Page talk:W. E. B. Du Bois - The Gift of Black Folk.pdf/22

"& nbsp;"

@Koavf You wrote: "why arbitrarily remove _some_ non-breaking spaces prior to a short word like "New"?"

I apologize if I screwed anything up. I'm pretty new to the Wikis, and in the process of validating this page I removed nbsp, but didn't remove it from the "ref" tag as I don't totally understand how it works yet. Sorry. The page looked fine on preview and after my diff.

Clearly, though, those were intentional, when I thought they might be just transcription errors. I won't do this in the future, but if you could explain to me why you want nbsp in there, I would greatly appreciate it- I haven't seen it in any of the other works I've proofread or validated so far. Frankly I'm just confused. In return, I will donate $5 to the charity of your choice. Sincerely, FPTI (talk) 10:06, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

You didn't screw up anything. But my point was that there was another New  at the beginning with "New England" that you didn't change, so it was unclear why you did some but not all. I think that a non-breaking space makes sense with a phrase like "New [place]" because it's not useful to have it split across two lines and the word "New" is short. And hey, you give to whatever source is doing the most good in the world, friend. Keep up the good work. <3 —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 10:09, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

$10 donated to Helen Keller International. I'm sorry for being a dunce, please forgive me... What's the point of using a non-breaking space rather than just a space? Like, what does that do, exactly? Sorry if it's obvious and I'm just missing it. FPTI (talk) 10:18, 12 March 2024 (UTC)

Please, you're too kind. A non-breaking space ensures that two pieces of text will not wrap across two lines. E.g. which of the following do you think makes for a better reading experience?:

Do not bring home 275
dogs!

or

Do not bring home
275 dogs!

In the latter example, I used a non-breaking space to ensure that the reader does not see "275" at the end of the line, keeping him in suspense until the subsequent line. When to use non-breaking spaces is a matter of personal judgement, but really common examples are things like numbers in measurements or titles with personal names, so Mr. Witherington or 75 mph, etc. Reasonable persons can disagree about when to use a non-breaking space, but I am inclined to use them when you have a proper noun with a short word, such as "New York" or "North Carolina" or "Jefferson St." and while I would definitely use "St. Lucia", I would not use "St Lucia and the Grenadines" because that is way too long a string. I'm not aware of any guideline or policy on the usage of non-breaking spaces here, so it's left to the individual user to insert them. Thanks again for being so helpful and interested in learning. I wish I were as humble and industrious. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 11:02, 12 March 2024 (UTC)