Sentence spacing is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
	This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on August 4, 2010.
Article milestones Date Process Result April 11, 2010 Peer review Reviewed April 12, 2010 Featured article candidate Not promoted April 27, 2010 Peer review Reviewed May 27, 2010 Featured article candidate Not promoted July 15, 2010 Featured article candidate Promoted A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on February 22, 2006. The text of the entry was: Did you know ...that French spacing, the typographical practice of adding two (rather than one) spaces after a full stop, is a result of the monospaced fonts used by typewriters? Current status: Featured article

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Some of the editors here might be interested in the following article: "Space Invaders: Why you should never, ever use two spaces after a period". It's Slate.com's #1 "most read" article now. I don't think that it's needed as a further source here, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless...for a variety of reasons. --Airborne84 (talk) 20:58, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks! Hilarious, and I read the whole thing. I am very glad that none of my letters to former girl friends are public! Johnuniq (talk) 00:34, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks - any reason not to add this as an External link? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:15, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Great article, fun read, yes, let's have it as an external link! --Nuujinn (talk) 03:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ruhrfisch, There is no consensus that this is WP:RS as you claim here, or anything other than satire.  Please don't put this back as an external link unless a consensus becomes clear.  Two-spacing is the current manuscript norm for APA style, acknowledged by MLA, is supported by the little scholarly opinion that is available, and surveys show it is used by half of respondents; so it is only necessary to look at the title to document that this slate.com web page "misleads the reader".  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 08:58, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see that RB has reverted me, so I ask now what is the objection to having it as an external link. The last time I looks, Slate was a reliable source in that it is a well known magazine with a good reputation for reporting. The fact that the title expresses an opinion does not detract from that reliability, and I do not think that it misleads the reader in any way. What do others think? --Nuujinn (talk) 01:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have rolled back the removal of the Slate.com EL. Wikipedia works on consensus and in this section 3 of 5 editors were in favor of this as an EL, one like the link but did not weigh in on it as an EL, and one (RB) is opposed. How is this consensus to remove the EL? Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:00, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Look there was never a consensus to add the link, Airborne84 specifically said that it did not need to be added, one person proposed adding it, one person agreed, and the debate dropped.  Then Airborner84 quietly added the link without discussing it.  Now we can get all worked up over procedural issues of what does it mean when an editor adds something when he says it is not needed, or we can go right to the real point which is that the consensus here was and is that this Slate page is satire.  But instead of that being just my own opinion, do you Ruhrfisch, and do you Nuujinn, agree that this web page is satire?  Thanks, RB  66.217.118.123 (talk) 02:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am in favor of it being an EL and have said so here three times now (still only counts as one !vote though ;-) ). Nuujinn wrote "let's have it as an external link!". Airboirne84 added it to the article as an EL in the first place, so I count this as being in favor. RB does not want it as an EL. That is how I get 3 in favor of this as an EL and 1 against, of the 5 editors who have weighed in on this matter (Johnuniq liked the link, but did not weigh in on it as an EL). Other editors are welcome to weigh in, of course.

As for the Slate piece, while it includes some humor, it also cites its sources: "James Felici, author of the The Complete Manual of Typography" as well as "Every major style guide—including the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style—prescribes a single space after a period. (The Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, used widely in the social sciences, allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts but recommends one space in published work.)" and also " Ilene Strizver, who runs a typographic consulting firm The Type Studio" as well as "David Jury, the author of About Face: Reviving The Rules of Typography". I also note that it now has a correction, which to me is a sign of a RS. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:46, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Slate is a well respected magazine and thus does qualify as a reliable source in general, and in a quick check of the RSN archives confirms that other editors have expressed this regard. The fact that the title indicates an opinion on the part of the author does not discount the reliability of sources--NPOV does not dictate that we choose neutral sources, but rather that we present reliable sources neutrally. Also, I would note that I see no evidence that there's consensus that the Slate article is satire--fwiw, I would not characterize it as such. --Nuujinn (talk) 03:10, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree Slate is a RS and also do not think the article is a satire (though, as I mentioned, it does have some humor). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 03:25, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for responding to my question.  RB  66.217.118.185 (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ELNO says to avoid, "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material..." If you look at [American_Psychological_Association, APA_Publication_Manual] or the diff, you will see that at APA there is a "new style recommendation".  So Slate, when they say that APA, "allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts", when in fact two spaces is recommended, is misleading the reader. Also, where is the source that says that APA "recommends" one space in published work?  Here is what APA [says],

"The new edition of the Publication Manual recommends that authors include two spaces after each period in draft manuscripts. For many readers, especially those tasked with reading stacks of term papers or reviewing manuscripts submitted for publication, this new recommendation will help ease their reading by breaking up the text into manageable, more easily recognizable chunks.

Although the usual convention for published works remains one space after each period, and indeed the decision regarding whether to include one space or two rests, in the end, with the publication designer, APA thinks the added space makes sense for draft manuscripts in light of those manuscript readers who might benefit from a brief but refreshing pause.

So I think that a responsible author would have said that APA Style recommends two spaces after periods, and in published works advises that the decision is made by the publication designer, i.e., does not make a recommendation.  There is also an obvious bias here that the theme of this article cannot be objective about APA Style.  RB  66.217.118.185 (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This post is called reductio ad absurdum.  Following the position that this slate.com page is WP:RS and is not satire, do you Ruhrfisch and do you Nuujinn, agree to put this sentence in the lede of the Article, "Typing two spaces after a period is totally, completely, utterly, and inarguably wrong."?  RB  66.217.118.185 (talk) 23:56, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Slate is a notable online magazine and a reliable source, the piece in question is by a member of Slate's paid staff, cites its sources, and took the time to post a correction. It is OK to use it here, but if you want to dispute this further, take it to WP:RS/N (and notify us here so we can comment on it too, please). As to quoting the Slate article in the lead, if the quote appeared in this article, then it might be OK in the lead (as the lead should be a summary of the rest of the article). However, the point is moot. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 02:07, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I returned this sentence to its original condition: "With the introduction of proportional fonts in computers, the convention for sentences became obsolete."

An edit was made to modify it earlier. I reverted it and initiatied discussion on the talk page. IAW WP:BRD, discussion now follows until a consensus is achieved. Continued back and forth will just lead to accusations of edit warring. We're all reasonable editors here I am sure, so there's no need for that.

Finally, I don't want to imply that I am not willing to make modifications to the article. I simply want to discuss it IAW policies. Thanks. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:44, 18 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I hadn't realized that there was already a discussion on this point. Reading that discussion, I see no consensus on keeping the wording "obsolete." I do see that a single reference (Jury) uses that word, and that reference is not a style manual: David Jury is expressing an opinion. There's nothing wrong with quoting an opinion, but it should be sourced and labeled as such. The wording you inserted-- without the clarification "according to David Jury"-- is a clear NPOV violation. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 02:48, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The consensus already existed when the sentence was added and not disputed. According to WP:Consensus, "Any edit that is not disputed or reverted by another editor can be assumed to have consensus. Should that edit later be revised by another editor without dispute, it can be assumed that a new consensus has been reached." Thus, if someone wishes a disputed change, a new consensus must be achieved.

As far as the word "obsolete", I believe that the word adequately paraphrases all of the sources listed (as noted above). There also seems to be some agreement for this. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:58, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I undid three edits just now that degraded a WP:FA. Inserting the one sentence paragraph "There is a historical difference between standards for manuscripts (i.e., typewriting standards) and standards for printing (i.e., typesetting)." into the lead is not good for several reasons. First off, unlike the rest of the lead and rest of the article, it is unsourced. Second, the lead is a summary of the whole article and not the place for new and unique statements. Third, one sentence paragraphs interrupt the flow and are almost never found in FAs.

Please note I am not disagreeing with the statement per se, just its placement, lack of references, and the manner in which it has been inserted. Please discuss how best to incorporate this into the article (with reliable sources, of course). Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 04:19, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

My thoughts exactly. For example, the word "manuscript" appears 15 times in the article, so it's not ignored. It's not Wikilinked, so perhaps Wikilinking the first instance in the lede will suffice. If the editors here think it's necessary to make this distinction in the text, it can likely be done within a sentence or by adding a short sentence in the text, in a manner commensurate with an FA. --Airborne84 (talk) 11:54, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought that if you do not disagree with the content of the sentence, but do disagree with where it is placed, the correct solution would be to move it to a different place, not to delete it. Likewise, if you think it's unsourced, there is a "source" tag that can be appended. Instead, however, the response here seems to be that your first action is to delete all changes to the article, rather than try to make them better.

I am puzzled by the contradiction between the two comments. Ruhrfisch states that mentioning the difference between manuscript convention and typesetting convention is wrong because it is "new and unique statements" instead of summarizing something later in the article. Airborne84 states, on the other hand, "the word "manuscript" appears 15 times in the article, so it's not ignored." Which is the problem here? Is the problem that it is "new and unique," or is the problem that it "appears 15 times in the article" (and hence stating it explicitly is redundant)?

Furthermore, the changes being made are factually incorrect. It is simply not correct that the 1969 Manual of Style "shows em spacing after sentences in the manuscript example (page 41)." The example is a monospaced font (Courier); monospaced fonts do not have a distinct em and en spaces; all spaces are the same width. The example shows two spaces (not "em spacing"-- em spacing is not two spaces) after punctuation. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 19:35, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Please keep in mind that the article must adhere to the summary style—not going into unnecessary detail—to be an FA. Integrating these nuances into the article is unnecessary. What we need to communicate to the reader is that somewhere between 1906 and 2003, the Chicago Manual of Style changed from exaggerated spacing between sentences to single sentence spacing. Detailing typeset/manuscript nuances during the transition adds unnecessary verbiosity, IMO.

I think that the text as it reads is accepable. If a consensus of editors think a change is necessary, a possible change is changing the following:

• "The 1969 edition of the Chicago Manual of Style used em spaces between sentences in its text."
• "Early editions of the Chicago Manual of Style used em spacing in its text."

The drawback to this is that readers then don't know when the change occurred.

I may not be addressing Geoffrey.landis's issue though. If the issue is simply that a distinction should be made between typeset and manuscript material, that is already in a note in this section of the article. That suffices for me, although other editors are welcome to weigh in.--Airborne84 (talk) 20:26, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Again I'm totally baffled. In the post starting this section it was said that the problem (or one of the problems) was that the sentence introduced material that was "new and unique" and therefore inappropriate in the lede. Here, I see "If the issue is simply that a distinction should be made between typeset and manuscript material, that is already in a note in this section of the article." Which? Either it's new and unique, or it's already there, but not both. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 22:17, 19 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You have not addressed Ruhrfisch's note regarding the added statement as to "its placement, lack of references, and the manner in which it has been inserted."

I'd also invite you to review the peer review for this article and its three featured article candidate pages. Unfortunately, we have editors come here and make changes that run counter to the requirements that this article had to meet to become a Featured Article. If you plan to contribute significantly to the article (and it seems that you do), it would be worthwhile for you to review them. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"You have not addressed Ruhrfisch's note regarding the added statement as to "its placement, lack of references, and the manner in which it has been inserted."":

I have been working on that. Per request, I have placed in a different location and added references. I have not, however addressed "the manner in which it has been inserted." As far as I am aware, the "manner" in which Wikipedia is edited is, you edit it. I have now done so.

I see that there are now a large number of added comments. However, I am out of time at the moment. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 05:22, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Geoffrey.landis added this new section. While I'm happy to see people interested in improving the article, I don't believe this is an improvement. There are multiple issues within the section (e.g., I'm not sure why the following statment is relevant to Style Guides (typewriting) "As of 2010, it is reported by Strizver that the double-space typewriter convention is still being taught widely in school."). However, I think the entire section is unnecessary:

1. Most of it belongs in the History of sentence spacing article. The style guide section shuld only be a summary of that section.

2. Much of the material in the added section already exists in the sentence spacing article, albeit in summarized form (summary style) Two quotes are simply repeated from the article itself (redundant) and much of the other material is taken from the notes of the article.

3. Much of the material from the Gregg reference manual (the final paragraph in the new section) was in my initial version of the article when I first put it up as a Featured Article Candidate. I was told by the reviewers that it was too much information. Thus, I split the material into the Sentence spacing in language and style guides article. Reintroducing the material begins to drop the article from Featured Article quality, if it doesn't do so outright.

I understand that Geoffrey.landis wants some more caveats and material added into the article. If the editors here agree to recommendations, I don't see why it can't be done. I do not believe that this is the way to do it. I welcome further discussion. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:41, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I took Geoffrey.landis' added section and summarized it back into the "style guides" section. A look at the early FAC pages for this article (see top of talk page) will show why. It was going to erode or simply violate FAC criterion 4 in that it went into unnecessary detail and didn't use the summary style.

Since no one else weighed in against the points that Geoffrey.landis brought up, I summarized the points that he wanted brought out into the first two paragraphs of the style guides section.

The Gregg Reference Manual, while summarized in the lede with "with a few [style guides]...permitting double spacing in draft manuscripts and for specific circumstances based on personal preference" (emphasis added), was not summarized in the style guides section. It should have been, and Geoffrey.landis pointed that out. It is summarized in that section now. Other editors can look to see if I was too verbose in doing so.

While making the changes, I removed the neutrality tag from the controversy section because Geoffrey.landis did not state why the listed sources did not adequately convey the material in that sentence. The neutrality tag remains in the lede and in another tag, so the resolution of those tags will undoubtedly clear up POV concerns regardless.

The changes should address the material that Geoffrey.landis wanted to see added while still adhering to Featured Article Criteria. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Since Geoffrey.landis added a neutrality tag to the sentence "With the introduction of proportional fonts in computers, double sentence spacing became obsolete", I'll ask the editors here to weigh in—again—on whether the sentence is POV. I'd also ask editors to please limit their statements to relevant material provided by reliable sources, not personal opinions.

Trovadore has brought up that LaTeX inserts extra spacing after sentences. This is irrelevant for various reasons: (1) "extra sentence spacing" is not "double sentence spacing" and thus does not apply to this sentence, (2) extra/double spacing can be used and still be obsolete in the opinion of experts.

I'll reiterate the multiple reliable sources I listed in the above thread. Jury uses the word "obsolete", and it is also used in Matthew Butterick's book, Typography for Lawyers: "Most fonts used in word processors since the mid-1990’s have the correct spacing already adjusted, rendering the traditional double space after a full stop (period) obsolete." I'm sure I can find more examples of the exact word "obsolete", but paraphrasing is allowed at Wikipedia.

IMO, "obsolete" is a reasonable paraphrase for the statements made by many other experts. I have many more published statements by experts that say the same thing. I don't think that they are needed. --Airborne84 (talk) 02:16, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This is English, not French; we have no counterpart to the Academie Française and nor shall we ever tolerate one. Style guides and experts have no authority beyond the extent to which they are followed in practice. Therefore what happens in practice very much is relevant. --Trovatore (talk) 02:25, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure I get your point. Clearly many people still use two spaces after a full stop, but that's not the issue. I note that in the examples you provided that the user of LaTex must make accommodations to prevent problems when that option is enabled. LaTex is venerable, and it's not uncommon, and indeed desirable, for such software to retain older features so as to avoid creating problem. But in any case, the bottom line is that you would need to bring a reliable source to the table that contradicts the notion that double spacing is not obsolete. Also, I would ask if you are very sure that LaTex inserts two spaces after a full stop, or just uses a wider space? --Nuujinn (talk) 02:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It uses a wider space, not two full spaces. I'm not sure what you mean that the user must make accommodations -- the extra space is the default behavior, and is what is ordinarily seen in mathematics journals (most mathematics papers are written with LaTeX). --Trovatore (talk) 02:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Believe me, I know what LaTeX is used for. "Double spaces" means two spaces, and that's what's obsolete. The accommodations are use of non-breaking spaces, thin spaces, etc, where LaTeX incorrectly detects the end of a sentence.

Here are some points that support the existence of multiple POV problems in this sentence. Summary: (1) the two sources quoted are not reliable in the context, (2) three reliable sources are provided that refute the objectivity of the sentence, (3) the sentence does not satisfy WP:UCS.

1. Text that says that proportional "fonts" adjust spaces, is by definition not WP:RS in the context, because it is not English, see a dictionary.
2. Jury has been previously identified as not writing from a scientific viewpoint.  In particular, his opinions about typewriter typesetting are not WP:RS in the context.  See here for the analysis.
3. This article has excluded the entire weight, such as it is, of scientific opinion, on the grounds that the conclusion is "embarrassing" to the scientists (see previous discussion on Loh 2002).  Current scientific opinion opposes the idea that double-sentence spacing is obsolete.
4. Even in typesetting, en-spacing (one of the typesetting concepts referenced by the Article as double-spacing) is not obsolete (see Bringhurst).
5. WP:UCS says that its not "obsolete" if it is still in common use.
   

Comment: Inline attribution is the quick way to improve this sentence. RB  66.217.117.76 (talk) 10:21, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding 1), no, I don't believe that's how RS works. We do not judge the accuracy of a source using our own knowledge to determine whether a source is RS. Regarding 2), I don't see consensus for your conclusion, just that you have the opinion that Jury is not RS, and that Airborne disagrees. Regarding 5), WP:UCS is part of an essay, not a policy or a guideline. If we have sources that use the term obsolete, and none that refute, we use obsolete. If we have sources that use obsolete, and some that refute it, we document the disagreement. I can take a look at the other two issues later. --Nuujinn (talk) 15:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nuujinn, If WP:UCS is "not a policy", how do you explain [this sentence], "Why isn't "use common sense" an official policy? It is. It's a friendlier restatement of Wikipedia:Ignore all rules"?  RB  66.217.117.171 (talk) 20:43, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

RB, WP:UCS is a section of the essay Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means. The essay itself has a notice at the top which says "This essay contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors on the Wikipedia:Ignore all rules policy. Essays may represent widespread norms or minority viewpoints. Consider these views with discretion. It is not a Wikipedia policy." The UCS section itself also says (under "There is no common sense") "When advancing a position or justifying an action, base your argument on existing agreements, community foundation issues and the interests of the encyclopedia, not your own common sense. ... Citing concrete policies and guidelines is likely to be more effective than simply citing "common sense" and leaving it at that." Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:27, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[insert starts here]

Ruhrfisch, there is no apparent reason that you copied that text.  There was a previous question raised to say, "WP:UCS is part of an essay, not a policy or a guideline."  I took note of the words, "part of an essay"; before I asked Nuujinn to explain his words "not a policy", against the words of WP:UCS which says, "Why isn't "use common sense" an official policy? It is. It's a friendlier restatement of Wikipedia:Ignore all rules."

FYI, the kind of common sense I'm talking about is the basic ordinary kind that will lead readers of this web page to be put off by obvious opinion put in Wikipedia's voice.  Half of survey respondents are using double-sentence spacing.  The recent changes at APA to move back to recommending two-spacing were only slightly softened in the 2nd printing.  Here is what a [current APA web page] says regarding the change from the 5th to the 6th edition, bolded for emphasis Punctuation—return to two spaces after the period at the end of the sentence recommended for ease of reading comprehension.  The point continues to be that any use of the word "obsolete" in this article must be part of a quote within an in-text attribution.  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 07:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[insert ends here]

Yes, and I just reviewed the discussion on Talk:Sentence_spacing/Archive_4#Loh.2C_Branch.2C_Shewanown.2C_and_Ali._.282002.29_.22The_Effect_of_Text_Spacing_After_the_Period....22. I think others should do the same, but I do not agree with your interpretation that the material was excluded because it was embarrassing. I see some discussion of that issue, and then the conversation devolved to other issues. Yes, Loh is a scientific work, but it appears to be to be a primary source based on a few user studies, and one that not only failed to reach a definite conclusion about readability, but ironically brought question whether their recommendation was a good one, given the problem it would have caused them their article submission had they followed their own advice. Thus, it is not the kind of source I would think we really need for this article, especially given the wide range of sources we have available to us. Also, from the quote Airborne84 provided from Bringhurst, it appears to me that that source does in fact suggest that use of double spaces after a full stop to separate sentences is obsolete (at least, that's what I get from "quaint Victorian habit". I think it is important to be specific here--the issue I am trying to address here and now is that is it now obsolete, according to manuals of style and other sources we have available to us, for the person entering text to use two spaces at the ends of sentences, for the reason that modern systems use proportional fonts and have the ability to adjust the width of spaces as desired. And the question I ask is are there any reliable secondary sources that refute the notion that use of two spaces at the end of a sentence is a Good Thing and not, in fact, obsolete. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't really want to continue the conversation about the scientific study, but since RB will apparently continue to do so, I'll address it in more depth. That way all the relevant facts will be available to the editors here. The passage in question from Loh, et al. (2002) is as follows: "Although the mean of the reading time indicated that the 'double space' group took longer time to finish reading the passages as compared to the 'single space' group, the time difference were not statistically significant. Because there was no added advantage in advocating sentence separation using single space over double space, our recommendation is to adhere to the long-standing practice of using double space for sentence separation, be it in print or for online documents. As this article was being prepared for print in accordance with the IVLA guideline for 'Selected Readings,' the authors noticed that the block justification would preclude the use of double spacing in text separation." However, the text of the article is left justified. Reviewers of the article certainly wouldn't have seen the final version, so I understand why this could have happened. It's also a surprising statement, given what we know about print and online documents in the period before 2002. Thus, I didn't see the need to bring this material up in this article. Regardless, that is not the important information here. The direct studies from 2002–2009 are done by the "Sentence Period Spacing" team at the University of Georgia. The different authors account for students transitioning through the research team, I'm sure. Robert Branch, PhD provides the continuity. The latest studies (in fact all since the 2002 study) provide no "recommendations" to favor single or double spacing. The most recent study, Ni, et al. (2009) should be looked at for the latest recommendation from that research team. It stated simply that the research was inconclusive. More exactly, it stated that the "results provided insufficient evidence that time and comprehension differ significantly among different conditions of spacing between sentences." There was no recommendation to favor single or double sentence spacing. I hope this help clear up the details of the direct studies--Airborne84 (talk) 01:30, 21 January 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Reliable sources refute the idea that two-spacing or extra-wide spacing is or has been "obsolete" in any context: typesetting, keyboarding, video data terminal (VDT) display, typewritten manuscripts, or electronic data files.  Bringhurst documents the case for typesetting, APA and MLA for keyboarding, Loh et al. 2002 for VDT display, there is no dispute for typewritten manuscripts, and Chicago Guide to Preparing Electronic Manuscripts for electronic data files.  Online surveys show that half of the respondents are using double spacing.  Even in a survey on a site advocating single-spacing, there was a large minority using or favoring double spacing.  WP:V is clear, that "Where there is disagreement between sources, use in-text attribution."  I'll put that in bold so that it is more easily noticed, Use in-text attribution.  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 06:24, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Let's step away from the issue of what should be in the research section, and focus on Loh 2002 for the current POV question. I have previously said, "This is a peer-reviewed article with possibly the single most-important research conclusion on the topic of Sentence Spacing."  Loh 2002 is a reliable primary source whose conclusion I believe has not been refuted after eight years. 

Since there (is) no added advantage in advocating sentence separation using single-space over double-space, our recommendation is to adhere to the longstanding practice of using double-space for sentence separation, be it in print or for online documents.

This conclusion is contrary to the idea that double-spacing is obsolete.

Here is text from Bringhurst from a Google snippet view.  I have added the bold to emphasize that extra-spacing is not obsolete in typesetting.
www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=bks%3A1&q=isbn%3A0881792063+%22full+en+space%22

The elements of typographic style

Robert Bringhurst - 2004 - 382 pages - Snippet view

p. 28
...As a general rule, no more than a single space is required after a period, a colon or any other mark of punctuation. Larger spaces (eg, en spaces) are themselves punctuation.

The rule is sometimes altered, however, when setting classical Latin and Greek, romanized Sanskrit, phonetics or other kinds of texts in which sentences begin with lowercase letters. In the absence of a capital, a full en space (M/2) between sentences may be welcome.
RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 11:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

(answering all of the above by RB, no need to fork the conversation) In regard to Loh, I suppose I could repeat what I said above, but I would suggest instead that you simply re-read it. Better still re-read what Airborne84 wrote, they have put it much better than I. Also, please take a look at WP:PRIMARY. Generally speaking, primary sources require interpretation by experts, which we are not. In regard Bringhurst I note that the first quote supports the notion that double spaces are a no-no. In regard to sentences that begin with lower case letter, I note that Bringhurst is suggesting use of a single wide may be of advantage, not two spaces. I am very sure I don't see your point. As a personal aside, in regard to VDTs, I will note that they are better much obsolete themselves--I work with a very large number of computers, we have 2 VDTs in the closet we use with olde network hardware as needed, and one attached to a PBX. No one I know uses a VDT for doc prep, although I suppose some might still be in use at newspaper facilities. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

VDTsBackLink: ^{[TopicBranch – VDTs]} [inserted by RB 66.217.118.46 (talk) 12:26, 23 January 2011 (UTC)][reply]

Nuujinn,
re: is a single en-space that is twice as wide as a word space a double-space?

You raise the point that since Bringhurst does not talk about "double spacing" (and instead uses en-spacing which is a single character twice as wide as a word character) he isn't to be considered in discussion about whether or not "double-spacing" is "obsolete". Your position seems to run against that of Airborne84, who said:

--Airborne84 (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I list reliable sources (all but Butterick are listed in the Sentence spacing article at this time) that either use the word obsolete, or make statements that fit one of the accepted definitions of obsolete.

...
* Robert Bringhurst. "In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra spaces between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit."

Are you saying that Airborne84 erred when he listed Bringhurst?  Otherwise, please clarify your own statement.  Thanks, RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 07:51, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

From www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/font%5B2%5D,

Definition of FONT
 : an assortment or set of type or characters all of one style and sometimes one size

I have a question here, I looked in WP:MOS and elsewhere and I couldn't find anywhere that said that it is policy that the English Wikipedia uses English (it just says that for talk pages).  Do we agree under WP:UCS that the Sentence Spacing article should use English?  Thanks, RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 12:04, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't know if you want to think of this as an external Wikipedia editor who agrees that the English Wikipedia should use English, or a dissatisfied Wikipedia customer for our Sentence Spacing article; but he/she is discussing the same topic as we are: here.  RB  66.217.118.123 (talk) 23:28, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Doesn't strike me as a reliable source, any more than WP is. I also note that in the example he links to, he's not using two spaces after the full stop in his sentence, but rather a space and a character sequence that gets rendered as a hard space, which I think supports the notion that using two spaces after a period is obsolete. HTML renderers render 2+ spaces as a single space. --Nuujinn (talk) 23:56, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This article has a section labelled "controversy." Is there a controversy on this subject?

With the current wording: no. The use of double spacing after a sentence is stated to be "obsolete." (twice). That's a pretty clear statement, and unless it's cited as an opinion, then there isn't any controversy: it's obsolete, Wikipedia says so, end of story.

--if, on the other hand, there actually is a controversy, and we want to (according to WP:NPOV) "avoid stating seriously contested assertions as facts" and "prefer non-judgmental language," then when one source (or even two sources) use judgmental words like "obsolete" or "misconception," it is worth considering that any particular source might be expressing an opinion on one side of the controversy.

I cannot think of any way to not view the word "misconception" as judgmental language. If I say you have an misconception, is there any possible way to read that other than as expressing the judgment that your opinions are wrong? Geoffrey.landis (talk) 15:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC) A few comments:[reply]

I'd like to make one thing clear. I'm fine with making changes to the article. However, given that the article is a contentious, Featured Article, one editor making changes that are likely to be disputed may not be the best use of WP:BRD. Changes that are likely to be disputed here should be discussed first.

If the consensus of editors here agree that the word should read "conception" instead of "misconception", I will go along with that. I personally believe that the word "misconception" is accurate according to any accepted definition of the word.

That is a misconception on your part. Geoffrey.landis (talk) 01:11, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

However, if the consensus of editors here agree that a change should be made, that's fine. We can certainly make reasonable changes to the article.

As far as the section header "Controversy", I'm not sure what you are proposing. Similar to Global warming, there is little controversy among experts regarding the facts, but there is a controversy in the general public. I suppose that the section header could also say "Public controversy" or "Popular views on sentence spacing", but I would not support a change without a consensus of editors. That the controversy exists in non-expert minds is obvious when reading the section, IMO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Airborne84 (talk • contribs)

Geoffrey, NPOV doesn't mean the article takes no position. It means the article takes no position that is not accepted in the body of literature used. If the sources used in the article state things like "obsolete" and "misconception" in reference to predominant scholarly position, that is what we should say in the article. What sources do you have that contradict these positions? I've read through your various arguments here, but I've not yet seen you introduce any serious sources that back up your claims. Since this is a Featured Article, we want to avoid making changes that degrade the quality of the article. If you insert lead or body text that is not well-sourced and representative of the current body of literature, you are degrading the quality. I urge you to propose changes and sources here first. --Andy Walsh (talk) 22:46, 20 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First, generally agree with Andy Walsh. Second, it is not correct to say that "The use of double spacing after a sentence is stated to be 'obsolete.'" Rather, the WP article states that the convention that leads to its use is obsolete. As a result, there is no contradiction in having a heading "controversy" about a practice the necessity for which may be obsolete, but which persists for various reasons (which are then outlined in the article). I thought the heading was OK (I don't have an objection to "Popular views on sentence spacing", although it may be MOS non-compliant strictly speaking, because it encapsulates the article title). Finally, given the extensive debate on these issues and the articles FA status, i agree these issues should be tackled here on the talk page prior to revisions in the mainspace. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I concur with Andy Walsh as well, and what hamiltonstone has said seems very reasonable as well. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Geoffrey.landis decided to revert my multiple edits that brought the article back in line with Featured Article Criteria, while still including the material he wanted to see in the article.

I don't feel like getting into an edit war, and I am growing tired of this as well. If other editors have opinions on this matter, feel free to weigh in or revert. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:38, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted fifteen consecutive edits by Airborne84, which, as far as I can tell, were done to accomplish the single result of reverting the entirety of the material I had added. Perhaps buried in these deletions were some edits that had the objective of making the article clearer, but if so they were buried too deep to be easily found.

The material I had added can be quickly summarized as attempting to clarify a single point, which is missing in the original article, but is critical to the discussion: There is a distinction between manuscript and print.' Style guides for print are one thing, style guides for manuscripts are another thing, they are not the same. It is possible to insert as many references as you like to discussions of style by typesetters, and they will not affect the question of proper style for manuscripts. Typewriting is not typesetting. Sweeping statements written by typesetters in discussing style in print-- statements like "double spacing is obsolete"-- need to be understood in the contest of typesetting.

With that said, some of Airborne84's individual notes may merit being addressed individually, e.g., the removal of this statement "As of 2010, it is reported by Strizver that the double-space typewriter convention is still being taught widely in school.^[1]" as not relevant to the subject of style guides. To the contrary, however. The best thing to put in this place would be a citation to the actual manual(s) currently used for teaching typing. As it happens, though, although I have a moderate number of style guides and references in the house, I haven't taken a typing course in many decades, and a typing textbook is not one of the things I have easily at hand. It should be clear, I hope, however, that if the double-space typewriter convention is being widely taught, then this must be what is in the associated manual. The sentence is the best I could do at short notice. ( I suppose an alternate way to accomplish this would be to simply state it, and add a "citation needed tag".) Geoffrey.landis (talk) 01:47, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

How strange. I summarized the material you wanted added IAW Featured Article Criteria. I did not delete it, nor did I "revert the entirety of your edits". I made a good faith effort to capture the material that you wanted added. I did not get the same courtesy, however. You thought it would be best to delete every one of my edits, returning it to a clearly non-FA class article, without even reading them? You might understand if I am having a hard time assuming good faith for these actions.

You freely admit adding a statement based on speculation. That violates FA criteria 1.c. and 1.d.

Since you seem to have no qualms about taking an article that exemplifies Wikipedia's "best work", and making edits that violate the FA criteria, would you care to inform the other editors as to what standard you would like the article to achieve? --Airborne84 (talk) 02:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I haven't read the deleted material, but I think the distinction Geoffrey Landis mentions is crucial. In fact, I see four categories:

1. Monospaced fonts (mostly but not entirely historical)

2. Proportional fonts for direct consumption but not typeset professionally, such as most word-processed documents and e-mail.

3. Material submitted to someone who will typeset it.

4. Material typeset professionally, or at least with control of kerning.

In some places, such as the last paragraph of the lead, the current article rightly distinguishes among these. However, many of the obiter dicta in the Typography section, for example, do not. My opinion is that all quotations on the subject should be accompanied with a statement of which categories they apply to. If some of the sources don't make that clear, and including them is desirable anyway, their lack of clarity should be stated. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with the basic issue, it is a massive problem throughout the article.  The problem starts in the first sentence of the article, which defines the article as being confined to typeset text.  But the article then wanders around using a typewriter terminology, "double-spacing".  And you can't tell when the discussion has shifted to VDT displays.  I'm having trouble with your four categories, I earlier listed (1) typesetting, (2) keyboarding, (3) typewriter manuscripts, (4) electronic data files, (5) VDT displays. But I like your point about kerning, I guess you would include justification in that class?  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 13:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I didn't see your categories. The ones I listed cut across your 4 and 5; all of them may be paper, electronic data, or video displays. So that makes even more categories. Also, these days, all of them can be right-justified, so that's yet another issue. But what I had in mind is the capability that users of TeX and publishing software have of making, say, the space after a sentence be 1.3333 times as long as the space between words. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 19:33, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The above thread regarding the neutrality tag for the word "obsolete" has gotten diluted. I'm going to be away for a while, so I'll leave the editors here with relevant sources to use in discussing the tags. Unfortunately, some editors here refuse to accept any wording other than the exact "obsolete" as a paraphrase for that term. Thus, a definition is probably needed to help determine what an acceptable paraphrase is. Merriam-Webster Online gives the following definitions for the word "obsolete": "No longer used, no longer useful, of a kind or style no longer current, old-fashioned." Below, I list reliable sources (all but Butterick are listed in the Sentence spacing article at this time) that either use the word obsolete, or make statements that fit one of the accepted definitions of obsolete.

• David Jury - "why do so many people continue to use the primitive (and entirely obsolete) conventions of the typist?"
• Matthew Butterick in Typography for Lawyers. "Most fonts used in word processors since the mid-1990’s have the correct spacing already adjusted, rendering the traditional double space after a full stop (period) obsolete."
• Ilene Strizver - "Much has changed along the journey from typewriters to setting type on computers. Still, there are a number of typewriting conventions that are no longer relevant but which stubbornly refuse to go away. At the top of this list is the practice of putting two spaces between sentences.
• Robert Brighurst - "Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit."
• Ilene Strizver – "There is never a need for double spaces between sentences when setting type on your computer as was done in typewriter days. In fact, it is a serious type crime." "Forget about tolerating differences of opinion: typographically speaking, typing two spaces before the start of a new sentence is absolutely, unequivocally wrong."
• James Felici. "The typewriter tradition of separating sentences with two word spaces after a period has no place in typesetting. The custom began because the characters of monospaced typefaces used on typewriters were so wide and so open that a single word space—one the same width as a character, including the period—was not wide enough to create a sufficient space between sentences."
• Robert Bringhurst. "In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra spaces between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit."
• Bill Walsh. "Are you still putting two spaces after periods, exclamation points, question marks and colons? You shouldn't be. Some places are still clinging to this typewriter convention, no doubt, but as a standard operating procedure it went out with the IBM Selectric."
• Robin Williams. "Because all characters are monospaced, the tradition was to type two spaces after periods to separate sentences. But most of the fonts you'll use on your Mac are proportional; that is, the characters each take up a proportional amount of space-a typical letter I takes up about one-fifth the space of the letter m. So you no longer need extra spaces to separate the sentences."
• Mignon Fogarty. (after discussion of proportional fonts) "Typewriting used monospace fonts and needed two spaces. Now that most writing is done on computers it is no longer necessary to type two spaces after a period at the end of a sentence."
• Lindsay Rollo. "When using proportional faces, abandon certain type-writing conventions, such as the double space after a full point (stop)."
• Laurie Smith. The current typographic standard for a single space after the period is a reflection of the power of proportionally spaced fonts, which even typewriters (what few there are left) have nowadays. Not only is the need for an extra space negated w/proportional space type, using two spaces creates 'holes' in the middle of a block of text that invariably annoy graphic designers, typographers, and publishers. The extra spacing makes the body text both unattractive as a visual element and distracting to read.
• Bryan Garner, Jeff Newman, and Tiger Jackson. " The custom during the reign of the typewriter was to insert two spaces between sentences and after colons. The reason was that letters on a typewriter are monospaced, as is the Courier font on computers ... Continue the custom only if you use a typewriter or the Courier font."

And an unrelated question/response at the Online Chicago Manual of Style FAQ for some comic relief:

Q. About two spaces after a period. As a U.S. Marine, I know that what’s right is right and you are wrong. I declare it once and for all aesthetically more appealing to have two spaces after a period. If you refuse to alter your bullheadedness, I will petition the commandant to allow me to take one Marine detail to conquer your organization and impose my rule. Thou shalt place two spaces after a period. Period. Semper Fidelis.

A. As a U.S. Marine, you’re probably an expert at something, but I’m afraid it’s not this. Status quo.

That should provide enough information on the topic to determine whether the POV tags are necessary. IMO, these illustrate that the sentences in question are not POV. They simply summarize a notable idea/concept by experts and reliable sources on this topic.

And don't be that Marine... --Airborne84 (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agree, per my comment in an earlier discussion above. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:36, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no question that some people hold the opinion that two spaces is obsolete; I never disagreed with this. That's why it's called a "controversy": people hold opinions. You have selected a set of references in which people express points of view. As long as this is tagged as an opinion it is fine to cite these people, and even cite them as saying that people who disagree with them have a "misconception." It is when Wikipedia casually states this opinion as a fact, and leaves out context (i.e., that the people stating this are talking about typeset copy) which violates NPOV.

Even in the opinions you cite, the actual statements vary wildly in what they actually say. Many of these opinions merely say that double spacing is not "necessary," which is different from saying it is "obsolete." One of the references you cited specifically states "Continue the custom only if you use a typewriter or the Courier font"-- obviously that references does not think it is obsolete, since they are directing people to use it. Another states that monospace font needs two spaces.

Seven of these references specifically state that they are talking about typesetting. That's fine-- I wouldn't have bothered to call it a NPOV violation if the sentence had said, "in typesetting, many modern sources offer the opinion that double spacing at the end of a sentence has become obsolete." Does that phrasing satisfy as a compromise? Geoffrey.landis (talk) 03:45, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

These are not "people." These are established and published experts in this field—all of them. Thus, their "opinions" mean more than the general public.

Also, I see that my omission of the sentence in question has led to confusion. The sentence is: "With the introduction of proportional fonts in computers, double sentence spacing became obsolete." I won't debate the rest of your points now, since you seem to be reading selectively from the above. You've weighed in. Other editors can do so also. --Airborne84 (talk) 04:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is no such thing in being an "expert" in how you "should" typeset. These so-called experts have no authority except the extent to which they are followed in practice. --Trovatore (talk) 05:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

They are reliable sources and that's what we use. If you have reliable sources that differ, please bring them to the discussion. Personal assertions as to what is true don't carry much weight. --Nuujinn (talk) 12:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When prescriptive claims are presented as matters of fact, the situation is different. Let me put it this way. Is moral behavior a question of fact? I for one certainly think so. And there are lots of sources that can be called "reliable" according to WP language that will tell you which behavior is moral.

Nevertheless we do not present their prescriptive assertions as matters of fact. Perhaps they are right, but we don't say so.

We should not in this case either. --Trovatore (talk) 19:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We now know of three sources, Bringhurst, Chicago 1969, and Loh 2002, that have only material favorable to one POV reported in the article, and equally valid countering material missing. 

I think that this entire article has an inherent problem in the near-absence of scholarly opinion, and the absence of such opinion appears in the work of authors who have little that is reliable upon which to base their writings.  For example, there is no scientific hypothesis as to why typesetting style changed from the end of the 18th century to today.  Global warming we have some scientific theories, but typesetting style, no.  Again, the quick way to improve the article for assertions such as the word "obsolete" is in-text attribution.  RB  66.217.118.38 (talk) 14:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

All editors who wish to improve this article are reminded of WP:V and WP:RS - it is not enough to claim that the article does not represent scientific theories, or claim that important sources are overlooked, or that claim important material is missing. You have to provide reliable sources that verify these claims.

I am glad to see new sources and do not doubt that this (and any) article can be improved. However Featured articles are not substantially changed without reliable sources to back up such changes. If this were a poker game, now would be the time to show what is in your hands (or fold). Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 17:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Of course, you don't need sources (and are hardly likely to find any) to point out that the relevance or the meaning of parts of the article is unclear. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 22:10, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a uscourts.gov website, more support to show that authors (such as Wikipedia) who use the word "obsolete" are not reliable in the context when they do so.

www.flmb.uscourts.gov/procedures/documents/styleguide-tpa.pdf , p. 10

There are two spaces between each sentence and one space between each word in a sentence.

RB 66.217.118.161 (talk) 07:03, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Office of Doctoral Studies and Blaising, Craig, The Southern Seminary Manual of Style, Third Edition, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, Copyright 1999, 2000, 2001, p. 41.

Terminal punctuation (periods, exclamation points, and question marks), quotation marks and footnotes following terminal punctuation, and colons may all be followed by one or two spaces as long as the document is consistent.  However, in bibliographies and notes, only one space after punctuation marks (including periods and colons) is allowed.
RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 07:22, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This post is for those considering whether or not typographer David Jury is a reliable author in the context when he says that typewriter conventions are "entirely obsolete".  According to a [reliable source] used by our Sentence Spacing article, the APA Publication Manual is one of three major style guides/manuals.  This post reports the decision of the APA in 2009 to again recommend double-spacing—the APA had published editions in 1994 and 2001 that had gone away from double-spacing.  In July 2009 the 6th edition was published.  The 6th Edition of the manual had some minor but notable revisions to the recommendation between the first and second printing, so it is necessary here to document both.

• APA What's New in the Sixth Edition of the Publication Manual? (applies to both first and second printing) "Punctuation—return to two spaces after the period at the end of the sentence recommended for ease of reading comprehension." [ref]

• 6th Edition, first printing, p. 88, "Space twice after punctuation marks at the end of a sentence" [ref]

• 6th Edition, second printing, p. 88, "Spacing twice after punctuation marks at the end of a sentence aids readers of draft manuscripts." [ref]

Written by an editor of the APA writing on a blog controlled by the APA, the following material is considered to be WP:RS.  It is written by Sarah Wiederkehr, [Editorial Supervisor, APA Journals], on July 29, 2009 at 01:01 PM, and describes why double spacing is current practice for APA. [ref]

...improved readability was the impetus behind the new “two spaces after a period” style recommendation in the Publication Manual. Believe it or not, there is a strong faction of readers out there who prefer this spacing; in fact, many in the legal community require it.

...this recommendation applies to draft manuscripts, not to the published, or final version, of a work. In addition, the inclusion of two spaces after a period in draft manuscripts being submitted for publication is a recommendation, not a requirement. In typeset manuscripts (and on webpages, which are the equivalent), the two spaces are up to the publication designer.

...Our aim was to improve the reading experience for those tasked with reviewing manuscripts. It’s that simple. Thank you for your interest in APA Style!

RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 10:41, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Chicago Guide (ISBN 0226103927, 1987) reads on page 16, "It may prove helpful to you to develop the habit of leaving two spaces after punctuation that ends sentences...Such a procedure will allow you to search for the ends (or beginnings) of sentences...If your publisher requires only one space between sentences...you can...globally change all two-space instances to a single space...Since many typesetters seem untroubled by whether you leave one or two spaces between sentences, the Press recommends that its authors leave two."

Comment: The Chicago Guide was never updated by Chicago Press, and I have given a reliable reference here to show that it is still current.

Comment 2: This post has several purposes.  (1) It gives a reason why double-spacing is "useful".  (2) It relates to Trovatore's and JerryFriedman's interest in 1.333extra-wide sentence spacing, because if a computer can't tell where the end of a sentence is, it can't do 1.333 spacing at the end of the sentence. (3) The new recommendation by APA Style to leave the double spaces in the text given to the publisher matches this Chicago advice.  (4) I have previously listed this reference as refuting the idea that double-spacing is obsolete in electronic data files.  RB  66.217.118.46 (talk) 09:01, 23 January 2011 (UTC) [reply]

Ref

Blockquote follows

IBM Software, Globalization, Guidelines, Guideline C: Respect for culture and conventions

C10: Sentence spacing & punctuation: Allowing the selection of sentence spacing and punctuation

Your product must be capable of implementing appropriate defaults or local customs for punctuation and spacing of words, sentences, paragraphs, chapters, and all other conventional text components.

In North America, it is common to use two spaces after a period before the beginning of the next sentence. This is not the practice in some European countries. Punctuation symbols also vary among languages.

Guideline C10

Allow the user to select the sentence spacing and punctuation characters.

Comment: Online polls (that are not WP:RS) show that half of respondents are using two-spacing.  This WP:RS fills in the gap in saying that two-spacing is "common".  RB  66.217.118.152 (talk) 11:16, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reference: The Chicago Manual of Style (16th ed.). Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 2010. ISBN 9780226104201., p. 60.  Blockquote follows:

2.9 Word spacing--one space or two?
Like most publishers, Chicago advises leaving a single character space, not two spaces, between sentences and after colons used within a sentence (but see 14.121), and this recommendation applies to both the manuscript and the published work.

The point here is that if most publishers advise single spacing, some publishers advise two-spacing.  RB  66.217.118.135 (talk) 00:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Although it pains me to do so right now, I must "turn off" Wikipedia for some time—measured in months. My interest in this topic has not flagged, but various other projects and circumstances are more pressing right now. I'll leave some thoughts for the editors here.

• Please check your biases at the door, on both sides. We all have them.
• WP:BRD is not as useful for a contentious, Featured Article as it is for a stub, start class or B-class article on Wikipedia. As numerous editors here have stated, it is better to discuss contentious changes here at the talk page before making them.
• No one editor should make sweeping changes to a contentious, Featured Article. By its very nature, its status will likely be maintained by making changes only through a consensus of editors.
• If you're planning on making a change to a passage that cites reliable sources—and you have not seen those sources—please check them before changing wording. You might put words in the mouths of the sources that they are not stating.
• If you want to contribute here, you will do Wikipedia readers a disservice by not reading the peer review and three featured article candidate pages for this article. Otherwise you may make edits that prevented this article from becoming an FA in the first place.
• That same disservice will be done by not keeping the Featured Article Criteria in mind when making edits.

I suspect that I'm the only one on the planet with all the references on hand, so if there is a need to determine what one or more says, feel free to e-mail me on my user page. I won't be checking Wikipedia for a while, but I'll be happy to provide source info if needed.

Happy editing! --Airborne84 (talk) 04:12, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What a shame, just when I had a little time to return to discussing this article. I'm going to add some comments anyway and hope you can address them when you come back, or others can address them. Good luck with your other projects! —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:23, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry if any of this has been said above—that's a lot to read.

One thing I think the article needs is the reason so many typographers so strongly oppose double spacing between sentences. It's not readability, since the studies on that are inconclusive. Then what? Esthetics (such as avoiding "quaintness")? Saving paper?

Also, the article says, "modern proportional fonts allow compositors to manually adjust sentence spacing to thousandths of an inch for visually pleasing typesetting". When is this capability used? Do some compositors decrease the spaces after periods ending abbreviations etc. so the reader can tell them from spaces between sentences? I think it would be very interesting to know not only how long the space after a sentence should be, but also whether it should differ from other spaces after periods. In general, I still don't think the article deals well with this distinction.

As I said back in Archive 3, I don't see the relevance of the "Related studies". Surely reporting the results of readability studies is all that will help the reader. The "related studies" are confusing because they purport to explain why extra sentence space is harder to read, but it's not, as far as is known. Furthermore, some of them don't even have a clear connection to sentence spacing. What is meant by "the negative effect on readability caused by inconsistent spacing"—spacing that's inconsistent from one line to the next, or from one word space to another on the same line, or between word spaces and sentence spaces? This and various other problems with the section could be solved by deleting it.

Finally, as I also said back then, I think the article needs to distinguish clearly between deprecating double spacing ("absolutely, unequivocally wrong") and advocating single spacing, instead of mixing them together. People do use the alternative of something in between. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 05:06, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The Related studies section really isn't all that it should be, but more research is needed to determine what exactly it should be. If anything, I propose it should be its own top-level heading and it should talk about inter-disciplinary studies related to the matter that go beyond typography. It should look at human/computer interaction, psychology, information architecture, and so on. --Andy Walsh (talk) 05:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If there are relevant studies in any field, I think adding them would be great. Until someone finds them, though, can you or anyone explain to me the relevance to the article of any of the studies in that section? Keeping in mind that the comparisons of readability were inconclusive. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 20:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

None that I can discern. "Studies" tells us that few direct studies have been done, and "Related studies" provides little more than conjecture. It's difficult to tell if we're reporting the conjecture of the researchers or the author of this page. --Andy Walsh (talk) 20:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree in regard to the "Related Studies" section. I would like to figure out a way to include something about the river effect since from personal experience I know it's relevant to the move to single spaces following a terminal stop. But it seems to be that the studies are so inconclusive that we're not really able to say much at all there that's significant. We could probably collapse that section into 1-2 sentences and do better. One issue is that technology has moved quickly--the discussion of readability on CRTs from 1981, for example, is something my gut is telling me is based on 80x24 fixed width text display that has nothing to do with CRTs per se. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:20, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree about deleting the Related Studies, it is not relevant.  Maybe the encyclopedia could create a stub article with the rivers picture.

I want to note that there is one study of interest (and possibly a second) for the "Studies" section, where webword says:

Eye tracking researcher Dr. Keith Rayner had this to say:

...In 1975, I have a paper in Acta Psychologica that points out that readers skip over the spaces between sentences. You should also see a 1972 Reading Research Quarterly paper by Abrams and Zuber.

However, an examination of online abstracts for these two papers does not immediately yield material relevant to sentence spacing: Rayner 1975, Abrams and Zuber 1972.

RB   66.217.118.161 (talk) 04:48, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a partial response to the question, "I think it would be very interesting to know not only how long the space after a sentence should be, but also whether it should differ from other spaces after periods."  I've got some study notes for this article whose reference would need to be found with Google, that say that today's default in mass-printing is that the word space is between 1/4 and 1/3 em before justification, and 1/4 to 1/2 em after justification.  FYI, RB  66.217.118.161 (talk) 05:12, 22 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It appears that consensus is that the related studies subsection is not of value, so I'm going to go ahead and delete it. --Nuujinn (talk) 00:08, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

[header inserted by RB 66.217.118.118 (talk) 18:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)][reply]

This is a comment about, "Keeping in mind that the comparisons of readability were inconclusive."

In the [Studies] section, people must read the Article carefully to get the meaning.  It does not say, "the studies had inconclusive results"; it says the studies had "inconclusive results favoring single or double spacing."  What is missing is that Loh 2002 says that the absence of statistical significance in reading times between the two is a conclusive result to say,

Since there (is) no added advantage in advocating sentence separation using single-space over double-space, our recommendation is to adhere to the longstanding practice of using double-space for sentence separation, be it in print or for online documents."

To my knowledge, this is the single most-important research study conclusion available on this topic.  RB  66.217.118.185 (talk) 02:12, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

To my knowledge, this is the single most-important research study conclusion available on this topic. To my knowledge, it's not. But my knowledge and your knowledge are not relevant. It seems to me that the study is a primary source, and we discourage use of primary sources partly because we do not have the expertise to evaluate them. From my very limited training in Biology, I would think that "inconclusive results favoring single or double spacing" means that the results were not statistically significant, and thus they could not argue that it was not random chance that led to that result. But I'm not an expert. If we want to discuss studies in the article, I believe what is needed is an overview of the academic literature, written by an expert in a related field. Barring that, esp. given that, as you note, results are inconclusive or there's nothing to point to. --Nuujinn (talk) 14:06, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"But my knowledge and your knowledge are not relevant."  I don't know why you say that.  WP:V and WP:RS only apply to inclusion.  Since we already agree that this study is WP:RS and can be included in the article, our job as editors is to collaboratively use our personal skills to determine the prominence or [WP:Due_weight] of this study to determine if it should be excluded from the article.  Please see the essay [WP:Policy sculpting: inclusion versus exclusion].  Given the shortage of studies available and given the direct relevance of this conclusion, I think that it is evident that this study is prominent.  And in fact we have already decided that the study is prominent because it is already in the article.  If you want to argue that we should not include a prominent conclusion because the absence of statistical significance needs its own metric to determine that the absence is statistically significant, that is what [WP:PRIMARY] policy tells us not to do, we report conclusions without interpreting them.  RB  66.217.118.118 (talk) 18:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I say our knowledge is not relevant because we are not acknowledged experts capable of gauging how important a study of this type is or what it's results mean. Maybe it's important, maybe it's not. I agree that the source is reliable, and we have to determine it's weight for inclusion. But WP:PRIMARY says "Any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source." Do you have a reliable secondary source for interpreting the results of this primary source? If the conclusion is "prominent" as you suggest, finding such should be trivial. Please note we gauge the value of academic articles by the impact they have in there field, often by looking at how often a source is referenced in other academic works, if this article has not been cited in other works, that would suggest it is not a prominent work. Furthermore, I do not believe the results of the study can be used to make the assertion that double spacing is useful or not obsolete, as you apparently wish to do. You say "Given the shortage of studies available and given the direct relevance of this conclusion, I think that it is evident that this study is prominent." My opinion is that the shortage of available studies indicates that the subject is not one of much importance to academics, and that means we should be more cautious about using it, since it is harder to balance the relative weight of the particular study. Also, since the authors of the study are presumably academicians and researcher, not typographers or typesettings, nor the authors of manuals of style, I would suggest that their recommendations carry little weight, esp. given the irony that had they followed their own recommendation, the paper would not have been accepted by the publisher.

That being said, I do not think the inclusion of this particular reference adds much to the article, and personally, I would prefer to remove it because it is a primary source with inconclusive results. But if it remains, I would say that the most we could use it for would be to say that some researchers did studies on readability and got inconclusive results as to whether double spacing aids readability. Perhaps other disagree, and I would welcome additional comments. --Nuujinn (talk) 18:34, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Quoting a research conclusion does not take an expert and is not "interpreting".  No, we determine the weight of its prominence toward exclusion, being WP:RS is sufficient for inclusion.  That is backwards that scholarly opinion is based on journeymen typographers instead of academics.  Conclusions are by definition conclusive, and this research conclusion is of interest to readers of the Article.  RB  66.217.117.21 (talk) 08:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nuujinn, Here is what you said earlier, "Yes, and I just reviewed the discussion on Talk:Sentence_spacing/Archive_4#Loh.2C_Branch.2C_Shewanown.2C_and_Ali._.282002.29_.22The_Effect_of_Text_Spacing_After_the_Period....22. I think others should do the same, but I do not agree with your interpretation that the material was excluded because it was embarrassing."  I don't know how you get that, Airborne84 repeated himself, "(3). This would have been embarrasing to the authors. The third reason was the most important for me. Although I found the situation a bit humorous, I decided against putting potentially embarrassing information for the authors in the article."  And again later, "I had several reasons for not including these passages (already described above), but the primary one was not to embarrass the authors."  RB  66.217.117.21 (talk) 08:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, what's your point? --Nuujinn (talk) 17:11, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Olusesi, et al. 2006 is a secondary reference when it refers to Ali et al. 2002 and says,

Three iterations of research related to Sentence Period Spacing, have been conducted by Loh, Branch, Shewanown, & Ali (2002), Clinton, Branch, Holschuh, & Shewanown (2003) and Ni, Branch & Chen (2004). None of these prior rounds produced any empirical evidence to support the new trends in sentence period spacing.

(1) Olusesi, et al. 2006 resolves the allegation that there was an academic error of some kind made in Loh et al. 2002.  (2) The move from two-spacing to one-spacing is in 2006 considered by these academics to be a "new trend".  RB  66.217.117.21 (talk) 08:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This ref says, "Dr. Rob Branch is Professor and Head of the Department of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology at the University of Georgia."

This is Dr. Branch's C.V.

Regarding Dr. Branch's department, this web page says, "We are a graduate-only department composed of 41 faculty, 240 graduate students, and six professional staff."

This webpage says that the department offers "graduate programs that are perennially ranked among the nation's top 20 by U.S. News and World Report..."
RB  66.217.117.21 (talk) 08:35, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

RB, this is silly. You have in, my opinion, a very bad case of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT. I have never suggested that these are not fine fellows. Their work is a primary source, and I do not think we should use it unless you can find a secondary source that discusses it, and I think that my position is supported by WP:PRIMARY. You are not going to change my mind by continuing to reassert your opinion over and over and over again. If you have some good secondary sources to support your desire edits, fine, we can talk about them. --Nuujinn (talk) 17:18, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

^{[TopicBranch – VDTsBackLink]}
Nuujinn, I take it that you don't like the term VDT display, what term do you suggest instead?  Thanks, RB  66.217.118.46 (talk) 12:46, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nonsense, I think it is a fine term for an antiquated technology. I don't suggest anything instead, I just do not see any need to include it in the article. --Nuujinn (talk) 13:57, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Whether or not we include it in the article, I'd like to have a common language to discuss the many contexts or categories to which extra-wide sentence spacing applies.  JerryFriedman used the term "video displays", maybe that will work.  Thanks, RB  66.217.117.191 (talk) 21:09, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We follow what the sources say. But note that a VDT is a terminal, such as a 3270 with limited graphical ability. Video Display is not a strict synonym. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:24, 23 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with RB that the studies of readability are one of the most important things in the article. Readability is a highly relevant fact. If no secondary sources discuss these primary sources, that's too bad (and greatly to the discredit of the authors of secondary sources, though not making them unreliable). But it says here, "A primary source may only be used on Wikipedia to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source." I think that's quite reasonable, and I think that's what we've got with the readability studies, contrary to what Nuujinn said above. I agree with Airborne84 that we shouldn't rely on them for "traditional" typographical practice, but we can for readability, even if their conclusions aren't exciting.

I think the readability studies should be close to the beginning.

It should be clear that the statements from the typographers are statements of current practice, not of any other kind of fact (that I noticed), and of taste. A typographer's opinion that double sentence spacing is "wrong" is in the same category as a fashion designer's opinion, or even a consensus among fashion designers, that it's "wrong" for women to wear brown.

I think the "studies" section is much better now, including the retention of the material on "rivers", since it's the only indication that the typographers' preference for single spacing has some kind of basis. Perhaps we could add somewhere the statement that rivers are ugly (as a matter of taste). —JerryFriedman (Talk) 21:26, 28 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have skipped some of the recent back-and-forth since I did not think the topic was being significantly advanced. However, on a quick review now I notice that your comment might be building on your earlier comment above (05:06, 21 January 2011) where you mention the article not providing a reason why typographers strongly oppose double spacing. I don't think we are ever going to get that reason, but my feeling is that none is needed because typographers (more or less by definition) are people who spend hours worrying about whether an almost imperceptible squiggle on a letter should go this way or that. It seems natural to me that such people would have strong opinions on sentence spacing, both in manuscript and typeset form.

I agree that the issue of sentence spacing is closer to fashion than science, and the article should not strive for scientific rigor—it boils down to "X thinks one space is good" vs. "Y thinks two spaces are better". However, what counts are the current style guides and the other sources in the article that recommend single spacing. The article can't do any more than present a summary of those recommendations. Johnuniq (talk) 03:52, 29 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that the article should present a summary of those recommendations (including those few that more or less grudgingly accept double spacing), but it should be explicit that the recommendations are just matters of taste or even fashion. I also agree that it doesn't look like we'll get a reason other than the bit about rivers. —JerryFriedman (Talk) 04:24, 3 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would have expected this article to mention that SGML and XML require whitespace to be collapsed to a single space (unless special characters are used) - this is probably as significant as proportional fonts in the decline of double-spacing for computer-generated documents. I'm not sure what section this would best be placed in, though. dramatic (talk) 04:50, 15 February 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds like a useful addition. For that level of detail, I'd recommend adding it to the article Sentence spacing in digital media. The paragraph here is only a summary of that article. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:49, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dramatic: I think that it is an urban legend that proportional fonts had something or anything to do with the changes in style guides from two to one spaces.  At this point I think it unlikely that this article will find reliable documentation as to why these changes occurred in the 1990s, just as we have little explanation from APA in 2009 as to why they switched back to recommending two spaces.  This is one of the things that makes this article challenging, there are more opinions that reliable facts.  I think that we continue to have a WP:Due weight and a WP:RS problem in this article.

I am unclear on your reference to SGML and XML.  If you consider them to be in the same class as HTML, then I agree that the history of HTML is an important missing story here.  RB  66.217.117.17 (talk) 17:22, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Greetings. I'm back from forced Wikipedia rehab. I've been surprisingly productive in the meantime. A couple of points:

1. I had hoped that the neutrality tags would be resolved. Since they weren't I just addressed the original accusation of POV for specific words (obsolete, misconception), changed them to other words, and removed the neutrality tags. Normally, I'd open it to discussion first, but I chose wording that should be acceptable to all, IMO. I hope that is the case.

2. I'll admit to some disappointment about the removal of the related studies. I specifically chose studies that I could link to this topic with statements from reliable sources. Moreover, during my (rather extensive) research on this topic on the Internet, I read through thousands of blogs. People on both sides made claims to readability. Never did I see a single study to back up the claim. This article was the only repository of direct and related studies—on the planet—for people to reference. As an encyclopedia, I thought they would be relevant. But I understand that I wasn't here to clearly provide the link between the related studies and sentence spacing. Perhaps I should have done that more clearly in the text itself. Spilt milk. --Airborne84 (talk) 01:46, 17 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I see RB reverted my attempts to address Geoffrey Landis' original assertions of POV. Since RB simply brought up new and different acccusations of POV, without suggesting changes, I'll just wait for other editors to weigh in as they see fit. --Airborne84 (talk) 02:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Twice recently we have seen the word "accusations".  The word "simply" is hyperbole.  I think that words like this charge the atmosphere and do not encourage the building of consensus.  RB  66.217.118.102 (talk) 04:08, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think that this edit had a right idea, although it was reverted.  RB  66.217.118.102 (talk) 04:08, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have documented that each of the three major style guides shows that double-sentence spacing is not obsolete.  One of the three major style guides has switched from a one-space recommendation to a two-space recommendation, including sending final draft manuscripts to the publisher with two spaces if not advised to do otherwise.  The only author to use the word "obsolete" is a little-known author whose school does not list him, and his other credentials are light.  He also doesn't use the word "obsolete" in the way that is being used in the article.  In summary, I do not think his opinion merits an inline quote.  One of R. Williams opinionated quotes might merit inclusion because of the influence of the opinions.  On the other hand, Bringhurst's quote about the dark and inflationary age seems to be worth reading more than once:

Robert Bringhurst. "In the nineteenth century, which was a dark and inflationary age in typography and type design, many compositors were encouraged to stuff extra spaces between sentences. Generations of twentieth-century typists were then taught to do the same, by hitting the spacebar twice after every period. Your typing as well as your typesetting will benefit from unlearning this quaint Victorian habit.

  RB  66.217.118.102 (talk) 04:08, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to try to address all of your statements. It's better to simply let other editors weigh in. I'll address two though:

• The edit you mention strips out a sentence that captures the position of many reliable sources. I listed thirteen in a thread above (and could list more)—two of which use the word "obsolete," and 11 others that paraphrase the same. This position by numerous reliable sources merits inclusion in this article, no matter how much you would prefer it be deleted. The material you note as a "rebuttal" exists already in the article, although it's only your interpretation that they rebut the "obsolete" claim made by many experts. We cannot use your interpretation in the article.
• You seem to have an issue with the material that says modern fonts can adjust the spacing between characters. I've preferred to stay out of this discussion (it seemed kind of pointless), but since you seem to persist in this objection, I'll give you a reference. See the back of Felici's The Complete Manual of Typography, where he lists a complete kerning table for a selected font. It shows different kerning values for various glyphs and punctuation marks. Whether you think it's true or not is irrelevant. It's verifiable. Let's please use the language of Wikipedia. I'll agree that there are plenty of nuances that could be discussed IRT this topic. Those nuances don't belong here. They might find a welcome home in Sentence spacing in digital media. To go into unnecessary detail here will violate Featured Article Criterion 4.

I won't address your reversions other than to say that you reverted back to language that was originally objected to as POV. I don't know why you think that's an improvement, but I'll just let others have their say.--Airborne84 (talk) 05:12, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with Airborne84, and have restored his last version. Others should chime in on this issue. --Nuujinn (talk) 19:52, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there anyone here that disputes using English for the Sentence spacing article?  The alternative would be that it ok to use words in ways that do not have a dictionary definition, especially as regards the word "font".  66.217.117.17 (talk) 18:51, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what you're getting at. There are accepted definitions for the word "font" though. See Theodore Rosendorf's Typographic Desk Reference and Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic Style for example. --Airborne84 (talk) 19:42, 20 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]