Talk:AP Stylebook

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"*Style on questions such as whether to convert foreign times to local times (generally not) and when to put "Dr." in front of a person's name (only for certain medical titles, although it may be used if the subject matter is relevant to the topic). " I removed this sentence, which I didn't think was very clear, and replaced it with what I think is a more inclusive summary of what the book contains. I don't think the specific examples were all that useful as they were, but I don't have the book on hand to find any better ones. --Conspire 00:06, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

there appear to be 378 pages in my 2004 ed (39th ed June 2004)

[edit] Annual?

I think there needs to be a mention of how frequently the guide is updated. Jeff Silvers 05:30, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

The book is updated annually, usually in June - that's in the introduction. - DavidWBrooks 10:11, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

...Haha. Wow. I'm blind. Thanks. Jeff Silvers 23:52, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia Styleguide / Stylebook ?

I'll admit that I haven't spent an extensive period of time looking for a Wikipedian Styleguide available to the Wikipedians, but as of 22 August 2006, I haven't seen anything yet.

I wanted to start a real discussion and debate with the editors and contributors to the articles of the English Wikipedia. I've seen a lot of inconsistencies in several areas, such as numbering schemes (one, two, ..., ten, eleven, twelve/twelfth, thirteen/thirteenth, one hundred, nineteen hundred fifty-six, etc). A more modern and generally accepted numbering scheme (see AP, New York Times style guides) is to spell out the numbers 0-9 as such (zero, one, two, three, four, through nine) and spell out numbers 10+ as 10, 11, 12, 13, etc).

The AP and NYT styles are not copyrighted, but more a guide to being consistent in news pieces crossing the wires, but is also accepted in most college-level English courses for papers written for college classes. This is otherwise known as the MLA standards.

If this project has already begun, I'd love to participate since I'm a news desk editor and would like to bring even more consistency to the wikipedia articles. If this project has not begun or is in its infant stages, I am very anxious to start working with the rest of the team.

I look forward to reading about everyone's thoughts or suggestions on where this topic may be better seen and discussed at.

Best regards, Bsheppard 09:18, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Consistency gets locked in regardless of whether it makes sense (e.g., AP's lack of serial commas) yet the power of wikipedia is that it's constantly changing. So having an official stylebook for wikipedia would harm its very core. Now, having said that, there are lots of styles for lots of things on wikipedia - it's just that people ignore them. - DavidWBrooks 00:00, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I'd be for it. As a copy editor/reporter myself, I look at some of this stuff on Wikipedia and go yuck. But Wikipedia's anyone can edit policy makes quality control pointless and futile. My two cents--FidesetRatio 04:51, 10 November 2006 (UTC).

US vs. British vs. other-users-of-English style differences would really, really complicate such an effort.

By the way, you are aware of [[1]] the Wikipedia Manual of Style, aren't you? It's semi-comprehensive and only occasionally self-inconsistent! - DavidWBrooks 17:38, 10 November 2006 (UTC)