and then come up with good rules for the use of various dashes in article text.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:09, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Am I hearing you right? The en dash is damned why? Because you don't don't have a good feel for how to use it correctly, and even more so because you don't see it as a big deal? Interesting POV. Dicklyon (talk) 22:19, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

No, you aren't hearing him right; he said "average editor", not just "you". Art LaPella (talk) 00:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. The “easier to type” argument applies to pretty much any non-ASCII character (and yet we don't move e.g. déjà vu to deja vu), and I don't think the “redirected from” notice is ugly. And while I'm pretty sure that only a small minority of people knows the difference, the rest of the people won't give a damn about which one is used. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  moving "déjà vu to deja vu" is another aspect of this. It's really the same issue that's simply wearing different clothing. Personally, I'm all for avoiding the diacritics, except for where absolutely needed. There's a discussion about that above, actually. So... Anyway, I don't really agree with the "is ugly" characterization, but there certainly is a desire among many editors to avoid redirects as much as possible. People try to "fix" redirects all the time.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 15:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Anyway, if you start typing deja vu in the search box, Déjà vu will drop down, so you won't find a redirect that way either. Too bad that this doesn't also work with dashes (if I type michaelson it suggests Michaelson-Morley experiment with a hyphen). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 16:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree with A. di M. here. I don't see any problem with redirects, and if people really don't want redirects, it's easy enough to set up a bot to correct them. I don't think such minor implementation issues should be what determines our MOS. Rather, what style we want for WP should be what determines the MOS. I also don't care whether 'hyphenist' editors always use hyphens. So what? Some editors only use imperial units. Some capitalize nouns and verbs in section headings. Some use different date formats. Half the time I don't bother with correct diacritics, even when they're in the title. Do what you want, and if it doesn't correspond to the MOS, someone will come along to fix it up. But why should we fight to prevent them from fixing it up? — kwami (talk) 21:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose - I don't see any reason to eschew good typography. Those who don't care can just press the button to the right of the "0" key and let Mr. Lyon et al fix it later. Problem solved. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:16, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
  • What is "good typography"? Some of us are Aristotelian enough to believe that it is typography which serves the goals of the encyclopedia; but setting that aside, there is little evidence that most of WP:DASH is good typography. Much of it is almost unheard of outside OUP style manuals; and since Oxford University Press doesn't follow its own style manuals, why should we?
  • There are places were a dash is sound typography; but dashes as punctuation – like this – should not appear in article titles, and we can deal with range dashes (1400–1800) by programming whatever enforces this to ignore dashes between figures. Any other valid exceptions will be extremely rare, and covered by WP:IAR. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:36, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

New user box

For anyone who agrees hyphens should be used (nearly) exclusively in WP, I've create a new hyphenist user box you can display on your user page: User:Born2cycle/Hyphenist. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:09, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

There is already Category:Wikipedian Hyphen Luddites. Maybe there should be Category:Wikipedian dash supporters.

—Wavelength (talk) 20:00, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

For crying out loud, we need a compromise not further divisive proselytizing. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:48, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Besides, it's full of errors. Dicklyon (talk) 00:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Hyphen vs. en dash moratorium proposal

Due to the constant edit-warring and contentious argument over hypen vs. en-dash use, I am proposing the following:

Per the precedent at MOS:CONSISTENCY & MOS:RETAIN*, hyphens and en-dashes should not be changed in an article. When an article has not yet evolved to that point, the variety chosen by the first major contributor should be adopted. Where an article that is not a stub shows no signs of which variety it is written in, the first person to make an edit that disambiguates the variety is equivalent to the first major contributor.

(* I reference MOS:RETAIN because it is a similar situation: RETAIN is about differing English spellings of words, while this is a simple style difference between hyphens and en-dashes. We solved the English problem with RETAIN, and I believe that will be sufficient here as well. People who fight against this would be treated as tendentious editing or disruption, same as with the English language arguments.) — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:15, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

While I agree that edit warring over something like that is silly, every other encyclopedia I've seen aims to have consistent formatting. I see no reason why Wikipedia shouldn't as well, so I'm in with a weak oppose. Zakhalesh (talk) 18:32, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

The point of my proposal is to provide consistent formatting, at least within the article. We're not going to see site-wide consistency without an ArbCom ruling, at this point, so I'd settle for the above proposal as a potential solution. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Well, no: that's way too broad and vague. For example, I did this yesterday, which would fall under the proposal as currently worded. 28bytes (talk) 18:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. Because hyphens and en-dashes are virtually indistinguishable (particularly in the fixed-width font used in the edit window -–) it would be impossible for an editor coming to an article to know which style was in use, without fiddling about with ctrl-f-alt-0150. To make this work, we'd be in the ludicrous position of needing to set up a bot to enforce inconsistency. – iridescent 18:38, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Actually, this is not the case. – also works on Wikipedia, and I use — in my signature. And if hyphens and dashes were truly indistinguishable, this fight over them would be even more WP:LAME. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:54, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Without ctrl-f'ing, can you tell at a glance which of these (displayed in default edit-window font) are hyphens, em-dashes and en-dashes? -—-—––-– If you're suggesting that we have a bot replace unicode with HTML markup, I can tell you now that you'll have no support for that. – iridescent 18:59, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
      • I'm saying, if we're not even differentiating these with HTML or Wiki-markup, the whole argument is absolutely ludicrous. If people are arguing over ALT-coded characters, this is just insane. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:07, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
        • Yes, this is exactly what people are arguing about, and yes it is insane. (I'd wager there are far more unicode than html endashes on Wikipedia, since the unicode en-dash is the first option on the "insert" toolbar below the edit window.) – iridescent 19:10, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
          • Having learned to type   & n d a s h ;   I recommend it to others, the Unicode character is hard to detect visually.  To reduce the conflict, I'd suggest that the developers modify the toolbar to insert the HTML coding rather than the unicode character.  Unscintillating (talk) 23:33, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
            • Using – instead of – is controversial even among those who know how to type it. See Wikipedia:How to make dashes#Long explanation. Art LaPella (talk) 03:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose, per User:Iridescent, and I would that the near indistinguishableness of hyphens and en-dashes is an argument for using hyphens exclusively. Join the hyphenists!. --Born2cycle (talk) 18:46, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose because the proposal implies the false claim that in English writing in general, including but not limited to the English Wikipedia, a self-consistent written work (such as an article) should have hyphens or n-dashes but not both. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:05, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
  • If it leads to this much argument, no, an article should not have both. I've yet to see another proposal (short of an ArbCom ruling) that can fix this problem. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:22, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
    • If you don't want an article to have both, your only option is "only hyphens", since there are numerous circumstances where everyone would agree that only a hyphen is appropriate—compare "face–to–face" with "face-to-face". – iridescent 19:26, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
      • If that's how it works out, fine. I'd just like to find a solution that ends the argument, even if it's not ideal. We're never going to reach "perfect," but the constant bickering is a negative for the project in general. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 19:38, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
• This proposal doesn't resolve anything. Just trying to get the involved parties here to stop talking about the issue doesn't mean that the issue doesn't still exist. I agree with the above users who seem to be rejecting this proposal.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:51, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
  • (sigh) This isn't about "stop talking about it," any more than settling the US English/UK English was about shutting people up. It's a compromise made to reduce bickering so we can get back to editing an encyclopedia. Apparently, no one wants to take the sensible step of at least ending the edit wars while we discuss this, though. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:01, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Edit wars are easy to deal with: WP:3RR. It seems to me that what you're proposing here is that we prevent the possibility of edit warring from occurring, which is much worse then edit warring itself, in my view.
      — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:06, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
      • What I propose is an actual guideline, instead of people throwing dashes & en-dashes around, then fighting over them. It worked for US/UK English matters, and I think it would help here. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:36, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

        I'm not watching the Mex-Amer war page, or whatever the sub-page for it was that started the latest AN/I thread, so... is there an ongoing edit war or wars that we should be aware of? Is someone running aroudn with a bot, moving pages, or something? As far as I'm aware there's no actual edit warring occurring, but maybe I'm just out of the loop here?
        — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:43, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Not bots, but a certain amount of turmoil in Pmanderson's push to overturn 3 years of stability. He got away with a poorly attended and badly decided RM on Mexican-American War, but the ire raised by that brought in me and others to defend the status quo against the "hyphen Luddites". Since then, he has pushed every way he can, and lots of lengthy discussions have ensued in numerous places. Things went into an uproar again when non-admin Born2Cycle closed a contentious RM claiming a consensus that was nowhere in sight; and previously-declared-anti-en-dash admin Jonathunder speedily did the move; a brief edit war ensued in which the improper close and the improper execution were undone (and the move war was ended by me salting the redirect such that an actual admin would have to come in for it to continue; of course, I took flak for that tactic). Seems like it might settle down now. Dicklyon (talk) 04:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  Well, let's see; there was a discussion of dashes on this very examples before the RM, which largely supported hyphenation; then there was an 8-2 RM; that's actually larger than most. Dicklyon and another editor didn't get around to !voting; they now insist that it should have been 8-4 and that the only way out is to let the minority have its way. But of course this is all my fault, and has nothing to do with a few editors making a battleground for their own opinion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  Guys, two reversions and two separate RM's do not make an "edit war" or a "battleground". Dial down the rhetoric a bit, and let's just keep talking this stuff out, OK? So, there were a couple of RM's that took place, and a couple of swapped around articles for redirects. No big deal, especially since now we're all here. How about we concentrate on figuring out what, if anything, should be changed in the MoS (and get the damn page unlocked!).
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• oppose A consistency backed by reliable sources confers legitimacy. Let's at least try to appear professional. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:23, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  You know, professional encyclopedists try to write in English, so that they will be understood. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  You use this "write in English" thing a lot, so it must be compelling to you; is there anywhere where you explain what it means and what it has to do with this debate? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 14:22, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  Yes. Several places are in this very series of discussions: if reliable sources in English show an overwhelming preference for one style, follow them; if not, permit the styles in common usage unless there is consensus that one of them is more beneficial to the encyclopedia. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:56, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  RS' preference for one style does not mean the other isn't English. What does any of this have to do with this proposal, anyway? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:37, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  At a certain point preference for one style does mean the other isn't English, or thorn would still be English, and Shaw's dont and wont would be English now; any plausible typography can be found once in the millions of books printed. But the assumption that eccentric typography makes us look "professional" was the root of the post; it merely makes us look eccentric. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:09, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  I talked about consistency, this proposal has nothing to do with which style is better or more eccentric. Your comments here seem to be about a different proposal on this page, perhaps? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  You leapt from "Let's try to appear professional" to opposing the moratorium; if this is not based on a claim that Mexican-American War (the spelling used by almost all who use the phrase, including professional historians) is unprofessional, it seems utterly ungrounded. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

  I'm opposing the first-major-contributor rule proposed here. You realize this section is about that, right? (I can't tell if you do or not.) My opposition has nothing to do with the war article. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:17, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose: Edit warring, for whatever reason, should be handled by dispute resolution, not contravention of the MOS. This issue is significantly different than American vs. British English, which is about correct grammar from different regions rather than a style disagreement. — Bility (talk) 22:07, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
• Support. The difference between British and American is a style disagreement. The fact that we are willing to tolerate such obvious differences as honor/honour, got/gotten, as he has/as he has done makes the cries for consistency on this issue particularly uncalled-for. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:41, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. There are legitimate reasons for our encyclopedia to be written in multiple varieties of English. Conversely, even if we assume that the styles in question are equally correct, mandating their coexistence is comparable to locking in "the typeface chosen by the first major contributor" or "the page color chosen by the first major contributor." (Their automatic nature is irrelevant, given the fact that the proposed rule actually would be more difficult to enforce than the status quo is.)
  Site-wide consistency isn't always a realistic goal, but this is an instance in which it is. The use of either context-dependent characters or the same character across the board is vastly preferable to a setup in which we expend far greater effort to achieve far worse results, purely to ensure that no one "wins" (i.e. to ensure that everyone loses). —David Levy 19:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
• Comment. I don't care either way on this moritorium, but I will say that FA, A-class, or GA reviewers do have the right to require that hyphens and dashes conform to the MOS before they consider promoting an article. Other than that, there should be no sanction imposed on any editor for an MOS violation in and of itself. To threaten to topic ban an editor for refusing to change hyphens to en-dashes is ridiculous. If I'm in a hurry when I edit an article, I just use the hyphen key on my keyboard instead of trying to find the en-dash link at the bottom of the page. Cla68 (talk) 00:10, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
• In some cases an en dash is preferable to a hyphen, or vice versa, but in others (that may be within roles 2 and 3 in the MOS) it seems that either can be used and it is the choice of the editor. A guideline that recommends retaining the original choice for these may deter repeated disputes, or at least direct them to the MOS discussion page and away from the articles. Peter E. James (talk) 00:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose. This would endorse the first editor, regardless of whether he/she is right. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:01, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

  This could be fixed by adding “unless there is consensus to do so on the article's talk page”. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 12:02, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

• Oppose. Just like with the "variant of English" everlasting debate, using the first major contributor to determine anything regards the editors above the content, which is an unimaginative solution and far from what WP is about. – Kieran T ^(talk) 12:14, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Use existing MoS guidance for dash?

I just realized that we have guidance for what seems to be an extremely similar situation to the current DASH debate. The MoS has said for years, as far as I can tell, that we should use "typewriter" style quotation marks (or glyphs, if you prefer). See: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotation marks

what I find interesting is the reasoning that is given there. It seems to me that if you substitute "hyphen" for for "straight quotation marks" then we have perfectly acceptable, and internally consistent, guidance for the use of dashes.

I don't know that I agree with doing that, personally. however, I wanted to at least mention it and see what others have to say.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:18, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

• Y'know, that makes sense. I'd Support this, since it follows a useful standard & would be transparent (no ALT codes or HTML). If a compelling argument was made for use of en-dash on an article and consensus was reached on the Talk page, it could be used. I'd like to see it be the HTML code, though (–, so it's clear to editors that a special character is being used. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:44, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
  • FWIW, I always use the html tags whenever I use one of en/em dashes because it's more obvious in the (monospaced font of the) edit box what's going on. I won't hold others to this standard though. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:16, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Except on Macs, they are both hard to type directly unless you customize your keyboard layout. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:22, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
    • I find the Alt-0150 method easiest, and not unduly cumbersome. I believe it works on all PCs (provided you have Num Lock switched on, and use the numbers in the numeric keypad). On laptops without numeric keypad it can be a bit tricky though to figure out which keys double as the numeric keypad, and which function key to press to make them do so; but in that case there is an n-dash just below the edit window. --JN466 23:45, 4 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Speaking from a technical point of view (methods to input dashes, curly quotes, or whatever else), it's certainly possible to input pretty much any unicode character (meaning just about any character in existence) with a bit of knowledge or the desire to dig through the stuff below the edit window. So, really, the arguments about accessibility and technical restrictions are basically without merit... except, it does actually take some effort to input those characters that don't appear somewhere on a standard 101-key (or 104-key) keyboard. That, and there are some problems with the search function. So... it seems that article titles are more problematic then article content, which I think is what drives proposals for treating titles slightly differently then article content.
        — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
        • Wikipedia:How to make dashes Art LaPella (talk) 00:20, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
• I appreciate the logic, but would not be in favour of applying the same rationale to dashes and hyphens, as this would eliminate dash usage from Wikipedia altogether. Dashes are well established in Wikipedia, especially between date of birth – date of death in lead sentences, and to set off parenthetical appositions, subclauses etc. No editor is criticised for using a hyphen instead of a dash; but neither should editors be criticised (or reverted) for changing hyphens into dashes to conform with MOS. --JN466 23:19, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  That's the one issue that I'm hung up on, myself. What about using the "for technical and usability" reasoning used with curly/straight quote marks specifically in relation to article Titles, and then using the existing WP:DASH guidance for the article content itself. It's hardly a perfect solution, but...
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:42, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  The technical issues were fixed years ago. In terms of usability, redirects could be used in the case of such quotes in titles, as they are with dashes redirecting through hyphens, but the potential combinations of such things could get unruly with the various quote variants especially if combined with dashes and such. I think there a multiple variants of fancy quotes (not sure) that would create a nuisance, too. I'd say that if we want to, we can amend the MOS to allow fancy quotes, with the proviso that if they're used in titles then all the appropriate redirects needs to be provided manually. The potential semantic advantage is a slight increase in clarity of opening versus closing quotes, but people would then need "smart quote" help to get that right, and they'd still get it wrong as they often do in Word. Probably it would be more hassle than it's worth, unlike dashes, which as Kwamikagami points out, have an important role in conveying clear meaning from writer to reader. Even readers who have never heard of an en dash will often "feel" the difference between a tightly connected hyphenated compound and the more loosely joined relations signified an the en dash, as in the one versus two in names or places. Use of hyphens where en dashes belong is often tolerated, but never recommended. Our attempt to take the high road is working pretty well so far, recent skirmishes notwithstanding. Dicklyon (talk) 00:33, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• There's no semantic difference between straight and curly quotes. It's merely aesthetic. En dashes carry a different semantic load than hyphens. A closer parallel would be em dashes vs. colons, or commas vs. semicolons. — kwami (talk) 23:20, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

  Within a quotation, ‘cause would be the beginning of a nested quotation starting with the word cause and ’cause would be a contraction of because, whereas 'cause could be either, so the difference is not always only aesthetic. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 00:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. Also, I wouldn't mind allowing curly quotation marks if used consistently in an article. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 00:30, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Actually... I hate to open up another can of worms here, but I tend to agree with "I wouldn't mind allowing curly quotation marks if used consistently in an article.". Maybe. Allowing typographic quotation marks in article titles would be problematic, though.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:34, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

As I discussed above. But maybe "would be problematic" is not that big a deal, if we decide it's worth it? Just as a test, I made User:Dicklyon/"Fancy quotes" which redirects to User:Dicklyon/“Fancy quotes”. At least technically it seems possible, but I take no position on it at this time (since it's not what we're here for). Dicklyon (talk) 00:40, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

You can place curly quotes, any style of hyphen or dash, or pretty much any other character into an article title. Getting them in the title isn't the issue, though. Navigating to the article, especially through search, can be a real issue though. Even with redirects... adding that extra layer of complexity for the sake of style... there's a tradeoff there. What's more important: typographical correctness, or ease of navigation? My point is that it's not actually as simple as "dashes are more correct, and we should strive to be as correct as possible". According to the Quotation mark glyphs article, curly quotes are "more correct" as well (although I agree that there's probably not as meaningful of a difference between the types of quotes and the types of dashes, as Kwami stated above).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:58, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

What's so difficult? I just typed ‹spanish-american war› in the search window and was sent to Spanish–American War. This isn't any different really than variation on caps. We could argue that articles shouldn't have capital letters, or that dab tags shouldn't have parentheses if we're so worried about getting a redirect notice. All these effects are trivial, much more trivial IMO than a professional typographic style. — kwami (talk) 01:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Decades ago, text creators were forced to use typewriter conventions because of its mechanical limitations. We're not restricted by those limitations now, so reverting to them would be a step backward. I would hate for us to encourage/direct Wikipedia editors to create articles that appear unprofessional and amateurish. Consider what we collectively want Wikipedia to be in five or ten years. I, for one, hope that it's a generally reliable source for people to use on the whole, but I also hope it adheres to professional typographic conventions and internationally recognized best practices. Let's not move in the opposite direction now. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I agree that if there was any navigation difficulty associated with en dashes then we would avoid them; that's why I support the statements that make it essentially mandatory that if you title something with an en dash you need to make sure that users can navigate there by a hyphen. As it says at MOS:DASH: "When naming an article, do not use a hyphen as a substitute for an en dash that properly belongs in the title, for example in Eye–hand span. To aid searching and linking, provide a redirect from the corresponding article title with hyphens in place of en dashes, as in Eye-hand span." This has been working well for many years already. Dicklyon (talk) 01:46, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree, which makes it difficult for me to come up with a good counter argument here. Hopefully someone will come along and help me out, here. But... well, someone has to create the redirect. Someone probably has to move the page, actually (which creates one redirect, at least). The point though is that we're getting into an area here where we'll be intentionally adding a layer of complexity to the structure of the Encyclopedia "merely" for style reasons. We're making navigation (even if just slightly) more complicated "merely" because of typography. We're forcing the use of process (through move requests) "merely" for style issues. As was brought up at AN/I, we're causing conflict for what are "merely" style issues. Even for those who ostensibly don't care about dashes, there will be instances where people say "why the heck did that article get moved? And why did it get moved to a title that I can't type directly, now?" Face it, that's just the nature of things. The perception is that the addition of dashes, curly quotes, and other non-keyboard character in article titles makes navigation more difficult, and is therefore something that will always be problematic in my opinion. I think that there's a real difference between article titles and article content though, and I don't think that we should be afraid to recognize those differences within the MoS.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 01:48, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Usually the process is trivial; when an article has a hyphen and should have an en dash, I click move, type the en dash, and click the "move page" button. The rest is automatic. For people who don't know about en dashes, it probably won't get noticed; and I never heard of anyone with an issue of wanting to type an en dash title directly and not knowing how. (why would anyone want to do that?) Dicklyon (talk) 02:10, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Humm... you ought to take a look though Wikipedia:Requested moves some time (not just the process page, but the actual debates taking place in article space). :)
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 04:39, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I know, when RM is needed it can be a mess. But the only one I see open there is Carbon-carbon bond, which would have been uncontested if Pmanderson hadn't decided to "strongly oppose" it on a whim. Dicklyon (talk) 04:50, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

And you might count the related Iberian Nautical Sciences from 1400-1600, which is uncontested. I have often made my own page moves to change a hyphen to a dash, with no objections. Art LaPella (talk) 05:02, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Now, when I said that above about looking at RM, I wasn't actually thinking of anything running right now. I wasn't actually thinking of anything specific at all. It was a reply to your earlier comment saying "and I never heard of anyone with an issue of wanting to type an en dash title directly and not knowing how. (why would anyone want to do that?)". Not that I can remember anyone specifically complaining about that, but accessibility is something that is brought up all of the time in article title discussions. This is just something that I know about from two years of on again off again experience with that process. In my experience, people have issues with any article title that they can't exactly type out. That's simply a realty that we should be aware of and deal with. Any sort of guidance that ignores that fact about user behavior is bound to be ignored at best, and outright challenged quite often. If the reaction to that is to start locking down articles, that's hardly a good thing.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 05:08, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

So what is the nature of the complaint? Is there some reason that the redirects with hyphens are not doing the job for them? Or are they making up non-problems? Dicklyon (talk) 05:25, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know... accessibility, I guess. Maybe User:BilCat, or someone else, will come here and actually make a case fo rtheir point of view on this. All I know is that there is a fairly widespread point of view, reasonable or not, that feels article titles are not helped by typography changes (I'm including more than just the hyphen/dash issue, here). I don't necessarily agree with that... but, sometimes I think that I do, so... I think that it's just the added level of complexity is seen to be cumbersome. Additionally, how does adhering to DASH within article titles deal with WP:NOTBROKEN, after the move is accomplished? Shouldn't a move from a hyphenated article title to a dashed one be followed by editing many of the links to that article? Should that step intentionally be avoided, in some sort of compliance with WP:NOTBROKEN?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 14:33, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

• Support. As I have said above, not ideal; but infinitely preferable to the dash enthusiasm that comes over some editors. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)
• Oppose if this means getting rid of all dashes completely. There are places where not using them makes things look really really crappy. I shudder at the thought of having to resort to that old typewriter cludge of using double hyphens for parentheticals. I'm open to the idea of deprecating dashes in titles for technical reasons (where parentheticals don't occur), but certainly not in article text. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:31, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
• comment I would like to allow changes to be made if the article is going for GA or FA status. Certainly there should be no revert wars on this, and a 1RR rule could apply before a discussion. For the name of a whole article this proposal could have some merit. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:47, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
• I don't know of any RS that resort to using two hyphens instead of a dash. I have seen some old Atlantic Monthly articles that used two hyphens, but they looked like transcriptions from a typewriter. All the modern articles simply used either hyphen or dahs. --Enric Naval (talk) 09:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Should section headings be noun phrases?

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Article titles says article titles should be nouns or noun phrases. Directly underneath, in Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Section headings, it says: "All of the guidance in Article titles immediately above applies to section headings as well, except for the use of {{italic title}}". However, there seems to be an unspoken consensus against always using nouns or noun phrases in section headings. For example, many articles have an "In popular culture" section. It seems reasonable to me. Should another exception be added to the section heading guidelines? –CWenger (^ • @) 21:01, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Would the alternative be simply "Popular culture"? Have there been discussions trying to decide which is preferable? I'm inclined to avoid endorsing exceptions. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 21:11, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the alternative would be "Popular culture". I'm for that. However, I don't know that we need to explicitly say that. Nouns and noun phrases should be preferred (heavily, even) for all titles, be they page or section titles. I don't think that we need to mandate that though, do we? The current text (located at WP:MOS#Article title states: "Titles should be nouns or noun phrases (nominal groups)", which seems adequate to me. The "should" within that sentence provides a bit of a safety valve so that we can use article titles (and, by extension, section titles) that do not use noun phrases.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 21:32, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

So you both would advise changing section headings from "In popular culture" to "Popular culture"? –CWenger (^ • @) 22:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about changing them, but I'd use just "Popular culture" in a new(er) article. I'd advocate for dropping the "In", where such advocacy would be taken constructively (maybe as part of the FA process?). I might even support changing existing "In popular culture" to "Popular culture", as long as your willing to accept that some people will revert it (stick to a voluntary 1RR rule with it, and you're not likely to create any drama).
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:29, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

The trouble is that Popular culture is a subject unto itself. This dilemma arises because Wikipedia generally advises against using the full noun phrase if it would repeat the article's title or the title of a superior-level heading, e.g. "The Bronx in popular culture" as a section of The Bronx. While omitting the article's title in section and subsection headings is not the only choice, it's a perfectly good one, and argued for in Wikipedia's case by the way the search function works. But having made that choice, I'd want to keep "[The Bronx unstated but understood] In popular culture" to clarify that you're (in this hypothetical example) discussing the Bronx in popular culture, rather than popular culture in the Bronx, or popular culture in general. —— Shakescene (talk) 00:52, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

What Shakescene said. (Can you provide a pointer about that search function issue? I had always wondered about the point that rule.) ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 15:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Yea, good point. You know what though, it might be nice to say something about being succinct (which I'd guess is what partially motivated this thread in the first place). I'm sure that I'm not the only one who's seen section headers that are almost entire sentences.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:13, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

RfC: simple resolution to disagreements over dashes

Everyone wants a resolution to the tension surrounding how the MoS guidance on en dashes is applied. I've sought advice from a number of editors on how to proceed; I've also persuaded a few people on the dash side of things that a compromise is necessary if a community-led solution is to be achieved.

The bone of contention has involved only some uses of the en dash: those that are treated with relative inconsistency by hard-copy style guides and sources (e.g. Mexican–American War versus Mexican-American War). By contrast, en dashes appear to be part of the furniture for phrase breaks, music album lists, and ranges, and I believe that editors who don't want to key in these dashes are generally happy to allow others to come along later and fix their hyphens.

This is a good-faith attempt to gain support for a short paragraph to be added under the existing six numbered points, endorsing orderly and coordinated decisions for exempting an article from points 4, 5, or 6. All six points and the proposed additional paragraph ("Where consensus ...") appear below. I've reordered the points to make them more convenient for readers; nothing has been touched within the points, except for a fix of the section-link to "em dashes" in Point 1.

Please add your name to Support or Oppose, with only the briefest comment, and/or place an extended comment in the subsection below. Thanks for your interest. Tony (talk) 15:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

____________________

En dashes (–, –) have several distinct roles.

1. As a stylistic alternative to em dashes.
2. To separate items in a list—for example, in articles about music albums, en dashes are used between track titles and durations, and between musicians and their instruments. In this role, en dashes are always spaced.
3. To stand for to or through in ranges (pp. 211–19, 64–75%, the 1939–45 war). Ranges expressed using prepositions (from 450 to 500 people or between 450 and 500 people) should not use dashes (not from 450–500 people or between 450–500 people). Number ranges must be spelled out if they involve a negative value or might be misconstrued as a subtraction (−10 to 10, not −10–10).
4. To stand for to or versus (male–female ratio, 4–3 win, Lincoln–Douglas debate, France–Germany border).
5. To stand for and between independent elements (diode–transistor logic, Michelson–Morley experiment). An en dash is not used for a hyphenated personal name (Lennard-Jones potential, named after John Lennard-Jones), nor a hyphenated place name (Guinea-Bissau), nor with an element that lacks lexical independence (the prefix Sino- in Sino-Japanese trade).
6. In compounds whose elements themselves contain hyphens or spaces (the anti-conscription–pro-conscription debate) and when prefixing an element containing a space (pre–World War II technologies, ex–prime minister) – but usually not when prefixing an element containing a hyphen (non-government-owned corporations, semi-labor-intensive industries). However, recasting the phrase (the conscription debate, technologies prior to World War II) may be better style than compounding.

Where consensus based on a strong majority of reliable sources is arrived at on an article's talk page, an exception to points 4, 5, or 6 may be made for the article and any others that are closely related. The debate should be notified at the relevant talk pages and at WT:MOS. Tony (talk) 15:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

This now has limited prospect of consensus. For a proposal adapted to many of the opposes, see #Amended proposal below. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:51, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Support

1. Tony (talk) 15:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC) (as proposer)

   V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

2. Zakhalesh (talk) 16:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
3. vote early, vote often ;-) Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 16:47, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
4. Imzadi 1979 → 16:58, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
5. Jenks24 (talk) 17:09, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
6. A definite improvement; wording more parallel to other such cases (some style guides recommend or may be determined by consensus, without all the qualifiers) may attract (and deserve) more support. Thank you for leaning over backward, Tony. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:50, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
7. I like the idea, even though the requirement to “notify” discussions about exceptions at WT:MOS is a bit weird. I'd just say “Hyphens can be used in lieu of en dashes in the situations described by points 4, 5, and 6, provided there is consensus to do so on an article's talk page.” ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 22:30, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
8. To the extent that this compromise will put an end to the hassles, I support it. Hopefully the ten or so people polarized against it for different reasons below won't force us to keep arguing forever, and I don't see that they have any better compromises to offer. I thank Tony for proposing it and Pmanderson for agreeing; looks hopeful. Dicklyon (talk) 23:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
9. Oh for heaven's sake, either this or more weeks of arguing. I choose this. /ƒETCHCOMMS/ 04:00, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
10. Adabow (talk · contribs) 04:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
11. Support, with extension to WikiProject consensus. Axl ¤ [Talk] 09:00, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
12. Support, seems a good compromise.--Kotniski (talk) 11:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
13. Support - not perfect, but at least its a reasonable standard that will help minimize disagreements. PAR (talk) 13:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
14. Support -- a step in the right direction. --JN466 00:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
15. Support. I′m no fan of the spaced en dash as a stylistic alternative to the em dash (as nearly as I can tell, in the US it’s less common than the spaced em dash), but overall I think the proposal is reasonable, and infinitely preferable to interminable discussion. JeffConrad (talk) 04:14, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
16. moved from oppose: Unless the character of the debate changes quite a bit, it seems clear that my dream of consistency wrt mundane things like punctuation is not going to happen anytime soon. Until that day comes, and with that objection noted, I can support this proposal as a compromise. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:12, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose

1. This is Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#The_revo-lite, and mitigates, but does not eliminate, some if that RfC's problems. I'll just quote myself with a small modification: "I think we should derive our MOS from the aggregation of RSs, then impose that on every article. My rationale is that a consistency derived from reliable sources confers legitimacy, and to determine style separately in [some articles] is just too much work." Rather than making an exception to 4/5/6, those items should be changed to reflect usage in reliable sources. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:11, 6 May 2011 (UTC) moved to support. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:12, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

2. This is too bureaucratic, as it will force people to go through yet more useless debates in order to justify "exceptions". Counter-proposal: points 4–6 should not be presented as a prescription-plus-possible-exceptions, but simply as an option on a par with the alternative, i.e.: "En-dashes can also be used, as a stylistic alternative to hyphens, in the following cases: …". This leaves it at the same level of optionality as the choice between em- and en-dashes in parentheticals. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:16, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

   I agree with this objection; indeed with most of the objections that this is too inflexible. But it should permit local consensus to decide these matters; if the reporting provision produces regular infusions of dash enthusiasts to oppose any move, Arbitration remains. If this fails, we can propose something more reasonable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:12, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

3. This paragraph is worded to strengthen the position of the MOS people, when it should be going the other way. Projects should be able to choose their own policy regarding dashes that overrides the MOS. This puts all the power in the hands of MOS people and all the burden of proof on anyone who dares defy it. --JaGa^talk 17:25, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
4. Whenever possible we should have one source of style information, namely the MOS, not spread debates throughout the wiki. I think this would result in different articles using different styles, which defeats the purpose of having a manual of style. I think we should be concerned about Wikipedia's style, not our sources' styles and if a change is desired by the community we should come to consensus here to change it. — Bility (talk) 17:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
5. Since en dashes in those situations are always minority use, the 'option' would mean that we could never use them if someone goes on a crusade against them. He could simply use a bot to change all en dashes between letters to hyphens across WP, and then demand a majority of RSs to restore them. (That goes against BOLD, but BOLD isn't policy, while RS is.) I mean, look at the Mexican–American War case, when we've long had local consensus to en-dash wars, and publishers who use disjunctive en dashes universally use them here. It would be easier to simply concede the end result by deleting cases 4–6. — kwami (talk) 18:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
6. This proposal about dashes, although made in good faith, overlooks two issues: (1) its relationship to what WikiProjects current observe (as others have pointed out in this RfC), & (2) the fact that article titles is a special case because it needs to accommodate user keyboards, few if any support the difference between en- & em-dashes. Since (2) was the issue which set off the edit war over the title of Mexican-American War, any proposal must address this issue -- or this dispute will end up at ArbCom anyway. -- Llywrch (talk

   In response to the above, that this proposal makes it difficult for users to find articles, I received this comment on my talk page. (Note carefully: further comments about this RfC which appear on my Talk page will be ignored & deleted.) The comment stated, in effect, that first-time users & anyone else who is not familiar with our practices & conventions yet wants to use Wikipedia to look up things, should first make themselves familiar with our practices & conventions. As Charles Babbage once said, "I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." -- llywrch (talk) 23:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

   With respect to your point (2) in your original vote, you should note that this was discussed earlier and it turns out that the software has been updated so that your concern is no longer an issue. Redirects to articles that use dashes work perfectly now, even if your linking to a section on the content page. See #Avoiding redirects above, for a fuller explanation.
   — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:30, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

   So show me which key on my keyboard produces an "em" dash. (It's not a Mac.) Now consider just how easy it is for the average computer user to produce an "em" dash. Also, explain to me just how using the standard dash/hyphen in article titles harms the reliability of Wikipedia. For the record, some specialized academic periodicals as late as the 1990s were routinely published as mimeographs or photocopies produced with common typewriters, & AFAIK their reputation wasn't harmed by the resulting appearance. -- llywrch (talk) 20:41, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

7. We're trying to draw a distinction about which the vast majority of readers and editors is not even aware. There is no way this or any similar proposal will ever be implemented with reasonably high compliance. Even if you had a magic wand that would "fix" all usage overnight, it's would be only a matter of hours before it would start devolving again. The only practical consistent, reliable and professional solution is to eschew the uses of dashes, which can be easily and efficiently policed and enforced by automation. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
8. Basically agree with ErikHaugen. If a preponderance of reliable sources use a hyphen, then it is appropriate to use a hyphen in the Wikipedia article, particularly but not exclusively in the title. Rlendog (talk) 20:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
9. Oppose all "rules" which imply in any way that normal editing practice (that is, using standard keyboard characters) is in any way improper for any Wikipedia article. Collect (talk) 22:17, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
10. Oppose per Bility. The convention should be consistent across en.wikipedia, not contingent on whatever typographical conventions happened to be used in the sources for any given article. Mexican–American War and Texas–Indian Wars shouldn't have different typography just because one happens to use a bunch of sources from, say, U. Chicago Press and the other uses sources from Harvard U. Press. —Caesura^(t) 23:41, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

    That is not a problem; the real problem is that the actual phrase used for the latter is (excluding Wikipedia reprints) normally Texas Indian wars (i.e. those Indian wars which involved Texas). In both cases publishers generally agree with each other, with the occasional book being an anomaly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:13, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

11. This proposal is trying to establish rules in a way that is over-academic and not in accord with the purposes of Wikipedia as a general reference source. The rules about hyphens and en dashes arise from printers, as a way of providing a standardized working format for their trade, but have no real intellectual significance, In the typewriter days, they provided a clear difference between informal composition on even the most sophisticate machines, and the formal composition a printer could achieve, and this continued into the early computer period. It has become progressively easier for any computer user to imitate formal printing, and given the tools for making simple things complex, it's the nature of some people to try to use them. This might make some sense for computer composition designed for out[put on high resolution printers, but it makes no sense at all for output designed primarily to be read on a web browser with screen resolution. The rendering of wikitext and other browser output is so crude and erratic that paying much respect to details is essentially invisible during ordinary reading--it can only be seen if one is looking for it. I agree with Collect, above--even though anyone can learn to produce the printers-style output, there is no reason why anyone ought to bother, and it makes us compatible with the less sophisticated users if we do not require it. Especially, the use of en dashes in titles creates confusion. We can correct redirects, but why should we even need to? Just as Google designs its search function so punctuation does not matter, so can we. The only reason I can see for even permitting en-dashes is to aid future developments in higher resolution and printed versions, but I'd support automatically converting all of them in wikitext to hyphens (and doing so with minus signs also). It's analogous to the way we insist on straight " ' quotes, even though it's easy enough to use the curved ones. We have real problems with accuracy and understandability and basic grammar, so why should we bother with niceties irrelevant to our medium? DGG ( talk ) 01:19, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
12. Recommendation 5 "To stand for and between independent elements" is uncommon even in style/grammar guides. Mostly absent in those listed at en dash. And the same goes for 4, i.e. to stand for "versus". Tijfo098 (talk) 03:46, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
13. It would be ridiculous if every page or WikiProject had its own style. We need a Wikipedia-wide style that should not be changed just because other sources have a different style. McLerristarr | Mclay1 03:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
14. MOS requirements that are in conflict with common English usage are troublesome, as both this discussion and the frequent debate over "logical" quotation shows. I'm actually in favor of the use of logical quotation which might make my positions inconsistent, but I can't support any wikipedia rule that tries to change the common names of things just to satisfy prescriptivist grammarians. WP:COMMONNAME is the stronger requirement in my view, and supporters of this proposal do not respect it. Quale (talk) 07:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

    Isn't this proposal to endorse an orderly process for using common usage where appropriate? I don't get it. Tony (talk) 11:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

    No, this is a proposal for doing so far less often than is appropriate, while making any effort for common usage jump through hoops. I support because it does, at last, acknowledge common usage and make following it possible. I urge others to do so because half a loaf is better than nothing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:38, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

15. First, attempting to enforce style rules for linotypists on users whose keyboards don't include the en-dash character is futile. Second, the proposed rules lack transparency on essential points. Why should "Mexican-American War" be treated differently than "Lincoln-Douglas debates"? Third, there's never (per my ancient copy of Fowler's Modern English Usage) been real-world agreement on these matters, so we should adopt the simplest rules as practical (I like DGG's suggestion of simply abandoning the en-dash entirely). Fourth, any set of punctuation rules -- as highlighted by item 6 -- which calls on editors to revise text, even away from its clearest, most natural, most readable forms, to avoid arcane disputes over which punctuation mark to use is more trouble than it can possibly be worth. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 23:23, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
16. (1) WT:MOS is not a database, i.e., WT:MOS is not a collection point to record hyphen discussions.  (2) Article titles should be allowed to have different rules.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
17. Moved to oppose. This was never a completely satisfactory compromise, but it's become apparent to me over the course of the discussion below, and some of the opinions above, that this is too imperfect a compromise. One way or another, I think we can do better.
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:29, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
18. Oppose addition of exception paragraph. Wikipedia's style guidelines are not overruled by usage in reliable sources. Otherwise we would just replace the whole thing with the sentence "Use whatever the original sources use." Whether or not reliable sources use hyphens or en dashes has as much to do with the time period and printing technology as it has to do with actual stylistic decision-making. Kaldari (talk) 00:28, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

    Then "Wikipedia's style guidelines" are a parlor game, irrelevant to the task of communicating in English. Please go play it somewhere else. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:07, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Can't believe anyone actually cares enough to debate it at all and don't even want to know what the result of this RFC is

1. Beeblebrox (talk) 04:22, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

comment about caring Gerardw (talk) 11:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Surprised to see this comment from this particular long time editor. Honestly, I don't really care about what goes between Mexican and American either, but I care about Wikipedia. And I can't see disparaging folks who care and are willing to put their time in to try to make it better. Yeah, some of the behavior has gotten over the top but that happens sometimes when passionate people are working hard to achieve something. Those who don't care don't have to be here, right? Gerardw (talk) 11:07, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

1. Carrite (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC). I can sign on to this, actually. Much ado about nothing — style is not standardized across Wikipedia, nor can it ever be, nor should it ever be. People write in their own style for their own reasons, others come along and tweak things in their own particular idiom, and life goes on. Micromanaging style like this does nothing but cause the proliferation of huge bureaucratic documents that nobody reads anyway. Stop scaring away new content-creators with pointless micromanagement. By the way, did you see what I did with the m-dash there? Strictly non-standard... Carrite (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

   You obviously care, then. Add your vote to the "oppose" section, where your position that the MoS shouldn't "micromanage style" can actually affect the outcome here.
   — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:37, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

   Strictly non-standard? Though apparently deprecated by most style guides (including this MOS), the spaced em dash is fairly common in actual use, and we have a template ({{emdash}}) that produces a spaced—em dash (the first space is nonbreaking, so the template does save some effort and clutter). I personally prefer hair spaces on both sides of either dash, but it’s not currently an option in HTML, because most browsers inexplicably don’t support it. JeffConrad (talk) 20:17, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   On my user page I used this—which should be reasonably well supported, but maybe a tad too fancy for an article (unless made into a template). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 20:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   Not something I′d want to enter without a template . . . FF 4 doesn’t handle line breaks properly with this (of course, it doesn’t handle them properly with an unspaced dash, either). This approach (em — dash) is similar in appearance, and seems to break properly, though it also is more than I’d care to enter without a template. It’s hard to say whether this would fall within the spirit of unspaced; I think a 1⁄12 em space (em—dash) would certainly do so, but unfortunately, I don’t know how to do it without getting the same line break problem just mentioned. Anyway, we’re getting a bit off the main topic. JeffConrad (talk) 21:47, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

2. We are still supposed to be the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Whether it's dashes and hyphens, or elaborate citation templates, ease of editing and legibility to the untutored in the source text of Wikipedia articles trumps any consideration of prettiness. Anything that litters the source text with Unicode entities for the sake of prettiness is a Bad Thing. Let's all just use the hyphen that's on standard English language computer keyboards. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 15:13, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
   • Please view the source for this sentence – is it hard to read on your browser? It has a dash. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

     With the default setup, it’s tough to distinguish from a hyphen—in this respect, Wikimedia software is somewhat of a bizarre combination of WISYWIG and markup. wikEd puts identifying marks over dashes and minus signs, making them easier to identify. JeffConrad (talk) 18:13, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

     The question here is does my ndash make the sentence harder to edit – imagine a typical editor editing the text I am writing right now – do these dashes inconvenience the editor at all? Whether you can distinguish dashes and hyphens is a totally separate issue and probably depends on your font. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:28, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

     I think several issues were raised, including “legibility”, which I took to mean difficulty distinguishing in the source among several horizontal marks that look essentially the same with the default editing environment. Legibility definitely depends on the font; the dashes are easy to distinguish if an editor has selected a proportional font (or installed something like wikEd). But there’s no free lunch; at least with my browser (FF 4), using a proportional font makes it almost impossible to distinguish two consecutive ASCII apostrophes from an ASCII double quote (perhaps another reason to use the proper quotes for text . . .). Arguably, it’s more difficult to edit when you can’t tell what you’re editing. It should be obvious from my other comments that I don′t support treating Wikipedia as a typewriter (wasn’t getting away from that limitation one of the benefits of laser printers and graphical displays?), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t a few issues, even if they’re comparatively minor. JeffConrad (talk) 19:02, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   I somewhat agree on citation templates, which to me involve far more extra work than all special characters combined. I suppose templates do help ensure uniformity once the user has determined how to use them, and they do provide metadata of sorts. But if the latter benefit is the objective, we might as well just use XML for all markup. JeffConrad (talk) 18:13, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   The only way I can reliably produce any dash character other than '-' is by entering "–" or "—". I don't want to type all that newfangled computer language junk when I can just use '-'. If I retyped your sentence, it would end up with a '-' rather than a '–', and I can't tell them apart here either. I've never used anything other than the default editor. I'd just as soon it not became Real Important to anyone as to which one is used anywhere. The only possible rule I could endorse for using dashes is that no dash other than keyboard hyphen be used in an article title. If it becomes Real Important that one dash or another besides keyboard hyphen be used in certain places, it seems to me that this is a job for a bot. But for editing I think the only rule should be to use the one you can make easily. - Smerdis of Tlön - killing the human spirit since 2003! 19:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   There are quite a few ways to enter dashes and other special characters—see WP:How to make dashes and Help:Entering special characters. JeffConrad (talk) 20:09, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   Smerdis – that is fine. Anyone can keep entering hyphens; nobody here is even suggesting that anyone is going to have to use dashes. Nobody will make fun of you if you use a hyphen. The only question here is this – If someone edits article with text like "The Haugen-Smerdis Theory" to instead read "The Haugen–Smerdis Theory", is that ok? Is it something that one should revert? If possible, is it ok to have a bot do it? What happens if two editors disagree about the proper form – should they have a big debate about it at the article's talk page or should the MOS just pick one and the disputants defer to the MOS and get on with their lives? Obviously at least 99% of folks don't care which form is used. But what about those two that do care? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:20, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   It is not OK to have a bot do it. Even if consensus supported the best conceivable advice, some of that advice would involve the meaning of the phrase in question. The only things bots can do are third-rate solutions like never having en dashes at all. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:32, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

   Perhaps. Just remember that whenever a bot can't do it, it won't get done, excluding an insignificant fraction of 6,821,209 articles. Art LaPella (talk) 01:41, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

   Unless it's something that readers are likely to do, even <gasp> readers who haven't consulted this Sacred Page. That is, after all, the wiki method; it works reasonably well to edit our grammar and spelling. Another reason to set up advice which expresses consensus of l'homme moyen grammatique. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:48, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

   I agree readers seldom consult this Sacred Page, and therefore anything readers are likely to do has already been done. That doesn't include dashes at all; bots ordinarily do those. And you seem unaware of how much grammar and spelling is corrected by WP:AutoWikiBrowser/General fixes and WP:AutoWikiBrowser/Typos. Art LaPella (talk) 04:02, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

   “[W]henever a bot can't do it, it won't get done” is a quite bleak view of the future of Wikipedia, considering that WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR–all of which are arguably way more important that WP:NDASH–cannot possibly be enforced by bots. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 15:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

   But NPOV, V and NOR are debated throughout Wikipedia. They don't compare at all to the maybe 20 editors who understand most of WP:DASH, and hardly anyone understands the more obscure rules from the Manual's subpages.

   Oops, statistics don't back me up. Only 4 out of 10 randomly chosen en dashes were created by automation (AWB, Citation bot, SmackBot, and DOIbot). Art LaPella (talk) 23:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

   Sure, nobody is suggesting a bot will be able to do them all. But really not the point at hand. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:44, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Comments

Coordination with WP:TITLE

• As I noted at the end of the discussion above (in a round-about manner), I think that we need to address coordination between the MoS and the policy at Wikipedia:Article titles. This RfC is the first step, and I think that it's good that it's here. Step two is to add something to WP:TITLE which addresses how the MoS guidance affects article titles specifically.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't disagree... but at the same time, we should examine how the provisions of WP:TITLE effect what we say in the MOS. Blueboar (talk) 16:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

True.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:22, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Applicability

• Despite the usage of the recent war example, a large part of the pro-hyphen side's argument was that MOS:NDASH didn't even address this usage one way or another. This RfC would not have solved the problem as cleanly as one might think. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:17, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
• @Fut.Perf. – wouldn't you still get debates and disagreements at articles if it was an "option"? I can't see the advantage over the current proposal. Tony (talk) 17:24, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Of course, an "optionality" rule, here as everywhere else, comes with the implicit expectation of a concomitant "don't fix it if it ain't broken" rule, just as it works for other areas of optionality (ENGVAR etc.): just leave stuff the way it is. At least if people were reasonable, this could be left implicit. Since people maybe aren't so reasonable, it might be necessary to spell this out explicitly, but I'd prefer it without. Fut.Perf. ☼ 17:34, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

    I understand, and am sympathetic with, this idea. However, the primary goal of the Manual of Style is to dictate a consistent style throughout Wikipedia. Just as policy dictates expected behavior and expectations, the MoS governs style issues. Again, just like policy, the MoS is not intended to be absolutely rigid (I don't forsee anyone being blocked for not following the MoS, for example), but it should inform all of us what the community has settled on in terms of stylistic choices. Everything is basically "optional" here on Wikipedia until and unless someone objects to it. At that point a discussion should take place, and I for one think that it's better to have an informative MoS (or policy and guidelines) to reference when such discussions do take place. Just because this is here, that doesn't preclude the possibility of exceptions being made ("I understand that the MoS says <this>, but I think we should allow <that> in this case because...").
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:29, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

    I see your point, but as far as I'm concerned, I've made my position clear in the above section under what conditions the MOS should or shouldn't mandate a single option where practice out in the real world has variance. The dash issue is not among them. Having varying use of hyphens and dashes in these very few cases is no worse than having varying use of en- and em-dashes elsewhere. However, if it is felt that uniformity is a higher priority than I would consider it to be, then the only legitimate choice the MOS can make is the one in favour of the simpler and the more widely used option. The MOS doesn't have the right to impose on our editors a style choice that to most of us is alien. Fut.Perf. ☼ 19:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

    OK, understood. Just to be clear though, in your view this proposal seeks to "impose on our editors a style choice that to most of us is alien.", correct?
    — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:35, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

• As long as we're making it explicitly optional, we should change France–Germany border to RS-cited French–German border to head off repeats of the silly "not adjectives" argument. — kwami (talk) 18:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Neither should be included. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Scope

• JaGa, your point largely remains, but there are no special "MOS People" with lots of power. Anyone can start a discussion like this one and present reasons to fix the MOS. The question here is should the project be consistent with itself or with publishers who work in the specific subject area when it comes to typography? I would say that for specialist things like chemical formulas (H–Cl vs. H-Cl) we should follow the subject-area publishers (and have MOS subpages for the consensus distillation), but for really general things like what is covered at WP:ENDASH, I don't think there's any reason to sacrifice consistency for the whims of the specialist publishers. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I agree with this, completely. You're in the group of "MOS people" as much as anyone else is, JaGa. That certain specialty area's within the project as a whole may have to adjust specific aspects of the MOS to meet the needs of that subject area is implicit throughout the main MoS (I think that it's actually explicit, somewhere).
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:22, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  Ohm, I don't think you can agree with what I wrote completely and support this RfC. I'm interested in teasing apart which one you are misunderstanding. I used the loaded phrase "whims of specialist publishers"; perhaps that was unclear? I meant that, for example, if publishers that write "authoritative" sources about the Mexican–American War all happen to simply not bother with dashes, but our MOS proscribesprescribes dashes in this case (I realize it is a point of debate whether it does, please bear with this hypothetical) then we should use ndashes because there's no "reason to sacrifice consistency for the whims of the specialist publishers". Is that how you read me? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:43, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  You meant wiktionary:prescribe not wiktionary:proscribe. Art LaPella (talk) 18:59, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  Yes, thank you. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I don't see the style choices that specific editors/publishers make within specific publications (even many of them) as being informative, unless those style choices are the subject of what is being written about. what I do see as authoritative are publications specifically addressing style conventions. So, in the hypotetical that you've offered, unless the publications say something along the lines of "this conflict should be referred to as the 'Mexican-American War', not the 'Mexican–American War'" I don't think that those publications are applicable to what we're discussing here. It seemed that the bulk of your point above dealt with the issue of "MOS People" though, and the discussion about specialty items seems to agree with my point of view (chemistry texts, for example, are often very specific about formatting. History texts, not so much).
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:55, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  Ok, I think the point of this RfC, when it talks about "consensus based on a strong majority of reliable sources", is that if the reliable sources do it one way then we should too. ie, not what you are talking about. That has been the argument put forward in the Mexican–American War move discussions, in any case. Tony, can you clarify this? I'll move to support if Ohm's read is what you meant and you reword to make it clear. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  Please find me an example of any use of such a construct as this conflict should be referred to as the 'Mexican-American War', not the 'Mexican–American War' , for any compound whatsoever, including one for which you see WP:HYPHEN as requiring a hyphen. If none such exists, this is a long-winded and deceptive way of saying "always use dashes in such compounds", which this poll has already shown to be widely opposed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  They do exist, like one referenced on Dash that says [3] "Do not use an en dash in simple compound words: the Taft-Hartley Act; input-output analysis." These are examples that other guides would put an en dash in, based on the relationship that's intended to be conveyed; like this one with input–output and this one that has Taft–Hartley but no online preview. So there are indeed discussions of differences of opinion on specific such pairs and general philosophies, though they're rare to find. In terms of wars, I don't know of any that specifically say don't use the en dash; some that do say to use it like in the Iran–Iraq War (plus those that do use it, in Mexican–American War, which I've already shown you a bunch of times). Actually, even the Chicago Manual of Style acknowledges being on the hyphen side of the debate when they say (16th ed.) "Chicago's sense of the en dash does not extend to between". Dicklyon (talk) 20:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  Let me ask what may be a loaded question here: why aren't we following CMOS on this issue? More to the point (since I don't think that the CMOS or any other specific style guide should govern our own directly), what are we using for our own DASH guidance? en dash? Are we just making things up? Where did the 6 points come from?
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:28, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  What I'm having difficulty with here is how a subject-matter book (or other publication) that does not itself contain information regarding style or typography is at all informative to a debate about the applicability of certain styles or typography. You're asking for specific example of use, but I don't understand what that would have to do with anything. Are we trying to survey agreement or disagreement with certain style guides by book editors and publishers, here? And, why does it matter to Wikipedia what choices individual publishing houses make in terms of their own style guides?
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:32, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  You guys are just carrying on the usual argument, of whether to rely on style guides that discuss "best practices" in usage and typography, versus relying on observed practice; it's a perennial argument in language debates, language change, language standardization, etc. The current proposal is supposed to give us a way to elect to follow usage when the usage is clearly far from the recommendations from style guides, including from ours, which is based on various guides that purport to represent best practice of actual usage. Why keep up the argument here, given that we're supposed to be discussing the compromise? Dicklyon (talk) 17:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  Because it helps people understand each other better, and it can help others in understanding the issues themselves better. That's the hope, at least.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:17, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

(left) No, this is not a debate between style guides and observed practice; it's a debate between the overwhelming majority of style guides and of practice, on one hand, and the present guidance on the other. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:09, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Enforcement

• @kwami: The hypothetical that you describe goes against WP:BOTPOL. Even if the hypothetical crusading user(s) didn't actually use a bot, but made "bot-like edits" (through the use of tabbed browsing, for example), that would still be against BOTPOL.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:46, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  The editor is not so hypothetical.

  If they couldn't use a bot, that would simply change the time scale from weeks–months to months–years. The crusade has already been going on for years. — kwami (talk) 18:57, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  So, in your view, what is the solution? If there's a specific, substantive issue with a specific user, how is that applicable to this discussion (vs., for example, and RFC/U)?
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:37, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I think we need to decide what we want for WP style, and then apply it. If an editor objects that it's "not English" just because he didn't learn a particular convention in high school, then he should work to have the MOS changed on the MOS talk page. That may seem obvious, but that's not how we've been proceeding: we've repeatedly allowed local disruption rather than addressing the underlying issue, as we finally are now. I may prefer capitalizing section headings, or underlining the titles of books, but if the community has decided that we don't do those things, then I should respect that convention unless I am able to convince people otherwise—and it doesn't matter if the sources we're using for the article capitalize their section headings or underline the titles of books. IMO we also shouldn't italicize non-fiction titles but underline fiction titles, just because I was able to work up a local consensus, but should apply a consistent style across WP. We even make allowances for normalizing formatting within quotations! If we can do that, why should we blindly follow the arbitrary conventions of different sources for different articles? (Unless of course the formatting is semantic, as italics and dashes are in chemical nomenclature.) TITLE strikes me as a side issue: I don't see any indication that it was ever meant to supplant the MOS. Perhaps we need to spell out at TITLE that it's meant to address substantial issues, not formatting or other local (WP) conventions.

  Also, if we decide that non-ASCII symbols such as dashes or diacritics should not be used in titles, then IMO we should not expect titles to match the phrasing of the text, where there is no reason to stick to ASCII. — kwami (talk) 21:04, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I agree with the sentiment that "we need to decide what we want for WP style, and then apply it". The problems that specific editors may or may not have with that can be handled on a more individual basis, elsewhere (I'm quite aware of what/who you are referring to, but this is neither the time nor place to address that issue). I do understand what you're saying when you make the point "but that's not how we've been proceeding: we've repeatedly allowed local disruption rather than addressing the underlying issue, as we finally are now."; however, note that we are addressing one of those underlying issues right now. We're not going to improve the MoS, or Wikipedia article's compliance with it, overnight; improving both the MoS and article's compliance with it is a process which should take some time and reflection. Also, note that the issue involves more then simple disagreement on the individual article level. There are entire WikiProjects (and less formal, not Project affiliated, blocks of editors as well) who eschew either the whole MoS or specific aspects of it for various reasons. Those are all issues which should be addressed, but this RFC is about one specific issue, and I think that it should be limited to that specific issue. I'm not averse to starting an RFC (or two) which addresses the more "meta" issues that are being discussed here, but they should be separate issues.

  As for the "ASCII characters" and titles issue (Note that "ASCII characters is a bit of a misnomer here, but that's OK), I really think that is something that should be discussed at WT:TITLE. It's sorta touched upon here, but... not really. Regardless, I did hold the position that we should prefer that article titles should only contain "ASCII characters" (meaning those that can be typed directly on a modern standard keyboard). However, in light of the fact that the software has been updated to handle titles with all Unicode characters in a much better manner (links to sections of an article, where the target is a redirect, work perfectly now for example), the only reason to advocate for keyboard only characters in article titles appears to be stylistic. As long as that is the case, I'd rather see article content at the typographically correct page (with the understanding that redirects should be in place, of course).
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:59, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  The MOS is a guideline. If an entire project decides to not apply part of the MOS, no-one's going to take them to arbitration for enforcement. We have an odd situation with ship-class names, which are hyphenated in the articles but not in the titles despite the use of hyphens in their own MOS and in their sources, requiring piped links whenever a ship class is mentioned, but if the community decides they want that disconnect (there are template issues at play), then that's what they'll have, and no adjustment needs to be made here. — kwami (talk) 23:27, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  No one will take a WikiProject to arbitration, but someone could easily start an RFC to change the WikiProject's policies (not that such a thing is likely to succeed, but still...). I guess that I'm just more optimistic (and, dare I say, patient) then yourself and others appear to be. Eventually, especially as more and more of the Encyclopedia becomes "compliant" with the MoS, there will be more desire on the whole for segments to "fall into step", so to speak. The situation with ship names sounds like a holdover from the time that there were real problems with redirects, which have since been fixed. Eventually the editors who deal with that aspect of Wikipedia will realize that they can be compliant with the MoS without difficulty, and will be more willing to change their practice.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 00:08, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

My optimism goes the other way. As MOS grows more compliant to consensus and usage, it will be more tolerated; results of increasing MOScruft are not likely to be anywhere near as pleasant. Many of us intend to go on writing English - and defending it against abuse - no matter what this page says, since a mandate against English has never been consensus of the project. But the present discussion offers real hope of the former outcome. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:57, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Effectiveness

• I disagree with Born2cycle's cynicism; I see folks/bots/whatever converting hyphens to dashes all the time in date ranges and parenthetical comments etc. What is the problem? The point of the MOS, I think, is so people can see what to do when fixing them, not to ensure 100% compliance at all times. The ban-dashes proposal above does not appear to have any chance of success, in any case. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I agree.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:48, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I like statistics. Out of 10 random articles with places where WP:ENDASH specifies an en dash, 2 used hyphens, 4 used en dashes (at least one of which also wrongly used an em dash), and 4 used both hyphens and en dashes in places where the Manual specifies en dashes. So we're a little past half way to en dashes. Art LaPella (talk) 20:21, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  Thanks for making my point. "A little past half way" presupposes steady improvement. Since the MOS has had this specification in it for years, I suggest the Law of diminishing returns is already in effect. We're not steadily improving by any significant degree. What we have now is probably at a steady state, about the best we can ever expect, because, again, the majority of editors will not even notice these discrepancies, much less correct them or put them in correctly in the first place. So while you see corrections now and then, the small band making these corrections is probably only catching about half of the stuff that's going in.

  "A little past half way" - which is practically no better a result than we could expect if editors randomly chose to use a hyphen or dash - is about as good as it's going to get. Now, was I supposed to use en-dashes or hyphens in that last sentence? I wasn't sure, so I used one of each, not that anyone could or would tell without me bringing it to their attention. --Born2cycle (talk) 22:15, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I think that this misses the point behind having a MoS in the first place. Regardless of actual compliance, the Manual of Style represents an ideal style that articles should strive to achieve. (Argument's about the problems with the process itself aside...) Featured Articles represent the result of the Manual of Style, in that one of the requirements to be an FA is compliance with the MoS. Not every article could, or even should really, achieve Featured Article status, but that shouldn't be an argument to get rid of the FA designation in my opinion.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:38, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I must firmly disagree. It may be that MOS should represent an ideal style; but it does not - it never has. It represents the accumulated cruft of years of Wikipedians striving to install their pet crankery on the English language, starting here.

  I regret having to say this again; but I first came to this page when I found that FAs were being butchered and distorted to suit some senseless provision being forced on it by the good soul who had sponsored it here. It is not the chief reason why our featured articles are a public embarrassment - ill-written, ill-sourced articles, being supported by fans of the subject, with no content review, are still more common - but it is enough to be actively harmful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I can agree with a lot of what you said there. However, there are two things that I feel I need to point out in reply. First, issues with the FAC process are real, and should be addressed... at Wikipedia:Featured article candidates. I think those issues are mostly irrelevant here (and especially to this RFC). Second, and probably most importantly, I don't think that because the MOS is imperfect is a reason to get rid of it, which is what it sounds like you're advocating here. It is a mishmash of "years of Wikipedians striving to install their pet crankery on the English language" to some extent; but, so what? Where we can fix that sort of thing we should do so. All in good time.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:56, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  I've tried to fix FAC requirements. However, that problem is in remission; FAC only insists on the provisions it actually needs (accessibility, three paragraph leads, and so on) unless the sponsoring crank shows up. I am not advocating getting rid of MOS; I've said so repeatedly. I advocate fixing it. It may well be that starting over is the easiest way to fix it, since so much of it is either unread and unmaintained or actively harmful; but that's tactics, not strategy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  (ec)You did not use an ndash in that sentence, very sneaky. In any case, though, I'll re-ask my question; what is the problem? wp:NOTFINISHED etc. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 23:02, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  From my point of view? That MOS is being "enforced" (contrary to policy), while - and often because - it is unfinished. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  I do think there's steady "improvement" (pro-dash definition of that word) because it's hard to imagine randomly entering a dash instead of a hyphen. If you know how to make a dash, you probably know the most common reasons to use them (in ranges, in lists, and as a substitute for commas), and if we used dashes in those situations we'd be past 95%. Art LaPella (talk) 23:05, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

  We certainly would be past 95% of the cases where dashes are actually useful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:40, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that's true, even by your own definition of "useful". When I counted places where WP:DASH would want a dash, I don't remember anything except date ranges, lists, and supercommas. Nothing like Mexican–American War. So I think you would also want a dash in those places; if not, then your statistic could be right. Maybe you're thinking of featured articles; I think random articles (or most-read articles) are a better measure of how well Wikipedia works for readers. Art LaPella (talk) 05:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I want Mexican-American War (or, better still, Mexican War, but that's an entirely different issue; the politically "correct" invaded the article before the linguistically "correct"). The dash is a pointless stumbling block; it will cause any literate reader not of this WP:FRINGE school of typography to hesitate and puzzle over why the word looks strange. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

A pointless stumbling block in disjunctions like "Mexican–American", or in the ranges, lists, and supercommas that occur far more often? Art LaPella (talk) 22:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

In the disjunctions. The "supercomma," which is the original (late eighteenth-century) semantic function of the dash, has a clear function; the usage in ranges and lists is a variant of this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Then my statistics show we're around half way to your own goal, not 95%. Art LaPella (talk) 23:26, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

IAR still applies

• I wanted to reiterate one point here: I believe that it's OK, and should be OK, to completely ignore the MoS. In the same way that we can ignore policy, it is perfectly acceptable to not check in with the MoS while writing or editing an article. That doesn't mean that it's acceptable for people to be out there trying to actively subvert the MoS, of course. I don't thing that this proposal, which specifically offers a "way out" on the individual page level, in any way implies that "normal editing" is improper at all.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 23:19, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. We write articles without sources, without links, without categories, and without spell checking. If it's really bad and you do it often enough, people will complain, but no-one's going to complain over ignoring formatting details like this. They'll just fix it if they feel it's worth their while. — kwami (talk) 23:34, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Most editors do completely ignore the MoS, and we're not going to change that by anything we do here. I sometimes gently inform editors if I feel I'm cleaning up after them too much, and they're usually happy to learn to do better if they're on a track to become better editors. I don't think that has anything to do with WP:IAR. Dicklyon (talk) 23:56, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

If we based a MOS on English usage and consensus, those of us who care would follow it; there would still be the majority who don't care at all, but silence does imply consent, to paraphrase WP:CONSENSUS. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:02, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

DL, that's IAR at its finest. One of the main concepts there is that you don't need to learn all the rules before editing, just go for it. The MOS just gives the tidiers something to stand on. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 00:11, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Whether the tidying is useful or not. Those of us who take pains to write articles in English don't want an ill-informed gnome following this error-ridden guideline. Perhaps a {{nognomes}} template would be helpful; it would transclude {{nobots}} and provide a comment. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:21, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

That's not what WP:IAR is about. It says "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." The MoS certainly isn't in the way of anyone who doesn't know about it. Dicklyon (talk) 00:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

IAR is the defense of our actual writers against the perpetrators of Newspeak and those they mislead. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• We've seen how well IAR worked here: daily ANI threads. Tijfo098 (talk) 03:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  IAR had nothing to do with people posting to AN/I. How does the manner in which this RFC came about involve IAR at all?
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 16:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  I think IAR is relevant. I am not sure if anyone actually mentioned IAR in one of the dash/hyphen debates that were sent to AN/I, but they easily could have. What is common to most of the complaints at AN/I on this issue is a hand full of editors trying to "enforce" the MOS over a consensus at the article (or project) level effectively saying it should be ignored. Blueboar (talk) 16:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

  So then, the idea is that those arguing against the changes being made to articles so that they comply with the MoS were invoking IAR to do so? I don't buy that, but I'm willing to accept that some editors saw things that way. I don't think that it's IAR to actively oppose any policy or guideline. Once you do that you're not ignoring the rules, you're advocating for their change. There's nothing wrong with advocating for a change in the rules either, that's just not a use of IAR to me. As for "enforcement", I don't like that term, or that line of reasoning, either. Making articles compliant with the MoS is a good thing, but attempts to "enforce" the MoS are never going to be met well. Wikipedia is a big place. If copy editing an article is met with hostility, I think that it's generally best to simply move on.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:25, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I think you and I are actually in fairly close agreement... the problem is that there are some who do see a need to "enforce" compliance the MOS (and use the word in doing so). That is what is behind most of the angst and debate here. If everyone agreed to move on when a style change was met with hostility, we would not have any arguments. Unfortunately, there are some who match hostility with hostility. Blueboar (talk) 17:47, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

• Right... what's worse is that there are those who do the opposite as well. Some users will run around and try to actively subvert actively oppose aspects of the MoS that they don't agree with. both sorts of behavior are invitations to "teh dramaz" :) And, I think, all such behavioral issues should be highly discouraged. I just think that those sorts of things are issues which should be addressed separately from this, in some cases at the individual level.
  — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 17:52, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Please withdraw that remark, so that this discussion can continue productively. Insistence that this is a law, to be enforced, violated, or subverted, is contrary to WP:BURO and extremely unhelpful to discussion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I insist on nothing, here. I'd appreciate it if people would stop trying to paint me into some sort of ideological corner. Thanks.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

If we think of the MOS as an "advice" page (giving editors information as to the different style usages that are common, with recommendations as to those the community prefers) and not as a set of mandated "rules" to be obeyed, then there is nothing for anyone to "subvert". Opposition is only subversion if we think in terms of "rules". Blueboar (talk) 19:15, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I think of the mos as advisory, when you get down to it. It's certainly not "the law". But, the thing is, there really is no "law" on Wikipedia... well, "don't vandalize" might actually be considered a law, seeing as how there's pretty much universal agreement that vandalism should be reverted without discussion and that vandals can be blocked relatively easily. Regardless, I used "subversion" above with the same thinking that dealing with some hypothetical user who's running around actively opposing... say, Wikipedia:Citing sources would receive. If my position were something like "Wikipedia's system of citation sucks", that would be fine. What wouldn't be fine is for me to run around trying to change as many citations as possible because I believe that my preferred style is better. That's not invoking IAR, that's just being disruptive.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Here, though. In deference to Mr. Sensitive I'll refactor my comment above. It amazes me sometimes, how people can become so polarized that specific words themselves turn into the issue, rather then what's really being discussed. Annoying.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. Whether MOS is a law or a guideline is one of the issues here; it's tagged as a guideline, but that doesn't seem to be enough. ;-> I agree with Blueboar on this.

As for the hypothetical; acting against consensus (and WP:CITATION, as a whole, appears to have consensus) is generally futile, if nothing else; but we are here because WP:DASH does not have consensus. (Look at the survey; most of the opposes and at least one of the supports express positions incompatible with the present wording.) If this continues to be more or less tied, somebody should try an amended version; a few changes to Tony's draft may answer most of the objections. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:44, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't know how to take the statement "we are here because WP:DASH does not have consensus", because it's not clear to me what consensus is at all at this point. I understand that you disagree with what DASH currently says, but you seem to be taking the position that it's irreparable, which is something that I don't really agree with. I do agree that some changes to this RFC will ultimately be needed, but there's nothing wrong with that. That's why there's discussion here.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

No, my position is that the present wording does not have consensus as it stands, any more than Tony's proposal does. (It is possible that no wording would have consensus, in which case we should be silent on the subject. But I did not say so; I agree it is far too soon to conclude that.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:04, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, I certainly agree with that. For whatever reason, it didn't seem as though that's what you were saying. I think that it's because it seems to me as though you started your previous comment with discussion about how the MOS is tagged... that colored how I read the next paragraph, I guess.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:24, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

A question

Having trudged thru as much of this discussion I could, I'm faced with a question. Assume for the moment the concerns I expressed for opposing this proposal are satisfied; how is what Tony1 wrote above an improvement over simply stating the following:

• An en-dash is used to join elements in a compound word.
• An em-dashes is a punctuation mark, used to separate elements of a sentence.

This is far simpler & I believe more understandable to. The only point these two sentences do not cover is the issue of ranges of numbers (e.g. pages 312-321), which can be handled either by making this a case falling under the first clause, or adding a third clauses (e.g., "In presenting ranges of numbers, use an en-dash/em-dash"),

Or am I missing something, & any guide to using en- & em-dashes must be presented as Tony1 has written? If so, why? -- llywrch (talk) 21:04, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

"An en-dash is used to join elements in a compound word" is much simpler, for sure; but completely wrong, since compound words should almost always use hyphen. Mexican-American is a compound word, the adjective form of Mexican American; but in Mexican–American War, Mexican–American is a relationship between two equal terms, not a compound in the usual sense. If you wanted to give up the distinctions between hyphen and en dash, this would not be the popular way to do it. Dicklyon (talk) 21:53, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The easiest way to give up the distinction, if we wanted to, is to return to eighteenth century usage:

• A hyphen is used to join elements (including joining an element which has spilled over into the next line, the most common use of hyphenation, but not one Wikipedia uses much). That is the oroigin of the name (Greek ὑϕέν, "together") and its first definition in the OED: used to connect two words together as a compound; also, to join the separated syllables of a word, as at the end of a line; or to divide a word into parts for etymological or other purposes
• A dash (the 18th century did not divide by length; dashes were made with a dash-rule, not as separate pieces of type) is used to mark sudden changes of meaning in a sentence (and for other purposes; the decorative line under chapter titles is a dash, usually at least a 4-em dash). We could even say that either a spaced en dash or the unspaced em dash will serve. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

As far as I am concerned, "dash" & "hyphen" are synonyms, referring to the identical punctuation mark. Maybe someone can find a distinction between the two, but doing so is just splitting hairs. -- llywrch (talk) 06:38, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I assume you recognize that this position is very much in the minority—witness the red link for Wikipedian hyphenists. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reliable source that equated the several marks, either in terms of appearance or meaning. The differences in appearance aren’t subtle: if we look at the em dash, the en dash, the hyphen (and throw in the minus), we get —, –, -, and −. With a typewriter, the differences are much less—the latter three characters are represented by the same glyph; however, the em dash is conventionally represented by two hyphens: --, so its appearance is still quite different. With a constant-width font on a computer, the situation is similar: —, –, -, and −. With my browser and the default font for the <code/> tag, the em dash is slightly longer, but the marks are often nearly the same width; the thicknesses and heights above the baseline sometimes differ. As for the differences in meanings we’ve already discussed them to death, so further explanation isn’t likely to be of much help. JeffConrad (talk) 07:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The difference between the em dash [—] and the three others concerned is quite obvious to me; nevertheless the whole distinction between the em dash and the en dash was invented late in the nineteenth century, together with the type used to print them. As far as I can tell, all reliable sources before 1870 write only of the "dash", and give it no role whatever in forming compounds. The en dash and the hyphen are barely distinguishable except in bold face; the distinction is only visible enough to cause uneasiness elsewhere. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:49, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Analysis

The only change in the survey recently has been Ohm's Law shifting to oppose (spoiling our perfect tie, too. Waah!) I see five lines of thought; some people subscribe to more than one, and some fall between two.

A. Those who positively like Tony's provisions in particular

B. Those who welcome a compromise for the sake of peace.

C Those who want the Oxford dash and nothing but the Oxford dash

D Those who find the text now on the table too inflexible, mechanical, bureacratic, or opposed to usage.

E Those who want to eliminate en dashes altogether.

C, D, and E are more than half our survey; they almost entirely oppose Tony's proposed text. In order to have a consensus text, we must have at least one of them. We can't have C and E; I don't think we can please C and D. nor D and E, in significant numbers; and A, C, and E seem to be smallest

Since D and E and probably much of B wouldn't suipport the present text of WP:DASH, presumably it isn't consensus either.

Therefore the hope for consensus is a text which modifies this one to answer as many of the D objections as possible without losing much of A. If things do not change deeply in the next few hours, and nobody else does, I'll suggest one. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:30, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

It's like the budget. Almost everyone wants to pass a compromise, but too many people think they can hold out for a better one than what's on the table, unlikely though that is to work. By the way, is "the Oxford dash" your invention, or is there some basis for this characterization that you use to promote our MOS as un American? Dicklyon (talk) 05:49, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I’ll second the question: what is an “Oxford dash”? Does it refer to the en dash in general or only certain applications of it? I’ve never heard of it, and could find nothing in a Google search or in any of my ten or so style guides. Without knowing what an “Oxford dash” is, it’s tough to discus its merits or lack thereof. JeffConrad (talk) 07:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I had assumed that "Oxford dash" referred to the use of the en rule recommended by Hart's Rules and its successors. The term is, however, rather confusing because my edition, at least, uses the term en rule for this and seems to reserve the term dash for punctuation marks like the "parenthetical dash" (represented either by an em rule or a spaced en rule) . --Boson (talk) 08:54, 9 May 2011 (UTC) PS: To avoid confusion, I should perhaps point out that "rule" is here used to mean a horizontal line. --Boson (talk) 08:58, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Hart's Rules appears to have gradually invented these baroque uses for the dash between the wars, in editions still in copyright; the New Hart's Rules of 2005 is the only guide I have yet seen which has all six or seven or these prescriptions.

The terminology is fairly straight-forward, historically viewed. Before the late nineteenth century, the hyphen (and the minus-sign, if distinct) was a piece of type, like a letter; other horizontal lines were produced with a narrow strip of metal, called a dash-rule. When pieces of type were introduced to make dashes of standard lengths, they were called either en/em/2-em dashes or rules. Hart's is, naturally enough, the OED citation for en-rule. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:57, 9 May 2011 (UTC) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:47, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I had guessed as much, but what’s the purpose of a term used nowhere else? To me, this seems little more than obfuscation. And I have somewhat the same impression as Dick—there’s an implication that an “Oxford” dash is somehow unique to OUP, which certainly isn’t the case. Except in the sense of between (e.g., US–Canadian relations), nearly all major American style guides seem to agree on the use of the en dash, though some give it rather cursory treatment (and MLA don’t mention it at all). I happen to prefer the en dash in the sense of between, because it often precludes ambiguity (as Dick pointed out, most readers can nonetheless sort things out pretty quickly, but they shouldn’t need to). Chicago don’t use it in this sense (finally clarified in the 16th ed. of CMoS), and certainly their opinion carries considerable weight.

In any event, to imply that an en dash is little more than an OUP aberration seems pretty far from the mark. JeffConrad (talk) 19:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

CMOS supports only a small portion of the uses propounded by New Hart's Rules and by the present text of WP:DASH; the only American style guide I know of which comes close to endorsing these eccentricities is published by OUP itself. Coincidence?Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:45, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I have the Oxford Style Manual, but not New Hart’s Rules, so I can’t say how much they differ. But with regard to the former, CMoS supports every usage except the sense of between. As do Words into Type and Merriam-Webster’s Manual for Writers & Editors. And CMoS is the only one to specifically disclaim this usage. So I just don’t see the basis for the broad-brush application of “eccentricities”. JeffConrad (talk) 20:30, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Let me check first; which edition are you using? I have summarized the 16th edition of CMOS far above; it supports one of our six points, and supports another when absolutely necessary. That's not "all except between". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:41, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Editions: 13th, 15th, and 16th. My comment compared CMoS with the Oxford Style Manual rather than to our list. Compared with our six points, CMoS supports only 3 and 6, but actually goes further than our 6 in allowing (if perhaps not encouraging) the en dash as a prefix to a hyphenated compound. Again, my comment was simply that most of the recommendations in the Oxford Style Manual are hardly aberrant. JeffConrad (talk) 21:06, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

If OSM doesn't support our list, then it may well be on one edge of the range of normal advice - unless allowing the use of en dash with prefixed prepositions (which WP:DASH encourages) is outside that range. (I see you are using the new numbering; it would help to say so.) New Hart's Rules goes further than the present text of DASH, supporting every use of the dash it does and more; that is eccentric - and it is published by OUP. It claims to be extracted from OSM; neither has been included in Oxford Reference Online - and one must wonder if either is still the house position. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:14, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

OSM doesn’t support the spaced en dash as a stylistic alternative to the unspaced em dash (though it indicates that most other British publishers do), and it doesn’t mention separation of items in a list. No other style guide that I have mentions the use for musical albums: at least for recordings that I have, the comma and uspaced em dash are as common as the spaced em dash, and some use none of the foregoing. I′m still not seeing the basis for “eccentric”, which seems like an arbitrary characterization. For an example of something truly eccentric (at least in the sense of unusual), look no further than use of a single hyphen in place of an em dash or spaced en dash—though it’s common in online publications, especially informal ones, I’ve not seen a single style guide that endorses it. JeffConrad (talk) 05:57, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The use for lists is part of the general function of a dash as punctuation : to mark quick changes of construction or meaning. A dozen other variants of this may be found here; John S. Hart wrote before the differentiation into en and em dashes. (This distinguished American professor is unlikely to be related to Horace Hart.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:33, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This really is saying that the spaced en dash is used simply as an alternative to an unspaced em dash I think we’re agreeing), which is essentially what I suggested. In that sense, is it really a separate case or just an example of item 1? JeffConrad (talk) 18:00, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Depends on whether em dashes are so used; they may not be, as too heavy for a long list of entries. A rewrite of the whole of WP:DASH with three subheads (hyphens, dashes with compounds, dashes as punctuation) would be one solution; the second subhead would say en dashes, but not em dashes, can be used... Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:11, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you see the difference?

These comparisons of "- n – m —" in various 12-point fonts illustrate the typical relationship of lengths of dashes relative to the hyphen. In some fonts, the en dash is not much longer than the hyphen, and in Lucida Grande the en dash is actually shorter than the hyphen, making this default Safari browser font typographically nonstandard and confusing.

See Dash#En_dash_versus_em_dash if you're not sure why some people see the difference between hyphen and en dash and some don't. Dicklyon (talk) 15:04, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Amended proposal

En dashes (–, &ndash;) have several distinct roles.

1. As a stylistic alternative to em dashes.
2. To separate items in a list—for example, in articles about music albums, en dashes are used between track titles and durations, and between musicians and their instruments. In this role, en dashes are always spaced.
3. To stand for to or through in ranges (pp. 211–19, 64–75%, the 1939–45 war). Ranges expressed using prepositions (from 450 to 500 people or between 450 and 500 people) should not use dashes (not from 450–500 people or between 450–500 people). Number ranges must be spelled out if they involve a negative value or might be misconstrued as a subtraction (−10 to 10, not −10–10).
4. Some style guides recommend an en dash to stand for to or versus (male–female ratio, 4–3 win, Lincoln–Douglas debate, France–Germany border).
5. Some style guides recommend an en dash to stand for and between independent elements (diode–transistor logic, Michelson–Morley experiment). An en dash is not used for a hyphenated personal name (Lennard-Jones potential, named after John Lennard-Jones), nor a hyphenated place name (Guinea-Bissau), nor with an element that lacks lexical independence (the prefix Sino- in Sino-Japanese trade).
6. In compounds whose elements themselves contain hyphens or spaces (the anti-conscription–pro-conscription debate); this can also be done when prefixing an element containing a space (pre–World War II technologies, ex–prime minister) – but usually not when prefixing an element containing a hyphen (non-government-owned corporations, semi-labor-intensive industries). However, recasting the phrase (the conscription debate, technologies prior to World War II) may be better style than compounding.

Whether to use a dash or some other form in cases 4, 5, 6 should be decided on the article's talk page; when a strong consensus among reliable sources for the subject of the article agree on a form, this should be considered in the discussion. [Mentioning such decisions on WT:MOS will be helpful in keeping this page in touch with community thinking on this matter.]

————————

This seems the minimum change in Tony's draft at all likely to achieve consensus. Those objections above which do not require MOS utterly ignoring usage have been answered as far as I can; nothing else has chsnged. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:02, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Support as amended

1. Support as drafter. Note that this is the minimum which any member of the dissentients of class D seems willing to accept, and that I have intentionally kept even the bracketted sentence above, although I think it useless; even if MOS includes it, I do not expect anybody to actually comply with it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:02, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
2. I can agree with this. It reflects reality... letting editors know that different style guides do not always agree on these points, and so we have decided not to choose between them. Yet it gives editors a way to settle their disputes (ie look at what sources do). I also like this because the situations discussed in points 4,5 and 6 are the ones where there is potential for conflict with WP:TITLE... PMA's wording resolves that potential conflict. The two pages would give the same advice (look to the sources). Blueboar (talk) 21:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
3. My first choice is to recognize that there is no purpose, value or use of en-dashes (or em-dashes) in WP for anyone. Readers are entirely unaffected by their use, and the only effect of using dashes on editors, when there is any, is dispute and consternation. Just look at how complex these proposals are! For no benefit whatsoever? Ridiculous! Just say no to any use of any dashes, turn on a bot that converts all dashes to hyphens (except in an article about dashes), and we're done. The alternative is to keep on pointlessly arguing about something that has no right answers, no hope of resolution, and couldn't matter any less. Absurd.

   Having said that, and in the absence of any apparent support for the solution that I strongly favor, at least this proposal brings the wisdom of the ENGVAR approach to this arena, which should help cut down on the conflict significantly. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   It is my understanding that even people who cannot look at a piece of paper and find every last misplaced comma still get general impressions from the punctuation. Good punctuation gives the impression that the piece is finished and professional and poor punctuation gives the impression that it is slapdash and amateurish. It's like the temperature in a room: Some readers will notice that it's too stuffy or too chilly and some won't, but they'll all sweat or shiver. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:58, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   The problem is that different guides give different rules as to what "good punctuation" is when it comes to dashes. Just as different dictionaries will give different spellings for words depending on the variety of English. To an American, "honour" looks "wrong"... but to a Brit it looks "right". The same can be said for dash usage. Using a dash in a given situation may look "wrong" to some editors, but it will look "right" to others. As long as we are consistent within each article, we should be fine... the average reader won't even notice, and few who do (and care) will just have to accept that we allow variation. Blueboar (talk) 14:55, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   The lack of standards about "good punctuation" when it comes to dashes is indeed a big part of the problem. But the, other issue, is that, most people, can, tell when commas are not being, used properly. The difference between -, – and — is not nearly so universally recognized. I hasten to add it's more often overlooked than noticed.

   Darkfrog24, to characterize this opposition to trying to distinguish between the nearly indistinguishable dashes and hyphens as opposition to use of proper punctuation in general is disingenous, and entirely missing the point. --Born2cycle (talk) 00:55, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

4. Support but I'd replace Some style guides recommend an en dash to with An en dash can. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 12:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   I have no problem with that amendment. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:20, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   This still would leave a lack of parallelism among the list items; I’d much rather see the same introductory phrase as for the others, and perhaps a statement in the paragraph following the list that not all style guides agree on items 4 and 5 (actually, not all guides agree on mixing hyphens and en dashes as in the first example in 6; one that does not support this is OSM. JeffConrad (talk) 17:45, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   If this is a purely stylistic quibble, please let us discuss it after the substance is agreed upon. If it is substantive, I should add that the difference in expression, like the may in 6, represents a real difference in the standing of these rules. But I am perfectly willing to do a draft which omits 4, 5, and 6 and says in the final paragraph that some writers use en dashes instead of hyphens. Would you support that? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:06, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

   But this difference of standings in other style guides should not be used to make our own style guide more wishy-washy. We should stick with the MOS we have, which is designed to support the greatest possible clarity of writing, and consistency across WP. This amendment goes way beyond Tony's in muddying those waters. Dicklyon (talk) 02:11, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

   Why of course, how ever could I have failed to recognize the basic principle here? "Everybody should do what Dicklyon wants; the recommendations and cautions of reliable style guides be -er- disregarded." We should use the MOS we have, even where its distinctions make absolutely no difference in practice and are not used consistently by any respectable publisher; even though they are not consensus, because Dicklyon and his friends like them. I sit corrected.

   Quite seriously: I do not believe or trust anyone who could write this post. Of course we should listen to what reliable sources - such as style guides - say; it is our hypothesis that they know more than we do. When they contradict each other, and we must decide, then we must weigh them against each other; but this is not an issue on which we need to decide, except for those who agree with Tony that not doing so means the Decline and Fall of MOS.

   We already know that Dicklyon is opposed to any compromise in the guideline he owns, and wishes to drive on to the "yawning heights" of punctuation reform; we can allow for his opposition in considering whether any proposal is consensus; he's already said so for this one. Now can those of us considering actual compromise get on with it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:23, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

5. Gives pretty clear guidence, but still allows for enough flexibility when a specific (typically specialized) variation is needed. Some "terms of art", as it were, should be consistently and accurately represented in articles, even if it feels "wrong" to those who are attentive to typography. Of there's a question about it, that's what article talk pages are for. oknazevad (talk) 20:54, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
6. Weak support as more sensible than the other proposal. If academic publishers don't enforce 4, 5, and 6 on their authors, and when significant variation is noted in practice, it would be quite unreasonable for a massive project like Wikipedia to impose a single style in those respects. We don't even do that for reference formatting, and publishers usually are more strict about enforcing their house style in that area. I think however that something should be said about page-level consistency like we have for citation styles. If find the oppose below claiming that not imposing a rule for 4-6 is equivalent to deleting the MOS to be quite misguided, and almost made me chuckle. Tijfo098 (talk) 07:12, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

   If somebody wants a link to MOS:CONSISTENCY, I have no objection; I didn't add it myself because I'm not convinced we need to repeat it for every item. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:43, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

7. Support (and would also support the change suggested by A. di M. above), per my comments on the earlier proposal. With the "disputed" usage cases of the dash, the MoS should either leave the choice open, as this proposal does, or opt explicitly for the technically simpler, more commonly used form (i.e. decide against the dashes in favour of hyphens). What it should not do is force a rare stylistic affectation on users when there is no objective need to do so. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:42, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
8. Support. I am happy with this caveat, with extension to WikiProject consensus regarding similar usage. Axl ¤ [Talk] 08:25, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Oppose as amended

1. This has the same problems as the previous wording: it advocates multiple debates across the wiki instead of a centralized discussion, and this proposal would lead to articles with different styles. The point of having a manual of style is precisely so editors don't have to come to a consensus about style on the article talk page. All they have to do is look to the MOS for best practices. While I'm aware that there are critics of the MOS itself, I think any failings here should be addressed at the source rather than numerous article-specific arguments to fill in the cracks. As long as this proposal mixes two separate issues—the hyphen–dash debate and the MOS–article consensus debate—the results from supports and opposes is muddied. These two issues should probably be split up, with the latter debate concluding first, as its outcome may negate the need for the former. — Bility (talk) 20:40, 9 May 2011 (UTC)\
   • And what they find is worst practices, which are not supported by consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:54, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
2. The MOS should answer questions like this to provide a consistent, professional look and so we don't have to have this debate a thousand times. It's too much work. This is worse than Tony's, since it doesn't even seem to take a stand on whether to use hyphen/dash/nothing in several cases. We already decided up above to have an MOS, I don't think the point there was to have an MOS that just presented some options to choose from. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:55, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
   • Whereas this discussion is not work. ;-> Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

     Better just here than 1000x. Of course, you are missing the main point I was trying to make. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

3. The MOS lead says "The Manual of Style is a style guide for Wikipedia articles that encourages editors to follow consistent usage and formatting." To divert the editor by discussing other style guides that differ from it can only confuse and lead to less consistency, and in the case of the deviations that are effectively encouraged here, less clarity and more ambiguity for the reader. Dicklyon (talk) 02:07, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   Ah, but if PMA's proposal is implemented, those other style guides will no longer differ from our style guide... because our style guide will have been changed to effectively say "we don't mandate one particular style on these points"... our guide will thus incorporate and include what all the other guides say. Blueboar (talk) 02:18, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   Just such a discussion takes place as to whether to write "US" or "U.S." and it comes off rather well. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:46, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

4. Oppose—This is just too radical. We may as well delete the MoS, and along with it all of its sister pages. Why set out a guideline and then say do what anyone else does? A primary problem is that usage differs significantly out there, so there's no one "authority" you can defer to. That is exactly why every decent publishing house has a style manual. On WP, of course, the MoS serves not only to coordinate the style on this sprawling project, but to minimise disputes in articles. Who wants to promote continual brawling about many many stylistic issues all over the place? Tony (talk) 02:55, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
   • If this were equivalent to deleting the MOS, I would not have written eight paragraphs of proposed text for inclusion in the MOS. WP:COMMONNAME says "follow the sources" - and nobody has proposed deleting it as equivalent to a blank space.
   • The gentle editors who have conducted four pages of article disputes to "preserve the authority of MOS" need to work harder to claim it minimizes disputes.
   • There are occasions where usage differs. We already offer guidance for that case: Be consistent within an article. This works - and actually does minimize disputes; whenever anybody insists that honor (or honour) is just plain "wrong", somebody introduces the good soul to WP:ENGVAR - and the dispute goes away. The brawling is produced by exactly what WP:DASH does - attempting to insist that literate editors defy usage because some piece of MOScruft says so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:50, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
5. I can agree that some variation is OK, but this is... too far in the other direction. We need to allow for exceptions to be made, but we should have a preference for how en dashes are used. External style guides are written for their own publications; we have our own distinct needs. I agree that we're not here to "correct English" or any such thing, but there's also nothing wrong with deciding "for Wikipedia, we're going to do it this way".
   — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:31, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   Then please do a draft. This seems to me a straightforward application of WP:CONSENSUS, and the minimum that will attract any of those who oppose Tony's draft - and it still states a preference on which way to go in points 4 and 5 (by this numbering). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:35, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

   I'm thinking about it.
   — V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:40, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

6. I recall my old friend Tennis expert was fond of arguing "local consensus" overriding general consensus. However, it is rare indeed, and I have never seen it in practice. In any event, I believe notification to WT:MOS should not be an ex-post fait accompli but be intended as a notification of a re-opening of discussion about a specific case which may influence the evolution of the MOS. --Ohconfucius ^¡digame! 07:22, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

   The actual consensus of English-speakers is to use hyphens in cases 4 and 5 (proper names sometimes excepted) and reword in case 6; most style guides agree. But let us see what local consensus does do, instead of guessing about it in advance. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:40, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

   If by English-speakers [sic] you mean people who don't know how to use en dashes, then yes. I'm pretty sure that the guides that describe this usage in British and American English were written by and for English writers and editors. Dicklyon (talk) 20:22, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

   Dicklyon, when you say "people who don't know how to use en dashes", do you really mean "people who don't know the correct way to use en dashes" (or "people who disagree with how I think en dashes should be used")... or do you really mean "people who don't use en dashes because they are unfamiliar with what they are"? Blueboar (talk) 01:15, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

   Ohconfucius, you probably didn't pay attention to ANI in recent weeks if you think the current en dash MOS rules have "general consensus". Tijfo098 (talk) 05:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

Typos: unbalanced "{" and "desisions". Art LaPella (talk) 21:33, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you; done. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:20, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I’d rather see the added commentary covered once (with reference to the item numbers) after the list. In addition to reducing the repetition, this would maintain parallel structure of the list items. A couple of thoughts with either version:

1. The list items include both an unspaced em dash and a spaced en dash; one or the other should be chosen. I’d opt for the former because it’s more common, and even OUP recommend it.
2. Item one doesn’t mention that the alternative to an em dash is a spaced en dash; though this is covered in the more expansive treatment that follows, not every reader may get that far.

JeffConrad (talk) 21:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The individual bullets are as far as possible the same points. On the whole, it seems more sensible to polish phrasing after we have agreed on substance. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:20, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

The RfC immediately above this section doesn't address hyphens, which have caused similar conflicts

E.g. small cell carcinoma vs small-cell carcinoma, high dynamic range imaging vs high-dynamic-range imaging. Hyphens are problematic when certain technical/scientific terms don't commonly contain them, but when the matching MOS rules recommend usage. Tijfo098 (talk) 11:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The common usage form should be used on Wikipedia. Gerardw (talk) 11:55, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

So it should. All forms of hyphenation should at base come down to "consult a good dictionary"; usage is changing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:32, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The form used should depend on what the goal is. If you want to emulate the usage in the specialist medical community, where the compound term is so familiar that nobody will misread it, then you omit the hyphen like they do. If you want to communicate to a general audience that understands English but is not familiar with the idioms of the oncologists, then you employ grammar rules more strictly, to convey the meaning more clearly (like this book for a general audience does). What you really want to avoid is the meaningless mixed up use of hyphens that you also find sometimes in otherwise reliable sources, like this one; the hyphens in high-dynamic-range imaging were more common around 1991, when the field was less well known. Which should be our goal here? Copy the specialist communities, or write for a general audience? Dicklyon (talk) 18:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Prove that writers for a general audience point the term differently, and this would be an argument. Without that this is conjecture, and the result will neither equip our readers to understand popularizers nor communicate with the oncologists. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:35, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Write for a general audience by copying the usage of the specialist communities. Small cell carcinoma is spelled that way on the designed for the general public NIH website.[[4]], and the first three pages of Google search results for "high-dynamic-range-imaging" almost exclusively are not hyphenated. Gerardw (talk) 20:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

As pointed out by this medical communication authority (Ellen Drake, CMT, FAAMT, Development Editor for Health Professions Institute, in "A Quick Primer on Hyphens"), the usage around things like "small cell carcinoma" is an inconsistent mess; hopefully we should aim to do better; she gives clear rules that say to hyphenate it. Here's another (Edie Schwager's "Dear Edie" column in American Medical Writers Association Journal . VOL. 20, NO. 3, 2005), who includes a good discussion of how hyphens tend to disappear when the compound becomes commonplace, but should still be used (in small-cell carcinoma in particular) when there is possibility of the phrase being misleading to the reader without it. That's why I said we should choose whether we want to write for the common reader; it's not about what most writers do, but about our aspirations to do as well as we can, as recommened even within the medical community by their experts on writing. Dicklyon (talk) 22:24, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Disagree. We should do what most writers do because that's what most of our readers will see elsewhere. Analogous to WP not being about truth but verifiability. Gerardw (talk) 22:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I guess we don't really need an MOS then. Wait, didn't we just conclude an RFC on that? Dicklyon (talk) 05:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

That's an illogical response. The necessity of MOS and what the MOS guidelines are separate topics. Gerardw (talk) 17:45, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

As for “you employ grammar rules more strictly”, this is not so much about grammar as about lexicon. I don't think there's any way to reliably predict whether a given compound is spelled with a hyphen, a space, or closed-up short of using a dictionary or a language corpus: this is no more of a grammar issue than whether the denonym for a given country should end is -an, -ish, -ese, or -i. (Also, with some compounds usage varies both with space and time.[5][6]) Insisting that the “clearer” version rather than the idiomatic one should be used is akin to insisting on lighted rather than lit even if the latter is much more common. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:39, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

As a general principle, I'm saying that aiming for the more clear one is better than aiming to match majority usage. Hyphens are very underused in most publications, making them hard to interpret at first reading. The grammar rules about things like hyphenating two word compounds when used as adjectives are really quite simple, clear, and easy to apply, and they make the reading easier even for people unaware of the rules, by visually tying things together that need to be read as one item, in a context where they might otherwise be ambiguous, like "small cell carcinoma". Why would one recommend inflicting that ambiguity on a reader unfamiliar with the intended reading? Dicklyon (talk) 14:55, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Can you elaborate on that? I can't see how any simple rule can correctly predict that blackbody radiation, black hole candidate and black-tie dinner are spelled this way. I think it's more a matter of lexical incidence, like the choice of which suffix to use to form a denonym. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 15:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Pretty straightforward, really. A black tie is a two-word compound noun, so you hyphenate it when using it as an adjective. A blackbody is a one-word compound, so it stays that way. A hole candidate who is black is unambiguous as you wrote it. If you had used a hyphen, it would have implied a candidate related to a black hole. Dicklyon (talk) 18:38, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Well, let's see:

• a black body is a two-word phrase; the OED and all of its quotations so spell it.
• You have misunderstood black hole candidate, an object which is a candidate to be a (actual, as opposed to theoretical) black hole. In the context in which this phrase is actually found, it is unambiguous and needs no hyphen. — Pmanderson (18:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)), — (continues after insertion below.)

  No, DL did not misunderstand you, you might want to re-read his reply. I'll rephrase without the snark: "black hole candidate" is a "hole candidate" that is black. A "black-hole candidate" is a star that is maybe/probably a black hole. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 19:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

  In brief, "Words don't mean what they are actually used to mean; they mean what my theories hold they ought to mean." Sorry, that's not the way English works. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

  Except that "black+hole+candidate" black hole candidate actually means what PMA said, and it's semantically the same structure as black-tie dinner. Black body is commonly spelled as two words when a nominal of its own[7] and as one when a modifier.[8] Also, probably black holes are black bodies, but that's irrelevant, isn't it? :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by A. di M. (talk • contribs) 22:29, 9 May 2011

I don't know how relevant a black-hole blackbody would be; it is interesting how variable the usage of blackbody has become; less interesting how often people omit the hyphen in compounds used as adjectives, to allow snarky interpretations. Dicklyon (talk) 02:42, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

In short, all these are matters of idiom. Several grammarians have proposed ways to change idiom, but we are not authorized to do so, which may be just as well. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:59, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia should reflect the usage in reliable sources not be dictated by grammar rules. We are not here to change the world. --Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:34, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The American Medical Association manual of style uses "small-cell carninoma" and articulates the rules that say why. Dicklyon (talk) 18:38, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

The reference is to a 22 year edition. There's a 2009 edition [[9]]. Using the amazon Search inside this book feature shows the current usage is "small cell carcinoma" without hyphens. Gerardw (talk) 19:33, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

They also use a dash as in "non–small cell". :P — Bility (talk) 20:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, if you're not going to hyphenate the first, you need a dash for the second. More straightforward just to have small-cell c. and non-small-cell c.. Also, if we're going to follow the AMA style guide, we'd have Serbo Croatian ! Usage is all over the place. Whether we write black-body radiation or blackbody radiation we'll be unambiguous, so there's no reason not to go with the more common (and now well established) form. But when even med style guides disagree on small cell carcinoma, and intro ref books often hyphenate, we do our readers a disservice by choosing the misleading form.— kwami (talk) 20:53, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

That 2009 edition on Amazon says exactly what I was saying: "use a reader's perspective and the context as guide". They did include "small cell carcinoma" in the "list of examples that can usually be presented without hyphens" due to having become well known. For the general wikipedia readership perspective, are we to assume that such terms are so well known that it would be a bad idea for us to write them unambiguously? I don't think so. Dicklyon (talk) 03:07, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I respectfully agree with Doc James. The vast majority of the literature and other sources use "non-small cell carcinoma" and "small cell carcinoma", and does not hyphenate "large cell", "basal cell", "squamous cell", "giant cell", etc. We should follow the style of the literature in the relevant area, and should not be out to change the world.Cliff L. Knickerbocker, MS (talk) 12:05, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand this, really. How is Wikipedia deciding that a style choice for Wikipedia is the equivalent of being "out to change the world"?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 18:39, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Make that "out to defy the world" if you like; but several of the dash enthusiasts have expressed themselves as campaigning for a restoration of "good typography", in their own private understanding of the phrase. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:35, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia's articles should reflect common usage. Moreover, WikiProject consensus should overrule MoS. Axl ¤ [Talk] 08:35, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Data

What I did come to do is to suggest some data on how rare most of the uses of dashes recommended by the present text are, and how rarely they are recommended by style guides; the discussion above seems to evidence some confusion on this point. I believe most of our examples of dashes above fall under the case that "a strong majority of reliable sources" do not use them. At least one or two of these provisions (including the proposed French–German border) are also omitted by a strong majority of style guides, for those who think this more important than usage. Let me begin with one or two of each kind; please feel free to join in. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:55, 7 May 2011 (UTC) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

The en dash in French–German border is not that unusual in sources, as we've shown (wasn't it about 15%?). In style guides, it's in accord with those you call "Oxford", that is the ones the suggest en dash in equal pairs. You find the same with Mexican–American War for the same reason, but not very frequently (I think we found about 5%). Dicklyon (talk) 18:57, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

15% is about the level which A. di M. sees as minimal for there to be a sound case to permit the usage; I tend to agree, and would permit it. To require it, however, against the other 85%, is defying usage, our only Academy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Examples

While I agree with Tony's renumbering, it may be clearer to do this using the present numbers. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

1. (Tony's # 3): 1939~1945: almost entirely dash, as I would expect. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
2. (Tony's # 4):
   • Lincoln~Douglas debates; the first ten results are three dashes to seven hyphens (and the Library of Congress listing for all those which have it in the title uses a hyphen.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:39, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
   • France~Germany border; only 13 hits; but they are 8 hyphens and 5 slashes.
   • French~German border; of the first ten hits, 5 hyphens, 4 slashes, and a dash. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:43, 7 May 2011 (UTC) I make it 6 hyphens, 3 slashes, and a dash for the first ten. In the next ten hits: 5 hyphens, 1 slash, 3 dashes, one monospaced font not allowing distinction. The next ten hits: 8 hyphens, 2 dashes. The next ten hits: 7 hyphens, 3 dashes. The next ten: 9 hyphens, 1 dash. This brings the sample size up to 50, with results as follows: 35 hyphens, 10 dashes, 4 slashes, 1 monospaced font. --JN466 22:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
   • French~German border in University Press publications: 30 hyphens, 9 dashes, 1 slash. About half the dashes are from Cambridge University Press. --JN466 22:30, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

     And even Cambridge is not consistent; this is the fourth hit on the phrase, published by CUP. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:50, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

     No, they're not consistent. 5 dashes, 3 hyphens, 1 slash. :) --JN466 00:34, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• If you have patience, you can go through "male~female differences" in Routledge, and you'll probably die of old age before you finish. [10] En dashes, slashes, and hyphens can be found, so they don't seem to impose any standard on their authors. Tijfo098 (talk) 07:05, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Like most publishers, they don't seem to hold their authors tightly to a standard. But they do appear to be improving, with about 50% en dash in male–female for book in the current century, and hyphens in a definite minority. The virgule, though less preferred, serves the same purpose in indicating the disjunction. Dicklyon (talk) 21:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Style guides

Let's start with the ones in WP:MOS#Further reading.)

• ABC Radio national style guide. Date ranges only (WP:DASH #1. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
• Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition; §6:78-80).
  • Endorses use as to-from (DASH #2).
  • says of DASH 5: The en dash can be used in place of a hyphen in a compound adjective when one of its elements consists of an open compound or when both elements consist of hyphenated compounds (see 7.78). This editorial nicety may go unnoticed by the majority of readers; nonetheless, it is intended to signal a more comprehensive link than a hyphen would. It should be used sparingly, and only when a more elegant solution is unavailable. It recommends avoiding several of its own examples, as clumsy.
    • Note that this is can be used; permission, not requirement, and with explicit caution. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:56, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Endorses US-Canadian relations [hyphen]. If United States were spelled out, it would use a dash, but only because United States has an internal space. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:56, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Guardian style guide: Dashes (in full) "Beware sentences – such as this one – that dash about all over the place – commas (or even, very occasionally, brackets) are often better; semicolons also have their uses. Dashes should be n-dashes rather than m-dashes or hyphens." This is only the use as punctuation (original WP:ENDASH, and even there it urges caution (and opposes the em dash). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:14, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
  • I have no access to the other Australian guide. Tony, could you check it and strike this note? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:01, 7 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Reading the page quickly (aaaa! my eyes!), and checking the top 3 US style guides (which no one has done, except for these comments by Sept), there are clear differences between American and non-American usage. The most commonly followed US style guide is AP Stylebook, which pointedly ignores en-dashes completely. (Caveat: it's most commonly followed because it covers journalistic writing, and everyone acknowledges that this sometimes is and sometimes isn't good enough for scholarly writing ... nevertheless, nothing succeeds like excess, particularly in orthography wars.) Second (same caveat, but it's a little more high-brow) is the New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, which says not to use en-dashes at all. Third (and now we're solidly in "scholarly" style) is Chicago. Sept isn't wrong, but I read Chicago to be more limiting and more leery of the en-dash than Sept's summary. So: "The principal use of the en dash is to connect numbers and, less often, words." And: "In [non-numerical] contexts, such as with scores and directions, the en dash signifies, more simply, to." When it's taking the place of a hyphen where one or both of the elements being joined has a space: "... only when a more elegant solution is unavailable." And: "Chicago's sense of the en dash does not extend to between."
    • Comparing the top 3 US style guides to Garner's (an influential style guide published by Oxford University Press) and to many of the other style guides mentioned here, there's a clear split in usage. I've always been on board with MOS's advice on dashes simply because no one that I copyedited for cared, and when no one cares, it's nice to be able to stick with one style. Now that the issue is at Arbcom, it's pretty apparent that people care, and in this environment, it's time to get back to basics and follow consensus and style guides. - Dank (push to talk) 16:47, 13 May 2011 (UTC)
    • Inserting: My MLA Style Manual, latest (3rd) edition, commonly followed for books and articles in English, the arts, and philosophy, says "dash" as if there's only one kind (an em-dash). And here's everything relevant from APA style, latest (6th) edition, commonly followed in the social sciences: "An en dash ... is used between words of equal weight in a compound adjective (e.g., Chicago–London flight). Type as an en dash or, if the en dash is not available on your keyboard, as a single hyphen." - Dank (push to talk) 17:50, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

      Thanks Dank, that was interesting. Can you clarify, though; are you suggesting a particular change to the style guide, or whether we should use the same style on each article, or any of the other issues being discussed here? Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 16:54, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

      Clearly, there's a split between American and non-American usage. OTOH, I was never on board with the idea that people (including me) who argued in favor of our MOS were obviously up to no good just because our MOS didn't follow American usage, for the simple reason that I don't recall ever copyediting for a WPian who cared. And as long as no one cared, I thought there was something elegant about having one set of rules that's simpler than the rules in most of the style guides. But now, for at least as long as Arbcom cares about this issue, I'm going to have to be sensitive to what writers and wikiprojects want and (for AmEng articles) what American style guides say. The great majority of recent reliable sources of American origin will have been copyedited by someone who was trying to follow at least one of the style guides I just quoted. - Dank (push to talk) 18:17, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

      And a split within Commonwealth usage as well. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:14, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

      Sure – these regional variations complicate things. But specifically what are you suggesting? How can we "be sensitive"? Should the MOS not take a stand and instead defer to "local consensus" at the project level? Article level? Should we just do it ENGVAR-style and say whoever writes it first just leave it that way? I think Arbcom is just trying to get us to answer these kinds of questions and/or get consensus on what the MOS should say. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:49, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

    • What is your basis for “top 3 US style guides”? JeffConrad (talk) 20:33, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

      • What would you put higher? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:50, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

        Good question ... it's often asserted in J-schools and by the publishers, but I'm not aware of any data ... I don't think it's too much to ask them to supply it. I'll email the publishers. - Dank (push to talk) 21:06, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

        Though I don’t suggest that it’s necessarily an answer to the question, I just got the following Amazon Bestsellers Rank numbers:

        • Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition: #19
        • The Chicago Manual of Style, 16th Edition: #449
        • The Elements of Style (4th Edition): #526
        • A Manual for Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, Seventh Edition: Chicago Style for Students and Researchers: #696
        • Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style: #12,396
        • The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition: #14,386
        • MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing, 3rd Edition: #20,161
        • The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage: #27,743
        • Words into Type, Third Edition: #34,474
        • The Associated Press Stylebook: #111,881
        • The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition: #151,441
        • The Oxford Style Manual: #297,890
        • Merriam-Webster’s Manual for Writers and Editors: #796,570

        JeffConrad (talk) 21:47, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Guides that prescribe en dashes to connect equal pairs

Many guides support the points in our MOS, including the points numbered 4 and 5 above, which have been the source of the most contention. Some sources reduce them to "equal pairs" and other such simplifications. Dicklyon (talk) 06:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

The section above intentionally surveys a sample of style guides chosen long ago, independently of this question. Presenting these, searched for because they support one position, as parallel is at best misleading; these are a handful of the hundreds of style guides published, not many. And even these show a remarkable predominance of those published by the Oxford University Press, which does not consistently follow them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, these were intentionally picked to show examples that support the en-dash in pairs. You had said there were very few such, and had suggested that those of us who used such en dashes have made up the rules ("invented" I believe you said). These are listed as a sample of where these rules that we grew up on have been taught. Dicklyon (talk) 19:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

And it fails to do so; these are "very few" as compared to the whole number of guides published - and some of them don't support "pairs". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

• The various guides written by Bryan A. Garner from 1995 to 2010, including Garner's Modern American Usage and including the editions that Pmanderson refers to as "Oxford" to make them sound less American, which are like our MOS: "Use an en-dash as an equivalent of to (as when showing a span of pages), to express tension or difference, or to denote a pairing in which the elements carry equal weight" and "... wherever movement or tension, rather than cooperation or unity, is felt." Examples include current–voltage characteristic, Marxist–Trotskyite split. Says en dash is preferable to virgule (slash) in disjunctions, situations where a hyphen is clearly wrong, as in possessive–genitive dichotomy. A great review discusses the tension between prescriptive and descriptive and how Garner deals with it: "...descriptive scientific endeavours, investigating and recording the state of the language. That’s essential if we are to know what’s going on in the engine room of linguistic change and invention. But the results often don’t meet the day-to-day needs of those users of English who want to speak and write in a way that is acceptable to educated opinion. To give advice in that situation must be to lay down rules and to say that some common usages are simply wrong. Mr Garner does this. However, he is not a believer in worn-out shibboleths or language superstitions (indeed, he has a section with that heading in which he demolishes the most egregious of them). His article on the split infinitive, for example, the most notorious example of the type, is magisterially even-handed while at the same time practical; he states firmly that no rule exists that says they can’t be split, but that the decision to do so or not depends on the need for clarity, which has to be coupled with a keen ear to avoid clumsy phrasing. He dismisses the canard that you must not start a sentence with a conjunction (which is a good thing for me, since I do it often). He describes the rule that a sentence may not end with a preposition as “spurious”. He is in favour of the serial (or Oxford, or Harvard) comma as an aid to clarity." (my bold). Dicklyon (talk) 00:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
• Bugs in Writing (1995) – "use en dashes when you have an equal-weighted pair serving as an adjective, such as love–hate relationship." Agrees with our MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 01:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
• Text, type and style: A compendium of Atlantic usage (1921) – "The en-dash...may stand for the word 'and' or 'to' in such phrases as 'the Radical–Unionist Coalition,' 'the Boston–Hartford Air Line'; 'the period of Republican supremacy, 1860–84'; 'pp. 224–30.'" Agrees with our MOS. Dicklyon (talk) 01:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

  Sigh. I suppose Dicklyon will object if I call this false; but it is.

  • Ivey has one paragraph, describing the use (the only one Ivey recognizes) of an en dash: to represent "and" or "to"; that's only WP:ENDASH 1, although the examples with nouns show where the flakier uses of the Oxford dash come from.
  • This is, therefore, only a small part of what "our MOS" - or rather the present text - says. A footnote recommends not using a dash in New York–Boston Railroad, therefore contradicting WP:ENDASH 5 expressly, for the usual reason: grouping York and Boston is misleading.
  • More importantly, may stand for is not prescribing anything; it's permissive. That being the major difference between "our MOS" (I will gladly concede that it is WP:OWNed by a small body of enthusiasts) says and the reality of the English language, it is the point at issue. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
• Fowler's Modern English Usage (1926–2004 editions) (at Amazon) – includes pairs like our MOS (or at least "place pairs in a political context): "the Rome–Berlin axis" and joint-author pairs "the Temple–Hardcastle project". Dicklyon (talk) 01:42, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
  • As Richard Bentley said to Alexander Pope: "A very pretty poem, Mr. Pope; but you must not call it Homer." That Oxford, as the copyright holders, chose at one point to issue somebody else's style guide under Fowler's name is their betise; but it gives no particular authority to the result. They almost immediately redeemed themselves by issuing a Fowler's written by -well- Fowler (with an updating supplement); we should let their folly rest in merciful oblivion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:01, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

You’ll find much the same in

• The Oxford Style Manual – "Use the en rule closed up to express the meaning of to or and between words of equal importance. In these cases the words can be reversed in order without altering the meaning. The hyphen must be used when the first element cannot stand on its own. Dover–Calais crossing, on–off switch, editor–author relationship, Permian–Carboniferous boundary, Ali–Foreman match, dose–response curve, cost–benefit analysis, wave–particle duality"
  • Not "pairs". This is expressly the use of an en dash for "to", which is (as an idea) not seriously disputed save for those who would not use en dashes at all - whether this stretches the idiom beyond its elastic limit is another question. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:30, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
• The Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th. ed. – "items of equal weight (e.g., test–retest, male–female, the Chicago–London flight)"
• Merriam-Webster’s Guide to Punctuation and Style (I have the 1st ed.).
• Merriam-Webster’s Manual for Writers & Editors – "used to indicate linkages such as boundaries, treaties, and oppositions" (though it also allows hyphen as an alternative in male–female differences)

JeffConrad (talk) 04:45, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

This is a good example why ArbCom seemed inevitable: WP:TE. See for instance [11],

“ male–female differences or male-female differences ”

Emphasis in original. Tijfo098 (talk) 06:33, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Did you not see that I already pointed out "(though it also allows hyphen as an alternative in male–female differences)"? I believe that I correctly characterized the "or" in that section about en dash usage, but feel free to elaborate if you think that "as an alternative" doesn't do it. Are you joining with PMA to call me dishonest or contentious every time I try to present information? Sheesh. Dicklyon (talk) 07:10, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Then it does not support what MOS now says at all, for that allows no variant. It supports Tony's text very weakly, for the same reason: Tony only permits hyphens under the most stringent conditions: that there be a strong agreement in the sources and consensus to listen to them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:54, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Does the latter refer to differences among shemales? Incidentally, the or isn’t emphasis—the book uses italic font in all set-off examples to distinguish the explanatory text from the literal examples; Chicago do the same thing. Joe Ossanna famously described a “pseudo-page transition” rather than a “pseudo–page transition”; I wasted several years of my life trying to figure out what a “pseudo page” was . . . JeffConrad (talk) 07:13, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Usually these grammatical ambiguities only trip up the reader for a second or so; are you going for a record? Dicklyon (talk) 07:20, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I guess those who never used troff won’t understand the allusion, which was made only in jest. Ossanna’s description would have been equally incomprehensible with an en dash (it apparently threw off the author of every reference book that I ever read, and did the same for the HP-UX support people). To be honest, though, an en dash might have provided a clue to deciphering the explanation. But we′re getting off the topic, because this isn′t an equal-pair example.

As for tripping up the reader, most similar ambiguities are quickly resolvable, but the reader must often backtrack, and this makes for more difficult reading, especially when there are many instances to resolve. JeffConrad (talk) 07:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Apparently the derogatory comments about my brain and grammar are due the fact that I remind those highly involved here that push-pull (or is that push–pull?) activities like this are WP:TE according to my confused brain. Maybe you should also read what the Arbs said. Anyway, I'll let you guys finish the pinnacle of style & grammar RfC and vote on it when it's done. Tijfo098 (talk) 08:00, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

OK, I guess we'll just to agree to treat your interjection as a nasty non-sequitur. I thought we were trying to collect data on style guides here, for information purposes; we weren't arguing about it much, were we? Well, yes, PMA did accidentally say that some of the info was a falsehood, but we're used to that. Dicklyon (talk) 08:09, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

This entire section takes any favorable reference to using a dash for compounding - no matter which class of compounds is under consideration in the guide - and mashes them all together to prove something about "pairs"; which they do not. These guides do not support the same instances of compounding with dashes - and some of them do not support dashes between "pairs" at all.

In short, this is a random assembly of "pro-dash" style guides - a concept almost devoid of meaning, since actual style guides aren't written to be pro-dash or pro-hyphen, but to reocmmend different sets of specific idioms. The only function this could possibly serve in this discussion only to answer the small minority which would remove the en dash from Wikipedia. As for me, I would consider that suggestion if it would bring peace and consensus; but it won't.

Please read (and understand) what your source says - preferably before you cite it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:42, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

This is a more general problem with the RfC of Tony1 above. It takes the maximal coverage of the cases where en dashes could be used, and makes it the default choice for all of those, asking for extraordinary evidence for alternative typography. Tijfo098 (talk) 06:55, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes. I support it because with good faith and restraint it might work in practice, not because it is well-put. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:12, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Oxford dashes

(comments moved out of data section above by Dicklyon; section title by PMAnderson)

The following above have been cherry-picked as the guides, perhaps the only guides, which endorse the Oxford dash. The reason I began with the section of MOS was that it is a selection of style guides not chosen by what system of dash they support. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

• (in reference to the comments on Fowler's showing en dash in pairs:)
  • I believe this to be another falsehood; whether it is a mere error or not is not clear to me. I read through several editions of Fowler on this point at the beginning of this discussion.
  • I therefore request page numbers, year, and edition please; I believe you are confounding particularly visible hyphens with dashes; although it is also possible, since Fowler quotes actual news stories and other extracts at length, that it is his sources and not Fowler who is responsible for this.
    • The edition linked above "at Amazon", p.197, the entry for "dash", which says: "dash. Hart's Rules is an excellent guide to the use of this mark of punctuation. What follows is a revised and extended version of Hart. The en-rule (–) is used to: (a) ...numbers and dates... (c) between separate places or areas linked, for example, in a political context, e.g., 'the Rome–Berlin axis'; (d) between the names of joint authors to avoid confusion with the hyphen of a single double-barrelled name...". Dicklyon (talk) 06:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
      • Ah; that is a third text: Burchfield's rewriting of 1996, substituting his own opinions for Fowler's, whereas Gowers had limited his rewriting and did make some effort to indicate whose was whose. That is not the work we refer to, but I know a university library which has a copy buried in the stacks. Referring to an incomplete on-line version of a book avaoible in print is not really verifiability. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:46, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
  • Fowler exists in two different texts (the first edition, which is Fowler's, of 1926, and the second edition, re-edited by Sir Ernest Gowers, of 1965); the first edition was reprinted, photographically, in 1998. Gowers completely rewrote the relevant article; but both editions agree that, except for compounded compounds (WP:ENDASH 5; I'll get back to that), there are three forms for compounds: blackbird, black bird, black-bird; both articles discuss at length where each of the three is used, and come up with different advice. For compounded compounds (Lloyd-George-Winston-Churchill Government), Fowler proposes (what he himself calls "an innovation") that some new symbol be chosen as a sort of super-hyphen (he does not suggest the en dash, although one of his possibilities is a long hyphen), but recommends recasting the sentence; Gowers suggests recasting, a dash, or a virgule [/] about evenly. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:25, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
    • If you "believe [Dicklyon is] confounding particularly visible hyphens with dashes" then you believe he made an error. The word "falsehood" is ambiguous about the cause of why it is false, but if particularly visible hyphens is the cause, then the cause is an error. Art LaPella (talk) 05:44, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
      • But no such error has been made, and there is no falsehood (and I'm quite accustomed to hearing that from him). OK, so maybe the range of edition dates was wrong; I only checked the current one linked on Amazon and wasn't aware of the edition differences; I have now ordered copies so I can see what the older ones say. PMA says they don't support this stuff about pairs, which is fine. Dicklyon (talk) 06:16, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
    • It's interesting that the early Fowler's would propose a new mark; the American George Burnham Ives had already published his guide describing the en dash to connect pairs in 1921; he credits Fowler's The King's English for some of his stuff but specifically for this. Anyway, it's good to know that Fowler at least recognized the folly of using hyphen for too many different meanings, introducing ambiguity to inflict on readers. It is fairly to common the see the virgule; one book I looked at (don't recall which now) characterized that as more informal than the en dash; others just say don't do that. Dicklyon (talk) 06:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
      • If I understand the nonce-word pairs correctly, Fowler is not talking about them; he is talking about compounding phrases which are already compounds (and so already have spaces or hyphens). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:52, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
        • That sounds likely for your Fowler. For the 2004 one on Amazon, it's definitely pairs per the quote above. Dicklyon (talk) 23:03, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
        • That's not Fowler; calling it so is obfuscation. (That OUP started it is another matter.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:41, 8 May 2011 (UTC)
          • Perhaps one should use the full title of the book, as catalogued: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage, 3rd ed. ". --Boson (talk) 08:42, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
          • We have previously debated who wrote "Fowler", so does that mean that most "reliable sources" call it "Fowler", like "Webster's" Dictionary and "Roget's" Thesaurus? That sounds like the opposite of the reliable sources argument used for the Mexican-American War. Art LaPella (talk) 14:02, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
            • • Fowler wrote "Fowler's"; most reliable sources don't speak of Burchfield's edition at all (which is why I forgot about it above). OUP has replaced it with Fowler, revived in full, with notes to update it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:40, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion

You can start with those at en dash. Tijfo098 (talk) 03:14, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

I've been looking at those and cleaning up the sourcing and stuff a bit there. You say that "To stand for and between independent elements" is rare, yet it's what I've always been taught; I find it in the various guides by Bryan A. Garner (Oxford and others), except that in the punctuation section that he did for the 16th CMOS he wasn't allowed to go that far, so he added the explanation that "Chicago's sense of the en dash does not extend to between" (to rule out US–Canadian relations in their example of using hyphens instead), like he was apologizing for them being the outlier. I also found my Bugs in Writing and quoted its succinct advice on this, where they're called equal-weighted pairs. Dicklyon (talk) 03:58, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it is found in the minority of style guides that teach Oxford English, although they were advising fewer dashes in the first edition of Hart's Rules in 1893. But that is a minority - and a style guide routinely ignored by its own publisher is a poor guide for general English usage. Some people will have been taught by those for whom Oxford English is the only real English - but most have not been or it would indeed be normal usage. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:34, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

What is this Oxford English that you keep referring to, and why does it appear to be favored by the American writers of guides to American usage? Dicklyon (talk) 19:07, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

See Oxford English; you wish to have the Manual of Style insist on one of its odder features, where it demonstrably disagrees with both English and American usage. Bryan Garner may well be an American, as our article says; but he was published by Oxford University Press. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:28, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

That's a redirect to Oxford spelling; nothing but spelling there, as far as I can see. As for Garner's, the cited review says "It has a characteristically American directness that contrasts favourably with another work from the same publisher, Oxford University Press — Robert Burchfield’s Third Edition of Fowler’s Modern English Usage, whose comments are more reserved and balanced and which sometimes leave the reader unsure of what is regarded as correct and what isn’t." It doesn't sound like it represents Oxford English, but rather American English. His publisher was the US branch of OUP, in case that lessens your xenophobia. Dicklyon (talk) 20:50, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

That's a review of style, not substance - and if Garner is more opinionated than Burchfield, who has a note justifying his expressions of opinion, it must be truly abysmal. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:43, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

As for Dicklyon's recurrent personal attack: No; this isn't xenophobia. I like and practice much of Oxford English; but WP:ENGVAR says that this aspect of it is inappropriate for American subjects. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:53, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Has anyone looked at The Elements Of International English Style? would it be useful here (in general, not just limited to the DASH issue)?
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 19:35, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

An interesting book, but geared to writing for the not quite fluent; more use to the Simple English wikipedia than to us. Some of its advice may be helpful there: but Always use short sentences and use hyphens wherever possible (it mentions dashes once; don't use them between sentences) are not helpful here. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:23, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Descriptive accounts of usage

There is no shortage of style guides. I'd like to see some descriptive accounts of how often this or that en dash rule is followed. You might as well add them to our dash article. I for one was only able to find a study accounting for the differences in usage of hyphen and en dash (as a group) versus em dash in Russian vs. English. (ref on Talk:dash; If you're curious: the Russian corpus uses more em dashes, and then English one more hyphens/en dashes.) Tijfo098 (talk) 03:18, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

Is the Oxford dash useful?

I'm sure it would be illuminating to see how rarely the en dash is used. Nonetheless, there are lots of places where, if it were used, meaning would be greatly clarified, and places where if a hyphen were substituted, meaning would suffer. I just was looking at uses of love–hate relationship and spotted this book with a paper about a "flower-ant love-hate relationship". If you understand what a hyphen means, you'll be wondering what a flower ant is. That's why they actually said a "flower–ant love–hate relationship". If you see the difference, it's immediately clear that it's not about a flower ant, but about a flower–ant relationship. The en dash that they also use in love–hate follows the same grammatical rule, even though in this case the construction is common enough that you probably won't be misled to ponder what kind of hate love hate is. The fact that many writers and even publishers these days ignore this level of English grammar and inflict all manner of bad ambiguity on their readers to figure out is unfortunate. For us to sink to that level would be a real shame, given that there are no real hurdles to doing it right. When I see the number of people who claim they don't care, can't see the difference, never heard of it, etc., it is hard to reconcile that with the energy being poured into doing it wrong. Dicklyon (talk) 06:03, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

The only places where the Oxford dash clarifies things are where it offers a different meaning than a hyphen: Michelson–Morley and Lloyd-George–Winston-Churchill government; those are also the only cases where its usage does not verge on the insignificant.

Of these, the first is actually useful and used only in some cases; the OED so spells the example, but attests that Morley himself did not. If readers may reasonably be expected to know that the conjoint discoverers are two persons, its utility becomes marginal. The second should be, as we now advise, rewritten where possible; the government headed by Lloyd George and Winston Churchill.

In other cases, it does not add to clarity; it's a typographical tic. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:48, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

You guys are still debating #Style guides here. Tijfo098 (talk) 23:40, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

We have veered off from the proposed topic (so I've made a new section), but the subject so far has been whether the Oxford dash really clarifies meaning. I think there are two isolated cases where it does; Dicklyon finds it clarifying across the board. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:39, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Note; so does the following paragraph from Oxford Reference Online:

The shorter en-rule [i.e. shorter than the em-rule] has two principal uses: (1) to separate a range of dates, as in pages 34–6 and the 1939–45 war, and (2) to join the names of joint authors and suchlike, as in the Temple–Hardcastle project and Lloyd–Jones, 1939 (as a citation; Lloyd-Jones, with a hyphen, would be a single double-barrelled name).

Why can't we leave this where the en dash serves some actual purpose? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:24, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, with a suitably liberal interpretation of "and suchlike" to mean pairs of interchangeable or equivalent-functioning names or terms, as opposed to the kind of things for which hyphens are used, it serves an actual purpose in signifying that distinction, and there's not any more to it than that. We could combine points 4 and 5 to make that more clear. Like this:

To stand for and, to, versus or suchlike relationship between independent elements in a compound disjunctive or attributive modifier (male–female ratio, 4–3 win, Lincoln–Douglas debate, French–German border, diode–transistor logic, Michelson–Morley experiment, London–Zürich flight, Mexican–American War).

Yes, we could leave as such a shorter description of its actual purpose. Dicklyon (talk) 04:16, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

As usual, Dicklyon is perfectly willing to agree to have his own way, against consensus and English usage. We are not in the business of indulging his taste for affectations, especially when they serve no encyclopedic purpose; was it Fut. Perf. who found that mot juste?

What he has neglected to do, however, is to show that the same compounds mean anything different with dashes than they would with hyphens.

This lacuna can indeed be filled; the first could mean, by point 6, something that was both a female ratio and a male. What that would be boggles the mind (nor does it require a separate point to justify it); but it would at least be something distinct from a hyphen. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:32, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

A real paraphrase of the Oxford passage quoted would be:

An en dash can be used

1. [Like an em dash, to indicate an abrupt change of meaning in a sentence, or a parenthetical expression – like this one – in the midst of a sentence. For example, it can be used to format a list of items, like the songs in an album. ]
2. To separate a range of dates (1939–45) or numbers pp. 34–6; in this construction, it is preferable to a hyphen. By analogy, it can be used to replace "to" in other compounds: Lincoln–Douglas debate, but also Lincoln-Douglas debate.
3. To join two or more authors or sponsors: Michelson–Morley experiment, Temple–Hardcastle project. Using a hyphen here could be read as a single author with a hyphenated name: Lennard-Jones effect. Again, it can be used to mean "and" in general.
4. [To join words which are already compounded into a compound: Lloyd-George–Winston-Churchill Government. Lloyd-George-Winston-Churchill Government can be read as four people, or one with a very long name; Lloyd George–Winston Churchill Government suggests three leaders, including the imaginary George Winston. But it is usually preferable to avoid such towering compounds (the Government led by Lloyd George and Winston Churchill).]

I include two more clauses to include the whole range of possibilities in the present text. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:14, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

But if you want to recognize the actual useful purpose of the en dash, you'll want to extend to more "suchlike" relationships, rather than limiting yourself to that abbreviated treatment. E.g.

male–female ratio is a ratio of male to female, whereas male-female ratio suggests a ratio about male females (shemales?).

French–German border represents a border between French and German regions, whereas French-German border a border that is French German.

Lincoln–Douglas debate was between Lincoln and Douglas, but Lincoln-Douglas debate seems to be by a guy named Lincoln-Douglas.

diode–transistor logic represents logic implemented with a combination of diodes and transistor, whereas diode-transistor logic suggests logic using diode transistors, whatever those are.

Mexican–American War suggests a war that was symmetrically Mexican and America, whereas Mexican-American War looks like a war about Mexican Americans.

Leaving these out misses the opportunity to represent the full scope of the usefulness of the en dash to clarify relationships between words that are misleading when set with a hyphen. There is no cost to set these in the clear way, the way suggested by our MOS. Why do you resist clarity so? I've never claimed that such a clear style is widely or uniformly practiced, but it still seems like a good goal for wikipedia, as it has been for the last four or five years. Dicklyon (talk) 06:49, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Dicklyon is inventing his own idioms, instead of reading English, again.

• male-female ratio is not a ratio of male to female; it is a ratio of male population to female population. More importantly, so is male-female ratio [hyphen], which is why most people use it.

French–German border represents a border between French and German regions, whereas French-German border a border that is French German.

• No. The French Germans (if history acknowledged such people) would be gradually losing their hyphen, as the Asian Americans are. Their border would be the French German border, which will be unambiguous in practice.

Lincoln–Douglas debate was between Lincoln and Douglas, but Lincoln-Douglas debate seems to be by a guy named Lincoln-Douglas.

• Only in the imagination of a pedant, not in practice.

diode–transistor logic represents logic implemented with a combination of diodes and transistor, whereas diode-transistor logic suggests logic using diode transistors, whatever those are.

• No, the second would be "diode transistor logic", as (outside the moves of another self-appointed defender of MOS) high dynamic range imaging is imaging with a high dynamic range; noun phrases group to the left, adjectives don't.

Mexican–American War suggests a war that was symmetrically Mexican and America, whereas Mexican-American War looks like a war about Mexican Americans.

• No, that last (in addition to being a desperate anachronism) would be Mexican American War.

But all of these fantasies beg one enormous question: why don't the vast majority of printed books see it that way? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Indeed the French-German border is at once both a French border and a German border, and the Mexican-American War was at once a Mexican war and an American war; on the other hand “border between/of/from (the) French and/to German(s)” can only plausibly refer to a border between languages or ethnicities, not between political entities, and “war between/of/from Mexican(s) and/to American(s)” can plausibly refer to a war between ethnicities but that's not what wars are usually called (cf Polish-Swedish wars, ^*Pole–Swede wars). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 13:43, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I think the border means between French territory and German territory, more than referring to the political entities France and Germany per se. In any case, it's commonly done that way, with territories being implicit in border. Similar, people, governments, or armies are implicit in war. Dicklyon (talk) 15:18, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Better use a more plausible example for 4. I can't see why people wouldn't just leave first names out and say Lloyd George–Churchill Government (with the same typography as in Born–van Karman boundary condition). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:10, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't insist on including 4 at all; but it is, very rarely, a useful dodge, as with Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty. (Bunau-Varilla, unlike van Karman, is hyphenated.) In general, it should be avoided.

Some comments on the example (which can go, but I think it more reasonable than you suppose):

• I have that example from Fowler, who is (as usual) commenting on a real example he found in print; so somebody did think Winston worth specifying. (This was when the Conservatives were about to send Churchill to the wilderness; Churchill was not as pellucid then.)
• More importantly, I look at Lloyd George–Churchill Government and see George Churchill; Born–van Karman boundary condition is a special case: since van is lower case, Born–van is not a plausible compound. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:36, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

References in image captions?

I was just wondering if there is any MOS guidance on the use of references inside of image captions. An example can be seen in the lead image at List of Watford F.C. players. Due to the nature of the list, it would be inappropriate to include the information anywhere else. My options are either to have captions like Mariappa's, with additional references where necessary, or to have a dozen or more unspeakably dull captions along the lines of "Defender Adrian Mariappa". Thanks in advance. —WFC— 22:49, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Ideally, images illustrate things that are stated in the main text, and so the information would be cited in the main text. However, there is no "ban" on including a citation in an image caption. Indeed if the caption includes information that is not included (and cited) elsewhere in the text, it must be cited in the caption. Blueboar (talk) 23:28, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

I suspected as much. The practise was queried by an editor I respect, so I thought it best to check here. In the list I mention above, many of the players with images aren't statistically remarkable, hence the need for information to go in the caption. Thanks for the help. —WFC— 23:54, 8 May 2011 (UTC)

Transsexual women

I understand the statement:

Any person whose gender might be questioned should be referred to using the gendered nouns, pronouns, and possessive adjectives that reflect that person's latest expressed gender self-identification. This applies when referring to any phase of that person's life. Nevertheless, avoid confusing or seemingly logically impossible text that could result from pronoun usage (for example: She fathered her first child).

However, I would like an improvement to it by naming a statement that "She fathered her first child" should be replaced by. Georgia guy (talk) 14:35, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

I am wondering whether we really need this caveat about confusing or illogical text... I would think that any article that might contain the phrase "She fathered her first child" would have made it clear early on in the article that the person is biologically male, but self-identifies as female (and thus uses the pronoun "she"). While the phrase might strike readers as odd if taken out of context, I think most readers will understand it when said in context. Blueboar (talk) 16:49, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

But why be anachronistic at all? Christine Jorgenson was born George, as the Duke of Wellington was born Arthur Wesley. When referring to the person over the entire span of their lives, use the gender by which they are known and which they identify by, as we say "Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, KP, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS (c. 29 April/1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852), was an Anglo-Irish[1] soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century."

When dealing with them at a specific moment (as the sentence proposed does), use what they were at the time: Wellington's family had changed the spelling of their surname when he was a boy, and we write "Arthur Wellesley rose to prominence as a general during the Peninsular campaign of the Napoleonic Wars," or "The Marquess of Wellington won at Vitoria" - that's continuity.

What to use depends largely on not distracting the reader; there are readers who will see "He fathered his first child" as tendentious, and be distracted. If you can use "Jorgensen fathered the first of five children" instead, that may be preferable - but don't be politically correct to the detriment of clarity. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:35, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

But the Duke of Wellington is an ordinary man. No one disagrees on what pronouns to use when talking about him. Georgia guy (talk) 17:48, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

It's an analogy. Pronouns are to Christine Jorgensen as titles to the Iron Duke. Since we have much more experience in dealing with people who change their name than we do with transgendering - and some of it has less ideological charge - let us apply our experience with one to the others. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:35, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Question: Was the Duke of Wellington the Duke of Wellington to begin with??

Answer: No. He was originally Arthur Wellesley. He only became the Duke of Wellington within his life.

Put the similar info on Christine Jorgensen in the same format. Georgia guy (talk) 18:54, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

We don't do Q&A sections. The reason they are not enough should be clear from the quotes from Wellington's article; we need to refer to him as his name changed over time. Similarly, Jorgensen's article would benefit from pronouns; if it were as detailed as Wellington's, it would need them. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:06, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Now, write what you think Christine Jorgensen's article should look like at User:Pmanderson/Christine Jorgensen. Georgia guy (talk) 19:11, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

That rule seems silly to me. We don't refer to Muhammad Ali as Muhammad Ali when talking about what he did before 1964 (or to Iran as Iran when talking about what happened before 1938, for that matter), and I can't see why transgender people should be treated any differently. The article Billy Tipton used to use she in the first subsection and he in the rest, and I don't think I would have noticed anything weird with that if that hadn't been pointed out. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 17:56, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

That see,s entirely reasonable - and appears to follow the subject's own self-identification, although the sentence which asserts that Tioton was involved in a relationshiip perceived as lesbian casts some doubt on that. Septentrionalis PMAnderson

We went through a few arguments like this one on the Chaz Bono talk page. I could go into the mechanics of it, but both what I've heard of people's experiences and what I've read about the neurological studies leads me to believe that most transgenders discover that they really were male/female all along rather than decide to change from one gender* to the other. In light of this, it seems most factually accurate to use person's pronoun of identification throughout the article, even when referring to events and situations that occurred before this discovery was made or made public. (I am using the word "gender" here under its common-English definition of "state of being male or female.") Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:24, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Similarly, the guy formerly known as Cassius Clay realized that there had been no god but God and Muhammad had been the messenger of God all along, didn't he? More seriously, if a person in a certain year looked like a male, swamacted like a male (and fathering a child would be a prime example of this), and quackedinteracted with other people like a male, then I'd refer to that person as him when talking about what he did in that year. If we had to speculate on whether his soul was male or female, how can be sure that he had a soul at all and so it wouldn't be better to refer to him as it? ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 02:45, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

As for Jorgensen, her describing her former self as a “little boy” pretty much invalidates that argument, I guess. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 03:06, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

I didn't say anything about souls. Gender is a physical characteristic. It comes from our genes, chromosomes, body chemistry, primary and secondary sexual characteristics and brain structure. The last of these, which is one of the hardest to see, is the most important and can trump all the others. As for whether or not someone is really male or female, I find that taking someone's word for it works well enough. We do that whether people are transsexual or not. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:51, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

"Gender" is not a "physical characteristic". It is a word that is used to cover a complex social process of defining differences linked to the more staightforward binary opposition involved in sexing. The concept of of gender used in this way is historically quite recent. No one doubts that there is a very complexc relationship between social convention, exterior biology and mental processes, but to say that "brain structure" somehow trumps eveything else is deeply problematic, contested, almost impossible to demonstrate. Where there are complexities we should identify those complexities - as with Wesley, Wellesley etc while also retaining clarity and logic. The same should apply here. We don't want a rigid rule that can lead to absurdities. Paul B (talk) 16:19, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Paul B, if you will look a few comments back, you will see that I specified that I am using "gender" in its general sense of "state of being male or female." In that sense, yes, it is physical when it comes to living things like human beings (as opposed to ships or fasteners or grammatical categories). The word has about five correct definitions, including the one you mention above. I feel that the general definition is the one most relevant to this discussion because the upshot of this conversation is whether to say "he" or "she" in Wikipedia articles about transgendered people. The main argument here is whether a transgenered person, say someone raised female who now identifies as male, should be identified as "he" throughout the article or only in parts of the article that discuss events in his/her life that take place after he/she began to identify as male. My take on the matter is that we should say "he" throughout because his gender never really changed and because it's polite. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:39, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

I know you intended to use gender in the binary sense. That's exactly why I disputed the coherence of your claim in my very first sentence. "Gender" used in the sense of sexing is simply about being male or female, which is a matter of body-type. Apart from some rare cases, it is a simple binary opposition. Whether one feels "female" or not in one's brain is more complex. There is no simple "binary opposition" in brain structures. Also, all activities that occur in the brain are physical, but the brain's physical make up is constantly affected by complex social processes. Biological sex is usually fixed, but mental states are never fixed. To blur the two as you are doing results in confusion that has the result of making language meaningless. If we use inappropriate pronouns it results in confusion and absurdities. I remember looking at an article about a film set in a reform school for boys. One of the inmates was described as a "transwoman" and referred to as "she" throughout, even though the film is about an all-male environment and the character never identifies as a "transwoman". It was an identification made on behalf of the character that just confuses the reader. I really don't think politeness is a major consideration here. Firstly, because it's disputable whether or not it is. How do we know that an individual does not think it impolite to refer to their former female self as "he"? They may wish to celebrate that they have changed. You are assuming that everyone subscribes to the same ideological position that you do, but there is no reason to assume that they do. Secondly, politeness should take a second place to accuracy in any encyclopedia. Enclyclopedias are fundamentally about facts and theories, not polite social niceties. Paul B (talk) 13:25, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Looks like I'm not the only one making assumptions here. You seem to be supposing that what I actually said is more simple than it really is. I didn't say it was binary. I said it was physical. Biological gender is the result of physical traits including brain anatomy, genitalia, chromosomes and body chemistry, but you'll notice that body chemistry can change over time and by degrees. Large-scale brain anatomy doesn't usually change much (during adulthood) but it does have degrees.

You will notice that I mention accuracy before courtesy. Courtesy is an added benefit of using the person's most recent pronoun throughout the article. It is both accurate and polite to assume that a person's gender identity, which is what I believe you mean by "mental state," is a manifestation of the reality if his or her physical situation, that he or she is playing the hand he/she was dealt, and, above all, because that is what we do with everyone else. If we don't need to "check under the hood" to see whether or not Alec Baldwin is a dude, then we shouldn't do so with Chaz Bono. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:06, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Foreign words in IPA instead of italics

I notice this in several books where words of foreign origin are written in IPA instead of italics. They are written in between slashes. This gives the reader a more detailed romanization that focuses on the standard pronunciation rather than an ad-hoc romanization that may have focused on transliteration. Is such a thing suitable on Wikipedia? --Dara (talk) 18:48, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

No. I assume that Wikipedia uses IPA because of dogma. I find it meaningless and incomprehensible. I am sure that I am not the only one. The original word in the native script can be useful, and a romanisation that would be recognised by native inhabitants is useful. Please do not sacrifice genuinely useful things on the altar of IPA dogmatism.--Toddy1 (talk) 21:26, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Toddy, WP uses IPA for the same reason it use kg and km rather than pounds and miles. We can't accommodate all of our readers' lack of education. It's simply not practical. What would you suggest instead?

Dara, it depends on the context. If we're listing Dostoyevsky's novels or Khayyam's poems—anyplace we'd use the national orthography if the language were French or German—then simple transliteration is appropriate, or italics in the case of a language with a roman orthography. The names of the articles on Dostoyevsky's novels, or Miyazaki's films, are going to be transliterated, not transcribed. If however we have reason to give the pronunciation, of words foreign or English, even if the language is written in the roman alphabet (say, how French eau is pronounced), then the IPA is appropriate and really the only encyclopedic choice. That is, French eau is pronounced [o], not "oh". Generally we'll give roman orthography/transliteration only, or both transliteration/orthography and IPA transcription. See WP:Pronunciation. — kwami (talk) 22:08, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) IPA is not used because of "dogma", it is the international standard for pronunciation transcription, and thus we should continue to use it for transcription of pronunciations. However it is not designed to be an all-purpose transcription or translation of foreign words into English and I don't see why we should want to use it as such. I think that there are only three places IPA should normally be encountered:

• In the leading paragraph of an article/section about a foreign word/subject (e.g. Ouagadougou (/ˌwɑːɡəˈduːɡuː/, Zeitgeist (German pronunciation: [ˈtsaɪtɡaɪst] ^ⓘ))
• In other parts of an article where the pronunciation is important (e.g. in ough (orthography), articles about languages). Most, but not all of these, of these will be in articles about language and linguistics topics.
• Where terms are used that have a pronunciation that is not likely to be obvious to native English speakers (or where the obvious pronunciation would be wrong). (e..g. ʻAʻā (also spelled aa, aʻa, ʻaʻa, and a-aa; Template:Pron-en, from Hawaiian meaning "stony rough lava").

In all these cases the IPA should not be a replacement for a romanization but a supplement to it. It should not be used more than once for the same word/term, except where pronunciation is the subject or an essential part of it. There will be exceptions to all these though. Thryduulf (talk) 22:33, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I think that pretty much covers it. Exceptions will be rare, such as unwritten languages where everything is given in IPA. — kwami (talk) 22:38, 12 May 2011 (UTC)

As often, the use of IPA is well-intentioned, but has become dogma, while not being particularly useful. There was a discussion of this on pi - a word of foreign origin - which missed the endemic problem: IPA is sensitive enough, as well it should be, to represent the difference between British and American pronunciation, so using either IPA will be wrong for half our readers, and unintelligible for many. Pronounce it like "pie" is much more useful, and true everywhere; although less posh. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:56, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Transcription between slashes are broad, so that /aɪ/ just means “the vowel of eye” regardless of how it's realized; also, I don't think the difference between the realizations of it between North America and the British Isles are larger than than those within North America or within the British Isles, and indeed most dictionaries would use /aɪ/ for any variety of English. What are you thinking about exactly? (Problems of English dialects do occur when the dialects have different sets of phonemes–such as the non-prevocalic R maintained in North America or the father-bother distinction maintained in the British Isles–but our transcription scheme is diaphonemic so that's only an issue with exceptional cases such as tomato, where two transcriptions would be given.) On the other hand, I agree with the removal of the IPA in pi on the grounds that it was unnecessary (redundant with the mention of pie). ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 02:43, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

The OED gives /pʌɪ/ as the British, /paɪ/ as the American, pronunciation; I presume they know more about IPA than I do. (Their guide distinguishes this as the difference between fly and buy. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:54, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

The OED used to give /aɪ/, as most other dictionaries still do, and apparently not even John C. Wells has any idea of why they changed.[12] ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 03:13, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I can understand the new IPA for buy, although the distinction seems very faint in my own speech. Come to think of it, that is how I might describe a Southern-accented pi. Noting the difference everywhere it applies would be Too Much Information; but we should not "decide where doctors disagree." Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:30, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Odd punctuation issue

I'd like to get some advice on how to deal with the following issue. I am building a table for the British magazine New Worlds, and one row needs to show the range of issues from "December 1967 – January 1968" (that's a single issue) to "July 1968". Normally I'd do a range with an en dash:

December 1967 – January 1968 – July 1968

but that looks pretty weird and is ambiguous in any case. I thought about changing to a slash:

December 1967 / January 1968 – July 1968

but the slash looks odd with the spaces. Eliminating the spaces doesn't help much:

December 1967/January 1968 – July 1968

because "1967/January" is more closely tied together than "December 1967" and "January 1968", which isn't what is needed. This last option is probably the best I can come up with, though. Any better ideas? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:24, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Parentheses or brackets, to make evident which is the stronger grouping?

[December 1967–January 1968] – July 1968

The lack of spacing is IAR; nobody is likely to see 1967-January as a group. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:46, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Good point; IAR does seem to apply here. I'm not sure about parens or brackets since it would look out of sync with the rest of the list, but I agree that avoiding spacing on the left side is the answer. Thanks. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 02:33, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I'd go with the unspaced slash. Using a different mark than the dash-for-range makes it clear that it's a different relationship. Definitely an IAR case, though. oknazevad (talk) 03:20, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

Other solvers should note (as I had not) that [] and () both already have meanings in the table. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:22, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

If the unspaced slash is adopted for December 1967/January 1968, then it I think it should also be adopted for other double-monthed issues such as May–June 1964 and September–October 1969. It's jarring to see both unspaced en dashes and a slash in the same table. Ozob (talk) 11:19, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

What about “May–June 1964 to March 1967 (142–172)”, “July 1967 to November 1967 (173–177)”, “Dec. 1967 – Jan. 1968 to July 1968 (178–182)”? The abbreviations are so that the ‘names’ of the issues take each roughly the same space. ― A. di M.​_plé​^dréachtaí 14:07, 13 May 2011 (UTC)

I don't know about Mr. Christie, but I find that ambiguous. I would work out that the first is {{May–June 1964} to March 1967}, not {May <1964>–{June 1964 to March 1967}}, but I would have to hesitate. An extra column (first/last/publisher) may be too crowded. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:04, 13 May 2011 (UTC)