Forum:SH:How we handle dashes outside of prose

This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments or questions on this topic should be made in a new Senate Hall page rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. TanDivoInsignia-SenateMurders Anıl Şerifoğlu (talk) 16:08, 28 September 2023 (UTC)
Forums > Senate Hall archive > SH:How we handle dashes outside of prose

Good greetings editors,

Manual of Style dictates to us how to handle the variety of existing dashes in prose, but Anil and I find we're conflicted on how to approach the use of dashes in sources. We see many instances where someone will use a - (hyphen) as the source does and others where someone uses – (ndash) to replace the hyphen. We are also inconsistent in how we format our own citations, some using ndash or mdashes. Some spacing before/after the dash and others not.

AnilSerifoglu has compiled a list of sources using dashes, which can be seen here.

As far as I know, the only way to tell the dashes apart (outside source code or a good eye) is to copy-paste them into a google search and have google tell you. Which isn't ideal.

Basically, I'm hoping to open the floor and see if we can find a way to standardize how to approach these across the site. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 22:02, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussion

  • Big thanks to Anil for doing the heavy lifting in this research by the way. NBDani TeamFireballLogo-Collider(they/them)Yeager's Repairs 22:11, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Every discussion of dashes I can find on Google say that emdashes are the proper character to use to separate two concepts in this matter. endashes are for joining compound words and concepts. As for spacing, there should be spacing before & after the dashes, it's cleaner and also looks nicer to add some separation. Cade GalacticRepublicEmblem-Traced-TORkit Calrayn 22:15, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Cade's argument seems correct Fan26 (Talk) 22:33, 27 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Agree with Cade here. Imperators II(Talk) 08:41, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Also agree with Cade. Rsand 30 (talk) 19:04, 28 July 2023 (UTC)
  • My personal opinion on this is that whoever invented two different dashes should be slapped thoroughly. That being said, I don't think it matters much which dash people use, because they are nearly identical.Jarhead002 (talk) (he/him) 19:03, 31 July 2023 (UTC)
  • Cade is right, which also solves the issue with index pages using en dashes rather than em dashes from the relevant CT. —TomotronSith Quad-SunSith Council 12:51, 28 August 2023 (UTC)