"number sign" in W3C Manual of Style

[Thomas Baker-2]

Section 12 of the Manual of Style says that "number sign"
should be preferred to "crosshatch" when referring to the
symbol "#".

It may be worth noting that in the context of discussing
identifiers, e.g. in [2], this symbol is referred to as a
"hash".

Tom Baker

[1] http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/
[2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-swbp-vocab-pub-20060314/

--
Dr. Thomas Baker                      baker@...
SUB - Goettingen State                            [phone]
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[Susan Lesch]

Thomas Baker wrote:
> Section 12 of the Manual of Style says that "number sign"
> should be preferred to "crosshatch" when referring to the
> symbol "#".
>
> It may be worth noting that in the context of discussing
> identifiers, e.g. in [2], this symbol is referred to as a
> "hash".

Changed to:

  usually not pound sign, hash, crosshatch or octothorpe
  but hash namespace in SKOS Core

Or is the use wider than SKOS? Maybe you will know a better way to describe
the exception. Thank you.

> [1] http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/
> [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-swbp-vocab-pub-20060314/

--
Susan Lesch           http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
mailto:lesch@...               tel:[phone]
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/

[Ian Jacobs-2]

What if we remove the "#" entry entirely?

 _ Ian

On Thu, 2006-08-10 at 10:02 -0700, Susan Lesch wrote:

> Thomas Baker wrote:
> > Section 12 of the Manual of Style says that "number sign"
> > should be preferred to "crosshatch" when referring to the
> > symbol "#".
> >
> > It may be worth noting that in the context of discussing
> > identifiers, e.g. in [2], this symbol is referred to as a
> > "hash".
>
> Changed to:
>
>   usually not pound sign, hash, crosshatch or octothorpe
>   but hash namespace in SKOS Core
>
> Or is the use wider than SKOS? Maybe you will know a better way to describe
> the exception. Thank you.
>
> > [1] http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/
> > [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-swbp-vocab-pub-20060314/
>

--

Ian Jacobs (ij@...)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     [phone]

[Susan Lesch]

Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
> What if we remove the "#" entry entirely?

What if we remove all the terms? :-)

The purpose of this one as I recall was to suggest use of the first Unicode
name (for W3C specifications).

--
Susan Lesch           http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
mailto:lesch@...               tel:[phone]
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/

[Dan Connolly]

On Thu, 2006-08-10 at 10:02 -0700, Susan Lesch wrote:

> Thomas Baker wrote:
> > Section 12 of the Manual of Style says that "number sign"
> > should be preferred to "crosshatch" when referring to the
> > symbol "#".
> >
> > It may be worth noting that in the context of discussing
> > identifiers, e.g. in [2], this symbol is referred to as a
> > "hash".
>
> Changed to:
>
>   usually not pound sign, hash, crosshatch or octothorpe
>   but hash namespace in SKOS Core
>
> Or is the use wider than SKOS?

It's called "hash" often in discussions of URIs and web
architecture.

The archive search shows 52 occurrences of "hash"
in the uri list and 4660 occurrences in all lists.
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/uri/
http://www.w3.org/Search/Mail/Public/search?type-index=uri&index-type=t&keywords=hash&search=Search
http://www.w3.org/Search/Mail/Public/search?type-index=uri&keywords=hash

Google counts 1,630,000 documents that match hash uri .
http://www.google.com/search?q=hash
+uri&start=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:unofficial

Remarkably, the webarch document and the tag issues
list don't call it anything; it's just written '#' every time.
 http://www.w3.org/TR/webarch/#fragid
 http://www.w3.org/2001/tag/issues.html#httpRange-14


>  Maybe you will know a better way to describe
> the exception. Thank you.
>
> > [1] http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/
> > [2] http://www.w3.org/TR/2006/WD-swbp-vocab-pub-20060314/
>
--
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
D3C2 887B 0F92 6005 C541  0875 0F91 96DE 6E52 C29E

[Ian Jacobs-2]

On Thu, 2006-08-10 at 10:07 -0700, Susan Lesch wrote:
> Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
> > What if we remove the "#" entry entirely?
>
> What if we remove all the terms? :-)
>
> The purpose of this one as I recall was to suggest use of the first Unicode
> name (for W3C specifications).

I don't know whether it's cost-effective here to discuss how different
communities refer to this character. It may cause less confusion to
remove the entry and may not be worth trying to capture (possibly
inaccurately) how the term is used.

 - Ian

--
Ian Jacobs (ij@...)   http://www.w3.org/People/Jacobs
Tel:                     [phone]

[Susan Lesch]

Dan Connolly wrote:
> It's called "hash" often in discussions of URIs and web
> architecture.

Thanks, updated to "usually not pound sign, hash, crosshatch or octothorpe but
often hash in URIs and Web architecture." (Changes welcome.)

http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#Terms

--
Susan Lesch           http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
mailto:lesch@...               tel:[phone]
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/

[Dan Connolly]

On Thu, 2006-08-10 at 10:24 -0700, Susan Lesch wrote:
> Dan Connolly wrote:
> > It's called "hash" often in discussions of URIs and web
> > architecture.
>
> Thanks, updated to "usually not pound sign, hash, crosshatch or octothorpe but
> often hash in URIs and Web architecture." (Changes welcome.)

What's the basis for "usually not hash"?

It seems odd to present URIs and Web Architecture as an exception
in a W3C manual of style.

Google counts about 439,000 for "number sign"
about 122,000 for "hash sign". Comparable.

The IETF draft standard does say "The number sign ("#") character"
http://www.gbiv.com/protocols/uri/rfc/rfc3986.html

I suggest 2 entries:

number sign (#)
        also hash sign; usually not pound sign, crosshatch or octothorpe

hash sign (#)
        also number sign; usually not pound sign, crosshatch or
        octothorpe

The alternative is to try to make "usually not hash" true,
i.e. get people to use it less; but that seems like pushing
water up hill, to me.

> http://www.w3.org/2001/06/manual/#Terms
>
--
Dan Connolly, W3C http://www.w3.org/People/Connolly/
D3C2 887B 0F92 6005 C541  0875 0F91 96DE 6E52 C29E

[Susan Lesch]

Dan Connolly wrote:
> I suggest 2 entries:
>
> number sign (#)
>         also hash sign; usually not pound sign, crosshatch or octothorpe
>
> hash sign (#)
>         also number sign; usually not pound sign, crosshatch or
>         octothorpe

Added (plain "hash," no "sign"). Thank you.

--
Susan Lesch           http://www.w3.org/People/Lesch/
mailto:lesch@...               tel:[phone]
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)    http://www.w3.org/