Too Minor Edits Considered Harmful

Message for the person posting from 82-44-94-98.cable.ubr04.croy.blueyonder.co.uk ...

Sorry I can't send you this in a less public manner, but you don't give any way to contact you.

Are you aware that your unquestioned attention to detail with regards to the commas, periods and other punctuation and layout are significantly obscuring any substantive contributions you might make? I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't bother looking at a recent change simply because you're the one who made it. This isn't a comment on the quality of the rare contributions to content that you do make, it's an acknowledgement that almost every edit you make is of no interest.

Furthermore, often contributions that others have made are swamped by the minute corrections with which you follow them. This makes it harder to find these contributions, and thereby makes it harder to improve the content here.

In short, your attention to detail is, perhaps inadvertently, causing other wikizens' efforts and contributions to be lost. You are, no doubt inadvertently, currently mounting a denial of service attack.

I mention this because I'm sure this is not what you intend, and that you might reconsider your current expenditure of effort. I'm sure you have more to contribute to this wiki than just your corrections of punctuation and layout, especially in those cases when the original is clear in intent and meaning.

Thank you.

Try using http://c2.com/cgi/RecentChanges?days=1&min=100. I do and I very rarely see changes from 82-44-94-98.cable.ubr04.croy.blueyonder.co.uk. -- EricHodges

I've certainly noticed numerous edits from 82-44-94-98.cable.ubr04.croy.blueyonder.co.uk, which often consist of naught but <petpeeve> turning entirely acceptable '--'s into '-'s and replacing perfectly good 's's with 'z's. </petpeeve> -- DaveVoorhis

Use of - aids the SignatureSurvey. I share the peeve, however. Use NewRecentChanges to filter out these small fixes. -- IanOsgood

Often enough, -- or - is less correct in a given sentence than ; or :. Often enough, a good old-fashioned semicolon or colon is best. :-) Parentheses can also work in the place of --/-. Punctuation aside... I've gotten into the habit of ignoring all of Anon's work. That's a shame. -- ElizabethWiethoff

There are also content-full and substantive edits that have a diff smaller than 100 bytes, or 50 bytes. I find that using a lower bound like that is very hit-n-miss. I'd far rather people only touched pages they actually cared about, rather than constantly combing over the entire database for their own pet peeves. I don't always agree with the commas inserted, and other changes, but that's really beside the point. I'm more concerned about people's edits getting swamped by irrelevancies.

RestoreMinorEdits, anyone? Since the issues that caused its demise seem now to have been quite successfully resolved....

If I use -- on purpose and it is changed to -, I often will change such WikiGnome changes back again, making it even more of a wasted effort. The change from American s to British z likewise, particularly because it is standing policy that the official language here is American English, since after all it is located in the U.S. So the <petpeeve> stuff above is a big pet peeve for me, too, and hopefully will always be reversed eventually. -- DougMerritt

I think Anon did quite well and his comments are correct. We should StopHarassingTheGnomes that do the dirty work. Maybe his doing only the dirty work (and not doing so while say refactoring the page too) leaves a smell to some noses, but this is the price for some cleanliness (so to say). I really missed some positive points about his work. -- GunnarZarncke (a gnome, that does more refactoring, the spelling due to ... let me say inclination)

In the original it says very clearly: "... your unquestioned attention to detail with regards the commas, periods and other punctuation and layout are significantly obscuring any substantive contributions you might make"
Elizabeth echoes the same point: "I've gotten into the habit of ignoring all of blueyonder's work. That's a shame."

I'm all in favour of pages being tidied and errors corrected, but on those occasions when I've looked in detail at a whole collection of edits, the majority of them have been insignificant, minor or questionable. I too now simply ignore most of 82-44-94-98's work. I open both NewRecentChanges and RecentChanges. That way I have both the collection of edits and the IP addresses. Then, as far as possible, I ignore everything 82-44-94-98 has done.

My point wasn't that these edits shouldn't be made, although many of them are questionable. My point was that a side-effect is that many people will now be ignoring anything substantive 82-44-94-98 says.

And my point wasn't that these weren't minor changes, but that their originator was harassed. I think the conclusion is, that MinorEdits had their trade-offs, which we lost (though we may have gained simplicity). -- .gz

In a paragraph I wrote in XwindowProtocolShouldBeStabbedAndBurnt, you changed "visualisation" to "visualization." You changed nothing else, and even missed a '--' which you usually change to '-'. In NutsAndBolts, I wrote a fairly lengthy paragraph where you changed nothing but '--'s to '-'s. You have your reasons for these, which is fine, but as long as "visualisation" is considered acceptable in any recognised dictionary, and as long as either '--' or '-' look roughly like an em dash, it hardly makes sense to edit for the sake of a trivial correction that arguably wasn't a mistake in the first place. In the context of an overall refactoring these changes would be fine and no one would care, but if no other change is made, the edit is questionable because the insignificance of the change is not worth the clutter in RecentChanges. -- DaveVoorhis

You're not listening.

Defending single edits misses the point.
Blindly following rules of punctuation and spelling means you are not seeing the effect you are having.
Masses of edits pretty much guarantees that no one will ever read what you write.

This discussion proves you again to be ChronicallyRight. If the point hasn't been made, I no longer care. If you don't want people to read what you write, keep going the way you are.

Anon, as a gesture toward acknowledging the concerns of this community, would you consider scaling back on the minor edits, and perhaps focus on refactoring, creating content, fixing the genuinely jarring spelling and punctuation errors, and leaving alone the insignificant and debatable ones? -- DaveVoorhis

Please expand your "ignored spelling" criteria to include the "s" vs. "z" words like visualise, categorise, vapourise (just kidding -- correct spelling is "vaporise"), etc. If a '.' is missing after a bullet point or URL, ignore it. If a comma is missing but a sentence is still fully readable and not rendered ambiguous by the missing comma, ignore it. If you see a '--' being used for an em dash, ignore it.

On the other hand, please do fix non-debatable misspellings like "acheive", "neccesary", "their" vs "they're" vs "there", "its" vs "it's", letter trasnpoistiosn and so on that truly are jarring. Please do fix punctuation blunders that make sentences difficult to read. Please do refactor to simplify and clarify.

Do these, and you will eliminate the criticisms and restore harmony and joy to Wiki, without having to concern yourself with MinorEdits, different IP addresses, or whether the problem is many paragraphs, many pages, or both.

-- DaveVoorhis

I got the impression that Anon did his gnome work very well and reasonably. Maybe by doing so much of the dirty spelling work few of us care about, he inadvertently caused his other contributions to be filtered out. But this doesn't hurt the community and he may adapt. With his well-placed explanations I see no reason for any accusations (not even that the minor changes clutter RecentChanges, if he does them on recently changed pages only). Honestly, most of this looks like looking down on the garbageman and saying "uh" to the smells involved. -- .gz

Gee, first of all, I have the impression that the anonymous is a very well-established wikizen, and if he is who I think he is this whole discussion and the suspicion circulating around is a waste of time.

I'm quite shocked by DougMerritt's claim that American English is the official policy of this site. I think he just made it up, and the argument that "after all, it is located in US" is meritless. A bunch of wires and transistors are located in US, and to give such importance to where a bunch of wires are located is demeaning to the nature of wiki; nevermind that US has only a de facto national language, not an official language signed into law. EnglishPlease and other pages just say "English" and that's good enough for me. That means all reasonable English variants should be accepted. That means even if say, PM, drops on us an aussie variant for a perfectly good mainstream word, we should be thankful for learning something new.

No no, that's not what I meant. Part of what I meant is merely what Ward said on EnglishPlease, and also see WhyIsEnglishSpokenHere, and the rest is that, since some obsessive compulsive people have gotten into edit wars, with one changing an American spelling to the British equivalent, and the other changing it back again, that the sane policy is to settle on the American spelling, if there's any controversy at all. I don't think that British spelling should be "corrected" to American spelling, it's just that absolutely American spelling shouldn't be "corrected" to be British, that's all. This has been, naturally, discussed before, although I don't recall where. It's merely common sense; I'm not trying to insert idiosyncratic fascist ideas here. -- DougMerritt

And if somebody, in the course of refactoring, changes a paragraph from one variant to another, getting all worked up about it is utterly pointless. Yeah, it shouldn't be done and everybody should feel confortable with either variants, but this trespass is easily forgivable, while starting a debate is a cure that is worse than the disease. -- CostinCozianu

P.S. And speaking of English, I'd be grateful if anybody with more expertise than me double checks if "too minor" is good literary English. I thought minor already implies a comparison in it (minor -> lesser than major, major -> better/greater/more important than minor), therefore constructions like "more minor", "less minor", "too minor", sound dubious to my ear. I don't mind English errors, as I make a lot of them myself, but at least they should not be in the title.

Let me restate the initial posting from the original page:

: Are you aware that your unquestioned attention to detail with regards to the commas, periods and other punctuation and layout are significantly obscuring any substantive contributions you might make? I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't bother looking at a recent change simply because you're the one who made it. This isn't a comment on the quality of the rare contributions to content that you do make, it's an acknowledgement that almost every edit you make is of no interest.

Please note that it doesn't say that there are too many edits, that they're wrong, or that they're too minor; it just says that people are ignoring pretty much everything that Anon says because they're almost all trivial, irrelevant changes, and it's too hard to find anything semantically interesting. If Anon is content that his (or her) behaviour causes people to ignore his (or her) substantive comments, that's fine by me. I certainly ignore them.

You are correct in your observation. A bunch of minor fixes makes it hard for the people accustomed to reading the wiki through diffs. Thanks for inspiring a usability feature: make a "paragraph minor edit" syntax that is parsed, used for the last diff, and discarded.

And because I think I know the person, I take the trouble to scroll down to see if he added anything of substance besides correcting many paragraphs. I don't follow that many pages these days, so it's not a burden to me. The situation is not as much his fault as it is the limitation of wiki software since minor edits were disabled. If he can't help but also correct the surrounding paragraphs when he has something to add, I cannot be the one to blame him. Good English is a matter of intellectual hygiene, and if it was Romanian I would have felt terribly uncomfortable to contribute to a page that looks dirty languagewise. In English, I think I got too complacent about my frequent failures to get it right the first time, but the determination of this blueyonder.co.uk gnome is quite inspiring and I might need to reconsider. -- Costin

$What would the 'paragraph minor edit' feature consist of? I have always thought wiki should do diffs on a per-word basis, not per-line as it is currently. Is that similar to what you had in mind? -- MichaelSparks

Say I start the paragraph with a $, like this one. Then the server precomputes the N to N-1 diff (it's heavily accessed anyways), making sure that it discards the paragraphs marked with $ from the diff, and when the server saves the source text, it removes the $ as well. That was just one quick hack. Now you have minor edits per paragraph. -- Costin

Another message for 82-44-94-98.cable.ubr04.croy.blueyonder.co.uk.

Stop inserting commas into other people's comments. I know the writing style of a number of the regulars and it is extremely jarring to see you changing it by sticking your hand into their mouth and forcing them to pause in the middle of a sentence. Not only that, you just did it to a comment by ElizabethWiethoff on her own WikiHomePage. Do you really need to be told just how rude that is?

Please, just stop it. -- EarleMartin

Earle, I do it only when I find the sentence awkward to read. In some cases, the sentence (or part of it) is significantly ambiguous without the comma. In most cases, it's impossible to read such a sentence out loud in a natural manner without pausing. That's why punctuation rules recommend the use of the comma - the comma lets you read accurately faster. That is certainly true for the case you cited. Try recording yourself reading such a sentence - when you hear the recording, you'll realize how difficult it is not to pause without sounding as though you're reading mechanically. Because programmers are so used to writing compound or nested "if" statements, they often write over-complicated sentences in English. Of course, they drop the parentheses that C requires, but they don't realize how awkward it can be to follow what they are writing when reading it cold, without knowing what to expect. In the case you cited, another reason applied as well - I wanted the paragraph fairly recently added to be still in view in the QuickDiff output after the changes that I made elsewhere. Adding correct and appropriate punctuation is helpful, not rude. It's not greatly different from correcting typos and spelling errors. -- Anon

There is absolutely nothing ambiguous, awkward or confusing about the sentence "Back in school I used to complete my Fortrash assignments within three tries." Anyway, I'm quite sure that most people here have the literacy skills that allow them to read ahead in a sentence while speaking it aloud and react accordingly.

You mistook my meaning. When spoken, that sentence is given a pause after the initial three words, and is not ambiguous or confusing. For the fastest comprehension, however, the mind benefits almost instantly from noticing the comma. The comma after "school" excludes alternative structure, such as "Back in the school I used to attend, ...", which might otherwise be considered briefly, even though the words are different. More simply, the comma is a very simple clue as to where to pause, something which isn't otherwise known until the meaning of the words has begun to be appreciated, which takes slightly longer. -- Anon

Punctuation "rules" be damned. If a statement is in ThreadMode, there are only a few kinds of edit that are appropriate to make to it:

Fixing typographical errors.
Fixing grammatical errors such as who's/whose, its/it's, was/were, etc.
Inserting references or clarifying bracketed statements; see ExampleStuffInMouth for more on this.
Wiki maintenance such as link fixing/removing/whatever.
On rare occasions, extreme edits such as DeleteInsults.

Your list deliberately omits improving readability by improving sentence structure or by removing actual or potential ambiguity. An added comma, placed where a natural pause occurs during appropriate reading of the entire sentence, can easily qualify in that way. -- Anon

The comments you make above serve only to distract from the issue at hand - your behavior - in addition to being inaccurate. Tarring all contributors to this site as programmers, and furthermore tarring all programmers as being bad at English, is absurd, and smacks of an increasing desperation to justify your position. Changing the style of other people's words in a non-DocumentMode context to something that you feel is "better" is absolutely and insufferably rude.

I did not mention (or intend to imply) "all contributors" at all. I mentioned programmers because many wikizens are programmers, and you, in particular, are a programmer. However, I wrote "programmers... often write over-complicated sentences in English." That is quite different from tarring all programmers as being bad at English. The point is that correct program code follows precise punctuation rules, whereas English sentences are often given whatever punctuation seems sufficient at the time. That punctuation may not seem sufficient to subsequent readers. Adding a comma to clarify interpretation is not changing the style of the original author's words. It is for the straightforward purposes mentioned, and should be considered as trying to help the original author make their point, not trying to offend them.

I would also comment that I disagree significantly with your decisions on where commas should be placed. I just examined a page mentioned above by DaveVoorhis - WikiAccessDenied - and found that the commas you inserted actually decreased the quality of the words on the page by introducing annoying pauses into what were otherwise clear sentences. So I removed them.

Have you recorded yourself reading the affected sentences out loud? I doubt it. I also doubt that I'd accept your ideas on the punctuation of English sentences, given your 'Punctuation "rules" be damned.' comment. I am confident that the commas were placed where most readers would supply a slight pause, and in accordance with the conventional rule that introductory clauses or phrases are usually followed by a comma. In some cases, especially when the introduction is just one or two words, the comma is often omitted, but the typical situation is that adding the comma improves readability. -- Anon

In addition, you appear to be suffering from Noyes-Liu Syndrome, one of the symptoms of which is defined as "unreasonable attachment to QuickDiff output". Make it easier for yourself and everyone else and just stop. -- EarleMartin

For my stated reasons, and because your arguments are based on misunderstanding and exaggeration, I shall continue. Commas are your friends. I refer you to the advice in the following punctuation guide: http://www.chester.ac.uk/english/grammar.pdf. -- Anon

Regarding "Back in school I used to complete my Fortrash assignments within three tries." Anon says, "When spoken, that sentence is given a pause after the initial three words [...]" Not by me, it isn't. When I'm writing in first person, I'm often very conscious of the rhythm of my words. They have their own prosody peculiar to how I speak: BACK in SCHOOL/i USED to comPLETE/my FORtrash asSIGNments/withIN three TRIES. I don't pause after SCHOOL any longer than after PLETE or ments, nor am I about to put a comma after every stich. Hence I inserted no commas. Do me a favor, Anon. Don't fiddle with commas when I write in first person. -- ElizabethWiethoff

Whether a single individual happens to pause has little to do with accepted rules of punctuation, which are there to help the general reader. The pause is quite slight in this instance. The presence of a comma doesn't imply an unduly long pause, but is appropriate to help some readers. How the original author happens to say it has little relevance, as any reader can simply ignore the comma if they wish. As for prosody... are you writing prose or poetry? -- Anon

Anon, this isn't a literary journal or The New Yorker. A certain laxity is appropriate, especially when dealing with the contributions of those who obviously write skillfully. Obsessive adherence to minutiae, especially that which irritates the regulars here, cannot possibly be worth your effort or the ill will it engenders. You've been asked to back off a number of times, so you have to ask yourself whether you wish to continue your PassiveAggressive crusade to be ChronicallyRight, or whether you wish to accede to the wishes of your fellow contributors in the cooperative manner necessary for the peaceful functioning of collaborative forums. You may well be entirely correct about every one of your edits, but there are times when being entirely correct is not, er, entirely correct. This is one of them. -- DaveVoorhis

Writing can be very skilful in some ways, but still contain small quirks which make it less readable than it need be. Any spelling error is likely to make text harder to find by searching. Similarly, using two hyphens hampers searches intended to locate signatures. More importantly, if I don't correct such things, they tend to accumulate to the detriment of the page. In particular, spellings which the SpellChecker considers wrong, if left uncorrected, tend to considerably lengthen the list produced by the SpellChecker - something you are ignoring. At what point are there just so many faults that you would correct them? Many of the things I change arose in the first place as a result of people trying to type fast, not checking what they have written at all, ignoring the list produced by the SpellChecker, not having English as their main language, being word-blind, etc., or some combination of those. I would again point out that such changes are not to be interpreted as criticism of the writer. One of the benefits of Wiki is that you don't have to write perfect prose - others will correct it for you. It's not practical to make exceptions in ill-defined cases which are raised only occasionally. -- Anon

I'm not writing now; I'm speaking. I want you to hear me speak. When I write in first person, I'm speaking. Don't fiddle with my commas when I write in first person. It's a simple instruction, simple to follow. Cut it out, or I'll call for a soft ban. -- ElizabethWiethoff

Elizabeth, have you read the guide I cited above? Do you understand that commas can assist others, even if they don't assist you? It was only one comma on your page, and others had no way of knowing whether you had some particular rhythmic way of saying it. Given the nature of the point you were making, it didn't seem likely to be a sentence that would remain for very long anyway. -- Anon

Anon, have you read anything anyone is writing here? What part of "you may be correct, but you're irritating people, so stop it" are you failing to understand? -- DV

Dave, your main point was your preference for a spelling you have chosen not to justify. Choose not to be irritated if your statements are not backed by reason. -- Anon

Irrelevant. Address the question, please.

Surely "choose not to be irritated" does address the question. I've read the discussion. The fact that you use "s" at work, say, doesn't need to make it irritating for you to use "z" on Wiki. If you were using "initialize" in SQL OR COBOL, you would find that spelling is mandatory in those languages, and have to accept it. You admit below that your preference for "s" is arbitrary. However, I am not suggesting you change that preference for all contexts, only those where it makes more sense and is appropriate. -- Anon

My spelling preference - which I shall justify only out of courtesy, not necessity - is this: I grew up in Canada. In school, I was told both US spelling and British spelling were correct, but to pick one or the other and use it exclusively. I arbitrarily chose British spelling, and British spelling conventions continue to serve me well since I currently live in the UK. The Wiki spelling checker is irrelevant, as it flags so many technical terms and the like as to be virtually useless, and your other arguments in favour of 'z' over 's' are specious at best. I have no interest in arguing about them, as my reference is my dictionary, not your arguments. Happy now? -- DV

What you were taught at school was very reasonable, but was not taught with this wiki in mind. As any good (British or British/American) English dictionary will confirm, both spellings are acceptable British spellings. You seem to think that "s" is the British spelling, but "z" is also a British spelling, and has been the dominant or preferred British spelling at times, although it's currently not very popular. However, only the "z" spelling of the words in question is allowed in modern American English. In my opinion, it is largely ignorance of the facts which has led to the current popularity of "s". This Wiki doesn't make special provision for multiple spellings of pagenames, so it definitely makes good sense to use the "z" spelling for page names. On some pages, especially those containing coding examples and those on highly technical matters (though there are cases where the "z" spelling is built into a programming language), the SpellChecker does indeed produce a long list of words, but that doesn't mean that the list is useless - just a bit clumsy in some instances. However, the list for other pages is quite short. In some cases, no words are listed. The main other arguments are consistency and the fact that, as I've already pointed out, these endings derive from Greek and Latin roots conventionally represented in our alphabet using "z". Those are clearly not specious arguments. If you write a paper or article to be published in a British journal or newspaper, by all means use "s" if that's the preference of the publication in question. If you have a paper published in an American journal, the spelling used will be "z". On Wiki (as currently implemented), "z" is a better choice. Think of it this way - Wiki should make a choice. Most wikizens are used to "z" and the SpellChecker uses "z". On Wiki, "z" is the appropriate choice. -- Anon

Your explanations are irrelevant. You are arguing about the substance of your editing behaviour while ignoring its effect. The issue here is the effect. So, once again, what part of "you may be correct, but you're irritating people, so stop it" are you failing to understand? I am not arguing that your editing behaviour is incorrect. In a brutally literal sense, it is correct. It is, however, profoundly annoying. What you are doing is making insignificant edits (not one of which was in a page name where 'z' vs. 's' was an issue) that most agree have little value, but cause considerable irritation. Even if you believe your edits have a value greater than the irritation they cause, you are openly defying the wishes of those who have asked you to stop -- arguably for perfectly valid reasons that have nothing to do with Greek and Latin roots, the preferences of academic journals, or anything else you wrote above. It is you who is asking Wiki to make a choice of 'z' over 's'. That is your opinion, which is fine, but you are one person. More than one person disagrees with it. Therefore, for the sake of harmony and pleasantness, Stop It.'' -- DV

Irrelevant to you, perhaps, but it's not exclusively your wiki. It's provided by Ward, and the SpellChecker he provides doesn't recognize the "s" spellings. Like myself, you are one wikizen amongst hundreds. In the past, I have occasionally written "analyse" on a page, and had it "corrected" to the American "analyze" by someone else. I didn't object, but I suppose I could have done on the grounds that it was in a context where a British point of view was being put forward by a British wikizen. Those grounds are not particularly strong. If most readers have been brought up to view "analyse" as a spelling error, I don't mind leaving the American version of the word - I choose not to be irritated to the point where I need to change it back or write an objection to it. On the matter of principle, you are almost certainly in the minority, due to the substantial American and International usage of Wiki. As for renaming pages, I have done it when appropriate, but most of the occasions were not recent. As may easily be verified, relatively few "s" spellings exist within Wiki pages, and many of the "s" to "z" changes you've objected to recently were to pages that were already in RecentChanges. Moreover, nearly all the pages I changed also carried other spelling or punctuation errors which I corrected at the same time. It's generally understood that minor errors will be corrected from time to time. From its early days, this Wiki has carried a request that people use the list provided by the SpellChecker to correct the page they are editing. You seem not to be doing that much of the time. I can see that being flexible on this issue might irritate you slightly, but why should one (or a very few) people on grounds that you've admitted are technically flawed, demand that Wiki remains gradually accumulating a mess of alternate spellings? If you wrote a few articles for an American periodical, they'd almost certainly reject your view if you demanded that your articles used different spellings from those used in the rest of the periodical and by the bulk of the readership. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. For the sake of a pleasing, harmonious, consistent set of wiki pages (most of them, anyway), you should acquiesce. -- Anon

Furthermore, I just noticed you've added a new irritation to your growing repertoire. You've been changing "@#$k" to "f**k". Do you really think anyone who is bothered by "@#$k" would be any less bothered by "f**k?" If "@#$k" is appropriate (i.e., it is the most effective way to express potent emotion, and potent emotion is needed), leave it intact; if not, (e.g., it is used as an insult) please remove it entirely. "F**k" is ludicrous. -- DV

You're missing the point - RK doesn't really need to use it, so I choose to temporarily highlight his usage. More importantly, some readers use computers which scan text to determine "adult" content, and won't show pages containing the f-word. -- Anon

I note you use a comma after "In school", whereas ElizabethWiethoff chose not to on one similar occasion. -- Anon

Elizabeth was writing colloquially, using the music and rhythm of language to convey feeling. Anyone with an eye or ear for language and literature can see that. Can you not? -- DV

She seemed to be writing a reply to Doug in the "messaging" area of her home page. There was no reason to suppose the "music and rhythm" of her language, even if present, would be significantly damaged by a single added comma. Anyway, her reply had been there for some time - plenty long enough for Doug to have read it. A messaging area usually carries relatively temporary content, where such fine detail is not critical. -- Anon

As for Doug's objection to my "cleanup" edits in general, that's always been an element of Wiki, and I've been doing it for many years. I rarely change "ain't" to "isn't". Where I do so, it's after due consideration of whether the somewhat colloquial version is still worthwhile, not just done automatically. It already says above "please do fix non-debatable misspellings" and I make use of reason and judgement to decide what misspellings should be rejected in the overall interests of the Wiki readership. It wouldn't be practical for me to maintain a whitelist of spellings deemed debatable by an arbitrary handful of wikizens who, in some cases, admit their case is technically in the wrong. -- Anon

Okay, folks, who deleted Doug's most recent paragraph from this page? From the posts, I can see it wasn't Doug who deleted the paragraph. Someone's up to dirty pool, and it's either DV or our friend blueyonder:

-- ElizabethWiethoff

I deleted it (by accident), but since I'd quoted the relevant parts and the rest was repetition, there wasn't anything substantive left to restore. -- Anon

Thanks for the confession. Now I don't need to pore through the page history. You say it would not be practical for you to maintain a whitelist of debatable spellings. Would it be practical for you to maintain a list of people who do not want you to "minor edit" their work? In his deleted paragraph, Doug explicitly stated that he doesn't want you to make little changes to his work. You can put him on the list. You can put my first-person writings on the list, as well. -- Eliz

From memory, I rarely correct your text or Earle's anyway. I sometimes correct Doug's, but mostly due to genuine typos, not variant spellings of the type discussed above. Historically, I've corrected many paragraphs in debates involving such people as RK, Costin and Top, because they tended to write at length and sometimes hurriedly, so there are quite a few typos. However, I also spot various misspellings in unsigned paragraphs, and I often don't know who wrote them. No serious author ever changed them back. I've also seen quite a lot of minor editing by others going on recently, such as editing of abandoned home pages... I'm not saying that has no use, but it also puts noise in RecentChanges without anyone objecting. Of course, two or three names is not impractical, but the principle is not very good, and the commitment would be open-ended. How come you don't just write in a word processor which highlights errors and then cut and paste corrected text into the page you're editing? That would remove many of the errors before I see them! BTW, I haven't given Doug any permission as described below. -- Anon

I am happy to announce that Anon has given me permission to delete any and all of his posts and edits, reverse them, expunge them from memory, whatever. I now grant recursive permission to Eliz, Earle, DV, and everyone else on the wiki to do the same to Anon, since he has granted me that full dispensation. This solves the problem. Anon's despicable edits may now become a matter of faint memory.

-- DougMerritt

Any such implicit permission is unintended and instantly nullified! It's inappropriate for the stewards to embark on an edit war. -- Anon

The Newhouse School of Journalism, at Syracuse University, is a (some would say "the") authoritative source about writing and journalism. The style guide for Syracuse University is http://www.syr.edu/publications/style/style2001.pdf. Here, from that style guide, is the Syracuse recommendation regarding the use of both the comma and the dash or em-dash (note that it contains non-ascii punctuation characters):

: Comma Use a comma to separate elements in a series: Now he had taken exams in algebra, trigonometry, and calculus.
: Use a comma to separate independent clauses that are joined by and, but, for, or, nor, because, or so: You should congratulate her, for she has performed splendidly.
: If the clauses themselves contain commas, use a semicolon instead of a comma: The dean, Nancy Olson, gave a persuasive presentation; but the faculty, weary of the issue, remained unpersuaded.
: Use a comma after a long introductory word group: After completing his most difficult examination, he went to a movie.
: If the introductory element is short (rule of thumb is five words), don't use a comma: After the examination he went to a movie.
: But use the comma if the sentence would be confusing without it: The day before, he spent six hours reviewing his notes.
: Use a comma to set off a word group that isn't essential to the sentence: Coyotes, which have always fascinated me, differ totally from dogs. In the early days, when things were different, SU didn't guarantee housing for first-year and sophomore students.
: Use a comma to set off transitional words like however and moreover: John was satisfied; however, Mary did not like the dinner.
: Don't use commas if the word group is essential to the meaning of the sentence: Cheetahs live in various regions in Africa and Asia where they are able to find deer and antelope.
: Use a comma to introduce a complete, short quotation: Henry said, "I know the killer's name!" But use a colon to introduce longer quotations.
: Do not use a comma at the start of an indirect or partial quotation: He said his victory put him "firmly on the road to a first-ballot nomination."
: Use a comma in direct address: Nancy, please hand me the newspaper. Use a comma between proper names and titles: Jane Barker, president of Zenith, chaired the meeting.
: Use a comma to separate elements of an address: Barker comes from Jacksonville, Florida, and now lives in Hartford, Connecticut.
: See addresses; addresses in running text.
: Commas always go inside single and double quotation marks.
: See semicolon
: dash The dash is typed with two hyphens (--) or an em-dash (—), with no space between the dash and the words that precede or follow. Either is correct, but be consistent throughout.
: Use a dash to emphasize what follows, which may be dramatic, ironic, or humorous: I'll marry you—when hell freezes over!
: Use dashes to enclose a word or word group that interrupts the main structure: It takes a cataclysm—an invasion, a plague, or some other disaster—to move them to action.
: Senator Barry--whatever you may think of him--has been a man of action.

On the other hand we could just let people write however they wish, whether it conforms to notions of "style" or not. Personally speaking, I think the no-spaces-around-em-dash rule is ugly, but I wouldn't edit it out of someone else's contribution if they chose to use it.

In general, a guide is too rigid if one finds it doesn't follow its own rules or provides rules which many others prefer to modify or ignore. For example, the rule "If the introductory element is short (rule of thumb is five words), don't use a comma" is given, but there soon appears "In current usage, the trend is away from hyphenation." Similarly, many publications either surround an em-dash with narrow spaces or mostly use instead an en-dash surrounded by spaces (which clearly separates the words and punctuation without excessive separation). The double hyphen was originally a clumsy fix for users of manual typewriters with neither a dash on the keyboard nor half-spacing capability (which allows more modern typewriters to combine hyphens to make dashes with no gap).

May I remind us all that this particular Wiki is a dumb typewriter. Therefore, it makes good sense to use the "clumsy fix"es.

See MinorEditsDisabledDiscussion, TooManyMinorEditsConsideredHarmful, RefactorNotMyPunctuation

See also IsBritishSpellingDeprecated, YanquiSpelling, RealizeVersusRealise, etc. etc. for more on this perennial topic.

JanuaryZeroSix

CategoryWiki