Wikipedia's Manual of Style contains some conventions that differ from those in some other, well-known style guides and from what is often taught in schools. Wikipedia's editors have discussed these conventions in great detail and have reached consensus that these conventions serve our purposes best. New contributors are advised to check the FAQ and the archives to see if their concern has already been discussed.
Why does the Manual of Style recommend straight (keyboard-style) instead of curly (typographic) quotation marks and apostrophes (i.e., the characters " and ', instead of “, ”, ‘, and ’)?
Users may only know how to type in straight quotes (such as " and ') when searching for text within a page or when editing. Not all Web browsers find curly quotes when users type straight quotes in search strings.
This system is preferred because Wikipedia, as an international and electronic encyclopedia, has specific needs better addressed by logical quotation than by the other styles, despite the tendency of externally published style guides to recommend the latter. These include the distinct typesetters' style (often called American, though not limited to the US), and the various British/Commonwealth styles, which are superficially similar to logical quotation but have some characteristics of typesetters' style. Logical quotation is more in keeping with the principle of minimal change to quotations, and is less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing, than the alternatives. Logical quotation was adopted in 2005, and has been the subject of perennial debate that has not changed this consensus.
Why does the Manual of Style differentiate the hyphen (-), en dash (–), em dash (—), and minus sign (−)?
Appropriate use of hyphens and dashes is as much a part of literate, easy-to-read writing as are correct spelling and capitalization. The "Insert" editing tools directly below the Wikipedia editing window provide immediate access to all these characters.
Why does the Manual of Style recommend apostrophe+s for singular possessive of names ending in s?
Most modern style guides treat names ending with s just like other singular nouns when forming the possessive. The few that do not propose mutually contradictory alternatives. Numerous discussions have led to the current MoS guidance (see discussions of 2004, 2005, 2005, 2006, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2009, 2009, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2017, 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2021,
2022).
Why doesn't the Manual of Style always follow specialized practice?
Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field, such as academic journals, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for or examples of how to present those facts to non-experts. When adopting style recommendations from external sources, the Manual of Style incorporates a substantial number of practices from technical standards and field-specific academic style guides; however, Wikipedia defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles.
This page falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style articles
This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing.
This page is within the scope of the Wikipedia Help Project, a collaborative effort to improve Wikipedia's help documentation for readers and contributors. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks. To browse help related resources see the Help Menu or Help Directory. Or ask for help on your talk page and a volunteer will visit you there.Wikipedia HelpWikipedia:Help ProjectTemplate:Wikipedia Help ProjectHelp articles
Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to Concluded when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.
Help talk:Table#Indenting tables – Help page is conflicting with MOS:DLIST and MOS:ACCESS on a technical point. No objection to fixing it, and a suggestion to just do it WP:BOLDly, but the work actually has to be done. (Aug. 2023 –Jan. 2024)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks#Minor consolidation merge – To merge a line-item (about stylization of stage/pen names) out of MOS:INITIALS (where the one of the examples is only semi-pertinent anyway) and into MOS:TM, leaving behind a cross-reference to MOS:TM from MOS:NAMES. Because of some things that apply to personal not corporate names, this ended up not being practical; intead the MOS:BIO material was cleaned up and cross-references between the two MOS sections was improved; description at: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Minor overhauling. No objections or other issues have come up. (Nov.–Dec. 2023)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#MOS style for odds – About changing MOS:RATIOS to specify a format (new or otherwise) for betting-odds ratios. Result: No formal closure, but apparent general agreement that the : style for ratios in general applies to odds ratio in particular like the rest, and MOS:RATIOS updated to say this. (Oct.–Dec. 2023)
Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187#Proposed change MOS:TERRORIST – On how WP uses terms like "terrorist/terrorism" and "freedom fighter", specifically to add a requirement "these words should only be used in quotations or referencing third-party use of the term". Result: "nearly unanimously opposed". (Oct. 2023)
Talk:2023 Hawaii wildfires/Archive 2#Use of Hawaiian symbols in names – Involves MOS:HAWAII and could have implications for what the guideline says due to wildfire news bringing many more editorial eyes to that page than to WT:MOSHAWAII. Result: Archived without closure or any clear consensus; the general gist seems to be that the state of Hawaii is named Hawaii, the island is named Hawaiʻi, and diacritics (ʻokina and kahakō) should not be suppressed in the more localized names (and the US Geological Survey, which sets official placenames, along with the Hawaiʻi Board on Geographic Names, which basically tells USGS what to do in Hawaii/Hawaiʻi, both agree). (Aug.–Sep. 2023)
Talk:Bayes' theorem#Requested move 23 August 2023 – MOS:POSS stuff. Result: Not moved. Lots of invalid arguments, and confused attempt to pit WP:COMMONAME against MoS (COMMONNAME is not a style policy, never has been one, and never will be; every proposal to incorporate a style matter into a policy has failed). (Aug. 2023)
Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 August 5#Hyphen vs. En dash usage (Wikidata)? and d:Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2023/08#Hyphen vs. En dash to separate years of birth/death? – Relating to concordance between wikidata descriptions and enwiki "short description". Result: Good summary: "as long as you choose a comprehensible form, your edits are fine. However, you should not change existing descriptions for stylistic reasons, and also not to unify desriptions for a given set of items"; also observations that various languages, e.g. Spanish, do not use an en dash for this purpose. So, Wikidata will not be changing away from hyphen as default, and any desire to have WD material, like automatically provided short descriptions, will have to do that change on our end. (Aug. 2023)
Talk:SAG-AFTRA#Requested move 20 July 2023 – move to SAG–AFTRA like AFL–CIO, or is there a reason to hyphenate as SAG-AFTRA? Result: Not moved. The closer actually misunderstood the guideline wording badly, and this has created a WP:CONSISTENT policy failure with titles of other such entities including AFL–CIO, and the Famous Players-Lasky decision covered just below. This probably needs to be re-done. (July 2023)
Talk:Famous Players-Lasky#Requested move 24 June 2023 – proposal to use dash instead of hyphen. Result: Use the dash per MOS:DASH; a followup RM to add "Corporation" to the title rejected that idea despite WP:NCCORP supporting it, one of several recent RM incidents suggesting that at least some portions of the page do not enjoy consensus. (June–July 2023)
Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 182#RFC: MOS:GENDERID and the deadnames of deceased trans and nonbinary persons – Primarily about "When should Wikipedia articles include the former name of a deceased trans or nonbinary person who was not notable prior to transitioning?" Result: "there is a consensus against using the former names of transgender or non-binary people, living or dead, except when of encyclopedic interest or when necessary to avoid confusion. Also, there is clear consensus that a former name is not automatically of encyclopedic interest. Where, exactly, the lines of encyclopedic interest and avoiding confusion are is not simple or clear and will likely need discussion on individual articles, although there is definitely space for more guidance in the MOS". This has let to a lot of follow-on discussion and dispute. (May–June 2023)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#2022_archive#Neopronouns RfC (moved) – several options were under discussion, including singular they, using neo-pronouns like xie, always referring to subject by surname, etc. Result: strong consensus to use singular they for subjects who use neopronouns. (Oct.–Nov. 2022)
Talk:Winston-Salem, North Carolina#RfC about Info Box – involves MOS:INFOBOX and MOS:ICONS and should be a broader discussion than just about this single article. Summary: about 50% of our US city articles include highway signs in the infobox, which is very inconsistent. Result: Near-unanimous agreement to remove them, though this does not appear to have resulted in changes at other articles and probably should. (June–Sep. 2022)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#RfC on self-linking within article prose – Result: "There is a consensus that self-links within prose should be allowed and that linking should be based on editorial discretion." This is about linking to one section of an article from another section of the same article. (Nov. 2021 – Jan. 2022)
Talk:Rolling block#Case and hyphen – "rolling block action" vs. "rolling-block action", and "Remington Rolling Block breech" vs. "Remington rolling-block breech". Result: inconclusive discussion (May–Dec. 2021).
Talk:Love On Top#Requested move 25 April 2021 – Revisiting whether to capitalize the first word of a compound preposition even when that word is a short preposition; MOS:5LETTER might need a revision. Result: No consensus, not moved.
Talk:Woman on Top#Requested move 6 April 2021 – Multiple proposals like "Receiving partner on top", "On top (sex)", etc., motivated by gender and language-reform advocacy views. Result: essentially a WP:SNOW: "not moved, and with a reception likely to strongly discourage near-future requests. ... Consensus in this discussion is strongly in the direction that any such move would be OR/SYNTH violating article title policies."
Talk:War of 1812/Archive_29#Capitalisation of "house" and "senate" – as stand-alone terms in prose. Result: Not a formally closed discussion. In summary, shortened forms of names for institutions are not capitalized unless they are "a shorter but still specific form", not just a single generic word. The material at MOS:INSTITUTIONS probably could be clarified on the question, as this isn't the first time the matter has come up.
Talk:Hurricane Alley#Requested move 11 July 2024 – Call this the "Main Development Region" or "Main development region"? Result: "Main Development Region" without prejudice against considering "Main development region"; new RM opened.
Talk:Popverse#Redirect templates – Should the "avoided double redirect" tag to applied on a correctly capitalized redirect when there's a similar but miscapitalized redirect? Or should only the miscapitalized one be so tagged? Result – Removed tag from correctly capitalized Popverse as inappropriate, and left it on PopVerse which is miscapitalized.
Talk:IMP.#Requested move 9 June 2024 – All-caps for this shortened form of "Impactors"? Result: All-caps retained since sources seem to do that.
Talk:Pied-Noir#Lowercase – Lowercase "Pied-Noir" (or use "Pied-noir" or "Pieds-Noirs" or "Pieds-noirs" or "pieds-noirs")? Result: Lowercase "noirs", leaning lowercase for "pieds" as well.
Talk:Toy boy#Requested move 17 December 2023 – Should lowercase indicate a boy that is a toy rather than the title of some published works? Result: Yes; disambiguation moved to uppercase.
WT:WikiProject Freemasonry#Capitalization – Where do we draw the line of capitalization of offices and such in Freemasonry? Result: Some say just follow MOS:OFFICE, others want to follow Freemasonry's conventions. No clear consensus.
Talk:NTV Plus#Requested move 15 September 2023 – Is all-caps an appropriate distinction between Russian and Nepali TV channels? Result: No; use ordinary title case for proper name, not all-caps.
Talk:Sangaku#Capitalization: is the article title just an ordinary Japanese word borrowed into English, or a proper noun? (note - while the discussion was not formally closed, all instances are now in lowercase
Talk:Welsh Revolt#Requested move 30 July 2023 – Initially Welsh Revolt → Glyndŵr Rebellion but subsequently a question of capitalising the second word in any choice. Result: Lowercase "rebellion".
Talk:In Search of...#Requested move 10 October 2022 – Should the "of..." become "Of..." because it is the last word of the title? (a two-article RM) Result: Retain lowercase since truncation of a longer title is implied.
Talk:Lost Decades#Requested move 7 July 2022 – Lowercase "Decades", among other issues? Result: Not moved. The closer commented about primary topic status but did not comment about capitalization.
User talk:Snickers2686#MOS:JOBTITLES – "until [JOBTITLES is] applied consistently, which it isn't in this set of articles, then to me, it doesn't apply at all". – judges generally lowercased
Talk:National Historic Landmark#Requested move 18 January 2022 – Multimove to lowercase for "National Historic [Capitalized singular]", "National [Capitalized plural]", and "List of Historic [Capitalized plural]"? Result: Withdrawn after near-unanimous opposition to the central principle based on the linguistic concept of a proper name, noting consistent capitalization in sources.
Talk:g-force#Requested move 7 January 2022 – "g-force" or "G-force"? Result: RM procedurally closed (made no difference) and usage in article prose already changed to "g-force".
2021
RMs on capitalization of "Attorneys" and "Ambassadors" (or rephrasing to avoid the plural formal title): – all downcased
WT:AT#RFC on dash-separated titles for sports events 2 January 2022 – Capping of "Men's Singles" and "women's doubles"? Result: No consensus to ban dashes, no consensus on capitalization; consensus that capitalization should be worked out at WikiProject Tennis.
Support for … (unicode ellipsis, U+2026) is widespread now. The decision to prefer ... over …[1] was made 15-20 years ago when unicode support was nascent.[2]
Benefits of … (unicode ellipsis)
More accessible — screen readers can read "ellipsis" properly
more compact & readable. Better line breaks
renders with better fidelity using font glyph
scales better when zooming & with high-DPI devices like mobile phones
easier to parse (distinct unicode representation for character)
Eh, I'm not so sure about that. Curly quotes have drawbacks (e.g. being 'keyed', being more frequent to the degree where I would argue the extra byte substantially increases page sizes on average) that U+2026…HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS does not. Remsense诉18:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Gawaon's 1st sentiment that curly quotation marks/apostrophes should be discussed in the same vein as ellipses. Both deal with the distinction of ASCII representation vs. extended character maps. I don't think that their multi-byte effect on increased page size is of any concern. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The big BIG advantage of requiring straight quotes and period ... ellipses is that it doesn't allow yet another gratuitous style variation for gnomes to slow-war over. It looks fine, it works, it contributes to having a clean readable style instead of a fussy special-character-elaborated one. Why get rid of those advantages? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:57, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Though I said the opposite above, I think it might indeed make most sense to limit this to the ellipsis issue for now, since it would be a relatively small change – much smaller than changing the rules for quotes and apostrophes. So if this is changed now, the quote issue could possibly be reconsidered in a year or two, then taking into account the experience with the ellipsis change.
For the ellipsis, there are two possibilities:
Allowing both ... and … as equally valid options. Very easy change, but with the disadvantage that usage in any given page could then be mixed, annoying the typographically aware. Though the visible difference between ... and … is small (much smaller than "quotes" vs. “quotes”, I'd say – in fact, in our standard font I can hardly see it), so that shouldn't matter very much. Also, to prevent "slow-warring", we could make the rule that changing ... to … is allowed, but changing in the opposite direction is not. In that way, pages would slowly evolved in the typographically correct direction.
Requiring, from now on, that … is used, and deprecating ..., just like MOS:DASH has deprecated the use of single or double hyphens instead of dashes. This would ensure that there is a single standard all pages are meant to adhere to, so totally eliminating the risk of edit warring. The disadvantage, of course, is that there are 100,000s of pages (at least) that currently don't adhere to that standard. I suppose a bot could help with that change, but it would still be a giant task to bring them in adherence.
Bad idea. The point of an MoS is to be as consistent as possible. And changes would have to be implemented regardless; if you don't do anything, AWB, bots, and other automated tools will just continue changing them. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:10, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have no real preference for one or the other, but I oppose the change. It wouldn't be too much work for a bot to change all of one to another. Still I see no reason to mess with what's been working. Actually, I do prefer the three dots. Anyone can type ... and the … requires a bit more effort, and … displays differently depending on the font used, so sometimes looks odd. Mixed use looks sloppy and I really want to avoid that. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 11:48, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm wary of creating yet another challenge for new editors who want to do the right thing – we want to keep them. NebY (talk) 14:26, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would support mandating the unicode ellipsis. Adding this to the MOS wouldn't create any burden to new users – gnomes would simply bring articles into conformity over time. Graham11 (talk) 03:36, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
More likely some bot operator is going to get it into their head that this must be done immediately!!1! and make our watchlists unusable for several days while they crank through all the Wikipedia articles at a rate of several per second. How about let's don't. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:16, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
If the Unicode ellipsis is better for screenreaders, we should go for it. Just add an ellipsis option to the usual dash scripts. —Kusma (talk) 19:28, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any more reason to believe that it is better for screenreaders than to believe that it is worse for screenreaders? One could equally well write, if it is worse for screenreaders, then we should continue to eschew it. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:03, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
On a quick Google, I have found some accessibility blogs that advocate use of the ellipsis character over three dots. I have no idea how important it is in practice. —Kusma (talk) 20:19, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There seems to be a lot of helpful , ongoing discussion here. Could I ask for a partner to help manage the discussion and determine consensus? I don't know fully how to proceed and it's an important topic to make a decision on. Tonymetz💬22:47, 28 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm? I spoke out in favour of allowing … too, at least as alternative. I think having some kind of formal close on this wouldn't be bad. Of course, Tonymetz and we others involved in the discussion can't do it. Gawaon (talk) 05:53, 29 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Require semantically/typographically correct ellipsis per accessibility issues. Allow someone to type in three periods for convenience, but keep it deprecated and have semi-automated tools and bots change this as long as they are making other changes as well. Change all page and category titles as well with redirects from three dots. ―Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯23:07, 21 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a screen reader user, I've never heard of these accessibility issues ... screen readers can read three dots fine. It really doesn't need a mass change here. Graham87 (talk) 07:54, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
How mean of you. You've just taken away some gnome's purpose in life. (For those playing along at home, we've now got two Graham's Grahams in the conversation.) EEng13:59, 22 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Usually happens to me on Facebook. I'll correct some glaring typo in a meme-post, only to misspell or mispunctuate something in my own comment, and of course suffer a dogpile of derision! — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 17:45, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose any change - three dots is fine and easier to write. Then again, if it's not onerous to make a bot that turns every instance of ... into … after every single edit that includes ..., I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. BoldGnome (talk) 02:57, 12 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Notes
^
In some cases the obvious name is already taken, e.g.,
Allow either ... or …. I agree with the (minor) advantages of using the unicode character, but changing it everywhere seems like a huge waste of time and effort. We should just be agnostic about it, IMO. Nosferattus (talk) 18:14, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The problem with "allow either" is that in some fonts they look very different from each other. Having "..." and "…" near each other looks pretty bad to me. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 20:46, 20 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The … glyph is virtually illegible to many of us with poor eyesight, and offers zero advantages of any kind. It's not something easily typed, it saves no space/bandwidth that we actually need saved, it will not be consitently treated in searches, and it is vastly worse for legibility. It also doesn't look consistent in all typefaces when combined with .: …. It really has nothing going for it at all. Just because the Unicode Consortium for its own internal reasons decided to create a codepoint for something doesn't make it magically the best thing for WP to use for its own purposes. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 06:26, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply] PS: The "more accessible" claim could be "something going for it", but if and only if there is actual proof that screen readers have some kind of problem with "..." (the three periods version). I've never encountered any evidence to suggest this, much less any to suggest that the pre-composed "…" character is superior in this regard, but that's a question for which the MOS:ACCESS regulars should be consulted. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 17:49, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When you say "virtually illegible", you mean in monospace fonts, right? In other fonts, … and ... should (and do) mostly look fairly similar. Gawaon (talk) 07:24, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
To find out how many inlinks there are to the old section title and what articles have them, you can execute this advanced searchthis advanced search, changing article to the name of the article, and oldsection to the old section title. If there are only a small number of links to the old section title, it's better to just update them..
I recently noticed that a bunch of users have added unneeded embedded section anchors after renaming a section header, presumably because they don't know how to find out if there are any articles that link to the old section title or not, and if so, how many of them there are. Imho, embedded section anchors should only be added when necessary, as they create squirrely wikicode which may mystify other editors, or discourage them from making further changes to the section header which may be warranted. To reduce the scope of this issue, increase transparency about section inlinks, and limit the number of unneeded embedded anchors being created especially when there are no incoming links at all (a good proportion of them), I added the note. (A secondary problem, much less serious imho, is users using the problematic, unsubsted version identified at MOS:SECTIONANCHOR as resulting in undesirable behavior.)
I would appreciate additional eyeballs on this note, both the wording as well as any comments on the generic advanced search terms. I am aware that the search doesn't include everything (notably, will not find links from articles using {{slink}} to target it) or exclude (nowiki's, html comments) but I am trying to keep the input search term field simple-looking enough that a user unfamiliar with advanced search won't be afraid to try it, so it's kind of a balancing act how complex to make it. That said, if there's anything egregiously missing or wrong with it, or if it can be significantly improved without degrading usability, please do comment, or just adjust it. Adding @PrimeHunter, Sdkb, Trialpears, Qwerfjkl, Colin M, Quiddity, and Rjjiii:. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 23:13, 26 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for adding this tip! Marginally related, is there some way to find all broken section anchors pointing to some article? I would find that extremely helpful in order to improve the integration of a page that has underdone a lot of reorganization over time so that this method of looking for broken section links by name is not practical. Gawaon (talk) 06:08, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Mathglot: If you go to the link and then change the terms to what you want before clicking search it finds all links to that section in articles, but if you edit the link and go to it directly, it searches in all pages. Is that fine? – 2804:F1...A9:64C1 (talk) 03:51, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Not entirely sure I understand; are you trying to draw a distinction between searching only articles (i.e., main space) and searching all namespaces (articles, Talk pages, User pages, Wikipedia project pages and so on)? If so, we can do that by adding search term :all and perhaps we should. I've updated the search link in the explanatory note to search all namespaces, pending any objections or other comments on this aspect of it. Mathglot (talk) 04:07, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I meant that the link included profile=all, so editing the link itself would result in searching all pages (any namespace), but going to the link and then editing the terms and clicking search would result in searching only in articles.
Anyways, now the :all is not* doing anything, try for example, searching for :all linksto:"Banana" insource:/[[|]Banana\#/ vs without the :all (but with all namespaces selected).
(edit conflict) The problem is not in the link, but in your example. If you choose an article name which has no links outside mainspace, like Banana, then the correct behavior is that there is no difference with or without the :all search term. Try an example like "Vichy France" which has some inlinks from mainspace, as well as other namespaces.
Secondly, although that will actually work correctly, even without a section name, this whole issue is part of the clarification of section § Section headings in the MOS, so really applies more to that case. For that, you can try examples like "Vichy France#Collaborationnistes". (ec) Mathglot (talk) 04:42, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for that; I must've been assuming the wrong functionality for :all; I need to look at that again. Your workaround works, but should be doable without it, assuming there is a search prefix or pseudo-term that activates that; let me check. If you know what it is, please post it. Mathglot (talk) 04:51, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Adding that sentence about searching redirects as well looks like an improvement to me. Even if there's a way to do that via advanced search (instead of What links here), Cirrus doesn't support alternation, so you can't have the union of two searches in one query, afaik; plus, that might get into "too complex" territory even if we could, so I think your approach is the right one, here. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 21:17, 28 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Working out the best cross-namespace way to do this will be good, as would including advice about it somewhere. I would suggest making this be a "Help:" page or a section at a pre-existing one, and then cross-referencing it from MoS, rather than making it part of MoS (how to search for links of various sorts is not an MoS matter in and of itself). After it is worked out, using it to fix all links to MoS and other guideline and policy sections, and then removing no-longer-needed anchor tags and anchor spans inside headings in these pages would be a boon. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 05:27, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe, but the body text in the MoS is already pretty technical: "Before changing a heading, consider whether you might be breaking existing links to it. If there are many links to the old title,[i] create an anchor with that title to ensure that these still work."
Greetings, all. The Manual of Style contains this direction: "By default, write articles in the present tense, including those covering works of fiction and products or works that have been discontinued. Generally, use past tense only for past events, and for subjects that are dead or no longer meaningfully exist."
Yet, a number of biographical articles about living peopleuse the present perfect tense when referring to persons currently serving in various capacities of public life. E.g. "George has served since July 10, 2024," which, at the very least creates confusion between an ongoing situation and a past one.
I propose we move to the use of the present perfect continuous tense (also known as the present perfect progressive tense), which would result in a clear and unambiguous presentation:
Personally, I think the first option reads much better than the second. Not confusing or ambiguous in any way. Perfectly normal English. No idea if this is a WP:ENGVAR issue, but that's certainly what I'd write (I write in British English). -- Necrothesp (talk) 12:33, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I write in American English and I agree that for the example provided, "has served" is preferable to "has been serving". Either would be acceptable, but I don't see a reason to encourage the latter, nor do I see how the former is ambiguous. If it was a past situation, would it not be, "George served from July 10, 2024 until..."? DonIago (talk) 14:01, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean "it reads much better"? This is not about aesthetics, but about clarity. We're talking about current, ongoing events, exactly what the relevant MoS section is about. "Have [verb in past tense]" is unnecessarily ambiguous. Simple present would suffice. But since it has through some back handed way become the norm to use "has served" for people in public life, a turn that smells of puffery, as well, I'm suggesting something simple and sensible. It's a compromise between the simple present tense and the peacock. -The Gnome (talk) 16:57, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"Has served" is not in the past tense and creates no ambiguity. Someone who has served in a position since February is unambiguously still in that position. There is no need to change "has served" to "has been serving", and parsimony weighs against it. AlsoWukai (talk) 18:28, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I really have no idea why you think there is a lack of clarity or any puffery in "has served", which is completely normal English. Mystifying. -- Necrothesp (talk) 09:38, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While we're talking specifically about "persons currently serving in various capacities of public life", how about dropping the whole "serving" idea entirely? It's meaningless excess:
"George has been serving as chairman of Globcorp since 2014" --> "George has been chairman of Globcorp since 2014"
"George has served as chairman" --> "George has been chairman"
Agree. I could not support more strongly the entire elimination of the verb "to serve" in all these cases, which are the ones that gave cause for this submission. "Keith Starmer is the prime minister." No deference, no confusion. -The Gnome (talk) 16:57, 10 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This is addressed at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Statements likely to become outdated (MOS:CURRENT), which begins Except on pages that are inherently time-sensitive and updated regularly and has among its examples "not she is the current director but she became director on 1 January 2024". Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch#Relative time references has the example The information that "The current president, Alberto Fernández, took office in 2019", or "Alberto Fernández has been president since 2019", is better rendered "Alberto Fernández became president in 2019". Saying that George was appointed, elected, took office or merely became foo on 10 July 2024 will remain correct even when George eventually suffers termination or promotion, and works without any value-laden terms such as "serve" or "tyrannise". NebY (talk) 13:56, 11 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I concur also. At some point, we probably do need to directly address the "served as" language in particular, because disputation about this has been frequently recurrent for many years (i.e., it passes the WP:MOSBLOAT test). But it's something that belongs in MOS:WTW, not the main MOS page or MOS:BIO, because it's not a general editing principle, really, but a trivial matter of a particular biased and unhelpful wording choice. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 16:56, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The Gnome, were you perhaps thinking that "present tense" in this rule meant "specifically and exclusively the simple present"? It doesn't. Any present-tense form is acceptable under this rule. That means you can – when appropriate to the content – use the simple present, present perfect, present continuous, or present perfect continuous and still be in compliance with this rule. Perhaps a more accurate rule would be "use the verb tense that accurately reflects time; do not say that 'He is born in the 19th century' or that 'He will be born in the 19th century'; also, do not say that 'Algebra was a branch of mathematics', as if that's not still true at the present time." We aren't trying to restrict brilliant prose with this rule; we're trying to get people not to use the present tense for long-dead people or the past tense for still-living ones. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:57, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The mere fact that you are, rightfully, trying to clarify the application of the proper tense shows that interpreting the "meaning" of the term "present tense" leads to speculation. There is no endorsement of "any" present-tense form; if it were so, the definition would be different, i.e. "any present-tense form." All we have is simply "present tense," which leads to the simple present-tense.
Nonetheless, interesting proposals have been submitted above that could allow us to escape the vagueness. What do you think? -The Gnome (talk) 20:09, 13 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For reasons already given above by others, several of these present variants are not desirable because they lead to "and this continues to the present moment" implications which may not actually be true except in an article that is being very actively edited on a daily basis. And the WP:MOSBLOAT sniff test is not passed by verbiage like WhatamIdoing suggested; editors are not actually likely to write something like "is born in the 19th century" or "will be born in the 19th century", so we have no reason to include such example verbiage in this guideline (in fact, we have a clear rationale to exclude it). No one seems to be confused by the meaning of this section other than one editor, and other editors here have already clarified to that person what the meaning really is, so there is no actual problem to resolve. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 02:55, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have added wikilinks to Present tense and Past tense#English to reduce the risk of confusion about what these terms means. I agree that otherwise the text of the section doesn't need to be changed. However, maybe the examples could be extended to include a few cases of the present perfect and other non-simple tense forms? Gawaon (talk) 04:09, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My comment is I don't see what the problem is. Use present tense the mos says, and so why the complaint when the present tense is used? Perfect simple or perfect continuous would be decided by the context, but they are both present tenses. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 05:26, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with that. My point was that the examples in MOS:TENSE use the simple present six times and the simple past four times (if I counted correctly). Other variants such as perfect or continuous/progressive forms aren't used at all. Adding a few reasonable examples of their usage wouldn't hurt. Gawaon (talk) 06:28, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
By default, write articles in the present tense applies most of all to the opening of an article, as the examples demonstrate. It doesn't mean we write the whole article in the present tense. Elsewhere we have The Ford Model Tis an automobile that was produced ..., and our BLPs are almost entirely in the past tense after the initial "<Subject> is". NebY (talk) 11:31, 14 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Would the participants in this discussion find worthwhile a Request for Comments on the issue? I'm thinking that the matter of the peacock verbiage, e.g. "served," which was pointed out here, is important enough to lend support to an RfC. -The Gnome (talk) 15:10, 19 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This comes up all the time with association football. Can we put it in to formalize that articles written in Canadian, American, or Australian English will use "Soccer" while those in British English will use "football". I see it changed back and forth so often, so while it technically is covered through LANGVAR, having it listed as a specific example can make it cut and dry. RedPatch (talk) 17:58, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The problem is that Wikipedia is an international encyclopaedia with an international audience. When I (Australian) think of "football" I think of Australian rules football. Australians from some other states think of rugby. Americans think of grid iron. Brits think of association football. We are all utterly convinced that our local name is the correct name and that the others are all wrong. So, calling it "football" is simply not feasible. Stepho talk21:44, 17 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm inclined to agree that we shouldn't overtly cite ArbCom in-text, since policy is set by a consensus of editors and not by ArbCom; but I think that the When either of two styles is acceptable it is inappropriate for a Wikipedia editor to change from one style to another unless there is some substantial reason for the change quote reasonably expresses current consensus, so we can just move it to the voice of the MOS. I also think that a footnote about the ArbCom cases is useful for historical reasons. (Also, I forgot to mention, I added "generally" to it because I feel that the voice of the MOS should generally be less rigidly declarative than an ArbCom decision and because having it as a quote put it at a remove - just changing it to the MOS-voice without adding that would have seemed like it was being made into an absolute red-line requirement, which I don't think it was or is.) --Aquillion (talk) 20:23, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Could you spell out what would it say? I had a quick look at the discussions you linked to which were quite long. 2 had closings. They seemed to br inconclusive. DeCausa (talk) 15:43, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That may not be as good and workable a principle as it seems. In other situations, we've had accusations that sources were selected so that their terminology would be used. In this one, we may also find that RSs on slavery/enslavement in general have shifted to a different extent than sources on specific areas and/or periods eg Ancient Greece or Rome. NebY (talk) 17:28, 23 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah… Not sure if this is a case of “venue shopping” (the two threads were started by different people), but it is never productive to have two threads about the same issue at different venues at the same time. Suggest we close this thread and continue over at VP(p). Blueboar (talk) 12:16, 24 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Hello! I was recently made aware that there is a consensus within the Middle-earth WikiProject to not use lead images in certain articles unless the images were created by J.R.R. Tolkien. (Please see the character pages Gandalf, Saruman and Frodo Baggins for examples). The reason is that they do not want to give undue weight to one particular interpretation of a character that originated in literature and was therefore not depicted visually.
This (in my view) goes against the MOS guidelines to (A) "give readers visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page" and to (B) "avoid lead images that readers would not expect to see there." (For example, I feel that the lead image on the Gandalf page violates both of these guidelines.) Additionally, the MOS states that lead images should be "technically well-produced" and that it is "common for the lead image to be representative because it provides a visual association for the topic, and allow readers to quickly assess if they have arrived at the right page." I find some of the Middle-earth articles to be problematic in relation to these guidelines as well.
I'm also wondering why the WikiProject is allowed to make this call. Other pages for literary characters that have film versions use lead images from the films, such as Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen, and Jay Gatsby. In the case of Gandalf, a film still could be used, or one of the paintings created of him by a professional artist. It strikes me as strange that a WikiProject can dictate such an important part of article content and presentation, especially because lead images are not exclusive to Middle-earth articles.
On the narrow question of whether a Wikiproject can "make this call", a Wikiproject is a collection of editors interested in a particular topic or set of articles. They have no unique competency to "dictate" anything, but they are nonetheless appropriate places for a consensus among editors to be formed, and that consensus can be referred to support article editing. WP:Consensus can change of course, either at that Wikiproject or through a wider community process, but it is quite normal for Wikiprojects to work out some standard editing expectations among their particular article scope. CMD (talk) 08:14, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Wafflewombat: Without actually looking into the history here, I would imagine that at some point there was a lot of dispute, even edit-warring, concerning which image should be the lead image. Sometimes, people can't agree, and it falls to a neutral observer to assist on determining a consensus upon which all can agree - even though, for some people, such consensus won't necessarily be the desired outcome. So it may well be that a firm decision was made to permit only the Tolkein images. Naturally, some people will have objected, and may still do so, but at least we can point to a particular discussion and say "it was agreed here". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:51, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think many of the same considerations as in Wikipedia:Historical portraits and pictures (on ahistorical interpretations of people for whom we have no contemporary image) apply. Illustrations and portraits should not be included merely to decorate articles; they should serve an encyclopedic purpose by informing readers. When we have reason to believe that an image is vacuous, misleading, or uninformative, we should not use it. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:11, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Using images from major interpretations of the LOTR (such as films or illustrations from official editions) doesn't seem likely to be vacuous or misleading. Restricting illustrations to only those by Tolkien himself seems to me to be grounded in a purist/proscriptivist approach, that there is only one correct interpretation of these characters, rather than neutrally describing the character as it has been portrayed. The result is that the articles linked above either have no depiction of the character or one that is not well-suited to a lead image, and the informative value of the lead suffers.
WikiProjects do good work, but this an issue that could benefit from broader discussion and consensus. I don't see anything unique about LOTR characters that would require a fundamentally different approach than any other article on a fictional character with myriad interpretations.--Trystan (talk) 18:30, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:HEAD says that sentence case should be used for section headings. But I'm never sure what to do with section headings that begin with years - should the first letter after the year be capitalised or not? e.g. should it be
The first. For this purpose, "2000" is the first word. Maybe it would help to illustrate this application of sentence case with a sentence that starts with a number (though it breaks the rule against doing so)? 24 flamingos escape.24 Flamingos escape. NebY (talk) 10:34, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I can't figure out if the MOS applies to text produced by templates, and if so, what special provisions exist. Most templates do not produce full grammatical sentences rather abbreviated text. For example the large corpus of external link templates. Like {{IMDb name}} produces "Marlon Brando at IMDb" and not "Marlon Brando at the IMDb" which is the recommended way per MOS:INSTITUTION, and to be grammatically correct. There are 100s if not 1000s of examples like this producing abbreviated text.
I'm not currently seeking opinions, but am looking for help to find existing MOS, guidelines or discussions. -- GreenC02:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think the "full sentence" would be "Marlon Brando at IMDb.com" which is why it why it was shortened without the ".com" part. Gonnym (talk) 06:56, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
a) Neither ("MB at" or "MB at the") are full sentences, and whether they are or not has no bearing on the matter the OP raised. b) MOS:INSTITUTION doesn't require "the" before the name ("… at the Yale University"?) -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:31, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Re: b): Unless it's part of the name: "The University of Calgary". Though I see that it really addresses capitalization, not grammatical articles. —DocWatson42 (talk) 08:18, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The general point, however, that templates should be configured to generate output that conforms with the MoS is an entirely sound one. MapReader (talk) 16:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Of course templates should conform to the MOS. This is the first I've ever heard of somebody suggesting that they not conform. That probably explains why, at least AFAIK, nowhere do we have some explicit statement that "this all applies to template output, too". It's simply generally assumed that it's the case, so there's nothing to cite for you.
I don't see what's so grammatically correct about "Marlon Brando at the IMDb"; I think most people wouldnt talk or write that way. If you are trying to say that the "the" is required because it's the Internet Movie Database, then maybe, maybe if it were written out like that, a preceding "the" might be cool. But surely few people call IMDb by the original, long name. Otherwise we'd have to talk about "the NASA launching another rocket". — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits)20:55, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, the use of "the" depends on common usage. People say "the BBC" but they don't say "the NASA", even though both "the British Broadcasting Corporation" and "the National Aeronautics and Space Administration" use "the" when written in full. So just "at IMDb" is fine because no one (I think?) says "the IMDb". Popcornfud (talk) 22:07, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It can be confusing whether or not to use the definite article before acronyms. Sometimes it's very subtle: when writing about railway companies in the UK, pre-1948 railway acronyms usually take the definite article, post-1948 railway acronyms don't. So we might have "the GWR", which refers to the Great Western Railway of 1835-1947, and "GWR" which refers to Great Western Railway (train operating company), created in 1996 but which only adoped that name in 2015. Similarly, there are "the LNER" of 1923-1947, and "LNER" of 2018 on. I don't think that we can (or should) write a one-size-fits-all rule. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 23:23, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yep, like I said, common usage. Why is it "the White House" but just "Bush House"? Why is it "the Eiffel Tower" but just "Tokyo Tower"? No reason, no logic, just common usage. Popcornfud (talk) 23:47, 8 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
When discussion has ended, remove this tag and it will be removed from the lists. If this page is on additional lists, they will be noted below.
In many articles about living persons, and particularly about persons in positions of authority, e.g. member of parliament, corporation CEO, city councilor, etc, the lead paragraph often uses the verb "to serve" in denoting the person's work." E.g. "Ms Smith serves/has been serving/has served as member of the XYZ Board of Directors." In this related discussion, the issue was raised about the potential for meaningless excess in that term's use. (Here's a useful essay on that.) This, of course, applies to biographies about persons no longer living.
Comments are invited on the following options:
A Use any simple form of "to be," e.g. "Smith is Acme Ltd auditor."
B Continue to use "serve" in biographies, e.g. "Smith serves as Acme Ltd auditor."
I would go with B, which does continue to reflect both formal proper, and common, usage, particularly in fields like politics and public office. But both forms are of course perfectly correct and acceptable. MapReader (talk) 19:56, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither. This is not something that needs a broad rule. Either form is acceptable, as are other options. My most common experience is that people use "serve" to capitalize a title while complying with MOS:JOBTITLE, going for "served as President of Aybeeceedia" instead of "was the president of Aybeeceedia", which seems like a silly workaround but whatever. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 22:51, 12 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A is/was reflects everyday speech. To my ears 'served as' always sounds either pompous or somewhat euphemismistic, he "served as President of Aybeeceedia", but wasn't really 'up to scratch'!Pincrete (talk) 07:00, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither per FFF, the euphemism angle is understandable in some cases but this also seems within the bounds of quite common language variation. CMD (talk) 07:12, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither – is should be fine most of the time, but synonyms are not forbidden, and the occasional usage of serve, even if maybe a bit pompous and not strictly needed, does no harm. Gawaon (talk) 07:20, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A is preferable in almost all cases; "serve" is appropriate for military personnel and the like (and also for waiters and tennis players!), but is empty WP:PEACOCKery in other cases. Better to stick to plain English (but hoping this is not something we're going to embody or enforce in yet another MOS rule). Justlettersandnumbers (talk) 08:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither - both are acceptable. Also, it isn’t a dualistic choice… consider that there are other verbs besides “served” and “was” that might be appropriate. Don’t be formulaic when writing. Blueboar (talk) 12:18, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A since any variant of "serve" denotes a positive attribute, which goes against WP:NPOV. It's not a neutral verb no matter how many clothes we try to dress it with. The opening paragraph of WP:WTW is explicit: "Certain expressions should be used with caution because they may introduce bias. Strive to eliminate expressions that are flattering, vague, or endorsing of a particular viewpoint." -The Gnome (talk) 14:14, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's not positive or negative. Adolf Hitler served as Führer of the Third Reich! Reinhard Heydrich served in the SS. It's completely neutral. I'm mystified as to why anyone should think it was not NPOV. -- Necrothesp (talk) 14:44, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither because we don't need any more WP:CREEPY rules. He served as president, he was the president, he held the position of president, he worked as president, he became president, he was elected/appointed as president, he took office as president... Any of these will do under most situations. The idea of Public service being a form of service (as in servants, as in the opposite of powerful people seeking their own aggrandizement) is not a form of peacocking, nor is it a euphemism. It may be aspirational (the rest of us hope that the politician will serve the country instead of his own interests), but there's nothing inherently or egregiously non-neutral about it, especially when applied to people who didn't exploit their roles to harm others. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:47, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No rule needed. Here, there is more than one way to say something, and variety can still make for good, and interesting writing (also, 'serve' is not hard to understand in the example given, rather the NPOV or related arguments are much too strained, when not baffling). As an aside, we should probably not usually write, 'someone is job', rather than, 'someone is broad occupation', followed by where they have served in that occupation. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:07, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
No rule, please. Either one could be at least annoying to too many editors and possibly disruptive if applied to existing text. There are figures in history of whom I wouldn't use "serve" – Caligula served as emperor from AD 37? – but we wouldn't need a MOS rule for that. NebY (talk) 18:16, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither, as both are appropriate for many articles and editors can use their heads—even if this freedom results in the occasional awkward lead sentence. As my troublesome nitpick, I actually do think serve has a vaguely positive connotation compared to the bare copula—but I don't think it matters enough, as every word has a web of connotations and none is truly neutral in every situation. Doesn't register as a WP:W2W in any case. Remsense诉18:21, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither --- WP:LOCATIONLOCATIONLOCATION, which The Gnome linked in his OP, is my essay, and I'm flattered. However, we don't need a rule on this. My objection to served as is that it's usually surplusage; but it has its uses now and then, and I don't see any kind of flattery or peacock-iness in it. But I will say that, applied to Hilter, it does take some of the edge off to say he "served". That's for sure the wrong word to use for him. EEng19:38, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
This needs to be said: The term "to serve" is being pronounced neutral in this discussion by sundry contributors. Is it really? Because if an ostensibly neutral term cannot be used at the extremes, it cannot be used anywhere. The Hitler example trumps all arguments to the contrary. It cannot be made more clear. -The Gnome (talk) 19:59, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That sounds a bit extreme. Remsense said it well: no word is truly neutral in every situation. So if that's the thing to aim for, we may as well shut down this website and all go home. Gawaon (talk) 20:03, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think us editors are particularly vulnerable to logocentric fallacies—i.e. we're liable to treat the lexical word as the predominant or even only issuer of meaning, while affording phrases, sentences, and other composites no credence to really influence what connotations individual words must themselves possess. Remsense诉20:48, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Neither I have no problem with Richard Nixon saying that he served as the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. That's not euphemistic and is normal English, even though most presidential historians rank him poorly. Cullen328 (talk) 20:19, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That’s because some of us are imputing some sense of merit or sacrifice into the term “serve”, which isn’t really there. Serve can mean simply fulfilling a purpose, or function, and there is plenty of common usage where no merit is implicit, such as “serving as a bad example”. MapReader (talk) 04:28, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
So, me saying to someone Thank you for your service, for example to a veteran soldier, denotes nothing positive whatsoever; it is an abject expression of thanks for wearing a uniform, and nothing more. And, logically, I could express the same thankful sentiment to a traitor soldier. -The Gnome (talk) 14:41, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Either, see wikt:serve#Verb, particularly entries 1.2, 1.4, 8, 12. There are contexts where the word "serve" is non-neutral, such as smiling politely whilst putting meals in front of customers in restaurants despite a torrent of verbal abuse, but the original post gives "Ms Smith serves/has been serving/has served as member of the XYZ Board of Directors." as an example, and that is different from plate-juggling. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:06, 13 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A or some other neutral alternative that suits the context. "Serves/served/serving" is a WP:NPOV failure, in being promotional and (positively) judgmental language. An argument could possibly be made to retain those terms for military and maybe even governmental functions, but even those uses have their long-term opponents. It's entirely inappropriate for corporate and other misc. organizational (school, team/squad, nonprofit/NGO, etc.) roles. PS: The fact that we have a bunch of articles doing this just means we have a bunch of articles to clean up. Cf. WP:FAITACCOMPLI and WP:NOWORK. — SMcCandlish☏¢ 😼 02:18, 14 August 2024 (UTC)[reply]
-The Gnome (talk) 14:36, 14 August 2024 (UTC)
