Talk:Who Am I? (feature)

Comma

Epsilon has written the following sentence:

"David is interested in exposing the truth of the world, the Alien films except Alien vs Predator, girls, and martial arts (and Jackie Chan)."

Whilst it's grammatically correct, by Epsilon's admission, T:COMMA advises against using the Oxford comma, which is the comma following the word "girls". His reasoning is that "non-English speakers can benefit from this distinction", which I fail to understand and don't see as a valid reason to go against something that the wiki advises against using.

The list is no less understandable by being:

"David is interested in exposing the truth of the world, the Alien films except Alien vs Predator, girls and martial arts (and Jackie Chan)."

The only thing that could potentially be confusing to non-English speakers is putting "(and Jackie Chan)" on the end rather than including him in the list properly, whether by using "and" or "as well as".

Given that the comma doesn't add any clarity and we have a page which describes the Oxford comma as "generally avoided" and "somewhat antiquated", I propose that the offending punctuation mark is removed. - Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 19:31, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

This comment is not directed at anyone in particular, just generally to anyone: Nobody cares this much about punctuation except for perhaps a school teacher. Danniesen ☎ 20:01, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Epsilon cared enough to revert my edit, so that doesn't seem to be true. Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 20:04, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Remember that you began it by reverting his edit. Danniesen ☎ 20:19, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I began it by removing the comma. Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 20:23, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Which brings me to another version of “nobody cares”: Why does it matter? Danniesen ☎ 20:29, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

I’m impartial by the way, I just say it does not matter. T:COMMA should probably just be a suggestion, not a rule. Danniesen ☎ 20:29, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Incidentally, the sentence can also be read to suggest that girls and martial arts are Alien films. – n8 (☎) 20:38, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

To avoid that, we could elimiate the Oxford comma and add Jackie Chan to the list without brackets and the "and", which would avoid any hypothetical confusion and comply with T:COMMA. Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 20:43, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

T:COMMA should be a suggestion, not a rule one should comply with. Danniesen ☎ 21:00, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

You'll notice in my first message that I clearly said that T:COMMA "advises" and haven't indicated that it is a rule. It's a guideline which we can easily follow. Why not do so? Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 21:07, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

Also, it seems very, very unlikely that anybody would confuse girls and martial arts as Alien films given that Alien vs Predator is written in italics and spelt with capitals whilst girls and martial arts are not. Jack "BtR" Saxon ☎ 12:49, 14 January 2023 (UTC)