Talk:Sentence spacing/Archive 4

No known style guide...

I deleted the following line from the article: "No known style guide published after 1990 prescribes double sentence spacing for final or published work." Even if we've decided that the 6th edition of the APA style guide is unclear on this (as it applies to "final or published work"), it's still unsourced. Further, as it's impossible to prove a negative I'm not sure if anyone could ever provide an adequate source. And it would certainly be unacceptable for Wikipedia editors to conduct original research to "prove" this. ElKevbo (talk) 19:05, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

I replaced with a sourced sentence. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Searching for published style guides to use in citations is hardly "original research". It's exactly what Wikipedia editors should be doing. And if the search proves negative, that's surely just as significant. Mhkay (talk) 20:58, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

The sentence being discussed now reads, "No known style or language guide indicates that double sentence spacing is proper for final or published work today, and many state that it is incorrect.[85]"  Meanwhile, [85] reads, "The most notable exception in the United States is the 6th edition of the Publication Manual, which reversed its position in 2009 to recommend double sentence spacing for draft work. See American Psychological Association 2009. p. 272."  That is not a reference that says there are no such manuals, it is proof of the opposite.  RB 66.217.117.74 (talk) 09:14, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

"As a practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after concluding punctuation marks..." http://www.mla.org/style/style_faq/style_faq3   RB  66.217.117.153 (talk) 08:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

http://www.tameri.com/format/fmtedu.html has a table showing that of APA, MLA, and Chicago, only Chicago specifies one-space only.  Regarding Chicago, they note "The formatting and style guide applies to manuscripts, not the appearance of published works."[As verified by the Google snapshot dated October 26, the quote is correct but the website has changed.  08:46, 8 December 2010 (UTC)]  RB  66.217.117.153 (talk) 09:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that the sentence that I replaced was in a different area of the article. However, the passage you mention is a tricky one here at Wikipedia. The note is not intended to provide a reference for the statement. It just notes a caveat, although only to manuscripts, so it doesn't overturn the statement. That returns us to the question of the statement, "No known style or language guide indicates that double sentence spacing is proper for final or published work today." It is sourced to the degree that the article Sentence spacing in language and style guides supports it. Perhaps because of that, the other editors that have reviewed the article have agreed to let it stand. In my view, it makes the article, and Wikipedia, better because the statement is useful to readers. If you disagree, we can raise the question again with other editors. --Airborne84 (talk) 13:09, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Disregard. After some thought, I changed the statement to one that is sourced, and simply discusses "most style guides". I think, in the long run, that will be better. --Airborne84 (talk) 17:32, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia Turkey

Hello! I have been translating into Turkish for Wikipedia-Turkey. I have changed the content of this article's the main picture. I am sorry. I was thinking The main picture was not uploaded on Wikipedia-Turkey. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mustafa Bakacak (talk • contribs) 22:11, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

If I'm reading this right, you had to change the lead photo on Wikipedia Turkey's "Sentence spacing" article? You'll have to be the judge of any changes, because most of us probably don't read Turkish. Thanks! --Airborne84 (talk) 22:09, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Software autocorrection

There are at least some pieces of typesetting software that provide some level of support for automatic correction of inter-sentence spacing; TeX and HTML renderers come to mind. When this sort of autocorrection happens, it makes no difference as to whether there are one or two space characters encoded. (I suppose some software might actually use double-spacing to indicate inter-sentence spacing and single-spacing to indicate intra-sentence spacing, though I know of none.)

The article is somewhat unclear on whether the proscription is on how many times one must press the spacebar, or the code (ASCII, UTF-8, or other) used to represent the space or the number of those codes, or the visual presentation of inter-sentence spacing. Assuming that it's the latter, since the article does mention that double-spacing should or can be used when using monospaced fonts, shouldn't there be more indication that some software performs correction for spacing and some does not? The only mention I saw was in reference to professional typesetting software, and, to me at least, that implies multi-thousand dollar software, not TeX and web browsers.

All that said, I don't really know how to fix it without "original research". Seems like a survey of commonly-used typesetting software would be pertinent, but I can't find any such thing. — wfaulk (talk) 15:21, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. You bring up some interesting points. The key thing would be to find some reliable sources that cover this area. I'm sure there are some out there. However, I'd suggest that Sentence spacing in the digital age is a better place to cover this in detail. The section here is only a summary of that article. --Airborne84 (talk) 23:07, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

False dichotomy

I find this a confused and misleading article. The first paragraph rightly recognises that

various sentence spacing conventions have been used […]. These include a normal word space (as between the words in a sentence), a single enlarged space, and two full spaces.

But almost immediately, the rest of the article switches to a studied ignorance of the middle option. The rest of the article speaks as if the choice is only between one space or two, and makes spurious conclusions: quotes to the effect that double-spacing is obsolete are repeatedly used to claim that single-spacing is standard! What happened to inter-sentence spacing that's about, say, 1.1 to 1.25 times the inter-word spacing, as is the default in TeX? You can still, in 2010, find a slightly wide space in many research journals (for instance), and much more frequently as you go back, contrary to the article's claim that "From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines and newspapers" (which claim, BTW, is not supported by the quote given as reference). I find the presentation of this false dichotomy rather unhelpful (though I must admit the baffling fact that it's present in most of the sources used, which makes me doubt their thoroughness). How about fixing the article so that it doesn't sound as if "one" and "two" are the only options? Shreevatsa (talk) 20:21, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I think I can address some:

• There are no conclusions presented in the article. It’s simply a collection of encyclopedic references. Some (actually many) of the sources state that double sentence spacing is obsolete and others state that single spacing is the current convention.
• You are right that TeX is an example of the “enlarged single space” technique. That was in early versions of this article. However, the list of digital examples was judged too much for a Featured Article when this article was a FAC (three times). The details on TeX and other examples are in the main article now (Sentence spacing in the digital age), and the “digital age” section here is a summary. The main article is where people can find the details on the third option that you mention.

The Williams quote is only one of the sources used to support the statement you mentioned. If you check the other sources, you will be satisfied, I am certain.

I understand your point that the article focuses on single vs. double spacing, (although I think that the history section covers the "third option" fairly well). The history section, again, was condensed to a summary section with a link to a larger main article History of sentence spacing.

It’s true that a significant portion of the article is devoted to the single vs. double sentence spacing techniques. There are two main reasons for this, and you already alluded to the latter:

• This is what modern readers are interested in.
• This is what the preponderance of the sources discuss—apart from some of the historical references and historical sections in some of the books. If modern style guides, for example, discussed em spaced sentences that technique would figure more prominently.

I'm sorry you found the article confusing. I wrote it to be informative. I hope my comments help. Best, --Airborne84 (talk) 03:50, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Too many issues to list

(1) "Foolish" is not a constructive word.  (2) Regarding the sentence, "It is also acceptable even for monospaced fonts to be single spaced today.[83]", this is a broad generalization, but examining the reference only reveals one such case.  (3) The author at webword.com seems to think that proportional fonts are relevant to the issue of "One Versus Two Spaces After a Period," but two proportional spaces are still more than one proportional space.  There are five references to this one questionable source in the article.  (4) Also the article itself pointlessly opens up the proportional font topic, saying, "With the introduction of proportional fonts in computers, double sentence spacing became obsolete."  It is not even necessary to check the references because the article itself documents the ongoing attention given this topic.  (5) Regarding the comment "...proportional fonts now assign...", fonts are graphics and do not assign variable spacing. RB  66.217.117.74 (talk) 10:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

re: "What is Typography?" by David Jury, Rotovision: 2009

The first point is that What is Typography is not an academic work, it contains speculation and opinion.  The bias is that the author is employed in the typography industry.  The author finds typewriter typesetting vulgar.  For example, the author finds (p. 58) that the monospaced font of a typewriter "<gives> a line of text a loose and particularly uneven appearance. The uneven spaces within and between characters is exactly what well-designed and well-set type avoids."  Because of the typewriter typesetting convention of putting two spaces at the end of a sentence, "we have...the aberration of texts shot through with holes" (p. 58).

So we are already starting with a reference that has a POV, but the specific reason for this posting is that the article does not correctly use the reference.

Here is what the article says,

This caused a widespread change in practice. From the late 19th century, printers were told to ignore their typesetting manuals in favor of typewriter spacing;

Here is what the reference on p. 58 says, "Interestingly, in all the technical information related to typerwriters, the printer was ordered to use the spacing conventions of the typewriter manual rather than his own typesetting manual."

This seems not to have to do with a general change in the industry but the preferences of customers with experience with typewriter typesetting.

The article continues,

...in the 1890s, Monotype and Linotype operators used double sentence spacing."

What the reference on p. 58 says is, "When phototypesetting was developed, the new technology remained, for the most part, within the print industry and so a large number of Monotype and Linotype keyboard operatives simply transferred their skills and typographic knowledge to the new technology."  Clearly, phototypesetting is not dated to the 1890s.  What the author actually says is, "The conventions of the typing manual were of limited interest to typographers until digital technology provided everyone with desktop publishing (DTP) software" (p. 54).

The statements you mentioned are paraphrased, but I'm not sure what the issue is with the first one. It captures Jury's message. Any speculation regarding customer's preferences is prohibited under WP:OR—I simply reported what the sources stated. I think you are referring to a different passage for the second note above.

I'm not sure what the issue with David Jury is. He is a noted typographer and author. Could you please explain how his published work is not relevant or allowed on Wikipedia according to such policies such as WP:V and WP:RS? Thanks for your interest. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:47, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Jury says that double or triple spaces at the end of sentences are "extreme procedures", which is hyperbole.  Since you know the policy, what policy applies?  RB  66.217.117.62 (talk) 04:47, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:V applies. Wikipedia represents verifiability, not truth. As editors, we are not allowed to interpret what the sources say. We simply report what reliable sources say. My suggestion would be to review Wikipedia's policy on Verifiability, Original Research, and Neutral Point of View. The policy on Reliable Sources may also be relevant. I hope that helps. --Airborne84 (talk) 13:21, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

"This caused a widespread change in practice."

I thought this problem would be more obvious, but since not, I've opened a new section.

Here is what the article says,

This caused a widespread change in practice. From the late 19th century, printers were told to ignore their typesetting manuals in favor of typewriter spacing;

Here is what the reference on p. 58 says, "Interestingly, in all the technical information related to typewriters, the printer was ordered to use the spacing conventions of the typewriter manual rather than his own typesetting manual."

We are talking in the context of "technical information related to typewriters."  Who would create technical information related to typewriters?  That would be typewriter manufacturers.  Would the technical information be printed?  It doesn't matter, but it seems likely, and it seems likely that these would be manuals that used the spacing convention of the typewriter rather than the typesetting manual.

We know from p. 54 that, "The conventions of the typing manual were of limited interest to typographers..."  So the typographers had little interest in "the technical information related to typewriters."  Thus there is no reference here for a "widespread" change.  We can infer that the typographers ignored their typesetting manuals on occasion, for a few customers, but this reference does not say that.  RB  66.217.117.62 (talk) 06:05, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

There is no reference for the passage, "This caused a widespread change in practice." It's a transition sentence, and one that didn't seem contentious to me, although it is supported by the three topics contained in the following sentence—especially that it was "widely taught in typing class." When considering the three changes as a whole, it seems apparent that there was a widespread change in practice.

To be honest, I tried to source every single sentence and idea in the article—for obvious reasons. Unfortunately, in some areas, the prose became stilted without effective transitions. So, I chose what I thought were non-contentious transition sentences. This is one of them. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:58, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation about transition sentences.  I can see that the title of my section here could be misleading, especially since you see a transition to not just one but three points.  I think you are still missing an obvious error in the first transition point.  An industry isn't going to ignore their manuals, they will re-write them based on a new standard/convention.  Jury, whose anti-typewriter hyperbole reflects the viewpoint of the typography industry, states on p. 54 that, "The conventions of the typing manual were of limited interest to typographers..."  The article history of sentence spacing reasonably claims that there is more influence from typewriter conventions than Jury admits, but there is still here no basis to say that this industry ignored their own manuals.  I wonder if you are trying to say that during the 1930s the common practice in American typography was that before justification, sentence spacing was twice the width of word spacing; which also happened to be the typewriter standard.  And that this was a transition from the late 1890s in which sentence spacing was triple the width of word spacing.  I just know that what is in the article now is not supported by references.  RB  66.217.118.124 (talk) 19:23, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that the passage is a reasonable paraphrase from Jury's statement. As editors, we can't interpret what Jury might have meant, we can only report what he said. But perhaps there is a better way to phrase it. Do you have a suggestion? --Airborne84 (talk) 22:01, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

The bigger picture here is that what to me is an "obvious" error is not something about which I can achieve consensus with you.
RB  66.217.118.166 (talk) 23:56, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

"...in the 1890s, Monotype and Linotype operators used double sentence spacing."

The article states,

"...in the 1890s, Monotype and Linotype operators used double sentence spacing.[11]"

[11] ^ a b Jury 2009. p. 58.

What the reference on p. 58 says is, "When phototypesetting was developed, the new technology remained, for the most part, within the print industry and so a large number of Monotype and Linotype keyboard operatives simply transferred their skills and typographic knowledge to the new technology."

(1) Phototypesetting is not dated to the 1890s.

(2) There is no reference that says that operators used "double sentence spacing."  RB  66.217.117.62 (talk) 06:38, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

A fair point. I believe this has been modified a few times from when I first added the material and citation. I'll look at early versions to see if the text drifted from the original material. It should be an easy fix, even if it's just deleting this passage. That may not be needed though. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:44, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

I made the adjustment. I believe that Jury's work supports the statement regarding Monotype and Linotype operators, but the 1890 date was, indeed, erroneous. Thus, I removed it. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:20, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

"Computers offered additional sentence spacing tools"

The article says,

By the 1960s... Computers offered additional sentence spacing tools for the average writer,[35]

[35]^ Jury 2009. p. 56.

Page 56 is two pictures, one circa 1900-1916, and the other is from 1930, so the reference is erroneous.  RB  66.217.117.62 (talk) 06:33, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. The article went through three rigorous editorial reviews over about three months to become a Featured Article, so I think that most editors were comfortable that the references support the material. However, I'll review Jury's reference this week to see if I can help explain the linkage—or at least the rationale for the use of the reference to support the material.

As I'm sure your efforts here are only intended to improve this article, might I suggest that (if you're not comfortable with this reference) you look for additional references to support the article? The article can certainly be improved—and you can help. Thanks for your interest. --Airborne84 (talk) 13:10, 17 November 2010 (UTC)

At this point I can't comment about Featured Article reviews.  As far as the sentence, I don't know what was intended—data entry during the 1960s was done with the keypunch.  Page 56 is on the web, so it is not hard to verify that the reference is erroneous.  RB  66.217.118.174 (talk) 23:17, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

I guess I'm not sure what the issue is here. You've noted two items that Jury's work identifies:

1. "By the 1960s..." It doesn't matter whether this is "true" or "false". It only has to be from a reliable, verifiable source.

2. "Computers offered additional sentence spacing tools for the average writer." This is a paraphrase of the paragraph that starts with "Given the opportunity to produce printed documents using highly sophisticated DTP software," which goes on to mention the use of extra spacing after a sentence. However, I don't think that a source is even needed for this sentence. Wikipedia only requires material that is "likely to be challenged" to be sourced. I can't imagine that the sentence, as stated, is contentious. The tools are described in detail in Sentence spacing in the digital age. If the issue is that you think the reference should be removed because it doesn't support the sentence, we simply disagree. However, we can ask other editors to weigh in if you feel strongly about it. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:22, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Airborne84,

Is that quote on p. 57?

Do you agree that the reference is not on p. 56 and that the current reference is erroneous?

Regarding your other points, I'll review them and the reference.  Thanks for the response.  RB  66.217.117.153 (talk) 05:11, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, and fixed. Good catch. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 13:14, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

What is "single sentence spacing"?

This article uses two fundamentally different meanings for "single sentence spacing".  One meaning is based on the appearance of text (SSA), and the other is based on typesetting technique (SSTT).

Example (1) is the caption in the figure in the "Traditional Typesetting" section, "Single sentence spaced typeset text with an em-space between sentences (1909)".  In the figure, sentence spacing is wider than word spacing.  Calling this "single sentence spacing" is SSTT.

Example (2) is in the lede, "From around 1950, single sentence spacing became standard in books, magazines and newspapers."  The editor means that sentence spacing equals word spacing.  This is SSA.  RB  66.217.118.135 (talk) 00:01, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

You are correct. If the photo caption said only "Single sentence spaced typeset text", this would be a problem that merited a change. However, the caption explains what is meant with the caveat, "Single sentence spaced typeset text with an em-space between sentences". I think the average reader will understand. Of course, I won't object to clarifying the caption if other editors think it's a problem. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:12, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I think this is a bigger problem.  The fact that the example I gave was self-defining, made it a good example to understand the ambiguity, but doesn't mean that the ambiguity is isolated to that example.

It seems that you are saying that SSA is the "correct" meaning.  You wrote above, here in the talk section, "Strking the keyboard twice after terminal punctuation is an example of double sentence spacing."  That is SSTT.

Likewise, there is the edit that we discussed in History_of_Sentence_Spacing, where the author wrote, regarding style from 1870 to 1901, "Double sentence-spacing was not typically used in normal text."  There is another example of SSTT.  When I documented on the talk page that this was an "obvious error", I was seeing SSA.

I could give more examples, but the point for now is to document the existence of the ambiguity.

OK. Could you explain what SSTT and the other terms stand for? I am not familiar with them. Also, does endnote 25 address what you are saying? Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 13:48, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, my introduction of the acronyms above was not up to APA guidelines and not clear.  The acronyms are Sentence Spacing Appearance (SSA), and Sentence Spacing Typesetting Technique (SSTT).  I hope that makes it more clear.

Regarding endnote 25, the short answer is no--that is a topic for another section.  RB  66.217.117.118 (talk) 20:12, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I see. One of the FAQs at the top of the talk page addresses this, at least in part. However, I think you are saying that it should be addressed in the article. I have a couple thoughts on this:

1. We have to be careful in trying to capture every possible nuance of the terms and ideas in the article. If you look at early versions of this article (Jan-Mar 2010), you will see much more detailed prose—showing that I tried to do exactly that. It didn't come close to making it past the first Featured Article Candidate (FAC) try. (Since you are interested in improving this article, I recommend you review the three FAC pages for this article.) Anyway, one of the biggest issues with the first go-round was wordiness. I tried to be too detailed and accurate. Apparently, at Wikipedia, trying to capture every possible nuance makes for an article that is difficult for the average reader to peruse. We've wrestled with this general issue some since the article reached FA status. Some editors, such as you, that are extremely well-read and well-informed, recommend that the nuances are captured. I don't mind doing so, but not at the cost of making it harder for the average reader to understand—losing FA status in the process. You and I may together disagree with the idea that adding detail and nuances should affect the article's readability. However, I finally had to accept it for the article to become an FA at Wikiepdia.

2. Having said that, I make no claim that the article is "finished" or perfect. If you can make a recommendation—in the context of the FAC comments—that will reduce ambiguity and still be easy for the average Wikipedia reader, I will be more than happy to support it.

Which APA work uses the SSA and SSTT terms? I haven't seen them, and would be very interested in looking them up. It's possible that their use could be included in this article or its sister articles—at least in the context of how one reliable source defines the subject. --Airborne84 (talk) 22:46, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

My misuse of an APA Guideline is a bit off topic, but since you ask, I found a reference.  This note is from page 8 of http://www.eiu.edu/edadmin/apa.pdf

Using an Abbreviation or Acronym

52. If you want to use an abbreviation like ADD for attention deficit disorder, the abbreviation must be defined first before you can use it. To do this, first spell out what the abbreviation means followed by the abbreviation in parentheses (APA, 2001, p. 104).
Example: The student with attention deficit disorder (ADD) can be seen to. . .
Then you MUST use the abbreviation ADD with no parentheses for the rest of your paper.

RB  66.217.118.146 (talk) 03:57, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I thought this discussion was done when I said, "I could give more examples, but the point for now is to document the existence of the ambiguity."  RB  66.217.118.146 (talk) 04:07, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

webword.com does not satisfy WP:SPS, WP:SOURCES, and WP:RS

WP:SPS is not satisfied: webword.com is self-published. ref: www.WebWord.com/whatiswebword.html

WP:SOURCES is not satisfied: "no editorial oversight" "rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions".  Here is an example of content from www.webword.com/reports/period.html:

In short, the "rivers" of whitespace, caused by using two spaces, invariably annoy graphic designers and typographers. Well, at least the ones that contacted me.

WP:RS is not satisfied.  www.webword.com/reports/period.html says,

"So, I humbly admit that this is more of a fact-finding report than a web usability rant."

RB  66.217.118.135 (talk) 04:33, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I think this reference could reasonably remain under Wikipedia's policies. I removed a few web references from this article as I was transforming it because they had various issues. I left this one and a very few others. I understand the points you are making, but they are arguable in this case. We could open this back to discussion with other editors regarding Wikipedia's policies, but I think that's not needed. The sources were closely scrutinized during the Featured Article reviews over three months, and other editors allowed it. Also, it is useful for readers here because it lists a number of sources that are relevant to sentence spacing. Finally, there is no contentious material in the article that relies solely on this reference.

The key thing that I try to analyze in arguable cases is: does it make the article, and Wikipedia, better? I think that this one does--Airborne84 (talk) 14:18, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Analysis of Five References in the Article

A review was done of the five webword references being used in the article.  References 47, 52, 85, and 106 were found to be unreliable.  Reference 101 was found to be outside the scope of Wikipedia.

Reference 47 is used to support:

Soon after the turn of the century, the majority of style guides indicated that only one word space was proper between sentences.

A reader would infer that a study had been done to enumerate the style guides in existence, and that each style guide had been analyzed.

Nearly identical sentences are being supported by references 52 and 85.

References 47, 52, and 85 come from:

Many people told me about the various rules and style guides they follow...Apparently, the vast majority of these guides tell writers to use a single space.

So where the article mentions "the majority of style guides", what is referenced is the style guides of the "many people" who contacted John Rhodes in 1999.  We don't know how many style guides, we don't know how many people volunteered, we don't know how many of these people were referring to the same style guide.  Since John Rhodes states that some of his content could be "rant", "many people" could be a set as small as three or five.

Reference 101 documents the existence of two abstracts.  One is from 1951 titled, "Improving the readability of typewritten manuscripts".  The other abstract is dated 1977 and has to do with, "PSG-CSG complements to developing automaticity".  From my reading, Wikipedia is not a reference library of links to abstracts.

Reference 106 is one man's opinion incorrectly attributed to "The Design and Publishing Center".  It is someone who happened to be employed in 1999 by "The Design and Publishing Center", but whose name is unknown.

RB  66.217.117.118 (talk) 02:11, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

At this point, we simply disagree about the reference. Your recourse at this point is to open the discussion to other editors. You may be able to achieve a consensus that the reference should be deleted. It would be a shame, in my opinion, since it contains the only collection of sources on this subject, which would not be available for readers of this article anymore. However, if you feel that the removal of the reference improves the article, and Wikipedia, then you should continue with your quest. A possible alternative is for you to attempt to improve this article by looking for additional references. --Airborne84 (talk) 02:33, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

This discussion is as to whether or not webword.com is a reliable source for the five references.  There is discussion about retaining webword.com as an external reference in the section below. 

Airborne84's position right now seems to be that webword.com is not a reliable source, but that the five references can "reasonably remain" under WP:NORULES.  On 17 May 2010, Airborne84 wrote during an FA review, "For this subject, the standard of reliability will be held to a higher level than normally seen on Wikipedia."  WP:V has the standard:

This policy is strictly applied to all material in the mainspace—articles, lists, sections of articles, and captions—without exception...

RB  66.217.117.162 (talk) 09:06, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd say right now that the case is well made that webword.com does not meet WP:V.  I also think that unreliable sources lower the reputation of Wikipedia.  As for the five references, four were duplicates, and the fifth had to do with two obscure abstracts that aren't worth keeping; so we might be able to agree that there is no need to consider violating the "no exceptions" rule.  Also, see my proposal in the next section to take care of the External Link.

Since this article has so many problems, I think it needs to have it's rating lowered.
RB  66.217.117.162 (talk) 09:16, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Actually, if you look at what I stated above, I believe that Wikipedia's policies allow this source. WP:NORULES simply makes the question easier. You've made your case, so other editors can weigh in if they want. --Airborne84 (talk) 12:00, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

Please be assured that I have read what you said above, and several times.  I realize that you do not want to engage in debate, yet in doing so, I'm left with no clue as to how any WP policy other than WP:NORULES could apply.  I have searched, and not found any previous discussion of webword.com.
Thanks for the response,
RB  66.217.117.202 (talk) 23:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

The passages you mention in WP:V do not use language that excludes the possibility of using Wedbword. In the sections you mention, caveats such as, "generally", "usually", and "caution must be exercised when using" do not create a "cannot use" framework. Thus, the question is open to argument on both sides. So, because the author relies almost entirely on expert advice and opinions for the content of the reference (as opposed to solely presenting his own opinion), I believe it is acceptable. Because the reference provides probably the single most comprehensive list of sources on this topic, I feel it is an important resource for this article. For these reasons, I believe that WP:NORULES is also very relevant to your objections. IMO, WP:NORULES—which is a Wikipedia policy, not an essay written by an editor—was written for this type of situation: to prevent an overly strict interpretation of bureaucratic rules from hampering the improvement of articles, and Wikipedia.

You are certainly welcome to respond to my reasons; however, the article was judged to be an FA by a consensus of experienced Wikipedia editors—not by me. Thus, it will require a consensus of editors to determine that this source should be removed from this article, in whole or in part. If a consensus of editors makes that judgement, I will accept that decision. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:19, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

FYI, this discussion has been posted to the RS noticeboard.  RB  66.217.117.162 (talk) 08:54, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Does webword.com qualify as an "External Link"?

WP:ELNO states that "Links normally to be avoided" include:

  2. Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research...

webword.com contains both factually inaccurate material and unverifiable research.

  16. Links that are not reliably functional, or likely to continue being functional.

http://webword.com/reports/ is an orphan page, meaning it cannot currently be accessed from the home page at webword.com.  Therefore http://www.webword.com/reports/period.html is also an orphan page.

Personally, I'd like to see a long list of links to the various discussions, opinion surveys, and blogs; and include webword in the list, but my sense is that this is against Wikipedia policy.  For that matter, do you know of any such directories?  RB 66.217.117.118 (talk) 22:57, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

We could certainly debate Webword at length. However, in this case, I believe that the article is still (arguably) allowable within Wikipedia's policies. Since the resource makes the article, and Wikipedia better, (IMO), we can save a lot of time debating by ignoring the possible applicability of bureaucratic rules that might detract from the usefulness of this link to the average reader on Wikipedia. If you feel strongly that it should be deleted, you can certainly ask other editors here to weigh in.

To address your question, (besides this article itself), I know of no directories. In fact, the Webword reference may be the best try at a collection of relevant studies and expert opinions. I researched this article through long hours of laborious research on the Web, trying to find everything I could on the topic. I have a long list of Websites bookmarked on my browser (well over 100 by now), but many are blogs and contain non-expert opinions that I could not and would not include here. They did help me to include in the article what would be helpful to those who discuss this matter online.

Most Websites are of marginal utility for this article though. Like many topics, the average person hasn't done research on this topic, and simply doesn't know the background and what experts have to say on the subject. I can share that insight after reading through hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of blog postings. Most expert opinions regarding this matter (with the exception of those noted in this article) are contained in print references.

I hope that helps. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:03, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Here is a link that is more useful and interesting than the existing one, yet it also happens to find webword.com first.  This is responsive to your desire to have this URL available to readers.  At at the same time we are not implying that the site is reliable, and if the site goes down, Google will adjust and our own link will still be valid.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22two+spaces%22+period+OR+%22full+stop%22
RB  66.217.117.162 (talk) 10:05, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

"webword.com contains both factually inaccurate material and unverifiable research." Elaborate on this accusation please. --Cybercobra (talk) 12:28, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

An "accusation" would be "a claim that someone has done something illegal or wrong" (Macmillan).  I am uncomfortable to respond on point as any such response would be in the context of the word "accusation," so I will just say that I am not aware of any accusations.  When the author describes some of webword.com as "rant", he is not suggesting that his rant has left the bounds of respectability.
RB  66.217.117.202 (talk) 21:46, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

In response to a request to document the existence of factually inaccurate material, as a part of determining whether the site is defined as a Wikipedia "reliable source," I submit that I am a degreed computer and software engineer, and I submit the following:

Technical Problems in www . web word . com / reports / period . html

spaces can be hard-coded into the HTML using "&nbsp".

No, the HTML tag also has a trailing semi-colon. The page's source code rendering is
  &quot;&amp;nbsp&quot;.

There is no apparent reason for the missing semi-colon.  [Added 23:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC) Note that this is probably not a typo, as rendering an HTML tag visible in HTML requires extra code.  RB  66.217.117.41 (talk) 23:58, 8 December 2010 (UTC)]

most fonts used today are proportional. That is, each character is not the same size.

No, characters in a proportional font have fixed sizes.  Here is a link that shows that even the space has a fixed width (http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/fdsspec/spaces.aspx)

in general, the spacing after a period will be irrelevant since most fonts used today are proportional. That is, each character is not the same size.

False premise, see previous example for why the premise is false.

For your information, I did not get any good feedback about the various fonts that are used for other Internet applications and activities, such as chat rooms and email. My guess is that they are mostly monospaced, but it is just a guess.

Earlier, we were told that the author "received a flood of email about this question."  But now he tells us that he has no report on fonts that are being used in email, and he "guesses" that the fonts used in email are mostly monospaced.

Like <name removed1>, <name removed2> told me that the current typographic standard for a single space after the period is a reflection of the power of proportionally spaced fonts.

I believe that this is what is known as an urban legend.  Proportionally spaced fonts have been around since the Gutenberg Bible.

"The only reason that two spaces were used after a period during the 'typewriter' age was because original typewriters had monospaced fonts -- the extra space was needed for the eye to pick up on the beginning of a new sentence. That need is negated w/proportional space type, hence [it is] the typographic standard."

Is there a research basis that this is a reason?  Is there a research basis that this is the "only reason"?  Once again, we see the urban legend about proportional fonts.  Here is what the more credible Bringhurst (2004) p. 28 says,

In the nineteenth century...many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra space between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period.

In the days of typewriter manuscripts the extra space was necessary to separate the ends and beginnings of sentences.

No, we know from the "Sentence Spacing" article that people today submit single-sentence-spaced monospaced drafts to editors, so the extra space was a choice, never "necessary."

Many people told me about the various rules and style guides they follow. Similarly, several people indicated that etiquette is an important consideration for spacing after a period.
I looked up the word etiquette in m-w.com:

the conduct or procedure required by good breeding or prescribed by authority to be observed in social or official life

"In older documents printed in the US, you find it frequently, until the advent of the lead-casting Linotype machine.

The linotype used wedges for spaces, rectangles for letters. After filling the line as close as possible, the operator would pull a handle, and the wedges would be forced upward, expanding (and thereby justifying) the line o' type, which would then be cast in lead.

If the operator typed two spaces in a row, you had two wedges next to each other, and that tended to gum up the operation. Clients who insisted could be accommodated by typing an en-space followed by a justifier-space, but printers charged extra for it and ridiculed it as 'French Spacing, oo-la-la, you want it all fancy, huh? Well it'll cost ya, bub, and plenty too...' and soon it became unfashionable in the US.

Has the author had his staff of experts, lawyers, graduate students and/or QA people verify the facts here before publishing them?  No, he quotes an email.  The sentence, "In older documents printed in the US, you find <extra-wide sentence spacing> frequently, until the advent of the lead-casting Linotype machine" does not make sense, as the Linotype was used for 60 years before the extra space went out of fashion.  The content of the email is the quality found in blogs.  Like blog material, it might be interesting to check out, but nothing here can be relied upon without finding the same content in a reliable source.

The majority of the reference links are broken ten years later.

Eye tracking researcher Dr. Keith Rayner had this to say:

"With respect to the issue of spacing between words, see Rayner, Fischer, and Pollatsek (Vision Research, 1998, 38, 1129-1144). In 1975, I have a paper in Acta Psychologica that points out that readers skip over the spaces between sentences. You should also see a 1972 Reading Research Quarterly paper by Abrams and Zuber."

I admit that I was not able to follow up on Keith's references so I cannot give you any more details.

This is on point, but what we have here has no content, it is a pointer to content.  Is this the material we want to give to readers of Wikipedia?
RB  66.217.118.159 (talk) 04:46, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I have not documented the existence of "unverifiable research" as previously stated.  I submit that the following is an example of unverifiable research.

Many people told me about the various rules and style guides they follow...Apparently, the vast majority of these guides tell writers to use a single space.

The operational definitions of "style guide", "vast majority", "single space", and "writers" are not available.  Is a "vast majority" 67% or 99%?  Here is a try at an operational definition for "style guides": Style guides with an ISBN number with sales in the US in 1998 of more than 500 copies.  The word "writers" might be defined as "readers."  Does "single space" include or exclude style guides that specify "one or two spaces?"  A researcher would need these operational definitions to verify the research.
RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 23:38, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

RB, as I stated above, I think that both sides of the argument regarding the Webword reference have merits. However, a new consensus, to remove the reference (in whole or in part), has not developed. Yet, consensus can change on Wikipedia, so this is certainly not the end of the discussion. My recommendation would be to wait for a period of time and try again to achieve a consensus if you feel strongly about this matter. There's no rule on the period to wait. I can only offer from discussions on very contentious Wikipedia articles such as Scientific opinion on climate change—that rely heavily on editorial consensus to resolve issues regarding contentious material—that new tries for consensuses tend to come up every couple of months or so. Of course, it's different from article to article. I hope that helps. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:03, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I propose that webword be removed as an external link.  RB  66.217.117.73 (talk) 03:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

off-topic discussion moved

The following is moved from: == webword.com does not satisfy WP:SPS, WP:SOURCES, and WP:RS ==

By the way (and it has nothing to do with what we're discussing here, of course), I must admit to some curiosity as to why you force two spaces between your sentences in your posts here in HTML. Do you mind sharing your reasons? --Airborne84 (talk) 13:36, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

As to your personal question, the question is off topic as to whether or not webword.com is a reliable source for the five references; as well as, I think, off topic to the talk page itself.
RB  66.217.117.202 (talk) 23:32, 23 November 2010 (UTC)

As to the personal question regarding your double-spacing between sentences, you have no talk page. Thus I thought I would ask here why you feel so strongly about this subject that you feel you must force extra spacing in your posts. You certainly don't need to answer—although it could make other editors wonder if you are pushing a POV here. I, of course, will assume good faith on your part. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:19, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

RB  66.217.117.187 (talk) 08:02, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Airborne84,
Does Cybercobra "feel so strongly" that he "forces" color and bold when he signs his name?  I don't think so, I think he just uses his HTML skills to express personal style choices.  Since the white background of my display is yellowish, the "cobra" tends to fade.  But it doesn't occur to me to escalate this as an issue, I prefer to appreciate and respect the workmanship as an editor that goes into his signature (thanks, CyberCobra).

WP:DOOR states, "Be focused single-mindedly on writing an encyclopedia". 
Thanks, RB   66.217.118.104 (talk) 21:31, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

One-space activists

desktoppub.about.com has an insightful poll for the editors here.  It is still active, drawing 80 new votes since Friday (coi: I voted once for "Two spaces, looks better to me").

Data as of 2010-11-24:

One Space or Two After Punctuation, What's Your Preference?

One space, always (8561) 43%

Two spaces, looks better to me (9596) 48%

I'll try to convince my boss / clients / co-workers to go with one space (1605) 8%

Total Votes: 19762

There are two interesting points here.  One is, that there are "one-space activists," people who are motivated to convince other people to change their style preference.  This is a surprising 8% of respondents to this poll.

The second point is that almost half of the respondents prefer more spacing.
RB  66.217.118.104 (talk) 22:47, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

I've seen this. I have more examples of the same if you're interested. I don't know why it would be insightful to the editors here though. This isn't a surprise to most people that are familiar with this topic.

On a related topic, I had considered (while writing this article) that the "controversy" section could be its own article, and only summarized here (it's relatively summarized now) in a similar manner to the other sections with links to main articles. It would be a bit tricky to write, since most opinions on the WWW are non-expert and anecdotal (plenty of Twitter and Facebook feeds and "comments" on relevant articles, for example), but it would probably still make an interesting sister article to this one. I ran out of steam while putting these articles together. Why don't you write it? There are other opportunities to contribute here too. You could take on one of the "knowledge gap" areas (see the FAQ) of this article. For example, I was not able to discover why very early printers chose em spacing between sentences. The early works that are in this article did not cover the reasoning. There is also not a comprehensive record of why printers in the US and the UK moved from double-spacing to single spacing (although I've seen some speculation). You can help improve these articles in these areas.

Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 23:12, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

It was a surprise to me based on what I read in this article.  It goes to show that the article is unbalanced.  RB  66.217.118.159 (talk) 03:09, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree. This article appears to be biased towards one-spacing, despite mentioning that there is conflict over the issue. This article ignores why people still support the two-spacing rule. Squad51 (talk) 03:16, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

"This article ignores why people still support the two-spacing rule." These reasons are captured in the "Controversy" section. As far as the bias, you'll have to ask the experts why they are biased. This article is simply a collection of encyclopedic sources which reflects their positions.

"It goes to show that the article is unbalanced." There are other possible conclusions.     One is that the average person is simply not educated on what experts say on this topic.

See WP:UNDUE regarding the assertion of "unbalanced". Although the "Controversy" section is an important section, the opinion and advice of experts captured by reliable sources is what is important at Wikipedia. If you feel that their collective position is unbalanced, you have various recourses—but most of them lie outside of Wikipedia. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:46, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Style manual references

I find this interesting: "with a few permitting double spacing in draft manuscripts and for specific circumstances". When I submitted a manuscript to a publisher earlier this year, the guidelines required double spacing after a period. This was a piece submitted via the internet, to boot. Squad51 (talk) 03:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if the style requirement for sentential spacing was in a published source.
RB  66.217.118.166 (talk) 00:25, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

This is captured in the article in the controversy section. "Proponents of double sentence spacing also state that some publishers may still require double spaced manuscript submissions from authors." The passage is not sourced though. If you'd like to improve the article, you can provide a supporting reference. There is a risk that someone that comes along that has a POV supporting single sentence spacing might delete this passage because it is not sourced. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:27, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I would also agree that the sentence could be improved, it introduces the idea that there are "proponents of double sentence spacing" unnecessarily.  Is this really a concept that exists in secondary references, or is this WP:OR?
RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 21:24, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I didn't source the first part of the sentence because I didn't think it was contentious material. You posted a poll above that could support the first four words of the sentence. I don't think it's necessary to add it though, unless you disagree. I think the idea that there are no proponents of double sentence spacing would be idiosyncratic, were someone to suggest that here. --Airborne84 (talk) 21:39, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

"Untitled Document" is not a reliable source WP:SOURCES WP:QS

WP:SOURCES states

Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy...In general, the best sources have a professional structure in place for checking or analyzing facts, legal issues, evidence, and arguments

"Untitled Document" is the name of the web page at: www.aect.org/events/review/PropResults.asp?submit=View+Full+Proposal.&propid=148

The publisher of "Untitled Document" is the AECT, the author is unknown, and the date is unknown but prior to 10/30/09.  The page is advertising for a 30-minute session at a professional conference.  The page contains an abstract, the name of a presenter, and three co-presenters.

The page shows workmanship errors in the typography for special characters, such as "today?s".  There are perhaps six such errors.

There is no reason to think that the paper associated with this conference session has been published.  We can therefore also assume that the abstract has not been refereed. 

The abstract itself contains information known to be factually incorrect, such as, "Two spaces were necessary to visually break up the space and reinforce the end of a sentence."

"Untitled Document" is referenced four times in the article.  The citation listed for "Untitled Document" is:

Leonard, Kristi, et al. (1 February 2003). "The Effects of Computer-based Text Spacing on Reading Comprehension and Reading Rate". IVLA. www.aect.org/events/review/PropResults.asp?submit=View+Full+Proposal.&propid=148. Retrieved 1 February 2010.

A publication date of 1 February 2003 is not supported by the web page.  Google shows that there was a proposal for this paper posted in March 2008.  The web page presumably was posted months before 10/30/09, and the conference was scheduled 10/30/09.
RB  66.217.118.159 (talk) 09:35, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

WP:V clearly allows this source.

1. Not that it matters, but a "source" at Wikipedia can be a person (see WP:V). The "people" that wrote this conducted the direct studies on sentence spacing and have published multiple papers on the topic. However, this is not the only relevant section of WP:V.

2. "Today?s". Not relevant. However, this happens frequently in Web documents. The question mark sometimes replaces apostrophes and quotation marks between the source to the browser that renders the material. (In case you were wondering.)

3. The International Visual Language Association schedules conferences quite often. This conference happened in 2003, and the article that this source is discussing was published in the IVLA conference bulletin. You can obtain it for $20 if you'd like. I'll be happy to give you the contact information. I thought that this would be better for Wikipedia readers because they could actually see the words "most style guides".

4. Author unknown? Please check again. You typed/pasted the authors above.

5. "Information known to be factually incorrect." We've discussed the irrelevancy of this assertion before (truth vs. verifiability). I understand that you don't like the content matter. Please be careful about doing what I've seen other editors do here when they arrive at this article. They run into WP:IDON'TLIKEIT and WP:SOAP. --Airborne84 (talk) 13:35, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

The citation currently reads,

Leonard, Kristi, et al. (1 February 2003). "The Effects of Computer-based Text Spacing on Reading Comprehension and Reading Rate". IVLA.

If you analyze Dr. Branch's 2010 CV) I think you will agree with me that K. Leonard did not author papers before 2008.

Regarding which publication is supposed to be the reference, I wrote,

A publication date of 1 February 2003 is not supported by the web page.

You wrote,

This conference happened in 2003, and the article that this source is discussing was published in the IVLA conference bulletin.

Please make up your mind, do you want to cite a 2003 paper or do you want to cite K. Leonard's 2009 conference presentation, or do you want to cite "Untitled Document"?  (I've changed my mind, I think that the 2009 paper has been published—somewhere.)  Have you seen your reference?

Also, see WP:SOURCEACCESS

Thanks,
RB  66.217.118.17 (talk) 15:55, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I believe the source [www.aect.org/events/review/PropResults.asp?submit=View+Full+Proposal.&propid=148] is reliable. AECT is an educational organization, that the article appears on a web page instead of a peer reviewed journal may speak to the relative quality of the source, but does not mean it is unreliable. Presentations at conferences are generally vetted by the scholarly community. I do agree that the date of the work appears to be wrong, but that also does not mean the source is unreliable--mistakes do get made. I also note this related material. Having said that, this is a primary research work, and thus not the best source--a secondary source would be better. --Nuujinn (talk) 20:36, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

My apologies. I didn't read some of your (RB) post thoroughly because some of it seemed irrelevant to the thesis of your thread, which was ostensibly captured in the title that you chose. I'll check the date for the reference again. It's possible that I typed the date incorrectly. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:10, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The "related material" SPSResearchProposal.pdf shows that the paper was not published in November 2007.  Any content in there has the status of a draft.

That is also true of an abstract that would have been submitted to the website at AECT months before the conference.  Abstract (summary) shows that an abstract has a "Conclusions" section.  Neither of these online abstracts have Conclusions...they are works in progress.

If the information in drafts is important, should the Article identify the information as preliminary?  Also, the primary author of the Article states, "For this subject, the standard of reliability will be held to a higher level than normally seen on Wikipedia."

I won't go into more detail, but analysis shows important differences between the SPSResearchProposal.pdf and "Untitled Document". 

For now, the author needs to decide which of these various possible references he intended.
RB  66.217.117.124 (talk) 01:52, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Not at all. The reference I provided is indeed a proposal, and one would expect differences between a proposal and a conference presentation made later. But the this is, I think, a reliable source indicating that the paper was presented at a professional conference. It is a primary source, and a secondary source would be preferable. --Nuujinn (talk) 02:03, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Nuujinn, do you agree that the Abstract at this has no "Results" and no "Conclusion" sections, thus will be modified in the published paper?
Thanks,
RB  66.217.117.124 (talk) 02:46, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

The reference in the "Sentence spacing" article is to the online abstract for the article by the authors noted above. I debated (when writing this article) whether to use the online abstract or the article in the conference bulletin. However, the only option I found was to obtain it from the source, and the cost of the bulletin was $20 in 2009 (it could be more now). I finally decided to use the online abstract because it is immediately available to Wikipedia readers. WP:V doesn't imply anything about ease of access, but I thought readers would like to see for themselves what the authors said, rather than be presented with a difficult (and expensive) to obtain reference.

Also, RB please keep in mind that you are focused on the article itself. If you check WP:V again, you will see that a source can take three forms, the work itself (in this case article), the author(s), and the publisher. You've already stated that you agree that the article is published, but let's say you decide to recant and don't wish to pay to obtain the article in the conference bulletin itself. You can still rely on the publisher (AECT)—which is reliable—and the author(s). You've already posted Dr. Branch's CV. He alone is a reliable source, so I don't think the CV for, or credentials of, the other authors are necessary. Dr. Branch's should suffice. Thus, the reference in the "Sentence spacing" article is a reliable source. --Airborne84 (talk) 02:56, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

(ec)No, I don't agree. There's no conclusion section nor a results section, but I cannot on that basis conclude what might or might have happened in any published version. What's your point? --Nuujinn (talk) 02:58, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Nuujinn, the point was to move toward consensus.  It has been 30 years since I have been in a library looking for a research paper, but I can't imagine why the abstract of a published paper would not have a conclusion.  I don't know why you would not be confident in agreeing, or at least saying that it was more than likely.  Thanks, RB  66.217.117.117 (talk) 03:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Conference abstract

The correct terminology here seems to be "conference abstract".  I propose that an immediate change for the Article is to identify the reference as a "conference abstract".

[Academic conference abstracts] says that conference abstracts are advertising, although they have "scholarly weight".  "It's understood that conference abstracts may differ from the eventual presentation, which itself may be different from a paper published later." 

WP:SCIRS states, "Conference abstracts are often incomplete and preliminary, and may be contradicted if and when the data are published; they should be avoided."

So in general, IMO this is not a reliable reference.  However, for the particular reference: "most style manuals recommend the use of only one space following the period (APA, 2001; Chicago, 2003; MLA, 2003)" the list of guides is specified.  In the context, the statement stands on its own and IMO is reliable.

As per the finding from the [WP/RSN posting], an alternative to the attribution was a "different source should be found, one that cites the style guides about which a generalization is being made."  The decision for the key editor is that to use this reference in the current context, the list of three guides would also need to be included.  RB  66.217.118.80 (talk) 07:11, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Loh, Branch, Shewanown, and Ali. (2002) "The Effect of Text Spacing After the Period..."

The following blockquote is the current text in the Article that relates to this study:

The citations read:

Loh, Christian Sebastian, Robert Maribe Branch, Saun Shewanown, and Radwan Ali. "The Effect of Text Spacing After the Period on Time for On-Screen Reading Tasks". IVLA Book of Selected Readings: Selected Readings of the IVLA Annual Conference. IVLA. 2002.

98 ^ Loh et al., 2002. p. 4.

The text from the Article reads:

Direct studies include those by Loh, Branch, Shewanown, and Ali (2002)...The 2002 study tested participants' reading speed for single and double sentence spaced passages of on-screen text. The authors stated that "the 'double space group' consistently took longer time to finish than the 'single space' group", but concluded that "there was not enough evidence to suggest that a significant difference exists".[98]

A power point presentation exists online: The Effect of Text Spacing After the Period.ppt

The powerpoint presentation shows that there was a second conclusion in addition to the one listed in the Article: "Since there (is) no added advantage in advocating sentence separation using single-space over double-space, our recommendation is to adhere to the longstanding practice of using double-space for sentence separation, be it in print or for online document."
RB  66.217.117.124 (talk) 05:17, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, the actual article itself (which also was difficult to obtain) had similar language. However, the following sentence was inserted immediately afterward: "As this article was being prepared for print in accordance with the IVLA guideline for 'Selected Readings,' the authors noticed that the block justification stipulated would preclude the use of double spacing in text separation." Block justification doesn't preclude putting two spaces between sentences. I suspect that the authors simply weren't aware that the IVLA's publishing guidelines called for single spacing. Also, the statement, "long-standing practice of using double space for sentence separation" would only have been true if they had added the caveat "with typewriters", and removed "online documents", since their own chosen venue provided a glaring contradiction. In 2002, this caveat would still have accurately reflected a few major style guides that hadn't yet transitioned. Anyway, the error in accuracy is irrelevant at Wikipedia. Therefore I had considered putting both of these sentences in, but eventually decided against it. (1). The "studies" section was originally much larger and more detailed. I had to drastically strip out extraneous material IAW the Featured Article Candidate page comments. (2) I wasn't sure how to fit it in the "studies" section since their recommendation doesn't come directly from their research. Thus, it would have better fit into the history section as a year-2002 secondary source recommendation—similar to many style guides before they changed (the authors do not make similar recommendations in their later articles). (3). This would have been embarrasing to the authors.

The third reason was the most important for me. Although I found the situation a bit humorous, I decided against putting potentially embarrassing information for the authors in the article. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:15, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Dr. Branch's 2010 CV shows that the paper was peer-reviewed.
RB  66.217.117.184 (talk) 10:09, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Just a comment, regarding "the block justification stipulated would preclude the use of double spacing in text separation," I think I understand that, since that was often the case, although rarely now. I used to use two spaces on my royal electric, but had to give that up when I moved to a computer. With full justification enabled, in most word processors (at least during the late 1980s and the 1990s) sometimes the second space would carry over to the next line. This was especially true of fixed width fonts. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:50, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Nuujinn, I'm sure you're right about what you stated. If the authors were concerned about possible spacing issues, it would be a valid concern. An editor at the Chicago Manual of Style noted various related issues (including the one you mention, I think) here. However, I doubt that the authors would have been able to have the IVLA change their publishing guidelines for their specific article. Perhaps.

RB, I'm not arguing that the article isn't a reliable source. I considered adding the passages myself. I'm simply stating the reasons why I decided to not include them. --Airborne84 (talk) 18:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Airborne84, given my experience in academia, I doubt they would have even asked. (;

Airborne84, this is a peer-reviewed article with possibly the single most-important research conclusion on the topic of Sentence Spacing.  I haven't seen anyone say so, but I wouldn't doubt that this research conclusion was a factor in the changes at MLA and APA back to two spaces.  Understand that the paper is about on-screen spacing, so the "long-standing practice of using double space for sentence separation" for example might be traced to the 1984 Chicago Guide.  The APA change from 2 to 1 occurred in 1994, so a research study in 2002 could still be reacting to the change made in 1994.  I don't know what you mean about "a venue with a glaring contradiction."
RB  66.217.117.117 (talk) 02:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by "research conclusion". Their research was inconclusive, as noted by the authors. Thus their recommendation was to simply maintain what they thought was the status quo. Their conclusion was then, to "adhere to the longstanding practice of using double-space for sentence separation" (a surprising statement). Their "venue" was the IVLA bulletin, which used single sentence spacing in their final publication. Given what we know about the "longstanding practice of using double-space for sentence separation" we can see that this statement by the authors is potentially embarrassing. Also, these authors conducted further (published) studies and did not repeat this recommendation, in effect, updating their position.

There's nothing in Wikipedia's policies that precludes us from adding this material in one of the articles. I had several reasons for not including these passages (already described above), but the primary one was not to embarrass the authors. I thought you would agree on this point since you stated the following above:

"We also want to be careful here to respect Mr. Rhodes"

"I wouldn't be surprised if K. Leonard googles to this online discussion someday, so please keep the tone professional."

These were in reference to the talk page. Are you saying that you want to include material that would be potentially embarrasing to the authors in the article itself? That seems inconsistent with your consideration for other authors above.

Also, I understand that you are new to Wikipedia, but please stop moving my comments. See WP:TALK, which states, "Never edit or move someone's comment to change its meaning, even on your own talk page" (emphasis in original). Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 04:01, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Are you asserting that I changed meaning, or are you only objecting to re-factoring the text?  RB  66.217.117.117 (talk) 05:50, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I simply don't want you to move or edit my comments. I think that is plain enough. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:08, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

"This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Sentence spacing article."
WP:TALK Talk pages are for improving the encyclopedia, not for expressing personal opinions on a subject or an editor."

WP:TALKO on "Refactoring for relevance:off-topic content", WP:REFACTOR, and WP:OAGF.

WP:TOPPOST Make a new heading for a new topic

Please note that discussion here is off-topic and subject to refactoring, including by yourself.  Thanks, RB 66.217.117.134 (talk) 09:52, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad that you've now read the talk page guidelines, although perhaps selectively. Did you read this? "Editing – or even removing – others' comments is sometimes allowed. But you should exercise caution in doing so, and normally stop if there is any objection."

I'll readd my (repasted) comments that that you removed that you yourself added in a thread above and ask a final time for you to stop removing my comments.

If you'd like to discuss this further, feel free to do so on my talk page—the normal venue for such discussions. Since you have none, I was forced to voice my objection to your multiple selective edits, deletions, and movements of my comments here, even though this itself is off topic to improving this article. --Airborne84 (talk) 18:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Chicago Guide to Preparing Electronic Manuscripts for Authors and Publishers (1987)

To show that this is a current style guide, I'm quoting from the SBL Handbook of Style.  The current edition of SBL Handbook of Style (1999), 2006 reprint ISBN 9781565634879, notes on page 1, "we have consulted various of these standard manuals...and also the now somewhat dated Chicago Guide to Preparing Electronic Manuscripts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987)."

The Chicago Guide (ISBN 0226103927) reads on page 16, "It may prove helpful to you to develop the habit of leaving two spaces after punctuation that ends sentences...Such a procedure will allow you to search for the ends (or beginnings) of sentences...If your publisher requires only one space between sentences...you can...globally change all two-space instances to a single space...Since many typesetters seem untroubled by whether you leave one or two spaces between sentences, the Press recommends that its authors leave two."
RB  66.217.117.184 (talk) 10:42, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Noted. This isn't unusual for style guides from the 1980s.

If you'd like to include the SBL Handbook itself, I'd recommend that it go in the main article, Sentence spacing in language and style guides, as that is more of an encyclopedia collection of style guides; the section here is only a summary of that one. Key information also would be:

1. Guidelines from the 2006 SBL Handbook on sentence spacing (if any).

2. Whether the 2006 SBL Handbook is itself single or double sentence spaced.

3. What other style guides and references the SBL Handbook refers to besides a guide that it itself notes is "somewhat dated".

Depending on the above information, the main article venue offers more leeway in detailing the nuances. Feel free to add it if you think that it is worthwhile.

By the way, I'm happy to see that you have moved to a more constructive (IMO) approach of further research to add relevant material. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 04:05, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

APA Style Lite for College Papers January 2010

APA Style Lite for College Papers January 2010

p. 1

"The last edition of the APA Manual advised students that "the Publication Manual is not intended to cover scientific writing at an undergraduate level" (APA, 2001, p. 322).  They meant it!  While the last edition devoted a chapter to "Material Other Than Journal Articles" as an aid for students (chapter 6), the current edition has eradicated all such guidance.  Take this advice from the APA: "Not writing for publication?  Not our problem!"
...
The APA calls papers written for publication copy manuscripts.  They are formatted to aid the publication process, not the reader.  When not writing for publication "the manuscript must be as readable as possible" (APA, 2001, p. 323).  The APA calls these papers final manuscripts".
...
"APA Lite is a guide to crafting final manuscripts."

p. 6

Space once after (most) punctuation? (sic) However, "spacing twice after punctuation marks at the end of a sentence aids readers of draft manuscripts" (APA, 2009, p. 88)"

(emphasis added)
RB  66.217.118.58 (talk) 20:50, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a long section at Sentence spacing in language and style guides with added notes describing the changing position of the APA over the last few years. At first glance (although I haven't scrubbed the source yet), I don't see why the above material couldn't be added to the APA section there, although the statement on page 88 that you note was adjusted by the APA.

I read your other posts on style guides too. Might I recommend that you post these same sections at Talk:Sentence spacing in language and style guides as well? That article is the repository (currently) for sentence spacing in style guides and this is the kind of material that could feasibly be added there (the section here is just an overall summary).

Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 00:26, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Please consider that on November 19 a key author of the Article still thought that, "No known style guide published after 1990 prescribes double sentence spacing for final or published work."  Sentence spacing in digital media still says, "However, writers who wish to use wider sentence spacing should avoid striking the space bar twice..."  The Sentence spacing article itself still says that two-spacing is "obsolete" and "foolish".  These notes are documenting the rest of the story.  Thanks,  RB  66.217.117.117 (talk) 02:57, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

MLA (Style) Lite for Research Papers

MLA Lite for Research Papers - Fall 2009

p. 2

Space twice after punctuation at the ends of sentences

RB  66.217.118.58 (talk) 21:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

This wasn't published by MLA (although the source certainly could be an RS). Given a secondary source analysis on MLA Style that conflicts with the actual MLA Style Guide(s), the primary source should be used to provide the "position of the MLA". You can see the position of the MLA in Sentence spacing in language and style guides.

If you'd like to discuss further, I'd recommend posting this thread at that talk page so the "watchers" there can also take part in the discussion. --Airborne84 (talk) 00:35, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

SBL Handbook of Style

I've moved discussion here that was off-topic to == Chicago Guide to Preparing Electronic Manuscripts ==

I'm quoting from the SBL Handbook of Style.  The current edition of SBL Handbook of Style (1999), 2006 reprint ISBN 9781565634879, notes on page 1, "we have consulted various of these standard manuals...and also the now somewhat dated Chicago Guide to Preparing Electronic Manuscripts."
RB

If you'd like to include the SBL Handbook itself, I'd recommend that it go in the main article, Sentence spacing in language and style guides, as that is more of an encyclopedia collection of style guides; the section here is only a summary of that one. Key information also would be:

1. Guidelines from the 2006 SBL Handbook on sentence spacing (if any).

2. Whether the 2006 SBL Handbook is itself single or double sentence spaced.

3. What other style guides and references the SBL Handbook refers to besides a guide that it itself notes is "somewhat dated".

Depending on the above information, the main article venue offers more leeway in detailing the nuances. Feel free to add it if you think that it is worthwhile.

--Airborne84 (talk) 18:26, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

RB  66.217.118.58 (talk) 22:08, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

In case an editor wants that data, here it is:

APA Style cite:
Alexander, P. H., & Society of Biblical Literature. (1999). The SBL handbook of style: For ancient Near Eastern, Biblical, and early Christian studies. Peabody, Mass: Hendrickson Publishers.

In addition to the Chicago Guide they use CMS 14th edition and the "Instructions for Contributors" in the Journal of Biblical Literature 117 (1998): 555-79.

p. 7

3.1.1.10 Spaces after Punctuation

Only one space is needed after any punctuation that ends a sentence and also after a colon.

As to point 2, that would be WP:OR, and also, not all spacing is single or double.
RB  66.217.118.58 (talk) 22:58, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll post this at Talk:Sentence spacing in language and style guides. --Airborne84 (talk) 00:55, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Ok, thanks, and if you want, you can move this section there as well.  RB  66.217.117.117 (talk) 02:22, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Talk page etiquette

Please do not delete or change other users' posts here or on any article talk page unless they meet a fairly narrow set of criteria. Please see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines. Changes such as these do not meet the criteria for removal.

I owuld also note that this is a WP:FA and was fairly carefully checked in multiple WP:FACs and peer reviews. While no article is perfect, I do not think this one has anywhere near the level of problems this talk page would seem to indicate. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm sure I can't explain that.  But I can tell you as a computer engineer who had a career in Silicon Valley at the dawn of the microcomputer age, a short career in ANSI standardization, types 70 wpm, and read the Article about a month ago from the viewpoint of an outsider, that the Article is not good for Wikipedia's reputation.  Thanks for your assistance.
RB  66.217.117.107 (talk) 11:28, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

RB, I think your reliance on your personal expertise and experience is part of the problem, although I recognize that your intentions are good. I can say that I, having been raised with typewriters, moving to an apple ][+ as a word processor at the dawn of the microcomputer age, graduate experience in comparative literature including RA experience prepping and proofing both material to be manually typeset and photoready copy, with long and continuing career in computer support and many years in a print/conversion lab, and types about 50 words a minute but has a girlfriend that types scary fast, I mean, scary fast, since she did medical transcription, that none of my experience nor any of your experience has anything to do with how this article should be written. The discussion is certainly interesting from a personal point of view--I will not bore people with what it recalls to me, things like making my own fonts for an epson FX80, adjusting the kerning in my WordPerfect installation for an HP Laserjet, using search and replace to deal with my desire to use two spaces after terminal periods in face of software that could not reliably cope with full justification because I think it looks better, especially in non-proportional fonts. I could go on and on and on, but I realize people do not want to hear it.

I've read most all of this, and while I admire your focus and dedication, you are bordering at times on original research. For example, when you said that even the space in a proportional font has a fixed width, you pointed to this, which, while it does indeed discuss various white spaces and how wide they are, does not mention the word "proportional", and it's IME a primary source. In my world, I would say that you misunderstand what "proportional font" means in common usage--yes, generally each individual character has its own width, but the width vary from character to character, an "i", for example, being narrower than an "O", as opposed to a fixed-width or monospace font such as courier, in which all of the characters have the same width. I know that you are seeking out sources, and good on you for that, but I think you're dealing with them at a depth that is not needed for an encyclopedia and may not be appropriate according to WP:NOR. I say all of this with good will, and I'm not really interested in discussing it--this is rather just something I'm throwing out in the hope that you'll consider it. I recognize this is something that really belongs on your talk page, but since you're using an IP, figure this is the better place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nuujinn (talk • contribs) 12:36, November 29, 2010

RB, please note that User:RB is not registered - please consider signing up for an account here (then we don't have to leave messages for you here or at IP address talk pages that change periodically). As for your comments above, how is this article it not good for Wikipedia's reputation? Which of the Wikipedia:Featured article criteria does it not meet? Aside from your evident dislike of the article's topic and/or coverage, what is wrong with it? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't know enough about your language/operational definitions to translate to you just yet.  My job as an engineer is to provide operational definitions in your language, which will take some time.  I'm kind of a bottom up designer, so for right now I'm working on documenting problems such as w ebw.ord, verifying the sources, and learning the system.  Including the fact that the Article is locked in FA class its hard for me to know yet what will be productive.

We all make choices.  I don't think it is constructive to associate my work with the word, "dislike."  I think that is unproductive.  I don't know if this is related, and its probably mentioned on a policy page I haven't found yet, but there is the ambiguity of the written word.  My written words should normally be assumed to have a flat affect, just a boring engineer reporting on stuff in tedious detail, no emotional charge or opinion.  I think the constructive words that apply to "not good for reputation" are "worth improving".

As for as registering RB, I already tried, the software listed something like r/b or R.B. and a couple of others and wouldn't let me have it.  I also tried variations like ...RB... and always got the same result.  Talk pages are seen in a Google search.

As far as I am concerned, this entire etiquette section is off-topic and subject to deletion. 

I have been having a problem with continuing off-topic content and related escalation that has led to the stoppage of my work on this page.  My plan for now is to be WP:BOLD about the off-topic content without involving the time of an admin.  I will delete off-topic content instead of factoring or responding in kind.  If an editor wants to escalate, he will not have grounds, because he has not first tried to revert.  If he reverts, no one will be able to say that I ignored the problem, and the editor can't say that he didn't know that I considered it was off-topic. 
Thanks, RB  66.217.118.121 (talk) 10:27, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that the problem here is that you consider some of the material that I have posted to be off-topic, where I might consider it to be on topic. Simply making a decision unilaterally and deleting others' comments, after their repeated objection, and without the courtesy of approaching them on their talk page, is considered rude here on Wikipedia. That it is usually against Wikipedia's policies is another matter. --Airborne84 (talk) 12:38, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, talk pages are histories of discussions that are used for a variety of purposes. Generally speaking, an editor is free to edit their own talk page as they like, but deletion or alteration of another editor's or an article's talk page is considered very bad form. The accepted best practice for altering your own comments on talk pages other than your own is to strike the parts you no longer ascribe to thusly, and then add your revised version. Some editors add the revision in a different color or with a parenthetical note to make clear it's an addition/change. I hope that's clear. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:50, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with the previous two comments. There are some fairly limited circumstances under which anyone can remove things from an article's talk page (see Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines), but I do not see any of those applying here thus far. RB, let me be very clear - if you continue to remove other people's contributions on this talk page that do not meet the criteria at Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, this can lead to your being blocked and this page being (semi)protected. There are rules here that everyone has to follow, regardless of how many words they can type a minute ;-)

I do have to apologize to RB as there is a RB (talk · contribs), but there is not a R B (talk · contribs). I had seen that RB had no user page and forgot to check for talk or contributions. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:08, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

I think that there is some limited opinion that it is acceptable, for Editor A to copy Editor B's errors in judgement, draw attention to such errors in judgement, and claim that Editor A has editorial privilege over Editor B's content.

This issue could have been resolved today, without a change in the status quo.

There is a not-actually-related issue, regarding the procedure for alleged off-topic content under WP:TALK.  More specifically this is "Comment on content, not on the contributor" (WP:TALK:COCNOTC) that only affects one other editor.

I doubt that there is general understanding of the WP:TALK policy regarding factoring that applies to WP:TALK:COCNOTC.

This issue could have been experimentally resolved today, with a process for future WP:TALK:COCNOTC, within WP:BOLD.
RB  66.217.118.167 (talk) 02:31, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Have you considered that your knowledge of the relevant policies may be incomplete, especially in practice? Besides being an administrator, Ruhrfisch is an experienced editor at Wikipedia. --Airborne84 (talk) 11:57, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

RB, if I've hurt your feelings, please accept my apologies. I would ask you to review WP:TPO, which is pretty specific on the issue of when it is appropriate to alters the comments of others. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Nuujinn, I apologize for not having responded to your recent posts, I simply have not had time.  Please be assured that I want to respond.  Also, I just read the rules for indenting, so please determine by context, and not by the number of indents, the meaning of messages I have posted before today.  When only two people are replying to each other, I suspect it doesn't matter. 
Thanks, RB  66.217.117.155 (talk) 19:13, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Documented removals

Here are removals of material back I found going back to November 23, all done by IP address users. I assume all additions and removals by an IP address user are by RB. I am also OK with (but not thrilled by) someone removing their own contributions (which is allowed, though most people strike). I am not OK with removing someone else's material in the first two examples.

1. Removed three comments by Airborne84 (clearly unacceptable) and one by RB which used someone else's name, diff #1
2. Removed a large block of material by Airborne84 (clearly unacceptable) diff #2
3. Removed/changed RB's own material, mostly to remove someone else's name (acceptable) diff #3
4. Removed direct quotations by Airborne84 of RB's text, which named other persons (unacceptable but extenuating circumstances) diff #4

The first two are clearly violations of talk page guidleines, and removals like this cannot be repeated. The third is OK. The fourth is tricky. It is technically a violation (removing someone else's material), but this case is RB removing only direct quotes (by Airborne84) of things RB wrote, in order to remove other people's names. Since both RB and Airborne84 said they wanted to avoid embarassing other people, and RB removed his own material (what was being quoted) with the previous edit, I think this is what Ignore all rules is for. Airborne, since you also said you did not want to embarass these people, are you OK with the removal of just these quotes of RB's words? I am. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 22:10, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Possibly. I'd like to alleviate some lack of understanding on my part before answering.

1. In the first deleted passage of #4 above, I didn't see the need for the original post by RB. It was in response to CyberCobra's request to "elaborate on this accusation." RB then defined the word "accusation" in a way that implied editors here were accusing the author of something illegal. I suspect that Cybercobra was not referring to Webword's author, but to RB's "accusation" about the reference (this ambiguity could also have been resolved by RB approaching Cybercobra on his/her talk page). Regardless, I don't see where any editor here wrote anything that should be embarrassing to Rhodes. Even RB, who used the word "rant" IRT the Webword source only repeated what Rhodes said that the site was not.

The second passage was an out of the blue "warning"(?) that confused me. It seemed to imply that I was using unprofessional words IRT the authors—thus my confusion. When I asked RB to clarify exactly what I had said that was unprofessional, I received no response. If RB was warning us that we shouldn't say anything unprofessional in the future, I would think that to have been an unnecessary warning, given that there was no past history of unprofessionalism in our posts, IMO. In any case, RB wouldn't explain the comment, so there was no way for me to gain an understanding as to its meaning.

So, we are left with my main problems with the removal of my comments in #4 above. (1) RB removed my repasting of his comments twice with the edit summaries, "off-topic" and "comment about living people"; (2) RB did not remove her own earlier comments, leaving me to wonder why it was ok for him/her to call my comments off-topic and against policy, while his/hers were fine to leave as-is; (3) The comments changed the context, and thus the meaning of my post, (4) RB deleted his/her own words in my comment, but did so against my repeated objection and without approaching me to resolve the situation on my talk page.

As is evident, my issues with the removal do not center around potential embarrassment to any authors—because I don't think they are embarrassing. In fact, they seem to be discussion between editors to not embarrass those authors.

Having said that, I would be OK with removing the posts only if RB can show that these posts (including the ones that he/she posted earlier) might actually be embarrasing to the authors in question. I certainly don't want to include any information that could be embarrasing to authors, but I simply don't see it in the threads above. My comments above about not embarrasing these authors are not in regard to these particular passages. They are in regard to the inclusion of some passages from a 2002 article—not the 2003 article described in the second passage of #4 above.

I await RBs response. Perhaps he/she can clarify how the passages in #4 above are embarrasing to the authors in question; and why removing my comments—but not his/hers—satisfied a perceived issue of embarrassment on this talk page. --Airborne84 (talk) 02:35, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I apologize that I did not read the whole posts - I only found the diffs and some of the surrounding text and posted them here. My basic thought (regardless of what anyone thinks of the statements removed) was that RB had removed his or her statements about KL in diff 1 and Mr. R in diff 3. Then in diff 4, RB removed Airnborne84's direct quotations of these same staements. I just searched the page and the only place these statements appear on this talk page now is in the quotations. While I am not sure why the quotations needed to be removed by RB in the first place, I know that if I wrote soemthing here that I regretted and removed it, and it was quoted elsewhere, I would want the quoted version to be removed too. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:07, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch,

There are two different data sets that represent two different policy issues that are confounded.  These would be

• (1) Refactoring for relevance, (WP:TPO) and
• (2) "Own Comments" (WP:REDACT)

Regarding (1), here is a diff of the refactoring: Diff#5 refactoring of a WP:TOPPOST and refactoring two more groups of off-topic discussion  Diff#5 includes both diff#1 and diff#2.  I believe that Diff#5 is IAWPin accordance with policy–I need to present my case.

Regarding (2), please note the existence of Can_Editor_A_gain_editorial_privilege_over_Editor_B's_content?.  As for the dataset associated with this, I stipulate that diff4 is only one of two reverts, and that in this context reverting twice is considered edit warring.

RB  66.217.118.191 (talk) 09:55, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Regarding (1), the diff you provide does not appear, in my opinion, fall under the criteria in Refactoring for relevance; the comments are neither gibberish nor rants, not a test edit, neither harmful nor prohibited, and you did not move a personal conversation to a talk page. Rather, you reordered a talk page in use and, if nothing else, that makes the conversation more difficult to follow. Such actions taken with the best of intentions can be misunderstood and undermine the trust required of us to reach consensus on issues where we disagree.

Regarding (2), I see no edit war, but that's just my opinion.

RB, folks are trying to help you understand normal acceptable procedures here. My advice would be just don't refactor someone else's comments. It's simply not good form to alter the comments of others. If you feel that something needs to be refactored, it is far better to ask them to refactor. If there's something defamatory that requires removal, there are procedures for that that are better than refactoring. Also, fwiw, Arguing fine points of policy is not always the best approach. --Nuujinn (talk) 10:36, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I fully agree with your last sentence Ruhrfisch. However, the circumstances here seem to be different. (1) I quoted RBs comments that still existed in the talk page, (2) RB deleted them—in my post only, (3) I objected, (4) RB then decided that his/her original posts were "off topic" (in the edit summary) and only then deleted the originals—and then mine again. Was his/her decision that they were "embarrassing" arrived at only after I posted them? It seems so. In that sense, I also object in principle to the deletion of the original posts by RB. They should have just been crossed out and reworded. For RB, WP:Talk states that "It is best to avoid changing your own comments. Other users may have already quoted you with a diff." This is exactly what happened here. (Note for RB, "quote" is more useful here than "gaining editorial priviledge over others content".)

Finally, I'm still not sure why the posts (RBs or my quote of RBs) are being called an "error in judgement anyway". There is nothing wrong with the posts, that I can see, in RBs original use or the repasted comments.

Since RB is not addressing my reasons for disagreeing with my edit comment deletion, but instead further argues that it was allowed by Wikipedia's policies, it seems that we have reached an impasse.

Finally, although RB has not shown me much courtesy in this matter, I don't mind extending some to RB. Since this discussion might be embarrassing to RB, we can move further discussion—if needed and desired—to a talk page.--Airborne84 (talk) 14:32, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to all. RB, a diff is a link that shows the changes made by an edit or group of edits. I have added numbers to the linked diffs above (the first post in this subsection) so you can see exactly what I mean. There is no diff #5 that I can find anywhere (RB, if you meant to include one, you did not provide the link). Let me state very clearly that RB's removals of Airborne84's material are in no way an acceptable refactoring for relevance. Such refactoring is moving the entire comment or thread to a new page, either an archive page or another talk page. RB, you did not move anything and selectively removed only parts of what Airborne84 wrote. This changed the apparent meaning of his or her posts, and is in no way allowed, regardless of what you think. RB, I also find it difficult to follow your abbreviations - what does IAWP mean for example?

As a general comment to RB, your refusal or inability to understand policy and guidelines here does not help you in your other attempts to challenge the reliability of sources. This article went through three WP:FACs and at least one peer review. The sources used were never an issue in the FACs (though their formatting was). RB, you brought one source to the Reliable Sources Noticeboard here, see "Unreliable source on an FA class page", but it failed to get any consensus that the source was unreliable. At that noticenboard you wrote "Let me add that I think the page should not be at FA level." and here you wrote "... from the viewpoint of an outsider, that the Article is not good for Wikipedia's reputation." but when I asked RB for specifics as to how it did not meet the criteria for featured articles, RB dodged the question. RB, Wikipedia tries to treat newcomers with tolerance and respect. Please see WP:AGF and WP:BITE. However the assumption of good faith has its limits, and you are nearing them in my opinion. Please state what specifically you think is wrong with this article that means it is does not meet Wikipedia:Featured article criteria.

Finally, to Airborne84 - they are your comments (even if they are quotes), so they are your call to keep or remove. You have been amazingly patient through all of this and I thank you for your efforts here. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 18:52, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

I can only work on one thing at a time.  As far as my backlog of work, I still have not responded to posts on 28 November 2010.  Right now, I have had at least two warnings issued by an admin.  The warnings overlap, and the admin issued further statements of wrongdoing today.

I told the admin on his talk page on 29 November, "I will not further respond now, but will await your response as to where this goes."  I have not received a response.

On 2 December I stated, "I need to present my case."

As far as Diff#5 it is shortly after the words "here is a diff of the refactoring: Diff#5". The words of the diff are blue, and when my mouse hovers over the link, a blue underline appears.

I have redacted a previous post to correct the usage of "IAWP".  The changes are exposed.  RB  66.217.117.206 (talk) 23:10, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

It is not going to be productive to perform any further analysis on the past. Let's stick to discussing how the article should be improved in the future, in a new section. People should not edit comments, except when rarely needed for reasons related to improving the encyclopedia. However, please drop the matter because it is ultimately not helpful. Of course, if someone wants to make a report on a suitable noticeboard, it would be necessary to look at past behavior, but there is no reason to continue here. Johnuniq (talk) 23:58, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

RB, thanks for pointing out diff 5 (sorry I missed it) and for the clarification. I thought I had already responded above - if you want to discuss this further, please do so on my talk page. Thanks to Johnuniq - I am fine with moving on. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:20, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Proposed manual archiving

There is a lot of extraneous commentary in some of the sections on this page and I am proposing to manually archive all sections above #How a Variable-Width Font Works (that is, delete them from here, and paste them into /Archive 4; that should not have any impact upon the bot archiving process). My motivation is due to some discussion on my talk page which I don't quite understand, but which seems reasonable. I would also archive this section ("Proposed manual archiving"). All discussions would still be accessible (in the archive), and I'm hoping this might be a step towards restoring a more peaceful pace of discussion here. There's no need to give any lengthy explanations, but if one of the regulars objects, please respond. Johnuniq (talk) 08:58, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

No objection. --Airborne84 (talk) 11:46, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Also fine with me - thanks Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 12:18, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, please. --Nuujinn (talk) 16:01, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good, thanks.  RB  66.217.117.66 (talk) 00:12, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. Johnuniq (talk) 06:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Slate.com

Some of the editors here might be interested in the following article: "Space Invaders: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period". It's Slate.com's #1 "most read" article now. I don't think that it's needed as a further source here, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless...for a variety of reasons. --Airborne84 (talk) 20:58, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! Hilarious, and I read the whole thing. I am very glad that none of my letters to former girl friends are public! Johnuniq (talk) 00:34, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks - any reason not to add this as an External link? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Great article, fun read, yes, let's have it as an external link! --Nuujinn (talk) 03:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Ruhrfisch, There is no consensus that this is WP:RS as you claim here, or anything other than satire.  Please don't put this back as an external link unless a consensus becomes clear.  Two-spacing is the current manuscript norm for APA style, acknowledged by MLA, is supported by the little scholarly opinion that is available, and surveys show it is used by half of respondents; so it is only necessary to look at the title to document that this slate.com web page "misleads the reader".  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 08:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I see that RB has reverted me, so I ask now what is the objection to having it as an external link. The last time I looks, Slate was a reliable source in that it is a well known magazine with a good reputation for reporting. The fact that the title expresses an opinion does not detract from that reliability, and I do not think that it misleads the reader in any way. What do others think? --Nuujinn (talk) 01:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I have rolled back the removal of the Slate.com EL. Wikipedia works on consensus and in this section 3 of 5 editors were in favor of this as an EL, one like the link but did not weigh in on it as an EL, and one (RB) is opposed. How is this consensus to remove the EL? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:00, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Look there was never a consensus to add the link, Airborne84 specifically said that it did not need to be added, one person proposed adding it, one person agreed, and the debate dropped.  Then Airborner84 quietly added the link without discussing it.  Now we can get all worked up over procedural issues of what does it mean when an editor adds something when he says it is not needed, or we can go right to the real point which is that the consensus here was and is that this Slate page is satire.  But instead of that being just my own opinion, do you Ruhrfisch, and do you Nuujinn, agree that this web page is satire?  Thanks, RB  66.217.118.123 (talk) 02:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I am in favor of it being an EL and have said so here three times now (still only counts as one !vote though ;-) ). Nuujinn wrote "let's have it as an external link!". Airboirne84 added it to the article as an EL in the first place, so I count this as being in favor. RB does not want it as an EL. That is how I get 3 in favor of this as an EL and 1 against, of the 5 editors who have weighed in on this matter (Johnuniq liked the link, but did not weigh in on it as an EL). Other editors are welcome to weigh in, of course.

As for the Slate piece, while it includes some humor, it also cites its sources: "James Felici, author of the The Complete Manual of Typography" as well as "Every major style guide—including the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style—prescribes a single space after a period. (The Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, used widely in the social sciences, allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts but recommends one space in published work.)" and also " Ilene Strizver, who runs a typographic consulting firm The Type Studio" as well as "David Jury, the author of About Face: Reviving The Rules of Typography". I also note that it now has a correction, which to me is a sign of a RS. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Slate is a well respected magazine and thus does qualify as a reliable source in general, and in a quick check of the RSN archives confirms that other editors have expressed this regard. The fact that the title indicates an opinion on the part of the author does not discount the reliability of sources--NPOV does not dictate that we choose neutral sources, but rather that we present reliable sources neutrally. Also, I would note that I see no evidence that there's consensus that the Slate article is satire--fwiw, I would not characterize it as such. --Nuujinn (talk) 03:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree Slate is a RS and also do not think the article is a satire (though, as I mentioned, it does have some humor). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for responding to my question.  RB  66.217.118.185 (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

WP:ELNO says to avoid, "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material..." If you look at [American_Psychological_Association, APA_Publication_Manual] or the diff, you will see that at APA there is a "new style recommendation".  So Slate, when they say that APA, "allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts", when in fact two spaces is recommended, is misleading the reader. Also, where is the source that says that APA "recommends" one space in published work?  Here is what APA [says],

"The new edition of the Publication Manual recommends that authors include two spaces after each period in draft manuscripts. For many readers, especially those tasked with reading stacks of term papers or reviewing manuscripts submitted for publication, this new recommendation will help ease their reading by breaking up the text into manageable, more easily recognizable chunks.

Although the usual convention for published works remains one space after each period, and indeed the decision regarding whether to include one space or two rests, in the end, with the publication designer, APA thinks the added space makes sense for draft manuscripts in light of those manuscript readers who might benefit from a brief but refreshing pause.

So I think that a responsible author would have said that APA Style recommends two spaces after periods, and in published works advises that the decision is made by the publication designer, i.e., does not make a recommendation.  There is also an obvious bias here that the theme of this article cannot be objective about APA Style.  RB  66.217.118.185 (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

This post is called reductio ad absurdum.  Following the position that this slate.com page is WP:RS and is not satire, do you Ruhrfisch and do you Nuujinn, agree to put this sentence in the lede of the Article, "Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong."?  RB  66.217.118.185 (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Slate is a notable online magazine and a reliable source, the piece in question is by a member of Slate's paid staff, cites its sources, and took the time to post a correction. It is OK to use it here, but if you want to dispute this further, take it to WP:RS/N (and notify us here so we can comment on it too, please). As to quoting the Slate article in the lead, if the quote appeared in this article, then it might be OK in the lead (as the lead should be a summary of the rest of the article). However, the point is moot. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality tag

Since Geoffrey.landis added a neutrality tag to the sentence "With the introduction of proportional fonts in computers, double sentence spacing became obsolete", I'll ask the editors here to weigh in—again—on whether the sentence is POV. I'd also ask editors to please limit their statements to relevant material provided by reliable sources, not personal opinions.

Trovadore has brought up that LaTeX inserts extra spacing after sentences. This is irrelevant for various reasons: (1) "extra sentence spacing" is not "double sentence spacing" and thus does not apply to this sentence, (2) extra/double spacing can be used and still be obsolete in the opinion of experts.

I'll reiterate the multiple reliable sources I listed in the above thread. Jury uses the word "obsolete", and it is also used in Matthew Butterick's book, Typography for Lawyers: "Most fonts used in word processors since the mid-1990’s have the correct spacing already adjusted, rendering the traditional double space after a full stop (period) obsolete." I'm sure I can find more examples of the exact word "obsolete", but paraphrasing is allowed at Wikipedia.

IMO, "obsolete" is a reasonable paraphrase for the statements made by many other experts. I have many more published statements by experts that say the same thing. I don't think that they are needed. --Airborne84 (talk) 02:16, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

This is English, not French; we have no counterpart to the Academie Française and nor shall we ever tolerate one. Style guides and experts have no authority beyond the extent to which they are followed in practice. Therefore what happens in practice very much is relevant. --Trovatore (talk) 02:25, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure I get your point. Clearly many people still use two spaces after a full stop, but that's not the issue. I note that in the examples you provided that the user of LaTex must make accommodations to prevent problems when that option is enabled. LaTex is venerable, and it's not uncommon, and indeed desirable, for such software to retain older features so as to avoid creating problem. But in any case, the bottom line is that you would need to bring a reliable source to the table that contradicts the notion that double spacing is not obsolete. Also, I would ask if you are very sure that LaTex inserts two spaces after a full stop, or just uses a wider space? --Nuujinn (talk) 02:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

It uses a wider space, not two full spaces. I'm not sure what you mean that the user must make accommodations -- the extra space is the default behavior, and is what is ordinarily seen in mathematics journals (most mathematics papers are written with LaTeX). --Trovatore (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Believe me, I know what LaTeX is used for. "Double spaces" means two spaces, and that's what's obsolete. The accommodations are use of non-breaking spaces, thin spaces, etc, where LaTeX incorrectly detects the end of a sentence.

Here are some points that support the existence of multiple POV problems in this sentence. Summary: (1) the two sources quoted are not reliable in the context, (2) three reliable sources are provided that refute the objectivity of the sentence, (3) the sentence does not satisfy WP:UCS.

1. Text that says that proportional "fonts" adjust spaces, is by definition not WP:RS in the context, because it is not English, see a dictionary.
2. Jury has been previously identified as not writing from a scientific viewpoint.  In particular, his opinions about typewriter typesetting are not WP:RS in the context.  See here for the analysis.
3. This article has excluded the entire weight, such as it is, of scientific opinion, on the grounds that the conclusion is "embarrassing" to the scientists (see previous discussion on Loh 2002).  Current scientific opinion opposes the idea that double-sentence spacing is obsolete.
4. Even in typesetting, en-spacing (one of the typesetting concepts referenced by the Article as double-spacing) is not obsolete (see Bringhurst).
5. WP:UCS says that its not "obsolete" if it is still in common use.
   

Comment: Inline attribution is the quick way to improve this sentence. RB  66.217.117.76 (talk) 10:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Regarding 1), no, I don't believe that's how RS works. We do not judge the accuracy of a source using our own knowledge to determine whether a source is RS. Regarding 2), I don't see consensus for your conclusion, just that you have the opinion that Jury is not RS, and that Airborne disagrees. Regarding 5), WP:UCS is part of an essay, not a policy or a guideline. If we have sources that use the term obsolete, and none that refute, we use obsolete. If we have sources that use obsolete, and some that refute it, we document the disagreement. I can take a look at the other two issues later. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Nuujinn, If WP:UCS is "not a policy", how do you explain [this sentence], "Why isn't "use common sense" an official policy? It is. It's a friendlier restatement of Wikipedia:Ignore all rules"?  RB  66.217.117.171 (talk) 20:43, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

RB, WP:UCS is a section of the essay Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means. The essay itself has a notice at the top which says "This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors on the Wikipedia:Ignore all rules policy. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion. It is not a Wikipedia policy." The UCS section itself also says (under "There is no common sense") "When advancing a position or justifying an action, base your argument on existing agreements, community foundation issues and the interests of the encyclopedia, not your own common sense. ... Citing concrete policies and guidelines is likely to be more effective than simply citing "common sense" and leaving it at that." Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

[insert starts here]

Ruhrfisch, there is no apparent reason that you copied that text.  There was a previous question raised to say, "WP:UCS is part of an essay, not a policy or a guideline."  I took note of the words, "part of an essay"; before I asked Nuujinn to explain his words "not a policy", against the words of WP:UCS which says, "Why isn't "use common sense" an official policy? It is. It's a friendlier restatement of Wikipedia:Ignore all rules."

FYI, the kind of common sense I'm talking about is the basic ordinary kind that will lead readers of this web page to be put off by obvious opinion put in Wikipedia's voice.  Half of survey respondents are using double-sentence spacing.  The recent changes at APA to move back to recommending two-spacing were only slightly softened in the 2nd printing.  Here is what a [current APA web page] says regarding the change from the 5th to the 6th edition, bolded for emphasis Punctuation—return to two spaces after the period at the end of the sentence recommended for ease of reading comprehension.  The point continues to be that any use of the word "obsolete" in this article must be part of a quote within an in-text attribution.  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 07:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

[insert ends here]

Yes, and I just reviewed the discussion on Talk:Sentence_spacing/Archive_4#Loh.2C_Branch.2C_Shewanown.2C_and_Ali._.282002.29_.22The_Effect_of_Text_Spacing_After_the_Period....22. I think others should do the same, but I do not agree with your interpretation that the material was excluded because it was embarrassing. I see some discussion of that issue, and then the conversation devolved to other issues. Yes, Loh is a scientific work, but it appears to be to be a primary source based on a few user studies, and one that not only failed to reach a definite conclusion about readability, but ironically brought question whether their recommendation was a good one, given the problem it would have caused them their article submission had they followed their own advice. Thus, it is not the kind of source I would think we really need for this article, especially given the wide range of sources we have available to us. Also, from the quote Airborne84 provided from Bringhurst, it appears to me that that source does in fact suggest that use of double spaces after a full stop to separate sentences is obsolete (at least, that's what I get from "quaint Victorian habit". I think it is important to be specific here--the issue I am trying to address here and now is that is it now obsolete, according to manuals of style and other sources we have available to us, for the person entering text to use two spaces at the ends of sentences, for the reason that modern systems use proportional fonts and have the ability to adjust the width of spaces as desired. And the question I ask is are there any reliable secondary sources that refute the notion that use of two spaces at the end of a sentence is a Good Thing and not, in fact, obsolete. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't really want to continue the conversation about the scientific study, but since RB will apparently continue to do so, I'll address it in more depth. That way all the relevant facts will be available to the editors here. The passage in question from Loh, et al. (2002) is as follows: "Although the mean of the reading time indicated that the 'double space' group took longer time to finish reading the passages as compared to the 'single space' group, the time difference were not statistically significant. Because there was no added advantage in advocating sentence separation using single space over double space, our recommendation is to adhere to the long-standing practice of using double space for sentence separation, be it in print or for online documents. As this article was being prepared for print in accordance with the IVLA guideline for 'Selected Readings,' the authors noticed that the block justification would preclude the use of double spacing in text separation." However, the text of the article is left justified. Reviewers of the article certainly wouldn't have seen the final version, so I understand why this could have happened. It's also a surprising statement, given what we know about print and online documents in the period before 2002. Thus, I didn't see the need to bring this material up in this article. Regardless, that is not the important information here. The direct studies from 2002–2009 are done by the "Sentence Period Spacing" team at the University of Georgia. The different authors account for students transitioning through the research team, I'm sure. Robert Branch, PhD provides the continuity. The latest studies (in fact all since the 2002 study) provide no "recommendations" to favor single or double spacing. The most recent study, Ni, et al. (2009) should be looked at for the latest recommendation from that research team. It stated simply that the research was inconclusive. More exactly, it stated that the "results provided insufficient evidence that time and comprehension differ significantly among different conditions of spacing between sentences." There was no recommendation to favor single or double sentence spacing. I hope this help clear up the details of the direct studies--Airborne84 (talk) 01:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC).

Reliable sources refute the idea that two-spacing or extra-wide spacing is or has been "obsolete" in any context: typesetting, keyboarding, video data terminal (VDT) display, typewritten manuscripts, or electronic data files.  Bringhurst documents the case for typesetting, APA and MLA for keyboarding, Loh et al. 2002 for VDT display, there is no dispute for typewritten manuscripts, and Chicago Guide to Preparing Electronic Manuscripts for electronic data files.  Online surveys show that half of the respondents are using double spacing.  Even in a survey on a site advocating single-spacing, there was a large minority using or favoring double spacing.  WP:V is clear, that "Where there is disagreement between sources, use in-text attribution."  I'll put that in bold so that it is more easily noticed, Use in-text attribution.  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 06:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

text from Loh 2002

Let's step away from the issue of what should be in the research section, and focus on Loh 2002 for the current POV question. I have previously said, "This is a peer-reviewed article with possibly the single most-important research conclusion on the topic of Sentence Spacing."  Loh 2002 is a reliable primary source whose conclusion I believe has not been refuted after eight years. 

Since there (is) no added advantage in advocating sentence separation using single-space over double-space, our recommendation is to adhere to the longstanding practice of using double-space for sentence separation, be it in print or for online documents.

This conclusion is contrary to the idea that double-spacing is obsolete.

text from Bringhurst

Here is text from Bringhurst from a Google snippet view.  I have added the bold to emphasize that extra-spacing is not obsolete in typesetting.
www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=bks%3A1&q=isbn%3A0881792063+%22full+en+space%22

The elements of typographic style

Robert Bringhurst - 2004 - 382 pages - Snippet view

p. 28
...As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, a colon or any other mark of punctuation. Larger spaces (eg, en spaces) are themselves punctuation.

The rule is sometimes altered, however, when setting classical Latin and Greek, romanized Sanskrit, phonetics or other kinds of texts in which sentences begin with lowercase letters. In the absence of a capital, a full en space (M/2) between sentences may be welcome.
RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 11:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

(answering all of the above by RB, no need to fork the conversation) In regard to Loh, I suppose I could repeat what I said above, but I would suggest instead that you simply re-read it. Better still re-read what Airborne84 wrote, they have put it much better than I. Also, please take a look at WP:PRIMARY. Generally speaking, primary sources require interpretation by experts, which we are not. In regard Bringhurst I note that the first quote supports the notion that double spaces are a no-no. In regard to sentences that begin with lower case letter, I note that Bringhurst is suggesting use of a single wide may be of advantage, not two spaces. I am very sure I don't see your point. As a personal aside, in regard to VDTs, I will note that they are better much obsolete themselves--I work with a very large number of computers, we have 2 VDTs in the closet we use with olde network hardware as needed, and one attached to a PBX. No one I know uses a VDT for doc prep, although I suppose some might still be in use at newspaper facilities. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

VDTsBackLink: [inserted by RB 66.217.118.46 (talk) 12:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)]

Nuujinn,
re: is a single en-space that is twice as wide as a word space a double-space?

You raise the point that since Bringhurst does not talk about "double spacing" (and instead uses en-spacing which is a single character twice as wide as a word character) he isn't to be considered in discussion about whether or not "double-spacing" is "obsolete". Your position seems to run against that of Airborne84, who said:

--Airborne84 (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I list reliable sources (all but Butterick are listed in the Sentence spacing article at this time) that either use the word obsolete, or make statements that fit one of the accepted definitions of obsolete.

...
* Robert Bringhurst. "In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra spaces between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit."

Are you saying that Airborne84 erred when he listed Bringhurst?  Otherwise, please clarify your own statement.  Thanks, RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 07:51, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

definition of font(2)

From www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/font%5B2%5D,

Definition of FONT
 : an assortment or set of type or characters all of one style and sometimes one size

I have a question here, I looked in WP:MOS and elsewhere and I couldn't find anywhere that said that it is policy that the English Wikipedia uses English (it just says that for talk pages).  Do we agree under WP:UCS that the Sentence Spacing article should use English?  Thanks, RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 12:04, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if you want to think of this as an external Wikipedia editor who agrees that the English Wikipedia should use English, or a dissatisfied Wikipedia customer for our Sentence Spacing article; but he/she is discussing the same topic as we are: here.  RB  66.217.118.123 (talk) 23:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Doesn't strike me as a reliable source, any more than WP is. I also note that in the example he links to, he's not using two spaces after the full stop in his sentence, but rather a space and a character sequence that gets rendered as a hard space, which I think supports the notion that using two spaces after a period is obsolete. HTML renderers render 2+ spaces as a single space. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:56, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there a controversy?

This article has a section labelled "controversy." Is there a controversy on this subject?

With the current wording: no. The use of double spacing after a sentence is stated to be "obsolete." (twice). That's a pretty clear statement, and unless it's cited as an opinion, then there isn't any controversy: it's obsolete, Wikipedia says so, end of story.

--if, on the other hand, there actually is a controversy, and we want to (according to WP:NPOV) "avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts" and "prefer non-judgmental language," then when one source (or even two sources) use judgmental words like "obsolete" or "misconception," it is worth considering that any particular source might be expressing an opinion on one side of the controversy.

I cannot think of any way to not view the word "misconception" as judgmental language. If I say you have an misconception, is there any possible way to read that other than as expressing the judgment that your opinions are wrong? Geoffrey.landis (talk) 15:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC) A few comments:

I'd like to make one thing clear. I'm fine with making changes to the article. However, given that the article is a contentious, Featured Article, one editor making changes that are likely to be disputed may not be the best use of WP:BRD. Changes that are likely to be disputed here should be discussed first.

If the consensus of editors here agree that the word should read "conception" instead of "misconception", I will go along with that. I personally believe that the word "misconception" is accurate according to any accepted definition of the word.

That is a misconception on your part. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 01:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

However, if the consensus of editors here agree that a change should be made, that's fine. We can certainly make reasonable changes to the article.

As far as the section header "Controversy", I'm not sure what you are proposing. Similar to Global warming, there is little controversy among experts regarding the facts, but there is a controversy in the general public. I suppose that the section header could also say "Public controversy" or "Popular views on sentence spacing", but I would not support a change without a consensus of editors. That the controversy exists in non-expert minds is obvious when reading the section, IMO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Airborne84 (talk • contribs)

Geoffrey, NPOV doesn't mean the article takes no position. It means the article takes no position that is not accepted in the body of literature used. If the sources used in the article state things like "obsolete" and "misconception" in reference to predominant scholarly position, that is what we should say in the article. What sources do you have that contradict these positions? I've read through your various arguments here, but I've not yet seen you introduce any serious sources that back up your claims. Since this is a Featured Article, we want to avoid making changes that degrade the quality of the article. If you insert lead or body text that is not well-sourced and representative of the current body of literature, you are degrading the quality. I urge you to propose changes and sources here first. --Andy Walsh (talk) 22:46, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

First, generally agree with Andy Walsh. Second, it is not correct to say that "The use of double spacing after a sentence is stated to be 'obsolete.'" Rather, the WP article states that the convention that leads to its use is obsolete. As a result, there is no contradiction in having a heading "controversy" about a practice the necessity for which may be obsolete, but which persists for various reasons (which are then outlined in the article). I thought the heading was OK (I don't have an objection to "Popular views on sentence spacing", although it may be MOS non-compliant strictly speaking, because it encapsulates the article title). Finally, given the extensive debate on these issues and the articles FA status, i agree these issues should be tackled here on the talk page prior to revisions in the mainspace. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I concur with Andy Walsh as well, and what hamiltonstone has said seems very reasonable as well. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Distinction between manuscript and print

I reverted fifteen consecutive edits by Airborne84, which, as far as I can tell, were done to accomplish the single result of reverting the entirety of the material I had added. Perhaps buried in these deletions were some edits that had the objective of making the article clearer, but if so they were buried too deep to be easily found.

The material I had added can be quickly summarized as attempting to clarify a single point, which is missing in the original article, but is critical to the discussion: There is a distinction between manuscript and print.' Style guides for print are one thing, style guides for manuscripts are another thing, they are not the same. It is possible to insert as many references as you like to discussions of style by typesetters, and they will not affect the question of proper style for manuscripts. Typewriting is not typesetting. Sweeping statements written by typesetters in discussing style in print-- statements like "double spacing is obsolete"-- need to be understood in the contest of typesetting.

With that said, some of Airborne84's individual notes may merit being addressed individually, e.g., the removal of this statement "As of 2010, it is reported by Strizver that the double-space typewriter convention is still being taught widely in school." as not relevant to the subject of style guides. To the contrary, however. The best thing to put in this place would be a citation to the actual manual(s) currently used for teaching typing. As it happens, though, although I have a moderate number of style guides and references in the house, I haven't taken a typing course in many decades, and a typing textbook is not one of the things I have easily at hand. It should be clear, I hope, however, that if the double-space typewriter convention is being widely taught, then this must be what is in the associated manual. The sentence is the best I could do at short notice. ( I suppose an alternate way to accomplish this would be to simply state it, and add a "citation needed tag".) Geoffrey.landis (talk) 01:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

How strange. I summarized the material you wanted added IAW Featured Article Criteria. I did not delete it, nor did I "revert the entirety of your edits". I made a good faith effort to capture the material that you wanted added. I did not get the same courtesy, however. You thought it would be best to delete every one of my edits, returning it to a clearly non-FA class article, without even reading them? You might understand if I am having a hard time assuming good faith for these actions.

You freely admit adding a statement based on speculation. That violates FA criteria 1.c. and 1.d.

Since you seem to have no qualms about taking an article that exemplifies Wikipedia's "best work", and making edits that violate the FA criteria, would you care to inform the other editors as to what standard you would like the article to achieve? --Airborne84 (talk) 02:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I haven't read the deleted material, but I think the distinction Geoffrey Landis mentions is crucial. In fact, I see four categories:

1. Monospaced fonts (mostly but not entirely historical)

2. Proportional fonts for direct consumption but not typeset professionally, such as most word-processed documents and e-mail.

3. Material submitted to someone who will typeset it.

4. Material typeset professionally, or at least with control of kerning.

In some places, such as the last paragraph of the lead, the current article rightly distinguishes among these. However, many of the obiter dicta in the Typography section, for example, do not. My opinion is that all quotations on the subject should be accompanied with a statement of which categories they apply to. If some of the sources don't make that clear, and including them is desirable anyway, their lack of clarity should be stated. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree with the basic issue, it is a massive problem throughout the article.  The problem starts in the first sentence of the article, which defines the article as being confined to typeset text.  But the article then wanders around using a typewriter terminology, "double-spacing".  And you can't tell when the discussion has shifted to VDT displays.  I'm having trouble with your four categories, I earlier listed (1) typesetting, (2) keyboarding, (3) typewriter manuscripts, (4) electronic data files, (5) VDT displays. But I like your point about kerning, I guess you would include justification in that class?  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 13:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, I didn't see your categories. The ones I listed cut across your 4 and 5; all of them may be paper, electronic data, or video displays. So that makes even more categories. Also, these days, all of them can be right-justified, so that's yet another issue. But what I had in mind is the capability that users of TeX and publishing software have of making, say, the space after a sentence be 1.3333 times as long as the space between words. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 19:33, 21 January 2011 (UTC)