Wikipedia talk:How to make dashes

Markup
Why don't Wikimedia construct wiki markup text shortcuts for ndashes and mdashes? Two normal keyboard dashes together (i.e. "--") could be the shorthand for an ndash, while three ("---") could be an mdash. It would be a lot easier than the copying and pasting suggested on this page. reinthal (talk) 02:07, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
 * That is discussed near the bottom of How to make dashes, where it says "Change Wikipedia's underlying software." If you want to fight that battle one more time, Village pump (technical) is the place to get results. Art LaPella (talk) 02:54, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

Help page
Clicking on 2.1 and 3 on the Help page yields nothing. --P123ct1 (talk) 17:20, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Why do there always have to be long discussions about how improve doing things in Wikipedia and pages and pages of instructions and explanations on Wiki Help pages? There is a dire need for any army of Wikipedians to rationalise the Wiki Help pages and make them more user-friendly. Many users, including myself, find it far simpler to go to the main Help Desk and ask there, where one can get a quick answer and invariably be directed to the right page in Help, which can be impossible to find on one's own. — Preceding unsigned comment added by P123ct1 (talk • contribs) 17:20, 1 August 2014
 * They do do something, but only if you have already expanded the collapsible box titled "Are you sure you want the long explanation?", immediately below the "Long explanation" heading. -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:17, 1 August 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Redrose64. --P123ct1 (talk) 18:39, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Error
The article says:
 * One user reported getting this to work on his laptop by pressing function key F11 to turn regular numbers into keypad numbers, and then press F11 again to turn them back to regular numbers.

I am not a mind-reader, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't what was going on. He pressed Fn+F11. Fn is an extra key on most laptops that makes keys do special things, to compensate for the fact that due to space constraints laptops cannot always have the same number of keys as full extended desktop keyboards. On his laptop, Fn+F11 probably means num lock.

Different computer manufacturers make different choices; on my own laptop it's under the insert key, for example. The extra functions triggered by Fn are printed in blue below the regular key names. When num lock is on, the following keys change:

7 8 9 0           7 8 9 / u i o p   become   4 5 6 * j k l ;  =====>   1 2 3 - m. /           0   . +

Again, different manufacturers make different choices, so for you it might be shifted to the left or right by a few keys, although this is a popular choice because it avoids confusion about the 7, 8 and 9. Also note that the keys become numeric keypad keys, so when num lock is on, the 7 changes from a normal 7 to a numeric keypad 7. If you're paying attention you might have noticed that I've skipped the comma. That's because on my laptop it remains a regular comma.

In most applications you won't see any difference since it's still going to produce a 7 character, but some applications do recognise the difference, and of course, relevant to the topic at hand, the alt + number combo will recognise the keys as numeric keypad keys.

This is just knowing how your laptop works and it might seem abstract to you if you're reading this on a desktop computer, but if you own a laptop the keys are marked in blue and you just know these things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.86.190 (talk) 21:09, 1 February 2015

Merge proposed (plus discussion of metadata)
Proposed: Merge Hyphens and dashes to How to make dashes. To the extent the former contains any advice, it is redundant with MOS:DASH, to the extent (almost entirely) that it contains technical information, it's redundant with the material already provided at WP:How to make dashes, though it presents some of the information in a more user-friendly way that can simply be "imported" to the long-existing how-to page. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:04, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
 * Your proposal is at odds with WP:Summary style. Of course everything in Hyphens and dashes may be "redundant" to information found elsewhere; it is intended to be a summary of the most important details contained in the more comprehensive pages. is intended to be a summary of How to make dashes. Actually, it goes beyond the two dashes to include hyphen and minus. Perhaps moving Hyphens and dashes to Help:Hyphens and dashes would be appropriate (compare WP:MOVE with HELP:MOVE). The roots of this started on my user page in December 2011, when, as a beginner, I was finding the existing Wikipedia: and MOS: pages somewhat confusing and hard to get a handle on. So, I started analyzing things and putting notes on my user page, which I refined over time. I wasn't confident enough with this to go and edit the Wikipedia: space pages myself, especially given my vague sense at the time that this was somewhat controversial. By the way, it's interesting to me that the first, primary and only technique for making a dash given in the "Short explanation... and ignore the rest of the page" section is a technique I never use. I couldn't have told you "Alt-0150" without looking it up. Now maybe if it were "Alt-N" I would remember and use that. I generally use the "Insert" tools below the text-entry field when in editing mode, or cut/copy & paste. I think point and click on one browser button is easier than using two hands to press five keys in a coordinated fashion. The "Long explanation" is a wall of text that I've never taken the time to thoroughly read and understand. The idea that "It takes considerable practice to use it correctly" and you need to "make sure the en dash went where you want it to" is way overblown. Yes, once in a blue moon I "oops" into this gotcha, but it's just a minor annoyance when I do. This is taking a POV that steers people away from that convenient tool unnecessarily. And I'm wondering why you wouldn't have the same problem if you did an "Alt-0150" when your cursor was in the wrong place. Wbm1058 (talk) 13:11, 6 September 2015 (UTC)
 * (Minor point: Summary style is about articles, not project pages.) I'm afraid I'm not going to be able to contribute to this effort much (though I think it's laudable), but I do have a request: can we please have more forceful mention of the appropriateness of using symbolics in the source instead of literal dashes (something like MOS:MARKUP's talk re alpha etc.)? Depending on font etc., it can be very difficult to distinguish mdash from ndash in the edit window, and symbolics fix that. (Hyphens are in the mix too, but we're just going to have to live with that.) I'm tired of people going around changing   to a literal ndash and calling it "cleanup".
 * And BTW, endorsing symbolics would make unnecessary all the mad explanations, currently seen on this page of control sequences for entering dashes from the keyboard. EEng (talk) 16:40, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * The citation templates like complain unless you use the literal – character - they don't like templates or character entities. -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:50, 16 September 2015 (UTC) -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:50, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Then fix the goddam templates. I'm tired of having them wag the dog. This stuff about "polluting COINS" is bullshit -- just filter the COINS data on the way out. EEng (talk) 19:32, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * I can't. They've been converted to Lua, and are now in the hands of the cabal and incomprehensible to those outside it. Have a look at the [//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Module:Citation/CS1&action=history page history] - how many names are listed? Not many. Am I one of them? No, they shut the door on me . -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:51, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Sorry for taking it out on you personally -- didn't know. I recommend we just go ahead and put the data we want in citations, and if that upsets this crowd, they can fix their templates or not -- I don't care. EEng (talk) 19:58, 16 September 2015 (UTC)
 * Well, we definitely need to do something about this. The COinS worship is getting way out of hand. People are abandoning the CS1/CS2 templates because they are getting harder and harder to use without breaking them, and they're actually losing features, like the ability to link various things manually, all because "it breaks COinS". Yes, it  need to get filtered on the way out, and doing so is comparatively simple: in any input you want to filter, construct a regular expression to look for 1) a single square bracket then a string with no white space, 2) white space, 3) another string with no whitespace, 4) a closing square bracket, then strip out all but 3; that will get rid of the linking on cases of the form  . Then repeat the regex construction for the cases   (reduce it to just "foo"),   (reduce to just "Foo"), and   (reduce to "Bar"). Done.  If traction on this is, well, intractable, RfC it at WP:VPPOL (it's a policy matter because it's interfering with WP:EDITING policy, and the WP:V / WP:RS / WP:NOR / WP:CITE policies and guidelines, as well several aspects of WP:NOT. Anyway, none of this addresses the merge.  The pages should still be merged, because they're redundant.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  19:26, 15 April 2016 (UTC)


 * This remains the stupidest, most bloated help page we've got, and there's some stiff competition there. No wonder new editors are discouraged. Let's merge like SM said, and tell people to use &amp;ndash; or ndash or whatever, and the COINS people can take their dimes and nickels and go jump in the lake.  E Eng  16:43, 25 November 2017 (UTC)
 * , what are you doing?  E Eng  01:49, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Copyediting. I'd still prefer a merge, but this page should make more sense and be stripped of anti-MoS rants and first-person software reviews in the interim.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  02:09, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * C'mom. Take the lead on a slash-and-burn merge and I'll help.  E Eng  02:36, 28 November 2017 (UTC)


 * This page continues to be almost a parody of a help page. EEng 22:57, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
 * For the record, here's what the page looked like when I made the above post . EEng 02:13, 31 July 2023 (UTC)

Rare keyboard layouts with en/em dashes found!
I found some rare keyboard layouts which contains dashes:
 * Colemak Multilingual (non-QWERTY)
 * En dash (AltGr+-
 * Em dash (AltGr+Shift+-)
 * Canadian Multilingual
 * En dash (CtrlGr+/
 * Em dash (CtrlGr+,)
 * Finnish Multilingual
 * En dash (CtrlGr+§
 * Em dash (CtrlGr+Shift+M)
 * English International / US International Extended
 * En dash (AltGr)
 * Em dash (AltGr)

Colemak is a non-QWERTY keyboard layout. You may need to learn this layout to type fast. There also only 3 keyboard layouts with dashes (en and em) and are QWERTY (the Canadian and Finnish multilingual keyboards, as well as US International Extended).

46.130.128.129 (talk) 20:56, 4 September 2016 (UTC)

Off topic image
I removed the off-topic racing image, and was reverted, so taking it to discussion. It's not funny and does not "enliven" the page at all, it just looks like someone thinks every single case of homonyms is hilarious. Not so. This does not elucidate, satirize, or otherwise do anything useful, it's just visual distraction and it should go. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  08:25, 2 December 2017 (UTC)


 * As Horsley completed the operation and dressed the wound the tension in the theatre eased, and turning to Ferrier and tugging his sleeve Hughlings Jackson sighed. 'Oh, dear! oh, dear!' he whispered to his Scottish colleague. 'What a mistake !' 'But – I don't understand,' protested Ferrier. 'It was faultless.' 'What a mistake,' chuckled Jackson with pawky humour, 'to open a Scotsman's head and not put in a joke !'  E  Eng  14:30, 2 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I think most of your jokey images are funny; just not this one (assuming now that it's yours; I did not look in the image history). I've been known to add them myself, e.g. the gorilla at WP:SSF.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  13:59, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
 * So you finally got the operation after all? But look, if it really rankles you, I can live without it. This time.  E Eng  14:25, 3 December 2017 (UTC)
 * I did, actually. One day I woke up and realized that most of these (and Martinevans's jokey posts) were actually funny.  Just here and there they aren't.  I saw George Carlin in a live stand-up show, ca. 1988 in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was clearly testing new material on a small-city audience, and it showed. I think I laughed about 5 times, and he's my favorite comedian of all time. No one's 100% funny. >;-)  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ &gt;ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ&lt;  13:22, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Additions to table
I think we should add the following entries to the table in order to help new editors understand that this entire page is one colossal joke (though even I remain uncertain as to whether that's by accident or by design).

(For the record, here's what the page looks like as of this post .) EEng 23:58, 21 October 2018 (UTC)


 * How-to pages, as I understand it, are directed to Wikipedia editors who want to know how to do something in the Wikipedia version of Wikitext. If the editor already knows a method of producing dashes in other contexts, using Character Map or whatever, the most that is needed is reassurance that the technique will also work when editing Wikipedia.  If the editor is not familiar with such a technique, all that is needed in this page is to advise the use of –or &mdash;. A reader looking for general advice on producing dashes on a computer does not belong here; he or she should be advised to go to the Dash article instead.  The entire page could profitably be reduced to a few lines.


 * That said, adding material that calls the page "ridiculous" helps nobody — neither the aspiring editor nor the misdirected general reader. The proposed addition of preposterous table entries is useless and inappropriate. Peter Brown (talk)
 * It may be that the proposed addition is inappropriate, but I must say, in all modesty, that the proposal that the addition be made has succeeded beyond my wildest expectations, in that it has helped at least one of my fellow editors see that, indeed, The entire page could profitably be reduced to a few lines. The page as it stands is worse than useless: an inexperienced editor, coming here for advice on how to get things done on Wikipedia, may very well throw up his or her hands and just quit altogether, figuring either that (a) if the rest of Wikipedia "help" is like this, there are better things to do in life and/or (b) these Wikipedia people are crazy – no one in their right mind would offer this mess as "help". EEng 18:10, 22 October 2018 (UTC)
 * I have removed several cells from the table to make it more useful. Further trimming is probably appropriate. Enterprisey (talk!) 01:12, 23 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Man, that is like a breath of fresh air! As you say, more can probably be done but let's enjoy it as it is for a while. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 02:25, 23 October 2018 (UTC)

Delete a paragraph in the "By keyboard" section?
The section By keyboard contains the paragraph:


 * As a general note for the approaches based on pressing number pad keys, you may need to press function key F11 to turn regular numbers into keypad numbers, and then press F11 again to turn them back to regular numbers. More explanation here.

In both Firefox and Chrome, F11 turns on full screen; it does not seem to "turn regular numbers into keypad numbers". The "More explanation here" link leads to to a "Difference between revisions" page reflecting a 2011 revision to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style which says that Fn will convert normal number keys to numeric-keypad keys, but this doesn't seem to work either. The text is not present in the current version of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. Shall I simply delete the paragraph? Or am I missing something? Peter Brown (talk) 18:45, 23 October 2018 (UTC)


 * I’m deleting the paragraph. The Error section above conflicts with it and the Numeric keypad article proposes another procedure that also doesn’t work on my laptop.  The matter needs further discussion, preferably in Talk:Numeric keypad.  This talk page is not the right place to discuss the matter. Peter Brown (talk) 20:54, 24 October 2018 (UTC)

Edit summaries
It isn’t at all obvious that HTML character entities can be used in edit summaries. An editor who wants to make dashes in Wikipedia using these entities, however, should be encouraged to use them in summaries as well. EEng, however has reverted my note that this can be done, writing:"That templates don't work in edit summaries is way WAY down the list of things a new editor needs to learn, and including that info here is a superb example of draining the learner's brainpower and confusion tolerance 10X for a benefit of just X (if not less)"I completely agree, but the reverted text says nothing about templates. I fail to understand why EEng brings them up.

A new editor, I think typically, starts out by clicking the [ edit ] button following a section title. He or she is immediately confronted with an edit box containing many mysterious symbols interspersed with the text of the section. Comparing the wikitext with the rendered material, the neophyte editor gets some idea of how the one produces the other. Gradually, perhaps with the aid of Help pages, the editor learns increasingly sophisticated techniques.

Edit summaries are a different matter. Clicking View history or looking at his or her growing watchlist, the editor sees many edit summaries written in ordinary English (for the English Wikipedia). Nothing fancy. Aside from the odd fact that some words appear in blue, there is no hint that any of the peculiar devices used in an edit box might have an application to edit summaries.

Is it not worth telling the aspiring editor that some techniques, coding &mdash; for example, are applicable here? Again, I am not proposing to tell the editor that templates don't work. If he or she is at all experimental, the editor will soon find this out without being told.

Peter Brown (talk) 01:18, 5 November 2018 (UTC)


 * No, it's not worth telling the aspiring editor this, not on this page anyway. We're lucky if they leave edit summaries at all, and the niceties of hyphen-minus-endash-emdash matter little if at all there. I brought up templates because of the techniques given on this page, templates are the one that doesn't work in edit summaries; copy-paste, keyboard entry, and &amp;ndash; and so on all work (and contrary to what you seem to be saying, I don't see why an editor wouldn't naturally assume they would without being told). If you want to talk about edit summaries as special cases, the place to do it is in WP:Edit summary. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 03:05, 5 November 2018 (UTC)

April 1st humor?
I saw this and wondered if you'd be willing to do something like it on some WikiProject page next March 32. davidwr/ (talk)/(contribs)  00:48, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Not sure what you mean by on some WikiProject page. And I don't go anywhere anymore without my Boswell. <b style="color: red;">E</b><b style="color: blue;">Eng</b> 01:53, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, I've begun it, but may I remind you that Dr. Johnson had the good sense to burn almost all of his papers shortly before his death, allowing his Boswell to write something more interesting. Lev!vich 03:58, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * "And so it begins" -- Kosh, to Jeffrey Sinclair, Earth year 2257. davidwr/  (talk)/(contribs)  17:00, 27 October 2020 (UTC)