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this is what the MOS already says, tweaked as I explained on MOS talk. Either nobody there has any objection, or nobody there was noticing the proposal without an edit here; so, editing here |
Darkfrog24 (talk | contribs) consensus |
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|q=Why does the Manual of Style call for the use of logical quotation? |
|q=Why does the Manual of Style call for the use of logical quotation? |
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|a=[[Logical quotation|This system]] is used by Wikipedia both because of the principle of minimal change, and because it is deemed less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing. |
|a=[[Logical quotation|This system]] is used by Wikipedia both because of the principle of minimal change, and because it is deemed by [[WP:Consensus|Wikipedia consensus]] to be less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing. |
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Revision as of 19:23, 1 June 2010
Wikipedia's Manual of Style sometimes has conventions that differ from other well-known style manuals and from what is often taught in schools. These differences are usually deliberate. Wikipedia's editors have discussed them in great detail and have reached consensus that these conventions serve our purposes better than those of other style manuals. New contributors are advised to check the FAQ and the archives to see if their concern has already been discussed.
To view an explanation to the answer, click the [show] link to the right of the question.
Why does the Manual of Style forbid the use of curly or typographic quotes and apostrophes (the characters “, ”, ‘, and ’)?
Readers may only know how to type in straight quotes (such as " and ') when searching for text within a page, and Web browsers do not currently find curly quotes when users type straight quotes.
Why does the Manual of Style call for the use of logical quotation?
This system is used by Wikipedia both because of the principle of minimal change, and because it is deemed by Wikipedia consensus to be less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing.
Why does the Manual of Style distinguish between hyphens (-), en dashes (–), em dashes (—), and minus signs (−)?
Using different glyphs for different purposes improves readability. Using hyphens everywhere would make certain constructions ambiguous (for example, an em dash meant to set off a short bit of text from the surrounding text could be confused with a compound adjective) or illegible (for example, a minus sign in a superscript is legible, but some fonts render hyphens so small that they become hard to read).