On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 4:34 AM, Chris B <ch...@whenironsattack.com> wrote:
> 2009/7/21 Brian Schweitzer <brian.brianschweit...@gmail.com>: > > How is " - " (space en-dash space) more complex than forcing editors to > try > > and figure out the correct "to' word for a given language, esp if they're > > not a native speaker for that language? > > " - " is complicated because it's "-" in most situations, but " - " in > others. before it was just "-" in all, and i suggest we just make it " > to " in all to cater for these theoretical situations of yours where > "-" wouldn't look right, and is better than using " - " all the time > which is contrary to normal usage. simple rule that wouldn't extend > the (old) guideline. > > editors wouldn't have to figure out languages because MBz already uses > certain (english) words and structures across the DB for things like > this (disc, bonus disc, YYYY-MM-DD, remix, etc etc). i don't see the > harm in another (especially a rare one like this). discogs uses " to " > all over the shop, without any fuss. > > Gecks, problem is, the words you're describing that we already use only come in in two different types of cases. The first would be words like Volume or disc, where we're really cramming together different bits of data that should be separated to different fields, and the argument as to why we keep them as standardized English words has always been that someday we won't, as there will be distinct fields for those bits of data. (Example: 'disc" under NGS moving to a "medium" entity) The second group is the extra title info words, like "remix". We do expand those out from abbreviations, but we don't insert them where they aren't already there. Part Number Style is an internationalized guideline, supporting any "part word" regardless of language (even if the majority of cases are simple "Part" as the part word). Therefore, we'd be allowing the localized part word, but then inserting a distinctly English word as the range indicator. That doesn't make sense to me, nor does "to" fit as either of the two types of English standardized words that exist. (And I wouldn't consider Discogs to be a great i18n comparison site, given how few international listings they have, and how badly they trash other things they standardize, such as catalog numbers... :P) Having both " - " and "-" is a complication, I would agree, which is why I argued against the need for that complication in the guideline. However, the only reason that complication exists is because it was inserted to satisfy those who argued that "1-4" needed that exception to exempt the spaces. Using the extra complexity caused by that exception to now argue against the use of the dash at all doesn't seem all too productive to me. Brian
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