Wiktionary talk:Votes/pl-2013-02/Disallow typographic punctuation in policies

The rules governing policy changes require that “substantial or contested changes require a VOTE.” Typographic style is not a substantial element of policy, however it seems that any trivial style edit to a policy document will be contested, and prompt a discussion and vote. The voting requirement is not intended promote so much of our time wasted on unnecessary debate.

I hope that this vote can set a style for our policy documents once and for all.

If it passes, then changes in favour of typescript standards can be considered trivial, and made without debate. Policies will remain consistently styled, and these disputes can end.

If it fails to pass, then we can continue to enter text with any kind of punctuation we want. Changes in favour of typographical standards can be considered trivial, and made without debate. Policies’ typographical details can continue to be improved by those editors who choose to do so, until they achieve a normal publishing standard, and these disputes can end.

And either way, perhaps routine or trivial adjustments to punctuation, which don’t affect the substance of the guidelines, would become uncontroversial. —Michael Z. 2013-02-15 16:49 z

Re: "If it fails to pass, then we can continue to enter text with any kind of punctuation we want. Changes in favour of typographical standards can be considered trivial, and made without debate." So if the vote fails, changes in favour of typographical standards can be made without debate? That's ridiculous. Controversial changes to policy documents cannot be made without debate and without demonstration of consensus, not before this vote and not after this vote. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:44, 16 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

The issue I have with this vote is that it only allows you to say "disallow" or "don't disallow", when I believe the real intent of this vote is to encourage consistency. So to that end, maybe the vote should ask for preference? Straight, typographic or don't care/abstain. —CodeCat 16:50, 15 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Entering typewriter quotes is the non-controversial baseline. Entering typographical characters is optional, and many editors can’t or won’t do so. Any option that appears to encourage or require it is bound to fail or deadlock the vote.

It’s not about what is preferred. Editors prefer different writing styles, a preference vote will be inconclusive, and every editor will continue to edit as they prefer. Some proportion will always only use only the characters on their key caps. If we vote for what is preferred, these disputes will continue.

It’s about what is allowed. We must allow option A. The question is whether we allow option B. If we don’t answer it now, then we will be answering it again and again forever. —Michael Z. 2013-02-15 17:08 z

I agree. However, the vote asks us to disallow curly quote marks, and it should IMO instead ask us to continue disallowing them, for clarity. Moreover, it should IMO clarify in explanatory text that a failure of this vote means only that such marks are allowed and not that they are required.​—msh210℠ (talk) 19:21, 15 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Not sure what you mean by “continue.” Typographic punctuation is not disallowed, and I believe it is used in policies. Changes that someone objects to are disallowed or lead to a vote, but this is completely on an ad hoc basis, and not the result of any policy concerning typographic style. —Michael Z. 2013-02-15 22:28 z

Come to think of it, failure of this vote would mean such marks are not disallowed, but that would not necessarily remove their "controversial edit" stigma. So I think this vote should be worded altogether differently, asking whether such changes should be considered inherently minor and allowable even in the face of controversy.​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:26, 15 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Hm. Maybe, but it sounds like a very different question. —Michael Z. 2013-02-15 22:28 z

I don't see any reason why we must permit option A. We can require that the few people who should be editing the policy pages use proper quotes and if necessary people who care about it can fix it after them.--Prosfilaes (talk) 10:36, 17 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I agree with CodeCat that because the status quo is that both are used, we should have a vote on which to use. Michael's statement that "We must allow option A. The question is whether we allow option B." shows the assumption/bias which underlies this vote's format, an assumption/bias which I don't think is warranted: why must we allow "option A"? I think the vote Dan has set up is better. - -sche (discuss) 22:44, 15 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I’m saying that we can’t prohibit editors from using the punctuation marks they see on their keycaps. So the vote is whether to 1) limit punctuation use to those characters only, or 2) allow editors to use punctuation freely. —Michael Z. 2013-02-17 02:31 z

In diff, an editor changed punctuation that was already in place. If the intent of this vote is to propose that editors should feel free to make such changes even when these changes are controversial, the vote has to actually make this proposal rather than making what appears to be a counter-proposal and hoping that it fails. Your "we can’t prohibit editors from using the punctuation marks they see on their keycaps" has no bearing on the mentioned edit; the editor making the edit took pains to switch the complete document to his favorite punctuation rather than adding a new part with his favorite punctuation. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:38, 17 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

WTF is “hoping it fails” supposed to imply? It’s wrong for me to propose a vote if I have an opinion? Please make your accusations clear. The wording happens to be the best one. The intent of this vote is to settle on editing guidelines. As internal documents, I believe our policies could acceptably be kept as typescript, and to great benefit if that were to obviate all of the stupid debate over punctuation.

Of course editors’ keyboards have a bearing on text entry. If there’s a vote stacked to fail, it’s the one that puts forward the ridiculous proposal that only curly quotes are allowed to be entered. —Michael Z. 2013-02-17 12:49 z

It is clear from your previous posts such as diff that you disagree with the proposal that you have written and that comes under the heading of "Disallow typographic punctuation in policies", so, very likely, you are hoping for the vote to fail. You posts above on this talk page make it clear that you hope that a failure of this vote is going to change the practice of editing WT:CFI and WT:ELE.

The editing guidelines are already settled: "Any substantial or contested changes require a VOTE", as per Wiktionary:Votes/pl-2012-03/Vote requirements for policy changes.

Re: "stupid debate over punctuation": There is no "stupid" debate over punctuation. People are passionate about punctuation, like it or not. If you actually are not passionate and don't care, you'd better create no discussions and votes pertaining to punctuation. --Dan Polansky (talk) 13:26, 17 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

You think you’re being helpful speculating about what I think and feel and care about. Is it wrong for me to have created a vote, apparently, because I care about its outcome, and also because I don’t care about its outcome? I suggest we discuss the question and the facts informing its outcome rather than analyzing each others’ motives.

It’s stupid to debate the same thing, over and over again. It’s stupid for editors to waste energy trying to improve the quality of our documents, repeatedly, and be reverted and shut down in favour of extended discussions which centre around “preferences” and “I like this or that,” rather than any weighing of evidence, and which could never be resolved. It’s stupid to avoid voting on a style guideline once, and resolve to keep voting on the style of each change in punctuation ad infinitum, when there are already mixed styles in our documents. —Michael Z. 2013-02-17 21:08 z

I wonder what the status quo is as regards typographic quotes is, in WT:ELE and WT:CFI. Both policies use a mixture of ASCII quotes and typographic quotes. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:08, 15 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

The status quo is that any controversial change requires a vote and quotation-mark changes are controversial, so whatever the policy has now is, practically, set in stone. And from your post here it sounds like you've already checked and determined that they have a mixture, so there you go.​—msh210℠ (talk) 20:21, 15 February 2013 (UTC)Reply

I have created what I think is a better structured vote, given the current lack of clarity of status quo: Wiktionary:Votes/2013-02/Typographic vs ASCII punctuation in policies. --Dan Polansky (talk) 20:20, 15 February 2013 (UTC)Reply