Wikipedia:Short horizontal line
Essay on editing Wikipedia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
There is considerable controversy over the use of short horizontal lines in Wikipedia. This comes about from having at least four choices:
- an em-dash (—;
—; {{Emdash}}) - an en-dash (–;
–; {{Endash}}) - a minus (−;
−; {{Minus}}) - a hyphen (-)
 | This is an essay. It contains the advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors. This page is not an encyclopedia article or a Wikipedia policy, as it has not been reviewed by the community. |
Looking at the source of this page, one key distinction can immediately be grasped: the only one of these characters with a dedicated key that any editor or user can find without instruction is the hyphen. This leads us to an obvious conclusion: if a Wikipedia editor is expected to be able to type it, a hyphen should be used. This includes titles and any other likely search terms.
When the issue is purely display formatting, people who care about the distinction between the different flavors of short horizontal lines should feel free to argue about it and generate WP:MOS pages about the topic, so long as they only involve other people who also care about the different flavors of short horizontal lines.