User:Dicklyon/Punctuation

an essay

Punctuation can be challenging for many editors, especially non-native English speakers or those of less academic training. This essay is intended to help, and should perhaps be incorporated into the MOS guidelines.

Approaches to avoid
Editors sometimes polarize over seemingly trivial punctuation issues. For example, one group of editors might argue that if you won't learn to punctuate your writing to their satisfaction and in agreement with the WP:manual of style (MOS), then they can just remove your contribution. Other editors might claim that whatever way they punctuate it OK, because they've seen it done that way some place, so it should be left, even if it doesn't conform to the MOS. Some might argue that certain subtleties of punctuation are not the way they learned it, and therefore pedantic, unimportant, wrong, or difficult, so they might resist changing the text to conform with the MOS on that basis. None of these approaches is helpful.

Better approach
If editors will welcome all contributions, even from editors unable or unwilling to punctuate their sentences to agree with the MOS or other conventions of normal English usage, then more people will be able to help build the encyclopedia. If the editors who care about and understand the guidelines of the MOS are willing to work on improving the punctuation in such contributions, that will further improve the encyclopedia. They need to be allowed, and should be encouraged, to do that work.

Example
Recent arguments about the en dash have had vocal input from editors who never learned about the en dash or how to use it. This has made it hard for editors who care about the MOS to maintain the progress of recent years. No editor is ever asked or required to enter an en dash; editors who care will take care of doing so, and will make sure that redirects make it unnecessary for others to do so. Yet some push back, and argue that since they asked their literate friends about the en dash and got only a puzzled response, then it must be an unneeded and harmful symbol that should be eliminated. The MOS specifies its role, and many editors, especially those trained with respect to typography or the subtleties in meaning as signaled by punctuation, are in favor of using them for their intended purposes.