Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 171

Is it incorrect to use personal pronouns such as "he", "she", or "who" to refer to fictional characters? For example:

Nelvana is a fictional superhero who first appeared in Triumph-Adventure Comics #1.

vs.

Nelvana is a fictional superhero that first appeared in Triumph-Adventure Comics #1.

Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 09:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• There are editors who insist that, since a character is not a living human, it cannot be referred to with a personal pronoun. I am not aware of any style guide that recommends avoiding personal pronouns for characters, nor am I aware of this being generally true in spoken or written English (or why it should be). Some editors nevertheless change "who" to "that" in articles on fictional characters, as here. Lacking evidence from real-world usage or styleguide recommendations, this appears pointless at best, and in many cases unnatural and awkward.
  • Real-world evidence indicates "a character who" is widespread (3,760,000 GBooks hits alone).
  • Styleguides seem to be entirely silent on the (non-)issue.
  • The only off-Wiki source I can find that even addresses the issue is [this essay, which concludes "... it is not at all unwarranted that a personal pronoun such as 'he' be (nonconnivingly) used to refer to such a character." (referring to Sancho Panza).
  • This line from the Harry Potter (character) article would be absurd with a "that" in place of the "who": "The majority of the books' plot covers seven years in the life of the orphan Potter, who, on his eleventh birthday, learns he is a wizard." Similarly this line from the Batman FA, where replacing "with whom" with "with which" would do unspeakable damage: "Robin was introduced, based on Finger's suggestion, because Batman needed a "Watson" with whom Batman could talk."
  • Real-world examples from Britannica:
    • "Spider-Man, comic-book character who was the original everyman superhero."
    • "Superman, 20th-century American comic-strip superhero who first appeared in Action Comics in June 1938 and in a newspaper strip in January of the following year ..."

  Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 09:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  How widespread is this problem? Did this just come up once or more than once? If lots of people are getting confused by this issue, then an addition to the MoS is warranted. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:51, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  This has been "standard" at WP:COMIC for longer than I've been here. I'm not aware of any other WikiProject that supports the idea, but the editors at WP:COMIC have come to believe that their local decisions are valid elsewhere (for instance, disambiguating all comics character articles with (comics) where (character) is standard elsewhere, which has resulted in endless moves at articles like Wolverine (character) and Hulk (comics)). Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:04, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  This came up a couple of years ago at Batman. My comment then was: I'm a strong supporter of the WP:WAF guideline, but I don't think it suggests we should grammatically treat fictional characters as inanimate objects; that's just not how English works. That interpretation would lead to truly absurd text: "It fights an assortment of villains assisted by its crime-fighting partner, Robin." *Of course not. The only reason that sounds less glaringly wrong is because it is increasingly common to use that when referring to people, however, doing so is still widely considered an error, and should be avoided.--Trystan (talk) 13:14, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• How is this any different from centuries of literary criticism where people have referred to fictional characters as "he" or "she"? See Jane Eyre (character) for the first one who came to mind. PamD 13:35, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  OK, that's not the best of articles, lots of unsourced stuff, but Lady Macbeth is a Good Article and refers to the character as "she" throughout. I wonder if there are any FAs for fict characters. PamD 13:38, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  Yes. Kenneth Widmerpool. FA, and "he becomes increasingly formidable, powerful and ultimately sinister as the novels progress". Or am I missing something, and superheros are in some way different (beyond their superpowers) from characters in novels? PamD 13:43, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  This appears to be a pet issue of the superhero faction of WP:COMIC, but they do make the claim that it applies to all fictional characters, so if any of them were interested enough in any of the articles you've linked to, I imagine they'd make the same change. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  This is the fairly classic "popular culture isn't as good as older but still popular culture which has become known as heritage, literature, and etc--at least on Wikipedia" bias that spawned as a counterforce to the overwhelming documentation of fictional elements relative to "scholarly" elements prior to 2007 or so. It's nothing new. --Izno (talk) 15:08, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• There is a somewhat interesting question hidden in the question of: what about characters that appears as both genders (aka genderbent) at some point in their history? I can't think of any off the top of my head presently, but I suspect we'll be seeing more of them as time passes and cultural barriers come down. --Izno (talk) 15:11, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  I'm not confident of that, Izno. The question seems to be "Should we refer to fictional characters the same way we'd refer to real people?" The answer is "Yes (and really why did you have to ask?)." I imagine we'd refer to a genderfluid fictional character the same way we'd refer to a genderfluid human, though for actual fictional beings who do not have gender at all, like fictional aliens, we could find some precedent in the literary criticism of 20th century science fiction. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  Genderfluidity isn't what I'm getting at, actually. I'm talking about characters who are distinctly one or the other given a particular serialization referencing that character e.g. female Thor. Yours is probably still the correct answer, but it's an interesting question because there's no actual definite "he"/"she" then. "Predominantly depicted as a he/she" would be a phrase I'd expect to see in that case, I suppose. --Izno (talk) 18:09, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

  This discussion is supposed to be about animate vs inanimate pronouns. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:59, 18 August 2015 (UTC)

• This matter seems to be, "The only reason we don't have a rule about this is because it's a non-issue the overwhelming majority of the time." There seems to be no serious question regarding what the rule is, only whether we need to use the space to tell people about it. Darkfrog24 (talk) 17:32, 18 August 2015 (UTC)
• We're not going to use pronouns because they are fictional? What kind of weird fundamentalist idea is this? Refer to fictional persons as we would real people. Ogress _smash! 23:31, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• And the answer for gender-unclear individuals is "they", which is been the gender neutral 3p singular pronoun. Chaucer and Shakespeare used it and people who say they don't use it even use it speech unknowingly all the time. Ogress _smash! 23:33, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• I don't think there's a universal answer here. When talking in terms of the fiction (including talking about the development of the character in the work of fiction such as the Batman/Robin example given above), refering to the characters with "who" rather than "that" makes sense, because we're writing about a fictional person at that point. But when we're talking about the character as strictly an element in an out-of-universe fashion, as the lead example gives, referring to the character as a thing ("that" instead of "who") makes more sense. But it all really depends on the context and I don't think one rule can capture all uses easily. --MASEM (t) 23:39, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
  • ^^You understand it perfectly. That is exactly how it is.Cebr1979 (talk) 23:49, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
    • You mean, that's how you wish it were. Meanwhile, back in reality ... Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)
  • It's fine to have a belief, Masem, but
    1. where in the real world does this belief hold currency?
    2. in what tangible way is the encyclopaedia improved by adhering to such a belief? In what way could the encyclopaedia suffer damage by using personal pronouns for fictional characters?
    3. how would this hold for hypothetical (thus fictional) persons? e.g. is "There will never be a person who can travel backward in time." an error?

    Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:52, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

I think the difference is understanding when the character is being discussed as a character whether within the work of fiction or as the development of that work of fiction (to which "he/she/who/etc." type pronouns apply) and when the character is being discussed as a creative idea or concept (for which "that/which" type pronouns apply). It is also important to recognize that one should not force the idea of "individualizing" a fictional concept when the context is not appropriate. For example (not real wording but to get the idea across) "Superman is a character created by Siegel and Schuster. They created him in 1933." is forcing the personal pronoun since we know that Siegel and Schuster never actually created a "person", which the "him" pronoun implies. Instead the language that our article acctually uses "The character was created by the two in 1933." is the right way to approach it, or "They created the character in 1933..." So sometimes these knots of which pronoun to use are created by poor approach to the existing language around it. --MASEM (t) 16:21, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

How many times are we going to have this conversation? Oh, until someone gets the only definitive answer they'll accept.Cebr1979 (talk) 23:46, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

• Support Masem - his description covers it perfectly. It basically depends on context. Excluding gender pronouns altogether is going to lead to awkward sentences, and probably general confusion as to what the pronoun is referring to in more complex sentences, so avoiding altogether is not a good approach. Either way, I don't see this being much of a problem that a guideline needs to be put in place. If its just one person who keeps bringing it up, they drop it and work on more pressing issues. Sergecross73 msg me 12:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• Per Masem, basically. In-universe: who/whom; as a character, out of that context, that/which. It just needs to make sense in the context. That said, I do think MOS should state this explicitly, at MOS:FICT, to avoid perennial fights about this (it is by no means the first one). That's the obvious place for it, and this discussion is sufficient consensus to add it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Talk about jumping the gun! We have yet to see a single piece of evidence that this is considered even an issue outside of WP:COMIC. WP:CREEP at its most pointless. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:13, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Just because you personally haven't seen evidence [though much has been posted above and below] doesn't mean it's not generalizable. It's obviously generalizable to all fictional characters. Your attempt to spin this as just some comics editors thing is off-base. There's a world of difference between "Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character that first appeared in print in 1887", vs. "In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Sherlock Holmes, who lives in London at this period in his story arc, travels to Dartmoor to investigate reports of a spectral dog." Simply rewording gets around the issue in most cases; there is no need to fight over "who" in Holmes, who appeared in print in 1887, was featured in four novels and 56 short stories by Conan Doyle, when rewording as The character first appeared in print in 1887, and was featured in four novels and 56 short stories by Conan Doyle simply erases the issue. See lead section of MOS: "If a style or similar debate becomes intractable, see if a rewrite can make the issue moot."  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
      • You have not provided evidence for the invalidity of Holmes, who appeared in print in 1887, was featured in four novels and 56 short stories by Conan Doyle—you've done no more than asserted it. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
        • And here are some real-life examples, from the very first page of Google Books results:
          • "Arthur Conan Doyle's creation, Sherlock Holmes, who appeared in the trick film Sherlock Holmes Baflled"
          • "One of the greatest of these was Sherlock Holmes who appeared in fifty-six short stories and four novels."
          • "Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, who appeared in the 1880s, was the most popular"
          • "who has extraordinary reasoning powers applied to solving difficult and sometimes devilish puzzles is of course Sherlock Holmes who appeared in American bookstores in the 1890s"

          Talk about choosing a poor example! Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Talk about failure of reading comprehension (and overuse of "talk about"; twice in the same thread? Seriously?). No one said it's never used, just that it looks terrible and is easily avoided with better writing: "Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, appearing in the 1880s, was the most popular ...".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:37, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

And this would be my suggestion too: when it is clearly not talking about the character within the scope of their fictional world but as a creative element or property or similar out-of-universe factor, then rewriting sentences to simply avoid having to use a controversial choice of pronouns is a better solution. If we're talking the character as related to their role in the work of fiction , then one can use the natural-sounding "person" pronouns without issue. --MASEM (t) 17:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Yep. The very fact that this is so heated and so perennial conclusively proves it's controversial, and much of the point of MoS is helping editors avoid getting into the same controversies over and over again. MoS clearly should advise rewriting to avoid controversy, and should note that the difficulty only arises in poorly worded cases like "Superman, who was sold" vs. "Superman which was sold", never in cases like "The trademark rights [or whichever ones we're actually talking about] to Superman, which were sold", and not in cases like "Superman, who was born on a planet named Krypton", when writing in-universe plot summaries.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I think it is safe to say there is a majority consensus, there is only one editor who wants it his way...Cebr1979 (talk) 22:03, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

• Amazing you state this, when you've just cited this RfC which I didn't start (and which rejected your ridiculous prescription). But when you have no evidence to bakc yourself up, I suppose you resort to ad hominems. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 05:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

From my point of view, fictional characters are still "people" - as in, they have identities and personalities. If the character in question has an identity that can be considered reasonably close to human, the term "who/whom" makes sense, as you're referring to an individual. This also applies to a group of individuals. If you're referring to something that is inanimate (eg. a computer with no specific identity), then "it" and "that" make more sense. However, HAL 9000 is identifiably male, and GLaDOS is identifiably female, and as such it makes sense to use gender-specific pronouns for them, as well as refer to them with "who" rather than "that". IMO, there is almost no difference between real-life identities and fictional ones in this respect. Also, while I'm not participating in the comics project, I have never once seen a review or article about a comic book character that used inanimate pronouns to refer to that character when it had a gender identity. The only times I've seen the words "it" and "that" used to describe such a character have been when referring to generic robots and machines, alien creatures for which individual identity isn't important, etc..) — KieferSkunk (talk) — 21:47, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

• No rule needed, just say no to micro-management. It and that is used with antecendents that are impersonal, where as he/she/who is used with human/personal antecedents. Hence "Superman depends on his ability to fly" is correct. And so is "The superman character depends on its ability to fly". Writers must have freedom to choose between these two construction types.·maunus · snunɐɯ· 06:15, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Comment: while I agree with your instinct not to micromanage, "The superman character depends on its ability to fly" is not a good example and not remotely correct. You're talking about personal attributes of the character, and should still be using "his". The use of "its" is only reasonable when you're talking about a character as a property or a franchise, in terms of ownership, copyright, film options etc. "The Superman character, which has long been a goldmine for its owners, DC Comics" is good English. But when talking about a character as a character, in terms of personality, attributes, abilities etc, as in your example, "its" is incorrect. --Nicknack009 (talk) 08:02, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Neither is "incorrect". Some people around these parts really need to learn that not every usage with which they are not personally acquainted or otherwise comfortable is "incorrect" or "bad English".·maunus · snunɐɯ· 04:08, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

• No rule needed - First of all, does Jerry Seinfeld count as a fictional character? "Jerry Seinfeld is a character that appears in the television sitcom Seinfeld." Very weird. The proposed rule is completely unenforceable and counterintuitive, and will be roundly ignored by everybody who edits here. No child that comes here to write about its favorite animated television character will care about personal pronouns. (See what I did there?) We should be considering the worst-case scenarios when we make new rules, and children's television articles are the worst-case scenarios. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 18:16, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

We seem to have run our course here. Would anyone object to a request for formal closure? Consensus seems to be that an explicitly stated rule is not needed but a discussion with a clear closing message would be a good precedent to point to. NAC okay or do you guys want to specify admin? Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:13, 3 September 2015 (UTC)

Uninvolved non-admin should be able to handle this, but I think Curly Turkey wanted to just let this "die a natural death" and relaunch a clearer discussion after it, which I support.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:03, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

We're up. If you want to add your name to "yes this rule should be stated explicitly," now would be the time. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:40, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

Since Cebri has provided evidence that this is an actual problem that occurs at a non-negligible frequency, I believe it's worth adding a line to the MoS or MOS:FICTION, location TBD. I suggest the following first draft:

Editors are not required to use inanimate pronouns ("that," "which") for fictional characters. Decide on "who" vs "that" depending on the context of the sentence.

"He first appeared in print in 1961 alongside another hero who was, at the time, more famous."

"Wonder Woman is one of many characters that have become a franchise unto themselves."

I believe "not required" expresses our meaning very well. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:31, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

"Not required" tends to be taken as implying "but preferred", and that is not at all how I read the prevailing opinion above. If you're trying to express the lack of a hard rule, perhaps something along the lines of "no requirement for either … or …; it depends on the context". Xover (talk) 05:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Given there exists no support for the prescription oustide the dark basement of the superhero faction of WP:COMIC the wording should avoid the appearance of giving it any legitimacy. Wikipedia is not the place to introduce novel linguistic prescriptions. If an editor chooses to avoid personal pronouns when adding text, that's an editorial decision; but prowling pages to removing such pronouns in no way improves the encyclopaedia, and in many cases (as cited) hurts it. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 06:18, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

The truth seems to be that English overwhelmingly prefers "who" over "that," so that's what we want to communicate. Take two! "In general" is usually interpreted as "Most of the time."

In general, use animate pronouns ("who," "she") for fictional characters, but there are some contexts in which inanimate pronouns are suitable ("that," "which").

"Laertes and Ophelia both took action, unlike Hamlet, who continued to delay."

"Wonder Woman is one of many characters that have become a franchise unto themselves."

What really has to shine here are the examples. It would be best to really hammer home how these contexts are different. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:04, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Whenever this discussion pops up, it always seems to center on passages that refer to the character by name, specify the fictional nature, and then say something else. Take the primary example for this new debate: "Nelvana is a fictional superhero who first appeared in Triumph-Adventure Comics #1." Break it down into two sentences. "Nelvana is a fictional superhero. ___ first appeared in Triumph-Adventure Comics #1." Does she or it belong in the blank? I think very few people would argue against she, so it follows a personal pronoun, who should go in the combined sentence.

Most of the time, though, the simple solution is to rewrite the passage to eliminate the issue altogether. Why argue about "Other characters that have adopted this name" vs "Other characters who have adopted this name" when you can shorten it to "Other characters using this name"? Argento Surfer (talk) 13:09, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

"Wonder Woman is one of many characters that have become a franchise unto themselves.It has been enduringly popular since its creation."

That sounds wrong to me, but it is clearer what is being suggested.--Trystan (talk) 13:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

That is a case where I would replace "It" with "The character" to avoid the pronoun knot. --MASEM (t) 16:22, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Dancing around personal pronouns might work for a sentence or two, but becomes unwieldy when you are discussing a fictional character as a concept for whole paragraphs. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:39, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Why not write: "Wonder woman, as a character, has become a franchise unto herself. She has been eduringly popular since her creation." If you avoid writing about fictional characters "as a concept", and instead just write about that particular character, you can avoid having "pronoun trouble". Blueboar (talk) 16:52, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, it is actual far less frequent when one writes about a character as a concept than as a character, though it sometimes is needed; the intro on Superman I think captures a place where one does need it: "The Superman character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933; the character was sold to Detective Comics, Inc. (later DC Comics) in 1938." In any of this sentence to us "he" instead of "the character" implies an ownership of a living being which is the one sticking point in the language; it is the concept that has ownership and creation. Past that, "he/who" all make sense. --MASEM (t) 16:56, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

In any of this sentence to us "he" instead of "the character" implies an ownership of a living being: it implies no such thing—or do you have a source which addresses this to back up such a statement? This is a solution looking for a problem. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:17, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

There is something that I do not know what it is that is odd or off-putting about saying "Smith created him" or "Smith transferred ownership of him", and less so but still begging the question of "Smith envision him" (where "him" here is the fictional character of interest). You create, transfer or envision the character as non-entity, not as a fictional person or being. If there is a rule of language for this, I don't know but I do see this used around many sources that discuss concepts and development of fictional characters. --MASEM (t) 21:48, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

You mean you find something off-putting about it. Nothing wrong with that, but it is not grounds for introducing a new linguistic prescription. In the real world people have no problem saying "Shuster created him". Can you show evidence to the contrary? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:55, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, it's not a new linguistic prescription as both ways are technically proper English, it's purely a style aspect and one that I don't think any of the major style guide goes into this. I do think WP does have the ability that, if by consensus, we adapt a style that we feel is better in the larger picture for en.wiki. I personally feel there's something offputting when we use certain combinations of verbs and pronouns that can be simply avoided by better word choices or restructuring. --MASEM (t) 22:16, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

No, the underlying principle you're suggesting is not "technically proper English": the only reason "that" is acceptable at all is because many use "that" interchangeably "who", as in: "There's the guy that was here yesterday." In the case of "Superman is a character that was created by Shuster & Siegel", "that" is not chosen because "Superman is inanimate"---at least, not anywhere outside of WP:COMIC. In the real world, there is no issue using personal pronouns with ficitional characters, because personal pronouns do not imply actual living human beings (I've already given you the example "There will never be a person who can travel backward in time.", and you know there's no end to such examples). Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 22:51, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

"That" is proper English when we are talking about a non-person, which a fictional character may be treated as at times. Consider "John Q Smith created the painting that was later transferred to the museum.", "John Q Smith created the character that was later transferred to a big publisher." It's completely acceptable language, when we are not at all describing any aspect of the characters as a person in the text, because in situations like this, it is a thing. And again, I do want to stress that my main solution here is to avoid situations where one would need such pronouns to minimize the potential "disruption". "John Q Smith created the character. The character's rights were later transferred to a big publisher." --MASEM (t) 01:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Boson has already pointed out the fallacy in your understanding of "that". You've also failed to provide evidence that there is any "disruption" to be avoided. "Nelvana is a superhero who was created by Adrian Dingle." is not a problematic sentence—nothing needs to be "fixed", nothing needs to be recast. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:32, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

We should avoid giving inappropriate advice on the use of English, and especially refrain from giving the incorrect impression that "that" (as opposed to "which") is an "inanimate pronoun". That is a relative pronoun used for restrictive (aka defining, integrated) relative clauses, both for inanimate and animate entities, as in This Is the House That Jack Built: the farmer that kept the rooster, the judge that married the man, the man that kissed the maiden, the maiden that milked the cow, etc.). To avoid additional confusion, any examples should use non-restrictive (aka non-defining, supplementary) relative clauses with which and who, which do distinguish between personal and non-personal (including most animals). Yes, recommended usage of that and who is slightly more complicated, but is not something that needs to be dealt with in the Manual of Style. That can be a useful way of avoiding the distinction between personal and non-personal (as in some examples here?), but that is also something for English teachers that does not need to be described here. --Boson (talk) 17:34, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Take three:

In general, use animate pronouns ("who," "she") for fictional characters, but there are a few contexts in which inanimate pronouns are suitable ("which," "it"). However, it is often possible to avoid the issue entirely by rewording the sentence.

"Laertes and Ophelia both took action, unlike Hamlet, who continued to delay."

"The character Superman, which was sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938, was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933."

"The character Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster in 1933 and sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938."

Remember the points that we're trying to convey: 1. It's best to use animate pronouns, 2. but we're not banning inanimate pronouns (and 3. here's what we mean by that). Those issues are not in dispute here. As for locations, I'm thinking both here and at MOS:FICTION. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:23, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Again, this seems to be legitimizing a non-issue—is there anyone here who is not from WP:COMIC that would have batted a lash at "The character Superman, who is owned by DC Comics ..." before this RfC was started? Of course not—this is perfectly natural everyday English that poses no problem to readers whatsoever and does not need to be "fixed". It does not imply—even slightly—that Superman is a real person. The language does not work that way. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:28, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Huh. I mostly agree that it's fine to use "who" for fictional characters, but actually, maybe not in this case. Is Superman a slave? Can he buy his freedom from DC? Until I read your example sentence, I would have said there was never any problem with using "who" for Superman, but now I think maybe there's a distinction between Superman-the-fictional-person (for whom "who" is fine) and Superman-the-item-of-intellectual-property (for which "who" is a bit weird). --Trovatore (talk) 01:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Exactly, and note how your own use of "whom" and "which" naturally distinguishes. No one is actually making the argument that one should have written "Superman-the-fictional-person (for which ...)", but CT has been spinning it this way incessantly to make the argument look weak when it is not.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:23, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

It seems off to me to mark explicitly that this has to do with fictional characters vs. non-fictional people. That's not how English works. Otherwise, I agree with darkfrog's three points. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:12, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Curly Turkey brings up a good point that the problem should be big enough for the solution to earn the space it takes up in the MoS or MoS:FICTION. A few links were offered in the previous section. @Cebr1979:, do you know of any more? Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:09, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Not off the top of my head, no. I wasn't a part of the original conversation, though. It's possible that one grew out of something from somewhere else but, like I said, I don't know for sure. Sorry couldn't be of more help!Cebr1979 (talk) 00:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Nah, thanks, Cebri. I guess if it's only that one incident that we know of then it's not really necessary to codify it. But just so I don't leave a job half-done, the kicker seems to be whether the character is acting or being acted upon like a person rather than like an object or concept:

Wonder Woman is one of two female characters who were on the original Justice League." / "Wonder Woman is one of many characters that have been marketed to children"

Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

That's really my only issue. The lead of a fictional character article should be: "White Tiger is a fictional character that appeared in the Marvel Comics series, Heroes for Hire," in order to denote we are talking about a thing: aka: a lifeless, inanimate object. As for the rest of the article, I don't think it matters as, most of it would be written in-universe anyhow. If it would make this all go away (and stay away as I feel like too many editors are having to spend too much time on this), I'd even compromise with "White Tiger is a fictional character appearing in the Marvel Comics series, Heroes for Hire" -OR- "White Tiger is a fictional character having appeared in the Marvel Comics series, Heroes for Hire and bypass the whole "who vs. that" thing altogether! That's just a suggestion, though. If it ends up being the beginning of a whole new conversation taking up a whole lot more time, I'll simply withdraw it and go back to the "White Tiger is a fictional character that appeared in the Marvel Comics series, Heroes for Hire" position I've had since the beginning.Cebr1979 (talk) 00:59, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I hope you are not suggesting that "Wonder Woman is one of many characters who have been marketed to children" is invalid English. We have yet to see any evidence of such a prescription in English, or any evidence that any sort of problem arises from it. The axiom that personal pronouns refer only to real persons has already been shown to be invalid, as in the example "There will never be a person who can travel backward in time." Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I'm trying to create an example in which it is clearly better to use "that" or "which" than to use "who." If you can think of a better one, then by all means. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

If there is such an example, I'm sure it will be obvious to any English speaker and not require addressing in the MoS. That is not the issue. The issue is that a small coterie of WP:COMIC editors want prescribe against the usage of personal pronouns, even where real-world usage has no issue with it. They would have the "who"s in the Britannica examples changed. To what purpose? What would be improved? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) "There will never be a person who can travel backward in time" is not fiction, it's a hypothetical. Different case no matter how you look at it (grammatically, psycho-linguistically, socio-linguistically, language-philosophically, etc.). We have special grammar rules for hypotheticals ("If I were to go to Japan" not "If I was to go to Japan"), that do not apply to fictional characters.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

in order to denote we are talking about a thing : In stark contrast to the way the English language actually works, which makes no such distinction. What it comes down to is that there is a group of superhero editors at WP:COMIC who wish the English language worked in a different manner from which it does. English does not distinguish fictional vs non-fictional persons via pronoun usage. For example, Britannica uses "who" to refer to the characters of Spider-Man and Superman: ["Spider-Man, comic-book character who was the original everyman superhero." "Superman, 20th-century American comic-strip superhero who first appeared in Action Comics in June 1938 ..." ]Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

You keep relying on links to Encyclopaedia Britannica. WP is not Britannica. No one suggested that counter-examples, using "who" indiscriminately for fictional characters, cannot be found, only that it's unclearly writing from several different perspectives. It's actually interest to read a lot of Britannica articles on fictional characters, and you can see that their (inconsistent) pool of writers are individually wrestling with this issue, and no following a rule about it. The usage veers all over the place. Their article on Superman just gushes with "who" and reads like a somewhat nutty comic book collector of half-believes the character is a real person. The "Sherlock Holmes" are mostly studiously avoids this usage, and only slips up in a couple of places; it reads much more encyclop[a]edically. This is a good indication of why MoS should actually give clear guidance on this.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

There isn't a shred of evidence the author of the Sherlock Holmes article "studiously avoids this usage"—the article uses out-of-universe "he" twice! Even if it didn't appear at all, that would be not evidence of "studiously avoid[ing] this usage".

Nor do I "rely" on Britannica—the vast majority of links I've provided have been to other sources. I get the feeling you haven't read WP:NOT (as an editor pointed out to you at another of these discussions). Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 20:42, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I like Cebr1979's final wording (some of the work-arounds are quite awkward), but not entirely for their reasons. "That" is used for people, and fictional people are treated as people. But the concept is not a person. "That" doesn't mean the referent is inanimate, but I agree that the concept of a fictional character should use the same pronouns as the concept of a commemorative garden. But when discussing the character itself, the same pronouns should be used as when discussing historical people. — kwami (talk) 01:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

• For the record, you support a wording like: "Superman is a fictional character. It was created by Shuster and Siegel."? Do you have any evidence for such usage outside of Wikipedia? Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:26, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
  • CurlyTurkey: you really do put a lot of words in peoples' mouths and that is something you need to stop doing. ASAP. The only person who has ever mentioned the word "it," is you.Cebr1979 (talk) 01:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

He's doing it again, below. No one who knows how to use English would use such an "it" construction, and I'm confident that CT knows this. This mischaracterization approach is a combined straw man and red herring fallacy pile-up, an attempt to distract from a weak argument that depends principally on outrage instead of reason (this is also whence his projecting stuff like "gut feelings" (see below) onto arguments based on logic instead of the gut feelings his own argument is clearly rooted in).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

One has to wonder why SMcCandlish keeps resorting to synonyms of "outrage" to discredit me. I doubt anyone reading this discussion is going to get the impression that SMcCandlish has approached it with a cool head. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 20:45, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Comment: So how do we deal with figures whose reality is disputed? Do we use "who" or "which" for Jehova and King Arthur? Of course, in real life we use "who", as we do for Superman. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:26, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

No one does that for Superman, except in an in-universe context, unless they want to [that was sarcastic] don't realize that to many readers it will sound silly. For possibly-real entities, use "who", except when discussing them conceptually (hint: exactly like fictional characters): She believed in King Arthur, who she was sure would return some day, just as she felt Jesus would., but the character known as "Princess Diana of Themyscira" and "Diana Prince" The end. Basic MOS advice all the time: Rewrite to avoid WP:LAME disputes. This rewrite in particular makes perfect sense, because it's linguistically sound, it ties this back to the real world (the knowledge of the readers and what they're looking for – i.e. the actual purpose of disambiguation), and it eliminates the (yes, in this case quite silly) who vs. that dispute. [I checked, and the article presently uses "other characters given this name", which is pretty much just as good as "other characters known by this name".] But resolving that one doesn't resolve the larger issue. We have thousands and thousands of articles on fictional character, and they should not begin with leads that look like "Mr. Bigglesworth is a fictional cat. He likes to sit on Dr. Evil's lap." WP is not a seventh-grade writing exercise.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

all this personal venting: you might want to step back and examine your tone and approach before making these accusations. I have yet to see "reasoning" on your part—simply bald assertions that the evidence provided contradicts (e.g "No one would say XXX"—countered with a whole list of RSes saying "XXX"). I'm asking for evidence that real-world English distinguishes fictional persons from non-fictional ones via pronouns. You've provided none; I've provided piles, which you refuse to engage with. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:35, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Cebr1979 already provided you counter-examples. There's no point in providing successive piles of counter-examples; every single person in this e-room (except perhaps you) realizes that actual usage in sources is divided on this point. We're moving on past that, into reasoning about whether one or another usage (there are at least three approaches, not two) is better for WP purposes. You're still mired back in trying to prove that some people do use "who", a point that no one has been disputing. Please catch up.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Update: It's much more instructive to analyze actual use in a carefully written article, as I've done below in a separate sub-thread.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:08, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I think I understand what's the issue is, @Cebr1979:. You are thinking as if English were logical. It isn't. The overwhelming practice (though I'd say it's a bit shy of being a rule) is to refer to fictional characters as if they were people except when the context heavily and explicitly treats them as things. But still, I don't support adding a rule to the MoS or anything else for just one person. You've been shown proof and you've been shown consensus. Even if there were an edit war or something, there are processes for that. Tacking a new, permanent rule up into the MoS targeting just one person wouldn't be appropriate. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Are you sure you were responding to me there? I don't really see anything where I'm acting as if the English language is logical?Cebr1979 (talk) 23:41, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't have anything to do with "just one person", though (the same point I'm trying to make above). Rather, this is a long-standing, repeat-argued issue, and certainly pre-dates WP and MOS. Serious linguistic and other literature have addressed the question of distinguishing, in our language use, between real-world facts and fictional ones about the same character. The solution proposed is not novel, but routine.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:25, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes, @Cebr1979:, I was talking about you. Your said: "in order to denote we are talking about a thing: aka: a lifeless, inanimate object. As for the rest of the article, I don't think it matters as, most of it would be written in-universe anyhow." This suggests that you think that inanimate pronouns should be used when the fictional characters are discussed as objects or out-of-universe and animate when they are discussed as people or in-universe, but there is no such clear line. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:05, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Let's call this take 3B. Relevant changes in bold (not to be preserved if used in the MoS).

In general, use animate pronouns ("who," "she") for fictional characters, even when writing out-of-universe, but there are a few contexts in which inanimate pronouns are also suitable ("which," "it"). However, it is often possible to avoid the issue entirely by rewording the sentence.

"Laertes and Ophelia both took action, unlike Hamlet, who continued to delay."

"The character Superman, which was sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938, was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933."

"The character Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster in 1933 and sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938."

"Also" should cut down the possibility that someone will insist on changing "who" to "that" or "which" in an out-of-universe context. Darkfrog24 (talk) 13:00, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

This still fails to distinguish between in-universe and real-world context.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

"Fail" suggests I was attempting it. This version specifically tells editors to use "who" even when talking out of universe. That is standard English usage. "In-universe vs real-world" does not seem to be the litmus test for whether to use animate or inanimate pronouns, if such a test even exists. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:19, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Doesn't suggest anything of the sort, since "this" is a pronoun that doesn't apply to you, a person. Why return to the theme of "litmus tests" and "hard-and-fast rules" after it's already been pointed out that this isn't what we're discussing? Again: This is about how to best write for our readers, not about forcing MoS compliance with some imaginary external language authority.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:30, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

SmC, you and I have very different ways of thinking about language and writing. Please accept that I find your arguments unconvincing and stop trying to convert me to your way of thinking. As for what I am thinking, this is one of the least rule-ish things I've ever composed for the MoS. I'm deliberately trying not to make "use 'who'" look like a universal requirement, and I'm saying not to use a specific litmus test because this seems to be the one time here on WT:MOS where there actually might not be one. If possible, enjoy the moment of an English-has-rules person like me being the one to say, "I don't think that's a rule." Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:42, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

There is no "conversion" process in operation here; this is not a religious discussion. I not certain you actually understand my arguments exactly (which is probably my fault and means I need to restate them better); your objections to them match neither their wording or intent. I accept that you're not trying to push something as an external rule that MoS should adopt; I don't recall anyone suggesting that you were, or suggesting that this should be done, or even suggesting that such a "rule" exists. There's a difference between adopting some externally provided "rule" (e.g. "capitalize after a colon when what follows it is a complete sentence", which many though not all style guides advise), and MoS adopting an internal rule by consensus that amounts to "do not use pronouns confusingly, but write more clearly instead". This is a good illustrative case of why the "everything MoS says should be cited to an external style source" idea is unworkable. No external source is required for the WP editing community to come to it's own internal consensus on one point of how to avoid writing poorly. Maybe we'll never agree about this "source the MoS" thing. I'm happy that we seem to be agreeing that "rewrite to avoid confusing pronoun use" is the way to go, but the evolving consensus to do this isn't based on external rulebooks; it's based on observation of and reasoning about the nature of the dispute.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:18, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

SmC, you keep saying things like, "English doesn't really have hard rules" as if you think I've never heard you say that before. You know by now that I think of English as having rules, whether you agree with me or not, so stop acting surprised/clutching your pearls/whatever when you see me use the word "rules" to describe the MoS.

Example: You know that I don't think "typesetters" is the real name for American punctuation (used by almost no sources; if "American" is no good because it's not exclusively used in the U.S., then the fact that the practice isn't exclusively used in typesetting should hold some weight, etc.). But I don't go "Oh, SmC, it's actually called 'American'; here's a link to a source that didn't change your mind the first seventeen times I showed it to you!" every time I see you use it, only when you try to insert it into an article or guideline. By now, I know that that's just how you talk. At the very least, you should be able to accept that "rules" is how I talk and think about the MoS. Unless I'm trying to put some wording into the MoS or article space ("The MoS is a set of rules that..."), then it's not an issue.

As for the MoS being sourced, it would prevent things like your take four: It's not really the way English works; it's just what you personally think looks good or feels right, and that's not suitable for a set of rules that other people have to follow or else. Darkfrog24 (talk) 00:57, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with whether I agree or disagree with you about English having hard-and-fast rules. The science of linguistics proves that it does not, making the view that it does WP:FRINGE. If you don't believe me, feel free to go create a Rules of English article and see what happens to it. Its perfectly appropriate to challenge a fringey approach to MoS, and you can count on me to continue to do so. MoS is a guideline; there is no "or else", and it recommends a large number of things that are not "rules" but methods of reducing recurrent strife. I know that you know that; I'm not the one "acting surprised".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:33, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

"English has rules" is taught in every school in the English-speaking world. The idea that it does not have rules is closer to a fringe position, though I'd personally describe it as a specialist position. If you want to keep talking about this, we can hit my talk page or yours or start a new section here. You know me: I like a spirited discussion.

But the point I'm trying to make is this: You know that I believe English has rules. You've shown me what you think is convincing proof. I don't consider it convincing proof. Please stop showing me the same points over and over in the middle of a conversation about something else. I do you the same courtesy when you use fringe terminology. Since this is a talk page and not the article space, you're perfectly within your rights to do so. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:05, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia already has many articles about the rules of English. Quotation mark, Comma, British and American English differences... Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:06, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Use animate pronouns ("who", "she") for fictional characters only in an in-universe perspective. There are contexts in which inanimate pronouns are suitable ("which", "it"), especially when referring to characters conceptually. However, it is usually possible and preferable to avoid awkward constructions by rewording, often with the side benefit of increased brevity.

In-universe perspective using who: Superman, who arrived on earth as a child, and Lex Luthor, a human, are arch-enemies throughout various comic and filmic depictions.

Real-world perspective using which: The character Superman, which was sold to Detective Comics in 1938, was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933. (Permissible but perhaps awkward.)

Rewritten real-world perspective: Superman was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933, and sold to Detective Comics in 1938.

Misuse of animate pronoun who: Superman, who was sold to Detective Comics in 1938, was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933. (Superman is not a person in this sense.)

PS: I fully support replacing Superman with Wonder Woman, but don't remember enough about the character to do it well myself.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:17, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

• Strong oppose: the proposal is in conflict with real-world usage, has no evidence to support its axioms (in fact, all the evidence provided contradicts the proposed axioms), and is burdensome instruction creep. It's a solution looking for a problem based on a misunderstanding of how the English language works and does not improve the encyclopaedia. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:28, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
• Wishful thinking I don't like this wording either, SmC. The "that"/"which" set of pronouns is actually really rare. Like, Cebr, you seem to be treating English as more logical than it really is. Really, English uses "who" for characters even in most of the cases in which it would make sense to use "that" or "which." Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Um, the fact that it's commonly awkward to use a "that" or "which" construction is why it says look toward rewriting. The proposal pre-addresses your complaint about it. It could just be that we wouldn't even need to go that far and just state that it's often awkward, instead of illustrating it with an example at all.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:30, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll be clearer: What I don't like about this is that "Use animate pronouns when the character is acting like a person and inanimate pronouns when the character is acting like an object" does not seem to be a hard rule in English, and this passage treats it as if it were (or at least is likely to be interpreted as such). Something looser is more likely to serve Wikipedia well. What we actually want is for people to use "who" almost all the time but not make a fuss over the occasional "which." This passage could give us the same people making a fuss over "it should be 'who'!/no it should be 'that'" in one passage and "it should be 'that' this time!"/"no, this time it should be 'who'!!" in the same article. Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

See Linguistic description vs. Prescriptive grammar. There really is no such thing as "a hard rule in English". There is only usage, in different contexts. The question here is what is more useful to our audience, in the encyclopedic register. A large proportion of MoS (and of all style guides) is advice on writing in a formal rather than informal register. This is such a case.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

We've been through this, SmC. Yes, English does have rules. You don't happen to like to think of them that way, and that's your business, but the fact of the matter is that anything that goes into the MoS is going to be interpreted as non-negotiable by at least some of the users in the article space. This new text, whether you want to call it a rule or not, looks like it will cause more fights than it will prevent, and it does not look like it reflects the actual state of what is required in correct English. Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:14, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Thoguh it should be pointed out that it only happens one way—changing "who" to "that". I'm not aware of any editor making the rounds doing the opposite. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 13:06, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Except everyone else understands that it happens more than one way, and this version of the proposal explicitly states this and provides examples of how it happens more than one way. Please stop engaging in straw man and red herring arguments. It's getting disruptive.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Except everyone else understands that it happens more than one way: Oh, really? Diffs, please (not holding my breath). Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 20:33, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I think what SmC is saying is that it is perfectly theoretically possible for the problems to arise in both directions. What Curly T is saying is, "But does that actually happen in practice on Wikipedia?" SmC is offering induced/deduced knowledge. Curly is asking for observed knowledge. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:10, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Such a thing cannot be deduced. The proposal is not to replace "that" with "who"—it's whether to prohibit personal pronouns when referring to fictional characters in an out-of-universe context. And "everyone else understands that it happens more than one way" doesn't sound like a deduction—it's a statement of alleged fact. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:04, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. Curly Turkey is absolutely right (and is the only editor on this thread doing the work of finding examples to illustrate his points). Using inanimate pronouns to refer to fictional characters is a hypercorrection on the part of a small number of comics-focused Wikipedia editors in response to having to write from a real-world perspective. It doesn't happen anywhere else, and is not good English usage. --Nicknack009 (talk) 10:49, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Did you actually read the proposal? It suggests using alternative constructions instead of inanimate pronouns.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
• Suggestion - Rewrite "The character Superman, which was sold" as "The Superman character, which was sold". I think reversing the order makes it more clear that Superman is describing the word character, not the other way around. Argento Surfer (talk) 11:28, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Counter-suggestion: "the rights to Superman, which were sold". --Nicknack009 (talk) 11:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Yes those things would both be good if we were talking about a real article, but the point of the passage is to give an example of a case in which "...Superman, which..." would be better than "...Superman, who..." Darkfrog24 (talk) 12:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I think the distinction this discussion is groping towards is that inanimate pronouns can be appropriate when talking about a character, not as a character, but as a property - for example, when discussing things like rights and copyright ownership. When discussing a character as a character, I can't think of any situation where inanimate pronouns would be appropriate. --Nicknack009 (talk) 14:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

That's definitely one of the points. The other is to avoid use of "who" except in an in-universe way, rewriting to avoid any awkwardness that might results from use of inanimate pronouns. Darkfrog24 is definitely picking that up. Why say "Superman, who was sold" or write "Superman, which was sold", when rewriting to avoid the confusion makes more sense: "The rights to Superman, which were sold".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:29, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

We've established that general English practice is to refer to fictional characters as "who" almost all of the time. Consensus seems to be 1) use "who" and 2) but we don't want to do anything that could be construed as banning "that"/"which," and that consensus seems to be overwhelming. We're working out exactly how we'd phrase this above. Next question: Is the problem big enough to merit taking up space in MoS, MoS:FICTION or both? My own take is that if this is just one person, then a line in the MoS isn't appropriate. But if it's a group of people or if this is a recurring problem, even on just one Wikiproject, then a line in the MoS is just the thing. Darkfrog24 (talk) 03:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I quite like your third take above, Darkfrog, but I tend to agree that we have all fallen down a rabbit hole here. I'd suggest that pointing to the rough consensus of this conversation in the archives will be sufficient should this issue arise intermittently in the future.--Trystan (talk) 03:57, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Nobody's proposed banning "that". The proposal is to overturn the ban the on "who", "he", and "she". Here we have Darkfrog24 telling us "who" is used "almost all of the time", while SMcCandlish and Cebr claim it never is (while ignoring all evidence that it is). Communication is not happening. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 08:46, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

This is at least the fifth time in the same conversation you've blatantly misrepresented others' arguments to try to make your own seem more reasonable. I insist that it stop, immediately. It's getting beyond disruptive at this point, and is patently uncivil.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:18, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I've been a part of discussing who vs that at least three times. Aside from the two discussions linked above, here's a third one. (It starts off on something different.) From personal experience, I think this should be mentioned specifically in the MoS. People who strongly oppose using who for a fictional character are the only ones who cause these discussions, and pointing to previous consensus usually doesn't sway them. Either the previous consensus was "obviously wrong," or "maybe it's time to have another discussion and see if consensus has changed." Having something spelled out in the MOS would (hopefully) be more definate. Argento Surfer (talk) 16:05, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

That seems to be the trust of this. Maybe there really people who think that "who" should never be used for a fictional character even in an in-universe plot summary, but I don't see that view being advanced by anyone in this discussion, so one would think the result will be sensible. Somewhere between "never ever use 'who'" and "always use 'who' no matter what", the encyclopedic approach will be found. I'm pretty sure it's already been outlined pretty clearly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:48, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

To be clear, I've never seen anyone oppose using who/he/his pronouns in a plot summary.

I have seen people suggest not using those words outside the summary. Go here, then ctrl+F for "Joe Blow". Argento Surfer (talk) 21:01, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Where has anyone suggested avoiding personal pronouns in in-universe contexts? I've yet to see such an argument. Every time I've seen this come up it has been about out-of-universe writing—almost always in the context of the lead. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:04, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

For once I agree with CT.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:15, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

This list is based on comments made in this thread, but minds change and interpretation is subjective. All users have blanket permission to add or remove their own name from this list. If you add someone else, ping them so that they can correct any errors. I personally am NOT interpreting interest in any specific version of the rule as belief that the rule should be included. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:58, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

1. Yes @Argento Surfer: [1] Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

This list is based on comments made in this thread, but minds change and interpretation is subjective. All users have blanket permission to add or remove their own name from this list. If you add someone else, ping them so they can correct any errors. I personally am NOT interpreting disapproval of any one specific version of the rule as belief that the rule itself should not be included. Darkfrog24 (talk) 16:59, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

1. No @Sergecross73: [2] Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

   No @Curly Turkey: [3] Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

   I started the RfC with the intention of removing a restriction rather than adding any sort of rule, but I am not opposed to having it spelled ou i the MoS given Cebr's stated intention to continue with his contentious editing regardless of consensus. P.S. Darkfrog24: your ping didn't show up in my notifications, so it may not have for the others, either. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:48, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

   Well crumbs. Will alert. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:11, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

2. No @Maunus: [4] Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
3. No @Cyphoidbomb: [5] Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

   I approve this summary of my opinion. The MOS should not legislate the pronouns we use when we describe fictional characters. My really snappy answers are somewhere on this page. Cyphoidbomb (talk) 03:29, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

4. No @Trystan: (see above "rabbit hole") [6] Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
5. No @Margin1522: (see "emphatic") [7]Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:38, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
6. No Cebr1979 (talk) 03:34, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Above, someone insists Encyclopaedia Britannica uses "who" for fictional characters (and very selectively links to examples of this; in reality some of Britannica's writers do it and some do not). Leaving aside the WP:NOT-Britannica point, let's actually examine a one of their articles that is not written like their "Superman" article. I'll run with the second one I looked at, "Sherlock Holmes" [8].

• "Sherlock Holmes, fictional character created by the Scottish writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The prototype for the modern mastermind detective, Holmes first appeared in Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, published in Beeton’s Christmas Annual of 1887." Avoidance of pronouns.
• "As the world’s first and only “consulting detective,” he pursued criminals throughout Victorian and Edwardian London, the south of England, and continental Europe. Use of pronoun in an appropriate in-universe way.
• Rest of lead paragraph: avoidance of pronouns.
• Second paragraph: "his professor at the University of Edinburgh Medical School." Pronoun refers to Conan Doyle, not Holmes.
• "his honed skills of observation and deductive reasoning ... Holmes offered some insight into his method ... His detecting abilities become clear, though no less amazing, when explained by his companion, Dr. John H. Watson ... declaring his abilities to be 'elementary,' ...". All four pronouns are references to Holmes, in-universe.
• Third paragraph: "His London abode at 221B, Baker Street, is tended by his housekeeper ... his even wiser but less ambitious brother, Mycroft; and, most notably, his formidable opponent, Professor James Moriarty ...". All three pronouns are references to Holmes, in-universe.
• Fourth paragraph: "Claiming that Holmes distracted him 'from better things,' ...". Pronoun is a reference to the author.
• "Conan Doyle ... attempted to kill him off". This actually does appear to be use of "him" to refer to Holmes as a character, after a great deal of studious avoidance of doing so. It's also not unclear in the context, because it the sentence is carefully constructed and is about the author's relationship to the character; any professional editor could have missed this, or caught it and considered it permissible.
• "Holmes and his nemesis ...". Use of pronoun in an appropriate in-universe way.
• "By popular demand, Conan Doyle resurrected his detective in ..." Pronoun is a reference to the author.
• Fifth paragraph: "Among the most popular stories in which he is featured are ... Holmes’s character has been translated to other media as well, and he is widely known on both stage and screen." Like the above case, this is non-confusing use of "he" to refer to the character in an out-of-universe way, that cannot be mistaken for anything but real-world reference to a character, not in-universe actions of the character.
• "... his meerschaum pipe and deerstalker hat ... his investigations in the country". Pronouns are in-universe.
• Sixth paragraph: "... a genre of parodies and pastiches has developed based upon the Sherlock Holmes character ...". A return to the intro's studious avoidance of pronouns.

What we can learn from this:

1. A great deal of care was taken to avoid confusing use of "he".
2. Mostly it was avoided by careful construction of sentences, that used pronoun-substitute phrases like "a popular figure", "fictional character", "the Sherlock Holmes character", "Holmes's character, etc.
3. It was only used about the character in two sentences that very explicitly spelled out that the character was being discussed in a real-world context; and both of these could easily have been rewritten to not use the pronoun even then (one suspects they were added by later writers/editors; the piece is credited to both one main author and to "Ed.", about which see here).
4. Awkward constructions using "it" and the like were never used to refer to the character.
5. There is never any confusion of any kind between the in-universe character actions and the real-world analysis of the character.

This is pretty good writing, but WP can do better (in part by rewriting to avoid both cases of out-of-universe "he", but in other ways: the article has neutrality and tone issues that WP would not permit, cites no sources, is not very comprehensive but highly summarative, and is otherwise very "Britannica-ish", which is not what WP is going for.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:07, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

If the moral is "Use personal pronouns for fictional characters in both in-universe and real-world contexts, but avoid pronouns altogether where it may cause confusion," then I'm all for it. --Trystan (talk) 19:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

SMcCandlish, there is no evidence that "A great deal of care was taken to avoid confusing use of 'he'."—the author used it twice! It was natural and utterly un-confusing, and such pronouns are used throughout Britannica. You've shot your own argument in the foot. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 20:27, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

CT, the entire piece avoids doing so, going out of its way in this regard again and again and again, except in only two places where it explicitly reiterates that we're talking about a fictional character outside the context of the fiction. This clear message is to generally avoid using pronouns out-of-universe, and be very careful when you do chose to use them. This is a pretty simple and obvious lesson. You'd see it, too, if you were devoting less brain power to trying to prove everyone wrong and more on actually looking at usage. Your approach to this has been suboptimal because you find uses of poor constructions like "Sherlock Holmes, who was created in ..." and latch onto this as if it's proof that it's a good idea. It's not. It's just illustration some some writers are less careful than others. You then try to deny all counterevidence that doesn't agree with you, and misstate the opposing argument as being in favor of something like "When Sherlock Holmes was created, it was ..." (as you've done multiple times in the above discussion) which not one single person here has advocated. It's not constructive, and just demonstrates that you're not understanding the actual discussion.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:43, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

the entire piece avoids doing so: based on what evidence other than mindreading? How can you possibly characterize that as "avoid[ing] doing so"? If the author was honestly "avoiding" it, it must have been quite the burden to do so if two "he"s managed to slip in! The rest of your comment is a mess of ad hominems and bald assertions that your own evidence disproves. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:22, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

I decline to respond further to such circular and time-wasting WP:NOTGETTINGIT reactions out of you, which I feel compelled to say is starting to become indistinguishable from certain unconstructive behavior patterns, and this wouldn't be the first time, but it's rather characteristic of many of your forays into WP style and titles debates. This area simply is no your long suit, and I have better things to do that try to re-re-re-explain to you that which you so strongly resist understanding. You've provided no evidence of anything other than "some people use 'we' to write about fictional characters sometimes", a point that was never under debate. Good day.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

PS: What "managed to slip in"? I've already indicated where "he" was used twice it was done in constructions that reinforced that a fictional character was being discussed as such, a use that it not confusing. You're approaching this as if I'm still arguing something like "ban use of out-of-universe 'he'", when I and everyone else has clearly moved past that idea. The very point of this Britannica exercise was to point out how to use "[s]he" in an out-of-universe way without it being confusing. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:55, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Good day. I won't miss your tautologies, mindreading, or refusal to engage with evidence. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:15, 22 August 2015 (UTC) Revised:

Repeat, since you're still WP:NOTGETTINGIT: You've provided no evidence of anything other than "some people use 'we' to write about fictional characters sometimes", a point that was never under debate.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:13, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

• As this RfC has the potential of overturning last year's consensus, we should probably invite that discussion's participants to weigh in:

  @Maunus, Cambalachero, Geraldo Perez, Cyphoidbomb, Boz, CombatWombat42, AngusWOOF, InedibleHulk, Nightscream, ProtoDrake, Benlisquare, Diego Moya, Jayron32, NukeofEarl, Alsee, Granger, Llywrch, Nyttend, and Nihonjoe:

  @InedibleHulk, Nightscream, ProtoDrake, Benlisquare, Diego Moya, Jayron32, and NukeofEarl:

  @Alsee, Mr. Granger, Llywrch, Nyttend, and Nihonjoe: — updated — didn't realize the template had a limit. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:19, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

  The question is whether MoS should prohibit the use of personal pronouns ("he"/"she"/"who") to refer to ficitonal characters in an out-of-universe context. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:18, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Personal pronouns should not be prohibited, but I agree some sentences can be rewritten to as to not raise this issue, like how people would replace "he" and "she" with "one", or use "the character". The Superman example is nice for that. Also, there are fictional characters that are not people, like HAL 9000: "is a sentient computer that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew." While the character is in the concept stage, the character can be person-less. For example: "The author planned for Holmes to be a sentient computer that would light up and make a pinging sound when it solved the question. He changed it to be a normal person after realizing that computers would not fit the setting." When the character is obviously a person, then using "who" would be fine. For example: "The author wanted a magical girl heroine who would appeal not only to tween girls but also adults" . The Wonder Woman example is not relevant as it supports the usage of "that" and "which" on the genderless word "characters". Similarly, Justice League refers to the team which is genderless/impersonal. Sorry if this retreads on what was already posted. I think we don't need to spell out or impose extra rules that would cause folks to make more grammatical errors. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 22:16, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@AngusWOOF: Curly Turkey's "The question is whether MoS should prohibit the use of personal pronouns..." is a misstatement of the debate, another in a long string of straw man arguments CT has been clouding this discussion with. The principal shape of this debate is actually whether to advise rewriting to avoid confusing uses of (and grammatical errors involving) such pronouns, to refer to characters in an out-of-universe way. But CT refuses to acknowledge this, so the discussion has largely been moving on around and past him, despite his angry and not terribly coherent interjections. To him this debate is only about "banning" the use of "we" and the like in fiction, even though no one is proposing anything like that. It's a bunch of FUD.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:25, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

To him this debate is only about "banning" the use of "we" and the like in fiction: Wow, so now you're stooping to straight-up lying. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:49, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

If I've actually misunderstood and mischaracterized your position, I certainly apologize; you seem to be restating it more clearly. (See? That wasn't hard. You owe several people here the same apology.)  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:17, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually, just reviewing your comments, it's easy to see why such a perception of your view is hard to avoid. These are direct quotations from you, starting with the sentence opening this non-neutral, misleading RfC:

And so on. All addressing general, not out-of-universe, use of personal pronouns.

Note further than when this distinction is drawn by others:

You oppose them all vehemently. So, it's pretty clear why it's been difficult to interpret you as specifically addressing the use of personal pronouns in an out-of-universe context. It's nice that you've clarified, finally, but the damage to the RfC has already been done.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:44, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

All addressing general, not out-of-universe, use of personal pronouns.: They were all presented in the context of out-of-universe writing—and I've stated repeatedly and explicitly that this was about out-of-universe writing. CTRL+F finds me stating so (using the term "out-of-universe") five times besides this statement, including statements that you responded to. It seems perfectly clear to editors who responded before you did: Masem's comments address out-of-universe examples, as did Cebr1979's, PamD's and others.

This discussion has become unreadable. Would you accept rebooting it with the explicit disclaimer that it is strictly about out-of-universe writing? As in retitling it "RfC: Are personal pronouns (including "who") to be prohibited for fictional characters in out-of-universe writing?" None of my arguments will have changed. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 21:15, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Re: "This discussion has become unreadable. Would you accept rebooting it with the explicit disclaimer that it is strictly about out-of-universe writing? As in retitling it "RfC: Are personal pronouns (including "who") to be prohibited for fictional characters in out-of-universe writing?" Agreed entirely. Too many respondents here, and too much of the heat, has clearly been generated by people thinking this, or some part of this, is about preventing use of "(s)he" and "who(m)" in in-universe writing.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:50, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

At this point, it's clear CurlyTurkey is not going to stop until he gets his way or no way. You all do realise we could just move on without him and create a majority rules consensus, right? Or, do we all want to go around in circles forever and ever amen? Personally, I don't.Cebr1979 (talk) 23:44, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

• What, you mean like the current consensus? I could go with that. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 23:47, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
  • You mean the conversation where everyone (except you) agrees that who should not be used for fictional characters? Sure.Cebr1979 (talk) 23:51, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Cebri, I count only three people who said any kind of "use 'who' when X and use 'that' when Y," four if you're generous. That RfC had more than twenty people total. Darkfrog24 (talk) 01:05, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
  • We're clearly converging on a consensus for something, that even Darkfrog24 agrees with (for different reasons than my own), even if it's not as far as Cebr1979 would go, and maybe not as far as Masem and I would take it. There are obviously not only two views here, but a spectrum, with CT at one extreme, and maybe Cebr1979 at the other, with me and Masem toward Cebr, but pretty centrist, and DF more toward CT, but also centrist. Consensus will lie toward the centrist position, as it most often does.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  03:25, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Darkfrog24: according to SMcCandlish, the "extreme" I'm pushing for is this: "To him this debate is only about "banning" the use of "we" and the like in fiction". Does this look anything like my position to you? My position—which I've stated explicitly more than once—is that there should not be a prohibition on personal pronouns in out-of-universe writing about fictional characters, as in the example edit I linked to in my opening remarks. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:57, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
      • Thank you for restating your position more clearly. As I noted above, in at least 5 places, it was not at all clear what you meant.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:44, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
        • Actually, I got the impression that Curly T's position is that using "who" for fictional characters is standard English, and the purpose of this RfC is to stop people from changing "who" to "that." Darkfrog24 (talk) 19:34, 24 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Since I was brought in unexpectedly, I'd like to offer a quick statement, perhaps raising or ignoring issues that have already been discussed. The Britannica article is a fine example of how we should write in this manner: don't make firm rules of "do" or "don't", but write to be easily understood. I did see the Superman example up above, so for example, the idea of "he was sold to whoever" makes it sound like Superman became somebody's slave: you don't realise immediately that we're talking about intellectual property rather than about some new turn of the story. You have to become rather wordy, or you have to say "the character was sold", in order to demonstrate that you're discussing intellectual property. Conversely, "he's well known on the stage" is easy to understand: any normal user of English will realise that we're talking about out-of-universe appearances, and you'd have to go out of your way if you were talking about a non-canonical story in while Holmes becomes an actor. Good writing in this manner is something that really can't be defined by any rules, so avoid further rule-creep by simply requiring articles to be written in the manner that's most easily understood. Nyttend (talk) 03:44, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I am convinced by Curly Turkey's arguments that the whole rule-making idea on the subject is ridiculous and makes Wikipedians look like nutters. Furthermore, SMcCandlish's reading for the Brittanica article is purely ideological and self-serving. The article uses "his" in reference to both Holmes and his creator in several occasions, and we can not really determine the writer's views on the subject. I fail to see any "studious avoidance". Any sentence which violates SMcCandlish's imaginary rule is attributed to editorial mistakes: "any professional editor could have missed this, or caught it and considered it permissible." and "one suspects they were added by later writers/editors; the piece is credited to both one main author and to "Ed."" I consider it more likely that there was nothing objectionable to catch.

• "A great deal of care was taken to avoid confusing use of "he"." No evidence here that "he" is confusing and there are several instance where the writer uses "his" instead.
• "pronoun-substitute phrases like "a popular figure", "fictional character", "the Sherlock Holmes character", "Holmes's character, etc." Which are all reasonable terms to use for a character but it is unclear if they are used to avoid referring to Holmes as a person. No indication if a real-world context has anything to do with the sentence formation. By the way, a popular figure could be used to refer to real-world people like politicians.
• "WP can do better (in part by rewriting to avoid both cases of out-of-universe "he" ". How would that be better, since it would make the article use less natural English and impose a confusing, artificial rule?
• "the article has neutrality and tone issues that WP would not permit, cites no sources, is not very comprehensive but highly summarative, and is otherwise very "Britannica-ish", which is not what WP is going for." Britanica uses its own house-style? Shocking but irrelevant to the discussion. Dimadick (talk) 07:44, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Re: 'No evidence here that "he" is confusing and there are several instance where the writer uses "his" instead.' I specifically spelled out where those cases were and why whey were not confusing: In each case, the writer constructed the sentences to reinforce that a fictional character was under discussion as such. I feel that you did not actually read what I wrote very carefully, since you're using the very point I made as if it's evidence I missed. Re: "How would that be better...?" See "pronoun-substitute phrases like 'a popular figure'..."; I already covered that, too.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:51, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Since I was invited here to comment, I shall. In the fictional character articles I have written, I have taken care to avoid using personal pronouns like "who" outside of direct quotes that might make use of the world, and been extra careful in my use of "him/her". Example: the articles on Lightning and this Prince characters are articles I've extensively worked on, and while they do refer to the fictional characters in sections like development, this was only to break up any monotony or repetitiveness in the text. Admittedly there is a use of "whose" in the Lightning article, but only because any other noun would either look clunky or would not communicate the information accurately. In general, I avoid the personal pronoun where it would cause confusion or seem too much like a dedicated fan wikia, which is certainly not held up to the same criticism as articles on Wikipedia. So on this issue, I think I'm in agreement with AngusWOOF, while taking SMcCandlish's comments on Curly Turkey's possible position and phrasing of the issue when they pinged other editors and asked the above question. --ProtoDrake (talk) 08:12, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

• With respect to the question in the subtitle – "Should the MoS state this rule explicitly? (pronouns for fictional characters)" – my answer is an emphatic No. The question is whether fictional characters and comic book characters in particular should be regarded as "people". That question belongs to literary criticism. It is not the kind of question that can or should be settled by a manual of style. If someone wants to debate that question, they should take it to some other forum. – Margin1522 (talk) 00:53, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
  • Margin1522: Would that it were, but the issue is under discussion because editors are forcing the issue onto articles they otherwise have no stake in as if the prescription were already in force. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:14, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
    • "they otherwise have no stake in" What exactly do you mean by that?Cebr1979 (talk) 01:22, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
      • Meaning making driveby edits to enforce a particular POV to articles the editor has not otherwise contributed to. When it comes to spelling, date formatting, serial commas, and other contentious stylistic issues a new consensus is required to overturn the article's established style. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 01:31, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
        • And do you have any proof of that or are you simply making baseless allegations?Cebr1979 (talk) 02:11, 23 August 2015 (UTC)
          • You're commenting on the MoS talk page and can't be bothered to read the MoS itself (MOS:RETAIN, MOS:DATERET, etc)? RETAIN's not even on a subpage—you have no excuse for this. Do your own homework. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 03:07, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I'll add that to my collection of people mistaking MOS:RETAIN for some form of WP:OWNership and an excuse to try to bar incoming editors' participation on already extant articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  05:01, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

bar incoming editors' participation? Give it a break—this is an editor who systematically forces his preferred style on articles: [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25] including one today while this discussion is still underway—editors have been blocked for that kind of thing. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 05:25, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I have an interest in every single one of those pages. You saying "they otherwise have no stake in" is you lying. I (and anyone else on the planet) can edit whatever page I want to when I want to and you're only option is to sit there and like it. I'm assuming you're already seated...Cebr1979 (talk) 07:23, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Does anything on this page ever stay short enough to read? Anyway, characters are essentially real people who simply don't exist. They have genders, personalities, hopes, fears, the whole nine yards. Fake ones, but actual, or else we wouldn't know about them. Nothing wrong with saying a developer "wanted to give her 15% less spunk and 20% more moxy." Of course, if the developer is also a woman, don't be ambiguous, just like when discussing two real women. InedibleHulk (talk) 03:39, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

I think avoiding use of pronouns in articles about fictional characters is ridiculous. If they are clearly one gender or the other, then using a pronoun is not only natural, and makes the writing better. ···日本穣^? · 投稿 · Talk to Nihonjoe · Join WP Japan! 18:14, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Working in ideas from all the conversations above, something like this could emerge:

Animate pronouns ("who[m]", "[s]he") are usually appropriate for fictional characters in an in-universe perspective. While their use in reference to characters as such may not be confusing if the context is clear, sometimes inanimate pronouns are more suitable ("that"/"which", "it"), especially when referring to them as intellectual property. However, it is usually possible and often preferable to avoid awkward constructions by rewording.

Followed by some examples that can be hashed out separately.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:08, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

Ah, just realized we can use also use the word "brand", which would make it suitable for inanimate pronouns in the Superman example, should that come up again. AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 20:24, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I am late to this discussion, but have just read through it start to finish. I strongly oppose the above suggestion. I think "take 3B" is the best that has been offered so far. Or perhaps something like this:

Animate pronouns ("who[m]", "[s]he") are normally appropriate when referring to fictional characters either in an in-universe perspective or in an out-of universe perspective. In a few cases such pronouns may be confusing, and inanimate pronouns may be suitable ("that"/"which", "it"), especially when referring to characters as intellectual property. However, it is usually possible and often preferable to avoid awkward constructions by rewording.

This drops the in-universe vs out-of-universe distinction as the decisive criterion, which I think is both wrong headed and not well supported above. DES ^(talk) 21:07, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

I also prefer take 3-B above, but of course I'm biased. (And I prefer to phrase the MoS in the imperative.) But it's looking like consensus is leaning toward "we don't need to explicitly state this rule." Concur that in-universe vs out-of-universe should be dropped from any version we use. It doesn't seem to be the decisive criterion. Darkfrog24 (talk) 22:24, 22 August 2015 (UTC)

(ec) @DESiegel: I could lean toward that version. It goes farther toward promoting personal pronouns out-of-universe than I'd like, but it's a good basis from which to work, and should be good enough to try out, since it permits dispensing with them in cases where it is in fact confusing. [relevant portion of older post; off-topic portion under collapse] — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:55, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

 I'm unconvinced by DF24's suggestion that MoS doesn't need to explicitly state something, especially since DF24 recently non-neutrally canvassed all the relevant wikiprojects with claims that there was a consensus brewing for MoS to not state something; WP does not operate on a WP:FAITACCOMPLI basis. Quite a few commenters here do want MoS to state something, and perhaps more to the point, this is a perennial debate, the recurrence of which clearly indicates MoS needs to state something, or the strife will continue indefinitely. DF24's personal preference for having MoS be "imperative" and to tie these impositions to off-WP "sources" that dictate "rules" is not how MoS is actually written. It frequently explicitly states that variation is permissible, and it is based on internal editorial consensus on what's best for WP, not what some particular paper style guide insists.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  04:55, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

since it permits dispensing with them in cases where it is in fact confusing: such a thing doesn't need to be "permitted" as it is not prohibited—it is an editorial decision requiring editorial judgement. The idea is to stop allowing certain editors to force one style whose validity is in question, not to introduce new rules. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 05:08, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

That's your idea; clearly several participants in this debate don't agree with you on that point.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:00, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

I think this wording is fine. Argento Surfer (talk) 20:49, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

"The idea" as in "The idea behind the RfC as I proposed it"; that there are those who disagree is the whole reason there is an RfC. You seem bent on painting my comments as Bad Faith. 112.139.249.80 (talk) 20:56, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

To whom are writing, anon? Your comment doesn't seem responsive to me, to Argento Surfer, or to Curly Turkey.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:53, 26 August 2015 (UTC)

The "as I proposed it" should have made it obvious it was me accidentally signed out. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:03, 27 August 2015 (UTC)

This conversation has been going on for days and we're nowhere further along than when we started. In fact, parts of this conversation have gone outright childish. I'm now leaving the conversation and won't be returning. I'm just going to keep on doing what I decide to do. Have a good one, all!Cebr1979 (talk) 08:38, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Actually, we are further along. We've formed a consensus of "Animate pronouns are standard English usage," and "this might be so obvious that we don't need to state the rule." Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:14, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Repeating what I said above: "People who strongly oppose using who for a fictional character are the only ones who cause these discussions, and pointing to previous consensus usually doesn't sway them." Cebr1979's stated decision to ignore this conversation and continue removing who/he/she is exactly why this rule needs to be explicitly covered in the MOS. Otherwise, this discussion will just happen again in a few months, and a lot of effort will be spent reaching the same consensus. Though, to be honest, Cebr1979's history has made it clear his opinions are higher than Wiki rules and consensus. (The conversation started in edit summaries here on July 9, 2015.) Argento Surfer (talk) 12:42, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

I have to point out that "people who strongly oppose [doing any objectionable style/grammar thing] are the only ones who cause ... discussions [about the objectionable style/grammar thing]" is true of every single valid style/grammar issue, as well as the invalid ones. It's not a cogent rationale for ignoring their concerns, nor (as Darkfrog24 points out) a cogent rationale for having no rule. We are in fact further along toward resolving this, also as DF24 said.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:58, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

Having being called, I will too offer my position. I oppose adding any specific recommendation to avoid the WP:CREEP. But in case that editors feel some text has to be added to the MOS in order to avoid edit warrings because of this concern, the added text should be a non-rule, keeping with the spirit of WP:NOTBUREAUCRACY; i.e. a clarification explicitly saying that Wikipedia doesn't have a specific criterion for which pronoun to use and all possibilities are legitimate, thus preventing editors from claiming that the guideline supports their preferred version and disallows the rest.

In particular, it should not say that some version is "preferred" nor that some uses are more or less "frequent" than others. I agree that take 3B is the closest to this (by marking both possibilities as valid), although I would change the "in general, use animate pronouns" with "animate pronouns may be used", and would remove the "few" in "few contexts". Let's call this version 3C:

Animate pronouns ("who," "she") can be used for fictional characters, either when writing in- or out-of-universe, but there are contexts in which inanimate pronouns are also suitable ("which," "it"). However, it is often possible to avoid the issue entirely by rewording the sentence.

"Laertes and Ophelia both took action, unlike Hamlet, who continued to delay."

"The character Superman, which was sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938, was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster in 1933."

"The character Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster in 1933 and sold to Detective Comics, Inc. in 1938."

Diego (talk) 21:23, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Descriptive phrasing is good for the article space, but the MoS is a list of instructions, so it should be in the imperative mood ("do this"). "Can be" seems too vague. Inanimate pronouns are an extreme minority in English, so it's perfectly all right to put animate pronouns above them in some way. But I do like this more than take four. Darkfrog24 (talk) 21:37, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

The most common fictional characters in out-of-universe situation I encounter is when I'm writing up a list of characters and have the voice credits in prose. For example: "Natsu is voiced by Tetsuya Kakihara. In the English dub, his voice is provided by Todd Haberkorn." Here it does not make sense to list Natsu twice, but it gets complicated when the sentences are combined and there are several voices to convey. Here's another example from List of One Piece characters#Smoker: " In the Japanese anime series, he is voiced originally by Ginzō Matsuo, later by Mahito Ōba. In the 4Kids English adaptation, referred to as Chaser the "Smoke Hunter", he is voiced by Scottie Ray. In the Funimation English adaptation, where he is called Smoker the "White Hunter", his voice is supplied by Greg Dulcie." AngusWOOF (bark • sniff) 18:05, 24 August 2015 (UTC)

Use less telegraphic writing, wikify, and preserve some points other consider important, and I think we may have a winner. Something like:

Animate pronouns ("who[m]", "[s]he") are usually appropriate for fictional characters when writing in an in- or out-of universe perspective, but there are contexts in which inanimate pronouns are also suitable ("that"/"which," "it"), especially when referring to characters as intellectual property. However, it is usually possible and often preferable to avoid awkward constructions by rewording.

followed by examples.

The word "normally" should be avoided here, because it is not normal to use "he" or "she" for genderless characters, nor even "whom" when referring to characters as intellectual property; using "normally" (i.e., asserting a norm with which others are expected to comply) is an overstatement that introduces a factual error. "Ususally" conveys the commonness of the situation without any such incorrect implication.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:10, 25 August 2015 (UTC)

This comment applies to most of the versions above: I firmly oppose labeling that as an "inanimate pronoun". It is always correct (but not required) to use that to refer to humans in a restrictive clause. See these classic examples, as merely a few among many thousands:

• Romeo and Juliet: "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."
• Poor Richard's Almanack: He that's content, hath enough; He that complains, has too much.
• Thomas Paine: "He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression."
• John Bunyan: "He that is down needs fear no fall..."

All of those are grammatically correct. There is nothing wrong with using that construction to refer to actual people or to comic book characters, if you want to. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:10, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

• WhatamIdoing: You've misunderstood what the RfC was about—not one editor argued that "that" was incorrect. The argument was whether "who" should be prohibited when referring to fictional characters in an out-of-universe context, as in AngusWOOF's example: "The author wanted a magical girl heroine who would appeal not only to tween girls but also adults". What started the RfC is that there are editors who change "who" to "that" in such contexts under the pretext that "who" cannot be used to refer to fictional characters in an out-of-universe context. The argument applies to "he" and "she" as well, and as "it" is obviously an unacceptable substitute in many examples, some editors prescribe recasting such sentences to avoid pronouns altogether; others of us believe this is an unreasonable burden not backed by actual English usage. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 01:26, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
  • I'm not very interested in the actual question. I'm interested in avoiding a problem in several of the proposals in this section. These proposals would result in the MOS directly labeling the word that as being an "inanimate" pronoun. Doing so would be bad for the entire encyclopedia and produce disputes about whether we can write things like Vice Presidents that are still living, or if it's insulting to use an "inanimate" pronoun to describe living people.
    As for the actual question, if it's correct to introduce a dependent clause with who, then it is equally grammatically correct to use that (for restrictive clauses) or which (for non-restrictive clauses) instead, and I have no complaint about editors who choose that style. However, I wouldn't choose to use it on the grounds that it will confuse readers. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:36, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
    • Calling "that" inanimate is indeed an error and such wording should be amended in the proposals. Nobody here has expressed complaint about "editors who choose" to use "that" as a relative pronoun, only about those who insist that editors have chosen to use "who" are mistaken and must be corrected. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 02:01, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
      • I switched to using "which" for the inanimate example for this reason. But it looks like the issue is academic, at least for now. We don't have consensus that any rule needs to be inserted at this time. Darkfrog24 (talk) 02:21, 31 August 2015 (UTC)