Forum:Consensus on minus signs

Forums: Helping Hand > Consensus on minus signs

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After a few conflicting edits concerning minus signs, I wanted to start a discussion with the aim of reaching a consensus on how we use minus signs in article names, focussing specifically on negative years (-4000 DR and such).

For use in mathematical articles, Wikipedia recommends using the unicode minus (the − entity). While we usually defer to Wikipedia on matters of style where no wiki-specific guidelines are in place, I must convey a preference for the regular hyphen character (the one next to the zero key on a UK keyboard).

No keyboards (that I know of) come with a unicode minus button on them, which makes it hard to type. For newcomers, trying to explain the difference between a regular hyphen, a minus symbol, an en dash and an em dash will be extremely difficult, and it will need to be explained each and every time. Although not strictly correct, the use of a regular hyphen will make it easier to type the year numbers and also easier to maintain the wiki, and I think ease of use has to win out on this one.

Do feel free to have your say below (using the {{Forum post}} template) and we can aim to put together a proposal so we can all agree on the best method of covering this.

User:Fw190a8 15:50, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

I agree. We should should just standardize on the hyphen character. Any other solution will require a colossal number of edits to the wiki. Call it 10k edits. Basically everyplace that refers to a year before 0 DR.

Lethalox 20:44, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. I think most wikis use a regular hyphen anyway.

Niirfa-sa 21:56, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the input. I've put up a proposal at Forgotten Realms Wiki:Minus signs, and this can stay up to allow anyone to make any counter-arguments. As usual with these things, if nothing goes against it in two weeks, it will be converted to a policy.

Fw190a8 22:33, October 18, 2010 (UTC)

The minus sign − should be used because that is the standard way of printing negative numbers. Every printed book does this, including Forgotten Realms books.

Quin 02:04, October 19, 2010 (UTC)

That might be true about the use of minus signs in print, but this is a wiki, and will never exist in printed form, so our considerations are different to those that exist for the printed word. That should be a factor in this decision, right?

Fw190a8 18:55, October 19, 2010 (UTC)

I think that, in the interests of simplicity, we should use the hyphen sign, rather than the unicode minus. I, for one, have trouble distinguishing the difference between them visually, so I would assume that the symbol being presented is the hyphen character and use it accordingly when writing articles. I imagine a lot of people would do the same thing.

Cronje 19:40, October 19, 2010 (UTC)

When I said "print" I meant "publishing," as opposed to handwriting. The hyphen and the minus sign are not the same. The minus sign is longer, and it is incorrect punctuation to use a hyphen in place of a minus. The two characters do look almost the same on the font used when editing wiki pages, so you can type − to easily distinguish them. See Wikipedia:Plus and minus signs#Character codes.

Quin 19:45, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

When I gave my opinion, I didn't mean to say that the two characters were the same, nor that the hyphen was more "correct." What I wanted to point out was that, for most people, when they see (for example) −1000 DR, they will see (hyphen)1000 DR rather than (−)1000 DR. It simply won't occur to them that there's a difference, which will lead to confusion when creating new links to existing year articles. Obviously, this simple typo will be easy to fix for more experienced users, but I can see how new users could quickly become frustrated.

Cronje 20:16, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

The new proposal says to when encountering "−400 DR (for example), using a non-hyphen symbol, it should be changed to -400 DR." I suggest rather than changing it, simply make a redirect from −400 DR to -400 DR.

Quin 20:40, October 21, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you mean. I have had a go at editing the proposal, so perhaps this is clearer? I think editors ought to feel free to use the minus symbol in wikilinks, as long as the user ends up on the right article through a redirect. Of course, I anticipate the vast majority of editors on the wiki will create wikilinks using the standard character, but since this also goes to the right place, neither should be an issue.

Fw190a8 21:44, October 21, 2010 (UTC)