Timeline for Replace hyphen in front of scores/reputation by minus
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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22 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Mar 16, 2021 at 13:01 | answer | added | user3840170 | timeline score: 11 | |
| Mar 20, 2017 at 10:31 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.stackexchange.com/ with https://meta.stackexchange.com/
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| Apr 24, 2014 at 13:33 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
Migration of MSO links to MSE links
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| Apr 18, 2012 at 19:49 | vote | accept | Konrad Rudolph | ||
| Apr 9, 2012 at 0:00 | comment | added | doncherry | Related question (TeX Meta): Use dashes in page titles instead of hyphens, and still somewhat related (MSE): Strange punctuation in "Congrats, you've gained the privilege" message | |
| Apr 8, 2012 at 21:53 | comment | added | Kerrek SB | +1 Full ack. Just because lots of people don't care or can't tell doesn't mean we shouldn't be doing it right, especially if it's such a simple thing to get right. | |
| Mar 10, 2012 at 0:59 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | @Adam The “minus” on your numblock isn’t a minus, it’s also the hyphen. However, there is a separate character (which is not available on common keyboard layouts) for a minus sign which renders subtly but fundamentally different: it is on the same height, and has the same width, as the “+” sign of the same font. Contrast this with the hyphen (just look at my screenshots). Once you know what the difference is, the wrong character becomes a jarring annoyance. | |
| Mar 9, 2012 at 21:59 | comment | added | Jon Ericson | @Adam: Oops. Misread the comment. That I don't know. Nothing? | |
| Mar 9, 2012 at 21:58 | comment | added | Adam Rackis |
@Jon - However, in environments that are restricted to ISO 646, and often in computing generally, the hyphen is represented by a hyphen-minus ( - ), which is well known and easy to enter on keyboards. so under what circumstances will there actually be a difference between a hyphen and a minus sign
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| Mar 9, 2012 at 21:46 | comment | added | Adam Rackis |
Forgive my ignorance, but what's the difference between a hyphen and a minus sign? I thought they were the same character. I know what an em-dash and an en-dash are, but I thought the - next to my equals sign was the same as the - in my number pad
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| Mar 9, 2012 at 21:15 | answer | added | Nick CraverStaffMod | timeline score: 1 | |
| Mar 9, 2012 at 21:13 | history | edited | Nick CraverStaffMod |
edited tags
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| Mar 2, 2012 at 11:09 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | @AakashM Typographically, yes, it’s wrong. There can be no question – it’s simply rendered as a hyphen and those two characters are rendered completely different. The important point is that it doesn’t match the plus sign. The Unicode standard simply takes a realistic stance: since the hyphen has been in existence on typewriters much longer and the minus sign isn’t on any keyboard, it is entirely acceptable not to require a convoluted action to type the “correct” character. But this argument doesn’t apply here since the number display is generated by a software, not a person typing them. | |
| Mar 2, 2012 at 10:50 | comment | added | AakashM |
Is it actually 'wrong', given that the character is named HYPHEN-MINUS and "used for either hyphen or minus sign" ? (this is a serious question)
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| Mar 2, 2012 at 10:31 | comment | added | Andrew Stacey | Serious comment second: Forget Excel, I wonder how screen readers deal with this. Do they read "hyphen ten"? How is one supposed to know that that means minus ten? | |
| Mar 2, 2012 at 10:30 | comment | added | Andrew Stacey | Facetious comment first: since a hyphen is not part of the numerical representation of a number, all the supposed negative numbers on this site are actually positive! This means that we need a massive rep recalc whereby all down-votes are actually counted positively. | |
| Mar 2, 2012 at 10:22 | comment | added | sbi |
"I suppose Excel will not be able to..." I haven't tried. Maybe it does. From a programmer's POV, it's still the wrong char, though. And I'm a programmer on a programmers' website. :)
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| Mar 2, 2012 at 10:20 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | @sbi Wow, Excel sucks. :D I’ve tried it, it recognises neither dashes nor the Unicode minus sign U+2212 | |
| Mar 2, 2012 at 10:17 | comment | added | sbi | Actually, my immediate thought was "What happens if I copy & paste those numbers into a spreadsheet program?" I suppose Excel will not be able to tell that a "—" (em-dash) is supposed to be a "-" (minus). Therefore I upvoted this question. | |
| Mar 2, 2012 at 10:12 | comment | added | Konrad Rudolph | @sbi Has a point, this only bugs people who actually notice it. But those, it bugs hard. I can’t mentally “switch off” noticing bad typography. | |
| Mar 2, 2012 at 10:10 | comment | added | sbi | Obligatory XKCD reference for this kind of discussions: xkcd.com/1015 | |
| Mar 2, 2012 at 10:02 | history | asked | Konrad Rudolph | CC BY-SA 3.0 |