7 ms·

Pedantic, perhaps, but within the purview of an editor of an encyclopedia enforcing a style guideline!

chx 3y ago
Except there is no such thing. To quote. > Wikipedia does not have a policy or guideline on whether "comprised of" is welcome in the encyclopedia. This is nothing less but one person trying to punch way above their weight in shaping the English language.
- nicklaf 3y ago
  Hmm, I suppose I'm inclined to agree with you here. If Wikipedia chooses not to adopt a style guideline on matters like this, his little quest to robo-edit this phrase is unrepresentative of Wikipedians.
- tasuki 3y ago
  They're trying to influence the English language for sure. Who are you to say they're punching above their weight?
  - prepend 3y ago
    They’re enforcing a style that’s not in a work’s style guide. That’s a total noob move for pedants. A more at weight pedant would work on changing the style guide. This is the equivalent of a self appointed hall monitor yelling “no skipping in the school hallway” when there’s no rule against skipping. The fact that some people don’t like skipping and that skipping is dangerous is not relevant, the place for that discussion is for the rules nerds in authority to change the rules to disallow skipping. What worries me about this approach of one person is that they can say “I yelled at people 90k times to stop skipping therefore it’s important and we should change the rule based on all this anti-skipping activity.”
    - denton-scratch 3y ago
      > A more at weight pedant would work on changing the style guide. Language pedantry is deprecated in Wikipedia. WP is resolutely descriptivist. I regret that; I'm fully on-board with the notion that language changes. But I'm not OK with the idea that there are no rules at all. Humpty Dumpty was wrong; English is not a language where any string of words could have any meaning. This is especially important in an encylopaedia.
      - prepend 3y ago
        I agree that there are rules. I think the subject in this article is not following the rules.

chx 3y ago

Except there is no such thing. To quote. > Wikipedia does not have a policy or guideline on whether "comprised of" is welcome in the encyclopedia. This is nothing less but one person trying to punch way above their weight in shaping the English language.

nicklaf 3y ago
Hmm, I suppose I'm inclined to agree with you here. If Wikipedia chooses not to adopt a style guideline on matters like this, his little quest to robo-edit this phrase is unrepresentative of Wikipedians.
tasuki 3y ago
They're trying to influence the English language for sure. Who are you to say they're punching above their weight?
- prepend 3y ago
  They’re enforcing a style that’s not in a work’s style guide. That’s a total noob move for pedants. A more at weight pedant would work on changing the style guide. This is the equivalent of a self appointed hall monitor yelling “no skipping in the school hallway” when there’s no rule against skipping. The fact that some people don’t like skipping and that skipping is dangerous is not relevant, the place for that discussion is for the rules nerds in authority to change the rules to disallow skipping. What worries me about this approach of one person is that they can say “I yelled at people 90k times to stop skipping therefore it’s important and we should change the rule based on all this anti-skipping activity.”
  - denton-scratch 3y ago
    > A more at weight pedant would work on changing the style guide. Language pedantry is deprecated in Wikipedia. WP is resolutely descriptivist. I regret that; I'm fully on-board with the notion that language changes. But I'm not OK with the idea that there are no rules at all. Humpty Dumpty was wrong; English is not a language where any string of words could have any meaning. This is especially important in an encylopaedia.
    - prepend 3y ago
      I agree that there are rules. I think the subject in this article is not following the rules.