Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Canada-related articles

RFC regarding use of |official_name= parameter in Infobox settlement template

There was a previous discussion and RFC similar to this held back in 2015 to early 2016, however that was close to 6 years ago from when the discussions were held, so the views of editors may have changed since then, therefore I am requesting additional comments regarding the potential removal of the enforcement of the |official_name= parameter in the guidelines for handling city articles related to Canada. In my view, the requirement of this parameter to be included does not serve much of a purpose aside from creating unnecessary duplication in the infobox, and it is debatable as to whether this guideline meets WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE or not. The |name= and |settlement_type= parameters already fulfill what the |official_name= parameter intends to do. I understand the parameter exists to perhaps indicate the corporate entity under which a given city or town is managed, but this information probably is not that important to most readers and in my view, contributes to a bloating of the infobox. I would argue this extends to U.S. city articles as well.

TL;DR: Should the mandatory requirement of using the |official_name= parameter be dropped due to implication of official name by both |name= and |settlement_type= parameters? - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 00:37, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

References

• Past discussions: see outcomes of previous 2014/15 discussion and 2015/16 RfC for historical context on this matter. Hwy43 (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)
• Comment I've attempted to use the long form of municipal names in the the |name= field before and had it replaced by the short form. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 04:51, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't mean switching to long form municipal names — I mean keeping the short form, and getting rid of the long form name. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 05:01, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

• Removal is fine by me. Not really seeing its use as a field, though if someone comes up with a counterpoint, feel free to ping me and I'll think about it some more :) CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 07:21, 22 January 2023 (UTC)

@CaptainEek: please see the past discussion and RfC now linked above that reaffirmed the original 2010 consensus on this matter in 2016. All commenters on the previous RfC unanimously opposed the proposal for numerous reasons that this proposer is appearing to avoid acknowledging via a TL;DR strategy. Hwy43 (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I am not avoiding acknowledging past RFCs or discussions, and that is very rude of you to think of such. I didn't know the best way to handle directly linking to the past discussions, so I used a citation, as I'm used to those the most. And 2016 is almost 7 years ago. Wikipedia policies, guidelines, and general editing skills have evolved greatly since then. All I am trying to do is bring the past discussion into the 2020s to perhaps get a fresh take and set of opinions regarding this matter.

If you're going to help me out, please don't edit the contents of my RFC. Instead add a comment like you did after I removed your changes from my original RFC text, instead of modifying the text of someone else's message / text. It is not very respectful. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 04:25, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I know not to refactor other editors’ text, and I didn’t modify any text. All I did was apply wikilinks to your existing text because citations are normally used in articles not talk pages; albeit that was on the bold side. Wikilinks and external links are the norm instead. Meanwhile, my second paragraph somehow got converted to a bullet. Anyway, thank you for accepting the “Past discussions” comment in lieu. As for TL;DR, I am not understanding why you are using it in this thread. Its application in both instances isn’t clear. Maybe just avoid using it further. Hwy43 (talk) 09:50, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment: This has been a consensus for a decade or more. One user tried to do this before and it failed both unofficially on the talk page and then again through an official RfC. This is an unnecessary time sink. At minimum start a discussion and don't go straight to RfC. My position is Oppose/No per the numerous reasons throughout the last RfC. Refer to next bolded bullet for more detail. Pinging all editors previously involved in the two past discussions per protocol @Nikkimaria, Resolute, Mattximus, Skeezix1000, Kaliforniyka, Darouet, and AlbinoFerret:. Hwy43 (talk) 00:27, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

The reason I started up this discussion again is because of the simple fact that the parameter is just unnecessary. Nobody refers to a city as the "City of X". Its to me an unnecessary requirement that as I've said unnecessarily bloats up the infobox. I would argue it doesn't comply with WP:INFOBOXPURPOSE either. It's an unnecessary use of a parameter that holds no valid purpose aside from giving attention to what a city's corporate entity is named, which is IMHO, useless. Additionally, the official name is already implied by both the article name and the regular |name= and |settlement_type= parameters. This mandatory requirement has received numerous complaints throughout the years on various articles, complaining of unnecessary duplication and bloat. Therefore this is why I started a new discussion. And I also pointed out that a discussion similar to this was held over 7 years ago, so there was no reason to unnecessarily re-wikilink the same discussion.

TL;DR: I strongly oppose your opposition due to these reasons. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 00:51, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

You need to properly provide direct links to the past discussions at the outset to provide all commenters the proper historical context. Hiding it in a reference that gets buried at the bottom of the talk page is not satisfactory. Your reason comprises the same rationale the previous person advanced in the last unnecessary RfC, which inevitably resulted in unanimous opposition to the proposal beyond that person's opinion. Hwy43 (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Calgary
City
City of Calgary

It wasn't unanimous, as you so put it. There was technically two no's, one from the author of the RFC who wanted the parameter gone, and a 2nd no from another editor. I don't know why the |official_name= parameter is so important, it seems to only add unnecessary duplication to the top of the infobox. For example, in the article for Calgary, the following is what is shown on the side of the screen:

"Calgary" and "City" are already mentioned, and then you have the third parameter saying "City of Calgary", which duplicates the technical meaning of the |name= and |settlement_type= parameters. That is why I am recommending the requirement's removal. Those parameters already serve the purpose that the |official_name= parameter intends to serve. I don't know, I just don't personally agree with that requirement being in place. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 04:17, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

You have misinterpreted. At the official RfC last time around, it was unanimous among all commenters beyond the editor that proposed the changes. The second “no” you referred to was from the earlier discussion. That editor didn’t participate in the official RfC. As for your example, assumptions based on what the other two parameters imply can be incorrect. The previous discussion presents that as rationale. The consensus was, while in many cases such could be correct, we apply it to all so that we are consistent in our approach. It is absolutely harmless to use this parameter. Beyond this, I will be regurgitating/refactoring the rationale from the previous discussions for application to this RfC. It will be added in the coming days. Hwy43 (talk) 09:50, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I stand by my opinion re: the infobox parameter being bloat. All it’s used for is listing the municipality’s corporate entity, which is entirely useless. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 16:55, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Rarely is an opinion flipped and there is no expectation to change your opinion. We are just articulating are respective rationale for other commenters and the eventual closer to consider. Hwy43 (talk) 09:05, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

• Rationale in support of opposition: using the |official_name= parameter is not redundant as perceived. The |official_name=, |name=, and |settlement_type= parameters all convey separate, unique, and necessary key facts about the incorporated community in question. Without the |official_name= parameter, readers cannot assume that the incorporated community's official name follows the convention of "Settlement_Type of Name".

  For example, the following are assumed, convention-based official names that would be incorrect in the absence of the |official_name= parameter:

• Town of Dawson City;
• District Municipality of Langley;
• District Municipality of Northern Rockies;

• Specialized Municipality of Wood Buffalo;
• Rural Municipality of Lakeland No. 521;
• Rural Municipality of Grandview;

• City of Brant;
• Town of Hautes-Terres; and
• District Municipality of Yarmouth.

Their infoboxes confirm that their official names are in fact different from the convention. See below.

Dawson City
Town
City of Dawson

Langley
District municipality
The Corporation of the Township of Langley

Northern Rockies
District municipality
Northern Rockies Regional Municipality

Wood Buffalo
Specialized municipality
Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo

Lakeland No. 521
Rural municipality
District of Lakeland No. 521

Grandview
Rural municipality
Grandview Municipality

Brant
City (single-tier)
County of Brant

Hautes-Terres
Town
Municipalité des Hautes-Terres

Yarmouth
District municipality
Municipality of the District of Yarmouth

The existence of exceptions to the "Settlement_Type of Name" convention is why we use all three parameters. Meanwhile, for those that do follow the convention, the fact exceptions exist is also why we use all three parameters – to confirm that they follow the convention. More importantly however, usage of all three parameters brings consistency across Canadian incorporated community articles and takes the guessing game out of official names. A plus B does not always equal C.

By no means does one additional line of information clutter the infobox of Canada's incorporated communities. And if the |settlement_type= parameter was truly redundant, then it would not have been included as a parameter in the infobox template in the first place. Hwy43 (talk) 09:05, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

• Comment (invited by the bot) May I suggest clearly stating and explaining the question. Otherwise you are not going to get much input. North8000 (talk) 00:57, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Done. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 01:03, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Your approach to this is very clumsy. You pivoted to a yes/no question that makes the previous positional responses (e.g., oppose) confusing. Hwy43 (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I never pivioted. My intention from the outset was for people to disagree or agree. :/ - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 04:10, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose – Because I'm annoyed with editors who don't wait for an RfC to close before using it to justify an action. Less flippantly: there's no requirement that every single possible parameter appear for an infobox to work. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 01:48, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@G. Timothy Walton: please clarify your response as, based on my interpretation, your second sentence seems to contradict your first sentence. Also, with the reworded question at the outset of the RfC, an oppose position is now confusing. Cheers, Hwy43 (talk) 02:46, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Ah, my usual skill at communication. The proposal is to remove the parameter completely; my second sentence refers to the fact it isn't necessary to delete the parameter's very existence to avoid having it appear on an individual page. Those who want to use it can, those who don't can simply leave it off. Too many edits produced something unreadable. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 04:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I am not recommending the removal of the entire parameter, just the requirement that all three parameters be used. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 04:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying, GTW. Hwy43 (talk) 10:42, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

@G. Timothy Walton: you can't oppose something because you disagree with my actions. Obviously I was too quick to make changes, I should've waited. I accept that, as I don't have as much editing experience as other editors on Wikipedia, but to oppose something because of my inexperience is honestly a bit harsh. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 04:06, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

In theory, I can oppose it for any reason I want. In practice, it's far fairer for you to just ignore it or not use it than it is to remove anyone else's ability to use it.

For the record, I'm one of those people who finds the long names of municipalities interesting. YMMV. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 04:14, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

I don't find them interesting, useful, sure, in very limited scenarios. But when you have parameters that duplicate the wording of each other, that is where I diverge. - Evelyn Marie (leave a message · contributions) 04:21, 23 January 2023 (UTC)

• Question for everyone involved: where does the "official name" come from? Are you looking up a historical charter? A register from a government? Is there ever ambiguity or disagreement about what the "official name" is? -Darouet (talk) 13:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Speaking for New Brunswick, all municipalities are defined by Regulation 2022-50. Examples of long forms include The City of Fredericton, the District of Carleton North (a town), and the Municipality of Grand Lake (a village), but now most have only a short form, like Moncton. I assume other provinces do something similar. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 16:03, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Thanks G. Timothy Walton, this is very helpful! -Darouet (talk) 15:27, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Provincial or territorial orders in council, proclamations, acts, regulations, charters, etc. establish official names. They are often republished in lists and databases by the provincial/territorial ministries responsible for municipalities. New Brunswick seems to be the only province in which many municipalities have official names that are the exact same as their given names. Not aware of one example from elsewhere in Canada with the exception of Alberta Beach (see order in council). Hwy43 (talk) 06:15, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

It was a gradual process before this year, starting in 1983 with four municipalities; I'd guesstimate that most municipalities hadn't made the change before the new system kicked in. The two cities with charters (Fredericton and Saint John) retained their long forms. G. Timothy Walton (talk) 15:00, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

• Oppose dropping the requirement to keep the "official name" for settlements. Great arguments have been made on both sides. In the end, my view is that while the "official name" is often redundant, it is not always redundant, and as an encyclopedia and repository of information, Wikipedia is a good place for people to find the "official name" of a settlement as defined by a regulation, charter, or list maintained by the regional or national government. So, keep the official name. -Darouet (talk) 15:31, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose dropping requirement for the reasons above. Specifically, while redundant in many cases, it's not always the case. If someone wants to look up the official name, wikipedia should be a place to do that. Mattximus (talk) 20:46, 1 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose Not only is it useful for the reader (the Dawson City example is well taken, and not just because I've been there) but an official name is one of the most basic pieces of information for a city or town. If that's not included somewhere the article has already failed IMHO. And the long-standing consensus adds further weight. --(loopback) ping/whereis 14:42, 2 February 2023 (UTC)
• Oppose blanket removal/blanking, but support the idea of not filling in this parameter (or having it present and empty) when use of it would be redundant. Just basic common sense, really.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:29, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Conflicting styles

I've begun a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Conflicting styles for names of laws, seeking to clarify how to style the names of laws here. ₪ MIESIANIACAL 00:10, 30 March 2023 (UTC)

Oppressive use of over-emphasis

This entire guideline is riddled with a truly brow-beating level of misuse of emphasis. I have gone through and cleaned up all instances of this to use {{em}} markup (which resolves to <em>...</em>) instead of bare italics, so that these cases are properly distinguished from purely typographic use of italics (for words-as-words, for work titles, etc.). There is no other MoS page (or other guideline) on the system that is using this much emphasis, in virtually every other sentence. It's just really annoying, as if we think the reader of this page has severe dain bramage and has to be yelled at over and over again. I think that virtually every instance of {{em}} in this page should be removed.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:26, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

PS: This diff shows most but not quite all of them (my edit just before that had a couple of them in it, in one section, before I realized it was a page-wide issue).  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  17:31, 6 October 2023 (UTC)

Hyphens, en dashes, em dashes

There is currently a discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style regarding dashes, including the em dashes used in federal electoral districts. The thread is A worsening MOS:DASH issue (causing mounting WP:CONSISTENT problems). Thank you. Indefatigable (talk) 16:06, 23 January 2024 (UTC)