Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Sentence spacing/archive3

The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Karanacs 02:08, 15 July 2010 [1].

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Sentence spacing

--Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

Sentence spacing (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

• Featured article candidates/Sentence spacing/archive1
• Featured article candidates/Sentence spacing/archive2
• Featured article candidates/Sentence spacing/archive3

Nominator(s): Airborne84 (talk) 03:14, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

I am nominating this as a featured article because it has already been through a peer review with an experienced editor, Ruhrfisch, and two previous FAC nominations [2] and [3]. The article was improved in each case, according to the listed comments. I believe that this article now meets the standards required of an FA. Airborne84 (talk) 03:14, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment—no dab links, no dead external links. Ucucha 06:28, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Oppose Oppose Oppose File:The_Chicago_Manual_of_Style.jpg, wp:nfcc? Fasach Nua (talk) 10:35, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

This issue has been addressed (image deleted). I've requested that Fasach Nua return to strike the "Oppose", [4] but he/she has declined or did not see the request. --Airborne84 (talk) 20:26, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

This image has been on Wikipedia for six months now, including at least one other article. I don't have a problem removing it from this article since it was a late addition and the article is fine without it, but if you are certain that this image cannot legally be free use, you should delete it and/or contact the uploader User:Ling.Nut. Regardless of how you proceed, it has been removed from this article. I encourage you to comment on the other content as well. Thanks for your interest. --Airborne84 (talk) 16:50, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

That image probably falls under Template:PD-text. I believe you can use it without a fair use rationale. 188.222.170.156 (talk) 23:33, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

It consists of fragments of text in a common font. It is thus ineligible for copyright as it does not cross the threshold of originality and can be moved to Commons, actually. Daniel Case (talk) 02:59, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Then I will reinstate it. --Airborne84 (talk) 10:29, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

However, I'd be interested to hear other editors opinions on whether it would be best to simply leave the image out. [5] It does add to the article a bit, but the article covers a controversial topic and this could end up being a "target" for those who would like to see it not become a featured article, and those who would like to see it be removed as a featured article when it achieves that status. The value added might not be worth the hassle. --Airborne84 (talk) 10:35, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

In any case, I uploaded the cover under {{PD-font}} at File:The Chicago Manual of Style 15th edition.png Hekerui (talk) 16:07, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I changed the image to that version, which seems like a clearer rationale for use. --Airborne84 (talk) 16:31, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

It is certainly within the realms of plausibility it is non-copyrightable, I would encourage seeking a second opinion at Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions Fasach Nua (talk) 17:08, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll do that. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:18, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Resolved. Another editor's opinion on the Wikipedia:Media_copyright_questions page is that cover art is copyrighted. [6] Right or wrong, I'm not interested in tying up this FAC nomination with a debate on this topic. The image is deleted from the article. I will attempt to obtain permission from the University of Chicago Press to use the image on Wikipedia. Until I obtain that permission, I will not use the image in the article. --Airborne84 (talk) 03:44, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

The other user's opinion came without a citation to any statute or court case. I have never heard that before. At least not in American law, the only one that matters in this instance. Cover art copyright is always independent of the covered work's copyright. Just go ahead and use it. Daniel Case (talk) 04:53, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Addendum: And permission is irrelevant, even if it were copyrightable. We stopped using that sort of licensing five years ago. Either we use something on our own limited fair-use terms or not at all. Daniel Case (talk) 04:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I'd like to do exactly as you say. I'm in a bit of a predicament here though. At least one editor here objects to its use in the article. I am not familiar with the legal issues involved (although it seems many here are). Unless I'm mistaken, the burden of proof is on me to show that it does not violate any laws. I don't have the expertise to do so. Please let me know if I'm missing something. The article is fine without the image, but images certainly help make articles more interesting so it would be nice to use. Alternatively, I could add a cover image from an early Oxford Style Guide prior to 1906, but the quality of the available covers is...not good. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:25, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

The CMOS image isn't that important to the article, but you may feel it makes it look better with the image breaking up the text. That being said, the "at least one" editor would not even have spotted it had you tagged it with pd-text in the first place. 188.222.170.156 (talk) 22:21, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Please obtain a second opinion on images from Jappalang (talk · contribs) or Stifle (talk · contribs) or any experienced image reviewer. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:19, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I'll do that. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:25, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the Manual of Style cover, the project's community has not agreed to a clear distinction on this matter. The thread "Considering Threshold of Originality - defining a tighter line", brought up by User:Andrew c at the media noticeboard should be looked at for deeper insight (two editors I respect for their knowledge on image copyrights, User:Elcobbola and Carl Lindberg have contributed there). Their points as I surmised is that an image composed of text is not simply in the public domain because of those typeface components; rather it is the purpose behind those text. Text used to construct an original work is considered art (original ASCII art can be copyrighted); text that simply represent a word or abbreviation is ineligible for copyright protection. By this reasoning, this book cover cannot be copyrighted (simple sentence fragments and no original artistic elements present). However, no one can agree to a policy, guideline, or standards for this; thus it falls to subjective judgments, of which none are agreed to by most if not all (no concensus?). As such, we can expect disputes over the copyright status (and use) of such images.

Personally I would not include this cover in the article (I fail to see the significance of the cover for the subject concerned): its exclusion is not harming the article, so why insert a decorative material that is brewing disagreements and has no policy/guideline ("hard rules") to back up its inclusion or exclusion? FA is not a mechanism to set new policies/guidelines but a showcase of what current policies/guidelines can produce. Jappalang (talk) 22:27, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Sourcing/referencing comments: This looks an exceptionally well-sourced article. However:

• Some footnotes are very long – 13, 77 and 83 in particular, the latter two running to around 330 words apiece. Not sure of their value; anyone reading them will lose the thread of the main text. If the notes contain important, relevant information, shouldn't they be incorporated into the text? If they don't, is it worth keeping them? They also rack up the kilobytes.

Reduced endnotes 13, 77 and 83. I had left them that way since other editors contributed much of these and I didn't want to discourage others from contributing. It was a valid comment though. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

• Foreign language sources should have their languages indicated.

Languages noted. I added this to the citation templates in the References section. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:16, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Brianboulton (talk) 18:03, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

• Some comments before I make up my mind:

• Could we consider stacking the two paragraphs in the lead image vertically instead of horizontally? It's truer to how people read and, frankly, would look much better.

Done. This was an excellent comment. I was concerned that the side-by-side image might bunch up the text in the lede for readers with small monitors or who had their browser text set at a large font. Sometimes the most obvious solutions escape us. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:39, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

It also occurs to me that you could avoid the slight text squeeze in the first section with a little tweaking ... moving them slightly, and making them smaller. Daniel Case (talk) 01:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Done. Not sure I can move the lede image. I tried moving it down a paragraph once, and another editor moved it back up, stating that the top was the standard location. It seems fine there now though, especially given the "stacked" images. I did reduce the image size slightly. After a bit of tinkering, I settled on that size. I don't want to try to guess on a "standard" size since everyone's screen, browser, and browser settings are likely different. Where it's at might be a good medium, although I'm certainly open to comments. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:25, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

• Try to avoid beginning so many sentences with "However ..." or "Although ..." They can often imply a point of view.

I was able to remove about half (or a little more) of these with some minor rewording. I thought some were OK—or would have forced prose convulsions from changes. Of those that I left, it seemed that they referred to very neutral topics, or, in at least one case, might have brought on an NPOV charge with its removal and rewording. If you see any remaing examples that stick out, please let me know. I've no issue making changes that help the article remain as NPOV as possible. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:39, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

I think you could fix those I still see with rephrasing: "Although the earliest printing systems were limited to inflexible word spacing, rapid improvements to early printing techniques allowed variable spacing in text" could just as easily be two sentences: "Early printing systems were limited to inflexible word spacing. Improvements soon appeared allowing variable spacing." Saves you some space and is more readable. And "Although sentence spacing is a matter of typography, increased spacing between words is punctuation in itself. Since reference grammars discuss punctuation, some offer guidance on sentence spacing as well. However, most do not. Most grammar guides cover terminal punctuation and the proper construction of sentences—but not the spacing between sentences" could become "Spacing within sentences, between words, is sometimes considered as a grammatical issue. A few grammar guides address it."

In general, the article seems to use "some" and "most" a lot, especially at the beginning of sentences. Daniel Case (talk) 01:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'll scrub through and address these. --Airborne84 (talk) 04:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Addressed. I scrubbed through carefully and reworded quite a few of these examples—including the ones you mention above. The remaining instances of "however", "although", "some", and "many", are relatively few now. I didn't think it was necessary to eliminate every single instance. However, if you see any remaining that detract from the article, I'll be happy to address them. Again, thanks for your interest in this article and your comments to promote its improvement. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:14, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

• In the section on foreign language academies setting standards, tell us right away in the first sentence which examples you're going to use. e.g. "Some languages, such as French and Spanish, have academies ..." Daniel Case (talk) 17:48, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Done. The semantic difference between "academy" and "council" is probably irrelevant, but I also moved the German material to the end of the section for better flow. I would say this was an improvement. Thanks for your comments. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:39, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Another thought ... I wonder what writers of style manuals for users of the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets, the two major right-to-left alphabets in use, say about this? Or Chinese/Japanese/Korean style guides? Always nice to gloablize things. Daniel Case (talk) 01:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

I decided early on to limit it to languages using Latin-based alphabets. The languages you mention seem to be generally the same as some of the languages mentioned in the article—variable spacing was never an issue. Also, the typesetting methods (both early and modern) in Latin-based languages are very different than some of the other languages. Finally, the typewriter was the single biggest influence on double-spacing in Latin-based languages (primarily English). Since the typewriter (at least QWERTY and QWERTY-based typewriters) isn't applicable in other languages, it seemed reasonable to limit the article in this manner. I'm not saying that the article couldn't be expanded with a section on other languages such as Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Sanscrit, Cyrillic, Cuniform, Hieroglyphics, etc., both past and present. However, it would likely be a collection of primary sources (or even just examples of text) with no interpretation by secondary sources. That, combined with the likely significant research involved (probably a team of linguists and historians), and the relatively small addition it would make to the article made the decision easier. I did discuss this in the FAQ on the talk page, as well as in a footnote in the article. Hopefully in 10 years, some motivated individual will have improved this article with that information! --Airborne84 (talk) 04:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Image review: the text images used in this article are verifiably in the public domain. Jappalang (talk) 22:27, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

• Comment There are quite a few redirects that no longer link to any section in the article. — Dispenser 18:09, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. I didn't know about this tool. I think I took care of most of the issues. I wasn't sure about the redirects listed under "No anchor or section" though. They redirect to the lede of "Sentence spacing", which is fine. Is there further action needed on those? --Airborne84 (talk) 01:26, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

The No anchor or section is just a placeholder for normal (non #section) redirect links. The only concern would be that French Spacing is different from French space. — Dispenser 06:24, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Addressed. That makes sense. I assigned a section to the French spacing redirects. The remainder of those should remain redirected to the lede of the article as they are listed. I think that reasonably takes care of the issue. If not, please let me know. And thanks for your comment and interest. --Airborne84 (talk) 13:16, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Support by Ruhrfisch - I peer reviewed this and was involved in the last FAC. I have just reread the article carefully and I find this has improved considerably and now meets the FAC criteria. I had offered to review this after the previous FAC and did not get to it - I am glad that I was requested to take a look at this again. I do have a few remaining points that should be addressed, but these do not detract from my support.

• I am really not sure what this sentence means Modern style guides provide standards and guidance within a national variety of a language. what is "a national variety of a language"?
• In the Studies section, I think the results of the third study in the group (Ni, Branch & Chen (2004)) should be briefly described as the other two were.
• I also think that the 2009 study mentioned in the section should be referred to by the authors' names to be consistent with the other studies mentioned in this section.

Nicely done, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:27, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

Addressed. And thank you for your input. --Airborne84 (talk) 06:30, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

• Support Neutral leaning support (Sandy, don't take this as an "unresolved oppose" if it's not addressed, as they're all quite nitpicky).

Thanks for the critical read and the useful feedback. I think I've addressed your comments below. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Not sure about "With the advent of the computer and the widespread use of proportional fonts, double sentence spacing became obsolete". The two don't have much to do with each other; proportional fonts date back to Gutenberg, and until quite recently most computers used monospace fonts. I understand the point being made—that computers using proportional fonts can automagically replace "period, space" with "period, emspace" when desired. Would something like "With the introduction of proportional fonts in computers…" be clearer?

Adjusted as you recommended. This is a heavily modified statement, so I removed a few of the references in the inline citation that finally drifted out of relevancy. The remaining references will suffice. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Nitpick alert: "Magazines, newspapers, and books began universally adopting the single space convention in the United States in the 1940s and in the United Kingdom beginning in the 1950s" is wrong. They began adopting it then; there are still em-spacing holdouts even now, so it can't be said ever to have been universally adopted, and certainly not that far back;

Removed the word "universally". This is probably easiest. I originally worded this article precisely and the words "professionally typeset" qualified "magazines, newspapers...". I removed a lot of material and wordiness in response to the peer review and FAC nom 1 some time ago. Rather than reintroduce those words, it's probably better to just moderate the statement, regardless of the strength of the original sources' words. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Careful about treating Hart's Rules and the Oxford Style Manual as some kind of touchstone for British usage. Hart's is an OUP publication, and the OUP is notoriously quirky (search in vain in even the full OED for "realise"); Oxford English is variant enough to have its own IETF language tag (en-GB-oed, should you care). This is not a "point that needs fixing", just an observation; I do appreciate that the two most commonly used British style guides (Times Style Guide and Guardian Style Guide) don't cover sentence spacing, and you have to bake the cake with the ingredients to hand;

Your statement about "baking" sums it up nicely. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Why is "Loh, Branch, Shewanown, & Ali (2002), Clinton, Branch, Holschuh, & Shewanown (2003) and Ni, Branch & Chen (2004)" in quotation marks?

Quotes struck. This was an easy fix since I had considered striking the quotes a few times before. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• What does "the 'double space group' consistently took longer time to finish than the 'single space' group" mean? It has no context; did it measure how long they took to type the same text using different spacing conventions? How long they took to read it?

Added context. The previously mentioned wording reduction removed some context that probably should have remained in this case. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• What on earth does "breaking sentences into separate units of thought" mean? Even if that's a direct quote from the source, it needs some kind of explanation;

Explanation added. Same issue as the previous. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Elephant in the room; this is Sentence spacing, not Sentence spacing in the United States. Obviously this is the English-language Wikipedia and thus the way it's treated in English is most important, but there's very little coverage of other languages, no mention of non-Latin alphabets (I appreciate the reasons why for those), only 7 British sources in the bibliography (one of which is Garner's Modern American Usage, one of which is the BBC News style guide—see below—and three of which are 19th-century) compared to 50+ US publications. Obviously you work with what you have, but I do think it's led to a slightly "the American view is the only version that's right" feel. It shouldn't feel like this—AFAIK policies on spacing are pretty much the same worldwide—but it's a by-product of citing so many US sources. This is not something I'd oppose over, but if it ever has its day in hell expect a lot of irate IPs making similar points;

I addressed this to the point which I think is currently feasible by deleting four U.S. style guides that were only examples of style guides that didn't directly address sentence spacing. That helps the U.S./U.K. ratio—for English. Other thoughts: (1) Lack of adherance to WP:WORLDVIEW was rightly pointed out in FAC nomination 1 and I vigorously addressed the issue. I removed most of the material on style guides (split to Sentence spacing in language and style guides) and summarized the rest. In doing so, I drastically reduced the U.S. material in the text of the article and expanded the non-U.S. material. (2) I limited the article to languages with Latin-based alphabets to the make the article manageable, on a few different levels. I hope the rationale I gave for this to Daniel Case above is reasonable. (3) You're absolutely right about the "day in hell". However, pursuing WP:WORLDVIEW by removing U.S. sources (and the associated adjustments to the article) from the reference list will eventually wear away at the idea behind WP:PRESERVE. I'm not sure where the balancing line is, so I stopped at the U.S. references I deleted IRT this comment. (4) The "baking" comment comes into play again, as you alluded to. Some of my WP:OR (not in the article) from converstations with Europeans is that double spacing was just not used—even on QWERTY-based typewriter keyboards. Germany, Italy, and Albania are a few examples among many. Since sentence spacing was never an issue in these countries, there is a lack of available sources to include in the article. I'm not saying I found absolutely everything written in all of the languages within the scope of this article, but hopefully I found enough to be representative of the themes discussed. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• The BBC News style guide is listed as a reference, but I can't see why. It's not mentioned once in the article, and is (unsurprisingly) a guide to writing scripts for TV and radio, not print, and as best as I can tell doesn't mention spacing (line, sentence, or otherwise) at any point;

Deleted. This was a reference for a sentence/inline citation I deleted some weeks ago. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Is crediting the 1983 version of Hart's Rules to Horace Hart correct? Hart died almost 100 years ago, and I think the only part of his work still included is his foreword. – iridescent 21:57, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Interesting question. The U.S. and U.K. Amazon.con sites list Hart as the author, for whatever that's worth. Since Wikipedia doesn't seem to have a policy on this, I decided to go with Chicago's recommendation and list the "institution" when no author is listed. I changed the author to the Oxford University Press.

Thanks again for your input. --Airborne84 (talk) 05:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

• Support - reads well and is detailed without labouring the point. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:07, 7 July 2010 (UTC)
• Support Nicely done. I was surprised initially that 3000+ words could be written on this, but they are all worthwhile. :) --JN466 05:38, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

• Comments. I was rather critical of certain aspects of this article at its last FAC, but I think it's now been greatly improved. One thing that still troubles me though is the inconsistent nomenclature used. Sometimes we have "double-spacing", (even though the article also uses "single spacing) other times "double spacing", sometimes we have "double sentence-spacing", other times we have "double sentence spacing". I find some of the hyphenation a bit ugly as well, such as in "A 1980 study split sentences into 1–5-word phrases ...". What about "split sentences into phrases of between one and five words"? Malleus Fatuorum 18:41, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

I was told you had a good eye for copyediting! I wrote the article with a few instances of "double-spacing" (and similar) on purpose to clarify the wording in the sentence, but you're right—consistency is better. I removed the hyphens and made the usage consistent throughout the article. Good catch on the em dash vs. spaced en dash in the quotation for consistency also. I wasn't aware of that in the MoS until you pointed it out. I also made the adjustment for "1–5-word phrases" as you recommended. I tried to avoid wordiness IRT previous FAC comments, but it does read better that way, so it is an improvement. Thanks for your critical read and feedback to make the article better. --Airborne84 (talk) 20:21, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

Please feel free to say exactly what you mean Airborne84, you won't hurt my feelings; I know that I'm a nit-picking and uncompromising SOB when it comes to FAC. ;-) Anyway, I think you've done a great job with this, and as I said at the last FAC, I think this is a tour de force. I couldn't support the article's promotion then but I'm more than happy to support it now. Malleus Fatuorum 21:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

• Support. All of my concerns have been addressed to my satisfaction. Malleus Fatuorum 21:46, 13 July 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.