User:Wikid77/Avoid unicode minus and use numeric keypad minus

In the Wikipedia Manual of Style, the paragraph " Minus signs " failed to mention the 40-year standard of the minus-key on a numeric keypad, which is what the Wikipedia MediaWiki system uses for negative numbers. The paragraph should have been written to prefer the keypad minus-sign, but to also allow using "&amp;minus;" in some cases:


 * Minus signs // "Do not use an en dash for negative signs and subtraction operators: the preferred sign is the minus-key on the numeric keypad of a computer keyboard (same as the hyphen), which has been a keyboard standard for over 40 years, and it is also the result generated by Wikipedia, as in subtracting 9 - 10: (to yield ""). The unicode character for the minus sign (&amp;minus; as "&minus;") could be used for some display purposes. However, the hyphen is preferred when searching a page for negative numbers (matches keypad "-"), or when calculating negative results in a template, or when sorting numbers."

The use of "&amp;minus;" (during 2007–09) has led to templates generating unusable negative-numbers which will not match a numeric-keypad search, and will NOT sort numerically in sortable tables specified using class="wikitable sortable". However, the WP:MOS standard could be changed in later years, to prefer &amp;minus when the world's keyboards change most numeric keypads, but I don't think that should be stated in the MOS, because of the decades of waiting.

Meanwhile, the template msym can be used to alter the font and display a keypad-minus (or hyphen) in a font that appears like a Unicode minus, such as Courier font. Compare the example of "-3" with 3 versus &amp;minus;3 : "-3" with "3" versus "&minus;3". When searching a page for a hyphen-minus or negative number, then any unicode-minus on the page will fail to match, while any msym-style minus will match.