Talk:Pro–Wailing Wall Committee

Punctuation
An admin, with strong opinions on punctuation and no sources, made up a rule claiming that Pro–Wailing Wall Committee with a dash means something different than Pro-Wailing Wall Committeeand wrote it into WP:ENDASH. He was promptly reverted there, and has no sources. He then moved this page without discussion.

This is weak as a matter of abstract logic: both forms group Pro with Wailing more closely than with the rest of the phrase; one is no better than the other. There would be a case, if we were writing the organization's charter, to make it Pro–Wailing-Wall Committee with a dash and a hyphen, grouping Wailing with Wall.

But we aren't. Searching for sources on the subject (I use no punctuation for neutrality) gets the report of the British Commisssion on the Palestine Disturbances and various books on Zionism. As far as I checked, they all use hyphens; if we do not, we are engaging in OR. If this page is moved again, I will undertake dispute resolution. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:14, 11 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Surely it should be an hyphen? &mdash; RHaworth (talk · contribs) 12:31, 11 February 2013 (UTC)


 * Yes it should. The background to this is the manual of style.  Item 3 at MOS:ENDASH gives the examples "ex–prime minister Thatcher" and "pre–World War II aircraft" using an en-dash, which is similar to "pro–Wailing Wall".  Personally I think it does nothing to correct the ambiguity of the phrase, but that's what was decided.  However, it simply does not apply here.  "Pro-Wailing Wall Committee" is not a description we made up ourselves, but a proper name.  It was written with a hyphen, that's its spelling, and whether it makes sense or not isn't our problem.  I have lots of good sources and none spell it with anything but a hyphen.  In fact use of an en-dash was most unlikely given that this use of a dash is an Americanism.  Zerotalk 13:36, 11 February 2013 (UTC)