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Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement

It would be a good thing if this was posted at the top of all article talk pages. Editors need to be reminded of its principles. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 16:53, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Graham's Hierarchy of Disagreement
Try to stay in the top three sections of this hierarchy.

Note about subpages

Please see my edit summary here. This was referenced at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility#When are tables an accessibility problem? (search for "AI overlords"). Graham87 (talk) 16:54, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Problem with reply script

Since WP:REPLY redirects here. See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Reply_script_not_loading_properly? _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here} 22:36, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

Apostrophes signifying ownership (when to use s's or s')

I wish to state that I mean no criticism here, I only hope to provide some clarification and advice, but that these are personal recommendations that reflect my preferences, but I hope that my reasons for them are clear. NB In this comment I'm adding a space to all quoted "s' " endings for clarity. Without one it's difficult to distinguish between "s " and "s' " and it can easily be overlooked: "s'"/"s";

I used to have The Oxford Guide to Punctuation and made a particular note of their advice about the use of "s'/s's" and was prompted to write this comment by the example in the third paragraph of this page. to wit:

"for example, User talk:Jimbo Wales for Jimbo Wales' userpage"

According to the Oxford Guide, "s' " should only be used for plural nouns ending in s. All singular nouns ending in s should use "s's". My brother's name is Boris, so you can appreciate I had reason for my curiosity to be piqued. The only other guideline I've found that seems logical to me is to let pronunciation be your guide. For example, if you would pronounce my brother's sofa "Borises sofa" you should use "Boris's sofa" whereas if you pronounce it "Boris sofa" use "Boris' sofa". The question is whether you would write a plurality of Boris "Borises"? I would, apparently, that is the "standard convention". Pronunciation is a bit trickier: should it be "Borises sofa" or even "Boriseses sofa"? I'm tempted to use the latter although this would make the Oxford and pronunciation guides part company: the former suggests "Borises' sofa", the latter "Borises's sofa" which is definitely incorrect. The way I pronounce the example I quoted would also suggest that it should be "Wales's", but I wanted to post this comment before editing the page as I realize that there is a difference of opinion and that "Wales' "is perfectly acceptable. I've also consulted my browser's AI (I use Opera for my browser and its AI is called Aria) and it said exactly that, that for singular nouns either is acceptable and for plural nouns "s' " should always, exclusively be used. However, it did provide the additional observation that the use of "s's" for singular nouns also avoids potential confusion when the next word begins with s. Originally I used "Boris's car" in my examples, but with that in mind I've changed his possession to a sofa. Aria also confirmed that singular nouns ending in s should add an "es" for their plurals. Apparently, these principles are the "standard convention". It's possible you object to being called or thought of as "conventional" (and I don't think I am either) and that makes you disinclined to accept this advice, but surely the most important thing is to get your point across? Aria repeatedly said in its replies that consistency is paramount. Would you be inconsistent just to be unconventional? Let me conclude and try to persuade you that the practices I've outlined are at least worth considering by adding the observation that using "s' " to show possession for any noun ending in s, singular or plural, has nothing to recommend it beyond being the simplest. It is my contention that it's the least informative because it indicates nothing beyond the obvious: that the word ends in s. Granted, there is a distinction between the "s" and "ses" endings for singulars and plurals respectively, but I would still argue that using "s's" for singulars is better, especially in the case of typos or misspellings. SaintIX (talk) 06:11, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

@SaintIX: I don't see what this has to do with improving Help:Talk pages. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 12:35, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

@Redrose64 I'm sorry, I didn't make it very clear, but I did mention that I was considering editing the page (to change the "s' " endings in singular nouns to "s's". As far as I know, there's only one, but it's also a matter of consistency across Wikipedia as a whole). The more I think about it however, the more inclined I am towards leaving it as is. If you think I should remove the comment, I'm fine with doing that. I thought, as I'd written and posted it I may as well leave it for some of the information it contains. Also, surely improved clarity would improve Help:Talk pages and that was the crux of my argument for using "s's"? SaintIX (talk) 14:00, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Why do you think this one page should follow a different set of guidelines for the possessive form than the entire remainder of Wikipedia? If that isn't your intent, if you're aiming your proposal at this whole site, then this isn't the place for it, even if this is where you'd first like to apply your preferred rule. Largoplazo (talk) 14:37, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

@Largoplazo I don't. It's why I said "there's the question of consistency across Wikipedia as a whole". And changing all of them is too big a job and I wouldn't be so presumptive anyway. However, not all pages follow the "s' " rule. I've seen both rules used and discussions on other talk pages (not initiated by me). I think it may be down to differences between US and UK English uses, although I know both use both? I seem to notice "s' " is more prevalent from US users (in general, not just here) and "s's" from UK, but it's just an impression and may be cognitive bias. Anyway, it's not that big a deal, I can live with it 🙂. The main thing is consistency across a page. Across all of Wikipedia may be a tall order, but if we can live with our spelling differences…

Just a quick question: have you been having problems with the reply links on the notifications page? Both times I've used them today it tells me I'm "no longer logged in" when I press the reply button to submit my reply. And I am definitely logged in: when I've navigated to Help:Talk page directly and then to here the reply buttons work fine. I'm only asking here as you may have used them yourself? If the problem persists I'll bring it up in the appropriate place. SaintIX (talk) 15:22, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

Indentation

I've had two conversations recently with editors who seem to have been genuinely surprised that Help:Talk pages#Indentation, which has been officially recommended for 15+ years, was widely ignored up until the last couple of years (specifically, after the Reply tool became popular).

That is, we almost always used to have conversations formatted like this:

What do you think about my idea? Alice (talk) 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I have a question about it. Bob (talk) 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. Chris (talk) 3 January 2021 (UTC)

and now we frequently format them like this:

What do you think about my idea? Alice (talk) 1 January 2012 (UTC)

I have a question about it. Bob (talk) 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. Chris (talk) 3 January 2021 (UTC)

I remember discussions years ago about why it was bad (according to other editors) for the occasional editor to actually follow the advice on the help page, and I've seen many editors "correct" the indentation for the third comment, if the third editor used the officially recommended style.

I describe the first style as "traditional", and its main advantage is that sighted people can see where "Bob's" comment ends and "Chris's" begins. The main complaint is that you then have to use some basic social and communication skills to determine whether Chris is saying that it's a good idea for Bob to have a question about Alice's idea, or if Chris is saying that Alice's idea is a good idea.

The "HTML semantics" model is clearer about which replies related to which other bits, but makes it harder to notice that an oblong block of text is comments from multiple people, especially if the comments are long and the editors in the earlier positions do not have flashy custom signatures to draw the eye. This occasionally leads to misattribution (e.g., "Chris, what's your question?") and confusion.

I don't think there is anything wrong with either approach, but I've been surprised by how many editors believe that the second is "how we've always done it". If that happens to be your impression, I suggest that you look through the archives from the previous decade at the village pumps or major noticeboards for conversations involving more than two people (and not using bullet points/voting) so you can see how rare consecutively aligned comments were until the last couple of years.

For example, in the archives of this page, there are 13 discussions that had enough people involved for a choice to be made about indentation style (2006, January 2007, March 2007, May 2007, February 2008, August 2008, January 2010, October 2010a (in which two replies weren't indented at all), October 2010b, 2011, 2012, 2017, 2018 – I stopped there, because mw:Talk pages consultation 2019 started soon after that). Only two discussions (March 2007 and 2017) use the indentation style recommended by this help page, and one of those discussions was about the indentation style (so some of the people replying to it had probably read the instructions immediately before replying).

Again, I don't think that there's anything wrong with the style recommended here. I just don't want people to be passing around misinformation about "how it's always been", because it really hasn't always been like that. In fact, one of the things learned during the massive 2019 consultation about on-wiki discussions was that nothing about talk pages is really how it was always done. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:19, 4 April 2024 (UTC)

I personally have found that what's being marked as "traditional" occurring more frequently as a result of implementing the Reply tool. I suspect that rather than going up and clicking on the reply link after the relevant comment, many users (including veterans) typically click on the link of the comment that's closest, usually the most recent one. On venues like the Teahouse where there's a higher influx of new users, I'm more likely to adjust the indentation levels of users who visually look like they're replying to me but are clearly responding to another comment in an attempt to curb bad habits in newbies. If this is a point of contention it sounds like an RfC is in order.

I don't find comment bleeding in the "HTML semantics" model an issue as I use Convenient Discussions, a feature of which is to scan for signatures and create specific containers for comments, even if they happen to be at the same indentation level. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:57, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

If you think you're seeing a change, then I encourage you to do an actual comparison. Pick the same week from about 10 years ago, and count the numbers.

(I don't think that either style should be considered a "bad habit"; sometimes one or the other makes more sense for a specific conversation.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:25, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

BTW, if you're particularly interested in this subject, you might be interested in the discussions at Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 2#Flat versus threaded, [mis]use of indents (two boxed examples, and editors struggled a bit to decide which one was the True™ version of threading) and Wikipedia talk:Talk page guidelines/Archive 8#Just want to make sure this is 100% acceptable (someone changes the indentation to match what he thinks is correct, and gets told that he did it wrong). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:39, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

The point I'm making is if the style the majority of people use isn't mentioned on WP:THREAD, it might merit adding as there's an unspoken consensus that it's allowed. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:00, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

I think the main reason people use the traditional approach is because they are prioritizing visual differentiation over semantically correct HTML (=LISTGAP-like reasons). I think that a solution that would address both of these concerns is to adopt the kind of formatting that's traditional at the French Wikipedia. Look at their village pumps for an example. The blue shading provides a visual distinction even when the comments are aligned. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 6 April 2024 (UTC)