Talk:No quarter

message: No quarter is given when a surrender at discretion is ignored. The phrase is more accurate as that is the phrase used in the relevant treaties that make giving no quarter a war crime. -- PBS (talk) 12:53, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Surrender at discretion

message: I am going to comment out the Commando Order addition for two reasons. The first is "The most famous example" may be true but it needs an expert source or else it is a personal point of view based on original research. The next two sentences introduces several facts into a fully sourced article without any sources to back them up. -- PBS (talk) 10:11, 31 August 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: "Commando Order" is in no way related to "No quarter given". Even when they tried to tie that somehow. --105.14.163.19 (talk) 18:59, 23 October 2017 (UTC)
thread_title: Commando order

message: On June 3 2020 I inserted, as the second sentence of the lead: "According to some modern American dictionaries a  person who is given no quarter is "not treated kindly" or "treated in a very harsh way" with cites to Collins and Merriam-Webster dictionaries. Subsequently 23.140.0.66 and KBDeL99 and 77.96.53.50 and 184.98.252.200 and 80.6.12.46 and have been removing or re-inserting. I suggest that this can be discussed. The defences of the edit so far have been: (1) "Collins and Merriam-Webster dictionaries are reliable sources for definitions and specify use in military contexts (Collins mentions "war", Merriam-Webster mentions "soldiers") (2) Dictionary definitions provide context of the modern usage of the term whose historical context is covered in the rest of the article. Merriam-Webster has linked interest in the definition to a recent statement by Tom Cotton, in a post titled Trending: ‘no quarter’ Lookups spiked 140,000% on June 1, 2020. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 22:36, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dictionary definitions 

message: A discussion is taking place to address the redirect :Put to the sword. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 March 31#Put to the sword until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion.   — Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)  07:49, 31 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Put to the sword" listed at [[Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion|Redirects for discussion]] 

message: Consumption of victory was a similar used term.--46.125.249.50 (talk) 18:24, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Similar Term 

message: *Revision as of 11:31, 31 March 2021 by PBS "Put back an older lead because Wikipedia does not write articles about a phrase but about the subject"
*Revision as of 16:24, 20 February 2022 by user:Peter Gulutzan "Undid revision as of 11:31, 31 March 2021 by PBS. Error in edit summary, Wikipedia does indeed have articles about phrases, and this is one. I did not restore the 'take no prisoners' sentence in the lead paragraph."
See MOS:REFERS and the bullet point:
*.For example:
not
Also see WP:LEAD: ""
-- PBS (talk) 21:28, 22 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Now read the following sentence: "" That's clearly saying that articles can be about terms, and I have no trouble thinking of examples: Wetback (slur), List of Latin phrases. So MOS and usage support my claim that the edit summary wording, "... Wikipedia does not write articles about a phrase but about the subject", was wrong. But that does not prove that the subject of this particular article is the phrase, I assumed that based on fairly recent history in this article and its talk page, and I restored a fairly recent lead sentence. Therefore I apologize to PBS because my assumption might be wrong, and let's see what others think. Is the article subject the phrase "No quarter" (in which case my reversion of PBS's edit is close to okay), or is the article subject "No quarter" (in which case my reversion should be reverted)? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:47, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

text: This article is about the phrase (the military term) and not the corresponding action. The lead should therefore discuss the phrase, as per WP:Lead. It should identify the topic (which, in this case, is the term). ParticipantObserver (talk) 15:05, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you. Unless PBS objects, I believe now that my reversion should not be reverted, but no quarter should be in italics in the lead sentence. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 15:50, 28 February 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: I do disagree, because the name of a subject is always a word or phrase; and so I am going to request further input on the talk page of the MOS Lead to see what people who are interested in the MOS lead think about the lead of this article. -- PBS (talk) 16:34, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

text: I agree that changing the first sentence to contain "... during military conflicts to imply enemy combatants ..." sounds a bit better. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 17:31, 18 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[MOS:REFERS]] 

message: Buidhe on 17 June changed the lead to rephrase the first sentence and add , before the bit about dictionaries. I reverted but Buidhe re-inserted. My objection was, and is, "That doesn't apply to no-quarter cases in general, only to military conflicts. Possibly this addition would be okay deep in the article but not as a large lead change." See MOS:LEADREL. Any other opinions? Peter Gulutzan (talk) 20:02, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: The lead is supposed to summarize the body, which currently is exclusively devoted to the military usage. The dictionary definition, for example, did not summarize any body content and is therefore likely unsuitable for the lead. I now realize there is a discussion above where some editors suggested that the article is supposed to be WP:WORDISSUBJECT, but per that guideline, "In these cases, the word or phrase in and of itself passes Wikipedia's notability criteria as the subject of verifiable coverage by reliable sources." I am unable to find any sources besides some brief dictionary entries that actually discuss the word or phrase in and of itself, so I do not think such an article would meet the notability guidelines. However, the practice of refusing to take prisoners in military conflict is highly notable. The legal aspect is heavily discussed in RS, particularly as it is relevant to questions such as the legality of drone warfare. (t · c) buidhe 01:23, 18 June 2023 (UTC)

text: The lead wording was discussed earlier in section MOS:REFERS with partiipants Participants PBS, Peter Gulutzan,ParticipantObserver, No such user. The conclusion involved keeping what we had before buidhe's removals and additions, but before reverting again I will check whether consensus has changed. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 13:02, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: A small group of editors is not able to override the sitewide consensus about MOS:LEAD and Wikipedia:Wikipedia is not a dictionary. (t · c) buidhe 14:04, 22 June 2023 (UTC)

text: If anyone new either supports or opposes Buidhe's changes, it might be helpful if you'd comment here. Peter Gulutzan (talk) 16:24, 22 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additions in lead re Hague etc.