manual Of Style/Archive 199

At MOS:PMC, an errant phrase needs to be corrected where it is written: "When a vulgarity or obscenity is quoted, it should appear exactly as it does in the cited source; unless faithfully reproducing quoted text, Wikipedians should never bowdlerize words by replacing letters with dashes, asterisks, or other symbols." I don't know what was intended by its inclusion and have temporarily commented it out. Does anyone know what sentiments were meant to be carried?--John Cline (talk) 19:34, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

It might mean don't fix the quote if the frickin quote spelled it wrong. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:42, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) :I see the meaning, now. I think it is a confusing preposition, as written, however, and suggest it should be reworked for clarity. I'll post a suggestion momentarily, unless it is sooner fixed by another. Yes, SarekOfVulcan, I believe that is correct. Thanks.--John Cline (talk) 19:51, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• I offer this example for consideration:

"When a vulgarity is quoted, it should appear as it does in the cited source. Never replace letters with dashes, asterisks, or other symbols, nor spell-out an obscenity that is bowdlerized in the source; always, instead: faithfully transcribe quoted text exactly as it appears in the source."
I believe this retains the intended sentiments in less ambiguous prose. I give it for consideration, and possible use.--John Cline (talk) 21:28, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
You know, the more I look at it, the more I think it was phrased correctly in the first place. Your version isn't wrong, but it's more redundant than the original phrasing. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:35, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
(edit conflict) I agree the last part is unnecessarily repetitive and emphatic, but the proposed change does add advice against the (possibly rarer) converse type of misquotation, where a word that was suppressed in the original is spelt out or supplied in the quoted version. (WP:CREEP perhaps but not redundant.) At any rate, either Never should be replaced by Neither, or nor by or, and the phrasal verb spell out doesn’t want a hyphen.—Odysseus1479 23:58, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

• It's means if the printed statement we're quoting literally reads, character-for-character: "I told the President of Elbonia to go f--k himself", then we quote it that way; we don't "correct" it back to fuck through some total misunderstanding of WP:NOTCENSORED. No one seemed confused by this before, but if it can be reworded more clearly, have at it. The instruction should remain, and should probably also advise wrapping such a thing in {{notatypo|...}} or {{sic|hide=y|...}}, because many editors upon encountering a quoted "f--k" are probably apt to think an editor censored "fuck" out of the original [not to be confused with censoring the fuck out of the original, which might go further than that. >;-]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:41, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

  I moved the words around and added only enough to make it parse, and this should work fine "When a vulgarity or obscenity is quoted, it should appear exactly as it does in the cited source; Wikipedians should never bowdlerize words by replacing letters with dashes, asterisks, or other symbols, except when faithfully reproducing quoted text that did so." I still am not sure we should be advising a visible [sic]. The only purpose of it is to alert editors that the censorship is in the original; readers don't (usually) know we have a WP:NOTCENSORED policy and don't care.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  23:47, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Thank you, I appreciate every response; and profit by each.
SarekOfVulcan, I appreciate the kind manner that governed your critique. I vaguely remember an era bygone when it seemed as though you were far less concerned with how others felt, and far more candid in verbiage and tone. I commend, in the interim, whom you have become.
Odysseus1479, I am impressed by your apparently high level of skill. In as much as Wikipedia is a thing being built, I'd be an apprentice by specialized trade who today had the privilege of the chief architect's ear.
SMcCandlish, the changes your edit gave measurably improve the guidelines at hand in this discussion. It's rare that such gain could even come of a request born of a fallacious premise. You're a great colleague, and an asset of much value overall. It's too often that we, as a community, forget to say thanks; today, I'll not forget. Thank you, for all you have done for this project.--John Cline (talk) 14:16, 21 December 2017 (UTC)
And happy holidays to you too! :-) This page perhaps more than any other has to deal with and write around inconsistent interpretations of what it says and means.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:21, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Level 2 headings are called "level 2 headings", not "==-level headings". Using this ungrammatical terminology is not "saying exactly what's meant", it's making up a new term for an existing term. A bullet list isn't called a •-list, a parenthetical statement isn't called a ()-statement, and a levle 2 heading isn't called a ==-level heading.

Also, mere paragraphs from MOS:IMAGES there's MOS:PAREN, which asks editors to avoid constructs like "Each image should be inside the major section to which it relates (within the section defined by the most recent ==-level heading, or at the top of the lead section)". Bright☀ 16:08, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

• Most people don't know what a "level 2 heading" is, but they sure know what a "==-level heading is".
• MOS does not apply to MOS, or indeed to anything outside article space.
EEng 18:08, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Experienced editors know what a "==-level heading" is. Users using only the VisualEditor only have the notion of a "level 2 heading" to go by. --Izno (talk) 18:29, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Good point, even though, of course, people who use VE are abnormal and not to be trusted. I've modified it to use both terms. EEng 18:33, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

And we actually do apply most of MoS to MoS, or people use it as a weapon to avoid MoS compliance in mainspace. Using both is good; my usual approach to this is something like: a level-2 heading (== ... == (or "a second-level heading", though "level-2" probably works better, as a clearer reference to

for the super-dorks who know all that HTML mumbo-jumbo. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:55, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Of course "people who use VE are abnormal and not to be trusted." That makes them just like the rest of us.  SchreiberBike | ⌨  03:09, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
This perception might change if they'd stop eating kittens, but this is unlikely. It's a cultural matter.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:30, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
It's fine to adopt MOS practices where possible in MOS itself, but when someone starts citing MOS:PAREN it's time to make clear what's what. EEng 03:48, 20 December 2017 (UTC)
You should worry less about "making clear what's what" and more about actual readable style. If you don't want to follow MOS:PAREN then start a discussion to remove it from the manual. Bright☀ 06:25, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

Older discussions

(Linking here for posterity) Wiki_talk:Manual_of_Style/Accessibility/Archive_10#Image_position - the original discussion about images in the appropriate section; Wiki_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_114#Images_and_third_level_headings - subsequent alteration to level-2 heading. As originally discussed, images should be placed in their appropriate sections (of any heading level) for accessibility reasons. This was altered to level-2 headings to give editors more freedom in placing images. Bright☀ 07:01, 20 December 2017 (UTC)

I've been re-reading Pinker's The Sense of Style (one of the most highly regarded how-to-write-better manuals in generations), and I'm struck by how frequently an illustration's relevance to the text isn't instantly clear; one often has to read a little further. This seems pretty common, and I doubt many brains are melting, as long as the image and the context are pretty close to each other. It's only a problem when the material is separated by many paragraphs. Readers can't hold in mind the subject of a caption of unknown connection to the material indefinitely, especially if additional subjects are being introduced in the text in the interim. They can do it longer if all the intervening material is building up to the "reveal", but that's a fiction and journalism technique, a minor form of burying the lead combined with using a teaser).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:30, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

In many articles, for example The Bible and violence, we name some/a lot of scholars in the text. This is sometimes done "Anderson says" [1], sometimes "Philosopher, professor and author Eleonore Stump says" and anything in between. Is there any WP-guidance on what is "best", or is it all local consensus?

My personal preference is towards the latter. As a reader, I want some in-text info on who this is and why I´m listening to them, even if there´s a wikilink (though I´m less annoyed if there´s a wikilink). It may make the text more clunky and less scholarly, but still. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:46, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

What's all this I hear about violins in the Bible? EEng 13:37, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
I don´t know about violins, but there´s a lot of cattle in the Bible so they might need more cowbell. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 14:04, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
A lot of cattle. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:54, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
...that is a lot, yes. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 08:13, 27 December 2017 (UTC)
Just "philosopher Eleonore Stump" (or "philosophy professor Eleonore Stump" if there's some need to distinguish Stump from one of "the" philosophers like Nietzsche or Wittgenstein) is sufficient. Total lack of context is wrong for this medium/audience; it mostly happens in science articles, when people used to galloping attribution of the form "Jackson 2013 demonstrated that the blasting of vent doors by flux capacitor cycling is 7% less efficient" in their professional writing, with no reference at anywhere to who this is except in a citation. (It's better that they include that much than nothing, since it's still citing a source, but it's a crappy way to do it in an encyclopedia unless we've already recently cited Jackson, by full name, and Jackson(s) has/have more than one work being cited in our article).
But "philosopher, professor and author Eleonore Stump" is pointlessly redundant. There are virtually no professional philosophers who are not academics (those that are are better known as authors than philosophers), being a professor isn't special or contextually important anyway (even being the Alfred B. Ceesdale Professor of Philosophical Inquiry, or some other fancy-named endowment position, isn't important for our purposes, except in a bio on that person), all academics "publish or perish", so we would not be quoting this person if not an author of at least a bunch of peer-reviewed papers (there'd be no way for us to ascertain their in-field reliability as a source if they had no publication history).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:17, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
There are virtually no professional philosophers who are not academics – what about the many professional philosophers working in private industry? EEng 22:51, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
They're professional something-elses. I don't know of a company with "philosopher" or "VP of philosophy" in its org chart anywhere. That is, if they're notable, they'll be notable for something way more specific – as CEOs, as human–computer interface design experts, as university management consultants, or whatever the case may be. (Or maybe you're being funny. I can't tell when I've just woken up.)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:49, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
I do know of a former company that hired professional philosophers. (More specifically ontologists. My wife worked there, as a programmer not as a philosopher.) It lasted surprisingly long before folding. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:50, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
A month? EEng 01:58, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Good guess, but I think it was around 16 years. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:09, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
So it would seem. EEng 01:37, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Me too. Full name on first use seems respectful to the reader and the person being mentioned. The, especially older, scientific standard of "Jackson 1913 said ..." feels like there's a club that's all on a last name only basis with each other, and if you aren't well known enough to be known only by last name, then you don't count. It's especially a mess with the last name is "Li" or "Smith".  SchreiberBike | ⌨  17:49, 23 December 2017 (UTC)
Even aside from that psychology, the context-free "Jackson 1913"-on-first-use style – and similar ones like "Jackson (1913)", or a "(Jackson 1913)" at the end of the statement – have been favored in journals to save space, but WP isn't paper; we favor clarity over compression. The academic journal reader may already know which Jackson is intended, and may well have already read what's being cited, while they don't care much until they decide to dig into the citations in earnest; they're more apt to care most about the overall theoretical and methodological framework of the piece they're reading, which is by a specific author or team. Our readers (when they care about citations) tend to care on a point-by-point basis (our articles are palimpsests stirred together by a global assortment of geniuses, crackpots, and everyone in between, sometimes citing great stuff, sometimes poor stuff, and sometimes nothing), and they aren't likely to know any author from another.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  16:49, 24 December 2017 (UTC)
You might be interested in reading the article False title.  – Corinne (talk) 00:31, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
"False title" is pure BS predicated on the false logic that anything that precedes a name is a "title". I was waiting for someone to link to this—I'm surprised it took more than three or four comments. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:15, 26 December 2017 (UTC)
Ever notice how the "false title" snobs are always the same people freaking out about infoboxes? But don't tar Corinne with the same brush – no doubt she was merely edifying her fellow editors. EEng 01:34, 26 December 2017 (UTC)

Well, our article on it seems well sourced enough. This is a "teach the controversy" matter. It's clear that some people "out there" are writing about (and objecting to) that style of writing, and have been for around a century. It's good that we have an article on it. The prescriptivism latent in it, however, isn't something MoS should adopt or editors here should try to enforce against. It's normal English these days when writing in tight prose. E.g., I would happily use it in a lead section when describing a peripheral figure, but use the "the" form in the longer article, unless it resulted in some kind of awkwardness. I recall a discussion about two years ago (in article talk) about describing someone as married "to the painter John Doe" (whatever his name was) rather than "to painter John Doe", with the conclusion being that the former was awkward implying, "to the painter John Doe" like he was extra-special or something. So, depends on context. A good solution is to provide more of it (e.g. "to John Doe, a painter from Saskatoon").  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  05:32, 30 December 2017 (UTC)
My sense is that the professional encyclopedic tone is "the American philosopher Eleonore Stump..." in the first instance, followed by "Stump" if she needs to be referenced again. If appropriate, something like "and Biblical scholar" could be inserted before her name, as well, in the first instance. I personally dislike the "Stump (2016)" thing in the flow of prose and feel that such should be consigned to footnotes, but I realize it's still common in certain fields.  White Whirlwind  咨  10:00, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
Agree with "followed by" of course, but why bother with nationality in general? There may be places where it matters, but in general/here? IMO it´d be more relevant to note, in a religous context, if they are a professor from say Pensacola Christian College. Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 11:47, 28 December 2017 (UTC)
Agreed with both of you in this case– i.e., yes to WW's general approach to introducing Stump, but also yes to GGS's quibble about nationality, unless there's a particular contextual need for it; there might be in, e.g., an article on Canadian politics and an American commentator on it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  05:32, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

Please see: Wiki talk:Categorizing redirects#Request for comments on MoS shortcut redirect categorization.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  08:30, 23 December 2017 (UTC)

Please direct some attention to this, in particular the idea of tagging all the MoS guidelines, except WP:Manual of Style itself, with {{R to subpage}}, which has potentially non-trivial consequences [2].  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  11:11, 30 December 2017 (UTC)

• Honestly I don't understand the issue, but I'll be happy to support whatever you come up with, because you're usually right on stuff like that. EEng 18:43, 31 December 2017 (UTC)

Should we add in and display the year that a marriage ends when the subject of the biography has died. Or should we not display, or remove the end date for the marriage. This was originally presented at the template page and the RFC was closed and the instruction were to reopen it here. The issue arose because some editors are mass removing the end date for marriages, when the end date is when the subject of the biography has died.

Option 1 with displayed end date

•  Y This should be the way to do it. It removes the ambiguity that the marriage is still a legal entity beyond death, or that the template has not been updated with the information that one partner has died. See below: With no end date it leaves the impression that they may have been divorced before death, or that the other partner died first, but that no one has done the research. Option 2 is inherently ambiguous. --RAN (talk) 18:20, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
•  N Option 1 can be misread that Salma Rogers is a man who died in 1960, or that "his death" is a typo for "her death", or that Salma may have died first but we don't know her death date, or that Salma and Albert were divorced in 1956 but that no-one has added the date or done the research, etc., etc. The arguments for favoring option 1 are logically flawed: the format does not address the problem and provides no more clarity than the other option. DrKay (talk) 19:24, 25 October 2017 (UTC) Amended 21:28, 27 October 2017

The wording in the template can always be changed later if that is your problem. If you can think of better wording that provides more clarity, let us all know what that is. The current wording was from a previous RFC, no one declared it the ultimate super best, just the most appropriate offered at the time. It can just as easily appear as "end=Brock's death" with an additional RFC, this RFC is about adding the end of marriage date. --RAN (talk) 22:45, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

•  Y This option has the greatest clarity. - PKM (talk) 17:54, 18 October 2017 (UTC)
• After thinking about it, I'll throw my support here. I really don't know if it should be hardcoded, though. Nohomersryan (talk) 19:32, 22 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support As argued above, the benefits of clarity to all readers, regardless of their experience with such conventions, provides the greatest benefit here. Alansohn (talk) 19:34, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
•  Y ChristianKl (talk) 16:49, 27 October 2017 (UTC)

• Support This has the most clarity and explains remarriages more easily. --Trödel 03:37, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support This option is the clearest for readers. Jklamo (talk) 10:24, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

• Support When we have an infobox, we must have an infobox. Meaning that the typical, tired argument about "duplicating info already in the article" is null and void. This option goes for the necessary infobox-information in a short and easy manner. Clearly preferable. -The Gnome (talk) 09:10, 3 November 2017 (UTC)

• It's not just about duplicating info already in the article, but already in the infobox. Per MOS:INFOBOX, we should avoid such duplication. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:46, 3 November 2017 (UTC)
• Please quote the sentence you are referring to in MOS:INFOBOX. Asking me to read the bible to find the answer is not useful in a discussion. The word "duplication" does not appear in the text. You have a habit of doing this during discussions. --RAN (talk) 19:37, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
• Referencing relevant policies/guidelines that support a position is appropriate in consensus-building discussions. Per the particular page I cited: "The less information [the infobox] contains, the more effectively it serves that purpose, allowing readers to identify key facts at a glance... wherever possible, present information in short form, and exclude any unnecessary content." Nikkimaria (talk) 19:45, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
So when the infobox is empty, it has reached perfection. --RAN (talk) 05:31, 5 December 2017 (UTC)
"the less information" is a misfortunate wording. "The more concise the information" better aligns with the spirit. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:40, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support gives most clarity this way. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 21:39, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
• Comment. The 'his'/'her' text, especially if wired into the template, assumes that partners in a marriage can be distinguished by gender. How will this work when George Takei dies, assuming his husband outlives him? Pburka (talk) 22:15, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

I told you this gay marriage thing would lead to trouble. EEng 22:21, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
"end=Takei's death" or "end=Altman's death", the template accepts any text. It is just a matter of adding some text to the template guide for same sex marriages to explain what to do, would you like to volunteer? The end= parameter and the wording was added after a previous debate, this debate is about adding the date that a marriage ends, we can always go back and relitigate the text portion. If George Takei dies in 2018, won't you feel a little bit responsible for using him as an example? -RAN (talk) 22:39, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
What happened to widowed? (e.g. Jane Jones (m. 1930; wid. 1935)) Is it not gender neutral enough? AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 23:09, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
Another good wording, I do not remember why it did not become the default. --RAN (talk) 00:22, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Option 2 with no end date

•  Y Since the death date of the article subject will be given already in the infobox and marriages obviously end on the death of the subject, there is no need to repeat the death date of the subject. Infoboxes should be simple and should not unnecessarily duplicate information. DrKay (talk) 19:21, 17 October 2017 (UTC)
• This seems a nice, simple approach. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:31, 19 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support. The version above this one is needlessly long-winded.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  11:14, 20 October 2017 (UTC)
•   Agree This seems simpler than option 1, and any missed detail will be contained in the article anyway. Sam Wilson 00:46, 28 October 2017 (UTC)
• Support; simpler version, clearly preferable. Happy days, Lindsay^Hello 18:13, 8 November 2017 (UTC)
• Support marriages in almost all cultures are understood to be until death. Adding d. 1940 would imply the spouse died the same year, perhaps before the person's death. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 23:12, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

Well, not Mormons. EEng 23:15, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support; In the case that the surviving (if any) spouse remarries, there needs to be an end date. But otherwise, some (not necessarily me) might consider the marriage continuing into (religiously preferred afterlife). With a date, it looks like someone divorced on the day of death. If a surviving spouse does remarry, I suppose the day of death makes sense. Gah4 (talk) 23:17, 2 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support: there does not seem to be any need to specify why a marriage ended in an infobox. The 'death' line would imply the termination of such partnership. Their spouse's death should be covered elsewhere in the article (usually a 'personal life' section). –Sb2001 00:26, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support: Un-necessary repetition otherwise. Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:39, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support per others above. Ealdgyth - Talk 14:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Option 3 - allow flexibility

Neither mandate nor disallow end dates... neither encourage nor discourage not having end dates. Let editors decide what is best on a case by case, article by article basis. Blueboar (talk) 23:32, 2 January 2018 (UTC)

• Problem then is, if a halfway observant reader, going from bio article to bio article, notices the differences in infobox info, they'll be apt to think they're missing something, attempt to figure out what the difference is, and realize that it's simply because a different person wrote the article and that, through some seriously misappropriated terminology, templates are not uniform here. No interest in the specific outcome beyond its occurrence. Primergrey (talk) 04:49, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

• Support - as well as whether or not to use the {{marriage}} template at all, and which parameters to use if so. These choices do not belong in our MoS, they belong in the template documentation; this should not be changed. Notwithstanding the OP's decision to omit the majority of the template's functionality, in choices given, remaining flexible allows many more possibilities, like, for example, the ones shown at right.--John Cline (talk) 04:25, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
• Support—let's keep the MoS out of this ridiculous micromanagement—this is almost always best left to editorial judgement, and when not, it should be left to talk page consensus. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:34, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

• Question: who actually started this thread? I think a signature to close the opening statement would be beneficial. –Sb2001 00:29, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
• In most biographies, the marriage is completely irrelevant to the notability of the subject and should not be included in the infobox at all. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:05, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
  In nearly all biographies, the date of birth is also "completely irrelevant to the notability of the subject" but it is certainly useful information, and therefor, rightly included. There is no reason to assume a notable subject's marriage can not be informative as well, and, IMO, no excuse for teaching that it can not. Respectfully--John Cline (talk) 05:20, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
  For dead people it is not an issue. For living people, non-notable third parties should not be named in the article (let alone the infobox) unless it can be shown they had a significant impact on the subject. (Granted all of the examples above are about marriages ending due to death, so unlikely to be relevant) Only in death does duty end (talk) 10:37, 3 January 2018 (UTC)
  And in others (e.g. Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly) it is central to their biography. But the discussion is not about forcing or disallowing marriage data in infoboxes, so the comment is irrelevant. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 05:31, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

Is there a guideline on how to format interwiki hatnotes, and should they exist? The article Handegg (Swiss village) contains such a hatnote linking to to wikt:handegg (humorous term for American football, etc.). Did I format it properly? WP:HATNOTE says not to pipe non-disambiguation links, though I think it would be better to auto-format these links in Module:Hatnote (e.g. "For the English word, see handegg at [the English] Wiktionary"). Jc86035 (talk) 11:05, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Seems entirely reasonable to me. Get people where they want to be, with clarity. This is way preferable to using one of those interwiki box templates (which would only be appropriate if it were the same topic, and the Wiktionary material on it were substantive). Some are apt to object to such a hatnote at all, though. I think they should reconsider. Things like this will help prevent people from creating WP:NOTDICT-violating micro-stubs on non-notable slang and neologisms.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  05:18, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

I hope that you folks can help (have searched the archive). I regularly create aircraft engine articles, the subjects are often museum exhibits only or no longer exist at all. In the lead first sentence I always use the past tense as this seems natural to me. This is 'corrected' to present tense as if I have made a mistake. If the subject is still in service or even limited use in retirement I will use present tense.

Reading the guideline wording of do not use past tense except for dead subjects, past events, and subjects that no longer meaningfully exist as such I would regard an aircraft engine in a museum as not meaningfully existing as it is no longer running, turning a propeller or producing thrust and powering an aircraft.

Does this wording need adjusting for clarity? I've looked at some other random museum items (retired/defunct etc) and they all seem to use the past tense in the first sentence, e.g. Stephenson's Rocket, North American XB-70 Valkyrie, Space Shuttle Enterprise, RRS Discovery and the Wright Flyer, all subjects that no longer operate as they were originally designed to do ('retired' in less words!). Cheers Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 07:27, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

• It seems a little odd, but what if there were an article about the Foo Exhibit? An article that would focus, at least secondarily, on a thing that obviously exists, no matter how tenuously, would have to refer to it in the past tense. I do a lot of tense-related copyediting and I see the fairly strong language in the current wording as a bright line. If there's one around, anywhere, it gets present tense. Primergrey (talk) 02:04, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  So the articles I linked are incorrect then? There are clearly other editors that think the same way as me. On the Foo exhibit I would agree that many objects could always be referred to in the present tense, a sculpture or painting was intended to be looked at by its creator so it is still 'meaningfully existing'. A piece of engineering machinery (ship, aircraft, car, engine etc) once it is in a museum with none left working is not 'meaningfully existing'. Perhaps it's an engineer's/operator's thing along the lines of vessels having female gender, if a device is broken or stops working it immediately becomes 'was' in my eyes, its 'soul' has gone like a person passing away. There's a nuance in the grammar that is being overlooked. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 12:11, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Really, the whole "meaningfully" thing is problematic anyway, as it is in the editing guideline, but the end result, in the article, is "The Foo was this and that. A well-preserved example is housed at..." This reads, correctly, as contradictory. There are nuances here, but if they don't get conveyed through article prose, then we are simply navel-gazing. Primergrey (talk) 15:06, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  The "Foo Exhibit" is not the same as "Foo" itself. You could say that "the Foo Exhibit is a museum exhibit focusing on foos. Foos were an item used for bar." (bar being the function of the foo) This would make it clear that the foos themselves no longer meaningfully exist, but that relics are available for viewing.--Khajidha (talk) 13:23, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  I see your point, but I think that if something has existing examples and a museum exhibit, it has a meaningful existence. Primergrey (talk) 14:51, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Not sure how you figure that non-used examples and a museum exhibit equals a "meaningful existence". By those criteria I could claim that Vladimir Lenin has a meaningful existence because his unused body is still on display. --Khajidha (talk) 15:04, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Vladimir Lenin's body has a meaningful existence. Primergrey (talk) 15:09, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
• "meaningfully exist" is more reasonably interpreted as "destroyed", not "decommissioned and now used only in an exhibit". "X is an aircraft engine that was available in Y timeframes used in Z aircraft" is a fairly easy rewording for the case where you could walk into a museum and find the engine. If you have a reasonable belief that no engines of the model/class remain (where "reasonable belief" might be translated as "reliable sources tell you all of them were scrapped"), then I don't see an issue with "X was an aircraft engine (... available in Y timeframe)". I would suggest similar rewordings for a number of those example articles. --Izno (talk) 14:20, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Sorry, but ""meaningfully exist" is more reasonably interpreted as "destroyed", not "decommissioned and now used only in an exhibit"" is the exact point being discussed. Your pronouncement that this is so is no more valid than Nimbus227's pronouncement of the the converse. To me, the idea that a disused piece of technology no longer "meaningfully exists" is much more reasonable than your point of view. --Khajidha (talk) 14:44, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Let's look at another sphere: A computer program which is still known to exist, but which I can't use because I don't have the correct technology, does not cease to "meaningfully" exist just because I can't install and use it on my modern-day machine. It ceases to meaningfully exist when the only record we have of it is in writings rather than some potentially installable form. An engine model is no different: it only ceases to exist meaningfully when all of the class of engines no longer exist. Just because they were "retired" (i.e. no longer installed in an aircraft and no longer intended to be installed in an aircraft [because X technology deprecated it, etc.]) doesn't mean they don't work (I bet any number of "retired" engines could be tinkered with a bit and subsequently function as originally intended). --Izno (talk) 14:51, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Is your inability to install the program indicative of the fact that machines that could run the program are no longer used or only that you, yourself, do not have such a machine? The first seems not to "meaningfully exist" to me, while the latter might mean only that you have the most up to date technology while the program is still commonly used by many others with less up to date technology. --Khajidha (talk) 15:00, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Thought provoking stuff. I've had a look at the 'factsheets' from several museums including the Royal Air Force Museum, London Science Museum and the National Museum of the United States Air Force. They tend toward using the past tense for their retired aircraft and engine exhibits, which is my preferred method. In some cases they are using past tense for types that are still in limited use which I also wouldn't disagree with. Quite cleverly they avoid the use of tense at times by constructing their object descriptions in a different way. The MOS:TENSE guideline either needs clarifying considerably or amending to say that either style is acceptable. The nutshell box at the top of the page indicates that exceptions may apply (IAR) if all else fails. I have two more articles in the pipeline and would be reluctant to create them if they are going to be 'corrected per the guideline' the instant they are published, I find it very annoying unfortunately. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 17:41, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Writers always dislike it when the editorial staff of their publisher “corrects” their writing. It shouldn’t keep you from publishing. Granted, our “editorial staff” is self appointed... but then ... so are our writers. Blueboar (talk) 20:14, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Anyone who won't write an article because it is likely to get copyedited in line with our MOS (or for a multitude of other reasons) lacks the collaborative spirit this website relies on for success. Primergrey (talk) 00:59, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  And they wouldn't get published by traditional publishers either. Heh.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  01:20, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

"Lenin's body has a meaningful existence." Exactly. It's perfectly fine to say that Challenger was a space shuttle and that parts of it are in a museum. If the entire something is in a museum, and still in working or potentially working condition (not just a shell or a fragment), though, it should probably remain in present tense. Cognitive dissonance about this can be resolved by sensible rewriting. Wright Flyer is a perfect example: The Wright Flyer (often retrospectively referred to as Flyer I or 1903 Flyer) was the first successful heavier-than-air powered aircraft. It was designed and built by the Wright brothers. They flew it four times on December 17, 1903, near Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, US. Today, the airplane is exhibited in the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C.. Analyze it: Past-tense claim about something it did. Past-tense claim about something they did. Ditto. Present tense claim about what the plane is up to right now. There is no problem there. PS: The style on that needs fixing; it should be '''''Flyer'' I''' or '''1903 ''Flyer'''''; the name of the aircraft did not change.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  01:29, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

I am very open to copy editing of my actual mistakes, I strive very hard not to introduce them. I would disagree that I lack collaborative spirit, it should be apparent that I have created many articles and happily left them to be edited, indeed they are often short on text and I hope that they will get expanded, I am very aware of WP:OWN having been accused of it several times. I have also uploaded many photographs for free use and am only too happy if someone improves them through editing. This tense guideline is a guideline but appears to be being enforced as a policy which is worrying considering the wording is open to interpretation (editors commenting above clearly read it in different ways). I'm afraid that most retired engine types are so dull and boring that it is very difficult to write the first sentences in the manner suggested for the Wright Flyer. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 20:30, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
So write it however you want and let someone else edit it in that manner. Nothing is being "enforced as a policy" unless "enforced" means "someone coming along and making style-related changes to an article to bring it in line with this site's style guidelines". No one is blocked for writing in a different house style, but people have been blocked for disruptive reversions to MOS-compliant edits. Primergrey (talk) 21:39, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
To comply is to acquiesce. Wikipedia has an editor retention problem, blanking the educated foot soldiers' opinions and experience might be related. Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 22:02, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Unless you are speaking literally, I don't know what you mean by "educated foot soldier". Regardless, as I said before, any editor that cannot work collaboratively is one not worth retaining. No article worth a damn has ever not been proofed and copyedited. Here or anywhere else. Primergrey (talk) 22:22, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Just to be clear, you would rather I leave the project than discuss a problematic guideline? Nimbus (Cumulus nimbus floats by) 23:38, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
I was addressing the "editor retention problem" that you had mentioned during this discussion. But I wouldn't want to be the cause of anyone's martyrdom so, no, I would rather you did not leave the project. In fact, if it's causing you this much consternation, I would suggest, again, that you not comply with what is looking like the consensus interpretation of MOSTENSE. Just let other, equally well-meaning, editors tweak it (not correct it) to this site's house style. Primergrey (talk) 00:00, 8 January 2018 (UTC)

Some of the most frequent comprehension-impeding errors I encounter and correct could be addressed in a small section. I think it would ease some copyediting load in the long run (and of course make the encyclopedia text better for readers in innumerable places); probably goes right after MOS:SERIAL, but it could also live in MOS:LISTS, and just be summarized in the main MoS page without the example table:

[End proposed material.]

Quite short as to rulemaking, though the examples are rich. These are just two real examples from about an hour ago (some details compressed for brevity) – in otherwise very well-written articles. The journalistic and fiction-writing aversion to the serial comma is poisonous. While no one is confused by the lack of one in a very simple construction like "My dog strangely likes pistachios, potatoes and eggplant", there's no question that it's needed in these kinds of constructions.

Yet only two days ago, I had someone tendentiously revert-warring against a comma despite patently obvious ambiguity (that was a case of "So-and-so guitarist was a member of the Chicken and Dumplings, Doodah and the Snorkel Weasels" (whatever the actual band names were); only someone familiar with the bands would be certain this meant three bands (C&D, D, and SW). The reverter's excuse? As always: "MoS doesn't say it's required."

— Preceding unsigned comment added by SMcCandlish (talk • contribs)

Oh boy, Oxford comma wars. *gets popcorn* —David Eppstein (talk) 17:39, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Did you say "comma wars"? Will go dust off my uniform from the past skirmishes. Better yet, did you say "popcorn"! (p.s. nice work, would happily support this proposal.) Randy Kryn (talk) 20:45, 6 January 2018 (UTC)
Could be worse – could be an Oxford coma. EEng 15:08, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

• SM, does the lowly semicolon have no place in your toolbox of disambiguators? EEng 22:35, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
  Argh! Yes, you know I wallow in the semicolon. I left it out by accident due to copy-pasting and whatnot while building that table. I've put it back in.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:07, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

When a list of areas served is present in an article's infobox, should Puerto Rico be listed if the United States is already on the list? Daylen (talk) 00:02, 7 January 2018 (UTC)

Can someone activate our team of rabbis, please? EEng 22:28, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
I would say “yes”... most readers don’t think of Puerto Rico (or other US Territories) when they see a reference to th US... they only think of the States. Alternatively, the listing can read: “United States and its Territories”... or something similar. Blueboar (talk) 23:46, 7 January 2018 (UTC)
Agreed. It'll depend on context.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:08, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Can we get a clarification on how MOS:LQ should be interpreted with regards to including terminating punctuation without quotemarks? For example, given two source sentences:

(1) "Curly Turkey can really get under people's skin when he gets going."
(2) "I really hate it when Curly Turkey opens his beak; he gets so annoying."

Would we quote them in a Wikpedia™ article in the following manner:

(A) Critic A stated Curly Turkey could "really get under people's skin". Critic B concurred, stating that Curly Turkey "gets so annoying".
or:
(B) Critic A stated Curly Turkey could "really get under people's skin". Critic B concurred, stating that Curly Turkey "gets so annoying."

—Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:42, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

Discussion

• Obviously, LQ requires the first quote fragment to have its terminating punctuation outside the quotemarks. Logically, the period punctuates the enclosing sentence, not the quoted fragment. Following that logic, the second sentence would also require the period outside, but some^[who?] argue that, because the original had a period there, the quoted fragment should also include the period inside the quotemarks. Problems with that:
  • It ignores the "logic" in "logical quotation"—the period terminates a complete sentence, not a sentence fragment.
  • It results in a hodge-podge of in-and-out styles throughout an article that:
    • makes no sense from a reader's perspective
    • can be verified or resolved only by consulting all the sources
    • may motivate reader/editors to "fix" the article by putting all the terminating punctuation inside (breaking text–source integrity), or placing them all outside (a violation of MOS:LQ if MOS:LQ truly requires the original terminating punctuation to be included within the quotemarks).

Is there really any plausible reason to prefer (or even allow) (B)? Regardless, how can MOS:LQ be amended to make whichever interpretation clear? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 11:42, 4 January 2018 (UTC)

• LQ starts by saying, without qualification, Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark, then goes on to give a bunch of examples which in many cases contradict that. If you LQ zealots would get your act together and come up with a guideline that actually makes sense, is self-consistent, and is not too far off from they way normal people here on earth actually write, I'm sure most editors will do their best to follow it. In the meantime I, for one, will just do what that first sentence clearly tells me to do. EEng 12:08, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Now I understand: it wasn't a dispute over interpretation of LQ, but your opposition to LQ that led to the dispute. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  No, you don't understand. It was about the impossibility of making sense of LQ's contradictory provisions. EEng 23:26, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  It's awfully straightforward. I'm sorry you're having difficulty with it. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 00:09, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
• Seems to me that we could make it clearer just by removing the sentence EEng quoted. --Khajidha (talk) 16:05, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  Then no one would understand it it all. It would just be a bunch of examples without any principle to follow. If we removed or changed anything, it would be an allegedly confusing example, but none have been identified. What seems to be happening here is that EEng is extrapolating beyond what it actually says and arriving at something like "Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks if it was present in the original material, no matter what, and place all other punctuation after the closing quotation mark", or something to that effect, though it's not entirely clear, since he's just objecting without being specific. The only likely clarification I can see to make is to reverse the order of these two sentences one one line, about full versus fragmentary quotes, so that we have: If the quotation is a single word or fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark. If the quotation is a full sentence and it coincides with the end of the sentence containing it, place terminal punctuation inside the closing quotation mark. We should do that because we more often quote fragments than full sentences, so people should see and absorb that part first and foremost.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:08, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
• My interpretation of LQ is that we put inside the quotes the things that we intend to quote, and not the punctuation that is part of our framing sentence. In this example, what we intend to quote is "gets so annoying". In most contexts it would not make sense for what we quote to be extended by one character to "gets so annoying." (this sentence being an exception to the "most contexts") because that longer quote is less-grammatical, having a period after something that is not a complete sentence. So in this case the clear choice is A over B. The weird part is that when a sentence ends on a quoted sentence, we omit the period from the framing sentence and let the quoted period do the job. Instead, we should have both; for instance, "This is a quoted sentence.". It looks uglier that way but it would be more logical. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:03, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
  There was actually one (and only one, as far as I've been able to determine, with almost every style guide ever) that actually advised this. So, it's not totally unattested, but incredibly rare, presumably because it's too pedantic for most people to tolerate. Technical writers would still do this when quoting code in which the . at the end wasn't a full stop/period but a different meaning of the glyph, and that's fine. But it would probably be better to rewrite.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  Unless it can be demonstrated to solve an actual, real-world problem, there's no way it will gain traction at Wiki English. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:23, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  • Well, lets keep the discussion to that of sentence fragments, as the quoting of compete sentences is a different issue; your solution doesn't apply to this one. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:53, 4 January 2018 (UTC)
    • Ignore the last two sentences of my comment if you wish, but all the rest is directly relevant. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:14, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
      • Sure. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:09, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
• Both of them would go outside, since they're just fragments, and our terminal punctuation belongs to our entire sentence and is only meaningful in that fuller context; the string "really get under people's skin." by itself is meaningless. LQ forbids insertion of punctuation not in the original, as blatant misquotation; it does not require retention of terminal punctuation that was in the original when it doesn't make sense to do so. Otherwise no excerpting would be possible at all. I.e., there is no difference between taking an original statement, "Janet's cat is orange and ugly.", and quoting it as "He said her cat is "orange and ugly", which I though was funny.", versus "He said her cat is 'orange and ugly'." But include it inside the quote here: "He said: 'Janet's cat is orange and ugly.'" Leaving it out when quoting a full sentence strongly implies we're quoting a fragment. But if we're quoting a fragment, the exact same principle that allows us to partially quote without all the words also allows us to partially quote without terminal punctuation that doesn't make sense inside the fragment when the fragment is viewed on its own. A third way of putting it: If I write "My cat is loud, ha ha", you would not partial-quote it as "McCandlish said 'My cat is loud,'." – desperately retaining the comma as part of the original construction.

  Re: the claims that MOS:LQ "then goes on to give a bunch of examples which in many cases contradict that" we "[i]nclude terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark" – I've reviewed it line by line and it does not do that at all. All the examples are correct. (This has not always been the case; people have monkeyed with it before, especially to make it match one of the dozen+ British styles that were inspired by LQ but have diverged from it in inconsistent ways.)
   — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:00, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

  Which is how I interpret things, but is this what MOS:LQ actually says? EEng believes it does not, and has placed the punctuation at Sacred Cod back inside the quotemarks, citing MOS:LQ. I've (occasinally) had others interpret MOS:LQ this way (which is why I opened this discussion), although not to the point of reverting me. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:09, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  After just re-reviewing it, yes that is what it says. I think flipping the order of two sentences and examples [3] will resolve it.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  02:54, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  (edit conflict against SM's post just above, and maybe that fixes it, I don't know) Look, LQ says Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark, period (so to speak). It says if X, do A, otherwise do B. It purports by its wording to dispose of every case that arises. The later examples don't call themselves exceptions to this Prime Directive; they're just there, telling you to do things, some of which (depending on circumstance) contradict the opening instruction. For example, let's say the source says, What Marlin said was, "I need to find Nemo.", and for whatever reason I want to cast this as either Marlin needed, he said, "to find Nemo". or Marlin needed, he said, "to find Nemo." According to the later examples given by LQ, I'm supposed to write the first, but according to the LQ's unambiguous, here's-how-it's-done, no-exceptions-provided-for Prime Directive, I'm supposed to use the second. Thus the contradiction. EEng 03:17, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  It's a question of what you mean by "the original material" that you're quoting. If you intend the original quoted material to be "to find Nemo." as a sentence fragment with a terminal period, then by all means include the period within the quote. But why would you want to do that? If, as seems much more likely, that what you intend to quote is the unpunctuated fragment "to find Nemo", then the period is not part of the original material that you're quoting and should not be put there merely because it syntactically matches a period in the quoting sentence. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:26, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  You're not understanding what you're quoting, EEng. The guidline does not say to include punctuation if it's in the original, but only that you can include punctuation only if it appears in the original—meaning: don't through a comma or period in there that wasn't in the original. The "to find Nemo" example at MOS:LQ is totally correct—why do you think it's not? Which part of the guideline do think think makes it ambiguous? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:35, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  Yep. I had the same perception, though I sandwiched into the above material: 'What seems to be happening here is that EEng is extrapolating beyond what it actually says and arriving at something like "Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks if it was present in the original material, no matter what, and place all other punctuation after the closing quotation mark", or something to that effect, though it's not entirely clear, since he's just objecting without being specific.' [4]  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  03:39, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  The Prime Directive absolutely says If X do A, otherwise do the opposite of A. There is no middle. It does say or imply If X do A, otherwise you don't have to do A; if it's trying to say the latter it does an incompetent job of it. David Eppstein, I appoint you my proxy for the rest of this discussion, to vote my shares for me as if I were personally present. Perhaps SM's changes fixed it. I'll rely on your judgment. EEng 03:49, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  But where does it say that? None of us sees that. Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:18, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  What part of Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark don't you understand? David Eppstein, can you toss me a lifeline here? EEng 05:26, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  Maybe it's the meaning of "only"? To me it means that you cannot add punctuation that was not already there in the quote, but it says nothing about whether you should or should not take as part of the quote the punctuation at the beginning or ending of the quote. You are trying to add extra punctuation at the end of your quote. I don't understand why that string, and not the shorter string without the punctuation, is what you want to quote. —David Eppstein (talk) 05:34, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  You keep quoting that, EEng, and the rest of us keep telling you you're misreading it. The sentence does not convey the meaning you insist it does—it would if the word "only" were not in it. Are you making sure you're reading the whole sentence before you copy-&-paste it? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:15, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  Exactly. The "prime directive" does not say "If X do A, otherwise do B [the opposite of A]" at all. It says "Do A only if X; default to B", and "doing A when X" is not even required, just permissible. See first revision proposal below. It will just end this confusion (which is rare, but apparently hard to shake when it happens) without further question or ado.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  08:53, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Potential clarification

This following semi-recent addition is not actually very helpful, and may be the primary source of confusion:

Aside from being repetitive of much of the sentence that precedes it, and vaguely worded, this presupposes that the reader understands all about the niceties of question mark usage, when this actually varies between style guides, and we have a section here instructing editors on our version, so we know they didn't all arrive here with this in their brains already. Worse, question marks themselves are subject to an LQ rule of their own, rendering this statement confusing and meaningless.

It would probably make more sense to just say this:

It's shorter and doesn't presuppose anything, uses clearer wording, and it covers both the He said "Ouch, that hurts." case and the "Ouch," he said, "that hurts." case (it's not all about terminal punctuation), while ruling out "Why," he asked, "did you hit me?" (must be "Why", he asked, "did you hit me?") and "Ouch," was what he said. (it's "Ouch" was what he said.) It also doesn't exclude retention of "!" and "?", which we cover in a later point. We already provide conforming examples; this isn't a substantive change in any way, just a better clarification than that "same way as question marks" attempt.

However, we should ditch the insipid fictional dialogue examples we have. Replace them with structurally identical material that actually pertains to how we write encyclopedia articles, e.g. quoting from non-fiction sources. It would make this all much easier to relate to and apply.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  03:39, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

• I don't think that'll satisfy EEng if the current wording doesn't. Should there not be something explicit about sentence fragments vs complete sentences? Curly "JFC" Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 04:21, 5 January 2018 (UTC)
  There already is ("If the quotation is a single word or a sentence fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark. When quoting a full sentence the end of which coincides with the end of the sentence containing it, place terminal punctuation inside the closing quotation mark."), and this wouldn't touch it, just prepare people for it. I.e., there is no "exception" as EEng's been conceiving of it; the existing language about fragments doesn't diverge from or contradict the main LQ rule, it's just so clouded with "same way as question marks" blather – before we even get to question marks in LQ at all – that at least a few people aren't getting it. This nutshell replacement sentence should fix that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  06:05, 5 January 2018 (UTC); revised 06:16, 5 January 2018 (UTC)

Apology

You're all correct. I was somehow parsing the only if as if, even when it was rubbed in my face. In my (very pale) defense I'll say that the second half of Include terminal punctuation within the quotation marks only if it was present in the original material, and otherwise place it after the closing quotation mark is redundant to the first, and it's natural for the brain to look for two different imports i.e. an implication and its converse. Laugh at me if you will.

Nonetheless, I'm glad to see there's recognition that the presentation needs improvement. May I suggest that the Prime Directive be restated simply as something like Any terminal punctuation inside the quotation marks should be marks present in the material quoted. EEng 18:32, 6 January 2018 (UTC)

Knew you'd come around. Coffee is your friend. I'm thinking on the revision idea. I'm not sure it can be stressed enough how particular we have to be in this section of MoS or people won't understand or will, secretly, but will wikilawyer and look for ways to drive wedges. I don't dig the "marks should be marks" bit. And "the material quoted" is apt to be misinterpreted; this could be misread (willfully) as "If you're quoting something, and using quotation marks (instead of a block quote), then always put the terminal punctuation inside." I.e. use typographer's quotes a.k.a. "American" style.

The original isn't really redundant so much as giving both sides of the coin for extra clarity, and is fixable by juggling words a little, maybe Place terminal punctuation after the closing quotation mark by default; only include it within the quotation marks if it was present in the original material. That seems totally unambiguous to me, especially if we combine it with #Potential clarification above and get rid of the confusing "like questions marks" stuff.
 — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ<  20:48, 9 January 2018 (UTC)

Potential clarification 2