Manual of Style

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. For information on Wikipedia's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Wikipedia policies of Wikipedia's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

See here for the first part of this discussion.

"Where more than one style is acceptable under the Manual of Style, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason."

There have recently been multiple removals and reinstatements of the words I've highlighted above. The clarification has been there since at least early this year. In the larger context, it's clear that the intended meaning is "optional styles" under the MOS, not optional styles in the view of anyone who wants to push their local likes and dislikes. The meaning is clinched by the final statement: "Discuss style issues on the MoS talk page."

This is why we have a MOS: to minimise style disputes in the articles themselves. All respectable publishers have a style guide.

Removing the phrase means that editors have to winkle this out of the broader wording. Is the motivation to diminish the MOS to something we don't really need, on the likelihood that some editors might miss the point? That would be to stifle the long-established function of the MOS in centralising debate and resolution here, so that article talkpages can get on with the already-difficult business of writing balanced and referenced content.

Tony (talk) 02:06, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See the section Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Retaining above. I don't think there is any difference of meaning: there is no other sense in which a style could be acceptable on Wikipedia, except for being acceptable under the manual of style. However, the new language could be misunderstood to mean that only things explicitly mentioned in the MOS need to be retained. That reading is not correct, because styles can be acceptable even if they are not mentioned at all in the MOS, as long as the MOS doesn't require some other style. So the language that was removed could only cause confusion, I believe. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:10, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

One might ask why there's an edit-war if there is no difference of meaning. Second, it's not "new language"—it's been there for nearly a year. Tony (talk) 02:17, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

What difference of meaning do you see - in what sense could a style be acceptable on Wikipedia without being acceptable "under the MOS"? — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:23, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Very well, if we think the provision could be read that way, amplify the wording to prevent that reading. One way to do this is by replacing the existing text:

For some elements of style, there is more than one format that is acceptable. In general, the Arbitration Committee has ruled that editors should not change articles between acceptable formats "unless there is some substantial reason for the change" (unrelated to the choice of style or the preference of the editor), and that edit-warring between optional styles is unacceptable.

with:

On some points MOS sets out two or more acceptable options, any one of which may be used consistently in an article. Do not change an article from one MOS-approved option to another without giving a definite substantive reason. Do not edit-war over styles that MOS declares to be optional. And generally, do not edit-war over any matter of styling; discuss the matter on the article's talkpage, or at the MOS talkpage if the matter is of wider relevance.

Tony (talk) 04:34, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tony, I'm not opposed to including "under the Manual of Style" if I'm convinced that the possible misunderstandings that others have pointed out can be avoided, but I think the wording you suggest above is worse. Specifying that the options have to be "MOS-approved" makes it appear that any option not specifically listed in the MoS is not protected by this clause. I understand that the reverse concern is that this might be used to game the system, but I'm having a hard time seeing how anyone could plausibly make that case. If you or one of the other commenters can point at a discussion where someone seriously tried to use the wording to game the system, I might be more sympathetic to leaving "under the Manual of Style" in place. Without that evidence it seems unnecessary at best, and misleading at worst. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:22, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Mike, I'd accept the reinstatement of "under the Manual of Style" as sufficient clarification. You say that you're "having a hard time seeing how anyone could plausibly make that case". OK, here's just one smoking gun (also requested by Carl), in which the sentence is quoted (without the clarification) to justify opposition to LQ—in a featured article no less—by appeal to the very wording under discussion. Here's another example, in which the same sentence is used to support an editor's personal preference for not using the serial comma, disregarding the technical advice provide in the MOS on this matter. Tony (talk) 04:50, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for the examples. The correct response to those comments would have been that, no, a style is not acceptable if the MOS says it is not acceptable, because the MOS is what determines acceptability for Wikipedia. On some matters, the MOS makes a requirement; on others it allows variation; on others it is silent and any reasonable style is acceptable. I don't think the new language resolves the issue I am bringing up, however, which is that the new language would allow me to find a style issue which is not mentioned by the MOS and then begin to change it on numerous articles. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yet see all the "tautology" stuff below. Clearly, at least one editor does not at all accept that when WP:POLICY pages say something that this is in any way definitive. Unless they like what the page says; the same editor takes exactly the opposite approach to the WP:CITEVAR guideline and treats it like Holy Writ, in ways that are detrimental to the project. There's a cadre over at WP:CITE convinced of the completely unreasonable interpretation that someone making up their own completely idiosyncratic citation "style" out of nowhere must be respected, and that people are within their rights to fight against citation formatting changes of even the smallest technical kind, even if they're a functional improvement with no visible effect on the article. This is a "let chaos reign as long as I can totally own my article" meme that needs to be put to rest and cannot be allowed to spread to other guidelines, which is exactly what's going on here.

Anyway, the community already takes a dim view of going page by page making identical trivial changes; that guy that was doing nothing but edits to "comprised of" every day was stopped at WP:ANI, and we have an actual rule against bots doing such things. Just because there's not an explicit, detailed rule against something doesn't mean people can do it disruptively, per WP:GAMING and WP:LAWYER. Drawing on another thread on this same talk page: prove it's a problem. Show us anyone going around WP changing page after page for purely stylistic reasons that are not covered in MoS, and against objections. (If there is such a case, it's probably a candidate for a new line item in MoS, whether pro or con or neither, especially if people are fighting over it.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:37, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Your responses are too verbose for my reading comprehension to keep up with - could you please try to keep to your main point? For an example of people making up styles not mentioned in the MOS and then trying to implement them across lots of articles, see this thread on the Village Pump as we speak: [1]. A handful of AWB operators made up a rule that adjacent footnotes must be in increasing order - despite complete silence of the MOS on that issue - and added code to AWB to enforce their new rule everywhere they run AWB. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:50, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@CBM: Repeat: we have an actual rule against automated tools doing such things. This is the WP:COSMETICBOT policy. The Village Pump discussion you point to is not an MoS matter at all, it's a WP:CITEVAR matter. While, like anything on WP, a consensus could conclude to codify some kind of technical exception to COSMETICBOT, that RfC is clearly not going to do that, and is is going to close with COSMETICBOT enforced, because the objections to what that AWB script is doing are substantive and tied to WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR policy, while the support for the script amounts to WP:ILIKEIT preference for numeric ordering. Did you have an example that actually relates to MoS and is not effectively moot already? PS: WP consists almost entirely of paragraphs of text; I'm skeptical that me using two of them above, to make clear and relevant points, is actually too much for you, or WP would not be your hobby. :-)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:08, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When this language came in last April 11, the intent was clear: to close a loophole that some had used to misinterpret the intent. SMcCandlish's edit summary said "Closing another WP:GAMING / WP:LAWYER loophole." Not a change of meaning, but a preventative, to help prevent arguments that "acceptable" meant acceptable in some context somewhere, as opposed to in the MOS. This seems important. The fact that SlimVirgin, a long-time opponent of central style guidance, would want to take it out seems important, too. Why that? Dicklyon (talk) 05:35, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'd be interested to see a link to a discussion in which this was misinterpreted as you describe. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:11, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that a link to that discussion would be helpful; I asked for it above as well. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:44, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Tony has linked examples above. In particular, it was SlimVirgin who invoked exactly this loophole here et seq. in arguing that going against WP:LQ was an "acceptable style". Dicklyon (talk) 05:21, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Dicklyon: I'm not opposed to central style guidance, and I also took out the language. Because I think it doesn't change the meaning, but can be misunderstood to suggest that RETAIN only applies to things explicitly mentioned in the MOS. The issue of central style guidance is separate, because a style is not acceptable at all if the MOS says it is not, so the existing language covers this. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:47, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yet multiple editors have explained what the meaning change is, and why it's needed. How many times do we need to re-re-re-explain it?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:02, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Let me explain the source of my concern. There is a cadre of editors, many of whom are fond of AWB, who like to invent their own style rules unrelated to the MOS. The principle RETAIN helps keep them from deciding the randomly go through thousands of article making a change from one style to another on matters that the MOS does not discuss at all. That kind of style instability is not desirable - the right way to achieve the change would be to come here and discuss it, and then implement it only once there is consensus to add the style to the MOS. We don't want to suggest that any style that is not explicitly mentioned in the MOS can be changed at whim, but the new language does this. If we wanted to clarify that, once the MOS chooses a set of styles, no other style is acceptable, that would be reasonable to me - I am not "anti-MOS". But the language that was added does not do that, it does something else. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:55, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@CBM: It does exactly what it was intended to do: it instructs editors to no get in moot, productivity-wasting, collaboration-eroding disputes about things MoS already covers, while it also avoids doing anything to enable "you cain't change muh style!" chest-beating nonsense about matters MoS does not cover in detail. Much of WP editing consists of taking poorly styled earlier content and making it much better later content. Aside from adding new materials and sources that's what we're here for. MoS cannot micromanage every contextual nit-pick that can arise in the process of that, nor can it act as some anti-WP:EDITING pseudo-policy that amounts to "thou shalt never contradict the earliest major contributor's preferences about anything at all". We were already seeing the unclarified shorter version of this wording leading directly to exactly the latter problem; that's why the clarification was added at all, over a year ago, with a markedly stabilizing result. Meanwhile, the entire purpose of trying to remove that clarification (or to turn its meaning on it's ear, as in the subthread below) is to engender more battlegrounding against what MoS actually recommends, a wedge to drive in idiosyncratic, jargonistic, nationalistic, or otherwise non-encyclopedic language. We just can't have that, or both quality of output and internal collaboration will greatly suffer.

People who just will not get it through their heads that all professional-grade, multi-writer publications have a style guide that contributors are expected to follow even if they would write differently on their own website, and that it is physically impossible for any style guide to agree with all other style guides on anything, and that the point is to have a rule so fighting stops and we get the work done, well, they just need to give it a good WP:NOTGETTINGIT rest and stay out of style disputes, for the same reason that Cascadians who can't stop demonizing Elbonians need to stay away from articles on the Elbonia–Cascadia conflict [or whatever]. It's perfectly fine for "style compliance objectors" to write however they like, as long as they don't battleground against other people later bringing it into guideline compliance. Now that I think of it, of the five editors I recall personally who have stormed off Wikipedia in a WP:HIGHMAINT huff (plus one who got indeffed), in every single case it was mostly or entirely because they started spending less time on productive editing and instead devoted more and more to "style warfare" against others editor in a tendentious and increasingly "everyone who disagrees with me, go screw yourselves" WP:1AM pattern. Either one gets that style is largely arbitrary and a matter to agree on and get out of the way, or one treats it as a WP:GREATWRONGS matter and slides down a slippery slope.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:02, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I've fully protected the article for one week because of the edit-warring. If a clear consensus is reached that resolves the dispute, please let me know, and I will decide whether the protection can be lifted earlier.--Bbb23 (talk) 13:02, 9 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of clarifying phrase: arbitrary break I

• I wonder if Carl's concern would be addressed by saying --

Where more than one style is acceptable under the Manual of Style (including in matters not addressed by it)

or

Where more than one style is acceptable under the Manual of Style (including in matters on which it is silent)

--? EEng 05:13, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The second sentence does resolve my issue, and I would be OK with it. I wonder if there is any other way to phrase it, but I can't suggest an improvement. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think either of these resolve my concerns, though I would prefer Where more than one style is acceptable under the Manual of Style, including styles on which it does not offer guidance, .... The key point is to ensure that retain is not taken as meaning only those styles explicitly provided for in the MoS. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:40, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I feel the proposals are a little dissonant, as the parenthetical remark/appositive appears to modify "style is acceptable under the Manual of Style" with a clause discussing matters not covered by it. I think it would be better to include the two scenarios with an or, such as Where more than one style has consensus support in the Manual of Style, or the manual does not offer any appropriate guidance. isaacl (talk) 16:27, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, the "or" form is better. I wonder if we could agree on this? Naive hope, perhaps! Peter coxhead (talk) 16:38, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence written by Isaacl is fine with me, and resolves my concern. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:02, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see what function is served by the words consensus and appropriate. Why not just Where more than one style has support in the Manual of Style, or the manual offers no guidance? EEng 03:36, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The word "appropriate" is shorthand for "the manual offers no guidance on the matter in question". The use of the word "consensus" is a reminder that the Manual of Style records choices that were made by community consensus. How about the following: Where the Manual of Style describes multiple choices of style for a given matter, or offers no guidance, editors should not change an article from one style to another without a good reason. isaacl (talk) 06:08, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Adding acceptable, and something at the end:

Where the Manual of Style describes multiple choices of style for a given matter, or offers no guidance, editors should not change an article from one acceptable style to another without good reason; when in doubt, seek consensus on the article's talk page first.

EEng 06:55, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Support adding this wording. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:58, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It addresses my concern, and the wording is fine with me. — Carl (CBM · talk) 15:00, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That seems to cover the points that have been discussed. A minor proposed copy edit: break up the sentence into two by replacing the semi-colon with a period. isaacl (talk) 18:04, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I would have to oppose this "including in matters not addressed by it" and "including in matters on which it is silent" stuff. It's fallacious reasoning. It simply is not the case that any and all style of [whatever] that don't happen to be addressed be MoS are auto-permissible on Wikipedia. This is because it is written in an encyclopedic register. It is not just possible but very, very frequent, especially at the intersection of content and style (grammar, syntax, code switching, parseability, and other readability and comprehensibility matters) for article-specific edits to be made or objections raised over how the underlying meaning is presented. There are literally millions of potential context-specific scenarios, and MoS could never address them all. There is no way on earth we can have some confused pseudo-rule suggesting that "as long as MoS doesn't say it, you can't change it without some drawn-out process". That's a direct violation of WP:EDITING policy, our most central one.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:15, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: please read the actual final wording suggested by EEng immediately above, and say whether you oppose it. Neither of your quotes appear there. Your argument above is irrelevant; "acceptable" does not mean "any and all style[s] whatever", it means "acceptable". And it's perfectly clear what "acceptable" means, as CBM notes below. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:06, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter coxhead: I have to disagree. The "Where the Manual of Style ... offers no guidance, editors should not change ... without good reason" wording is just a long-winded way of saying the same thing. It's the same back door to "you can't change my style, because someone somewhere thinks it is 'acceptable'" tendentiousness. The entire problem here is that is not clear at all what "acceptable" means. It can't really have but one meaning, practically: "acceptable on Wikipedia because Wikipedia specifically say so". We already know for a fact (see diffs already provided) that if wiggle-room is left, people will misinterpret any "don't change 'acceptable' styles" rule as meaning "any attested style cannot be changed" (without time-wasting drama). But of course much of what we do at WP every single day is rewording suboptimal material into better material, a process that necessarily entails changing from one of "multiple choices of style for a given matter" that are not MoS-specified without having to engage in tedious "good reason" defenses against over-controlling objections.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:37, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: the problem is that what you see as having to engage in tedious "good reason" defenses against over-controlling objections others see as using over-contolling MoS enthusiasts using it to avoid the "tedium" of reaching consensus. However, it seems to me that consensus here is against your addition without some qualification regarding matters not in the MoS, so if you can't accept a qualification, even so reasonable a one as EEng's, then no change at all will be made, which will be a pity. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:55, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Peter coxhead: There's a communication problem here. I'm talking about edits to content and its presentation that are not MoS matters. This is also what the idea of adding a "Where the Manual of Style ... offers no guidance" provision is about. That logically has no connection to 'over-contolling MoS enthusiasts using it to avoid the "tedium" of reaching consensus'. There really are two distinct conflicts involved here: A) Some editors who don't like style centralization and want WP to be wildly inconsistent just for the sake of "editorial freedom", "authorial creativity", and wikiproject-by-wikiproject control by "experts", want to see MoS made inapplicable to their fiefdoms (or eliminated, pruned down to a handful of obvious basics, reduced to an essay, forked into project-by-project style guides, or whatever). B) Other editors want to impose idiosyncratic, jargonistic, legalistic, nationalistic, or other reader-unhelpful style, most of which is not detailed in MoS and never could be (but which most editors would object to, so it should not be a burden to improve such poor uses of language on Wikipedia). These groups often have substantial overlap, but the motivations are distinct, as are the problems they cause. Removing the "acceptable to the Manual of Style" wording serves both these camps' interests, as does adding a clause against editing without pre-established consensus in "matters on which MoS is silent" (cf. WP:EDITING policy, WP:MERCILESS, etc.). Neither change would serve reader interests or editorial community interests, only those two factions.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:30, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: there certainly is a communication problem. In response to my question as to what is wrong with the, in my view, very reasonable suggestion of saying Where the Manual of Style describes multiple choices of style for a given matter, or offers no guidance, editors should not change an article from one acceptable style to another without good reason; when in doubt, seek consensus on the article's talk page first you tell me about editors who "want WP to be wildly inconsistent" or want to impose "idiosyncratic, jargonistic, legalistic, nationalistic, or other reader-unhelpful style", which is simply way off-beam. No more from me. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:18, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, a style can be unacceptable because it is just too crazy. But we cannot suggest that RETAIN only applies to things that are explicitly mentioned in the MOS. Unless the MOS explicitly says that a reasonable style is forbidden, RETAIN applies to that style. "Acceptable" has historically had that double meaning: not forbidden by the MOS and otherwise reasonable. This is the same standard as e.g. CITEVAR and ENGVAR. — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:28, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is not. ENGVAR says nothing like this at all (though what it does say makes moot the desire to insert some "Where the Manual of Style ... offers no guidance" provision into the wording under discussion here). CITEVAR doesn't either; it very unwisely permits people to make up idiosyncratic citation "styles", and this has caused problems; the last time an attempt was made to bring CITEVAR back into line with ENGVAR, DATEVAR, etc., it was staunchly resisted specifically on the basis that people would not be able to continue using their fake citation "styles" that don't exist in the real world but only in their heads.

As far as I can tell, the concern here that no one can quite seem to articulate, much less demonstrate is a real problem, is that some yahoo might use the long-stable "Where more than one style is acceptable under the Manual of Style, editors should not change ..." provision to go around to thousands of articles and change "programme" to "program", but that already prohibited by ENGVAR; or change all cases of "cats" (in the broad sense) to "felids" or vice versa, but ANI would put a stop to that as disruptive. There are no cases where people are doing something like this but have not be shut down. Exiting rules and process are self-evidently sufficient, ergo trying to add a "Where the Manual of Style ... offers no guidance, editors should not change" rule is blatant WP:CREEP with a strong dose of WP:BEANS, which will also have other negative effects that have been explained in detail already.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:37, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's up to the judgment of the interested editors to determine if there is a good reason for changing the currently existing style, should there be no previous documented consensus on the best approach. For many cases, the "bold, revert, discuss" cycle is adequate to enable changes to be made, without any drawn-out process. isaacl (talk) 18:12, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of clarifying phrase: arbitrary break II

• I'm not opposed to "central style guidance", as Dicklyon says above (and I don't appreciate the attempt to personalize this), but I do oppose treating the MoS as if it were policy. One guideline I edit a lot is WP:COI. The language of that clearly marks it as a guideline: editing with a COI is strongly discouraged, doing it for money very strongly so, etc. In fact, COI and paid editing are widespread. The only policy is that paid editing must be disclosed.

The sentence in question marks the guideline status of the MoS: "Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason." It has been there for years, in that form or similar, and shouldn't be changed without clear consensus. SarahSV ^(talk) 15:57, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The sentence in question only says that, if the MOS requires does not require a particular style, some other style can be used. That applies to the old wording as well as the new wording: they only apply when more than one style is "acceptable". e.g. because the MOS gives options or doesn't mention the a particular issue. The "guideline" vs. "policy" issue is a red herring - if the MOS says some policy is not acceptable, then that style isn't acceptable. The issue I am concerned about is only for styles that are not mentioned at all by the MOS. For styles that are mentioned by the MOS, the solution would be to amend the MOS if some other style would be better. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:00, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's not my reading of it. I read it to mean that if someone is following an acceptable style (not necessarily acceptable to the MoS), and if the article's internally consistent, it shouldn't be changed without good reason. So, for example, someone might follow the Chicago Manual of Style, but would expect that to be changed in a British article, because ENGVAR provides a "good reason" for the change.

I wonder whether the best thing is to hold a central RfC to ask whether the MoS should become policy. The issue of its status has been rumbling on for years. There would be advantages and disadvantages to promotion. If it were policy, it might stabilize and become less of a walled garden. Having it as a guideline means it's easier to change, but it also means it can be ignored (in theory). The current situation is that it's edited as a guideline but enforced as policy. It's that dual status that I oppose. I would prefer it to be a much-loved guideline, rather than something that causes ill-feeling. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:31, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think a separate RFC might be a good idea. I have always read "acceptable" to mean two things: not explicitly forbidden or overruled by the MOS, and not otherwise so crazy as to be completely unreasonable for an encyclopedia. That is the same standard as e.g. CITEVAR: an article can use any citation style as long as the style is not explicitly forbidden or overruled by WP:CITE and otherwise not completely crazy. This is also the same general situation as ENGVAR. One "good reason" for a change is that the MOS or other guideline explicitly says to do something else. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:37, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I mostly agree with your interpretation, just with a different emphasis, but I don't agree that "good reason" = the MoS says so (I think that would amount to tautology here). "Acceptable" to me means "in the MoS" or "widely regarded as okay". The importance of that emphasis for me is to underline that the MoS is not policy. I would prefer that to be made more explicit in the lead, but because that sentence was there, I haven't pushed to introduce something. But if the force of that sentence is to change, I'd like to see the status decided, described and respected, whichever way it goes. If there is to be an RfC asking whether it's policy, it should be held on the pump because it would affect all articles. SarahSV ^(talk) 18:47, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It is almost a tautology, in the same way that WP:CITE determines what citation styles are acceptable. I think an RFC on the village pump would indeed be a good idea. The key is to have clear wording. I don't think that "policy v. guideline" is the right way to look at it because those terms already have so little meaning. Perhaps a better question is whether, if the MOS says some particular style is required, if that means that the style should generally be employed at all articles, or if it is acceptable for editors as a matter of general practice to ignore the MOS and follow other style guides. Of course there will be rare exceptions, which is a separate matter. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:56, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think editors do understand the difference between policy and a guideline, and that's the issue that keeps bubbling up. The GA criteria, for example, don't require articles to follow the MoS, except for certain sub-pages of it. That alone tells us that it's a guideline that can be safely ignored; if someone tries to impose the MoS on a GAN, the nominator can say no. We would never have GA criteria that say an article needn't be neutral, needn't contain sources, needn't comply with BLP, so we do have that clear distinction.

A few editors want to erase the distinction; note SMcCandlish's edit summary about closing a "loophole" when he removed those words. If those words—"under the Manual of Style"—are added, I would like to see something else in the lead that reminds people that this is a guideline only. I know that will be fought, so I feel the best step is to go to the community and ask what status it wants for the MoS. Policy or guideline? Applied everywhere or strongly encouraged but not mandated? More like NPOV or more like COI? SarahSV ^(talk) 20:18, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Manual of Style's "guideline" status doesn't appear to be widely contested. The disagreement seems to pertain to the relevant distinction between a guideline and a policy at Wikipedia.

If I've understood your position (conveyed above and in previous discussions) accurately, you assert that our guidelines document informal recommendations that individual editors may override simply because they disagree with them or prefer something else.

Conversely, while I agree that our guidelines are less firm than our policies, I believe that they should be followed in the absence of a well-reasoned exception (the existence of which is subject to consensus if a disagreement arises). In other words, a determination that a particular guideline's application to a specific subject area is unhelpful might be a valid reason to deviate from it in that context, but "I don't feel like doing it that way" is not.

Of course, users are welcome to dive in and contribute content without even reading the MoS, let alone adhering to it. Others, however, are welcome to edit the resultant articles to incorporate Wikipedia's style conventions, with no obligation to retain something simply because it's considered "acceptable" elsewhere. I agree with others above that you've misinterpreted the relevant statement, wherein "acceptable" is intended to mean "not contradicting the MoS". —David Levy 23:20, 10 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

[Replying to this whole subthread at once:] Much of WP:POLICY, like much of any system of policies, regulations, laws, sport rules, and other rule systems, are tautologous in that sense. Any style guide is, by the nature of language itself, partially arbitrary, partially based on norms and expectations, and mostly simply intended to produce desired outcomes. As has been noted many times, it is not MoS's role to declare what is True and Right and Ideal for the world; it is to answer the question "what should we do in this situation [and this one, and this one, ...]?" with a single answer (often any answer, so that we have one at all, but also many times a particular one that is especially appropriate for the encyclopedic register, for WP's technical or audience needs, because it's how all the high-end sources do it, etc.); the goal is not correction but cessation and prevention of conflict. MoS evolved and has continued to do so because people will fight article after article, year after year over the same stylistic trivia as if the world depended on it, unless there are rules that short-circuit this. The remaining dispute is rarely about particulars, but primarily just resistance to there being rules at all. Dispute reduction and prevention is the primary the function of MoS, like most organizational rules of all sorts (when they are not simply responsive to an external pressure, e.g. corporate compliance with laws, network security rules to prevent hacks, etc.).

I think it's those who come here to rattle "just a guideline" sabers who do not understand the difference between a policy and a guideline. They are the same thing but for one distinction: policies reflect absolute necessities for the project to function; guidelines present best-practice "strong suggestions" for the smooth functioning of the project. This distinction is hardly unique to WP. You'll find it in one form or another in any organization and in any project (even in the MUST versus SHOULD of standards documents). There is no fundamental difference between them (or even between them and essays that the community takes seriously, such as WP:BRD and WP:AADD, which differ only in presenting philosophies, methods, approaches, and other material that is not in the form of line-item rules). Those looking for excuses to ignore guidelines are exhibiting a WP:COMPETENCE problem in the broad sense of that document, a failure to exercise their ability to set aside personal peccadilloes and work within the game rules, to play the same game on the same team.

As has also been said many times, it is correct that MoS is not a document we expect people to read before contributing, or to ever memorize. As with the vast majority of guidelines, and many policies, it is a reference work to thwart disputes, and which people absorb slowly the more they participate. This is the way people learn any complex, human system. So, of course, one is not required to comply with MoS; one is just required to not tendentiously editwar (neither in flamey nor in "slow editwar" and "civil PoV" fashion) against others doing so with content that one has released to the project for others' editing. Anyone doing otherwise is in WP:NOT territory, using WP as a personal publishing platform. Territorial attempts to control content and its presentation are the #1 source of MoS- and WP:AT-related conflict (the second is "that's not what I learned in school or what we do at my job, so it is Wrong and I must fight to the death to change it".)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:09, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

SlimVirgin's "conditions" for dropping this Quixotic quest – 'If those words—"under the Manual of Style"—are added, I would like to see something else in the lead that reminds people that this is a guideline only' – have already been met. There's a huge banner template atop this and every other MoS page, reading "This guideline is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." So, why is this still an argument? Let's move on to something more productive.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  16:20, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In the section above, several editors have been working productively to resolve a separate issue with the new wording, which seem to be different from SlimVirgin's concerns. Don't be hasty to put down the concerns of others... — Carl (CBM · talk) 16:42, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I'm out of time for reading all the above, but will try to catch up. My two cents, since I haven't contributed much to the conversation yet: First, if the MoS is silent on a topic of style that comes up in a discussion between editors, the editors are free to come to a local consensus on how to address it. Hence "acceptable" doesn't mean "specified in the MoS". Second, if the MoS specifies a style, but there is a local consensus that something else is preferable, that's OK. That's because the MoS is a guideline, not policy, and also because local consensus can change. If an editor (in good faith) changes something away from that local consensus in order to comply with the MoS, and then is reverted by one of the editors working on that article, the first editor should understand that the local consensus is acceptable. To be honest I think this will be quite rare, because the MoS is generally pretty sensible, but saying anything else implies MoS is policy. It's the second of these points that is a RETAIN issue; the first point is more of a clarification. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:45, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: you're raising a different and wider issue than slightly tweaking the current wording in the MoS, which is what we are discussiong. As it happens, I strongly disagree that "local consensus" can or should over-ride community-wide consensus encoded in the MoS, but this is not the issue here, and we should not be distracted into discussing it. The issue is clarifying the status of styles not covered in the MoS. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:11, 11 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The trouble is that Mike Christie may be fairly representing SV's intent, to make it OK to ignore the MOS guidelines based on a "local" or "specialist" style with "local consensus". I agree it's a bad idea, but I'm not sure I agree with you that this is not what we're discussing. Consider the intent of SMcCandlish's mod of last April that SV is now wanting removed. She has a history of arguing against the MOS, citing "only a guideline" as justification for ignoring it, and things like that. For example, in this diff, SV says "... the point is that, as a matter of fact, groups of editors (and individual editors) can and do decide to ignore the MoS. The GA criteria have been that way for years. They wouldn't be able to say 'we have decided that GAs should not be neutral,' but if they say they're not adhering to the MoS, no one bats an eyelid." I don't agree that no-one bats an eyelid, but it's true that we don't generally require full MOS compliance to get to GA status; that doesn't mean that style is then to be forever regarded as "acceptable", when an editor later finds that improved compliance with WP style is possible. Dicklyon (talk) 02:40, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Editor freedom to ignore our MOS is not a revelation. As has been said already, edits in any style are acceptable but will eventually be copyedited into line with our MOS. This, I'm sure, is the reasoning behind that aspect of GAs. "Good" articles are not "perfect" articles, there's always room to improve in many areas, including style. Primergrey (talk) 03:33, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly; "acceptable" in terms of getting to GA status is not the kind of "acceptable" that this MOS section is about, which is why we need something like SMcCandlish's mod to clarify it. Dicklyon (talk) 03:36, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Dicklyon's observation about GA/FA and MoS compliance is actually a crucial one. If you go witness the WT:FAC brouhaha a month or so ago, the problem he describes is unmistakably apparent. The idea is that if something passed FA (or GA), back when, that it is forever "acceptable" and does not have to be made compliant with later guideline changes or even with long-extant provisions that were not raised during the original reviews. It's an excuse to prevent other editors from working on these articles (sometimes with "I'm gonna quit if I don't get my way" drama added as a chest-beating tactic). While I didn't touch on this in the above material, this is clearly a strong factor at play here, and is another tentacle of the "don't you touch my article" territoriality monster that has been growing as the editorial pool condenses and has fewer eyes to enforce WP:OWN and WP:CONLEVEL policies. FA and similar labels are being held up as if they are "permanently exempt from all additional compliance or improvement" licenses, against MOS, against WP:CITE, against infoboxes and other templates, etc. It's not really an MoS issue.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:54, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

While it's clearly wrong to argue that being given FA (or GA) status means that an article is not subject to the MoS, it's also important to note that the reduction in the number of active editors cuts both ways. Changes to the MoS are based on fewer eyes, too, and frequently attract comments from only the very small set of MoS regulars. The MoS will command respect only if it really does reflect community consensus, and that has become very hard to demonstrate. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:27, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Probably resolvable by "advertising" MoS RfCs (and other major MoS discussions) at WP:VPPOL. This isn't a specific MoS concern, but affects decisionmaking generally across the site. RfCs are also useful in that they trigger the WP:FRS system to pull in more editors, and are expected to be neutrally worded (they can be closed as invalid if they're not).
If the editorial pool reduction continues unabated, the entire policy consensus system will probably have to be more centralized, such as by requiring that all RfCs that affect multiple topics be held at Village Pump directly. I doubt this will happen, however, since a project with the scope and importance of WP should always attract a critical mass of participants. What we saw was a huge, wild boost in popularity in the mid-to-late 2000s, followed by a bursting of the "wow, I can edit an encyclopedia?" enthusiasm bubble a few years ago after the novelty wore off, people realized this is real work, and most of the "exciting" articles already got written. I don't think it translates into a downward participation spiral with no limit.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:35, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Another reason this proposal is effectively mooted by its own goals and assumptions: The desire is that MoS should indicate that people can't editwar over style matters that aren't [yet or ever] explicitly covered by MoS. But this is already addressed in MoS's own lead, with "Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable", citing ArbCom cases about this in a footnote. So, adding another note to the same effect would just be redundant. It's within MoS's scope to observe what is already not permitted by the community for reasons beyond MoS, but it's outside MoS's remit to set new behavioral guidelines for what may be done with regard to matters that are not covered by MoS, which is what the proposal above would do.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:43, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: - the issue I see is that the new language that was added to the MOS might incorrectly suggest that "optional styles" only means "styles where the MOS lays out options", rather than its longstanding meaning of "all reasonable styles not prohibited by the MOS, regardless whether they are explicitly mentioned". The longstanding behavioral principle from MOSRETAIN, CITEVAR, ENGVAR, etc. is to encourage standardization on things required by guidelines and encourage stability on things not covered by them. In any case, it seems from the conversation that there's no positive consensus for the addition of the words "under the Manual of Style" without some additional qualification to continue encouraging stability in matters not mentioned by the MOS. What language would you propose? — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:17, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Mike Christie. He wrote:

if the MoS specifies a style, but there is a local consensus that something else is preferable, that's OK. That's because the MoS is a guideline, not policy, and also because local consensus can change. If an editor (in good faith) changes something away from that local consensus in order to comply with the MoS, and then is reverted by one of the editors working on that article, the first editor should understand that the local consensus is acceptable."

That is the point I was making above. An internally consistent, non-MoS style (for example, from a mainstream style book) might be chosen by editors in preference to the advice in the MoS. That local consensus is okay, because MoS is not policy. Therefore, I oppose SMcCandlish's addition of the words "under the Manual of Style" to the sentence: "Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason."

"Acceptable", as I have always understood that sentence, might mean "acceptable according to a mainstream style book" or "acceptable according to the style guidelines of a professional or academic body". I have never understood it to mean "acceptable under the Manual of Style". The whole point of that sentence is to caution editors that, if a style is stable, consistent and working, leave it be unless there's good reason to change it. SarahSV ^(talk) 14:35, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I can't recall the last time I departed from the MoS, because I work almost entirely at FAC, and the MoS is part of the FA criteria. I've always assumed that local consensus was acceptable (though I've never taken advantage of it myself). But if it's not true that MoS can be overridden by local consensus, what does it mean to say that it's a guideline, not policy? How would things be different if it were policy? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:59, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject Birds, for example, had a particular way of capitalizing, because it's what bird experts expect to see. The GA criteria don't require compliance with the MoS, except for a few subpages. If the MoS were policy, that couldn't happen. We wouldn't allow a set of articles to violate copyright or be non-BLP compliant. SarahSV ^(talk) 15:24, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SlimVirgin: No, BIRDS does not have a particular way of capitalizing. --Izno (talk) 16:07, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Izno, that's an interesting link, because the point was made there (by Andrewa) that the distinction between guideline and policy was in fact the underlying issue. WP:GUIDELINE says " Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply". I'm not being rhetorical here when I ask what the difference would be if the MoS were policy. Really, what would be different? Some here are arguing that local consensus cannot override the MoS. So surely it's de facto policy in some editors' eyes? Or am I missing some other nuance in the policy/guideline distinction? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 16:16, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Mike Christie: WP:LOCALCON clearly comments on the case of participants at a local project having some consensus not shared by a greater-consensus-level policy/guideline. The practical effect of this document being policy and not guideline, or vice versa, seems irrelevant in that case. --Izno (talk) 16:36, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Izno, as you know, they did, but the editors who wanted that were overruled and several left. It should never have happened. SarahSV ^(talk) 16:25, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SlimVirgin: That would be a non sequitur. I have nil interest in arguing whether it should have happened; I just wanted to clarify the circumstances of your woefully under-explained comment on the point. --Izno (talk) 16:36, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Really, showing that there is still enough support behind a central consensus to override a local consensus should never happen? Seems odd to suggest. Also the premise that "it's what bird experts expect to see" is far from consistently the case, which was part of the issue; even bird specialists use different cap style for naming. We have a similar thing in astronomy, where local consensus is to use caps even where NASA's and other style guides say not to; but that bunch was strong enough to get their variant written into the MOS, so I guess we're stuck with it. Dicklyon (talk) 06:41, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hello everyone, since I've been pinged above I'll make some comments.

Firstly and off-topic... If you change the headings in an ongoing discussion [2] it makes it extremely difficult for people to find the relevant section if (like me) they're coming from a notification. I have no idea what the edit summary of that particular edit means, but I'd suggest (don't fix it now that would just make it worse) that it was ill-advised and probably violates talk page guidelines. Please find another way of doing whatever it is you're trying to do.

I hope nobody sees that sorry discussion on bird article titles as a good model of discussion. Perhaps see User:Andrewa/How not to rant instead, it describes some of the techniques used more succinctly. (;->

But to the issues raised: Both guidelines and policies represent what I'd prefer to call historic consensus, and as such should never be ignored. But of course neither is perfect or set in concrete. The difference to my mind is, before violating a policy you should discuss and justify your action. After violating a guideline you should be prepared to discuss and justify your action. It's an important distinction (and one I often used in a professional capacity in a past career), but IMO there is no other difference at all. Andrewa (talk) 18:04, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

An internally consistent, non-MoS style (for example, from a mainstream style book) might be chosen by editors in preference to the advice in the MoS.

If personal preference (as opposed to a specific circumstance warranting an exception) is the sole justification, the resultant prose can and should be edited for consistency with the Manual of Style.

That local consensus is okay, because MoS is not policy.

Again, Sarah, you're mistaken in your belief that "guideline" = "optional and unenforceable".

"Acceptable", as I have always understood that sentence, might mean "acceptable according to a mainstream style book" or "acceptable according to the style guidelines of a professional or academic body". I have never understood it to mean "acceptable under the Manual of Style".

As discussed above, your understanding doesn't jibe with that of others.

The whole point of that sentence is to caution editors that, if a style is stable, consistent and working, leave it be unless there's good reason to change it.

Consistency with the MoS is a good reason.

The point of the sentence is to prevent needless changes from one MoS-compliant style to another. Under your interpretation, the exception swallows the rule (and the MoS is rendered essentially useless). —David Levy 19:05, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

There is a lot of merit to the position that if the MOS requires a particular style, then no other style is "acceptable". Similarly, per WP:DUPCITES in WP:CITE, precisely duplicated citations in any article can always be combined - even if the local style did not originally do that. But I want to keep pressing my point that my concern with the new language is not about that. In cases when the MOS requires something, I agree it is required. I am concerned about the case where the MOS is silent on some particular issue. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:58, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Understood. I support the proposed use of wording intended to prevent both misinterpretations. —David Levy 21:16, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Very well put. Andrewa (talk) 01:15, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Local consensus"

I suspect that the phrase "local consensus" is being used above to describe two subtly different concepts, potentially resulting in some degree of misunderstanding.

WP:LOCALCONSENSUS describes a situation in which a group of editors decides to override a consensus of the Wikipedia community, which contradicts the policy.

However, this doesn't mean that exceptions to guidelines (including the MoS) cannot be identified and applied to articles. Special circumstances can exist, typically because some element of a subject or subject area is unusual or wasn't considered when the relevant guideline was established. This is materially different from a scenario in which editors disagree with a guideline and believe that they possess the authority to control certain content, effectively overruling the community at large. —David Levy 19:05, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. But anyone who is aware of consistently violating the MOS should initiate a discussion to get this exception agreed and documented. Otherwise, there is a largish risk that they are just making work for others in eventually repairing their non-compliances, wasting both their own time and that of others.

I shudder a little whenever I see the term local consensus. It normally means that someone (often but by no means always the person using the term) doesn't like a consensus decision and is going to ignore it.

Consensus is consensus. Andrewa (talk) 01:16, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The point of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is not that the consensus is local, but whether it overrides a higher level of consensus: "Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale." If it does not override anything, then it's merely a "local consensus", not WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. WikiProjects can have discussions to override wider community consensus without the wider community being aware, thus biasing the outcome to Project members' preferences—that's WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:02, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

See #Local consensus below. Andrewa (talk) 04:10, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of clarifying phrase: arbitrary break III

I think the "Guideline" vs. "Policy" status discussion no more than a tangent, and a bit of a red herring.

For me its about the issues presently not covered by any sections of the MoS (and subsequent pages such as WikiProject level guidance). Let me give you an example: I write articles about musical compositions. Currently there's no MoS or other guidance on how to list musical scores (significant manuscripts and their facsimiles, score editions and their introductions/critical apparatus,...). Widely divergent formats are used to give an overview of such items (or suppress them as not relevant), so I look around and see how other editors approached this, try my own formats, etc. I hope that one day there will be some guidance on how to approach this in a more or less uniform way, but until that happens (might still take some time before this can be figured out), the MoS shouldn't suggest that anything not covered by it is up for indiscriminate style changes. "Where more than one style is acceptable under the Manual of Style, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason" has too much of an implication that if not covered "under the Manual of Style" styles can be changed at random, even if there's nothing wrong with the original style. --Francis Schonken (talk) 07:32, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@Francis Schonken: Yet "not up for indiscriminate or random changes" already applies site-wide to everything, per the interplay of the WP:CONSENSUS and WP:EDITING policies. Anyone can add/remove/alter just about anything. Anyone else can revert that change. Discussion ensues. We have dispute resolution processes for when discussion over the matter fails to come to a new consensus easily. So, our extant policies and procedures are sufficient, and making up a new one here is a just WP:CREEP. The weird desire to add a "special" version of that to MoS to address that which MoS does not address (WTF?) is aberrant, would impede actual consensus formation (by giving the green light for opposing camps to dig trenches), and conflicts with editing policy anyway. Making up a new rule that amounts to "no style, MoS-covered or not, in an article can be changed without a time-sucking RfC" is an unbelievably bad idea, but that's what the proposed change would be interpreted as (we know this from direct experience of WP:CITEVAR and the problems caused by OWN-leaning misinterpretations of it; this is a mistake to learn from).

Instead of looking for a way to dig one's "classical score listing style" preference trench deeper and defend it against enemies, it would be more productive to have a very well-advertised (Village Pump notice, etc.) RfC on arriving at a standardized way (or several variant standardized ways) to do this, and codify that in MOS:MUSIC (including a rule to not change from one standardized variant to another without consensus, if we arrive at more than one).

The very ability to change non-standardized things in various ways and see what gets accepted is how standardization evolves in the first place. The proposal above is essentially a proposal for us to thwart our own ability to arrive at best practices through experimentation and discussion about it, and to instead enshrine every local experiment permanently. It's fundamentally "un-wiki". Wikipedia is a unified project (that we're writing for the public not ourselvles); it isn't a bunch of warring sovereign content-and-style fiefdoms.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:58, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

it isn't a bunch of warring sovereign content-and-style fiefdoms. Sure coulda fooled me. EEng 08:37, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:23, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: The longstanding practice is exactly that "optional styles" - which include reasonable styles not covered by the MOS - should default to the established style in case of disagreement, unless the MOS or other guideline says otherwise. That is not in any way a new proposal, it is the way things have been for many years. If there was a proposal that suddenly MOSRETAIN (and, similarly, CITEVAR and ENGVAR) should only apply to styles that are explicitly mentioned, while other styles can be changed at whim, that would be a very significant change to the current practice, and would require a very well publicized RFC. It is not the current situation, however. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:26, 12 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Nor is it what SMcCandlish intends, although it would be an unintended consequence of the original wording. Unfortunately, this discussion has got muddled up between those trying to improve SMcC's wording, while respecting the spirit in which it was proposed, and those who have long-standing objections to the MoS being more than "optional guidance" and who believe that local consensus should rule all. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:43, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I do see what youse guys are getting at, but your wording so far substitutes one problem for another instead of eliminating problems. This often happens when people try to create a new rule rather than slightly tweak existing ones. The clear solution to me is to put the "ArbCom says you can be punished for style editwarring" sentence and footnote first, then follow it with the "don't mess with an explicitly MoS-acceptable style" rule second, and linking them with "In particular," before the MoS-acceptable-style sentence, with no wording changes of substance, other than that the MoS-acceptable sentence should probably end with "without consensus" rather than "without good reason" which really applies to the don't-stylewar rule). This would be in consonant with WP:EDITING policy (by default, you can change any content in WP with a good reason, though your changes are BRDable) as a general matter, and consonant with ArbCom enabling sanctions for stylewarring over MoS stuff in pariticular, as disruptive. It would also be more consistent with ENGVAR, DATEVAR, etc., which are rules about consensus formation not about having good reasons. It would, finally, avoid both of the problems discussed above (gutting MoS entirely, or acting as an unwitting enabler of style WP:OWN behavior). If this is agreeable, I would suggest it be a separate subsection here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:05, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I wouldn't want to change "without good reason" to "without consensus", which seems to rule out a bold change even on some diddly little thing that MOS happens to mention somewhere as having two acceptable approaches.
• Maybe I'm overlooking something (probably am, because I can't follow these huge discussions in detail -- life's too short) but I don't understand why you wouldn't want something clarifying that editwarring isn't OK on style points on which MOS is silent. Well, OK, I guess that might open the door to almost anything being a "style point". I give up. But keep at it, dudes. EEng 06:23, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Summary so far

We have two separate objections to SMcCandlish's proposal to add "under the Manual of Style" to the lead sentence, to qualify the word "acceptable": "Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason." That section of the lead is known as WP:STYLEVAR. The VAR principle is one on which many editors rely. The objections are:

(1) An "acceptable" style need not mean "acceptable under the Manual of Style". It could mean acceptable under another style guide/professional body, or even acceptable under an earlier version of the MoS. The point of this objection is that the MoS is a guideline, not policy. Maintaining that distinction helps to avoid situations such as the WikiProject Birds capitalization dispute or Talk:Thorpe affair.

(2) Styles not covered by the MoS, but used in articles, are currently "protected" by the "first major contributor" or VAR principle. The proposed addition would change that, implying that only styles acceptable "under the Manual of Style" would be protected from being changed without good reason. This has been summed up as: "the MoS shouldn't suggest that anything not covered by it is up for indiscriminate style changes."

SarahSV ^(talk) 07:15, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks; good summary. And I strongly object to the principles expressed in both 1 and 2. As many have pointed out, in 1, the policy/guideline distinction is a complete red herring, and the whole point of the MOS it to supercede the style guidelines of other professional/topical organizations. As for 2, the premise that "Styles not covered by the MoS, but used in articles, are currently 'protected' by the 'first major contributor' or VAR principle" is certainly not a widely accepted idea – there is no such "VAR principle". But again, thanks for clarifying how you see it. Dicklyon (talk) 07:34, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The distinction between policy and guideline is clear enough, even if fuzzy in the middle. Note again: the GA criteria do not require MoS compliance, except for subpages such as LEAD. But we could never have GA criteria that said "feel free to ignore BLP, copyright or NPOV". Ditto with the COI guideline. COI editing is strongly discouraged, but the Articles for Creation process allows COI articles so long as the COI is disclosed. These examples show that we do recognize and understand the policy/guideline distinction.

As for "there is no such 'VAR principle'", WP:STYLEVAR says:

Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia. Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason. Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable. If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor. If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, see if a rewrite can render the issue irrelevant.

This used to have its own section within the MoS, but it was moved to the lead. Perhaps we ought to move it back so that it's clearer as a principle. SarahSV ^(talk) 07:50, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Note again: the GA criteria do not require MoS compliance, except for subpages such as LEAD. But we could never have GA criteria that said "feel free to ignore BLP, copyright or NPOV".

We can all agree, I think, that compliance with those policies is significantly more important than compliance with the Manual of Style is. A Wikipedia article can be good (and be recognized as a good article) despite deviating from the MoS. This, however, doesn't mean that the deviation itself is good or carries some sort of seal of approval that bars its elimination. Good articles can be made better. Bringing them into compliance with the MoS is one way to accomplish that.

Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia. Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason.

Indeed. And consistency with the Manual of Style is a good reason. Otherwise, it would serve no purpose.

Again, your interpretation of "acceptable" constitutes an exception that swallows the rule. You're arguing that we have a style guide, but no one is permitted to apply its style guidance to content that someone else wrote (unless it's so far astray from normal written English that it wouldn't be found in any respected publication).

Edit warring over optional styles is unacceptable.

This refers to instances in which multiple styles are consistent with the MoS (either explicitly or because the matter isn't addressed).

If discussion cannot determine which style to use in an article, defer to the style used by the first major contributor.

Pay particular attention to the sentence's first clause. We "defer to the style used by the first major contributor" as a fallback, intended to end a dispute by undoing changes not supported by our policies and guidelines. It's a means of halting an edit war and encouraging users to concentrate on productive endeavors. It does not mean that the style used by the first major contributor is preferred on that basis. It's a solution to a problem that arises when no preference (beyond editors' personal preferences) exists between/among various styles at Wikipedia. The Manual of Style documents such preferences. —David Levy 21:07, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• I concur totally with Sarah's summary above. Where two (or more) styles exist, people should not go about and change an article from one style to the other without a very good reason. There is no consensus to use "under the Manual of Style" without justification to continue encouraging stability in matters not mentioned by the MOS. The MoS is just a guideline and is not policy; every article differs from the next and each, depending on the writer, has their own stylistic values, regardless of what the MoS says. When I (used to) write FA's, I wrote them based on what I thought was good, not what a bloody guideline told me was good. That includes the writing, the images, and the use of quote boxes. Those who display such fetishes with the MoS should come to realise that for the benefit of moving forward. Cassianto^Talk 08:30, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

each, depending on the writer, has their own stylistic values – that goes to the heart of the matter. I believe we are constructing an encyclopedia, not a collection of articles. You clearly do not. Nothing prevents editors writing in their own style, but they do not own an article, and copy-editors must be free to achieve some reasonable level of standardization, allowing for the fact that English is a multi-national language and it was decided not to use one ENGVAR. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:15, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Please don't try and tell me what I do and do not believe. Who's said anything about "owning"? Cassianto^Talk 13:14, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cassianto if we're nit-picking over wording (a very Wikipedia behaviour :-) ), I did not say that you believed in "owning". My statement of what you believe – which is based on what you wrote – relates to "constructing an encyclopedia, not a collection of articles". Peter coxhead (talk) 14:30, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Neither did I say you "believed I was owning" articles; you really must keep up! But since you appear to like to assume others preferences, I'm wondering why you're calling into question a perceived and wholly inaccurate belief that I like to go about "collecting articles" rather than to build an encyclopedia? How do you know what I like? Cassianto^Talk 19:38, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

If you write every article differs from the next and each, depending on the writer, has their own stylistic values, regardless of what the MoS says. When I (used to) write FA's, I wrote them based on what I thought was good, not what a bloody guideline told me was good it's reasonable to assume that you are not overly interested in the uniformity of style that would characterize an encyclopedia. If everyone writes based on what they individually think good, the result is a collection of stylistically distinct articles. Anyway, I'll leave others to judge whether I have misinterpreted what you wrote. Let's get back to the issues. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:50, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't understand how me ignoring the stylistic preferences of a flawed guideline - the MoS - while choosing instead to adopt my own preferred style mean that I OWN the article and/or article collect? I think we can both agree that you're talking out of your backside. Cassianto^Talk 20:42, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't understand how me ignoring the stylistic preferences of a flawed guideline - the MoS - while choosing instead to adopt my own preferred style mean that I OWN the article and/or article collect?

It doesn't mean that, assuming that you permit others to edit said content to replace your preferred styles with those documented in the MoS. —David Levy 21:07, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To "permit" something is to allow it, so you're trying to lead me down the well trodden "OWN" path there, which I'm not going down. My point is that if I, as the main author of a FA or GA, choose to adopt a style which differs from that of the MoS, then I'm entitled to ignore it and not have the likes of McCandlish darkening my doorstep. Cassianto^Talk 21:55, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

To "permit" something is to allow it, so you're trying to lead me down the well trodden "OWN" path there, which I'm not going down.

Huh? The subject was raised above. I'm agreeing with you that writing in your own preferred style doesn't constitute an attempt to "own" content, assuming that you don't seek to counter others' efforts to edit said content in accordance with the MoS. I'm referring to the policy directly, not attempting to trick you in some way.

My point is that if I, as the main author of a FA or GA, choose to adopt a style which differs from that of the MoS, then I'm entitled to ignore it and not have the likes of McCandlish darkening my doorstep.

If, by "darkening [your] doorstep", you're referring to harassment or belittlement, you're quite right. If you mean "editing the article for consistency with the MoS", this is a textbook example of ownership. To be clear, I don't know which interpretation (if either) is accurate, so I'm not accusing you of anything or attempting to lead you down any paths. I'm simply citing a policy and its potential relevance to the matter at hand. —David Levy 23:09, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

When I (used to) write FA's, I wrote them based on what I thought was good, not what a bloody guideline told me was good.

And that's fine. As I noted elsewhere in he discussion, editors needn't even read the MoS before contributing, let alone adhere to it. But you accept, I presume, that your contributions "can and will be mercilessly edited" by those who concern themselves with such matters. —David Levy 21:07, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

...and if they do then justification, and subsequent consensus, would need to be sought in order to alter the stylistic preferences of the main author, particularly if the article is an FA. Cassianto^Talk 21:55, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, provided that the stylistic preferences of the main author are consistent with the MoS.

If the stylistic preferences of the main author are not consistent with the MoS, this generally constitutes justification. Of course, exceptions arise, and I certainly don't advocate that anyone purposely perform unhelpful edits purely for the sake of MoS compliance. The MoS documents conventions for which consensus has been established, with the understanding that deviation therefrom (in accordance with the same principles of consensus) sometimes is appropriate. —David Levy 23:09, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

SV, you censure Dicklyon for saying "there is no such 'VAR principle' ". You then show the wording of one version that purports to be this mysterious WP:STYLEVAR. You say it has always been around, pretty well; and that it once had a section of its own.

But I do not find "WP:STYLEVAR" anywhere on this main page of MOS. Please help us here. Where did that name come from? In what edit was the name invented? Who made the redirect that takes us there, and for what purpose? What documentation and discussion accompanied those actions? I ask you, because you seem to be the main supporter (and certainly the main protector and user) of that invisible location in MOS and the seemingly "official" redirect that you present as a documented and consensually settled feature of MOS.

Tony (talk) 11:35, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Both sides of this discussion seem to me to make good points. The contradiction seems to be between "Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply" (from WP:POLICY, which is itself policy), and "participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope" (from WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, which is also policy). If any deviation from a guideline can be overridden without argument simply by pointing to LOCALCONSENSUS, then the comment in POLICY has no force at all; but if editors can simply point to POLICY whenever they want to deviate from a guideline, then LOCALCONSENSUS has no force at all. Neither of these positions seem acceptable to me, but I don't see how to come up with a well-defined middle path. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:06, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

LOCALCONSENSUS cannot be used to override "any" deviation from the MOS. It simply ensures that discussion of that deviation does not occur in the recesses of, for example, a wikiproject's talk page. Primergrey (talk) 13:59, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I prefer a middle-ground myself. But I've come to discover that there is very little middle ground to be found in any discussion on Wikipedia. But put me down as thinking we need to acknowledge that Sarah's got some good points, even if you don't agree with them, but that we do need some overarching MOS on big style issues also. I just don't think the wording that SMC's adding is the solution. Ealdgyth - Talk 13:48, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Does anyone think that we could have GA criteria that said, "feel free to ignore MEDRS" or "GAs do not need citations"? This distinction looks like boiler-plate pettifogging. Primergrey (talk) 13:41, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In fact the GA criteria do indeed ignore parts of the MoS. I don't think that's a good example, though, because GA doesn't require ignoring it; it simply allows it. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:11, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Where in my question do you see "require". I was simply pointing out why the GA criteria example is being viewed by some people as being a red herring. Where was your criticism when SV used this very language to frame her argument? Primergrey (talk) 14:31, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• There was a similar discussion to this in January 2013, with people disagreeing about whether the MoS had to be followed. And in September 2012, there was an RfC after an editor tried to change the same STYLEVAR paragraph we're discussing. He argued unsuccessfully that we should remove "though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia ..." from "Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia".
  Policies and guidelines on Wikipedia have to be descriptive as well as prescriptive. That's where we differ from other publications. A normal publisher pays writers and says "Here is the house style. Follow it." But we're volunteers, and we're supposed to respect what other volunteers do at articles they're working on. The policies and guidelines reflect best practice; they're not top-down instructions.
  All attempts to impose central control over style and citation issues have been rejected, because we don't want bosses. When people feel they are being bossed, they leave or reduce their involvement. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:49, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Rather than clutter this discussion further, I've expanded my thoughts above at User:Andrewa/The MOS is neither optional nor compulsory. Andrewa (talk) 22:53, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Local consensus

I feel I should point out that the term local consensus does not appear in the policy to which that shortcut links, other than in the shortcut sidebar of the relevant section. Both it and the (undocumented) parallel shortcut from wp:LOCALCONSENSUS appear to be unilateral, undiscussed (but IMO helpful) redirects. Again IMO, the term is better avoided. Andrewa (talk) 19:35, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

• Non sequitur—why would the term be better avoided? Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:59, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  Because the concept is ill-defined, as has been said above by others, and probably irrelevant. Just my opinion. My main point, which is fact, is it's not mentioned in the policy. There have been some attempts to promote it, but all failed. Andrewa (talk) 22:49, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  Everything that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS points to is policy. WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is defined by what's in those two paragraphs. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:10, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  Agree that Everything that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS points to is policy. But disagree that WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is defined by what's in those two paragraphs. There is no attempt to define it there, and the value of the redirects is to make this clear. But the danger is that people may assume, as you seem to have, that the redirect indicates a consensus supporting the concept of local consensus and incorporating it into policy. There has been no such consensus, in fact the term seems to mean various things to different people, as observed above, and sometimes even within the one argument. Such confused thinking is a danger whenever ill-defined terms are used. Andrewa (talk) 23:28, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  It means what's in those two paragraphs. If anyone's trying to shoehorn "LOCALCONSENSUS" into any other meaning, then they're the problem. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 23:54, 13 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  Well, yes. I think the point being made though is that the terminology naturally leads to the assumption that all "local consensus" is disallowed per LOCALCONSENSUS, which is not the case. Now, is there another term that could replace LOCALCONSENSUS? I'm not sure. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:07, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  "Level of consensus" is the header name. There's already a redirect WP:CONSENSUSLEVEL. Is the argument seriously being made that local consensuses are in and of themselves disallowed? That would mean doing away with every WikiProject-local MoS—which are meant to cover details too fine for the general MoS. I don't believe anyone's made anything like such an argument. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:29, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

  I don't believe so either, but it appears that such a meaning may have been mistakenly inferred above, due to differing uses of the phrase "local consensus". —David Levy 03:24, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think my point that the term local consensus is better avoided is now amply made. The earlier discussion concluded The point of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS is not that the consensus is local, but whether it overrides a higher level of consensus... If it does not override anything, then it's merely a "local consensus", not WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. (My emphasis, see this diff for the unabridged and unaltered quote.)

Then why not use the wp:level of consensus or WP:CONLEVEL shortcuts instead? These both reflect the section heading Wikipedia:Consensus#Level of consensus, to which all four shortcuts lead. Why instead introduce local consensus, a term that has two significantly different meanings depending on whether or not it's capitalised (and perhaps many more depending on who uses it, but that's bad enough)? A pseudo-technical term that has never been adopted by consensus, and therefore appears nowhere in policies and guidelines?

Its only effect seems to be to complicate discussion and to make consensus more difficult to attain, so my advice is even more strongly, avoid the term. Andrewa (talk) 04:45, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So you're suggesting derailing discussions by browbeating those who happen to use the WP:LOCALCONSENSUS shortcut instead of the WP:CONLEVEL shortcut? I mean, seriously, who has suggested that a "local consensus" is in and of itself invalid (such as WP:JAPAN's "local consensus" to use modified Hepburn romanization for Japanese terms and names)? What are you hoping to achieve with this hairsplitting? Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:50, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's not my intention, nor did I anywhere mean to suggest that a a "local consensus" is in and of itself invalid. Just the opposite... I suggest that as the term local consensus has (at least) two completely different meanings, there is no way of deciding whether that statement is true, false, or even meaningless, and no point in even trying. (I do however think it's a very poor paraphrase of whatever I said.)

I'm not intending to browbeat, but I do have a rather strong opinion, and every right to express it. Don't I?

What I am trying to achieve is to clarify arguments by avoiding the term local consensus. If an argument can't be made without using this term, then that's itself evidence that there's a logical problem with it... that somewhere, local consensus is being used to mean two different things.

(And I should admit that I'm also collecting material to add to my essay User:Andrewa/Consensus is consensus, which is a work in progress to address exactly this issue.)

My hope is that, by doing this, we can get this and related discussions back on track, not derailed. Andrewa (talk) 05:48, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Can you point me to a dispute at an actual article that hinged on someone using the term "local consensus" instead of "level of consensus"? Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:00, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

JHunterJ invoked LOCALCONSENSUS in an RM discussion at Talk:The_Shadow_over_Innsmouth#Requested_move_4; it closed as not moved, essentially in favor of sticking with what the MOS says. I'm not sure the argument "hinged on it" though. Dicklyon (talk) 07:30, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

And Ohconfucious invoked it at Talk:Kumi_Koda/Archive_3#Requested_move_2013, and lost; I can't say I understand the issue there. Dicklyon (talk) 07:38, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

From what I can tell, JHunterJ invoked it out of a belief that the capitalization issue was settled at higher level, and that an overriding consensus was being sought on that talk page. In that case, he invoked WP:LOCALCONSENSUS correctly (regardless of whether he was right about capitalization). Ohconfucious invoked it out of ignorance of just how complicated the issue of name-formatting of Japanese people in English is—an issue far more complicated than a body could glean from the discussion. In short, it's an issue that will never be solved to everyone's satisfaction, because every solution sucks dirt in an important way, and WP:COMMONNAME is inadequate and often inappropriate to handle it. The issue can only be "solved" locally at WP:JAPAN, but will never be solved there, and so we'll see these move requests until the end of time. Ohconfucious invoked WP:LOCALCONSENSUS correctly in the mistaken belief that WP:JAPAN was overriding wider consensus. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 09:11, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Whether you use the short-cut term "local consensus" or not is surely irrelevant. If you go back to May 2008, for example, the wording in the lead section was Consensus among a limited group of editors can not over-ride community consensus on a wider scale, until convincing arguments cause the new process to become widely-accepted. There's no need for the distinction Andrewa is trying to make; it's never been said that "limited group consensus" or "local consensus" is in any way wrong of itself; only that it can't over-ride community consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:47, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with nearly all of this. I still think it would be helpful to avoid the term local consensus, as it seems to be seriously ambiguous, and I see no benefit to using it. Disagree that the shortcut is irrelevant, it's very helpful to use the correct terminology.... I suppose if you piped it as [[wp:local consensus|levels of consensus]] that would be harmless enough, but it also seems pretty pointless. If that's the distinction I am trying to make, then yes, I disagree with that too. It's controversial I know, but I believe that terminology is important both in expressing thoughts and in forming them. Andrewa (talk) 09:45, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

It's also wasted effort and hairsplitting when it hasn't led to any sort of concrete problem and there's content to edit. Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:34, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I generally agree with this, even if it is mildly insulting as I've seen many discussions over the years that have been concrete problems and would not waste my time and everyone's time otherwise. I wish I had a diff conveniently at hand for you, but as you say there are other things to do. I do intend to add more examples to User:Andrewa/Consensus is consensus as I run across them; Neither of the examples already there are relevant to this. I'll try to remember to ping you when I add a relevant one. Andrewa (talk) 18:45, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I wish we could do away with the term "local consensus"... and replace it with the more accurate "limited consensus". The page on which a consensus is achieved does not matter - what matters is how many editors contributed when reaching it. We do occasionally have significant RFCs that take place on "local" article talk pages - RFCs that involve a large number of editors - These discussions can even involve more editors than were involved in reaching a consensus on MOS guideline pages. Sure, it does not happen often, but it does happen. My point is that in such situations, the "local" (but wide) consensus can (and should) "over-rule" the more "limited" consensus on the relevant MOS guideline page. After all MOS itself says that there will be occasional exceptions. I am definitely not saying that a small group of editors "OWNing" a local page or group of pages should be able to set aside MOS guidance ... but lots of editors at a local page can.

to put this another way... we should not dismiss a strong (and wide) consensus that just happens to occur on a local page. If that strong consensus disagrees with MOS guidance, we need to step back and ask whether the relevant MOS guidance actually enjoys as strong (and wide) a consensus as we assume it has. It may be that we need to change our MOS guidance... more often it will simply mean that we need to accept a subject specific exception to otherwise valid MOS guidance. Blueboar (talk) 13:14, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed, but it's rare that a wide consensus such as you describe happens. SarahSV linked above to some examples where there was support expressed for variance from guidelines, but the bird project discussion was an example where the global consensus overruled the variance. (I have no opinion on who was right in any of those cases.) It sounds like the situation that would annoy some editors is if they make a thoughtful decision to vary from MoS, and then revert a change made for MoS reasons, and then get no substantive discussion of the validity of varying from the MoS in that instance. An editor who argued to reinstate MoS-compliance solely on the basis that it is MoS-compliance is essentially treating it as more than a guideline.

I still don't like the "acceptable under the MoS" language because it privileges the MoS, but I also don't want to see people departing from the MoS without some considered reason. I like Ealdgyth's summary above the best so far: Sarah has some good points, but we need some overarching MoS guidance. And, like Ealdgyth, I think discussions like these are terrible at finding a middle ground. I don't think this discussion is going to go anywhere; I think the "acceptable under MoS" language is going to stay, simply through inertia; and I don't think we'll get any clarification on when an editor can reasonably vary from MoS. If any RfC were to provide clarification it would have to start somewhere like VPP, not here. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 14:28, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Very well put. I'll think about that phrase limited consensus, it has potential. My initial reaction is that it's certainly better than local consensus, but perhaps there are traps with it that only experience will reveal. Andrewa (talk) 18:59, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"An editor who argued to reinstate MoS-compliance solely on the basis that it is MoS-compliance is essentially treating it as more than a guideline." Are they? That is exactly what happens with edits that violate, say, MEDRS, all the time. Primergrey (talk) 14:39, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

MEDRS is a policy that still has the guideline tag on it.

@Mike Christie and Blueboar: the "under the Manual of Style" words are not in the guideline, and there's no consensus to add them. I think we do need a central RfC about the MoS and local consensus, and what we mean by the latter. There's a clear difference between policy and guidelines. No group of editors could decide to exempt one article from the copyright policy or the need for sourcing. People doing that repeatedly would be banned. But clearly a group could decide, say, to use spaced em dashes, which the MoS advises against. If there was a disagreement, they'd discuss and follow whatever consensus emerged on talk. It would be up to that local group. No one would be blocked for repeatedly using spaced em dashes. SarahSV ^(talk) 15:25, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

No one would be banned, but I wouldn't expect such a consensus to hold up unless accompanied by a robust justification. I'd need convincing that departure from a guideline can be based only on preference; some reasoning must be given, surely. As it stands my concern is that it appears no justification would be considered sufficient. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:42, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

@SlimVirgin: no, a group could not decide to use spaced em dashes without a very strong reason that itself commanded community consensus (when it could be put in the MoS as an exception). "Guidance" doesn't mean "anyone is free to ignore this" but "there could be exceptions in well-supported special cases (unlike policy)". The clear community consensus, as embodied in the MoS, is not to use spaced em dashes, and community consensus outweighes local consensus. If this were not so, then, for example, bird articles would still be using capitalized English names, since there was clearly a majority among bird editors for this at the time of the RfC that decided to follow the MoS.

The only valid issue I can see applies only to a 'recent' change to the MoS where there has not been a widely advertised RfC, so it's not completely clear whether it does embody community consensus. But long-standing MoS guidance clearly does reflect community consensus. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:59, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I think this cuts to the very heart of the issue. Any editor is perfectly entitled to argue to reinstate MoS-compliance solely on the basis that it is MoS-compliance. They have a prima facie case, and it's up to those who wish to depart from the MOS to justify the departure.

Similarly, any editor is entitled to boldly correct any non-compliance to the MOS, without discussion. It happens all the time. There's nothing wrong with it. If it's reverted then it should be discussed, but the onus of proof is on those who wish to depart from the MOS.

Am I missing something? Andrewa (talk) 19:12, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I agree; this is how it should work, and I would think this is not controversial with anyone. The issue appears to be with "If it's reverted then it should be discussed". Should it be discussed? That would imply it might result in agreed-upon non-compliance. Is that the case? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 19:18, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

So, if an editor were to replace single quotemarks with double for quotations on, say, an English municipality, and the group maintaining the article BRDed and and came to a consensus amongst themselves that the article would use single quotemarks "because that's what we do here, and that's what British styleguides recommend ..." Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 21:24, 14 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Then they'd have to justify it; the justification you give doesn't seem strong enough to me, and I'd expect it to be overridden. To be clear: though there are places where I dislike the MoS preference (spaced em dashes, please!), I've never seen a case where I felt it was wrong enough for a particular article that it should be challenged. But if someone does challenge it, the tone of some participants here seems to be that they should never prevail. If that's the case, then I think we should mark the MoS as policy, not as a guideline. I'd regret it as an erosion of the individuality of this place, but if it's policy let's say so. And if it's really not policy, in what way is it not? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:33, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

That's the thing—in the example I gave, it's justified with "because that's what we do here, and that's what British styleguides recommend" and a majority of !votes by the local editors. That's pretty legit justification, but unacceptable under the MoS. If that's not sufficient, then what is sufficient for legitimate "agreed-upon non-compliance"? Curly "the jerk" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:58, 15 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"But if someone does challenge it, the tone of some participants here seems to be that they should never prevail." I might not be an expert at picking up "tone", but that doesn't seem to me to be at all the case. There's been some claiming that they 'will never prevail, but I disagree with that, too. As for what is sufficient for non-compliance, if I knew of a reason why a particular subject needed an exception, I would have brought it up right then and there here. I would hope anyone else would do the same. Primergrey (talk) 01:36, 15 December 2016 (UTC) [reply]

This "add yet more warnings and admonitions to MoS" idea is not a reasonable plan. Nothing good or constructive has ever come from treating MoS and what it contains as "special and different" from any other guidelines and their contents. No other guidelines contain such disclaimers, WP does not operate on disclaimers, and MoS already has fairly dire warnings in it, in multiple places, against assholery in MoS's name, citing ArbCom decisions and mentioning discretionary sanctions. Additionally, not only its talk page but all of the talk pages of MoS sub-guidelines also bear such warnings. This is already more than enough.

RGloucester, I'm glad that's sorted out. We agree: many recent revisions have created a mess. So have several that are not so recent, as I have shown. It's time for a collegial effort to bring about stability. Let's all work together. That's what I propose, starting from the simple shared foundation I've now put into MOS.