English Wikipedia @ Freddythechick:Featured article candidates/Sentence spacing/archive1

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 not promoted by SandyGeorgia 14:05, 12 April 2010 [1].

Sentence spacing

Nominator(s): Airborne84 (talk) 03:40, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I am nominating this for featured article because it apparently meets the criteria for FA status. Airborne84 (talk) 03:40, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Comment -

Found some dab links: APA, En, Linotype, Period. English Spacing and French spacing redirects to the article itself. One dead link [2] Esuzu (talk • contribs) 10:40, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Fixed - thanks!. Airborne84 (talk) 22:51, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments—minor stuff. I'll be neutral for now.

"Sentence spacing refers to the horizontal space between sentences in text."—refers to, or is? Is the article about the phenomenon, or just the dictionary term? (I may be wrong about this; see "Use of 'refers to'" in Wikipedia:Writing better articles for guidance.)

Good catch. Updated. Airborne84 (talk) 05:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

~~Why is "Websites" upper cased? I understand "Web" (there's only one World Wide Web), but the word's article uses lower case~~.

Fixed. Airborne84 (talk) 05:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I added a missing quote mark; make sure that no others are missing.
"Most reliable sources state simply that writers should follow their particular style guide^[122] and check their publisher's submission requirements, which is the most important consideration."—can the prose be tightened to "Most reliable sources state simply that writers should follow their particular style guide^[122] and, most importantly, check their publisher's submission requirements."? There's a lot of text in the article, and I'd bet some more can be tightened.

Tightened some - left both thoughts since thought both were relevant - especially for authors coming to the page. Airborne84 (talk) 05:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

"~~The following examples demonstrate the effect of these variations on your browser"—is there a brief way to say this without addressing the reader?~~
"The GNU Coding Standards still recommend using two spaces,^[141] when coding comments."—the ref should be placed at the end here, because in the middle it would make the user believe they are recommending this for other (unspecified) scenarios as well. It's a bit misleading.

Above two done. Thanks! Airborne84 (talk) 05:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Given the (few) punctuation and language articles I've seen, this does look (from a glance) way better than I expected. (For what my opinion's worth, I prefer two spaces.) --an odd name 12:36, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

"As increased spacing within text is itself punctuation,[27] there is room for reference grammars to offer guidance on this topic." There is no hard-and-fast boundary between punctuation and grammar. For example, a comma before "which" annuls the subset meaning of the word. This is not defensible logic.

This one confused me a bit. I think I probably just wrote it badly. I wasn't sure that everyone would be clear on why a "Grammar guide" section might be appropriate since the arrangement of text matter on a page falls under typography. However, since increased spacing (and spaces themselves) are punctuation (but most people probably don't know that) I thought I'd give the reason for the section up front. That way no one would claim that this section is irrelevant and should be removed. I think this was misinterpreted. Let me think on how to rephrase so it's clearer. Airborne84 (talk) 05:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

~~I see lots of repeat links, some even within two seconds of each other~~.

Fixed Airborne84 (talk) 05:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Very US-centric.

I'll work on this. That can be fixed in various ways. E.g., some of the books on typography were published in Europe, and others were written by non-Americans and published inside and outside of the U.S. Some of the typographic references cover other types of alphabets (Cyrillic, etc.). They are not intended solely for a U.S. audience. Again, that's not explained well in the article. Airborne84 (talk) 05:05, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

~~MoS breach: "Desktop Publishing"—why the caps~~? Tony (talk) 14:20, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Fixed. Airborne84 (talk) 05:35, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the critical read. Great comments. Airborne84 (talk) 22:51, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Oppose As above, very US-centric, one section on "international" (ie non-US), one on "US" (of course), and then sections purportedly about practice in various areas, like science and law, but all about US practice. This needs to be completely rewritten or resubmitted as "Sentence spacing in the United States" Jimfbleak - talk to me? 18:22, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

This is a useful comment, but I'd welcome some more feedback. I'm at a bit of a loss on how best to continue. First, I understand the comment. Yet, the issue comes when describing the difference between French spacing and English spacing. Now, there's another language. I tried to get a representative sampling of languages from other countries, and the "Duden" covers quite a few. I also asked various people in other European countries and they stated that "two spaces has never been used." However, since that's WP:OR on my part, I just listed some references. Finally, I tried to be very careful with caveats when the English language was used. For example, there seem to have only been studies on this in English. However, I'd hate to limit it only to English when there are a few other languages that address this. Some ideas that might help (with appropriate sourcing, of course):

1. Stating that U.S. and U.K. style guides are used worldwide where English is spoken.

2. A statement regarding the "Commonwealth" style guide (moving it from the footnotes to the text) to describe countries covered).

3. A statement noting the French style guide (I might need to add the main French dictionary) and it's coverage of French-speaking Africa.

4. Changing "Latin-derived alphabet" to "Modern Latin Alphabet. This considerably narrows the scope.

5. A statment covering most of the other countries that have never used a "double space" convention. This might be harder to find, although I certainly could try.Airborne84 (talk) 22:19, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't actually suggesting other languages, although that's a good point. The point I was making was that it's very lop-sided in its coverage of English-language practice, mainly being about the US with little on UK and virtually nothing on practice elsewhere, including the country with the most speakers, India. It may be that it's more difficult o find sources outside the US/UK, but there's nothing to suggest that the research has been done Jimfbleak - talk to me? 05:27, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I see. The point you make is valid, but easier than I thought to address. I'll check through some of my U.K. references and verify a few more things, but I believe that most of the (now sovereign) former colonies of the British Empire still use U.K. style guides for their English usage—including India. Since English is one of the official languages of India, and none of this is mentioned in the article—it's a great point. I can still address the other comments as well, since a paralell could be drawn between this topic and that of French/French-speaking Africa, among others. The article can show more of a WP:WORLDVIEW without providing a list of every single country that uses xxxx. Airborne84 (talk) 05:45, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Oppose. Sorry, but it needs a lot of work before it is anything like good enough. It is seriously over-written, far too long, and obscure in its style. It does not read like an encyclopaedia article, but more like a high-school essay written by a smart kid desperate to show off his "learning" at every step, and this showing-off, and the tedious length, gets in the way of the reader's understanding. In the opening sentence, "refers to" is meaningless and confusing, and "horizontal" is too restrictive. Then why on earth does Gutenberg need to be mentioned in the third sentence? And it goes on (and on) like this. Prune it to at most a quarter of its length, restrict it to the facts and get rid of the flourishes. Almost entirely written by one editor at present, and needs input from others. SNALWIBMA ( talk - contribs ) 21:00, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

I appreciate the comments. It might be overwritten, but when I reviewed the WP:FA criteria, I found "well-written, comprehensive, and well-researched." "Overwritten" wasn't listed as a detractor. I just tried to address the criteria as it was listed. As an encyclopedia, I thought "comprehensive" was important. The readable prose is at 6,149 words and 41 kb, which seems to be OK IAW Wikipedia. It's true that the total size might be tough for some wireless devices. However, I visited a number of other FA articles to use as examples. I can't remember them all now, but Catholic doctrine regarding the Ten Commandments was one; it has 51 kb of readable prose and 8,166 words. In that light, Sentence spacing doesn't seem to be radically overdone. Also, I tried to make the lede a section that covers the "macro" topic (IAW WP:LEDE). Those that don't want to read further could use that as a stand-alone. I'll assume good faith and ignore the "desperate high school kid" comment. I'll change "refers to" that's a good comment. I looked through the literature and "horizontal" seems appropriate. You could have bullets or a "sentence list" stacked one above the other and vary the vertical spacing in between them, for example (this would be similar to people confusing "double spacing" sentences with "double spacing" in regard to leading). I mentioned Gutenberg since that helps set the scope of the article. The article doesn't describe handwritten work (although Miles Tinker and others covered that as well in the 1800s and 1900s). I thought it appropriate to mention the beginning of moveable type. Also, as per Wikipedia, there's nothing restricting the use of good prose, "even brilliant." There's undoubtedly no brilliant prose in the article, but I tried to keep it from being a boring academic piece. Finally, you're right, it does need input. I wasn't getting that on the talk page and at Peer Review, so I'm glad to get it here. Airborne84 (talk) 22:50, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

The clearest place for summary (in my opinion) is the "Style guides" section. The biggest question in my mind is: is that topic notable enough for a separate article? After reviewing WP:N I wasn't sure. If so, what would be the best name for that new article? Airborne84 (talk) 02:46, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Comments as noted above, the overlinking jumps out. I don't see why the article, and still more the History of sentence spacing one, don't go back before the invention of movable type. I don't believe it needs cutting as drasticly as Snalwibma. Johnbod (talk) 21:56, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

It might be able to go back further. I just don't have sources going back much further than Gutenberg in detail. I could get them, but I thought it better to split off the "History" and let others dig into that one. Airborne84 (talk) 23:00, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Oppose: Prose needs a lot of attention to get rid of the verbosity; the overlinking needs sorting out; the nomination here is premature. I actually found that if I ignored the longwindedness, the article was quite interesting and not badly written. Its main problem is that it has come here without any formal review. You say, above: "It does need input. I wasn't getting that on the talk page and at Peer Review, so I'm glad to get it here." Well, you opened the peer review on 10 April and closed it less than 24 hours later, so you didn't give the process a serious chance. Your best bet now would be to withdraw this and send it back to peer review where, perhaps after a short wait, it will get attention. Brianboulton (talk) 00:22, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I've no problem taking it back to peer review and working on the issues noted above. I appreciate the feedback to date. Last question. Is it reasonable to at least move it from B-class to A-class? I'd prefer not to judge that myself as the primary contributor to the article. Airborne84 (talk) 03:00, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
- A-class generally requires featured article quality with only the most minor of style flaws. Brianboulton says there's some verbosity and overlinking, and the lack of peer review (whether your fault or ours) doesn't lend confidence ("The article may need minor copyedits, but it should be comprehensive, accurate, well-sourced, and reasonably well-written. A peer review should make the article a viable candidate for FA."). Probably at or very near GA, but even there criteria 3 and 4 may get you given others' comments above. --an odd name 07:14, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

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