Talk:De facto/Archive 1

US measurement
"... kilometre, which is the de jure standard for road distances in the United States". It is? (I've lived here all my life, and I've never seen it used on anything official.) Is there an example of a place it's used, or a reference to the law in question? I'm curious now.

Yep, the US government's official weights and measures are metric, including metres and kilometres (note that the official spelling is British, for some reason). But even though they tried to make a law requiring conversion to metric units some time in the 1970s, they couldn't convince the public of it and backed down. Still, metric is US official. RickK 23:21, Sep 23, 2004 (UTC)

Nope. See "Metric Conversion at State Option" in TEA-21 - Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century.

Metric is annoying.


 * I expect he spelling of metres and kilometres etc is spelt that way because that is the way it's spelt! It's not "British" usage, it's French, who invented the system. A meter is a device to measure something. By the way, metric isn't annoying, it's simple and easy. Chains, Furlongs, Gallons (US or Imperial)? are all annoying, and cause huge problems - look at the that NASA craft that went wrong because somebody thought it would be a great idea to specify something in grains per dram horsepower squared or somesuch. That error cost billions, a measure of money. Which is already metric, and you don't complain about that, do you? ;-) Graham 00:49, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * But Americans SPELL them meter, kilometer. For some reason, the government decided that not only were they going to force them down our throats, they were going to force non-US spelling down our throats.  RickK 05:12, Sep 24, 2004 (UTC)
 * People are stupid. lysdexia 09:24, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Well this is certainly some enlightened debate. Cigarette 15:34, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)
 * The spellings, like the measures, are standardised. If Americans spell them differently, I've no idea why. The fact that the "official" usages use the correct spellings seems to indicate a bit of a split here, though. &mdash;Zootm 09:31, 26 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Sounds like that NASA situation was all the metric system's fault...Travis T. Cleveland (talk) 04:02, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggested merger

 * oppose merger. De jure and de facto are different concepts.  A reader who wants the full understanding of the distinction will need to read both articles, but many readers will be looking for information on one specific member of the pair.  They shouldn't have to wade through all of the stuff about the other concept. JamesMLane 06:50, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose These are related yet distinct (and prevalent) concepts that should remain in separate articles.  I would actually encourage the use in Wp of English translations for these terms (remember George Orwell's rules of writing?): "in law" (legal/juridical) and "in fact" (actual/factual), respectively. E Pluribus Anthony 07:53, 10 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Oppose Just came here looking for de jure specifically, don't see the benefit of merging, the hyperlinks between the two work quite well as they are --Pluke 19:31, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Suggested Deletion
FYI, this was decided a long time ago, it's a keeper
 * oppose deletion for all the same reasons given in the merger section above.--Mike18xx 08:46, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * oppose this is useful information. and is different from de facto in enough way to keep it seperate. 142.232.142.2 (talk) 19:13, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Removed Statement
I have removed the statement "There have been bids to change the U.S. to communism by G. W. Bush" for obvious reasons--Matt D 00:52, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Official languages of the Soviet Union
It is too simplistic to say that Russian was "the" de facto official language of the Soviet Union. Many of the various republics and such making up the USSR had their own official languages that were actively used. The claim should be reserved for the administrative level of Soviet state institutions. Perhaps someone knows a better example? Lambiam Talk 03:00, 16 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I think the person who wrote this section was confused over Poland, Finland and such. And they don't count.

-G —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 134.117.157.66 (talk) 04:25, 15 December 2006 (UTC).

Suggested Input
This stuff was useful, but not put in very well.

The law dictionaries of the world have a more precise definition that many researchers shirk as of the revealing nature of those definitions. This link provides clarity in that regard. http://www.pixi.com/~kingdom/defacto.html

Rape is a de facto act being unlawful while marital coitus is dejure, meaning lawful.

Deception is applied in the art of twisting definitions!

Maybe someone can fix it.Minnesota1 17:39, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

"Rape is defined as a de facto act while marital coitus is dejure." I don't understand what this sentence means at all. Marital sex is legally recognized and rape is... generally accepted practice? That can't be what you're trying to say. Conspire 20:54, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Various ongoing vandalization
The user 208.114.190.23 made a "contribution" to this page on 2006-09-13T15:11:27 which was negative, cynical and POV. Unfortunately, it was not correctly reverted and shreds of his edit have (through futile clean up efforts) mutated into of garbage statements like "de facto designates illegitimate action of what happens in practice (which has substantially been established as unlawful)." and "unlawful governor general". This user has a terrible bias that all de facto leaders are illegitimate by definition, as evidenced by his "contributions" to De facto head of state. For the record, he is also the one who made the statement about rape in the above section. If I had more time I would clean up the remnants of his legacy but I don't. I leave this note for someone to consider for future cleanup. -- abfackeln 12:11, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

This user seems to ignore the law dictionaries all saying de facto is unlawful usurped tyrannical assumption of power.....try pixie and de facto in your seach engine and bone up on definitions....even the world bank admits it is bogus! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.191.93.216 (talk) 21:27, 29 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I probably shouldn't argue with you since you are either pushing an agenda or you are a troll. But I will point one thing out:  Regardless of what you think the "law dictionaries" say, there are many uses of the phrase (and thousands of regions with different law books) so these definitions that you give only represent one particular (and clearly biased) use of the phrase and should be represented as such.  As an aside, I took your advice and tried the search engines on your colourful definition of the phrase to see where you got that from and found only this:  No results found for "unlawful usurped tyrannical assumption of power".  Perhaps some of those adjectives were your own.  -- abfackeln (talk) 17:53, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

merge with de jure
I'm floating the idea of merging with de jure again (I realize a prior proposal exists and that we was rejected) as well as Desuetude.

de jure and de facto. In point of fact is that the above rejection focused on the difference between the two concepts. The current de facto page mentions de jure 12 times and the current de facto page mentions de jure 4 times in just 2 paragraphs (excluding the 'see also'). Furthermore, in my opinion, this page does a better job with concept of de jure than the de jure page. I propose the merged page's title be "de jure and de facto" and incorporate the contrast with "de jour."

 merge with desuetude. If you are going to have the two concepts on one page, it would also make sense to have the concept of transfer between the two on the same page. I think that grouping these three would make for a nice encyclopedia article that covers the topic of dealing with when the law and common practice differ, and how this is dealt with in law. The typical reader I think would be left with a more complete picture of each concept in the merged article. Pdbailey 20:26, 10 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose. Each article has hundreds of links to it.  Some articles link to both of these but many link to only one or the other; quite a few readers will come to one of these articles because they want a summary explanation of that particular concept rather than a comprehensive treatment of the divergence between law and common practice.  Readers seeking the latter can do fairly well by reading both articles. JamesMLane t c 21:20, 10 October 2007 (UTC)
 * JamesMLane,(1) would you oppose merging just de jure and de facto? (2) How exactly are the two articles different now (i.e. what do you say to my argument that they are just different in length, but both focus on de jure vs de facto)? i.e. would you propose removing the definition of de jure in the header of de facto? Pdbailey 00:36, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * (1) Yes, I'd oppose it. (2) The introductory sections of each are similar; both focus on the distinction.  The De facto article fleshes out that specific concept more, perhaps because it's used more often.  Still, having separate articles allows for future expansion of each.


 * You're right that this setup produces some duplication of material, but I think it's the best way to serve the largest number of readers. From that standpoint, I see no need to remove the references to de jure from the De facto article (or vice versa). JamesMLane t c 04:31, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Support. Even though de facto and de jure are both different concepts, de jure is too short to be considered an encyclopedia article in my opinion. The number of references to de jure in the de facto article seem to lend themselves to be merged together. If they were to remain seperate, de jure references need to be cut down in the de facto article and added to the de jure article to give de jure a better treatment. Fire e23 06:28, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Oppose as per JamesMLane and to maintain clarity and also that Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia where arguments of brevity would carry more weight.  A l i c e  ✉ 21:45, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, I've made no brevity argument. My argument was that the two articles overlap completely, and would benefit from being on the same page, similar to A_priori_and_a_posteriori_(philosophy) which were merged. Pdbailey 02:57, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the clarification. Do you believe that there is an overlap with Desuetude? I also think it would be unhelpful as far as wikilinking goes - having separate articles assists disambiguation.  A l i c e  ✉ 11:27, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
 * No, I don't think there is overlap. I guess I think of an article as covering a topic instead of covering a word. But I guess it's just a difference of opinion. Perhaps between me and the plurality of wikipedians. Pdbailey (talk) 03:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

As I would expect from someone of your background, your logic is faultless, PDB. We do indeed have the Wikidictionary for articles on words as opposed to ideas.

One of my justifications for keeping the articles separate is that it makes it easier for neophytes to link to de facto or de jure or desuetude etc, rather than having to learn to pipe to an article on the whole topic such as redundancies of law, whatever.

The same rationale means I am in favour of enforcing registration on Wikipedia (heaven knows that it is easy enough and a very low hurdle of basic interest and good intention) and then having a graded system of wait times for articles prone to vandalism as the more efficient (if less theoretically pure) stance.

How do you prefer to be addressed? May I call you Paul, or do you prefer PDB or something else entirely?

Do you think we should stick in a "see also" to desuetude?  A l i c e  ✉ 13:06, 28 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Alice, it's awfully kind of you to champion the cause of the neophyte, but let me assure you that there are also bots that cleanup links to redirects, saving the masses from the feared seamless redirect link. More seriously, in my opinion, Wikipedia is closer to a dictionary/encyclopedia blend (these articles and the "every word or phrase must have a page" mentality are strong contributors to that). But this may not be an awful thing, I don't know. In general the argument goes that eventually every article converges to the perfect article. My thought is that minimizing maintenance and focusing editing on fewer articles will make the wikipedia the best (insert what wikipedia is here) it can be. More editors paying attention to fewer tight articles is the way to make the wikipedia best. You may notice for example the difference in the de jure and de facto articles, other examples like this abound. Pdbailey (talk) 03:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Of course I champion the neophyte - I'm one. And thanks for giving me a lot to think about once again. I've already stuck in the "see also" to desuetude. Is there really a bot that sorts out the redlinks automagically?  A l i c e  ✉ 03:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Italicisation of de facto?
I've copied this dialogue from my talk page:-  A l i c e  ✉ 21:41, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Your recent edits at de facto appear to have changed many non-italic text bits to italics. This is in contradiction two principles. (1) If it's in an English dictionary, it's appropriated and should not be italicized (this is the Chicago manual of styles definition of appropriation, but Wikipedia does not have one to the best of my knowledge and it's a good rule of thumb), and (2) the exclusion for the topic of the article in WP:ITALICS. Would you mind fixing the article so that neither de facto, nor de jure is italicized? Pdbailey 13:54, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to explain your point of view.

My reasoning was as follows:

1) a) Is "de jure" a phrase or a word? I decided that it was a foreign phrase (in latin) that did not (yet) have everyday usage (other than in legal and constitutional, etc, circles) and, therefore, that "Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages...". Adding weight to this argument was that de jure is usually italicized in legal texts

b) an additional consideration was that, throughout our article, de jure is contrasted with de facto and it is helpful to italicise to emphasise the distinction.

2) I did not italicise de jure in the title of the article as per WP:ITALICS but think that in the body of the article the italicisation is clearer and thus trumps any style preference but realise that this is a fine point.

I have, therefore, copied this passage to our article's discussion page for further input from other editors. That being the case, I would prefer not to self-revert until consensus has been achieved but do feel free to revert me if you are utterly convinced I am wrong since I am very new here!

I also think it might be worth you starting a discussion on the Chicago manual of style's definition of appropriation at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (text formatting) which, I'm sure, would benefit from your erudite input?  A l i c e  ✉ 21:35, 20 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Alics.S, can we agree on an interpretation of this passage from WP:ITALICS, "When the article topic is itself a foreign term without equivalent in English, it is best not to italicize through the article, although other terms from the same language may be." I think it clearly needs interpretation in this case because de jure and de facto both appear on this page. Pdbailey 23:33, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this passage supports your argument and weakens my own. The phrase "do not italicize words that appear in an English language dictionary" also supports your position.

We can definitely agree that italicization should be consistent throughout our article - all or none.

However, I do think that the passage you quote must be read in the context of the general convention in the non-US English world (and, it seems, in Wikipedia) that italics for phrases in other languages are preferred - hence my proposal on the discussion page of the guideline WP:ITALICS.

As a newbie I was also intrigued by the following Wikipedia policy (as opposed to guideline): WP:IAR - so that we can follow my own favourite guide to style which says "1. FOREIGN WORDS AND PHRASES, such as cabinet (French type), de jure, glasnost, in camera, intifada, loya jirga, Mitbestimmung, papabile, perestroika, ujamaa, should be set in italics unless they are so familiar that they have become anglicised and so should be in roman." http://www.economist.com/research/styleGuide/index.cfm?page=805685  A l i c e  ✉ 02:11, 21 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Alice, your "favorite" guideline is actually saying that those words are appropriated. Why don't you change back the italics on this page. Pdbailey 02:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I have modified my proposal at discussion page. If accepted, this modified proposal would mean that the italicization for both "de jure" and "de facto" should be expunged.

I also think that Pdbailey was being over-generous to my argument when he struck through his comments above; while The Economist is helpful to my general argument it is fatal to what I perpetrated on this article. Sorry!  A l i c e  ✉ 05:38, 21 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure what's fatal to what, but failing any response over on the guidelines page, I'd say the rule that's in force here is that the topic of the article should not be italicized. My point earlier was that there is an ongoing disagreement as to what that is (i.e. de facto only, or de facto and de jure). Assuming that no merge happens, it's still an issue because de jure appears 13 times in total on this page, and too much emphasis is jarring to the eye. This is (in my opinion) a case for WP:IAR and either the first instance of both (and only the first instance) should be italicized, or no instances of either should be italicized. Pdbailey 06:15, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I would now agree that the first instance of both (and only the first instance) should be italicized. Would you liked to make the changes, Pdbailey, since you are much more experienced than I?  A l i c e  ✉ 06:23, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

I am a student at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. While we do not generally italicize the words de jure or de facto, they should and must remain in italics in the encyclopedia for them to remain useful. That they come from the original Latin is incredibly important for someone such as myself, who just looked up the word de jure for use in a financial law thesis (co-authored work, and we are studying Finance so we have to do research on financial applications and investments rather than law. We are writing the paper as an additional work for our own scholarship and, of course, for credit), it is imperative that latin quotes be italicized to demonstrate the context in which use of the word makes sense. To argue that these words are common parlance is mistaken; they are for academia and jurisprudence. I hope that they will remain separate articles as well, for both successfully complete the objective of the article, and the need to merge them would make it more difficult to come to the meaning and usage of de jure quickly, which is very important to most users. When one wants to know a simple thing, all that is required is a simple response. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.85.31 (talk) 02:36, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * This is a failing of the WP style guidelines which try to narrowly define italic text to mean emphasis or the first use of a word/phrase, whereas in real life italics have many other meanings, which can include abbreviations, phrases or words borrowed from a foreign language, and brand names.
 * Maybe we should be using bold for emphasis and first appearance of key words/phrases, so that we have more freedom to use italics for other things.
 * Personally my writings often contain a fair amount of mathematics, which requires italics for yet another reason, and combined with the use of italics for things like foreign words and brand names, I find it is unhelpful to also use italics for emphasis.
 * In printed matter we have other options besides only italics, and bold (...and underline), such as small caps, lightface and wide letter-spacing. Not so much of an option on Web 2.0.  Maybe Web 3.0....
 * —DIV (137.111.13.4 (talk) 02:36, 2 April 2014 (UTC))

Portuguese
Portuguese is derived from Latin, but in Portugal, the expression de facto is commonly used as meaning "indeed". Should that be mentioned? --Midasminus 17:29, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Since this is the English language Wikipedia, I would think not, on balance  A l i c e  ✉ 00:36, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Merge:De jure
Wikipedia is not a dictionary. It contains articles on topics, not on words or terms. We currently have an alright and a poor article for de facto and de jure. The term "de jure" is rarely used other than when also mentioning something being "de facto", so I think the two topics are similar enough to be one topic. By merging these articles, we will have less repetition, easier maintenance, and benefiting from the combined contributions that the two articles currently get, we will sooner get this topic to Good Article standard. --Gronky (talk) 20:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * support per my proposal. --Gronky (talk) 20:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Discussed above and rejected. One Night In Hackney  303  20:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, 2 for and 2 against doesn't seem like a set-in-stone rejection :-) and that seems to have been a proposal to merge 3 articles, not the same as my proposal to merge 2 articles. --Gronky (talk) 21:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * OK, see the much earlier discussion too. It's rejected every time it comes up, so I don't see the point in repeatedly bringing it up until the desired (for some people) result is gained. One Night In Hackney  303  21:10, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I haven't read the previous threads on this, but if it keeps coming up, one has to wonder if it's because it's obviously a good idea. --Gronky (talk) 08:03, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * comment: one of the two opposing was a sock puppet. Pdbailey (talk) 21:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Alice? I'm well aware that was a sockpuppet, given I prepared the checkuser that confirmed the sockpuppetry. However there was no abusive sockpuppetry involved in their contributions here (only the continued harassment of editors who edit Troubles related articles), so I don't really see the point in pointing that out? One Night In Hackney  303  21:43, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree that Alice's sockpuppet status was not directly related to the above vote--I might have reopened the vote myself if that were the case. Never the less, Alice was a sockpupet, and I think that is an important piece of information when one weighs the last vote. I can see how one would read my comment to imply more than it does, and I'm very sorry for the lack of clarity. Pdbailey (talk) 22:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * support an example of an entry in the Encyclopedia Britannica is "World War II." If they can bring together the allies and the axis in one article, I think we can bring together these two antonyms. Pdbailey (talk) 21:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Oppose for reasons I and others stated above in . As for Pdbailey's point, Wikipedia has separate articles on Allies of World War II and Axis powers, as well as World War II.  I would oppose merger of those articles as well. JamesMLane t c 22:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Support: it is better for Wikipedia readers (the same subjects in the same page) and for collaboration (more people editing in the same place), and is more encyclopedic (the same concept that have 2 faces and 2 terms, one for each face). The "de jure" article is shorter if compared with "de facto" (then merge to "de facto"), and "de jure" will stay as a redirect to "de facto". --Krauss (talk) 21:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Support: I for one was trying to find out about both at same time, and they are quite similar so it seems like a good idea. Joel.labes (talk) 00:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Opppse They concepts are both equally important; the fact that one term is more popular than the other shouldn't determine a merge in my view. Udonknome (talk) 01:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Note, May 6th: I've now advertised this discussion on Proposed_mergers. --Gronky (talk) 12:31, 6 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose as a JD/MBA student the present setup works quite well for its purpose (wiki is used tons by students and academics, while admittedly many others refer to it as well, academia has endowed us with standards for research, the integrity of which should not be messed with simply because someone wants to make things more condensed on the site. That is not the purpose of an encyclopedia, and many broken links would occur as a result of the merge as a final nail in the coffin of that proposal.  The articles are fine as they are, succinct and clear, and they should remain distinct.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.253.85.31 (talk) 02:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose Separate topics, so separate articles. Not being paper, we can have some duplication. DGG (talk) 00:16, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * DGG, I think this attitude is detrimental to Wikipedia because it ignores that there is only so much editing effort on Wikipedia and that focusing it on fewer articles leads to better articles. As evidence, I offer these two articles. I have been surprised (and initially disappointed) at time at how far up the concept chain I got kicked for some things I tried to look up, but then when I start reading, I have been very pleased with the quality of article/section I did find. In contrast, sometimes I find exactly the article I want and it is nothing more than a stub or simply poorly written and uncared for. Pdbailey (talk) 22:20, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Support: Right. They're opposite ideas.  They should have a link between which is already there.  no need to merge different articles.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.174.12.211 (talk) 21:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Oppose: I agree. While both articles certainly need copy-editing, and "De jure" certainly needs to be expanded, I do not think that it would be beneficial to merge the articles. Warflango (talk) 01:38, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose: I see no reason to merge pages for two opposite concepts. That would be like merging pages for "Hot" and "Cold" or "Good" and "Evil." PLSublett (talk) 10:14, 20 June 2008 (UTC) 

Improper close
By my count, the proposed merger was supported by five editors (Gronky, Pdbailey, Krauss, Joel.labes, and 67.174.12.211) and opposed by six (JamesMLane, Udonknome, 69.253.85.31, DGG, Warflango, and PLSublett). On what basis was the proposal implemented despite the responses to the survey? JamesMLane t c 15:22, 8 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Additionally, 67.174.12.211, though saying Support, is semantically opposed to it; he did say "no need to merge different articles." Unless there were other reasons for going through with the merge, the fact that it was implemented anyway is absurd. 208.59.132.251 (talk) 20:59, 23 July 2008 (UTC)

De facto segregation
"De facto segregation" redirects here, but there is no information relating to it specifically on this page. Shouldn't someone either create a separate article or at least include it as an example somewhere in this article? Warflango (talk) 01:18, 3 June 2008 (UTC)