User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Time Lord Academy/@comment-6433721-20130309061324/@comment-188432-20130309191901

The real question before us is the matter of the spaces. When I started out on Wikipedia at the top of the last decade, I used no spaces. People would come behind and insert spaces, so I gave up and started adding them, even though I personally think it looks like rubbish.

However, towards the end of the 2000s, Wikipedia decided to do something that I think is even more confusing. They basically agreed that when using an em-dash, you should not use spaces. But then they said that if you were using an en-dash, you should use spaces. (See .)

Basically they now see em-dashes and en-dashes as syntactically equivalent, but that you should use spaces with one but not the other.

To the ordinary editor who is not terribly obsessed with typographical issues — that is, practically everyone — this is nothing short of madness.

It would be much easier to administrate if there were simply a single rule.

So I'm in favour of this:
 * en-dashes forbidden
 * a single em-dash only is allowed
 * no spaces

So this would be correct:
 * Lambert told her superiors in no uncertain terms—and almost in defiance of the then-conventional wisdom about her financial acumen—that the TARDIS prop could be amortised over the course of several months to bring the show in at budget.