Talk:Sentence spacing/Archive 5

Neutrality Tag 2

The above thread regarding the neutrality tag for the word "obsolete" has gotten diluted. I'm going to be away for a while, so I'll leave the editors here with relevant sources to use in discussing the tags. Unfortunately, some editors here refuse to accept any wording other than the exact "obsolete" as a paraphrase for that term. Thus, a definition is probably needed to help determine what an acceptable paraphrase is. Merriam-Webster Online gives the following definitions for the word "obsolete": "No longer used, no longer useful, of a kind or style no longer current, old-fashioned." Below, 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.

• David Jury - "why do so many people continue to use the primitive (and entirely obsolete) conventions of the typist?"
• Matthew Butterick in 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."
• Ilene Strizver - "Much has changed along the journey from typewriters to setting type on computers. Still, there are a number of typewriting conventions that are no longer relevant but which stubbornly refuse to go away. At the top of this list is the practice of putting two spaces between sentences.
• Robert Brighurst - "Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit."
• Ilene Strizver – "There is never a need for double spaces between sentences when setting type on your computer as was done in typewriter days. In fact, it is a serious type crime." "Forget about tolerating differences of opinion: typographically speaking, typing two spaces before the start of a new sentence is absolutely, unequivocally wrong."
• James Felici. "The typewriter tradition of separating sentences with two word spaces after a period has no place in typesetting. The custom began because the characters of monospaced typefaces used on typewriters were so wide and so open that a single word space—one the same width as a character, including the period—was not wide enough to create a sufficient space between sentences."
• 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."
• Bill Walsh. "Are you still putting two spaces after periods, exclamation points, question marks and colons? You shouldn't be. Some places are still clinging to this typewriter convention, no doubt, but as a standard operating procedure it went out with the IBM Selectric."
• Robin Williams. "Because all characters are monospaced, the tradition was to type two spaces after periods to separate sentences. But most of the fonts you'll use on your Mac are proportional; that is, the characters each take up a proportional amount of space-a typical letter I takes up about one-fifth the space of the letter m. So you no longer need extra spaces to separate the sentences."
• Mignon Fogarty. (after discussion of proportional fonts) "Typewriting used monospace fonts and needed two spaces. Now that most writing is done on computers it is no longer necessary to type two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence."
• Lindsay Rollo. "When using proportional faces, abandon certain type-writing conventions, such as the double space after a full point (stop)."
• Laurie Smith. The current typographic standard for a single space after the period is a reflection of the power of proportionally spaced fonts, which even typewriters (what few there are left) have nowadays. Not only is the need for an extra space negated w/proportional space type, using two spaces creates 'holes' in the middle of a block of text that invariably annoy graphic designers, typographers, and publishers. The extra spacing makes the body text both unattractive as a visual element and distracting to read.
• Bryan Garner, Jeff Newman, and Tiger Jackson. " The custom during the reign of the typewriter was to insert two spaces between sentences and after colons. The reason was that letters on a typewriter are monospaced, as is the Courier font on computers ... Continue the custom only if you use a typewriter or the Courier font."

And an unrelated question/response at the Online Chicago Manual of Style FAQ for some comic relief:

Q. About two spaces after a period. As a U.S. Marine, I know that what’s right is right and you are wrong. I declare it once and for all aesthetically more appealing to have two spaces after a period. If you refuse to alter your bullheadedness, I will petition the commandant to allow me to take one Marine detail to conquer your organization and impose my rule. Thou shalt place two spaces after a period. Period. Semper Fidelis.

A. As a U.S. Marine, you’re probably an expert at something, but I’m afraid it’s not this. Status quo.

That should provide enough information on the topic to determine whether the POV tags are necessary. IMO, these illustrate that the sentences in question are not POV. They simply summarize a notable idea/concept by experts and reliable sources on this topic.

And don't be that Marine... --Airborne84 (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree, per my comment in an earlier discussion above. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no question that some people hold the opinion that two spaces is obsolete; I never disagreed with this. That's why it's called a "controversy": people hold opinions. You have selected a set of references in which people express points of view. As long as this is tagged as an opinion it is fine to cite these people, and even cite them as saying that people who disagree with them have a "misconception." It is when Wikipedia casually states this opinion as a fact, and leaves out context (i.e., that the people stating this are talking about typeset copy) which violates NPOV.

Even in the opinions you cite, the actual statements vary wildly in what they actually say. Many of these opinions merely say that double spacing is not "necessary," which is different from saying it is "obsolete." One of the references you cited specifically states "Continue the custom only if you use a typewriter or the Courier font"-- obviously that references does not think it is obsolete, since they are directing people to use it. Another states that monospace font needs two spaces.

Seven of these references specifically state that they are talking about typesetting. That's fine-- I wouldn't have bothered to call it a NPOV violation if the sentence had said, "in typesetting, many modern sources offer the opinion that double spacing at the end of a sentence has become obsolete." Does that phrasing satisfy as a compromise? Geoffrey.landis (talk) 03:45, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

These are not "people." These are established and published experts in this field—all of them. Thus, their "opinions" mean more than the general public.

Also, I see that my omission of the sentence in question has led to confusion. The sentence is: "With the introduction of proportional fonts in computers, double sentence spacing became obsolete." I won't debate the rest of your points now, since you seem to be reading selectively from the above. You've weighed in. Other editors can do so also. --Airborne84 (talk) 04:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

There is no such thing in being an "expert" in how you "should" typeset. These so-called experts have no authority except the extent to which they are followed in practice. --Trovatore (talk) 05:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

They are reliable sources and that's what we use. If you have reliable sources that differ, please bring them to the discussion. Personal assertions as to what is true don't carry much weight. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

When prescriptive claims are presented as matters of fact, the situation is different. Let me put it this way. Is moral behavior a question of fact? I for one certainly think so. And there are lots of sources that can be called "reliable" according to WP language that will tell you which behavior is moral.

Nevertheless we do not present their prescriptive assertions as matters of fact. Perhaps they are right, but we don't say so.

We should not in this case either. --Trovatore (talk) 19:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

We now know of three sources, Bringhurst, Chicago 1969, and Loh 2002, that have only material favorable to one POV reported in the article, and equally valid countering material missing. 

I think that this entire article has an inherent problem in the near-absence of scholarly opinion, and the absence of such opinion appears in the work of authors who have little that is reliable upon which to base their writings.  For example, there is no scientific hypothesis as to why typesetting style changed from the end of the 18th century to today.  Global warming we have some scientific theories, but typesetting style, no.  Again, the quick way to improve the article for assertions such as the word "obsolete" is in-text attribution.  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 14:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Provide your sources please

All editors who wish to improve this article are reminded of WP:V and WP:RS - it is not enough to claim that the article does not represent scientific theories, or claim that important sources are overlooked, or that claim important material is missing. You have to provide reliable sources that verify these claims.

I am glad to see new sources and do not doubt that this (and any) article can be improved. However Featured articles are not substantially changed without reliable sources to back up such changes. If this were a poker game, now would be the time to show what is in your hands (or fold). Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Of course, you don't need sources (and are hardly likely to find any) to point out that the relevance or the meaning of parts of the article is unclear. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 22:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

UNITED STATES BANKRUPTCY COURT, MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA, TAMPA DIVISION StyleGuide

Here is a uscourts.gov website, more support to show that authors (such as Wikipedia) who use the word "obsolete" are not reliable in the context when they do so.

www.flmb.uscourts.gov/procedures/documents/styleguide-tpa.pdf , p. 10

There are two spaces between each sentence and one space between each word in a sentence.

RB 66.217.118.161 (talk) 07:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

The Southern Seminary Manual of Style

Office of Doctoral Studies and Blaising, Craig, The Southern Seminary Manual of Style, Third Edition, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, p. 41.

Terminal punctuation (periods, exclamation points, and question marks), quotation marks and footnotes following terminal punctuation, and colons may all be followed by one or two spaces as long as the document is consistent.  However, in bibliographies and notes, only one space after punctuation marks (including periods and colons) is allowed.
RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 07:22, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

American Psychological Association, APA Publication Manual

This post is for those considering whether or not typographer David Jury is a reliable author in the context when he says that typewriter conventions are "entirely obsolete".  According to a [reliable source] used by our Sentence Spacing article, the APA Publication Manual is one of three major style guides/manuals.  This post reports the decision of the APA in 2009 to again recommend double-spacing—the APA had published editions in 1994 and 2001 that had gone away from double-spacing.  In July 2009 the 6th edition was published.  The 6th Edition of the manual had some minor but notable revisions to the recommendation between the first and second printing, so it is necessary here to document both.

• APA What's New in the Sixth Edition of the Publication Manual? (applies to both first and second printing) "Punctuation—return to two spaces after the period at the end of the sentence recommended for ease of reading comprehension." [ref]

• 6th Edition, first printing, p. 88, "Space twice after punctuation marks at the end of a sentence" [ref]

• 6th Edition, second printing, p. 88, "Spacing twice after punctuation marks at the end of a sentence aids readers of draft manuscripts." [ref]

Written by an editor of the APA writing on a blog controlled by the APA, the following material is considered to be WP:RS.  It is written by Sarah Wiederkehr, [Editorial Supervisor, APA Journals], on July 29, 2009 at 01:01 PM, and describes why double spacing is current practice for APA. [ref]

...improved readability was the impetus behind the new “two spaces after a period” style recommendation in the Publication Manual. Believe it or not, there is a strong faction of readers out there who prefer this spacing; in fact, many in the legal community require it.

...this recommendation applies to draft manuscripts, not to the published, or final version, of a work. In addition, the inclusion of two spaces after a period in draft manuscripts being submitted for publication is a recommendation, not a requirement. In typeset manuscripts (and on webpages, which are the equivalent), the two spaces are up to the publication designer.

...Our aim was to improve the reading experience for those tasked with reviewing manuscripts. It’s that simple. Thank you for your interest in APA Style!

RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 10:41, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Chicago Guide to Preparing Electronic Manuscripts for Authors and Publishers

The Chicago Guide (ISBN 0226103927, 1987) 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."

Comment: The Chicago Guide was never updated by Chicago Press, and I have given a reliable reference here to show that it is still current.

Comment 2: This post has several purposes.  (1) It gives a reason why double-spacing is "useful".  (2) It relates to Trovatore's and JerryFriedman's interest in 1.333extra-wide sentence spacing, because if a computer can't tell where the end of a sentence is, it can't do 1.333 spacing at the end of the sentence. (3) The new recommendation by APA Style to leave the double spaces in the text given to the publisher matches this Chicago advice.  (4) I have previously listed this reference as refuting the idea that double-spacing is obsolete in electronic data files.  RB  66.217.118.46 (talk) 09:01, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

IBM Software Globalization Guidelines, Guideline C: Respect for culture and conventions

Ref

Blockquote follows

IBM Software, Globalization, Guidelines, Guideline C: Respect for culture and conventions

C10: Sentence spacing & punctuation: Allowing the selection of sentence spacing and punctuation

Your product must be capable of implementing appropriate defaults or local customs for punctuation and spacing of words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and all other conventional text components.

In North America, it is common to use two spaces after a period before the beginning of the next sentence. This is not the practice in some European countries. Punctuation symbols also vary among languages.

Guideline C10

Allow the user to select the sentence spacing and punctuation characters.

Comment: Online polls (that are not WP:RS) show that half of respondents are using two-spacing.  This WP:RS fills in the gap in saying that two-spacing is "common".  RB  66.217.118.152 (talk) 11:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Chicago Manual of Style, Sixteenth Edition

Reference: The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 2010. ISBN 9780226104201., p. 60.  Blockquote follows:

2.9 Word spacing--one space or two?
Like most publishers, Chicago advises leaving a single character space, not two spaces, between sentences and after colons used within a sentence (but see 14.121), and this recommendation applies to both the manuscript and the published work.

The point here is that if most publishers advise single spacing, some publishers advise two-spacing.  RB  66.217.118.135 (talk) 00:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

More comments

Sorry if any of this has been said above—that's a lot to read.

One thing I think the article needs is the reason so many typographers so strongly oppose double spacing between sentences. It's not readability, since the studies on that are inconclusive. Then what? Esthetics (such as avoiding "quaintness")? Saving paper?

Also, the article says, "modern proportional fonts allow compositors to manually adjust sentence spacing to thousandths of an inch for visually pleasing typesetting". When is this capability used? Do some compositors decrease the spaces after periods ending abbreviations etc. so the reader can tell them from spaces between sentences? I think it would be very interesting to know not only how long the space after a sentence should be, but also whether it should differ from other spaces after periods. In general, I still don't think the article deals well with this distinction.

As I said back in Archive 3, I don't see the relevance of the "Related studies". Surely reporting the results of readability studies is all that will help the reader. The "related studies" are confusing because they purport to explain why extra sentence space is harder to read, but it's not, as far as is known. Furthermore, some of them don't even have a clear connection to sentence spacing. What is meant by "the negative effect on readability caused by inconsistent spacing"—spacing that's inconsistent from one line to the next, or from one word space to another on the same line, or between word spaces and sentence spaces? This and various other problems with the section could be solved by deleting it.

Finally, as I also said back then, I think the article needs to distinguish clearly between deprecating double spacing ("absolutely, unequivocally wrong") and advocating single spacing, instead of mixing them together. People do use the alternative of something in between. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

The Related studies section really isn't all that it should be, but more research is needed to determine what exactly it should be. If anything, I propose it should be its own top-level heading and it should talk about inter-disciplinary studies related to the matter that go beyond typography. It should look at human/computer interaction, psychology, information architecture, and so on. --Andy Walsh (talk) 05:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

If there are relevant studies in any field, I think adding them would be great. Until someone finds them, though, can you or anyone explain to me the relevance to the article of any of the studies in that section? Keeping in mind that the comparisons of readability were inconclusive. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

None that I can discern. "Studies" tells us that few direct studies have been done, and "Related studies" provides little more than conjecture. It's difficult to tell if we're reporting the conjecture of the researchers or the author of this page. --Andy Walsh (talk) 20:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I tend to agree in regard to the "Related Studies" section. I would like to figure out a way to include something about the river effect since from personal experience I know it's relevant to the move to single spaces following a terminal stop. But it seems to be that the studies are so inconclusive that we're not really able to say much at all there that's significant. We could probably collapse that section into 1-2 sentences and do better. One issue is that technology has moved quickly--the discussion of readability on CRTs from 1981, for example, is something my gut is telling me is based on 80x24 fixed width text display that has nothing to do with CRTs per se. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree about deleting the Related Studies, it is not relevant.  Maybe the encyclopedia could create a stub article with the rivers picture.

I want to note that there is one study of interest (and possibly a second) for the "Studies" section, where webword says:

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

...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.

However, an examination of online abstracts for these two papers does not immediately yield material relevant to sentence spacing: Rayner 1975, Abrams and Zuber 1972.

RB   66.217.118.161 (talk) 04:48, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Here is a partial response to the question, "I think it would be very interesting to know not only how long the space after a sentence should be, but also whether it should differ from other spaces after periods."  I've got some study notes for this article whose reference would need to be found with Google, that say that today's default in mass-printing is that the word space is between 1/4 and 1/3 em before justification, and 1/4 to 1/2 em after justification.  FYI, RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 05:12, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It appears that consensus is that the related studies subsection is not of value, so I'm going to go ahead and delete it. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

more about Loh et al. 2002

[header inserted by RB 66.217.118.118 (talk) 18:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)]

This is a comment about, "Keeping in mind that the comparisons of readability were inconclusive."

In the [Studies] section, people must read the Article carefully to get the meaning.  It does not say, "the studies had inconclusive results"; it says the studies had "inconclusive results favoring single or double spacing."  What is missing is that Loh 2002 says that the absence of statistical significance in reading times between the two is a conclusive result to say,

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."

To my knowledge, this is the single most-important research study conclusion available on this topic.  RB  66.217.118.185 (talk) 02:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

To my knowledge, this is the single most-important research study conclusion available on this topic. To my knowledge, it's not. But my knowledge and your knowledge are not relevant. It seems to me that the study is a primary source, and we discourage use of primary sources partly because we do not have the expertise to evaluate them. From my very limited training in Biology, I would think that "inconclusive results favoring single or double spacing" means that the results were not statistically significant, and thus they could not argue that it was not random chance that led to that result. But I'm not an expert. If we want to discuss studies in the article, I believe what is needed is an overview of the academic literature, written by an expert in a related field. Barring that, esp. given that, as you note, results are inconclusive or there's nothing to point to. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:06, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

"But my knowledge and your knowledge are not relevant."  I don't know why you say that.  WP:V and WP:RS only apply to inclusion.  Since we already agree that this study is WP:RS and can be included in the article, our job as editors is to collaboratively use our personal skills to determine the prominence or [WP:Due_weight] of this study to determine if it should be excluded from the article.  Please see the essay [WP:Policy sculpting: inclusion versus exclusion].  Given the shortage of studies available and given the direct relevance of this conclusion, I think that it is evident that this study is prominent.  And in fact we have already decided that the study is prominent because it is already in the article.  If you want to argue that we should not include a prominent conclusion because the absence of statistical significance needs its own metric to determine that the absence is statistically significant, that is what [WP:PRIMARY] policy tells us not to do, we report conclusions without interpreting them.  RB  66.217.118.118 (talk) 18:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

I say our knowledge is not relevant because we are not acknowledged experts capable of gauging how important a study of this type is or what it's results mean. Maybe it's important, maybe it's not. I agree that the source is reliable, and we have to determine it's weight for inclusion. But WP:PRIMARY says "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source." Do you have a reliable secondary source for interpreting the results of this primary source? If the conclusion is "prominent" as you suggest, finding such should be trivial. Please note we gauge the value of academic articles by the impact they have in there field, often by looking at how often a source is referenced in other academic works, if this article has not been cited in other works, that would suggest it is not a prominent work. Furthermore, I do not believe the results of the study can be used to make the assertion that double spacing is useful or not obsolete, as you apparently wish to do. You say "Given the shortage of studies available and given the direct relevance of this conclusion, I think that it is evident that this study is prominent." My opinion is that the shortage of available studies indicates that the subject is not one of much importance to academics, and that means we should be more cautious about using it, since it is harder to balance the relative weight of the particular study. Also, since the authors of the study are presumably academicians and researcher, not typographers or typesettings, nor the authors of manuals of style, I would suggest that their recommendations carry little weight, esp. given the irony that had they followed their own recommendation, the paper would not have been accepted by the publisher.

That being said, I do not think the inclusion of this particular reference adds much to the article, and personally, I would prefer to remove it because it is a primary source with inconclusive results. But if it remains, I would say that the most we could use it for would be to say that some researchers did studies on readability and got inconclusive results as to whether double spacing aids readability. Perhaps other disagree, and I would welcome additional comments. --Nuujinn (talk) 18:34, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Quoting a research conclusion does not take an expert and is not "interpreting".  No, we determine the weight of its prominence toward exclusion, being WP:RS is sufficient for inclusion.  That is backwards that scholarly opinion is based on journeymen typographers instead of academics.  Conclusions are by definition conclusive, and this research conclusion is of interest to readers of the Article.  RB  66.217.117.21 (talk) 08:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

was the material suppressed because it was "embarrassing"

Nuujinn, Here is what you said earlier, "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 don't know how you get that, Airborne84 repeated himself, "(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."  And again later, "I had several reasons for not including these passages (already described above), but the primary one was not to embarrass the authors."  RB  66.217.117.21 (talk) 08:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, what's your point? --Nuujinn (talk) 17:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Olusesi, et al. 2006

Olusesi, et al. 2006 is a secondary reference when it refers to Ali et al. 2002 and says,

Three iterations of research related to Sentence Period Spacing, have been conducted by Loh, Branch, Shewanown, & Ali (2002), Clinton, Branch, Holschuh, & Shewanown (2003) and Ni, Branch & Chen (2004). None of these prior rounds produced any empirical evidence to support the new trends in sentence period spacing.

(1) Olusesi, et al. 2006 resolves the allegation that there was an academic error of some kind made in Loh et al. 2002.  (2) The move from two-spacing to one-spacing is in 2006 considered by these academics to be a "new trend".  RB  66.217.117.21 (talk) 08:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

about the head of the research department, and the research department

This ref says, "Dr. Rob Branch is Professor and Head of the Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia."

This is Dr. Branch's C.V.

Regarding Dr. Branch's department, this web page says, "We are a graduate-only department composed of 41 faculty, 240 graduate students, and six professional staff."

This webpage says that the department offers "graduate programs that are perennially ranked among the nation's top 20 by U.S. News and World Report..."
RB  66.217.117.21 (talk) 08:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

RB, this is silly. You have in, my opinion, a very bad case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I have never suggested that these are not fine fellows. Their work is a primary source, and I do not think we should use it unless you can find a secondary source that discusses it, and I think that my position is supported by WP:PRIMARY. You are not going to change my mind by continuing to reassert your opinion over and over and over again. If you have some good secondary sources to support your desire edits, fine, we can talk about them. --Nuujinn (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

VDTs

Nuujinn, I take it that you don't like the term VDT display, what term do you suggest instead?  Thanks, RB  66.217.118.46 (talk) 12:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Nonsense, I think it is a fine term for an antiquated technology. I don't suggest anything instead, I just do not see any need to include it in the article. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:57, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Whether or not we include it in the article, I'd like to have a common language to discuss the many contexts or categories to which extra-wide sentence spacing applies.  JerryFriedman used the term "video displays", maybe that will work.  Thanks, RB  66.217.117.191 (talk) 21:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

We follow what the sources say. But note that a VDT is a terminal, such as a 3270 with limited graphical ability. Video Display is not a strict synonym. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)

Primary and secondary sources

I agree with RB that the studies of readability are one of the most important things in the article. Readability is a highly relevant fact. If no secondary sources discuss these primary sources, that's too bad (and greatly to the discredit of the authors of secondary sources, though not making them unreliable). But it says here, "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source." I think that's quite reasonable, and I think that's what we've got with the readability studies, contrary to what Nuujinn said above. I agree with Airborne84 that we shouldn't rely on them for "traditional" typographical practice, but we can for readability, even if their conclusions aren't exciting.

I think the readability studies should be close to the beginning.

It should be clear that the statements from the typographers are statements of current practice, not of any other kind of fact (that I noticed), and of taste. A typographer's opinion that double sentence spacing is "wrong" is in the same category as a fashion designer's opinion, or even a consensus among fashion designers, that it's "wrong" for women to wear brown.

I think the "studies" section is much better now, including the retention of the material on "rivers", since it's the only indication that the typographers' preference for single spacing has some kind of basis. Perhaps we could add somewhere the statement that rivers are ugly (as a matter of taste). —JerryFriedman (Talk) 21:26, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I have skipped some of the recent back-and-forth since I did not think the topic was being significantly advanced. However, on a quick review now I notice that your comment might be building on your earlier comment above (05:06, 21 January 2011) where you mention the article not providing a reason why typographers strongly oppose double spacing. I don't think we are ever going to get that reason, but my feeling is that none is needed because typographers (more or less by definition) are people who spend hours worrying about whether an almost imperceptible squiggle on a letter should go this way or that. It seems natural to me that such people would have strong opinions on sentence spacing, both in manuscript and typeset form.

I agree that the issue of sentence spacing is closer to fashion than science, and the article should not strive for scientific rigor—it boils down to "X thinks one space is good" vs. "Y thinks two spaces are better". However, what counts are the current style guides and the other sources in the article that recommend single spacing. The article can't do any more than present a summary of those recommendations. Johnuniq (talk) 03:52, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree that the article should present a summary of those recommendations (including those few that more or less grudgingly accept double spacing), but it should be explicit that the recommendations are just matters of taste or even fashion. I also agree that it doesn't look like we'll get a reason other than the bit about rivers. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

White-space collapsing

I would have expected this article to mention that SGML and XML require whitespace to be collapsed to a single space (unless special characters are used) - this is probably as significant as proportional fonts in the decline of double-spacing for computer-generated documents. I'm not sure what section this would best be placed in, though. dramatic (talk) 04:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like a useful addition. For that level of detail, I'd recommend adding it to the article Sentence spacing in digital media. The paragraph here is only a summary of that article. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Dramatic: I think that it is an urban legend that proportional fonts had something or anything to do with the changes in style guides from two to one spaces.  At this point I think it unlikely that this article will find reliable documentation as to why these changes occurred in the 1990s, just as we have little explanation from APA in 2009 as to why they switched back to recommending two spaces.  This is one of the things that makes this article challenging, there are more opinions that reliable facts.  I think that we continue to have a WP:Due weight and a WP:RS problem in this article.

I am unclear on your reference to SGML and XML.  If you consider them to be in the same class as HTML, then I agree that the history of HTML is an important missing story here.  RB  66.217.117.17 (talk) 17:22, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Return of the Wikiholic

Greetings. I'm back from forced Wikipedia rehab. I've been surprisingly productive in the meantime. A couple of points:

1. I had hoped that the neutrality tags would be resolved. Since they weren't I just addressed the original accusation of POV for specific words (obsolete, misconception), changed them to other words, and removed the neutrality tags. Normally, I'd open it to discussion first, but I chose wording that should be acceptable to all, IMO. I hope that is the case.

2. I'll admit to some disappointment about the removal of the related studies. I specifically chose studies that I could link to this topic with statements from reliable sources. Moreover, during my (rather extensive) research on this topic on the Internet, I read through thousands of blogs. People on both sides made claims to readability. Never did I see a single study to back up the claim. This article was the only repository of direct and related studies—on the planet—for people to reference. As an encyclopedia, I thought they would be relevant. But I understand that I wasn't here to clearly provide the link between the related studies and sentence spacing. Perhaps I should have done that more clearly in the text itself. Spilt milk. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad your rehab wasn't permanently effective!

If you can explain the connection between those studies and the readability of different sentence spacings—that is, the apparent equality or near-equality of readability of the different spacings—then I'd say the article would benefit by including them. Or maybe the studies can go in some other article. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 02:50, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Well, I can certainly explain, but I'd have to clearly provide the sources that link the related studies to sentence spacing readability. That's not hard to do, but I may not be able to dig into this for a few weeks. I think the key thing to keep in mind is that the direct studies done so far have been for on-screen text. On screen text is different than printed text. Low screen resolutions can make serifs hard to see in some typefaces, for example. So, the direct studies available now cannot provide a conclusive answer. The researchers themselves say that more studies are needed. That's very true since a single study on print material has yet to be conducted. It could yet turn out that extra spacing between sentences actually increases readability. Direct studies just don't provide the answer yet—but we can only "bake the cake with the ingredients at hand" to quote another editor.

That's the reason that I provided related studies. They could provide additional insights into readability. Stated matter-of-factly, without editorializing by Wikipedia editors, they provide more context at a minimum. There could be additional related studies that are relevant; I just picked ones that seemed obvious and could be linked to sentence spacing through reliable sources. I also tried to identify studies on "both sides of the aisle", so to speak.

There's another possibility besides reintroducing them here. Another article could be made called "Sentence spacing studies". The related studies could be listed there (previous versions of this article before it became an FA had much more detail in this area—too much, apparently for an FA's required summary style) and summarized here with one or two sentences. I may be able to get to that in the next few months, but anyone can do that, of course.

Just thoughts. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:15, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality Tags

I see RB reverted my attempts to address Geoffrey Landis' original assertions of POV. Since RB simply brought up new and different acccusations of POV, without suggesting changes, I'll just wait for other editors to weigh in as they see fit. --Airborne84 (talk) 02:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Twice recently we have seen the word "accusations".  The word "simply" is hyperbole.  I think that words like this charge the atmosphere and do not encourage the building of consensus.  RB  66.217.118.102 (talk) 04:08, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that this edit had a right idea, although it was reverted.  RB  66.217.118.102 (talk) 04:08, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I have documented that each of the three major style guides shows that double-sentence spacing is not obsolete.  One of the three major style guides has switched from a one-space recommendation to a two-space recommendation, including sending final draft manuscripts to the publisher with two spaces if not advised to do otherwise.  The only author to use the word "obsolete" is a little-known author whose school does not list him, and his other credentials are light.  He also doesn't use the word "obsolete" in the way that is being used in the article.  In summary, I do not think his opinion merits an inline quote.  One of R. Williams opinionated quotes might merit inclusion because of the influence of the opinions.  On the other hand, Bringhurst's quote about the dark and inflationary age seems to be worth reading more than once:

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.

  RB  66.217.118.102 (talk) 04:08, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not going to try to address all of your statements. It's better to simply let other editors weigh in. I'll address two though:

• The edit you mention strips out a sentence that captures the position of many reliable sources. I listed thirteen in a thread above (and could list more)—two of which use the word "obsolete," and 11 others that paraphrase the same. This position by numerous reliable sources merits inclusion in this article, no matter how much you would prefer it be deleted. The material you note as a "rebuttal" exists already in the article, although it's only your interpretation that they rebut the "obsolete" claim made by many experts. We cannot use your interpretation in the article.
• You seem to have an issue with the material that says modern fonts can adjust the spacing between characters. I've preferred to stay out of this discussion (it seemed kind of pointless), but since you seem to persist in this objection, I'll give you a reference. See the back of Felici's The Complete Manual of Typography, where he lists a complete kerning table for a selected font. It shows different kerning values for various glyphs and punctuation marks. Whether you think it's true or not is irrelevant. It's verifiable. Let's please use the language of Wikipedia. I'll agree that there are plenty of nuances that could be discussed IRT this topic. Those nuances don't belong here. They might find a welcome home in Sentence spacing in digital media. To go into unnecessary detail here will violate Featured Article Criterion 4.

I won't address your reversions other than to say that you reverted back to language that was originally objected to as POV. I don't know why you think that's an improvement, but I'll just let others have their say.--Airborne84 (talk) 05:12, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Airborne84, and have restored his last version. Others should chime in on this issue. --Nuujinn (talk) 19:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems that the theory here is that it is reasonable to remove POV tags if "there is less POV".  Maybe that is true, in which case the only remaining problem is to restore the POV tags themselves.  RB  66.217.117.132 (talk) 21:22, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I also agree with Airborne84. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:25, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

Using English in the sentence spacing article

Is there anyone here that disputes using English for the Sentence spacing article?  The alternative would be that it ok to use words in ways that do not have a dictionary definition, especially as regards the word "font".  66.217.117.17 (talk) 18:51, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're getting at. There are accepted definitions for the word "font" though. See Theodore Rosendorf's Typographic Desk Reference and Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style for example. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

What I'm getting at is that I want to know if anyone disputes using English in the Sentence spacing article.  This is an issue since currently we are not doing so as regards the word "font".  RB  66.217.117.132 (talk) 21:01, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Try explaining the issue better. --Airborne84 (talk) 21:21, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I don't know that there is any more to explain.  The issue is, does anyone dispute using English on the English Wikipedia, at least on the Sentence spacing part of it.  RB  66.217.117.132 (talk) 21:27, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

RB, if you can't explain what you mean here, then drop it. Cryptic criticisms of the article do not improve it, say what you mean so we can agree or disagree please. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:27, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

I think that he's trying to say that the article focuses mostly on sentence spacing within English language typesetting. He thinks that there is too little attention given to how other languages handle sentence spacing. At least, that's what i THINK he's saying. He is being somewhat cryptic. 76.21.241.180 (talk) 00:49, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

I did not say anything about English-language typesetting, nor did I mean to imply anything about English-language typesetting.  What I did talk about is "dictionary definitions".  I think it obvious that we should use English dictionary definitions on the English Wikipedia.  See also: this. RB  66.217.118.81 (talk) 08:05, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Loh et al. 2002 conclusion reverted

The first sentence of WP:NPOV policy sates, "Editing from a neutral point of view (NPOV) means representing fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias, all significant views that have been published by reliable sources."  We have had a revert with the edit comment, "Rolled back edit giving undue weight--these researchers are not typographers nor recognized authorities on style issues."  This edit comment is inconsistent with WP:NPOV.  In addition, this is the single most important scientific conclusion available on the topic of the article, and there is really no reason for the revert.  RB  66.217.117.132 (talk) 20:48, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

I also disagree with adding the material, for reasons discussed in above threaads and in the archives. --Airborne84 (talk) 21:14, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

As far as I know, the issues above and in the archives have been addressed.  RB  66.217.117.132 (talk) 21:31, 20 March 2011 (UTC)

Like the song Old Man River sometimes "I get weary and sick of trying". For those of us who have limited time, could you please provide diff(s) for all such future comments? If you do not know how to do this, please ask and I will provide an example. Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:29, 21 March 2011 (UTC)

More fallout

More fallout from the Space Invaders article. Perhaps the most interesting part of the article is the blowback from Manjoo's article. It's illustrative of how controversial the topic is for many people, I think. --193.63.247.68 (talk) 20:46, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Please read the talk page guidelines, this is not a place to start a discussion about the topic.  This particular article is an opinion piece.  RB  66.217.117.135 (talk) 21:00, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

That seems rather abrupt of you. I'm sorry, I thought this was the discussion page for this article.

There seem to be a few opinion pieces in the external link section. Are they not allowed on Wikipedia?

Besides, although I didn't state it outright, why didn't you just assume that I was suggesting a possible future improvement to the article? The discussion of the controversy could be expanded. But maybe it doesn't need to be. Perhaps that could be discussed on this discussion page?

However, it seems as if my thoughts aren't wanted here. That's fine. --193.63.247.68 (talk) 21:28, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Sorry, but it sounded like you wanted to start a conversation about the topic.  I agree that those are opinion pieces in the external links section.  IMO they should be removed, as per WP:EL.  RB  66.217.117.135 (talk) 21:57, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Related studies

I thought the following from David Jury's About Face: Reviving the Rules of Typography was interesting:

"Changes in spacing either between letters and words, or between the words only ... do not appear to affect legibility. [These rather extraordinary conclusions are contrary to all other surveys on readability of texts.]"

It's under the section "Print for Partial Sight" (Vision impairment). Jury lists the following studies to support the statement (as of 1969): G.W. Ovink, Legibility, Atmosphere-value, and Forms of Printing Types, Leiden, 1938; Donald Paterson and Miles A. Tinker, How to Make Type Readable, Harper & Brothers, 1949; Sir Cyril Birt, A Psychological Study of Typography, Cambridge University Press, 1959; Miles A. Tinker, Legibility of Print, Iowa State University Press, 1965; Miles A. Tinker, Bases for Effective Reading, University of Minnesta Press, 1965; Herbert Spencer, The Visible Word, Lund Humphries, 1968; "The ATypl Legibility Research Committee Initial Report" (no named author), Journal of Typographic Research, 1968.

I added the material in sentence spacing studies [1]. However, although I normally disparage claims for greater readability/legibility on both sides of the debate (on the Blogosphere), Jury's wording in the brackets seems to oppose claims for greater readability/legibility of double sentence spacing. It doesn't necessarily imply that single sentence spacing has a positive affect on readability/legibility; but it opposes statements (and they abound on blogs and Web comments) that adding extra spacing between sentences aids the same. In that light, this information might be useful for readers here. I'd be interested in the thoughts of other editors. --Airborne84 (talk) 02:14, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that's an interesting find, and I'd like to see it here. It counteracts impressions on both sides that their preferred spacing improves readability. However, it would be good to know what "other surveys on readability of texts" he's talking about.

By the way, one of the authors cited appears to be Sir Cyril Burt (not Birt) as you can see for example here. —JerryFriedman (Talk)

The list of studies are a footnote to the quoted material above. Apparently he's referring to those. I'll check the name again. Probably a finger slip on my part. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:50, 4 June 2011 (UTC)

Example image for "Traditional typesetting" section

The image of German text set in 1909 shows an em-space after the period, but I notice that the text is justified. Given that the consistency of color and the difference between inter-word and inter-sentence spacing are part of the debate on this topic, I wonder if a better image could be used here. In this example, the spacing between words differs from line to line. A left-aligned text with consistent spacing between words might give a clearer idea of how much the inter-word and inter-sentence spaces differ. I'm not up on my type history, so I have no idea whether justified or left-aligned setting was more typical at the time em-spacing was used. Thoughts? Is this image a good example or a poor one? 71.231.105.31 (talk) 07:07, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I don't know if it's "good" or "poor". It's representative. Plus, it shows another language besides English so it contributes to WP:WORLDVIEW.

I haven't done a comprehensive review of typesetting in German works over the past few hundred years. What I did see was mostly fully justified, so a fully justified example is reasonable.

Having said that, there may well be a better quality image of left justified text from the period—English, German, or otherwise. My personal preference would be to keep it non-English for the reason stated above. If you can find one, please feel free to update or post it here for discussion. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 15:46, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

I have to agree with the concern about justification. In the photo at the top of the article, two examples are given: Double sentence-spaced typewriter text (1946) vs. single sentence-spaced typeset text (1979). One is Left Justified, the other is Double Justified. The spacing in the first is obvious, but the spacing in the second is masked by the additional spacing required to achieve the justification. It is a poor example.

Can someone PLEASE find an example that isn't confused by justification?

Thanks, WesT (talk) 06:41, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Link from Grammar Girl

I was interested to see that Mignon Fogarty, Grammar Girl, lists this article as a reference on her page about this topic [2]. Is that something worthwhile to note in the talk header box at the top of this page? If so, how is that done? --Airborne84 (talk) 03:02, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the link, now we can send evangelists there to comment, rather than here! {{Online source}} is for recording media mentions of a page (not relevant), and Wikipedia:Wikipedia as a press source has some advice which again seems to suggest press. Johnuniq (talk) 04:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Modern Language Association begs to differ

I did check on this as it seems incorrect to state that "most experts" advocate single spacing. The Modern Language Association currently allows double spacing. Here is the MLA Style Manual on the topic:

"Because it is increasingly common for papers and manuscripts to be prepared with a single space after all punctuation marks, this spacing is shown in the examples in the MLA Handbook and the MLA Style Manual. As a practical matter, however, there is nothing wrong with using two spaces after concluding punctuation marks unless an instructor or editor requests that you do otherwise."

--retrieved from http://www.mla.org/style_faq3 on August 10, 2011, with the site updated in 2009, the year of the most recent edition of the MLA Style Manual.

Another Wikipedia entry (on sentence spacing in style guides) states that the MLA dropped its acceptance of double spacing in 2008, but this too is incorrect. It may have dropped it and then reinstated it, but currently (7th edition) double spacing is up to the author. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.254.147.8 (talk) 21:23, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Yes. A few comments:

1. The source you mention above is already listed in this article.

2. It's true that there are some style guides (like the MLA) that leave some room for the writer in this area. The wording of the article allows for this idea while still giving it the right amount of weight, IMO. For example, in the "style guides" section, there is the following statement: "The majority of style guides now prescribe the use of a single space after terminal punctuation in final written works and publications." The wording leaves room for the MLA position.

3. It's noteworthy that the MLA has two print style guides. One is listed at Sentence spacing in language and style guides. I'll check the other print manual and add it to that article if it says anything notably different. And I don't see why the web page you mention couldn't be added there as well.

Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Seems to me the wording 'the majority of' advocates a position and minimizes the MLA.

Biased article

It seems like this article specifically choses to promote single-space after period. The article does not have a neutral tone, or competing views. 76.21.107.221 (talk) 07:40, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Giving "equal time" to all views is not the purpose of Wikipedia (see WP:NPOV). Is there some text in the article that is not properly sourced (see WP:RS)? Johnuniq (talk) 09:09, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

To be clear, I am not the anon user at top nor am I a fan of two spaces after periods, but I do have to point out that you're misinterpreting encyclopedic neutrality IMO. Having items properly sources does not mean you've followed NPOV. For example, if you have were to create a biased article (even accidentally and well intentioned) you might well cite only single position sources. [As an interesting note, when I look back at the top entry, he uses two spaces. You use 1. I use two---I don't like it and yet my fingers remain recalcitrant. :)

Tgm1024 (talk) 15:06, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Terminology

There's a big problem with this article that requires substantial clean up. That is the use of the term "double spacing". There is the minor point someone else made here, that this more frequently refers to skipping lines in typing. But the real problem is that "double spacing" is something that really only ever applied to the typewriter. Additional space was often used in printing, but it would never have been called double spacing, because printers had blank sorts (those letter blocks they used were called "sorts") of all kinds of widths. They'd only use one single "space" whether it was a big space or a little space. The amount of space was measured in "em"s, it was never counted.

A statement like this one: "Professional printers moved from double to single sentence spacing in the 20th century" demonstrates the problem. This is factually incorrect. They moved from wider spacing, to spacing the same as between words. The printing industry had never used fixed-width fonts, and had always had continuous rather than discrete control over the amount of space they used. "double spacing" or the use of "two spaces" is something that can only be meaningful with respect to fixed-width typewriters and fixed-width computer fonts. Battling McGook (talk) 21:15, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Common Usage: "Single/Double Spaced" refers to space between lines?

I'm far from sure here, but in common usage doesn't "single spaced" and "double spaced" text refer to the typewriter era of vertical spacing of the lines and not the space between sentences? "Single spacing" means no blank line between text lines; "Double spacing" means a single blank line between text lines. (?) Tgm1024 (talk) 15:14, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I first read it that way, too. But on checking the references listed, one of the articles is titled "The Effect of Text Spacing After the Period on Time for On-Screen Reading Tasks." I think it is clearly correctly.

BTW, I've seen the visual result of 2 spaces referred to as the "chocolate chip cookie effect" in some style guide--wish I could remember which.

24.237.55.108 (talk) 07:07, 6 July 2012 (UTC)grrr

Complete rewrite

This article really needs a complete rewrite. In my opinion it has significant and strong bias in favor of word-spacing between sentences.

The more I look at these references, the more I'm convinced they've been abused, and on the basis that it's hard to check a bunch of different book references. For example, Felici is general favorable towards wider sentence spacing, but he is referenced several times to make the opposite point. And the first reference to him, used to justify that the argument is primarily about the number of times the space bar is pressed - I can't find anything in that article that states or even implies this. It's the same with some of the other references I checked - statements made in this article are exaggerations or misinterpretations of what was said in the original text. To fix this correctly, someone would have to review all of the >100 references to see if they really do support the claims being made here.

There are issues here that are muddled together and not clarified. Is this about "one space or two"? Or is this about "wide sentence spacing"? These are separate issues, one being partially a user-interface issue (i.e. pressing the space bar twice in many applications is a standard way of telling the application a new sentence has begun). And it isn't clear if English and French spacing refer to one or both of these issues (and French spacing has another meaning, having to do with spaces before punctuation). The "double spacing" issue that is discussed above is an issue also.

Also, A quick look at research into this subject is not something I'd characterize as "inconclusive". There's quite a bit of research out there that seems to indicate that additional space improves both speed and retention. But this isn't something that can be corrected without a significant amount of work.

Generally, there are also a number of minor errors throughout the article, but because of the overall problems with the article, it resists incremental cleanup. References from a vast number of sources would need to be rechecked, and the terminology problems make it difficult to make isolated repairs. Battling McGook (talk) 18:21, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

You make valid points. I wonder why User:Airborne84 has not replied to your last thread, as he is the primary editor of what's there today. I've been uneasy about this as a Featured Article ever since it passed, and looking through the Talk archives I can see unresolved concerns stretching back to January of 2011. It's time for a serious and critical look at the problems. Since it is a Featured Article, it's going to need a Featured Article Review after being rewritten to see if it should maintain that status. I support the idea of a rewrite. --Laser brain (talk) 19:13, 5 April 2012 (UTC)

Hello. I was notified that there was discussion about the article. I don't follow it anymore since writing it because I couldn't take the time to respond to the numerous objections. I decided to leave it to the community to do with what it will. I'll list a few responses, but I certainly won't stand in the way if someone thinks they can improve the article.

1. Typographers disparage double sentence spacing. I believe that the appropriate weight is reflected in the article. If you would like to capture one or more of Felici's statements in a more direct manner, feel free. I would simply be careful of listing more statments on one side or the other that unbalance the appropriate weight of opinion of a group of experts.

2. I believe that the passage preceding note 5 is an appropriate paraphrase. Felici's article is "To Double-Space or Not to Double-Space...", and his first sentence mentions the debate about it. I thought the way I worded it was a bit more interesting than quoting him directly. What is it specifically about the paraphrase that you object to?

3. If you have objections to "exaggerations or misinterpretations" of other paraphrases, please identify them so they can be resolved here at the talk page.

4. Yes, some of the sources are difficult to obtain. If you would like to see wording from one of them, you can ask me and I'll record it here. I don't mind that. I won't do it for all of them (I did that in the article, directly or paraphrased), but if you have a few you're interested in from hard-to-get references, that's no problem.

5. The article used to be called "French spacing" I believe, and then was changed to "Double spacing after a sentence." A consensus (two of us actually, since no one else was interested) decided to recast the article with the umbrella term "sentence spacing" to encompass the general concept without focusing on one convention.

6. I don't think the word "inconclusive" is used or the idea suggested outside of a source used in the article. I spent quite a bit of time (more than I'd like to admit) trying to find any and all relevant published research on this topic for the last 120 years or so, in English and in other langauges. The research not covered in this article is covered in Sentence spacing studies. If you have found other research published by reliable sources that indicate readability is enhanced by wider sentence spacing, please bring it up here or simply add them to the articles. All relevant research related to this topic should be included. Miles Tinker noted a number of different measures of readability, to include "speed of perception," "perceptibility at a distance," "perceptibility in peripheral vision," "visibility," "the reflex blink technique," "rate of work" (e.g., speed of reading), "eye movements," and "fatigue in reading." It may well be that extra spacing between sentences enhances one or more of the measures of readability, and perhaps future studies will uncover more insights on this. But again, if you know of additional published research, please bring it to our attention.

7. Finally, given the heated discussions that have taken place here in the past, I'd recommend being conservative with WP:BRD, and bringing potentially contentious changes up here for discussion first.

I don't have this page on my watchlist anymore, but I can be reached at my talk page if needed, or if anyone would like to see additional information from a hard-to-get source. Best. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:03, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

OK...

1. I think this sits at the center of the problem. I don't believe it's true that "typographers disparage [wide sentence spacing]". I'm sure it's true that some do, and it might be true that many do. But I've never seen a significant review of sources to indicate that this is the case. To take this point farther, most of the people I see online adding the most vitriol to the argument are editors, not typographers. Of course their concern is simplifying their workload, and conforming to standards for their industry which were designed IMHO to cut costs. There's a long distance between that and "typographers disparage".

2. Since Felici spends a lot of his article talking about the history where wide spacing was used, I think it's accurate to say that he is concerned with wide spacing, and not accurate to say that he is concerned with the number of times to hit the space bar. This is another big problem with this article. The number of times one hits the space bar is a subset of the overall problem of sentence spacing. In modern times there are other ways to accomplish wide spacing, and of course in historical times, wide spacing was accomplished without a space bar, and without even using two spaces. Further, the number of times to hit the space bar is at least as much a user interface issue as it is a typography or spacing issue, as software designers may choose to rely on two spaces as a cue to mark sentences.

3,4. I'd like to. I'd like help. That's the point of this talk section. It could take many months of work (given that I only have bits of time to work here and there).

5. I approve of this current name over the other two, but perhaps the article has not been fully rewritten to cover the breadth of the new topic name?

6. third paragraph, "inconclusive evidence", final paragraph, "insufficient evidence to draw a conclusion". This is a tough one, because in the absence of a thorough review, these sorts of phrases are the safest bet. Nevertheless, I think a thorough review would find otherwise. I've seen a couple of articles which review some work, one could debate if those reviews are thorough. Probably best to leave this one alone for now, but keep an eye on it. Or perhaps expand with a few of the better known and cited studies.

7. I agree, which is why I started this thread, instead of making willy-nilly changes to the article. Plus it looks like a lot of work and I know I can't do it all.

So basically, I think my original statements stand up, I still think the article needs a rewrite, and I'd like to further discuss how we might go about addressing these issues (perceived bias, terminology issues, review of cited sources). Battling McGook (talk) 19:04, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

What is certain is that no typographer would ever use two spaces between sentences when typesetting a book, yet lots of people are used to typing that way. It is also known that many of the refs in the article pointing to opinions of various people familiar with the field are accurate—typing two spaces is rejected by various sources. There may be some overly enthusiastic statements but any suggestion to completely rewrite the article should be accompanied with some solid references indicating an actual problem in the existing text. Johnuniq (talk) 22:57, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

"What is certain is that no typographer would ever use two spaces between sentences when typesetting a book" tries to be a truism but falls apart under analysis.  Lets go through some points.  Typographers use double spaces in large fonts.  Typesetters complain about their typesetting operators who typeset using two spaces.  Typesetters as an industry are not some monolith that only does things one way, there are many publishers.  Since squeezing out white space is in some contexts a cost-saving measure, and white space helps readability, the better presses are more likely to use wider spaces between sentences than between words.  TEX defaults to wider spaces between words.  The APA specifies the sending of drafts to typesetters with double spaces between sentences unless the typesetter has a standard that says to do otherwise.  This is in the talk page archives.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:20, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Sure, people use varying spacing widths in unusual circumstances (not generally in the text of a book), but you're not seriously suggesting that varying spacing is achieved with two spaces? Of course there is no reliable source to verify my statement (it's not something a RS is going to comment on), but it is still correct. Johnuniq (talk) 06:18, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for helping to prove my point. You wrote "What is certain is that no typographer would ever use two spaces between sentences when typesetting a book". Yes, but would a typographer ever choose to use extra space between sentences? And the answer is obviously yes. The article is not merely about fixed-width spacing methods and choices. It's about the use of additional space between sentences. If you don't understand the difference between what is an implementation issue (one or two standard space characters) versus an aesthetic choice (additional space between sentences), then that is a clear demonstration that this article is actually causing more confusion than it is eliminating. And again, you mention submission guidelines. This gets back to editors, not typographers, leading the charge against "two spaces" (but not necessarily additional space). And while it is clear that word-spacing between sentences is by far the most popular right now, particularly among commercial enterprises, this is NOT the same as claiming that we, as a civilization, have all decided to never use wider spacing, which is where this article leans right now. Battling McGook (talk) 22:17, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I rarely check this page anymore. I'll just drop in with a few comments:

1. Please ensure that any desire to "rewrite" this article is for the purpose of making Wikipedia better, and not making an article align closer to a certain point of view. I know none of the editors here are or will fall under the spell of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, and I only mention this in passing.

2. Any major changes should be done with the two peer reviews and the three Featured Article nominations in mind. Please review these (links are in the talk boxes at the top of this talk page) thoroughly because many of these concerns are addressed there.

3. I originally wrote the article to be super-precise, and used very exact terminology and wording. It didn't fly during WP:FA nominations. That suggests that attempts to reintroduce ultra-preciseness may move the article further away from the Featured Article Criteria. During FA nominations, other editors changed and recommended wording that was more general and digestible for the average reader. So, what I did was move some of the details and nuances to the sister articles, such as Sentence spacing in digital media and Sentence spacing studies. This article presents summaries of those, so much of the detail that some people would like to see on some aspects appears only in summary form here. This has been brought up before, such as using uber-precise wording about "striking the space bar twice" vs. "double sentence spacing" etc. What I would recommend is adding additional nuance to the sister articles and making wording changes here only that it makes it less confusing for the average reader.

4. This article can certainly be improved. I listed some possible areas in the "To Do" box at the top. I would support the addition of information to the article (or its sister articles with summary form here if it's a lot of material). But I will ask other editors interested in changes to keep WP:Preserve in mind. I have enough information and sources to write an entire Wikipedia article on just about every paragraph in this article. I had to massively condense and summarize the appropriate weights for respective positions. If there is a concern about specific passages, I can replace with others that are similar in content, but different in tone, for example. I wouldn't support removal of sections that violate WP:Preserve though.

What I can offer is the ability to expand certain areas and/or provide additional resources to shore up topics within the article—on any side. This article does not exist to provide only one side of the topic; it exists to provide a summary of encyclopedic sources on all relevant areas and points of view—using the appropriate weights. I tried hard to accomplish that, but am open to improving the article within Wikipedia's policies.

Best to get hold of me on my talk page for specific concerns. Happy editing! --Airborne84 (talk) 21:42, 19 April 2012 (UTC)

Forgot one. Battling McGook, if you're still concerned that "striking the space bar twice" is not exactly what Felici was talking about in the sentence in the lede, there are a few courses of action to consider. (1) the wording could be changed to "whether to use one or two spaces between sentences," (2) the note could simply be struck since I doubt any editor or reader here would challenge the idea that most debate today is about whether to strike the space bar once or twice between sentences for most typists, or (3) you could ask for other editors to weigh in on whether it is an acceptable paraphrase to leave in place. Best. --Airborne84 (talk) 00:17, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

You have to look no further than Unscintillating's paragraph, above, to see the effect of extra spaces after periods. The practice leaves holes in the body of text that do not serve the purpose of white space, and which disrupt the flow and rhythm of the typography. The pictures that attempt to illustrate past typography practices all show justified text (except for the monospaced example from a typewriter), in which even the space between words varies. So they don't really illustrate the point of the article; rather, they are there to give some history, and help explain where the practice of manually adding extra space came from. The article makes another point, as well, which is likely to be more relevant to the person looking up this article, i.e., is it better, here, now, in the 21st century, using proportionally-spaced type generated by sophisticated computer algorithms, to type 2 spaces or 1 after a period? ...and if one practice is "better", what are the reasons? rowley (talk) 15:05, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Poor illustration

The illustration at the top of the current version of the article serves no purpose that I can see, except perhaps to promote a particular POV. After all, much of this subject hinges on the relative aesthetics of single-space vs. double-space. So in the illustration given, which looks better? Well, clearly the single-space text. But it is a misleading comparison, since the double-space version is from a typewritten text, and the other is from a professional typesetter's version. I think even in the Dark Ages of the 1960s we were able to tell the difference between the print in a novel from that which we typed up for our English teachers. This is a positively shameless display of POV, and should be removed from the article. HuskyHuskie (talk) 04:42, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

The defenders of this article are quick to point out that it is a featured article.  Unscintillating (talk) 21:20, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

I did see that. That's hardly a reasoned retort, however, for a specific comment about one aspect of the article, now is it? HuskyHuskie (talk) 03:52, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

It would help if you can cite any policy or guideline besides WP:IAR.  Unscintillating (talk) 04:42, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

I haven't said anything about WP:IAR; are you implying that I did? What I'm stating does not hinge upon policy, other than WP:NPOV, hitched with a dose of elementary logic. Look, if I was comparing the relative merits of, say, leaded gasoline and unleaded gasoline, and one of my points was that cars in 2012 get much better gas mileage with unleaded gasoline than cars in 1972 got with leaded gasoline, I would be making a true statement, but the comparison would be misleading, because much more has changed in my example than just the gasoline--the cars and their technology make the comparison worthless. In this case, comparing on the one hand, the appearance of printed material using double spaces produced by a home typewriter, with, on the other hand, printed material using single spaces produced in a publishing house with typsetting and printing presses, a deceptive comparison is being made. The illustration instead should make the comparison having the examples of both single spacking and double spacing be done on the same equipment, if the difference is to be fairly compared. HuskyHuskie (talk) 07:48, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

My opinion is this, the place to start is to go through the process to demote this article from FA status.  You might be able to slide your one point through, but the article as a whole IMO needs man months of work to go through the sources one by one; and without the protection from having the article demoted from FA status, supporters of the current state of the article will be able to argue that it should not be changed because it is already at a high state of quality as defined by the FA label.  Unscintillating (talk) 01:16, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

With all due respect, your position strikes me as absurd. It appears that you are saying that FAs cannot be edited or improved. That makes no sense to me. HuskyHuskie (talk) 01:23, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

So answer this, should this article be an FA if it has an illustration that "is a positively shameless display of POV"?  Keep in mind that support of the FA committee is needed if you decide that this article should be demoted from FA status.  Unscintillating (talk) 02:03, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I think I understand our miscommunication now. You appear to believe that I believe that this article should be demoted from FA status. Nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, I find this to be a refreshingly unusual topic for an FA. Having said that, I do not operate under the delusion that FAs are perfect. Even they can be improved, and I suggest that replacing this image with another would be an improvement. HuskyHuskie (talk) 02:43, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Serious concerns with top illustration

I am repeating the thoughts I made in the previous section because the only attention they drew was from someone who completely misunderstood my point. Assuming the failure to communicate was mine, I shall endeavour to do better this time. HuskyHuskie (talk)

The illustration at the top of the current version of the article paints a false picture of the choice between single spacing and double spacing. Why? It is a misleading comparison because the double-space version is from a typewritten text, and the single-space version is from a professional typesetter's version. I think even in the Dark Ages of the 1960s we recognized that the print in a hardback novel with full justification looked nicer than the print in the term paper typed up by hand for our English teachers. If the difference is to be fairly compared, the illustration instead should make the comparison using examples of single spacing and double spacing that have been done on the same equipment. Otherwise, this has the appearance of promoting a particular POV. I believe this image should be removed. HuskyHuskie (talk) 02:07, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it promotes a particular POV and should be removed.  Unscintillating (talk) 00:44, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

The only thing wrong with the illustration is that it doesn't illustrate the difference between single vs. double spacing after sentences; it illustrates monospace vs proportionally-spaced type. (And it's questionable whether it does even that, as the typeset example is justified text, in which the word spacing varies from line to line, to create gutter and margin alignment.) The illustration does serve, though, to show traditional typewriter text alongside traditional justified proportionally-spaced text. So, the only thing really wrong with it is the caption. rowley (talk) 15:12, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

Your observations about what it shows are accurate, but I differ with your analysis. Given that the purpose of this picture is not associated with justification—it is supposed to compare double spacing vs. single spacing after sentences—then it fails here. I still have my concerns with the picture, but you have added a new one: It is simply wrong to use a proportionally spaced example to stand in an example of single-spacing. HuskyHuskie (talk) 22:51, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't visit this article much anymore, but I'm a little disappointed to se the lede image was removed without replacing it. I'll note that an assertion that it promotes a POV by showing a more "pleasing" single sentence spaced example next to a double sentence spaced example is simply a personal opinion. Many people probably prefer the double sentence spaced version.

Consider also, that as the person who added the image, it took a LONG time to find suitable examples. It is not easy to find double sentence spaced text that is not subject to copyright. US government documents are a source. The ones I found in various governmental libraries were typewritten, and many were in terrible condition. I used the best I could after sorting through dozens (and maybe hundreds) of documents. To use an expression I've used here before, I had to bake the cake with what was at hand.

I don't suggest that a better example can't be found. I just say that, after quite a bit of searching, I didn't find better that doesn't run afoul of copyright issues.

I do not think that the removal of the image improves the article and Wikipedia. Replacing it with another image would be an improvement. Until someone does so, I think the image is a reasonable representation of the two conventions.

Since I don't follow the page anymore, I welcome other editors to weigh in and count my support for the image's reinstatement in my absence. If someone needs more information, you can reach me at my talk page. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 16:35, 4 October 2012 (UTC)

Upon further reflection, I realize that the POV assertion was over the top and without foundation. Consider it withdrawn, with my sincere apologies to whomever whose work I unfairly maligned.

Having said that, I still urge the exclusion of the image. As noted, it simply fails to serve any justifiable purpose here. Comparing professionally printed and justified text to something created on a home typewriter cannot serve the purpose intended here. Let's say I want to compare the quality of American football players to that of Canadian football players. We'll set up a game on a neutral site, with the American players drawn from Sycamore High School and the Canadian players drawn from the Toronto Argonauts. Sure, you can say you're comparing their styles, but all anyone is really going to notice are 300 lb linebackers crushing 180 lb offensive linemen. You're not comparing what you claim to be comparing, and no one really learns anything from the comparison. HuskyHuskie (talk) 01:25, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

To respond to Airborne84: "Consider also, that as the person who added the image, it took a LONG time to find suitable examples. It is not easy to find double sentence spaced text that is not subject to copyright." I completely agree with HuskyHuskie that the comparison image is not appropriate. The problem is not finding "double sentence spaced text that is not subject to copyright." The problem is that the OTHER (supposedly single spaced) component of the image is NOT single sentence spaced text. It is justified text where the sentence spacing (and interword spacing, for that matter) varies significantly from line to line. The appropriate comparison for justified text with variable width spaces would be an image of traditional justified typeset matter with wider sentence spaces. Just about anything on Google books in English from before 1920 or so uses such spacing, so it is NOT hard to find such things. There are probably thousands if not tens of thousands of public domain works that use wider sentence spaces in justified matter that employs variable spaces available for free on Google books.

If, however, we want to compare monospaced type with fixed width spaces, as in the double spaced example in the image, we need a similar monospaced font example with single sentence spacing, which indeed may be harder to find.

For the record, in my experience looking at old books, justified variable spaced text gradually decreased the sentence spaces from about 1920 to 1960 or so, so if someone wants an image of justified text that is closer to "double spacing," rather than the "triple spacing" generated by m-quad spaces before about 1920, you may look at books from the 1930s or 1940s, since I've seen an n-quad or two thicks recommended as a sentence space in publishing guides around that time, which would be roughly equivalent to "double spacing" in justified text. 21:01, 26 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.26.124.26 (talk)

After thinking more about this, might I suggest a compromise: an image that incorporates the two works given in the original, plus an additional image that shows older justified type with larger sentence spacing for comparison? Ideally, it could be from the 1930s or so when justified text used something like double-spacing, but it could also just be from the multitude of works freely available from before 1920 that used wider spaces. The three things together would be a much better way of leading into the article, since those are the three most important trends discussed. (Ideally, a fourth image showing single typewriter spacing would be nice, but I imagine that would be harder to find in published documents.) Just a thought.66.26.124.26 (talk) 21:40, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

POV in FAQ

The last question in the talk page FAQ seems to make inappropriate assumptions: "Q: Why did early professional typesetters use exaggerated spacing (em spaces) between sentences? What led them to believe that was the best way to set type?" Why is this early typesetting characterized as "exaggerated"? Why not just "larger"? Also, "What led them to believe that was the best way..." seems to imply that there is a different "best way," or that we could actually somehow make an empirical determination of what the "best way" or "better way" might be. Spacing questions in general, like most questions about typography, are an aesthetic choice. Aesthetic choices of earlier generations may be different from our choices, but that doesn't mean any of them are necessarily "the best way." Why not just pose the question: "What led them to set type that way?" or "What informed this typographical choice?" or something like that? And, as for an answer, I believe it's pretty clear if you look at most of the early printing guidebooks. You needed wider spaces after punctuation in general (generally at least n-quads) and extra wide spaces (m-quads) to separate sentences (and sometimes colons): that's what the guides say. Early guides commonly reference sentence structure and (syntactic) divisions as the rationale, though discussion of grammar is generally brief. But it isn't rocket science to see a trend that larger spaces (n-quads) follow mild divisions and pauses in text (commas, etc.), while extra-large spaces m-quads) follow major divisions (sentences). Early guides sometimes also even mention even wider spaces than m-quads to be used when designating greater divisions in text, such as paragraph divisions. Now, whether such larger spaces are actually NECESSARY to parse sentence structures or other punctuation is a separate issue, and there are obviously modern studies trying to investigate that question. But if one spends a little time reading early printing guides, it's stated pretty clearly that you used wider spaces to separate progressively more significant divisions in the text. 66.26.124.26 (talk) 21:25, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

FAQ

I no longer actively watch this page due to current demands on my time. Apparently, the FAQ was still on my watch list though, so I decided to answer some of the questions that were posed there. I'll make a couple of points and then leave it to the editors here to develop them further as they see fit. I can be reached at my talk page for further questions since I still have all of the resources listed in the article and may still be of assistance in answering questions about the article's development.

1. I encourage editors to avoid creating the appearance of FAQ about the FAQ. Two of the added FAQ were about an earlier one. I started to reword the earlier FAQ to be more precise, but decided to just delete it since it appears to raise more questions. I'll agree it was worded a bit confusingly. If there is a concern about one of the FAQ, I suggest rewording it according to advice in reliable sources rather than adding another FAQ that questions it.

2. Editors here should agree what is a FAQ based on consensus. If it is one editor's question, it may be more relevant asked at the article's talk page.

3. I reworded this question ("Why does this article use terms like French and English spacing while acknowledging that they are confusing because they are not used consistently") since I wasn't sure about its thrust. If it is a concern that the terms themselves should not be used in the article, this is better resolved on the talk page through consensus.

4. I deleted the question ("Why does this article entirely ignore the the central point that what was new with the typewriter was not wide spacing, but simply the counting of individual spaces (rather than simple measure of space as a fluid thing)?"). I don't know what reliable source identified this as a "central point", but it is reasonable to address it in the article. From what I remember in my literature review of some years ago, the answer was the paucity of reliable sources that address this specific point (that I was able to find). Of course, there may be some reliable, published sources yet to be found to address this area in the article. This can be readded to the FAQ with the answer I provided (lack of resources found), but I suggest it should be an agreement by editors on the talk page.

Best, --Airborne84 (talk) 12:39, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. On point four, it's not clear exactly what would be needed. It's easy to document that wider spacing was common. It's also fairly obvious based on an understanding of the typesetting process that prior to typewriters no one would ever say "one space or two", however it's not clear how to find any documentation on that. No one would have ever discussed prior to typewriters, because the concept of counting spaces wouldn't have existed at all. Even after typewriters existed, the best we'd hope to find might be typesetters complaining about the inadequacies of the new typewriter. To me it's also obvious that two spaces were used on typewriters to emulate the wider sentence spacing of typesetting, however the problem of evidence comes up again, as I doubt it would have been discussed very much at all - it was an obvious thing to do, people might have mentioned it briefly in the late 1800s, and after that it was simply the way things were done. I'm not saying nothing exists to back up such a claim, but it's going to be really hard to track down. And where is the line between tracking down references and performing independent research?

But perhaps a better way to think of this as a "central point" is by describing my frustration with the article. By omitting a discussion of the change from measuring space to counting spaces, the article creates the impression to someone who is skimming that both "double spaces" and "wider spacing" are new. This is also linked to the English/French problem. Based on my exploration of this topic, it's unclear if "English spacing" was a new term only for typewriters, or a term that was already used by typesetters to mean wider spacing. If English spacing refers to wider spacing, then the article as it stands now is factually false (because wider spacing was not new with the typewriter). Even if English spacing only refers to counted spaces, the article still misleads, because it fails to clearly indicate that only counted spaces were new with typewriters and not wide spacing.

More generally, I'll offer the opinion that your average reader will not on their own perceive any difference between "two spaces" and "wide spacing" without it being explicitly explained, and without that explanation, any further discussion of the history and the occasional controversies will get hopelessly lost in misinterpretations between the two things. That's what I meant by "central point".

Battling McGook (talk) 18:31, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

Gutting the second paragraph

I've finally had some time to start reviewing some sources. Here's some of what I've found:

Double spacing,[9] or placing two spaces between sentences (sometimes referred to as English spacing), came into widespread use with the introduction of the typewriter in the late 19th century.[10]

"Double spacing" is a problematic term as it's vastly more commonly used to refer to vertical line spacing. That's its usage in every older reference I've come across. And while it must be true that the use of two uniform letter-sized spaces between sentences came into widespread use, it's only because the previous wide sentence spacing was accomplished using different technology, and would either have been considered a single space no matter it's size, or to the typesetter would have been a combination of various spaces and quads to achieve the desired width and justification. So I'm not sure what I can do there. But the rest of the paragraph is much worse.

It was felt that with the monospaced font used by a typewriter, "a single word space ... was not wide enough to create a sufficient space between sentences"[11]

It's true that this is what Felici said. Unfortunately he was referring to the reasons why the typewriter did not follow the typesetting trend away from wide sentence spacing. It was absolutely not used in the context of late 19th century trends.

and that extra space might help signal the end of a sentence,[12] rather than use of a mid-sentence abbreviation.

The problem here is that Jury was merely guessing: 'it was probably felt that extra spaces were required to signal, for example, the end of a sentence.' He's trying to invent a reason for wide sentence spacing. Throughout this text Jury repeatedly demonstrates that he has no idea that wider sentence spacing was common before typewriters, and repeatedly tries to invent reasons why the typewriter caused this situation. He offers no references to these statements and softens them with things like "perhaps", "probably" and "it appears". We can't realistically cite a source who is clearly guessing and in my own opinion doesn't fully understand the history. The clarification about abbreviations is potentially useful, but was not from Jury, and has no attribution.

This caused a widespread change in practice.

This is not sourced. It flows from Felici's statement which was not about the 19th century, yet it flows into the very next sentence about the 19th century. And it's also based on Jury's uninformed guesswork, and presumption that there had never been wide spacing before. So what was the widespread change? Wide sentence spacing was no change at all. Only the method of achieving that space was new. But maybe the next sentence was supposed to be the change?

From the late 19th century, printers were told to ignore their typesetting manuals in favor of typewriter spacing; Monotype and Linotype operators used double sentence spacing,[12]

What Jury actually said was 'Interestingly, in all technical information related to typewriters, the printer was ordered to use the spacing conventions of the typewriter manual rather than his own typesetting manual.' Jury was clearly referring only to the typesetting of typewriter manuals, not a global shift in the entire industry. So it's use in this paragraph is simply incorrect. (Also, Jury does not source this statement, and even though it's not as broad as wikipedia portrays it, it's still hard to imagine that Jury actually meant all typset manuals for all typewriters, always.) The next part about Monotype and Linotype is also completely wrong. I believe it's a misreading of this (the only mention of Linotype and Monotype in that section): 'When phototypestting 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 to the new technology.' Jury was actual trying to say that typeSETTING conventions flowed into phototypesetting (as a contrast to desktop publishing, which he claims inherited habits from typing rather than typesetting). So Jury's text actually disproves what was being attributed to him here.

and this was widely taught in typing classes.[13]

Well I have no quibble with this but after I throw everything else out, it won't really make much sense just sitting there.

So it's clear to me that most of what I've quoted has to go. Maybe you could make an argument for the first line. I do want to review that source when I have a chance. But the rest is a mishmash of inconsistent and misunderstood sources woven together into an unsupportable conclusion. My only problem is if I simply delete all that text, the flow is going to be horrible. Nevertheless, I'll take a crack at it soon.

Battling McGook (talk) 18:00, 21 November 2012 (UTC)

I"ve made the above changes. Additionally I did some more reference checking on the first portion of that paragraph and made changes based on those also. I dropped the word "single" from the first sentence. None of the references say that explicitly, and in fact the practice of the day was such that depending on a specific publisher's standards, as well as justification needs, more than one space or quad might be used, so it was factually false. I dropped the two references mentioned there entirely, since neither one of them had much to say to inform that sentence. And, the following Felici reference actually does sufficiently cover the first sentence as well.

I've gotten rid of the very confusing phrase "Double spacing" (from that paragraph at least). I couldn't check all four references. But the first two I checked, neither used that phrase. Felici does talk about the use of "double spaces". In my own personal exploration of this phrase, every source I find uses the idiomatic "double spacing" to refer to the typewriter practice of adding a blank line between each typed line, and therefore it's use here is incorrect in my opinion.

I rearranged the sentence Placing two spaces between sentences (sometimes referred to as English spacing), came into widespread use with the introduction of the typewriter in the late 19th century. to better match what the reference actually says, which is this: 'In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, 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.'

Battling McGook (talk) 18:47, 29 November 2012 (UTC)

Intraword Spacing (No, Not Kerning)

The German-language illustration in the article displays a point I know about but have not seen covered anywhere, and a related one. Can anyone tell me/us whether one or more reliable sources agree with or modify my bullet points below? They are "original research" only in the sense that I've observed them personally, and thus cannot add them to any Wikipedia article w/o confirmation. I cannot believe that such confirmation is unavailable in academia, tho unknown to me, and in that sense surely not original!

I've indicated specific details that I know I don't know and that would need to be verified if the subject does get covered in this work. E.g., the "Historical variation" section under "In English" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_noun#Capitalization_and_proper_names makes no reference, but could.

• The spread-out characters of "Preyer" and "Preyers" are not an optical illusion nor an accident. They function to mark a proper noun in a language where mere capitalization marks ALL nouns. Since this was also the convention for English in previous centuries, such intraword spacing of capitalized words was occasionally (frequently? regularly?) employed to mark proper nouns in 18th(18th- & 19th? 17th- to 18th?)-century printed texts.

• Earlier, in 16th- and 17th-century texts, for the same reason, proper nouns were italicized. (Among myriads of possible examples, one I can link to is the title page of a 1597 Romeo and Juliet: "... by the Right Honourable L. of Hunsʃdon his Seruants." http://www.teneues.com/shop-uk/stationery/facsimile-journals/shakespeare-romeo-and-juliet-facsimile-journal.html. Shows up all the time in careful editions of Shakespeare and other Elizabethans.)

GeorgeTSLC (talk) 19:24, 28 February 2013 (UTC)

Questions about additions related to the new reference, Printing Technology

A couple of additions have been made claiming that wide sentence spacing was being (commonly?) recommended in the print industry as recently as 1996. This seems highly unlikely to me. These are attributed to a new reference called Printing Technology by Adams, et. al. All I can find at the moment for this reference is a google books snippet view, and it looks like this section may be about older practices. Can anyone direct me to (or just paste in here) a more complete context for this statement?

And even if the book really says that, I still have a big problem with it, because based on everything I've read so far it is simply not true. The move to eliminate wider sentence spacing happened in the print industry from between 1930 and 1950. Only scholarly publications have maintained or at least accepted wider sentence spacing into modern times.

There's another problem with these changes, in referring to this as one and a half spaces. By modern standards (most things in the 20th century, and even the later part of the 19th century) word spaces are mostly around 4-to-the-em rather than three, and so an en-space is the equivalent of two full spaces. That's another thing that's odd about this reference. All the books I've seen that recommend 3-to-the-em word spacing are old enough (pre 1880 let's say as a rough approximation) that they recommend a full em quad between sentences. Recommending a mere en space with a 3/em word space would be a significant move towards narrower sentence spacing, which wasn't really seen at all until the late nineteenth century with people like William Morris, and in the early twentieth century when Linotype began pushing people towards narrower spacing because it alleviated the problems with rivers that the Linotype caused. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Battling McGook (talk • contribs) 18:23, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. To start with the simpler point, the Printing Technology book specifically mentions 3-to-em spaces between words and en spaces between sentences, as does the other reference I added, from 1919. This rather polemical blog post quotes the 10th edition of CMOS (1937): "By 'standard spacing' is meant the ideal space between words ending and beginning with letters of the ordinary rounded forms. . . . For example, the standard for composition such as that in the text of this book would be a 3-to-em space, with an en quad after colons, after exclamation and interrogation points, and after periods ending sentences." That would be a very nice addition to the article, in my opinion.

I've been measuring, and I have a few books from the '60s and '70s that seem to separate sentences with an amount between one and two interword spaces, including fiction. I also have a physics textbook from 1991 that does so. (Conceivably it was typeset with TeX.) I'll be happy to send anyone photographs or scans of pages from these books.

Now to the more problematic part. I've only seen that snippet from the Printing Technology book, and it may be only about hand-set type or some such, or it may be be an anomaly. It would be good to have another reference from later than 1937, given that the practice continued for some decades (as far as I can tell), but I'm having trouble finding one. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 21:20, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

By the way, I think this would be a good addition to the article as an early (though not the earliest) recommendation of single sentence spacing—and an amusing one, since the typesetter obviously didn't agree with the author. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 21:28, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

So given that neither of us has seen the full context, I don't think you can say that people were recommending this through the 1990s or through 1996. I strongly suspect the complete context will show that this is a description of historical practices, not a recommendation of modern ones.

I'm not very surprised that books from the '60s or '70s would sometimes use wider spacing. Reasons could include smaller publishing houses, request of the author, or just an old-school renegade typesetter. OF course it completely contradicts another reference in the article, where Robin Williams claims you'll never see a book after 1942 with wide spacing (mentioned only within the reference not within the man body). Incidentally she's the earliest source I've found promoting the myth that wide spacing came from the typewriter, so I personally don't consider her to be the most reliable source.

The latest reference I've seen in the print industry for wide spacing is Typography and Design, United States Government Printing Office U.S. G.P.O., 1951, page 34, which describes the trend and even the reason for the change, but says that the new standard "has not yet been accepted by the Government Printing Office, where more space is still allowed following a period at the end of a sentence." On the other hand, outside of the print industry, the Modern Language Association even today says it's just following modern convention and that extra spacing is not wrong. The American Psychological Association still recommends wider spacing. Even the CMOS, in an FAQ on their website admits that some professionals still prefer extra space. So it's important to distinguish between the print industry and everyone else.

The earliest reference I've come across specifically on no extra space between sentences is in American Printer and Lithographer, Volume 61, 1915 pg. 285, where it mentions that some printers disagree about the wide spacing standard. The first REAL signs of change seems to be The Linotype News from 1929. I haven't seen it, but I've seen three other sources quote an article that was published there, which says in part "There is no sound reason for more space after a period than between the rest of the words in a sentence." I think once a reliable source (Linotype) said it out loud, publishers were glad to save the time and effort and money involved (but I'm still looking for any reliable source on that particular point). Battling McGook (talk) 22:37, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Is Williams a WP:RS?

WP:RS states, "Proper sourcing always depends on context; common sense and editorial judgment are an indispensable part of the process."  The quote from Williams mentioned in the previous section is in the article, "I guarantee this: never in your life have you read professionally set text printed since 1942 that used two spaces after each period."  Specifically note that Williams did not say "wide space", he said "two spaces".  Does he offer evidence that there was not a single professionally-set text printed since 1942 without using two spaces?  (Ans: No.)  Clearly, the statement is hyperbole, aimed at a mass market, with a kernel of truth.  The kernel of truth is probably not controversial, since typesetting (Felici: "consecutive spaces have no role in typesetting") avoids double spaces, and achieves wider spacing with other techniques.  And yet it begs the question of what is professionally-set text, as if documents typed and published by the U.S. courts are not professional.  Is Williams using "two spaces" as a synonym for "wide space"?  It is misdirection in the statement to suggest that publishers stopped using wider spacing after periods in 1942, as we know from the testimony of printers on this talk page that there is a range of choices for printers, and an elite market that has always insisted on wider spacing.  IMO, the issue for Wikipedia is that Williams is well-known by our readers and they expect to see his views in our article.  We can do this with direct quotes and inline attribution without using Wikipedia's voice.  But popularity does not make an author a WP:RS.  WP:RS states, "The reliability of a source depends on context. Each source must be carefully weighed to judge whether it is reliable for the statement being made and is an appropriate source for that content. In general, the more people engaged in checking facts, analyzing legal issues, and scrutinizing the writing, the more reliable the publication."  Unscintillating (talk) 05:29, 16 March 2013 (UTC)

(Aside: I believe Robin Williams in this case is a woman.)

First off, hyperbole would be "last time anyone used two spaces after a period, their dinosaur corrected them". Mentioning a specific date in an authoritative fashion is hardly likely to be interpreted as hyperbole by the casual reader. If it had been included directly in the body of the article, I would've removed it already as misleading. If such a quote is useful at all in the article, it's probably only useful in the controversy section, especially if it's supposed to be hyperbole.

Second, on the issue of wide spacing versus "two spaces", it's a meaningless distinction and always has been. The most popular printing technology during this period (and through the 60s or 70s), the linotype, can realistically only achieve wide sentence spacing with two (or more) distinct spacing elements. Even prior to the linotype, wide spacing would often be accomplished with multiple spacing elements during hand-compositing as a part of the justification process. In my opinion, this false distinction has been a source of confusion in this article. In the finished product, the result the reader experiences is always merely wider spacing (or not). Only a close measurement would reveal to the reader approximately how many word spaces are equivalent to sentence space, and due to changes resulting from justification even this is just a guess. Given that, is "two spaces" only supposed to refer to the process of formatting the text? It's certainly not used that way. Or does it refer to sentence spacing which is approximately double word spacing? if so why not say that nineteenth century text generally use three or four spaces? But that would be misleading with respect to the methods they used.

Regarding that Felici quote, that's taken out of context. He's talking about word spaces. On the Linotype, this would be a spaceband. On more modern typesetting systems, this is some other "character". But if wide spacing is accomplished, two different spaces are generally combned. For example, on the Linotype placing two spacebands next to each other would actually lead to mechanical problems in the system. In early linotype usage, after a sentence you'd drop in a spaceband (a word space), and then an en quad space after to achieve the wider spacing. This insured that the sentence spacing was always wider than word spacing, although the proportion would change depending on justification. Later Linotype changed their recommendation to a spaceband plus a thin space. On wider justifications this would make it harder to notice the sentence spacing. And eventually, the wider sentence spacing was dropped altogether. But as long as there was wide spacing, two spacing elements were involved, and Felici knows this better than most. On the other hand, I think that he, like many typographers, misunderstands exactly how modern software works in this regard. But that's another discussion entirely. (Whoops, wasn't signed in. Last three paragraphs are all mine. Battling McGook (talk) 03:44, 18 March 2013 (UTC))

HTML CSS pre-wrap, intent and relevance

I have mixed feelings about the recent change regarding HTML and pre-wrap: "although in 2011 the CSS 2.1 standard officially added an option to preserve double spacing". To some degree, pre-wrap is worth mentioning as a partial solution provided by HTML. But I'm fairly certain that the intent of pre-wrap was never to provide two spaces between sentences. It is more generally intended to preserve space-based formatting. It also preserves newline formatting, which is clearly not related to sentence spacing. I was the author of the replaced text: "but this is due to a limitation of the underlying technology, and the lack of any tags to indicate sentence structure." My goal here was to refute a popular but incorrect notion that HTML collapses sentence spacing in order to make the sentence spacing correct, rather than the reality that spaces are simply not considered content.

On the other hand, pre-wrap is often used just for sentence spacing. It's not a very good HTML formatting tool (no fine-grained control), but it is used as such. Only a few months ago, twitter changed it's tweet layout to pre-wrap, preserving people who use newlines and spaces to format their tweets. A significant proportion of this formatting is people with the two-space habit, and I've even seen discussions arise about "proper" sentence spacing from people noticing this. My guess is that twitter did not make this change for the sake of sentence spacing, but rather to make their web interface consistent with many third-party applications that honored spaces and newlines, and also with the original "textish" intent of twitter. Sentence spacing just happens to fall in the scope of honoring the text that people have typed.

So it's worth mentioning pre-wrap and it's usage here, but we can't really imply that the HTML standard has addressed the issue of sentence spacing, any more than we could promote the misconception that collapsing spaces was somehow about sentences in the first place. Battling McGook (talk) 18:26, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

I felt that the previous wording implied that double spacing is impossible in HTML. It appears that double spacing was originally impossible, but pre-wrap now allows more flexibility in this and other areas. Five years before CSS 2.1 was officially released people were arguing about this exact subject: [3]. At any rate, the existence of pre-wrap means that there is not a limitation in the underlying technology any more. Perhaps we could instead say "the CSS 2.1 standard officially added an option that can preserve double spacing", eliminating the implication that pre-wrap was created to address this one specific issue. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 04:52, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

How about "the CSS 2.1 standard officially added an option that can preserve additional spaces"? I like it better because it's even further from linking it directly to sentence spacing. And also, because we really need to stop using the phrase "double space" because of it's more common use is to describe spacing of lines, not sentences. Battling McGook (talk) 17:48, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

That sounds fine. —Remember the dot ^(talk) 00:23, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

Unsourced material

I haven't been to this page in a long time, and probably won't return for a while again, but I moved an unsourced sentence from the lede to here. I'll let other editors determine how, if at all, to reinstate it.

Traditionally, two spaces could distinguish from a mid-sentence abbreviation or initials, as in, "He was faster than I.  P. Jones was next."

One could argue that it's obvious and does not need citation. But I believe it does. First, the sentence "using only one space between sentences shortens the pages required for a lengthy book" is also obvious. But I suggest that would need a citation to determine if a reliable source thinks it is relevant in decisions about sentence spacing. Second, I've seen many people argue for extra space between sentences on blogs using the rationale in the sentence I moved here. But I have not seen a reliable source say that this idea should be considered in sentence spacing. If one can be found, I would support its return to the article, supported by the source. It may be better in another location in that case. Airborne84 (talk) 20:09, 11 December 2013 (UTC)

You can't shake a stick at the subject of automated parsing without coming across this issue. So in modern usage I'd say it's so obvious that it doesn't need to be sourced. But that word "traditionally"... I have searched many 19th century sources, all of which are clear on spacing sentences with an em quad and abbreviations or initials with less than an em quad, but none of them so far say why this was done. I'm inclined to put the quote back, but remove the word "Traditionally". Battling McGook (talk) 22:01, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

It is obvious. But it's not obvious that reliable sources think it should be a consideration regarding this topic. In that sense, I'd like to see what reliable source thinks it's relevant. (We can also say "three spaces could even more clearly distinguish from a mid-sentence abbreviation or initials", but I'd question the relevancy of that as well.) Including the sentence (unsourced) implies that it should be considered. But, if all reliable sources dismiss this by saying it is easier to simply rewrite a rarely occurring confusing sentence than change an English convention (a theme used in other areas as well), why would we include this idea in this form?

I have no problem including it if a reliable source can be found stating its relevancy though. Airborne84 (talk) 20:30, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Controversy section: Narrow in scope?

The Controversy section appears to only deal with single spacing vs. typists, as opposed to the full debate of narrow vs. wide spacing. The arguments "for" wide-spacing therefore consist primarily of 20th-century material rather than taking the wider view of 18th and 19th-century printing practices referenced earlier in the article. If nobody has any objections I could redraft this section to include that material, with the aim of a more balanced discussion. Marinedalek (talk) 06:00, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Not sure what has to be redrafted. Why not just add material on the 18th and 19th century to supplement the current material in that section? Sounds like a good way to improve the article though. Airborne84 (talk) 20:32, 21 December 2013 (UTC)

Move Digital age to HIstory?

Currently a good chunk of the Digital age section is just pushing one viewpoint. It opens with an opinion quote, and one that leans heavily on the incorrect typewriter myth. I could just dig in and fix this, but I see a larger issue here, that much of the "digital age" is just about history now. I'd like to add some information on computerized phototypesetting from the sixties and seventies and issues there with sentence spacing, which is obviously history. Troff was originally written in 1976 I think, and it's handling for sentences had changed over time. Even TeX has been around long enough to get coverage in history. The web hasn't been around for long, but long enough to see changes over time in how it handles spacing.

So I'm thinking that either the entire section could be rewritten and moved to History, or that History could be generally expanded, and this section could just be renamed "Modern digital usage" or "current digital practices" or something like that. I would like to have more on current practices, e.g. a recent change to twitter to preserve spaces; what Word does; and the iOS and Android use of two spaces to detect sentences and add periods.

I guess I"m not fully satisfied with any of the options for rearrangement so if anybody has any bright ideas, please let us know. Battling McGook (talk) 21:55, 25 March 2014 (UTC)

Identifying Abbreviations

The additional space also helps distinguish abbreviations, especially in names and titles. For example, "Security is a vital concern in the U.S. Marines will defend our nation." If only there was a way to tell the sentence ended after U.S., maybe some kind of standardized spacing. Software is especially sensitive, not knowing whether a sentence just ended or if an abbreviation took place. ~ Agvulpine (talk) 10:51, 19 August 2014 (UTC)

Add smartphone shortcut info to Digital Age section?

On most (perhaps all?) modern smartphones, a double-space is the standard shortcut to automatically end a sentence--the software adds a period, spaces, and defaults the first letter of the next word/sentence to be capitalized. While I have no specific source for this, I find it fairly obvious that the reason this was chosen to be the shortcut is because of how much of the population uses doublespaces between sentences. It seems this would be worth covering in the Digital Age section of this entry. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.160.115.225 (talk) 21:45, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Majority of style guides

So what exactly constitutes a reliable source? I do see several sources where people claim that the majority of modern style guides support single spaced sentences, but I do not see any basis for this claim. That is, none of these people are referrring to any comprehensive review of style guides. And many of these same sources have been clearly unreliable on other issues, for instance the incorrect claim that wide sentence spacing was invented for the typewriter. So if a source is making claims with no references, and making other claims which are clearly identifiable as false, do we stop pretending that they are a reliable source?

As far as the issue at hand, I think it is more fair to say that the most popular style guides support single spacing, but not the majority. In fact, I believe that within the sciences, the majority of guides make no mention whatsoever about sentence spacing, and in practice allow any spacing. Most social sciences rely on APA which allows or encourages wider sentence spacing. The Modern Language Association allows it. I suspect the claim only has a hope of being true if the style guides are limited to mainstream commercial publishers' guides. Battling McGook (talk) 16:02, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

Leeway on Reliable Sources

I've just restored the Heraclitean River article as a source on this article.

Yes I know wikipedia policy, but it also allows leeway. The article on Heraclitean River is widely cited on this topic, sometimes by sources that Wikipedia would consider reliable. The article provides many sources for its conclusions, unlike books that are readily accepted as reliable sources, even though it is trivial to demonstrate that the unsourced opinions in those books are false. (For example, any source that claims wide spacing was created for the typewriter, which covers the majority of sources).

The best sources on this topic that are available right now are blogs. Yes, this is my opinion. But it is an opinion that is backed up by blogs that provide lots of references versus books that offer nothing more than hand-waving. If we blindly reject blogs and blindly use books, we are dooming this article to be extremely biased. Battling McGook (talk) 17:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry, but we'll need to see some evidence of what you're claiming. That blog doesn't cite any sources, and a cursory library search doesn't reveal any scholarly books or journals that cite it. Please do not re-add this link without establishing consensus here and proving that it meets WP:RS. --Laser brain (talk) 19:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

You say "That blog doesn't cite any sources". You have so completely failed to read the article in question at all that it is absurd. This is a small selection of sources mentioned:

* (The History and Art of Printing (London, 1771):.http://books.google.com/books?id=kkI5AAAAMAAJ&dq=spacing%20%22full%20point%22&pg=PA396#v=onepage&q&f=false

* (The Compositor’s and Pressman’s Guide to the Art of Printing, London, 1808, p. 10)

* (Charles Partington, The Printer’s Complete Guide, London, 1825, p. 207)

* (Cornelius Van Winkle, The Printers’ Guide, New York, 1836, pp. 135–136)

* (Theodore Gazlay, The Practical Printers’ Assistant, Cincinnati, 1836, p. 22)

* (Thomas Ford, The Compositor’s Handbook, London, 1854, p. 36)

* (Thomas MacKellar, The American Printer, Philadelphia, 1866, p. 113)

That's an INCOMPLETE list of sources he uses, that I found in almost no time just scanning the article. Compare that to, for example, the Bringhurst book which is used here as if it were a reliable source. It offers zero references in connection with its false claims on the history of sentence spacing. If I can't restore the exceedingly well-sourced blog article, can I go through and remove all the books which provide no sources for their false history of sentence spacing? Because every single book that claims that wide spacing was created for the typewriter is not reliable. Battling McGook (talk) 19:43, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

That's not what I'm saying. The blog author is quoting from those sources, but he's not citing sources for the claims he's making. He's making arguments from the sources he's using, which is what we would call synthesis. That's fine if he is a recognized expert, but who is this? It's someone's blog. I could write a blog like that and why would you take me seriously? That's why we need evidence that other scholars take him seriously—i.e. citations to his blog article from scholarly books and refereed journals. --Laser brain (talk) 20:13, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

This is going too far. A central question is, what was standard sentence spacing before the typewriter. He quotes many sources that predate the typewriter, which all say that wide sentence spacing was standard. How is this synthesis? It's not—it's direct evidence. On the other hand, sources which claim an alternative view of history offer no sources at all. That's worse than synthesis, it's a fairly tale. In what possible sense is a source making a claim with no references at all better than a source making a claim and backing it up with lots of references?

As far as the identity, this is ultimately nothing more than an ad hominem attack. The identify of the person is irrelevant if the argument is made and can be verified. Battling McGook (talk) 22:10, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

Ah, no. Questioning the the authority of an author is not an ad hominem, possibly unless the author is in the room in which case they shouldn't be advocating for their blog posts to be linked in Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard. The identity and credibility of an author is integral to determining if the source meets WP:RS. As for the content disagreement, I'm interested in hearing from other interested parties to see if we can work on a consensus. --Laser brain (talk) 02:08, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

The link should be removed. There's a reason why sources must meet Wikipedia's reliable source criteria. There are a ton of blogs out there that cite sources, some plenty of them. But if the blogger or the publisher uses or allows a bad methodology, the author could cherry pick sources to feed a bad conclusion, or employ any number of other methodological flaws. Also important is that this is a Featured Article. That means that the sources used should not be of suspect or questionable quality. Featured Article Criterion 1c states that a Featured Article uses "high-quality reliable sources" (my emphasis). Airborne84 (talk) 20:52, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

[Resetting the indent level so I don't go insane but this is a response to all of the above]

Here's what it comes down to. You are talking about general principles, and I am talking about a specific, very real case. In principle yes, blogs can abuse sources. And in principle we hope that books don't do this as badly (although I've encountered many problems with book sources on many different topics).

But in this very real case, the topic is a simple one in historic terms. Many sources repeat a story about wide spacing coming from the typewriter, which has not ever been supported by any historical evidence, and is in apparent conflict with any and all evidence that has actually been presented. On the other hand a few blog sources offer a different history, which is supported by at least some historical evidence. So in this case, we have story X, an often-repeated but pretty clearly wrong myth, and story Y, with evidence behind it.

There is a theoretical possibility that the blog sources are biased or one sided or cherry-picking. But in practice there is not anyone out there saying that at all on this topic. There is no side of the story that is refuting the blogs. Side X offers no evidence. Y offers some evidence. X does not refute Y at all. X does not offer responses to Y criticism. This is the context where you want to dump this blog as a reliable source. Not some general principle about blogs, but a real case where (in my opinion) any rational look at the sources would find this blog to be reliable. Battling McGook (talk) 21:21, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

If you're just looking for a reliable source saying that larger spacing predates the typewriter, that is no problem at all. If you read the lede and the section on history, this is already stated in the article. The blog is not uncovering a conspiracy theory. For example, James Felici is a notable author on typography, and in one of his online sources used in the article right now, he states: "the use of double spaces (or other exaggerated spacing) after a period is a typographic convention with roots that far predate the typewriter." This is echoed in many published books and works on typography, which are listed as sources here. If this is all you are trying to ensure is captured, it's already done, and with high-quality sources. Let's use those instead of using a blog that moves the article away from the Featured Article criteria, damaging, not enhancing the article. --Airborne84 (talk) 08:03, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

As a side note, you can outdent using this tool. --Airborne84 (talk) 08:03, 13 March 2016 (UTC)

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