Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

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[edit] Archives and see also

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[edit] Cultural depictions in core biographies

It's been suggested that I post here. I've opened a preliminary discussion in userspace about developing a consistent approach to cultural references lists. The featured list Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc is a proposed model for other core biographies. Preliminary discussion has begun at my userspace with User:Durova/Cultural depictions of core biography figures. Welcoming comments and participation. Durova 20:51, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Glosses -- not

Okay, I read about glosses as requested, in this Article and at gloss. I didn't see anything related to the example here, namely, deuce means two. Everything I read was about translations of foreign languages. And the examples -- for example chaika -- had italics in the predicate! Very much like two.

Besides, would we agree that this is correct? --

The words deuce and two are synonyms.

and this? --

The word deuce is synonymous with two.

and this? --

The meaning of the word deuce is identical to the meaning of the word two.

And then does it make sense to say "if we say anything else, we must draw the line and switch from two to 'two'"?

Also, I think the discussion of linguistics is too obscure for the general reader. If we say "you must put a definition in single-quotes because linguists call that a gloss and have adopted that convention", no one (I exaggerate) is going to buy that argument, and compliance across Wikipedia will be at 5% if you're lucky.

If anyone disagrees, let's see some non-obscure examples (meaning: not just linguists talking to linguists) or citations from outside Wikipedia. (Wikipedia requirement of verifiability.) Otherwise, let's stick with the two relevant simple Wikipedia rules: italicize a word-as-word (or phrase-as-phrase); and start with double-quotes not single-quotes.

TH 04:10, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Firstly, none of the three examples you provide is exactly equivalent to “deuce means ‘two’”. The subject is a word (as a word), the object is a definition: its meaning. You've reformulated your examples to avoid the question, by recasting it as an equivalence of two words rather than a word and its definition: “deuce and two both mean the same thing.” But the sentence as you've left it in the guideline still refers to the meaning of the word two, not to the word.
Consider an equivalent example: “sailor means ‘one who sails’.” The subject is a word as a word; the object is a gloss for it. One who sails is not a word as a word.
Secondly, there is no discussion of linguistics. What you removed helped explain what is a word used as a word, and what is not.
Please also read #Single quotation marks for a gloss, above. —Michael Z. 2006-10-19 16:22 Z
I repeat: none of the examples you point to in gloss comes anywhere close to the example we're discussing -- deuce means two. All those examples (thank you) use single-quotes to indicate a translation.
Your example one who sails is a phrase-as-phrase, equivalent to a word-as-word. (If you want to argue that we should not treat it as equivalent, then what are we going to do with dairy farm, set-point, gastroenteropancreatic, King of the Gypsies?) A sailor is one who sails or else one who sails, never 'one who sails'.
You say "there is no discussion of linguistics", but there is such a discussion, introduced by you, I believe, when you pointed to gloss and made it central to your argument. That article discusses only linguistics and other academic specialties.
You have provided no rationale for leaping from the examples in gloss that you point to, for example
A Cossack longboat is called a chaika ‘seagull’. (USES SINGLE-QUOTES FOR TRANSLATION)
to
Deuce means 'two'. (INCORRECT -- THERE IS NO TRANSLATION)
More for you to think about:
In Hawaii, Happy New Year is Hau`oli Makahiki Hou.
Speakers of Pidgin English refer to a piano as big box you hit him he sing out.
The tribe members all call an airplane a blah blah tribal defining phrase here blah blah.
Igri called the airplane a "blah blah Igri's personal multi-word description here blah blah".
The Cuyahoga Indians called the mayfly a ho-anan.
Americans call a mayfly a Canadian soldier, but Canadians call it an American soldier. (The point here is that chaika was in italics because it was a phrase-as-phrase, not necessarily because it was foreign.)
Also, along the lines of the example
  • The term panning is derived from panorama, a word coined in 1787.
(which I think you have not argued against):
The term smurming is derived from the phrase smorm ruba. (These phrases are abstract examples, not foreign words).
The term smurming originally meant morm ruba.
The term smurming now longer means morm ruba.
In East Anglia still, the word smurming means morm ruba.
The word smurming means morm ruba.
Smurming means morm ruba.
Can you tell me, according to your definitions, which of those are phrase-as-phrase and which are glosses?
MOST IMPORTANT, you have provided no examples from the real world in favor of your preferred format. You have shown no non-specialist who will buy your preferred “sailor means ‘one who sails’.”
TH 21:09, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
My take:
A Cossack longboat is called a chaika, ‘seagull’.
Deuce means ‘two’.
In Hawaii, ‘Happy New Year’ is Hau`oli Makahiki Hou.
Speakers of Pidgin English refer to a piano as big box you hit him he sing out.
The tribe members all call an airplane a blah blah tribal defining phrase here blah blah.
Igri called the airplane a "blah blah Igri's personal multi-word description here blah blah".
If this is a litteral quote, and not his term for airplane.
The Cuyahoga Indians called the mayfly a ho-anan.
Americans call a mayfly a Canadian soldier, but Canadians call it an American soldier.
The term panning is derived from panorama, a word coined in 1787.
The term smurming is derived from the phrase smorm ruba.
The term smurming originally meant ‘morm ruba’.
The term smurming no longer means ‘morm ruba’.
In East Anglia still, the word smurming means ‘morm ruba’.
The word smurming means ‘morm ruba’.
Smurming means ‘morm ruba’.
I know, this isn't my discussion, but I couldn't help wondering what the debate is about. If in doubt, translate the sentence to Chinese. Anything that's still readable should be in italics. Bye, Shinobu 18:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Foreign terms

I've rewritten this to recognize the distinction between foreign terms and loan words, at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Foreign terms and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Foreign terms. Please review.

Perhaps this should also mention that familiar Latin terms are not italicized in normal use: ad hoc, a priori, bona fide, de facto, et cetera, habeas corpus, in camera, in situ, post mortem, status quo, vice versa. Also French: avant-garde, bourgeois, café, communiqué, coup d'état, debacle, de rigueur, elite, émigré, en masse, en route, esprit de corps, façade, fête, fiancée, mêlée, nouveau riche, parvenu, pâté, protégé, raison d'être, vis-à-vis. Others: apartheid, machismo, pogrom, putsch, realpolitik.

References:

 —Michael Z. 2006-10-19 16:51 Z

It seems you have copyandpasted the sections.100110100 07:40, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I rewrote it in the one article, and later found that the section was duplicated here, so I copy-pasted it over. Is that what you are referring to? —Michael Z. 2006-10-23 02:19 Z
Ok, yes. I guess that's what you did, then.100110100 20:06, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] We need a consensus on Unicode symbols

Someone just moved Wal-Mart to Wal★Mart. (It's been reverted.) Now, a while ago a section was added to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks) concerning this, however it's only been loosely followed. Other contentious pages include I Love New York/I ♥ NY, I ♥ Huckabees/I Heart Huckabees, We ♥ Katamari, I♥.... – flamurai (t) 02:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

These symbols are just marketing cruft. The common usage does not include a star, and for the others the common usage is the word "Heart" or "Love", which the proper name for Wikipedia. —Centrx→talk • 03:08, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Thing is, we need consensus to stop people from reverting. – flamurai (t) 06:51, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I would never allow non-standard symbols like hearts or stars (as in I ♥ NY or I ♥ Huckabees) in a title or standard usage. In cases like these, the non-standard symbols should be replaced by the proper (or most commonly used) spoken equivalent, such as "I Love New York" or "I Heart Huckabees." If a trademark has a symbol replacing standard punctuation (such as Wal★Mart or Macy*s, then the standard punctuation should be used instead (Wal-Mart or Macy's). I would, however, allow ampersands in AT&T and similar terms. BJ Nemeth 19:37, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Concur. └ OzLawyer / talk ┐ 19:43, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Concur. - PhilipR 03:18, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
Concur, and note that Wal-Mart uses a hyphen, not a star, on its logo on its stores in Canada. This may be the case with all its stores outside the United States. Indefatigable 04:57, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I added it to Wikipedia:Naming conventions, [1]. Maybe should also be added to some of the subguidelines, like the ones referenced in there. —Centrx→talk • 05:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Multiple images in an article

'"When using multiple images in the same article, they can be staggered left-and-right (Example: Kremlings)."' Does anyone else find the staggering of images on the Kremlings page adversely affects readability? Coming from a noob, this observation probably isn't worth much, but as someone with a fair amount of graphic design experience, I find this example of style to be quite poor. I should clarify that I have no issues with the staggering of images. My complaint is that in the example of the Kremlings, each heading is defining a new entry in a list of what are essentially definitions and thus, from a graphic style standpoint, should have uniform image placement. I suggest finding a better article to illustrate this point.

I should also bring up a more general image-layout issue that I notice all the time on Wikipedia articles, and that is when an image is floated left and is immediately below a heading. This pushes the text under the heading far to the right and interrupts proper reading/visual flow. Examples of this are in abundance on the Kremlings page. As a newcomer I have to ask: is this just one designer being too picky about layout? (fyi, if you answer "yes," my reply will be the next question: "But effective layout means a more effective communication of information, and isn't an encyclopedia all about the dissemination of information?"). Crazynorvegian 21:31, 22 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the article with many tiny sections, and oversized staggered images looks a mess. In this case, an approach like the one in M4 Sherman variants would probably be better.
In an article with longer sections of prose, the right-left-right staggering usually works pretty well. —Michael Z. 2006-10-23 02:23 Z
I agree with you. There should be a guideline that "float left" images should not come immediately after second-level (===) headings. Instead they should be immediately before. To pimp my own page, I think Timpani is a good example of image layout that doesn't interrupt flow.
To rant a little, I hate the "column of images" layout as well. I would love to see Wikimedia have a DHTML solution for pages like M4 Sherman variants and Kremlings where there are lists of things with images that correspond to them. – flamurai (t) 07:43, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I deleted the Glosses section

For simplicity, I deleted this section. Here's what the section said:


[edit] Glosses

A gloss, translating or defining an unfamiliar term, may be surrounded by single quotation marks, to distinguish it from a short quotation. This is a common convention in linguistics.

  • They are called Cossacks, from the Turkic quzzaq ‘freebooter’.
  • The moose gets its name from the Algonquian mus or mooz (‘twig eater’).


If you want to put this section back, first please

  1. remove the ambiguity -- should I put glosses in parentheses, or not?
  2. make it clear -- do American linguists use single-quotes or do UK linguists use single-quotes and Americans use double-quotes?
  3. convince us that this belongs in Manual of Style -- for the general reader -- and not in some page on linguistics. Explain why this page does not tell people how to format names of chemicals (e.g. iodine-131) but should tell people how to format these three-way linguistic details. (By three-way I refer to "Cossack" + "quzzaq" + "freebooter".) Explain why the general reader would not be content with: They are called Cossacks, from the Turkic quzzaq, meaning freebooter. (with no special rules)

TH 18:59, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

  1. Comma, brackets, or neither, is an editor's style decision which depends on the specific situation, just as it does everywhere—the examples were meant to convey that. Using single quotation marks for glosses is not intended to be a hard-and-fast rule either, just a suggested method for avoiding readers' confusion, especially when there are several defined terms, foreign terms, and translations close together.
  2. It appears that most or all of them use single quotation marks for inline glosses, so it stands out more in American usage where direct quotations are usually in double quotes (some references above, in #Single quotation marks for a gloss).
  3. Perhaps this belongs in a more specific MOS page, but I don't know where. It may bear mentioning under quotation marks, since there's no reason to restrict it to a narrow domain. I have found this technique useful in many history and geography articles.
Any suggestions? —Michael Z. 2006-10-23 19:36 Z
If everyone agreed about your "editor's style decision which depends on the specific situation, just as it does everywhere", how would they respond to someone saying "let's throw away Chicago Manual of Style, MLA guidelines, APA guidelines, Newspaper Guild guidelines, because it's all just a editor's style decision which depends on the specific situation"? It's easy to believe that chemists don't leave it to the editor's style decision where to subscript or superscript the number of electrons in an ion! Are linguists sloppier or more anarchic than chemists?
Matters of punctuation (incl. italicization) are usually considered to be both (a) trivial enough and (b) annoying/confusing enough that they are left to style guides, not to editorial freedom. At best, editors get to choose the style guide they will then slavishly (and properly) follow.
TH 20:35, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I don't think you've thought this through very well. Which are we allowed to use for parenthetic statements in Wikipedia: commas, round brackets, or dashes? Letting an editor to choose is hardly tantamount to throwing the Chicago Manual of Style out the window. —Michael Z. 2006-10-23 23:59 Z
Look at Michael Z's item 1 a few paragraphs up from here. He used his freedom to choose an em-dash rather than parentheses or semicolon for "the examples ...", just like he chose to use the colloquial term "hard-and-fast". Good for him! Because "hard-and-fast" best suited his thinking. Because the em-dash best suited the relationship he wanted to make between the clauses of his sentence. But he should not have the freedom to start quotes with double-quotes if he writes for an audience in the UK, or to start them with single-quotes if he writes for an audience in the USA -- or for Wikipedia (because Wikipedia Guidelines say so). It's the combination of (a) triviality (deep down, no one should really care as long as there is consistency) and (b) potential annoyance (or danger) that puts quotation marks, italicization policies, chemical notation, footnote and reference formats into style guides (and hard-and-fast rules).

TH 00:28, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

1. I agree that it would be useful to provide more specific guidance, and I vote for parentheses, but:
2. I'll do some more research on standards for in-line glosses concerning parentheses, quotes, smallcaps, etc. later. I came across the LSA style sheet for submitting to Language and they only provided inter-line guidance, as (I believe) inter-line glosses are used much more often in linguistics.
3. This belongs in the MOS because it is used quite commonly in a broad variety of articles (not just linguistics articles) and can be distinguished by general readers. While editors are certainly free not to use the gloss convention, as in your example (They are called Cossacks, from the Turkic quzzaq, meaning freebooter.), I think they should be free to also choose to use the gloss convention, because for one thing, it is less verbose, and in which case, there should be guidance available them on how to standardize the styling of a gloss. I too cannot think of a more suitable sub-manual for this guidance to go into.
The other thing to keep in mind is glosses are distinct from translations or definitions, and using the separate style convention is useful in making these distinction clear. For example, in the case of moose, I'm not sure that mus actually "means" twig eater — mus probably means "moose" (the concept, not the word), or "large hairy ungulate", etc. (same for quzzaq and freebooter, which probably doesn't mean one who boots freely?); as in English, the word woodpecker does not mean pecker of wood. I hope this all comes across as somewhat coherent. Schi 22:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Sounds reasonable, but I would still caution against over-specifying the style (editors should be allowed to apply their discretion) or the definitions (a translation can be a "language gloss"). My intention was only to offer editors one useful way to format a gloss, and to include it in the MOS so that editors don't have to edit-war over a trivial but useful bit of formatting.
Sometimes an editor will want to insert a unobtrusive gloss without interrupting the flow of running text, so just single quotes, or just commas, or just parentheses may be the best way, and the nature of the gloss may be obvious with any of these. In other situations, say where a series of words in a row, is repeated in Cyrillic and Latin transliteration and glossed, or when glosses are mixed with direct quotations, it may be very useful to have a distinctive formatting to help distinguish each. Also, while the relatively prominent double quotes help spot the start of direct quotations on the computer screen, where there are a number of glosses in a row, they can make the page look pock-marked, and the more streamlined single quotation marks are preferable.
Sorry I've been short on examples, but this is not something that comes up very often, so it's hard to hunt them down. This has come in handy: Ukrainian language#Language structure. Anyway, too much written here already. —Michael Z. 2006-10-26 00:03 Z
Doesn't have to be verbose -- could be:
They are called Cossacks, from the Turkic quzzaq, freebooter.
(at least after the first, slightly more verbose instance in an article).
Then we could comply with the Wikipediaish concept of "general (nonspecialized) formatting for the general (nonspecialized) reader".
And on WP pages on linguistics, writers can use specialized formatting, complying of course with the Franco-Sino-British-American Linguistics Association guidelines (which should be named someplace as the rule or recommendation) or, if no such guidelines exist, then the convention used in Joe's Textbook of Linguistics, 23rd edition, or Britannica, or whatever.
But sure, there is a valid counter-argument in favor of using a consistent linguistics convention on pages for the general readership. I wouldn't complain about that alternative.
Huh? When I hear that ratatatatat in my neighborhood, I know that a woodpecker is pecking holes in a tree (made of wood) in search of bugs to eat. But I will agree that hummingbirds click or buzz, they not hum.
TH 23:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)


They are called Cossacks, from the Turkic quzzaq, freebooter.
This example is visually ambiguous: it can be interpreted as meaning Turkic quzzaq or freebooter, as if they were two equal parts of the sentence—at least momentarily, until the reader stops to decide whether the second is meant to be a translation of the first. Using a different format clearly visually identifies one as following from the other. Any of the following is better. —Michael Z. 2006-10-26 00:02 Z
They are called Cossacks, from the Turkic quzzaq, ‘freebooter’.
They are called Cossacks, from the Turkic quzzaq (freebooter).
They are called Cossacks, from the Turkic quzzaq, meaning freebooter.

[edit]  ?? period inside quotes if full sentence is quoted ??

I never heard of this rule, that the article advocates:

  • Arthur said, "The situation is deplorable." (The full sentence is quoted; the period is part of the quotation.)

Most American guidebooks say that the comma or period is always inside the quotation marks. I thought that British guidebooks say that the comma or period is always outside. Is that right?

The (contrary) rule in this article seems unworkable to me. What if I put the period outside the quotes --

  • Arthur said, "The situation is deplorable".

and then I tell you "sure, the sentence that Arthur spoke was the four-word sentence. But I chose to quote only the four words, I chose to terminate my quote just before Arthur's period. Then of course per British custom and Wikipedia rules, I put my period outside the quotes"?

Also, I have changed "the situation" to "The situation". If we're quoting the full sentence, then it must begin with a capital. But I really don't know the rules (US/UK) for capitalizing the initial letter of a quoted sentence --

She said, "Don't do that!"

or

She said, "don't do that!"

-- which is correct?

TH 05:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, British style guides prefer the "logical placement" of punctuation, where (a) a period inside the quotes indicates that there is a period there in the original, and (b) no period inside the quotes indicates that there isn't one there in the original. In other words,
  • Arthur said, "The situation is deplorable".
implies that Arthur did not end the sentence after "deplorable", while
  • Arthur said, "The situation is deplorable."
means that he did end it there. As far as the capitalization, I'm not entirely sure; I've seen the initil capital dropped when the sentence being quoted functions as a clause of the quoting one. For example:
  • According to Arthur, "the elephant population has tripled."
It may be something that varies depending on the exact style guide being followed. Kirill Lokshin 05:20, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. Can you suggest a highly regarded online British style guide I could check?
TH 05:36, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The Oxford Style Manual, maybe? (I generally use the Chicago, so I'm not particularly familiar with British guides.) Kirill Lokshin 05:44, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
The punctuation topic has been discussed to death already. House style is house style. Please see the dicussion titled #British punctuation in articles written in American English on this very page. --Rob Kennedy 17:14, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
It's been archived. Jimp 08:21, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

A good guide to British English is Fowler's Modern English Usage (3rd edition). If you want an online guide, try that of The Times, jguk 12:10, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Well, it may have been discussed to death already, but I certainly never thought I should check and see if Wikipedia invented new grammar rules for me to use. I bet I'm not alone there. Are there other cases where I should be checking Wikipedia's Manual of Style and finding out how Wikipedia amalgamated to create something brand new? How could anyone possible keep track of this? KP Botany 01:05, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Correcting for font issues

In the Ultrahard fullerite article, and in several astronomy articles dealing with Supernovae, I came across Roman numerals which I did not recognize as such. The default sans serif font used by Wikipedia makes "l" and "I" indistingushable from each other, so I thought I was seeing "Type LA" or "Type LLA" or some such. I have edited the Ultrahard fullerite article to enclose the Roman numerals in <code>...</code> pairs, which not only makes it clear that the letter is an upper-case "I", but has the added advantage that they actually look the way that Roman numerals are normally represented, with the serif. I propose that this or a variant of it be standard for representing Roman numerals. --Scott McNay 04:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

I won’t comment yet on whether it’s actually a good idea to implement what you’re asking about. Regardless, <code> isn’t the way to do it. That’s for marking up source code, not for acheiving any particular font. In the default style, code gets a gray background as well as a fixed-width font. Since what you’re looking for is a way to get serifs on the letters, try <span style="font-family: serif;"> instead.
Incidentally, the default sans-serif font used by Wikipedia is actually whatever sans-serif font you have your browser configured to use. I use Tahoma, which is mostly sans-serif. Its uppercase I, however, has serifs, so the original versions of the articles you cite look fine to me. --Rob Kennedy 05:22, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Please don't use <code> for this: it changes the typeface to a monospace font and gives the text a grey background, which looks terrible.
Choosing a different font is not good either: the way numerals and letters appear is part of the high-level design decisions made for Wikipedia, and picking out individual characters and styling them in an out-of-place font looks unprofessional. We don't change the font for every capital letter i either, even though it looks a lot like a lowercase l. Roman numerals are not "normally represented" with serifs: they either have serifs or don't, just like the surrounding text.
Anyway, I don't see a practical problem in your examples. I had a look at the Supernova article, and without thinking about it, I read Type Ib, Type Ic, Type II as "type 1-b, type 1-c, and type-2", as I believe is intended. —Michael Z. 2006-10-26 06:29 Z
I agree. Roman numerals are written down using letters, and typographically speaking, that's just what they are, letters. And they should be treated as such. Using <code> for this is very bad, it's only intended to be used for code snippets, shell commands, method names, et cetera. Shinobu 18:29, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merge of sections on Headings and Sections

Currently, the Manual of Style has a section called "Headings" and another called "Sections" (which just contains 3 links). Does anyone object to me moving the links into the "Headings" section, and renaming the merged section as "Section headings"? This would keep related information together, and I think it would be more obvious what sort of headings are being discussed. JonH 16:38, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

Good idea to merge, and especially to put both words there, so searchers can find it regardless of which word they are searching for. You might consider calling it "Sections and headers". You might consider having a subsection therein called "Sections" and a subsection called "Headers". But I see there is very little discussion of Sections, it's almost all about the Header line. TH 16:50, 26 October 2006 (UTC)
Done. Now called "Sections and headings" as suggested. JonH 16:51, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is a scrollable navigation bar a reasonable idea?

There's a thread at Template talk:Navigation bar about the usability of this recently created template. I suspect at least some of the folks watching this page might have an opinion on this topic. Please comment there. Thanks. -- Rick Block (talk) 18:48, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikilinks in quoted text

May I ask some comments about adding wikilinks within a quote?

Some editors are doing that, and my gut feeling is that they should not, as quoted text needs to be preserved verbatim, and adding wikilinks to the author's quote, may not be what the author wanted.

For example:

There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
William_Shakespeare, Hamlet

≈ jossi ≈ t • @ 03:26, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Linking to philosophy isn’t appropriate here. It doesn’t really help the reader know what Hamlet is talking about. The reader won’t read that passage and then think, “‘Philosophy’? What’s that? Tell me more about this topic!”
If a quote is worth including in an article, then the things the quote talks about are probably also mentioned elsewhere in the article, so link the article’s own text, not the quote’s. Putting a link in a quote also serves to emphasize certain words or phrases, and sometimes that emphasis distracts from the focus of the quote. --Rob Kennedy 03:55, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
We already come close to covering this -- the Article says: "Use the same formatting that was used in the original written text being quoted; in general, do not alter it to conform to Wikipedia style". I wonder what they meant by "formatting". I am going to make the Article more explicit. TH 04:03, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Folks,

Let's say writers shouldn't link from inside quotes. It looks amateurish. It looks lazy.

Also, the MoS page says "Whenever reasonable, use the same style that was used in the original text". Surely putting a link inside the quotes changes the style of the original.

TH 08:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree here. The author's name and the name of the work can be linked, but the actual text of the quote itself should be left un-linked, as identical as possible to the original source. Jayjg (talk) 17:21, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree that there are examples where wikilinking within a quotation is not necessary, is redundant, is unhelpful, is misleading, et cetera. However, finding one bad example does not lead to the conclusion that a general prohibition is in order. Our purpose here at Wikipedia is to build a web of information, and wikilinking aids in that. I think the suggestion that this violates the guidelines to use the same "style" and the same "formatting" as the original is misinterpreting those guidelines; it seems clear to me that they are talking about things such as rendering a quote all in normal text when the original text emphasizes certain words, or converting "To boldly go where no man has gone before" into "To go boldly ..." to avoid a split infinitive. I see no reason to think the policy is intended to prohibit wikilinking any more than I think it is intended to prohibit inserting a reference citation since the citation wasn't placed there by the original author either. -- Antaeus Feldspar 17:07, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I think you’re right — the “use the same style” advice wasn’t intended to prohibit wikilinking. Likewise, it doesn’t prevent us from using Wikipedia’s font selection, indentation, line breaks, letter spacing, etc. Rather, it’s talking about other matters of style, such as word choice, grammar, and to a certain extent, punctuation and capitalization. It ensures that if people read the quote here, and then later read the original document or hear a recording of the quotation, they’ll know it as the same quotation.
However, I still think wikilinking in quotations is a bad idea. I’d rather have a rule prohibiting it and then make exceptions for particular cases where it’s easy to show that no harm is done. Adding links highlights certain words, giving them importance and drawing the eye toward them. That’s not the intention of those links, though. The links should be only to provide more information about a topic presented there. But like I said above, if the topic is relevant to the article, then it will surely be mentioned elsewhere in the article, not just in the quotation. (If the linked topic isn’t relevant to the article, then it shouldn’t be linked anyway.) --Rob Kennedy 01:19, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
See, I'm not comfortable with going so far as to prohibit it. Having such a rule creates a situation where if one editor thinks it is appropriate, and another editor thinks it is inappropriate, the second editor is automatically prejudged to be the one in the right. I could support a phrasing that says you should look for alternatives to wikilinking, but I can't support a phrasing that is going to encourage editors to change "A. E. Housman wrote 'Malt does more than Milton can, to justify God's ways to man'" to "A. E. Housman wrote 'Malt does more than Milton can, to justify God's ways to man'; he meant 'malt' in the sense of 'whisky or beer' and by 'Milton' he meant John Milton" and think that they have actually improved the article because now it conforms better with the Manual of Style, even if it conforms less well now with the actual goal of readability.

I have seen good uses of wikilinks in quotes, mainly to provide context. I'm sure I've done it before. However, I would be in favor of a loosely worded guideline, e.g. "avoid wikilinking in quoted text", since I think if possible, the surrounding material should be worded in such a way that it's not awkward or repetitive. My feeling is the most important thing is for the prose to read well in black-and-white. "Do not link from inside quotatations" is way too prohibitive. Also, I think proper nouns (people, places) should often be wikilinked inside quotes if it's the only occurance of that noun. (By the way, I reverted your original edit because you made a substantial change in a minor edit.) – flamurai (t) 02:06, 28 October 2006 (UTC)

Related existing guidance 
(1) WP:MOSDATE#Direct quotations: An important exception to these guidelines is that direct quotations—the word-for-word reproduction of a written or oral text—should not be altered to conform to the Wikipedia "Manual of Style". [...]
(2) Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context#Quotations: Some editors choose to avoid making links within quotations, instead placing links in the surrounding text of the article wherever possible. [...]
Prior (and ongoing) discussion 
(1) Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 37#Wikilinks when quoting
(2) Wikipedia talk:Quotations should not contain wikilinks
(3) Wikipedia talk:Only make links that are relevant to the context#Links in quotations
An example (Republic#_note-Adams) 
(1) "If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, [...]";
(2) "If Aristotle, [ancient Roman historian Titus] Livy, and [17th-century English political theorist James] Harrington knew what a republic was, [...]"
(3) "If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, [...]" (where the "Harrington" link is in fact a piped link: [[James Harrington|Harrington]])
Here I prefer the third version. --Francis Schonken 16:07, 28 October 2006 (UTC)
Good example! The 2nd version also seems like it's begging for links.
Here the best alternative that occurs to me so far:
"If Aristotle [[2]], Livy [[3]], and Harrington [[4]] knew what a republic was, [...]"
That's maybe more "correct". But certainly harder to read. And a little strange in the implementation.
TH 00:36, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Dashes

Noetica, I haven't seen en dashes used instead of em dashes in sentences. Do you have any examples/sources? SlimVirgin (talk) 10:44, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Try The Elements of Typographic Style (ISBN 0881792063), which is considered by a lot of people to be the modern bible of typography. – flamurai (t) 10:50, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, first see Wikipedia:Manual of Style_(dashes). Then see here, in the general article on dashes. Yes, the spaced en dash is very commonly used sententially. Some publishers never use the em dash at all, in fact. A prominent example is Penguin; another that rarely uses the em dash is Routledge. I have therefore, with respect, reverted your reversion of my edit. Please note that many Wikipedia editors also use the en dash in this way. – Noetica 11:17, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
Okay, thanks, I stand corrected. Apologies for my revert. SlimVirgin (talk) 11:26, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
¡De nada! – Noetica 11:30, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

The problem with spaced dashes is that they can wrap incorrectly: a dash at the start of a line is confusing and ugly. Typing "&nbsp;– " for each one clutters wikitext, and using literal Unicode non-breaking spaces gets broken when someone else edits the article with a clueless browser. The best practical solution for now—an em dash set tight. —Michael Z. 2006-10-27 18:00 Z

That's not really a definite enough reason to prohibit using spaced en dashes. – flamurai (t) 18:35, 27 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm not suggesting prohibiting anything. This is just what I find to work best. —Michael Z. 2006-10-27 18:41 Z
The best practical solution for now—an em dash set tight. I disagree, Mzajac. In wordprocessing, I find unspaced em dashes so ugly, and so unfitted for proper and uniform spacing in standardly justified text, that I never use them. I also dislike (as a consequence?) their appearance in printed material of any kind, and in web documents of any kind. The solution with "&nbsp;– " works for me (though I normally am happy to omit the non-breaking space). Many things clutter wikitext in the interests of a satisfactory end-product. I think we can live with them, if they do that. Anyway, I agree with the majority that supports consistency within an article as the main consideration. – Noetica 23:18, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Seasons

With articles, particularly relating to some future development or release dates, they are often dated by company representatives as "due to be released this Spring" or something like that, leaving a 3 month period available. That's fine but when it is in a Wikipedia article it is out of context because Wikipedia is an international site. If it's coming out in Spring in the U.S. then it's Autumn for Australia (that's where I'm from). This is my concern, that when seasons are referenced in articles, they can lead to confusion. Of course most readers in the Southern Hemisphere will think that it's probably meaning Spring in the U.S. and work it out accordingly, but that interrupts the flow of reading articles. I discussed this with some of my friends and they said that having to "translate" is annoying and makes them less inclined to keep reading so I thought I should see if Wikipedia has a policy. I don't think it does. Also the use of "fall" meaning Autumn is very American and not used widely on other continents, so should it be in articles? These are my concerns/suggestions:

  • Where seasons are referenced they should be dated with first quarter or similar, if a future release is referenced, it can be changed when more accurate information is obtained.
  • Where fall is in the article, Autumn should be used for the English speakers who aren't American.
  • I am not suggesting changing all units to metric because that would make many articles harder to understand for many readers.

Please respond with comments, suggestions and further ideas. I have found some examples of the seasons being used in articles:

Thanks, James086 Talk | Contribs|Currently up for Editor Review! 04:30, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

In running text that would be best uncapitalized, and spelt out first quarter. If you prefer an abbreviation, please don't add a superscript to 1st quarter.
The superscript unnecessary, just as these days punctuation is not needed to explain the nature of most abbreviations, like Mr, Mrs, USA, UK, UN, etc. Unnecessary superscripting and other such format-cruft draws attention to itself without adding any information. Using periods in U.S.A., etc., merely looks old-fashioned, but going out of one's way to add a superscript can look self-conscious, naïve, or pretentious to the reader. —Michael Z. 2006-10-29 23:04 Z
James,
I empathise with you, being Aussie too. However first quarter and summer (in the southern hemisphere) don't mean exactly the same thing. The first quater begins on the first of January. Summer begins at the solstice. This would probably not be a problem, though, in most cases.
Actually fall is not really American. It's just fallen out of favour outside North America. However, autumn, also being acceptable in Canada & the US, would probably be preferable ... except maybe in articles about a North American subject.
The issue of conversion of units is something quite different. No, conversion of everything to metric only is not recommended but the addition of conversions is encouraged. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Units of measurement.
Michael,
I agree that spelling a word out in running text is best. I'm not sure I agree about format-cruft. A reader who is used to seeing superscript might have his attention drawn to unsuperscripted stuff. Other readers, on the other hand, might think naïve as opposed to naive to be old-fashioned, self-conscious, naïve or pretentious.
Jimp 02:15, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm glad can appreciate my point.
No matter what you're used to seeing, when your reading has picked up momentum, you are likely to whiz through 1st and 2nd, which reinforce the text baseline, without stopping to think about it.
I'm not sure where a reader would get so used to seeing 1st and 2nd raised above the baseline, but it's the whitespace gaps which appear under them that change the typographic colour of the line, and potentially distract the eye from across the page. Possibly also the fact that the smaller font changes weight, depending on your system's font rendering (in good-quality print typography, special type sets which are smaller but match the body text's weight are often used for superscripts and subscripts). Footnote references are superscripted to pull them out of the regular flow of text, while these ordinal numbers are just words within the text.
Anyway, I'm splitting hairs. —Michael Z. 2006-10-30 18:51 Z
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Seasons was actually exactly what I was looking for, but when I looked for it I couldn't find it. I suppose my comments are now irrelevant seeing as it has already been covered. Thanks for the help everyone :) James086 Talk | Contribs|Currently up for Editor Review! 09:46, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] We Need A Definite Policy On ==External links== And ==See also== Content

I've encountered {{sisterlinks}} templates in both sections; i.e.: some articles have their templates in ==See also== and other articles have their templates in ==External links==. The same goes with footer templates like {{china}}, {{japan}}, {{mongolia}}, {{communisim}} and {{social sciences-footer}}, etc..100110100 06:58, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

I hope you don’t mind: I’ve turned those template references into links instead of transclusions to make your message easier to read.
Anyway, I’ve never really considered footer templates like those to be part of any “section.” Instead, I think of them as being footers, formally after the last section, but for technical reasons belonging to whatever the last section happens to be. Thus, to dictate which section they belong to is to specify whether “External links” or “See also” comes last. That’s covered by Wikipedia:Manual of Style (headings)#Standard appendices and Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Standard appendices, and both say that “See also” is among the first of the appendices, not the last. Does it need to be said somewhere that no further sections should come after those footer templates?
As for links to sister projects, since they’re all part of Wikimedia, I think it makes sense for them to be in the “See also” section. “External links” should be reserved for links that are truly external — that Wikimedia really has no control over. However, when a “See also” section only has interwiki links and no links to other Wikipedia articles, it looks awkward. In that case, I’d favor putting those templates wherever they’ll fit. --Rob Kennedy 07:24, 16 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your reply, but then it doesn't make sense in the last case; wouldn't it make the article cohesive and coherent if there was a special section for the {{sisterlinks}} template? I've tried using ==Related miscellania==. What do you think? Also, what about the footers? They don't fit anywhere, so I thought of putting the footers in ==Related miscellania==. Thoughts please.100110100 04:43, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
But why do they need a section of their own to begin with, though? They're meant to be at the visual bottom of the page, and aren't really part of the content per se; that they happen to appear in the edit window when a certain section is edited can be regarded merely as a quirk of how MediaWiki works. Kirill Lokshin 05:35, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
That’s exactly what I meant by saying the footers are really after the last section. It’s only for technical reasons of the editing page that the footers appear in any particular section at all. I don’t see a reason to put them in a special section of their own just to fix that. In particular, the name “Related miscellania” tells me, as a reader, that the authors couldn’t come up with any way to describe that content — in other words, that they don’t really think it belongs there. It puts the footers in the same boat as “trivia” sections. We don’t need to apply labels to every last bit of an article. Readers will recognize a navigation footer by the fact that it’s at the foot of a page and it facilitates navigation. --Rob Kennedy 18:41, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
So these templates are for navigation. There are other templates that span the side of an article though. The are not found at the bottom of the article. Maybe they don't span the whole length of the article but they span A length of the article. So if these templates are for navigation, I would be most conveninent if they followed you wherever you scrolled in the article. [Sorry what would be the term for that? I'm not a Comp Sci major. Danke.]100110100 07:19, 19 October 2006 (UTC)
I’d call them sidebars. It’s not so much a computer-science term as a publishing term. I see no reason to have them statically positioned on the screen, though. They take up space that can be better used for article content. With a stylesheet you can make Wikipedia’s own navigation sidebar be statically positioned, but that’s different — it’s not really taking space away from the article. It gets a column to itself anyway. --Rob Kennedy 06:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
That's an idea (since it's in its own 'section' per se, it not part of the article, it will be easy to understand and make the article coherent and cohesive). But I've thought about it, & isn't ==See also== a section for Navigation? Shounldn't Navigation templates be there?100110100

Navigation templates which form a box across the bottom of an article are clearly not in any section. They create a visual break as strong as any section heading.

The sisterlinks remove themselves visually from the flow of the article by their appearance in a box on the right. But the way they are usually placed at the top of an "external links" section, they do have a clear relationship with it—and this makes sense, since they link to things which are not part of Wikipedia (Wikipedia has a strong identity to its readers, the Wikimedia Foundation not so much).

The only difficulty is when they are placed in an article with no "external links" section. Having them hang from an empty header is ugly. —Michael Z. 2006-10-18 18:59 Z

Hi. I've got an experimental template, named {{footer section}}, which can be used to demarcate the footer. (It is currently transcluded in one article, United States House election, 1800.) From its usage section:
This template is intended to be used as part of a technique for separating the footer of an article from the body of an article, both visually and in editing. Basically, an editor inserts the wikitext line “=={{footer section}}==” immediately before any navigational templates, categories, or interwiki links. This creates a section which appears to have a blank section header. (Simply inserting “== ==” fails to work because MediaWiki refuses to generate an empty h2 element.) In essence, it adds some vertical space, a horizontal rule (in those skins that use a horizontal rule with h2 elements), and an “[Edit]” wikilink visually. Now, by default, the starting edit summary for the section is “/* {{footer section}} */”, which is much clearer than the normal “/* External link */” or “/* References */” in terms of describing what is being affected.
There is at least one problem with this hack. Because MediaWiki doesn't do a very good job of creating anchor elements for section headers containing MediaWiki metacharacters, the backlinks in the history will not take the user to the section head, but leave them at the top of the article.Footer
I think that this may address some of the issues raised by 100110100. (Alternatively, the navigational templates could simply be put in a section labelled “Navigation”, but Kirill Lokshin and Rob Kennedy would probably be hostile to that notion.)
— DLJessup (talk) 05:38, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the idea DLJessup. I think it would be more clear if we made it policy that there would be a specific section heading: ==Navigation==, personally. I'll restated my concern that has not been addressed: for {{Politics}} and other verticallyoriented templates, these templates are obviously not at the end of the article. They do not address the issue that Navigation, or ==Navigation==, must be at the bottom. Another plus for inaugrating ==Navigation==.100110100 07:31, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Well, ok, the case is that I'm fine with footer templates & verticallyoriented templates from being in a section. But you have mentioned that the purpose of these templates are for navigation. When that happens, that means that they are not even part of the article. That means that we should put them always at hand. Maybe Mediawiki can be reprogramed? What I'm saying is that we could have Navigation templates in their own window, with their own scrollbar (have you been to a website like that, do you know what I mean? (Sorry I don't know the term.)) or have them follow you when ever you scroll (somthing like that (You know what I mean?)). It's like the functionality of the close button on Internet Explorer; (it's always there, [at the top]).100110100 08:35, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Please some comments; I want a definate anwser so I can change the articles when I encounter them.100110100 10:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
I think the "footer section" template causes unacceptable usability and accessibility problems. The section appears as "Footer" in the page's contents box, but in visual browsers it appears as an underline with no heading. This can only cause confusion. Furthermore, in text-only browsers, search engines, and probably many screen readers for the handicapped, the "Footer" heading will appear. Hiding content for users of visual browsers while blowing off handicapped readers is bad accessibility practice, and has no place in an open encyclopedia. —Michael Z. 2006-10-21 15:04 Z
Mzajac:
You're correct about the accessibility problems, so I've gone ahead and speedied Template:Footer section since I don't know of any way to correct the issues you've raised. I think that the ultimate solution to this issue is going to be a MediaWiki plug-in that creates a wikitext entity, say, “<footer>”, to demarcate the footer section.
— DLJessup (talk) 16:39, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
Hhmmm that might be a smart idea. I'm for it, but is everyone else for it? I mean, footers don't have to be at the end, hence footer, but haveit'sownscrollbarwindow,thatkindofthing[sorryIdon'tknowthetermforit] or but what about {{politics}} and other verticallyorientedNavigationtemplates? We need to make them footers? Yes, I'd vote for it if it I had to take a side. If so, could we please make them footers?100110100 06:04, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
I think that trying a one-size-fits-all approach here is a bad idea. Some templates may work better as footers, some as vertical bars, some as other layouts. Similarly, some may be placed at the bottom, while others may look better in other places, depending on the structure of the article itself.
(And just to be clear: I strongly oppose changing all navigational templates to footers without considering the issue on a per-template basis. On articles where multiple such templates are present, they look much cleaner spaced along the margin than they would bunched up at the bottom; on articles with few images, particularly, margin space tends to be cheap, while the bottom-clustering produces a rather unreadable block of boxes and links.) Kirill Lokshin 06:25, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
100110100, what you’re looking for is to have the footers be statically positioned at the bottom of the page. In normal HTML, that’s done using frames. But frames frequently create more navigation problems, especially for non-visual browsers, but also for bookmarking. With CSS, we can make something stay put without using frames. Doing that for something along the side of a page isn’t so bad, but making pages work properly with static elements along the top or bottom edge is tricky to get right when multiple makes of browser are involved.
Some of the footer navigation templates are big. I see you’re familiar with the Bill Clinton article. It has five navigation footers. If all those were statically placed at the bottom of the viewport, I wouldn’t be able to see any of the article’s text anymore. The text is the reason I visit an article. The navigation aides at the bottom are a way of placing a subject within a broader context. They don’t need to be taking up screen space at all times. --Rob Kennedy 06:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Viewport? Huh?100110100 11:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
The viewport is the area of your browser window where the page appears. (The rest is often categorized as chrome — the scroll bars, status bar, tool bars, title bar, and everything else that isn’t provided by the Web page you’re viewing.) --Rob Kennedy 19:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
  • This is a solution looking for a problem. What would be the benefit from this? Titoxd(?!?) 06:28, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. Before talking any more about solutions, I’d really like to have a clearer description what what the problem is, and its severity. --Rob Kennedy 06:47, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
The problem is disorganization. As I've mentioned before, there are many articles that have templates all over the place. And different articles have the same templates in different sections of their respective articles. We have a reason we have a Manual of Style; and we have a reason we have {{wikify}}.100110100 11:45, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
As I see it, the problem is that, within the wikitext, there is no demarcation between the body of the article and the footer. This causes certain symptoms:
  • Many edits to the navigational templates, categories, and language links show up under one of the standard appendices in the page history (usually References or External links) because the editor almost invariably uses the section edit link (who wants to deal with more wikitext in the edit box than they have to?) and fails to override the default in the edit summary.
  • While a navigational template is supposed to be visually separable from the preceding text, this often isn't the case in practice.
  • Some newbie editors (such as myself, long ago) want to put the navigational templates under See also, which would seem to be a more natural location for a collection of wikilinks to related articles than under References or External links.
Is it a minor problem? Certainly. It is, nonetheless, a problem. — DLJessup (talk) 14:33, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
OK. But those are different problems from the one that 100110100 just described, which seems to be about the placement of interwiki templates, like {{sisterlinks}}, {{wiktionary}}, and {{commons}}. (At least, I can’t think of any other templates that qualify as being “all over the place.”) I’ve already expressed my opinion on those in my first reply.
On the other hand, your problems have to do with placement and appearance of footer navigation templates, and documenting of changes to the pages. When a footer is placed somewhere other than the foot of the article, I can’t imagine that it stays there for long. Even as a newbie, it must have occured to you when you saw the page that something didn’t really look right. Sure, it’s a problem when it’s misplaced, but I don’t think it’s worth decreeing in the stylebook that footers go at the foot. As for edit summaries, I think that edits to the footer area are so seldom that the problem is not just minor, but insignificant. --Rob Kennedy 19:40, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
No, I believe that we need templates in a separate section. Look, in a nonwesteren culture, they many not see that footers are separate from an article. They need their own section. But it seems like this is a problem with the program, not a problem with the stylebook. But if it is a problem with the stylebook, we DO need to include it; if wikipedia is to be for everyone, it can be just for the West who understand it. And insignifiance is irrelevant.100110100 20:18, 29 October 2006 (UTC)
Where does this idea about non-western visual illiteracy come from? Can you point to some documentation or an example where "they" don't get that a shaded bordered box is not part of the article's text? —Michael Z. 2006-10-29 23:09 Z
You are taking what I said out of context. This is an example. To have Rob Kennedy say that HE doesn't think that information like this belongs or should exist in a Manual Of Style is belittling and discrimintory. He has not right and he is not A or THE judge of what goes in a Manual Of Style or not. Anything that makes somthing clear belongs in a Manual Of Style; any style rule belongs in a Manual Of Style. I have only asked for two requests:
  1. To know weather this cannot be fixed except, and only by, Mediawiki, ||the program||
or
  1. If this is not the case, to define rules, so when have Standardization. When people go to different articles, they do get confused be cause of different Styles.100110100 23:27, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Now hold on. I’m just as much an editor of this encyclopedia as anyone else. That gives me every right to comment on what I think belongs here. I am a judge of what goes in the stylebook. So are you. So is Michael. So is anyone else who cares to participate. (But none of us is the judge, and nor have we claimed to be.) Furthermore, I have expressed my opinions. Opinions are, by their very nature, discriminatory. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be worth writing.

Back to the topic at hand: You said the problem you’re hoping to resolve is disorganization. Your example of the problem claimed that people from non-Western cultures have difficulty recognizing that navigation footers aren’t really part of the article’s body text. Michael challenged that claim. So do I. I also question how that example illustrates disorganization.

You also said that there are “templates all over the place,” and you claimed inconsistency in the placement of certain templates within their related articles. I cannot believe either of those claims are true for navigation footers.

I assert that putting navigation footers into their own section will not make an article appear any more organized that it does without a separate section. Moreover, I believe that doing so would be condescending to the readers who actually can recognize the end of an article without a special label telling them (and who must certainly be in the majority). Besides, people come to Wikipedia to learn things. If one of the things they learn includes improvements on reading an encyclopedia, all the better for them.

If you want a rule that says that footers should go at the foot of an article (which I don’t think should be necessary, given the definitions of the terms involved), then you already have your wish. I refer you to Wikipedia:Guide to layout#Standard appendices, which says this:

All succession boxes and navigational footers should go at the very end of the article, following the last appendix section, but preceding the "categories and interwiki links".

So, with regard to navigation footers, I don’t see anything that needs fixing by the MediaWiki software. I also don’t see anything in need of further rules. --Rob Kennedy 06:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Ok, my concern is that there are some templates that are not footers that should be like, {{politics}} & {{sisterlinks}}. Now when I said that templates were all over the place, I did not mean it literally. but what I said in the previous sentence. A lot of footers are not put together, so to speak. Or Navigational Templates, as they are what they seem to be called. If, as I have mentioned, this is a problem with the software, then I don't mind waiting for the software to be changed, but if this is not a problem with the software, then I believe that we should have a rule that says all navigational templates should be footers. The case is:
What is a Navigational Template?
Well, wouldn't ==See also== be for Navigation? Yes, it is; that is what has been taught, from the above previously. Wouldn't it make sense if they were together, & less sense if they were apart? Yes, that's true. (Which is where my nonwestern argument comes from, cause it seems ihr can't see that.)100110100 01:10, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Movie/TV show titles

Should the guideline about words that are capitalized (like FOX) apply to TV shows/movie/video games as well? I started thinking about this after WWE RAW was moved to WWE Raw (event though the vote was just 2 votes to move and 1 vote to stay and was never even listed at WP:PW). The correct name of the show is WWE RAW, and what how it is spelled most of the time, but the article was moved because the mover cited the MoS regarding trademarks. Maybe it should be amended to allow TV show/movie/video games (and books I suppose) to be exceptions. TJ Spyke 22:51, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Is it an acronym? Is the name pronouned are ay double-you? What do the A and the W stand for? It’s just a word. There’s no reason to write it in all caps. Capitalize the R because that’s what we do to proper nouns in English. Here’s a link to one of Bill Walsh’s articles that explains it: http://theslot.com/webnames.html
A quick survey from Google News shows that what I assume to be industry publications capitalize the show the normal English way, including Pro Wrestling Insider, Impact Wrestling News, and Pro Wrestling Torch.
Note that Lego Star Wars: The Video Game used to have Lego in all caps until a few weeks ago, so there’s Wikipedia precedent against you.
The name of the network is Fox, not FOX. The network will frequently depict its name in all capitals, but that’s just a logo, not the name of the company. (If Fox wanted its name to be in all caps, it should have chosen an acronym, like the other networks.) --Rob Kennedy 02:40, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks). – flamurai (t) 02:57, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What if a writer wants style guidance?

Folks,

What if a writer wants style guidance?

A writer may come to the WP:MoS page thinking "APA, MLA, Chicago -- I don't care. Just tell me what the WP preferred style is and I'll try to stick with it, though I appreciate the fact that WP says it's okay to diverge when I feel the need".

And what does WP:MoS currently tell such a writer? It says "APA, MLA, Chicago -- you decide".

I think that's a mistake and a disservice to writers. We shouldn't let writers flounder when they want guidance.

I think it's not good to compel writers to make style decisions out of thin air (when WP:MoS doesn't cover the issue).

I think it's not good to make writers choose their own style guides from the many available, when they don't want to make that decision.

Instead I think WP:MoS should indicate a default, last-resort style guide for readers who want guidance.

Naming a default guide (for those who want guidance) would have at least two additional benefits --

1. It would tend to generate more consistency across WP pages, which in the long run would make it easier for writers to consolidate articles, to switch from working on one article to another, and so on.

2. When a style question comes up, there would be less need for people to hash it out ab ovo on the MoS:Talk page, less tendency for 3 or 4 assertive people to make a decision that (whether soft or hard) gets written into MoS for all time. Instead someone could report "well, the default is blah-blah-blah -- does anyone have a compelling reason we should go against the default?"

TH 17:29, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

The underlying issue is that different Wikipedia articles are written with different audiences in mind. And the style adopted in any article should be attuned to what is appropriate for that audience.
This means we cannot give absolutes. What is good for a general audience will not be good for a more specific, technical audience. A page designed to appeal to Americans will adopt a different style to a page designed to appeal to Brit; and a page designed to appeal to philosophers will adopt a different style to a page designed for medics.
So the MoS has to give choices. And from time to time people will come to us with specific queries. They will get responses, some of which are good, some bad - and some expressed more emphatically than others depending on how presciptivist the writer is on grammar and style.
That's the way that Wikipedia works (or doesn't work) and will continue to work. The one thing that is missing, I feel, is an explicit reference in WP policy somewhere commenting on the intended readership both of WP and of individual articles, jguk 17:50, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm not advocating any absolute (otherwise I would not have said "for those who want guidance"). I'm not advocating denial of choices (otherwise I would not have repeated all the disclaimers I repeated). I'm advocating a fall-back recommendation, for those who want guidance. Or one for US writers and a different one for UK. Or one for technical articles and one for general articles. Or (for simplicity) a recommended style (for those who want guidance) for an average article for a worldwide audience.

Ever since I started writing here, I've felt that WP has abdicated its responsibility by not plunking down and saying "hey, if you don't otherwise care, why not use Such-and-Such Manual of Style?"

TH 18:06, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

We do have an informal default, which is APA style, but people can use whichever style they want so long as it's consistent within the article. SlimVirgin (talk) 19:31, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
Where is APA style mentioned in the Manual? I only see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#When all else fails, which recommends Chicago and Fowler. --Rob Kennedy 03:05, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quotation marks using Cquote tag

I noticed there is nothing in the Manual of Style in regard to the Cquote tag. Could someone add the Wikipedia recommendations on its use. I noticed it on the Thomas Jefferson article. Morphh 15:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

   
“
 Here is an example of the use of the Cquote tag.
   
”
Personally I'm opposed to the {{Cquote}} tag. - FrancisTyers · 16:15, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
If we want this behaviour, it should be part of the normal Wikipedia blockquote formatting. I think the cquote template should be deleted. The template only introduces inconsistency. Shinobu 17:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
Inconsistency has existed for a while. See category:Quotation templates: {{quotation}}, {{quotebox}} and {{quote box}} all lack quotation marks. Circeus 17:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
And they're all different. I think we should ditch all the formatting and turn them in bare blockquotes. I note some of the templates do something marginally useful (right align a name); we can leave that in. But the rest should be up to the skin. Shinobu 23:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Shinobu. As a rule, where we can avoid it, we should not be making style/presentation decisions, only content decisions. The blockquote is a semantic object that should be rendered according to the skin. Deco 23:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Umm Ok.. so is anyone going to add something to Look of quotation marks and apostrophes? Something should be included as it is used and people need to know that it is available and either desirable / not desirable to Wikipedia standards. Morphh 22:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Normal block quotations don't need any of this additional formatting—it's definitely overkill. A pull-quote or epigraph can be formatted to stand out a bit more (for example, at the beginning of some sections in T-34), but it still doesn't need big purple graphical quotation marks—Wikipedia articles should not be made to look like weblog discussions.

I have proposed a minor tweak of the default style sheet formatting for block quotations, following traditional typesetting conventions. Please see MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css#Block quotations. —Michael Z. 2006-08-04 14:51 Z

Okay. So what will we do with the templates? I think the solution to {{cquote}} is, to 1) replace content with normal blockquote 2) subst 3) delete. {{quotation}} can be changed to a normal blockquote, although I don't necessarily see it's use. A {{quotebox}} in the right margin can be okay, perhaps, but this one uses nonstandard colours (images, which also appear in the margin, use different colours for their box). Also, it's limited to quotes - I'd rather see e.g. {{floatbox}}. Maybe I'll make it myself, it would take care of the ad hoc formatting used in e.g. the Ozymandias article. And why, oh why, are {{quotebox}} and {{quote box}} different? Shinobu 12:26, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
As for the last question, I suspect that {{quotebox}} was created by someone unaware of the existence of {{quote box}}. The older one ({{quote box}}) is a bit better looking and more flexible, though as its creator I may be biased. Both are obviously based on the same concept; one should be killed and replaced with the other.
In this discussion, the distinction between a "pullout quote", which is a quote set off from the main text, and a "block quote", which is in the flow of the article as a part of the text, should be emphasized. Every discussion I've read about quotation templates conflates these two very different things.
The "quote box" templates are a way of formatting pullout quotes. They function like an image, setting off a quote from the surrounding text. Like other images, a pullout quote is there for the sake of visual variety or added emphasis. I think we should have this option, especially for articles that lack other images. It's not an unusual device; variations can often be found in magazines. If we use pullout quotes, we'd obviously want a visual style appropriate for Wikipedia.
A "block quote", on the other hand, is part of the text. It should never be set off in a box, contrary to what the the instructions for {{quotation}} suggest. It seems that the creator of that template originally started with a "quote box" variant, but along the way it was misinterpreted as something that should be used with a block quote. This needs to be fixed: putting a block quote inside a box is unusual, ugly, and amateurish. In the short run, the instructions for {{quotation}} need to be revised to make it clear that it should be used for pullout quotes and not block quotes. In the long run, the three pullout "quote box" templates ({{quotation}}, {{quotebox}}, and {{quote box}}) should be merged into one.
Finally, that leaves {{Cquote}}. Based on what I've seen, people seem to be using this template to decorate standard block quotes, rather than for a pullout quote. I've never used it, but it looks like a nice, subtle option. I don't think it's based on any standard publishing approach, however. My guess is that it, like {{quotation}}, began life as something inspired by pullout quotes (some magazines use a similar graphic), but was confused with block quote formatting. A variation, {{Rquote}}, is being used for pullout quotes. Without a border, however, this makes for some odd looking articles, as in this article. Yuck!
So I think there are two basic issues here that are sometimes conflated:
  1. Should block quotes ever be decorated? If so, is {{Cquote}} the way to do it?
  2. Should we have a template to create "pullout" quotes? If so, should it look like {{quotation}}, {{quotebox}}, {{quote box}}, {{Cquote}}, {{Rquote}}, or something else? Should there be one standard template, or a variety?
--Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 15:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree with all of that, except that template:cquote, which decorates a text block with oversized (larger than the full font height!), coloured quotation marks like a weblog comment, shouldn't be used for normal block quotations.
In standard typography, block quotations are usually simply indented, and possibly set in smaller or italic font to provide a subtle contrast with the body text. In Wikipedia, they are often indented using a colon, but semantically the best solution would be to enclose them in HTML <blockquote> elements. —Michael Z. 2006-08-07 17:59 Z
Okay, I believe that's a "no" for question one. What about question #2? --Kevin | (complaint dept.) 19:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)
Not for me. Simple indentation and italic font served perfectly well in T-34 (although I'm now thinking that both quotation marks and italics isn't even necessary). —Michael Z. 2006-08-07 20:14 Z
The cquote is currently only used in places where there should be a normal blockquote. As for pullout quotes, i.e. quotes that are not really part of the textflow, they shouldn't interrupt the textflow, but instead be handled like images.
I restate that the current plethora of quote templates is very bad for the visual consistency of Wikipedia. There is already a blockquote-tag, which should suffice for all inline quotes, and we won't need more than one pullout/box-quote template.
I would also like to take this opportunity to warn people against the overuse of pullout quotes; Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a magazine. Shinobu 23:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I'm seeing this used more and more. Without anything specified in the MOS, I don't feel correct telling people that it is not recommended. Something should be stated in this article that discusses these templates - good, bad, whatever - something should be included as it is being used and there is no direction for it. Morphh 19:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Most people here strongly dislike the quotes, but we aren't really representative. There are clearly a lot of people who like {{cquote}}. I suggest you post a notice on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) pointing to this discussion if you want a better chance of getting real consensus here. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Block quotations need additional formatting.
  • It should be part of the global stylesheet; not a template. The templates should be deleted unless, like {{quotation}}, they make it easier to format the blockquote.
  • {{cquote}} is ugly and amateurish, and should be changed to look more like {{quotation}}. — Omegatron 21:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
    The two-image {{cquote}} style is not possible to add via CSS unless you add additional wrapper elements, as far as I can tell. Javascript would need to be used. (That's because you can only have one CSS background image per element, and they can't be combined or else it wouldn't stretch appropriately to fit different-sized quotes and screen sizes and so on.) Regardless, I agree with your principles, except that {{cquote}} should look like <blockquote>, not {{quotation}}.  :) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
What are wrapper elements?100110100 04:33, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
The giant blue quotation mark style should just be deleted. And then cquote and blockquote should just look like {{quotation}}. — Omegatron 23:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)
I really don't like the background or border on {{quotation}}. Or, for that matter, the right-aligned style of attribution. It's really more suitable for an opening quote for a chapter in a book, say, than a block quotation embedded in prose. As for deleting the giant blue quotation marks, I don't think such an absolutist attitude is necessarily useful in terms of achieving change, here. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I really don't like the giant blue quotation marks. I'm not the only one. Styles should not be used in an ad-hoc manner, with an ugly style in some articles and a different ugly style in another. We need to decide on a uniform style for blockquotes, define it with CSS, and delete these templates (unless, like {{quotation}}, they provide added functionality). — Omegatron 21:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
I have to speak up in defence of the cquote. It is very useful, when employed sparingly (i.e. usually only once in an article, but not in all articles) to single out a quote which has some special significance. The usage at the top of this thread demonstrates its value. It's also more fun to occasionally break up the black text in the encyclopedia.
I would like to see a style recommendation for block quotes to be in italics (no quote marks necessary) to distinguish them easily from the main text and also for visual effect. Sometimes when images are involved it can be hard to see indentation alone.
extensive passages in italics impair readability on computers screens, and most low resolution laser printers as well. DGG 08:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)
I recommend just using colons for indenting blockquotes, as the html BLOCKQUOTE introduces another technicality for less proficient users.
Tyrenius 22:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)
If blockquotes are to be in italics, this should be done via stylesheets, not via apostrophes. This gives us more flexibility. If you would like them in italics, for instance, add blockquote { font-style: italic } to User:Tyrenius/monobook.css (or the appropriate equivalent if you don't use the default Monobook skin). If it's decided that this should be the default for everyone, that can be added to MediaWiki:Monobook.css, and then people who prefer blockquotes in roman text can add a similar line to deitalicize them.

As for typing <blockquote> as opposed to a colon, it may be longer, but surely it's not less intuitive. The key thing is that it allows things like the change I suggested in the previous paragraph to happen easily: we know what's a blockquote and what's just indented, so we can deal with them in an automated fasihon. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 17:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Blockquote tags are formatted in the stylesheet for the Monobook skin, although not in italics. I agree that typing the HTML blockquote tags is contrary to the wiki editing philosophy. Anyone who wants to improve the situation should vote for bug 4827 at bugzilla, to encourage developers to fix it. —Michael Z. 2006-10-30 21:46 Z

Hallelujah! Someone else besides me has noticed that {{cquote}} is inappropriate and ugly! I can't think of a single case I've seen where those big blue quotation marks actually enhanced a damn thing; the biggest usage of them that I've seen is to violate NPOV by placing undue visual emphasis on particular quotes that served a particular agenda. Encyclopedia articles don't need "pull quotes"; we're trying to provide useful information in an organized fashion, not to intrigue readers at a newsstand and lure them into buying an issue. The sooner cquote goes away the better. -- Antaeus Feldspar 14:54, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] In defense of cquote

Here are some points to consider in defense of cquote. I'm not interested in debating it, as I think just about any solution is poor for reasons that have nothing to do with print publications (e.g. usability and accesibility, behavior of cut-and-paste, etc.) That said, cquote does some things right.

  1. Quotes that are the topic of discussion should be called out as clearly as a photo, table, graph or other injected material.
  2. Quotes that do not fit that description "feel" wrong in cquotes because of the fact that they are so offset visually. This is a good thing, and keeps most unfortunate uses of cquote at bay.
  3. As reader, I find cquote makes the scanning of articles much easier, speeding my comprehension.
  4. The availability of fields for source and so on are a boon to future extraction such information from Wikipedia text for many purposes.

That said, cquote could be improvied on. Its use of images should be done in such a way that skins can easily target and modify them. Also, its fields should be named for more ease of extracting meta-information later on. It wouldn't hurt to have a cquote variant that auto-generates a <ref>...</ref> of the appropriate type. For example, something like:

{{cite quote |
  quote="cquote could be improved on." |
  type=web |
  author=[[User:Harmil|Harmil]]
  url="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style" |
  date=2006-09-18}}

should generate something like:

{{cquote |
  cquote could be improved on.|
  20px|20px|
  [[User:Harmil|Harmil]]}}<ref>{{cite web |
  author=[[User:Harmil|Harmil]]
  url="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style" |
  date=2006-09-18}}</ref>

That's just my thoughts, and I'm sure others will disagree, especially since most of the people who would care don't know about this discussion.... -Harmil 05:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

If we want to visually distinguish important from unimportant quotes, that's a perfectly good idea, but it should be done with CSS classes, ideally, for maximum flexibility, or failing that JavaScript, but not hardcoded into templates in some way that can't be reversed with some custom stuff in personal JS at worst. A CSS class could be as follows:
    blockquote.significant {
      padding-left: 24px;
      background-image: no-repeat top left
      url("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6b/Cquote1.png/20px-Cquote1.png");
    }
That should have the first quote mark retained (with four pixels of padding to its right), although the second would have to be dropped, as I noted. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)
I think just about any solution is poor for reasons that have nothing to do with print publications (e.g. usability and accesibility, behavior of cut-and-paste, etc.)
What the hell does that mean? Print publications have nothing to do with this. HTML blockquote elements are the only right way to structure long quotations in web pages. Template:cquote is ass in terms of usability, accessibility and web standards.
To address the actual arguments:
  1. Long quotations in any writing are not called out like "a photo, table, graph or other injected material"—they are part of the flow of text.
  2. I don't know what that means.
  3. Scanning is not reading. These are encyclopedia articles, not Powerpoint presentations.
  4. Why not make it work for present extraction instead of making up new implementations: <blockquote cite="URL">long quotation. <cite>—Author</cite></blockquote>
—Michael Z. 2006-09-20 04:39 Z

[edit] Block quotations

I don't see what all the debate is about. The HTML <blockquote> element, intended for long quotations, is already formatted in the monobook style sheet. HTML is a bit problematic, because novices may forget to close the tag, and because contained block elements like paragraphs aren't handled properly (there is a patch for this, but it's not installed on Wikipedia yet; please add your vote for bug 6200 and bug 4827). So I created template:blockquote, and a redirect from template:long quotation (edit to see how it works here):

This is an example of a long quotation, entered in wikitext using {{blockquote}}, but it would look the same if it was enclosed in an HTML <blockquote> element. It is pulled out from running text by its margins, and by a subtle reduction in font size. This is all that is necessary to format a long quotation. In professional typography, long quotations are rarely italicized, never marked with quotation marks, and certainly not with the big cartoon ones that are used in some weblogs' comments.

Paragraph breaks within block quotations still have to be entered manually as <p> tags, but this will be resolved in a future update to the Wikimedia software.

There is no need for a special format for "important" quotations, just as there is no special format for important paragraphs; the solution to this [non-existent] problem is called "writing".

Some articles do have pull quotes or epigraphs, but these are not the same thing as long quotations, and they also do not need oversized cartoonish quotation marks—perhaps such formatting is appropriate in a light-hearted weblog, but sure as heck not in an encyclopedia. For examples, see T-34 and Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Template:cquote is... how to phrase this? Very inappropriate. And its technical implementation is, um... Very crappy. —Michael Z. 2006-09-20 04:02 Z

I don't like your condescending attitude, MZ. I agree that the pull-quote templates have been overly used and abused on Wikipedia, but they aren't entirely inappropiate nor unjustifiable. The more the more you pontificate on their proper use (which, technical and issues aside, isn't based on much more than your personal dislike of them), the more it seems that you place little value in typographical aesthetics.
I'm currently working on a whole new template for pull-quotes, built from scratch, that are entirely styled from the CSS, and reduce the actual HTML markup to <blockquote> and <cite> tags, without relying on JavaScript. You can view my progess at this page: User:Down10/Template:Pullquote.
In the mean time, I ask that you assume good faith with the other contributors here. —Down10 TACO 07:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
I am assuming good faith, but I'm frustrated by how large novelty quotation marks have caught on to be widely used for marking block quotations, directly contradicting good sense and the Manual of Style, and I'm trying to get the point across to some editors before Wikipedia starts to look like a weblog.
I care a great deal about typography and technical values. The typography in an open encyclopedia has to reflect the same attention to detail and academic qualities which dictate the writing of articles. Ideally, all facts should refer to cited references, and both the writing and typography should should be functional and avoid flowery decoration, more so than for just about any other kind of web sites. Basic markup should likewise be accessible and readable by all types of browsers, and not rely on hacks like unnecessary table layout.
For these reasons, I'm quite certain that no paper or online encyclopedia uses oversized, coloured quotation marks, set in a contrasting extra-bold font, for pull-quotes or long quotations, or anything else. If one does, I'll probably pick up the Britannica instead.
The encyclopedia, especially an open encyclopedia which is daily assaulted in the media, must look and feel dependable and functional, somewhat conservative, but not stead, in typography. Not like a teenager's weblog on myspace or an ad for the Magic Kingdom.
Have you seen the link to a tutorial I posted at template talk:cquote? —Michael Z. 2006-09-27 16:43 Z
I understand. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia first, and it should look clean and consistant without contributors going wild with the layout. Tradtional rules have their place, and I agree that it belongs within page editing and wiki markup. Wikipedians ought to ratify a "Markup Act" that would aim to clear out "hacked" styles from the page markup and, if possible, roll them into separate pages, "cascading" from the main style sheet (whatever that may be — even no CSS at all!). At the same time, an effort should be made to urge contributors to spare the pages from formatting and style tricks and push those through the Villiage Pump first. (Don't Be Bold?)
Thanks for the link to that tutorial. I'm also following this one as well. —Down10 TACO 07:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Personally I dislike Template:cquote, but what I see as more important than what our individual preferences are is that we reach a decision and use one style on all our articles. Maybe we could do something like have a straw poll to try and decide which style we want to use? First we would need to clearly outline our options. Martin 16:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
Ever since someone brought it to my attention, I have loathed Template:cquote. I know that's very POV, but my personal feeling is that it has no place in the typography of a serious encyclopaedia, except possibly as an example of how not to do things. WLD 16:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Agreed. It's inappropriate for an encyclopedia. We need to delete it and replace all instances with <blockquote> or {{quotation}}. — Omegatron 16:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree, and not just about using one style, but separating the style entirely apart from wiki markup. Not every user will want to use monobook.css, nor should they be forced to settle with it. I'm hoping that the proper format of wiki markup of pages becomes easier and more obvious to contributors (the insert box below need a lot of rearrangement) , while at the same time offering them a chance to add their own styles to the CSS, without having to "hack" the layout (bringing the undesirable effects thereof).
Wikipedia will always have misuse of markup — that's the drawback of open source editing. More clarity and instruction on the importance of the "official" Wikipedia Manual of Style (and how style ≠ markup) is needed before rolling out the Wiki Police. —Down10 TACO 07:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
Wasn't one of the benefits of open source editing that we could correct each others mistakes? Shinobu 23:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)
Someone has changed the quotations on one of my regular articles to use the {{Quotation}} tag. I wanted to see if this was the recommended method for quotes as I don't think it looks that good on the article. My goal is to get the article to FA status, so I'll go with what is expected but I wanted to verify its use. Also, what defines a "long quote" - 1 sentence, 2, paragraph? Personally, I think it just looks better with the normal "" but that's just me. What say you MOS gurus? Morphh (talk) 14:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
Wanted to redirect the thought back to my question. It seems that blockquote is now acceptable but is it recommended and under what conditions. It is being used any time someone is quoted.. even one/two sentence quotes. I also think it adds POV as particular statements / ideas have emphasis if quoted. Morphh (talk) 16:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)
I think current recommended usage is <blockquote> for longer quotations. You can use " " for short quotations. It looks like everyone hates {{cquote}}, so don't use it. Even if purple image quotes are the way to go, they will be added through css/script. This is because seperation of format an content is important. Shinobu 18:03, 30 October 2006 (UTC)
There's nothing POV about formatting long quotations as a block, and I don't see how putting a long direct quotation in a block is somehow endorsing it over a shorter one that is in quotation marks. If you're bothered by this, then you must dislike reading in general, because those are standard English-language typographic conventions. I'm thinking the current formatting must be acceptable, because some editors argue that blockquotes should be italicized or placed in purple cartoon quotes, while others worry that they are overemphasized.
On the other hand, putting a shaded box or big bubblegum quotes around a block of text is something else. It may belong in an "Open Encyclopedia for Dummies" or somebody's weblog comments, but not so much in Wikipedia.
If you want to see a wikitext solution for entering proper HTML blockquote elements, please vote for bug 4827 on bugzilla. —Michael Z. 2006-10-30 21:53 Z

[edit] Yet another quote template

Look what I found: {{cquotetxt}} And this one looks different too. This is exactly why I don't like these. Is there a way to actually do something about it, instead of discussing this on WP talk:MOS till the end of time? Shinobu 04:13, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

These are designed to be used as pull quotes, but they are being used for block quotes. A pull quote is a quote that is pulled out of the text of the article, meaning it is duplicated. A pull quote can either be a quotation from a source outside the article, or it can be a quotation of the article text itself. Block quotes are part of the text of the article. Using this kind of formatting for anything that is part of the flow of the text of the article is just bad typesetting. Personally, I don't feel pull quotes have a place in Wikipedia because of the layout of the pages, either. Anyway, I've come to realize that changing anything style-wise like this will basically never happen (see the next heading down for issues I've been trying to get consensus on for two years). If consensus is never reached, inconsistency will remain. It's a caveat of the consensus thing, and it's why traditional publications have style guides, art directors, and copy editors.

“ Que sera, sera. „

—Doris Day

– flamurai (t) 04:49, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

The thing is, we do seem to have consensus on this. Look at the discussion above. And I think no one thinks having several different looking quote templates with same purpose are a good idea. Also, those of us who want curly braces will have to agree that this has to be done through CSS (and/or JS), seperating style from content.

And it's really easy to fix too. Just change the wikitext of the templates to contain normal blockquotes. Then just go by the instances of the templates, marking the pull quotes separately, say using {{pullquote}}, and substing the rest.

We can have a discussion about whether we want curly quotes yes or no, and whether we want pullquotes yes or no.

The main thing we have to streamline is keeping these three issues separate. A good solution would perhaps be to have a poll "do we want pullout quotes, yes/no, do we want large quotation marks, yes/no/only on pull quotes". Then we have something to point to when we are doing the actual work. Also, if it would turn out that the majority wants curly quote marks, then we can just change the CSS and JS.

PS: "will basically never happen" - that's pessimistic. Can't we try to make stuff happen? Shinobu 17:59, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

PPS: Actually, the MoS already has an excellent recommendation: use <blockquote>. Nothing prevents us from replacing the quote templates to blockquotes. However, in the name of tact and consideration, I would advise people doing so to give an explanation. For instance, don't rightout delete a quote template, but change the wikitext to use a blockquote, tag it for substing, and include a noinclude section pointing to the MoS and informing people that if they want curly graphical quotationmarks, they can have them, through css and js. Shinobu 06:31, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I just stumbled across an article that uses cquote for an actual pullquote: Risks of classical ballet – flamurai (t) 06:48, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A solution?

The site-wide CSS should be updated so <blockquote> receives some sort of special formatting... possibly italics or smaller type. Most users probably don't think the indent sets the quote off enough. – flamurai (t) 06:51, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I think it already gets some special treatment; it looks noticably smaller:

Normal text pa's wijze lynx bezag vroom het fikse aquaduct.

Blockquote lorem ipsum, quia dolor sit, amet, consectetur, adipisci uelit.

More normal text the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Italics have been ruled out in previous discussion, because that looks unprofessional, is harder to read, …

Note that even though at least {{rquote}} is used to format a pull quote, even pull quotes (if we want them at all, but that's a different debate) should be formatted through CSS and, if necessary, script, for example by defining a CSS class "pullquote" to be used on blockquotes.

… even pull quotes … should be formatted through CSS …

If we want to "easify" this using a template, I propose we call it {{pullquote}} thereby making it absolutely clear what its intended use is. Shinobu 01:58, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Since no more comments are flowing in, I take it this is decided. Since the MoS already tells us to use blockquote tags, I don't think the MoS needs changing. Perhaps the wording could be tweaked a bit, or be made more specific, but no actual change is necessary. Shinobu 02:51, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment. I basically see this discussion as ignoring the thousands of editors who have chosen to use cquote. The wagons are circling to delete it based on the style preference of a few people for the good of everyone else if they like it or not. Instead you should be looking at situations where it actually looks very good (Pinocchio for example) and situations where it looks bad, put into words why this is so, then come up with a style guideline on when not to use the template and add it to the template instructions. Trying to delete this template en-masse will never work, or lead to a lot of fighting at best. Creating a guideline on why this special template should be considered, and why it should probably not be considered, is the right track. -- Stbalbach 14:24, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Comment: I must agree with Stbalbach; the use of cquote vs. any other quotation style is a purely aesthetic matter and, as we all should know, de gustibus non est disputandum. It is entirely pointless to argue over whether one arbitrary aesthetic preference is better than another arbitrary aesthetic preference, therefore, we ought to allow article-level consensus to govern the use of cquote. As I pointed out here there are cases where cquote serves a function no other template does: in some articles one wants (a) the quotes to be set apart from the body of the text but (b) the flow to be preserved. A simple blockquote doesn't do the former, Template:Quotation, Template:Quote box, and Template:Epigraph fail to do the latter. And Template:Rquote makes the quote too elongated for the purpose. (Contrast Mount Tambora). Furthermore, cquote allows the use of footnote refs - check out how it's used in Richard Dawkins. Mikker (...) 16:03, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Outside opinion requested at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (trademarks)

There are currently three interrelated debates, and I think we could use some new voices:

  1. Symbols as words e.g. I ♥ NY, Toys "Я" Us
  2. All capitalized trademarks e.g. WWE RAW, TIME
  3. Trademarks with Question Marks (?) and Exclamation Points (!) e.g. Yahoo!, Guess?

If you have even a slight opinion, please chime in under the relevant discussion. I personally have been involved in this debate for almost two years. I think it's time we came to a global consensus... the straw polls on specific articles' talk pages just lead to more revert wars. – flamurai (t) 03:48, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fetocide vs. feticide spelling policy (3rd opinion needed)

At feticide, an editor has changed "(sometimes referred to as fetocide)" to "(sometimes mistakenly spelt fetocide)". I pointed out that we had cited sources of medical professionals using that spelling, and for us to call it a mistake, would not only be POV pushing, but also be spitting in the face of Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English. So I am here to ask for a third opinion at Talk:Feticide to weigh in on these matters. Is it ok to call common variant spellings used by professionals in the field of study in question a spelling mistake?--Andrew c 15:41, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I am the other party in this, and it is clear to me that fetocide is a misspelling for reasons given at Talk:feticide. It is certainly not a matter of national varieties of English. It is an exaggeration to say there are "cited instances of medical professionals" using this spelling, and it does not appear in any dictionary.. at very best it is a recent and uncommon neologism. It is much more likely to be a mistake. Zargulon 16:04, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
Of the medical journals available in the index at my university, I find one citation using fetocide, from May 2002 in the Journal of Obstetrics & Gynaecology. A Google search on fetocide yields about 11,000 hits. I suspect many are from people who genuinely had no idea how to spell the word, and more from people whose fingers slipped, since the I and O keys are next to each other. Some of the hits come from pages about the German heavy-metal band. Therefore, I don't think fetocide is a variant spelling. But I also don't think it's a misspelling worth mentioing in an encyclopedia article. Any time I see Wikipedia call something a mistake, it feels condescending. We don't need to point out the mistakes of others unless we're going to write about why the mistakes are notable. Otherwise, who cares? --Rob Kennedy 21:15, 31 October 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Rob Kennedy. My own comments are at Talk:Feticide. What I would do is create a redirect, "Fetocide" -> "Feticide", if what hasn't been created already. I say this just to round out the discussion for what should happen in similar cases. (Despite the fact that I am sure this suggestion is already in the MOS somewhere.) --Charles Gaudette 23:01, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

The most common spelling, by a fair way, is foeticide - which isn't even mentioned in the article, jguk 21:55, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

??? Foeticide or feticide as a legal term refers ... – flamurai (t) 01:30, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
flamurai, I think your question — if I can call it that — is vauge, and if it is what I think it is, this belongs on the Talk:Feticide page, not here. It is not helpful to divide (and hide) the feticide dicussion on this talk page. --Charles Gaudette 17:37, 3 November 2006 (UTC)
What question? I was just pointing out the foeticide is mentioned in the article. – flamurai (t) 23:57, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] User Boxes without 'mandatory' categories

I tend to find user boxes useful in the sense that one small box can convey more than one will typically be able to convey in a small sentense. But I have seen that most of them come with a 'Category' which the user may not wish to add. e.g. my page belongs to 15 categories whereas I wish to retain only three of them but at the same time want keep all the user boxes there on my page (would have added more boxes but the categories...). Vjdchauhan 12:09, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

Not really a stylebook issue. Maybe Wikipedia:WikiProject Userboxes is a more appropriate venue. Anyway, you could use subst to copy the user-box code into your page, and then edit the result to remove the category link. --Rob Kennedy 17:11, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I moved When all else fails section upward

The content of this section is far from a "miscellaneous note" (that's the supersection it had been in).

We need to tell readers early and prominently, not late and obscurely, what to do when MoS doesn't tell them what they want to know.

And in general we need to point them to well known manuals of style early, rather than let them read through large amounts of "here's what we think" before they finally read "here are the recongnized worldwide authorities on style".

TH 19:47, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Specifying locations

Is there a guideline that requires the first mention of a location in an article (especially in the introduction) to specify the country concerned? Just for clarity?

When I'm browsing articles, I'm very regularly bugged by the fact that most editors writing about a location in their home country omit the country's name. I do know that in 99% percent of the time, the location's name is linked to an article specifying the country. Yet, especially in an article's introduction, I guess it'd be convenient not to have to click away to a second article just to know whether Troy is in the US, the UK, or even in Turkey. Moreover, lots of American editors seem to think that mentioning a state is enough, but honestly, as a Dutchman, I cannot always see the difference between US, Canadian, Australian, Indian, British etc. area names.

If there already is a policy/guideline on this, please tell me. If there is none, I hereby propose one. -- Bakabaka 11:41, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

I'd avoid instruction creep here. "Troy", because very ambiguous, almost always deserves clarification (except in the context of ancient history). And I'd always clarify anything that is not worldwide common knowledge ("Rosario, Argentina" or even "Sibiu, in the Transylvanian region of Romania"). But we don't really need always to say "Paris, France" or "Amsterdam, Netherlands", or "Beijing, China". - Jmabel | Talk 23:41, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
This is bugging me too, and I can't find a policy that's relevant. What I'd particularly like is a policy which states the level of detail to be used, and how we handle the difference between a country (i.e., technically, a state) and major subdivisions of it (e.g. a US State, or a component nation of the UK). The example that seems most common – and results in frequent mild edit wars – is the question of whether to say [[British city]], [[England]] or [[British city]], [[United Kingdom]]. Whilst both may be correct, the danger with saying "England" seems to me to be that it contributes to some people then taking "England" to mean "United Kingdom", which is a common mistake. I know this isn't Wikipedia's problem, as such, but if we can avoid ambiguity, we should. The trouble is, English nationalists start to take offence and revert to "England", arguing (quite correctly) that the British city in question is indeed in England... see what I mean? – Kieran T (talk | contribs) 20:27, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Guideline proposal: Avoid purely decorative images

I propose the following guideline be added to the images section here:

Avoid using images in a purely decorative fashion. Images should either identify or add information directly relevant to the subject of the article.

My rationale:

  1. The primary purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide information.
  2. Decoration is subjective. There are many editors on Wikipedia with many ideas of design. Allowing decorative use of images will create inconsistencies in style.
  3. Using copyrighted images not release under a free license in a purely decorative fashion is not fair use.

This was inspired by WP:FLAGCRUFT. Thoughts?

– flamurai (t) 23:36, 5 November 2006 (UTC)

1. There's nothing wrong with having a good presentation. Wikipedia could just as well be distributed in ASCII text files. 3. So don't let people use fair use copyright images when they're nonessential. I don't understand what problem you're trying to describe in 2. Strad 04:05, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I can tell you haven't been near any quote templates recently. Shinobu 04:20, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
  • It's a good start but I think it comes off too strong. I wouldn't want to completely forbid using decorative images like flags, I think there just should be a fair balance. Maybe this would sound better as "Maintain a fair balance when using images for decorative purposes. Images should not distract the reader but add or illustrate the context of the article." What you guys think? - Tutmosis 14:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Here's an example of "purely decorative" use of flags: With flags; without flags. What does the addition of flags in #1 accomplish that the presentation in #2 doesn't? I will try to find some non-flag examples. I know I have run across them but can't think of anything off-hand. – flamurai (t) 17:36, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "purely decorative", but I think that if an image directly relates to the text and can be justfied then it should be fine. Articles (especially long ones) need pictures to make them better and, I believe, more reader friendly. Plus, on your thrid note, I think this section of the fair use article clears up when copyrghted images should be used. If you were to give an example of what you mean in an existing article then I'm sure it would make more sense to me (and perhaps others). Tartan 15:08, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I think he means images that don't add anything to the article and are used purely for layout/eye candy reasons. The example he gave above is a good one. Adding the flag icons doens't add anything to the article, they're purely there for decoration. Another example would be the curly quote images that seem to have begun to adorne quotation templates recently. (Note that I'm not saying every use of flag icons is bad: in infoboxes where there's not enough room for full country names they can be kind of practical.) Shinobu 18:23, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
Right. I think the use of icons in infoboxes and tables acceptable, but there shouldn't be an icon with the text describing it right next to it. That's what effective use of alt descriptions if for. e.g. this icon may not be self-evident, but if you roll over it you'll get a description: Image:NYCS Denotation (All Times Except Late Nights and Rush Hours In Peak Direction).svg I'm all for the effective use of images and technology, but completely against excess use. – flamurai (t) 18:32, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

WP:FLAGCRUFT is a good essay, and clicking through the links in it provides some excellent contrasts and examples. Flags seem to be not so bad in tabular data where the countries' identities are a key value, like the Olympic gymnast listings. But they are certainly terrible in page subheadings, awful in most other places, and they make the Einstein infobox look like a pair of jeans from Benetton. —Michael Z. 2006-11-06 22:15 Z

Query: What about something like Utopia, Limited or Onion dome - more pictures than strictly needed, but all relevant. We'd need to be careful not to make things sound too restrictive. Adam Cuerden talk 00:27, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm wondering whether this proposed guideline, which I support by the way, is not an attempt on our part to codify good judgment or taste. We don't write guidelines saying not to use any unnecessary or decorative words, letters, or punctuation, after all. Can we not leave it up to consensus to make good articles good, and comprised of what is necessary and avoiding what is not? —Michael Z. 2006-11-07 04:37 Z

That's a good point. Part of writing a style guide is codifying good taste... it just depends on how far we want to go. For example we have a point:
If there are too many images in a given article, consider using a gallery.
Obviously "too many" is up to the author.
I think this guideline is better, because "purely decorative" is much easier to recognize. In fact, it really wouldn't rule out most image use, because almost any image added here is relevant to the article. But let's say someone comes in and starts adding clip art that really doesn't illustrate anything specific. e.g. I make a music article and I decide, "hey this is really cute, let's add it next to the headings:
History of the tuba
This is really what the guideline is trying to prevent. Wikipedia is not a company newsletter. It's not a place for you to express your artistic side.
– flamurai (t) 21:03, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course, while such a guide would not affect most articles per se, there are a few templates, mostly quoteboxes, infoboxes and infobox templates that are affected. I've seen infobox templates that explicitely provide a parameter for an otherwise purely decorative image. There is often a reluctance to change templates, perhaps for fear of treading on too many toes... See the quotebox discussion above for another instance of "template fossilisation". Shinobu 22:06, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Of course there are the stub templates too. These images are purely decorative, but I don't necessarily think they should go. Shinobu 22:08, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
The stub is part of "wikipedia project space", this guideline is really meant for the article proper. Actually in that case the image is helpful to set the stub template off from the article body. I would like to consider infoboxes separately, as images in that case may help disinguish them from the article proper. Can you point me to an example? – flamurai (t) 22:23, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
Template:NavigationBox (edit talk links history)
Navigationbox with image on the right; no v-d-e nor hide/show.
Template:Dynamic navigation box with image (edit talk links history)
Navigationbox with image on the left and hide/show, but no v-d-e.
Here are two. Shinobu 05:12, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quotes

  1. ”Jabberwocky” is a nonsense poem by Lewis Carroll.
    • Shouldn't that be “Jabberwocky”?
  2. Quotation marks affect searching
    • Isn't that a bug (not a style guide rule)? — Omegatron 19:54, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

I wholeheartedly agree, but as long as it isn't fixed, we'll have to make do. Shinobu 21:57, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

The first example you give is certainly a poor choice. "Jabberwocky" or “Jabberwocky” should both be fine. We tend mostly toward the former. - Jmabel | Talk 23:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
@there is no consensus in Wikipedia on which should be preferred, either is acceptable: I think this is mostly because Wikipedians think the curly ones are a pain to enter. Keep in mind that the English wiki originally had no Unicode support, making “ (&ldquo;) etc. necessary. I think the curly ones are safe to use now. Question: is it permissable to change typewriter quotes to real quotes? Shinobu 13:10, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Has nothing to do with curly vs straight quotes. The title used the same quote mark at the beginning and end of the word. — Omegatron 05:42, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] On page creation, creator should search and wikilink that word

On page creation, creator should search and wikilink that word. New page may enable some red links but what about the ones where the corresponding word was not put put in internal link tag. Can this be made a guideline that can be put on discussion page of new page just after it gets created. Vjdchauhan 06:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

This isn't really a style issue. Try Help:Starting a new page. (There's a little bit, but it could stand to be more explicit.) – flamurai (t) 09:32, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
I was not sure where to put this so chose this discussion page. Primarily I want to bring it to notice of Wikipedians does initial review (notability/copyright review etc) of new page and do you think Help:Starting a new page is proper page to notify 'new page watchers' wikipedians. Thanks. Vjdchauhan 10:03, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Title character

I'm proposing a policy to either use "title character" or "eponymous" character, instead of "titular" character seen on some pages. The reason being, not all dictionary define titular as a title character, but eponymous is specifically, a "title character". I raised the question at the Reference desk/Language, and people seem to agree that it should be "eponymous" and not "titular". --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 01:14, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

Do we really need a policy saying to choose words based on what they mean? I figured that was a given. Where is this a problem? Have you encountered resistance when you changed articles to use the right word? --Rob Kennedy 03:58, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, I did, at Naruto, as well as another page which I have currently forgotten. And if you search for titular character, you get 1120 matches, which is grounds for proposing it as a policy, IMO. --Wirbelwindヴィルヴェルヴィント (talk) 05:03, 9 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Ancient Greece and similar

Can we have an official policy on these divisions which are considered proper titles, like Rennaisance Europe, Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece, etc, to prevent stupidities like the recent move of Music of Ancient Greece to Music of ancient Greece? Adam Cuerden talk 11:41, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

The article renaming above isn't exclusive to Greece, since the word 'ancient' is an adjective and not part of the actual name, so there is no reason to have it capitalized unless it starts a sentence. I'm sure there was a discussion about that somewhere. Do you have any other naming conventions you want people to follow that explicitly apply to Ancient Greece? - Tutmosis 19:25, 9 November 2006 (UTC)
Time periods are capitalised when attached to a country or region: Neolithic Europe, Ancient Rome, Rennaisance Italy. They form part of the things' designation and are capitalised. Same with Ancient Egypt, Roman Britain, Pre-Modern America. All are capitalised. It's a standard convention. Adam Cuerden talk 07:55, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
User:Espoo has posted twice about this on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters), which I think is the more appropriate venue for the discussion. I think Espoo is proposing the opposite policy from yours. The relevant sections of the Chicago Manual of Style are 8.78 and 8.79. They call for lowercase descriptive designations in most cases: ancient Greece, the colonial period, imperial Rome, the Hellenistic period. They make exceptions for tradition: the Age of Reason, the Common Era, the Old Kingdom (ancient Egypt). --Rob Kennedy 17:28, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
I'll comment here - as the points I make have a more general application.
A key problem with the Chicago Manual of Style is that it is as hated outside America as it is loved inside America (at least amongst those with an interest in style issues). It is also just plain inaccurate at places - by all means capitalise the C and E of the Common Era, but don't lets pretend this term has much of a tradition behind it (or pretend that most people will know what you mean, but then that point's also true of the Age of Reason :) ).
I often see Ancient rather than ancient Greece, and Imperial rather than imperial Rome. However, I'm not convinced we need to dictate one particular rule. Let the authors of each article address style issues based on what is most suitable for the audience they are targetting the article at. Different articles will be targetted at different audience. We shouldn't presume that a one-size-fits-all style is desirable here, jguk 18:29, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Are There Any Wikipedia Manual Of Style Rules On {{see also}}?

? Thanks.100110100 06:53, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Guide to layout has a clear to the point explanation regarding this section. For future reference, it be best to ask such questions at the Reference desk. Thanks. - Tutmosis 16:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
No, the place to ask is the Help Desk. Rmhermen 04:41, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Misc queries

Why is the section "Memes as memes" so called? NBeale 19:39, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I did that, though I never liked it, and I just changed it -- any other suggestions?
TH 19:49, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Disc and disk

I've noticed that there is inconsistancy in the usage of the words disk and disc. I was wondering what everyone thinks on this matter. Here's what OED has to say:

"The earlier and better spelling is disk, but disc is now the more usual form in British English, except in sense 2g, where disk is commoner as a result of US influence."—Oxford English Dictionary (Second Edition, 1989)

"Sense 2g" involves computer-related terms, which is particularly where I've noticed the inconsistancy (hard disk, optical disc). Do you think this issue should just be treated on a per-article basis as American vs British English is? Is it even necessary to worry about it, or can we use disc and disk interchangably in the same articles without a second thought? Or should we perhaps be preferring one variant over the other. It's a minor issue for sure, but I couldn't find any previous discussion on it. -- mattb @ 2006-11-11T17:58Z

I would prefer disk, since it seems to be at least acceptable in both AE and BE, and using just one of the two makes searching easier. Anyway "optical disk" should fall in the 2g category, and therefore should commonly be spelt disk, even in BE. Shinobu 02:44, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I tend to agree. FWIW, the company for which I am currently contracting made the interesting decision in their documentation that a "disc" is a phyisical piece of removable media; anything else is a "disk". Thus, you "place the disc labeled 'Install 1' in the disk drive". Not suggesting that we adopt that, but I've noticed that it decreases ambiguity in some parts of their documentation. - Jmabel | Talk 23:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
Using disk in the same sentence with the same meaning but different spelling? I wouldn't suggest to adopt that either. Shinobu 13:13, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
There is a very subtle difference between disc and disk that has nothing to do with British and American English. For an optical storage medium, it's always disc: for example Compact Disc. For a magnetic storage medium, it's always disk, like in the case of Hard disk. SpNeo 19:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Surely you're joking. Why would we suddenly spell "disc" just because the storage medium is optical? It's the same word. Shinobu 15:22, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, that's the way I've always spelled it (and seen it spelled). EVula // talk // ☯ // 15:26, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] good, please keep going

Jguk,

I think your new first para is an improvement. I suggest you may want to continue.

There are still 2 questions that pop up in my mind:

1. When the 1st para says "there is very little prescription here" and some section midway down says "[do not] do such-and-such", then (a) is the "do" an exception to the "very little prescription", or (b) does the "very little prescription" mean that we aren't 100 percent insisting on the "do"?

2. A writer who really wants guidance can follow the suggestions in WP:MoS if anybody ever got around to saying anything about the style issue they want guidance on. But if nobody ever got around to saying anything about the issue, then we abandon that writer who really wants guidance -- because we don't ever have the courage (editorial, not moral) to say "hey, if you really want guidance, and we don't answer your question herein, then may we suggest [some guideline]".

TH 18:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents

I will start by saying that I do not truly have a NPOV on this topic. As a Pagan (Wiccan), I feel very strongly that there is a problem here with a perception of dismissal of the gods of cultures other than the Christian one. When I refer to the Gods, I give them the proper deference by capitalizing "Gods". You will notice that when I referred to gods in a general, non-specific way I did use the lower-case, "gods".

An article I contribute to was recently edited to change all references from "the Gods" to "the gods". This was in reference to a fantasy game pantheon and yet I feel I was correct, as "the Gods" was referring to a specific set of deities. I came here to see if I had grounds to reverse the edit but find that, as it stands, I do not.

The deity of the predominant religion seems to be the only one worthy of respect here... --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 02:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I am calmer today. :) May I suggest the following rewrite, with my addition in bold?

Deities begin with a capital letter: God, Allah, Freya, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Messiah. (Note that articles, such as “the” are not capitalized.) The same is true when referring to important religious figures, such as Muhammad, by terms such as the Prophet. Transcendent ideas in the Platonic sense also begin with a capital letter: Good and Truth. Pronouns referring to deities, or nouns (other than names) referring to any material or abstract representation of any deity, human or otherwise, do not begin with a capital letter. Thus while it is accepted correct usage to say, “He prayed to Wotan”; since Wotan in this case is a proper name, it is correctly capitalized, but the common use of gods in this sense is not capitalized. Thus one would not say "He prayed to the God Wotan," but instead would say "He prayed to the god Wotan." The following sentence would be correct usage: “It was thought that he prayed to God, but it turned out he prayed to one of the Norse gods.” One exception to this is when "Gods" is used in the specific, referring to a set of specific gods. The following sentence would be correct usage: "In his anger and loss, he cried out to the Gods of his fathers."

--Bill W. Smith, Jr. 17:12, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

The capitalization is not done out of respect. If it were, then personal pronouns referring to God would probably also be capitalized. But lack of capitalization is not a sign of disrespect, either.
The phrases the Gods of his fathers and the gods of his fathers don’t refer to different things. Either way, they’re talking about deities that had some connection to his fathers. These things he was calling out to, what were they? They were gods. They weren’t Gods. Each one by itself was a god, not a God. Which gods did he cry to? His fathers’ gods.
If you had written that he cried out to “the Gods of his Fathers,” capital F, that might be a different matter. In that case, it’s the phrase Gods of his Fathers that is the proper noun, not just Gods. I don’t see where gods ever refers to anything more than a collection of things that all belong to the class “god.”
Suppose his fathers only had one god. Then it would be, “he cried out to the god of his fathers.” If you want to capitalize it in that case as though it’s a proper name, then try replacing it with names of other gods and see if it still makes sense:
  • he cried out to the Odin of his fathers.
  • he cried out to the Allah of his fathers.
Those clearly don’t work, so neither does “he cried out to the God of his fathers.” Since it doesn’t work in the singular, it doesn’t work in the plural, either. --Rob Kennedy 20:07, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I see your point regarding the sentence I used as a usage example. I still find it hard to swallow the public relations masterpiece of the Christians, calling their god, "God", implying that either 1) He is all gods, or 2) He is the only god. Either way you hash it, it was a stroke of public relations genius which we perpetuate. He does have a name. He was the god of the Hebrews first, and before that He was a tribal war god.

If it is wrong to capitalize Gods, why is it ok to capitalize the Christian God? --Bill W. Smith, Jr. 23:09, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, Christians generally do believe that God is the only god, or at least the only one worth anyone’s attention. I’d hardly call it public relations, though. It’s been that way for centuries. That About.com site for atheism has an article about capitalization of god.
Whether to capitalize the Christian God depends on context.
Suppose we have the sentence “My brother thinks he is God.” But there are several ideas of what God is like, so that sentence might not give very specific information about my brother’s delusion. Which “version” of God does he think he is? The Christian one: “My brother thinks he is the Christian God.” Other proper names can get the same treatment: “As president, my brother will emulate John Adams.” But there were two presidents with that name. Which one? “As president, my brother will emulate the younger John Adams.” Both the adjective and the definite article need to be there.
Now, suppose we’re beginning a joke: “Zeus, Odin, and God walk into a bar. The god goes up to the bartender and says ….” We don’t know which one talked to the bartender, so we need an adjective there to distinguish: “The Christian god goes up ….”
See? It depends on the context. --Rob Kennedy 05:34, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Actually, "the Christian God" is not correct, it should be "the Christian god". The word "god" here is not used as a proper name. Compare "Odin, the Germanic god of...", "Jehova, the Christian god", "the Christian god is commonly called "God" by his followers" etc. Shinobu 02:52, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
From that, I conclude that you didn’t understand the example I gave. Maybe I wasn’t clear. I think it’s easy: Would the word be capitalized without the adjective Christian? If so, then it should be capitalized with the adjective, too. Otherwise not. Maybe I muddied the waters with that John Adams bit. Here’s another example. Suppose two people, Johnson and Jones, have written about Odin, but they have differing accounts of his hair color.
“The Odin in Johnson’s account has green hair. The Odin in Jones’s article blue white hair.”
Those are valid capitalizations, right? Now let’s rephrase those sentences:
“The Johnson Odin has green hair. The Jones Odin has blue hair.”
Valid again. Now replace Odin with God, and it’s still valid, right? Now here’s the final step. Instead of getting accounts of God from Johnson and Jones, let’s get them from two different religions, say, Christianity and Judaism:
“The Christian God green gray hair. The Jewish God has blue hair.”
It’s not as simple as saying that every occurance of the three words the Christian God is always wrong. Things rarely are. --Rob Kennedy 04:33, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
I think you missed my point a little.
@Would the word be capitalized without the adjective Christian?:
Without it, it says "the god", still without cap. You can only get a cap here in circumstances like this: "The God of Raphael looks much fiercer than the God of Michelangelo". However, then you would not use the "Christian" adjective. If you would, "god" would not be name anymore, and thus not capitalized.
Same holds for your other examples:
“The Christian god has gray hair. The Jewish god has blue hair.”
Here god is not used as a name, hence no cap. It might be slightly borderline, since you could argue on historical grounds that these are two views of the same being. However, if two religions view their gods differently, then they're different gods, since the view a religion has of a god defines it. The cap-less version of the example however is always correct, no matter your religious and/or philosophical beliefs and opinions. Shinobu 07:32, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
I am an atheist, but here are my thoughts on the subject. "God" is only capitalized for the Christian god because they use "God" as his/her/its name. The name "God" is used exactly the same as the names "Zeus" and "Odin" (or even "Tom," "Dick," and "Harry"). If you're talking about the Greek gods, or any other collection of gods, then they are referred to in lowercase. The new TV series Battlestar Galactica puts a twist on our culture by having the humans refer to gods (plural), while the Cylons refer to a single deity named God. It might seem unfair, but the Cylons would be "allowed" to capitalize the name "God," while the humans would be "forced" to lowercase their collection of gods. Presumably, the gods of Battlestar Galactica have individual names. If any of those names were used instead, they would, of course, be capitalized. BJ Nemeth 02:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] templates and linking in them

I originally posted this on WP:MOS-L and didn't get a response so I thought I would just post it over here and see if there's any response.

I've been editing a writers wiki page using the Template:Infobox Writer and another user changed the Website field from the way I had it (example) Official website to [5] citing WP:MOS. I personally think it looks better as official site especially since being in a template, or heck even www.catherinecoulter.com would do but the WP:MOS-L only says However, you should add a descriptive title when an external link is offered in the References, Further reading, or External links section. Is there any policy on this someplace that I'm not seeing? The template itself says nothing about the preferred style of choice. I bring this up here because I don't see it elsewhere and since that's the case perhaps it should also be on here, plus I don't want to get into an edit war. All other authors that I see using the Website field either have Official website or www.catherinecoulter.com so perhaps clarification for templates is needed? Anyway any answers are appreciated. Thanks. --ImmortalGoddezz 00:49, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm guessing the user was referring to the links MoS and Embedded HTML links. Regarding infoboxes, I never came across such a guideline but I see nothing wrong in what you did. You could easily contact the user and ask him if he can direct you to the guideline he was referring to. - Tutmosis 01:15, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
That particular change was inappropriate. The “[#]” style should be reserved for situations in which the link is being used as a citation. (And even then, it should probably be replaced with a real footnote citation to provide additional information beyond just the URL.) I see nothing at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links) to support the edit you’re concerned about.
Usually, I like to see URLs hidden behind regular linked text, the way your original text was, and as described at WP:MOS-L#Link titles. But there’s an exception, and that’s when the subject of discussion is the Web site itself. Then it makes perfect sense to have the URL appear in full. In the case of the template, that space is labeled for the writer’s Web site. There’s no need to hide the address of it — the address is exactly what that spot is for. What is her Web site? It’s CatherineCoulter.com, not “Official website.” (And I’d prefer the capital letters there, too, for the sake of readability.) --Rob Kennedy 04:26, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
It definitely shouldn't be "CatherineCoulter.com" unless that's the actual title of the site (a la Amazon.com). It should be catherinecoulter.com. It's a URL. – flamurai (t) 05:28, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Domain names aren’t case-sensitive. Camel case breaks the words apart without breaking the link. --Rob Kennedy 05:43, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for your input, usually when doing citation I just use citeweb or <ref> instead of embedded links, but since there's no mention of 'in template linking' on WP:MOS-L I was really unsure. Template linking is probably something that should be added in Wikipedia: Manual of Style (links) since templates seem to be so abundant lately... anyway usually I try to go by policy but when looking this up I couldn't find it and I didn't really want to go up and say 'well that's inappropriate' to change "x" to "y" when "y" (in my opinion) looks inappropriate especially when I can't find a wiki policy that says one way or another. When using the template I usually like to link as Official Website since some of the authors names can be pretty long and push outside of the template whereas official website is at least somewhat uniform but either one seems better than just a plain [6] in the field parameter. The feedback is much appreciated, I'll change the link on her wiki page and mention it on the talk page as to avoid conflict. --ImmortalGoddezz 05:00, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quotations

The examples on this page are not precisely clear: What should be done in the following case:

George writes that it "gives the impression that it is actively speciating to fill the many ecological niches through its range".

Or,

George writes that it "gives the impression that it is actively speciating to fill the many ecological niches through its range."

Is this a "fragment" or a "full sentence" that carries the meaning of the full stop? Either way, could an example such as this be added to clarify this problem? --Spangineerws (háblame) 06:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I doubt we will ever get agreement on this. Nor is it really important: either should be acceptable, it's a borderline case. - Jmabel | Talk 00:01, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Use of bold

When bold should be used in the articles, apart in the article title?--Panarjedde 13:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Almost never. Please refer to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) for more information. --Rob Kennedy 18:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
I see that there are many discrepancies between MoS and MoS(tf). Do we want to have two articles with so much overlap and such a burden of synchronization? TH 06:27, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, that’s a problem. It’s inevitable that MOS pages will brush into each other, but they shouldn’t overlap that much. It makes it hard to resolve style questions, and it fragments discussion about policy changes. Someday, I hope to do some work toward reducing the overlap, but not now. Maybe after the semester is over. --Rob Kennedy 03:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

It's often used in the first paragraph for alternate names, all of which should be redirects: e.g. "The Republican Party (often referred to as the GOP, for Grand Old Party)…" - Jmabel | Talk 00:04, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What Is The Policy On {{see also}}, If Any?

Thanks.100110100 02:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

That's an awfully vague question. - Jmabel | Talk 00:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
What I think is meant is "when is it appropriate to use this template, and when is it not appropriate?". I don't know of any policy myself regarding this. FranksValli 05:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Essay on pop culture

Please read my essay on pop culture in Wikipedia and comment. Be nice, please! I welcome all constructive criticism. Mr Spunky Toffee 16:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Link: User:Mr Spunky Toffee/Popular culture in Wikipedia --Milo H Minderbinder 16:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Which was deleted as a "rant by indef blocked user". - Jmabel | Talk 00:07, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Why I restored after 2 reverts re italics/quotations, article/Article, punctuating quoted sentence fragments

To the reverter --

1. I don't understand the statement "that edit seems to change the meaning" nor the statement "you keep changing the meaning of the italics and quotations section". Please explain any objections.

2. I request that the reverter would not destroy all my changes (changes in unrelated sections, for example) when there is an objection to only a portion of my changes. For an extra 20 seconds of the reverter's time, reverting just one section would simplify the sequence of versions and would be courteous to other people whose questions I have attempted to answer.

3. I am requesting formal mediation on this dispute -- please join me in resolving this.

TH 18:53, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Let's see:
The major point of the section on italics is not the use of italics for emphasis within quotes, but rather the italicizing of the entire quote (which is the standard in a number of style guides, particularly older ones). Your changes entirely remove this.
As far as your other changes, they're not always an improvement. Going through them:
  1. The use of boldface with article titles: why would the first letter be capitalized there? The convention is that, in the text of the article (as opposed to the title itself), normal capitalization rules apply, and the artificial capitalization of the first letter is dropped unless needed.
  2. The change from "situation was 'deplorable'" to "situation 'is deplorable'" seems arbitrary; either could be the more appropriate form, depending on the context.
  3. The retention of the initial capitalization of the quote is, again, arbitrary; the next paragraph, in fact, explicitly permits downcasing.
Kirill Lokshin 19:26, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

Kirill,

Right you are on your item 1, I got carried away with the initial cap.

Re your item 2, Spangineer recently posted a question above about the fragment issue. I expanded the quote from "deplorable" to "is deplorable" in an attempt to make it clearer that anything short of a full sentence is a fragment, and the fragment rule applies. Both examples are correct. The longer one has the advantage of being a bit clearer, with no disadvantage that I can see.

Re your item 3, some time ago I posted a question saying that I didn't know the rule for initial cap inside a quotation. Then I found a citation. I quoted it in the "Go now" example. (Yes, the two sections should really be integrated.) Since we have a citation telling us to capitalize the first letter, and no citation saying otherwise, does WP:Verifiability tell us we must stay with the citationed alternative?

Re your item 0, yes, I didn't leave enough emphasis on the italicize-the-whole-quote issue. I had thought about splitting the italics/quotation into two sections -- one dealing with the italicize-the-whole-quote practice, one dealing with the more complex issue of partial italics. But then I thought that first section would be too short. Please check out the emphasis I put back on the first issue.

Thanks much for taking the time to write your response. As there is now progress on this little section, I have dropped my plan to ask for mediation.

TH 20:19, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't know why T00h00 keeps changing the main point of the section. I've restored. The point of it is to tell editors not to place entire quotations in italics, which many do. SlimVirgin (talk) 20:29, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I restored changes near "is deplorable" ...

Folks,

1. Someone made a change here, and the Edit Summary says “never start quotes on ‘is’”.

I have never heard a rule against starting a quote with “is”. Please provide a citation. Without a citation to the contrary, I believe the writer is free to quote as much or as little as he or she wants, as long as he or she does not misrepresent the original.

All other things being equal, a longer quote has more force, and provides more benefit to the reader, than a shorter quote.

Suppose Arthur actually said this: “Even they admit that the fix they’ve gotten themselves into is untenable. In my estimation it is deplorable”.

Then it would be perfectly legitimate to write: Arthur said the situation “is deplorable”.

And that would be better than this: Arthur said the situation is “deplorable”. Because this second example has exactly the same words but provides less information to the reader.

2. A word is a fragment of a sentence. So it’s redundant to say “a word or sentence fragment”.

TH 16:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] I restored changes re italics in quotes

1. The last edit summary says "better to give only one choice". No citation given for this opinion. So we need to go with the citation-supported format I just restored.

2. Also, the version I just overwrote says,

If ... you want to stress that the emphasis is the source's and not yours, you can [etc.].

But whether the contributor wants to stress anything about the emphasis is irrelevant. The contributor is obligated to leave no misunderstanding in the reader's mind about who provided the emphasis.

3. Also, the version I just overwrote tells contributors to put [emphasis added] inside the quotes but [emphasis in original] after the quote. That would be inconsistent with no compelling reason for being so. Also, no citation given for this either.

TH 16:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

I've changed this back to the previous version. The writing should be as simple as possible, and it doesn't recommend one inside, one outside, quotes. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Names in all-caps

Some names are written in all caps, such as most romanised names made by Japanese, or something like .hack//SIGN, MISIA, etc. I've recently noticed Special:Contributions/Gerbrant changing quite a number of J-Pop album and singer profiles from all-cap transliterations (as written on the album cover) to grammar as it would be a proper noun. I'm wondering what should be handled for this. - Zero1328 Talk? 10:53, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Some years ago, when companies started coming out with creatively capitalized names, Forbes or Fortune or some similar magazine set a policy that they would allow max 2 capital letters in a word and force the rest to lower case.
Long before that, Leo Rosten wrote a novel about a fellow who spelled his name H*Y*M*A*N K*A*P*L*A*N.
There's no limit to what some commercial enterprises will ask people to do.
TH 00:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] U.S.

I am concerned that the advice at the recently promoted to guideline page, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms) is that articles should be disambiguated as "blah (US)". This breaks conformity of the MoS in quite a big way. I should have brought the discussion here but foolishly I put it at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (abbreviations). (Mea culpa.) Please pop over and contribute to the discussion. Rich Farmbrough, 10:52 19 November 2006 (GMT).

(Comment moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (abbreviations)) – flamurai (t) 11:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Capitalization in titles

The guideline says: "When used generically, they should be in lower case: “De Gaulle was the French president.” The correct formal name of an office is treated as a proper noun." So this means that when you're talking about the office of the President of the United States, but using terms like "president" or "the presidency", that you don't capitalize it, right? I'm not sure I'm reading this right, because I've seen the opposite rampant throughout Wikipedia, for example: "The President of the United States of America (often abbreviated POTUS[1]) is the head of state of the United States. The office of President was established upon the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1788 and the first president took office in 1789. The President serves as chief executive and head of the executive branch of the United States government." (etc.) Is this correct? What about here: "Amendment XXV (the Twenty-fifth Amendment) of the United States Constitution clarifies an ambiguous provision of the Constitution regarding succession to the Presidency, and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office of the Vice President as well as responding to Presidential disabilities." Schi 23:05, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It is some publications’ style to capitalize President. The place I notice that most, outside of Wikipedia, is Time magazine. I suppose it’s done as a sign of respect, but I think it just makes publications look stuffy. The article President of the United States is on my list of articles to remove excess capitalization from.
There’s really no reason to capitalize a title absent a name. Without a name attached, a title is just a job description. There’s nothing to lose by writing it without capitalization.
This business about the “correct formal name” can only lead to problems, the first of which is deciding what the “correct formal name” is. For instance, I rather suspect Mr. Chirac’s title isn’t President of France but actually Président de la République française. What happens when the correct formal name happens to be the same as the generic, casual name? George Bush is the president — of what? — the United States. So he’s the president of the United States — oops, that’s President of the United States. I wrote about title capitalization last summer at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Titles. --Rob Kennedy 05:32, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
From recollection one of the "nine rules of capitalization" cited in an exam paper from a century ago that does the round on the web is that "President" and "Presidency" should always be capitalised when referring the US President. Somehow I'm sceptical this is an international rule. ;) But it does seem to be a common usage and some may be extending it to equivalent posts. I don't think we should be bound by this over specific one. Timrollpickering 01:01, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
The only place I can find any answers to the exam are on the Web site of someone who answered the questions for himself in 2000.[7] Even if those were the real answers from 1895, that doesn’t mean they hold the same validity now, over a century later. --Rob Kennedy 05:10, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Hatnotes section needed?

I haven't been able to find anything in the MoS on hatnotes. A year-old proposal at WP:HATNOTE might be suitable for integration into the MoS. What do people think? Is there something in the MoS already on hatnotes that I've missed? Carcharoth 15:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification requested

  • Use {{Commons}} to link to more images on Commons, wherever possible.
  • Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article.
  • In most cases the size of images should not be hardcoded.

The current image markup language is more or less this:

[[Image:picture.jpg|120px|right|thumb|Insert caption here]]


In this context, what does hardcoding mean? Thanks. - BillCJ 18:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Hardcoded probably isn’t the best way of saying it. What you’re really being told is that you shouldn’t specify the image size at all. When you do, then the image will always be presented at that size. Default image size is a reader preference (on the “Files” tab at Special:Preferences), but specifying a size as above ignores the reader’s preference. Instead, omit the image size and let the software display the image at the reader’s preferred size. --Rob Kennedy 19:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

OK, thanks. - BillCJ 19:25, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New Section - Infoboxes

Hey! I have been doing a lot of work making infoboxes and other templates recently, and I would like to write some stuff that I have learnt about the process, etc. I have been working extensively on WP:IAP recently, and have leart a lot, and have (in my own mind) put together some policies that aid development of Infoboxes. --TheJosh 23:27, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

As long as they are "in your own mind" its pretty hard for anyone to comment constructively. I'm not sure of the purpose of this note. - Jmabel | Talk 00:12, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
Infoboxes vary greatly depending on the subject area. Some people don't like infoboxes at all. Why don't you tell us what you have in mind, Josh? Carcharoth 01:18, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
I was going to write about some of the policies i have found useful, such as:
  • Keep it simple stupid Avoid over clutter of infoboxes.
  • Never have red links Avoid red links in infoboxes as much as possible.
  • Use intelligence Make use of ParserFunctions, etc. to make the infobox more usable.
  • Keep things generic Ensure that each item in an infobox is applicable to a majority of uses.
  • Don't double up When making a new infobox, check one doing a similar job doesn't already exist.
  • Be reusable Build your infoboxes to be as reusable and diverse as possible.

How about a rule number 1? "Infoboxes should accurately reflect the article and not mislead the reader." By this, I mean infoboxes that are generically applied across a wide range of articles, with a parameter being available for use that should really only apply to a few articles. In short, my view is that: (0) Not all articles require infoboxes; (1) Infoboxes should be a tabular summary of the information in the article (like a tabular form of the lead section); (2) Infoboxes should contain the most important bits of information, not merely trivial metadata; (3) Infoboxes should not attempt to be databases of metadata across many articles - metadata should be dealt with separately by other methods (eg. persondata); (4) Infoboxes should not attempt to be separate articles within an article (the article comes first, and infoboxes remain subservient to the needs of the overall article); (5) Obscure or trivial numerical data can be put in a separate infobox later in the article (see Earth for an example where obscure data overwhelms the infobox). Carcharoth 02:53, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Is there any guidance on navboxes? A box can sometimes combine features of the infobox and the navbox to an extent - see the bottom of Ian Botham. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Acronyms and capitalization in text and article names

Throughout Wikipedia, words that are even occasionally represented by acronyms are capitalized, followed by the acronym. Sometimes the acronym is never used again in the article. Here is an example from the dense plasma focus article: "A Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) is a plasma machine that produces, by electromagnetic acceleration and compression, short-lived plasma..." I was wondering if it is inappropriate to capitalize just because words are represented by an acronym. Should the article say, "A dense plasma focus (DPF) is a plasma machine..." instead? Also, the same thing frequently results in the article's name being capitalized when it otherwise would not be. For example, digital subscriber line was Digital Subscriber Line before it was moved at my suggestion.

There are examples of the opposite, but I would say that the capitalization in the text style dominates. The capitalization of the article's name is frequent, but I would not say that it is dominant. Should this be addressed in the Manual of Style? My preference is to not capitalize in both cases, but I prefer even more that there be a standard style. -- Kjkolb 10:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (capital letters)#Acronymns and initial capitals. It’s not really a matter of style. It’s simple English. Just because there’s an abbreviation for something doesn’t mean the original word or phrase gets a promotion to proper-noun status. --Rob Kennedy 22:02, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
I agree with you. However, I do not know if this is the position of the rest of the community, given how widespread the "style" is. Also, I think that the Manual of Style should address it, as it covers mistakes, not just matters of style. -- Kjkolb 09:06, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Internal links in this article

According this article, one should not create links unless they relate to the topic of the article. However, in this article, there are many links to totally unrelated subjects, such as "Wotan" and the "Republican Party". It seems to me like it's a bit hypocritical not to be following the rules that we lay out in the very article in which we lay them out. I didn't want to remove them all without some kind of consensus, so, does anyone else agree? G.bargsnaffle 22:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preferred grammatical tense

It would be useful to provide an explanation of when to use past, present and future tense, since most articles appear to have somewhat serious problems maintaining a unified voice. It would also help when describing ambiguous items (plotlines for books and television shows, persons who have not yet died, technological developments, etc.) so that their articles (long ones in particular) remain concise and coherent. Ess 09:40, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Seconded. In particular, I do not think that the habit of switching to present tense in describing an historical event is good encyclopedial practice. (E.g. 'In 18xx, John Doe was promoted to colonel... When the war breaks out, Doe is put in charge of the defense of...'.) This is not bad in an historical essay or novel; but I do not think it is found in any other major encyclopaedia.--JoergenB 22:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abuses of partial quotes

As a student I remember at least one professor who had a thing for complete sentential quotes. His qualm was that partial quoting allowed the essayist too broad a stroke in painting the quoted text. Look at these sentences to see what I mean:

1) Mayor Brown said in his inaugural speech that he would allow "children to smoke marijuana" under the right legal conditions.

2) Mayor Brown said in his inaugural speech, "Parents that allow their children to smoke marijuana should only do so if it is permitted by federal and state law."

3) Mayor Brown said in his inaugural speech that children should be allowed to smoke marijuana.

(1) is a partial quote, (2) is a complete quote, and (3) is a paraphrase.

It should be obvious that (2) is the preferred sentence for any factual article. While the other sentences are not, strictly speaking, false, they are potentially (or seriously) misleading. But why is this a problem for Wikipedia? It's a problem because we want to present quality articles, and not everyone may have access to the source referred to by a partial quote. My suggestion is that, at least for articles with NPOV problems, we require complete quotes in a footnote if not in the article.SFinside 15:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References and punctuation

The article Movable type uses at least three different styles of referencing:

  • Lorem ipsum, quia dolor sit, amet, consectetur, adipisci uelit.[1]
  • Lorem ipsum, quia dolor sit, amet, consectetur, adipisci uelit. [1]
  • Lorem ipsum, quia dolor sit, amet, consectetur, adipisci uelit.[1].

Where can I find out which style is correct? Shinobu 17:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

See WP:CITE. Of your three examples, only the first one is correct. Kirill Lokshin 18:11, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks. So the ref will always go directly after punctuation (if any), without spaces etc. Shinobu 16:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] for example

It seems to me that somewhere I've seen some guidance on which of "eg" or the full phrase "for example" is preferred in Wikipedia. Can someone please clarify this for me?

Also, I have the same issue over the use of "ie" or "i.e." --JAXHERE | Talk 15:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

You're looking for Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Usage. Where a Latin term or abbreviation is used in a quotation, obviously we don't mess with it. Otherwise, the English equivalent is preferred; not every reader is going to be familiar with the Latin abbreviations. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:41, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
That works fine for e.g. (is like), since it easily translates into for example, but translating 'i.e.' (that is) is more awkward in English, I think.SFinside 17:56, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Another way of writing "i.e." is "in other words." I'm afraid I don't see the awkwardness at all. And if the statement prior to the use of "i.e." was confusing enough for "i.e." to be appropriate, perhaps the statement should simply be rewritten to be more clear in the first place. --Rob Kennedy 19:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Not every reader is familiar with the abbreviations, and indeed, not every writer who uses those abbreviations is familiar with them, either. Using "i.e." in place of "e.g." and vice versa are common errors. --Rob Kennedy 19:46, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks all for helping. The reference to the Manual of Style was what I needed. --JAXHERE | Talk 13:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Double dashes

Why are they to be avoided? In my copy of The Elements of Style it says nothing to that effect. Also, isn't the em-dash a special character? It's not on my keyboard, which is why I always use '--'. It's also what I was taught to use, because I went to school when people used typewriters. In my copy of The Scott Foresman Handbook for Writers it says, "Typed dashes are made up of two unspaced hyphens {--}." Really, I'm just curious what the reasoning is here.SFinside 21:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It is easy to type '--' and people do and will continue to use that because it is easy, but the professional, cleaner style is to use the em-dash. The Elements of Style does not contain recommendations for dashes or any typography, but you will find it in, for example, the Chicago Manual of Style or if you simply open any published book or newspaper. Typewritten text is not a finished work and is more of a historical peculiarity specifically for practical purposes. —Centrx→talk • 21:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
The double hyphen is typewriter shorthand for an em dash. The key word in that book title is Writers. Writers hand publishers manuscripts. Publishers employ graphic designers (typographers) to translate that manuscript into something that is visually pleasing and easily readable. If you gave a publisher a manuscript with double hyphens, they would be typeset as em (or en) dashes. Basically, it's a way of telling the typographer, "hey, my typewriter doesn't have a dash on it, but I want one here." Similarly, if you gave a publisher a manuscript with underlined text, it would be set in italics. Pick up The Elements of Typographic Style and you won't see any reference to double hyphens, but plenty to em and en dashes. Wikipedia is a published work, which is why it should use actual dashes. Here's a link I found quickly with Google.– flamurai (t) 03:43, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the responses. Until I get a keyboard with an em-dash on it I'll continue to use double dashes. You can call me the double dash bandit.SFinside 03:53, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

As a member of the League of Copy Editors, you should be familiar with the character because part of copy editing involves making a writer’s work look better. On Windows, you can type it by holding the Alt key and pressing 0151. On a Macintosh, hold the Option and Shift keys when you type a hyphen. You can also insert it into an article by clicking the character link below Wikipedia’s edit box. It’s the second character after the “Insert” label. (The first is an en dash.) You can also add the character using the &mdash; HTML entity. --Rob Kennedy 04:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Plural Abbreviations and Initialisms

Are we to to apostrophes or not to make abbreviations plural? For instance, SMCs/SMC's. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Todd gallagher (talk • contribs).

Generally, the answer is no. I thought there was something in the Manual about it, but I couldn’t find anything. --Rob Kennedy 03:57, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Two writing peeves

I'm not sure that these belong in the MoS, but they're definitely tendencies that I think make WP harder to read:

  1. Parenthesis mayhem - Perhaps some editors feel that if they add something in parens it's not really a "full" edit or something. IMO it's bad style. Obviously some parenthetical remarks are truly off the main course of the sentence or graf, but these are rare. I recall one writer who said that using parens is like whispering, dashes like shouting, and that too much whispering would make others suspicious. (I forget what happens with too much shouting; maybe they become annoyed.) As you can see I don't always eschew parens, but I think we need to gently encourage people to avoid them. Examples:
  • [8]: This article is about the torture method. For the (related, but much milder) technique used in BDSM, see Strappado bondage - probably a non-native English speaker, judging by the rest of the article

2.Conditional to mean past - I understand this in conversation. "The Patriots would go on to win the Super Bowl," because from the frame of reference we're talking about, they hadn't yet done so. But for encyclopedia entries this is almost always unnecessary and makes the article harder for both native and non-native speakers to read. Obviously there are some cases where it's unquestionably warranted, particularly for hypotheticals. Tom Brady moved his arm forward because he thought he would be able to get off a pass. But IMO the conditional is way overused and we should be encouraging clearer use of the past for past events.

I'm open to criticism of my criticism, but I think both these style guidelines would be worth gentle suggestions to new editors. Not sure where to put them, though. Regards, PhilipR 03:30, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Quoting bullet lists

If a source document contains a bullet list, how should I indicate that I am quoting it exactly? I suppose I could start each item with ** instead of * to get extra indentation, but I'm not sure that would convey to readers that it is a quotation. --Gerry Ashton 21:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed changes at Wikipedia:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts

Editors might want to know that there's been some recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts, which is part of the Manual of Style. What's being proposed is adding some new guidelines on lists of chart positions for singles (and now for albums): how much chart information an article needs and the best ways to present it. Anyone with even a remote interest in the topic is encouraged to look over the proposals and add an opinion or two. The relevant discussions are at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts#Component charts and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts#Chart trajectories. Thanks all! --keepsleeping slack off! 02:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Minor dispute

I was just wondering about what order things in an alphabetic list should be put in when numbers are concerned. What I'm talking about is here. The band is called 3 Inches of Blood, not Three. Therefore, shouldn't the numbers come before the A-Z, as is the style in most formats (or rather, most that I have seen) or should the first letter of the number be used for alphabetizing? The Haunted Angel (The Forest Whispers My Name) 16:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

My 2 (or "two") cents: alphabetizing numbers or punctuation marks before letters is becoming largely preferred because easier to implement in many computer environment, due to some character encodings putting those characters before letters. But the usual recommendation, for instance for librarians, is to order as if numbers were spelt out (in the most strict form, numbers should be spelt out in the language the rest of the phrase is in). See for instance exercise 17 at page 7 of Volume III of The Art of Computer Programming by Knuth, and its answer. Goochelaar 17:31, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I see, thanks. Any other views on this? The Haunted Angel (The Forest Whispers My Name) 18:25, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] River LINE or River Line?

New Jersey Transit capitalizes one of their lines as "River LINE". However, this is not always used by the media: [10] Should we use the non-standard "River LINE" because NJT uses it? I note that we do not use REALTOR. --NE2 08:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Realtor is a little far afield for a comparison. How do we treat transit systems with similarly asinine spellings? We capitalize SPRINTER, for what it's worth. Though I think the capitalization looks silly, my gut is to stick with official usage. It's a bit different from the REALTOR situation because the NJT capitalizatin will be used on signage throughout the system. --Jfruh (talk) 15:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
SPRINTER does not all use the all-caps style; everything after the first mention is "Sprinter". Looking through the Google News archive, almost every usage in the media is "River Line". --NE2 15:06, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
REALTOR isn’t so far afield. NJ Transit uses River LINE fairly consistently. Likewise, the National Association of Realtors uses REALTORS® very consistently, including the registration mark. If you’re going to argue on the grounds of “official usage,” be prepared for what you’re getting into. --Rob Kennedy 05:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I think that we really need to refer to the transit agency that runs the service, rather than "news services." If we search google and restrict our search to NJTransit's website only, only less than 10 out of 139 pages use the lower-case spelling. All other pages, including the Annual Report, use the River LINE spelling. —lensovet–talk – 01:55, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I don’t consider the transit agency itself to be a reliable reference on capitalization issues. It spells its own name NJ TRANSIT, for instance. It’s a great source on transit-related issues in New Jersey, but not for language-related questions. For that, turn to the people whose business is language, such as the ones who write about the transit agency in the press. --Rob Kennedy 05:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Am I really the only one troubled by this argument? That's like using book reviews, rather than the book's author, to figure out the title of a book. —lensovet–talk – 01:43, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
I do not think that it should be in all capital letters. A ton of companies capitalize their names and products, but we need not, and do not, capitalize them. For example, Hormel insists on people capitalizing "spam", especially to differentiate from unsolicited email, but the article name is spam (food). -- Kjkolb 04:24, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Not that it lessens your point, but the article name is Spam (food), capitalized as a proper noun. Hormel wants it written SPAM Luncheon Meat. As spam, lowercase, it’s unsolicited commercial e-mail. --Rob Kennedy 05:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
What do the L, the I, the N, and the E stand for? We should find out, and then spell out the acronym on first reference. If it’s not an acronym, then it has no business being written in all caps. Is there something at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)#All caps or Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks) that needs clarification? --Rob Kennedy 05:29, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure it's not an acronym. --NE2 05:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Obviously whatever we decide here also applies to MidTOWN DIRECT (ugh!), though that's only a redirect. --NE2 05:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

The evidence is rather contradictory. There seems to be a mix of uses (LINE and Line) in the news articles referenced above, though New Jersey Transit is pretty consistent in the all caps version. WP:MOS-TM says to use proper initial caps, and explicitly states to use "Realtor" rather that "REALTOR", though does that apply to all cases or only to that one word. Does "Lowercased trademarks with no internal capitals should always be capitalized" apply here or is "LINE" an example of internal capitalization. I would support keeping the capitalized word, but we need to decide one way or ther other in the face of very ambiguous guidelines. Alansohn 06:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

MOS-TM uses Realtor not as an isolated instruction for just one word, but as an example for all trademarks that their owners write in non-standard capitalization, such as all caps. The part about lowercased trademarks does not apply here since LINE clearly isn’t written in lowercase.
In the news articles appearing in the Google News archive, only two of the first 100 results use LINE. Those are in articles from the Bucks County Courier Times and the Cherry Hill Courier Post. Among organizations that don’t write it in all caps are the Philadelphia Inquirer, the New York Times, Bloomberg, Fox News, the Philadelphia Daily News, the Trenton Times, and Knight Ridder. And in other articles from the Courier Times and the Courier Post, it’s also written in just initial caps. In the non-archive search, only the Trentonian writes it LINE. The other four sources write it Line. --Rob Kennedy 19:26, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Abbreviations of proper names

This manual says:

Institutions
Proper names of specific institutions (for example, Harvard University, New York-Presbyterian Hospital, :George Brown College, etc.) are proper nouns and require capitalization.
However, the words for types of institutions (university, college, hospital, high school, etc.) do not require :capitalization if they do not appear in a proper name:
Incorrect:
The University offers programs in arts and sciences.
Correct:
The university offers… or The University of Ottawa offers…

In some cases I think this may be misleading. For example: "Captain X was fired by the Los Angeles Police Department. The Department said the reason for the firing was...". In the second sentence I've set the initial "D" in "Department" in capital because this is just an abbreviated proper name. This circumstance should be mentioned in the style manual. Michael Hardy 21:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

AP style disagrees with you. In its entry for “police department,” it says this: “Lowercase the department whenever it stands alone.” It allows you to capitalize Police Department under certain circumstances, though.
The Chicago Manual of Style also disagrees with you. The passage that would help your case the most is from section 8.73: “Such generic terms as school and company are usually lowercased when used alone but are sometimes capitalized to avoid ambiguity or for promotional purposes.” I don’t see any potential for ambiguity in your example, though. CMOS gives many examples. Here are some:
  • the Department of History; the department; the Law School
  • the University of Chicago Press; the press or the Press
  • the Cleveland Orchestra; the orchestra
  • Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band; the band
  • the Hudson’s Bay Company; the company
  • Waukeegan West Middle School; the middle school
In your example, the Department can be interpretted as an abbreviation for the Los Angeles Police Department, but it can just as easily be interpretted as a generic nound describing what the police organization is: a department. --Rob Kennedy 19:41, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question about author citations

Question: When an author writes a book under a pen name but that author's name is known would it not be proper to cite the pen name followed by the author's real name (in parenetheses)? If this area is the wrong place to pose such a question I kindly request that someone redirect me to the correct area. Thanks in advance. (→Netscott) 13:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I think you should stick with whichever name the author is more commonly know by. For instance, would readers really benefit if every time we cite Atlas Shrugged we attribute it to Alisa Zinov'yevna Rosenbaum instead of Ayn Rand? How about attributing quotes to François-Marie Arouet instead of the much more common Voltaire? I think it’s sufficient to wikilink the pen name, as I’ve done here. If Samuel Clemens published something under his real name, then go ahead and use his real name in the attribution. Otherwise, stick with Mark Twain.
This is all assuming that the work is just being mentioned in passing. If the work is actually the subject under discussion, and it’s relevant that it was published under a pseudonym, then say so, and use more than just a parenthetical to do it. --Rob Kennedy 20:14, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Exactly. In the case under discussion, the issue also touches on WP:BLP because the author in question is a living person who tends to avoid mentioning her real name in public. Beit Or 20:35, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
Rob Kennedy, in the particular article Dhimmitude from which this talk stemmed from there is some pertinency of mentioning the author's name but since the article isn't specifically talking about her your logic is applicable. Thanks for providing your insight into this question. (→Netscott) 20:43, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] New template idea (crosspost)

(Sorry to abuse this important talk page, but I honestly don't know where else to go with this suggestion. It's a minor change I'm suggesting, but it could potentially end up on a major number of pages).

I have an idea for making IPA symbols more comprehensible, like this: ʒ (try rolling over that with your mouse). That is, {{Ʒ}}. To discuss the concept, go here: template talk:Ʒ. If this idea were to come into use, it would need clear style guidelines on when it is preferred, when it is optional, and when it is a bad idea. I expect all three cases would exist. --200.6.254.170 18:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works)

I've overhauled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) based on a 2nd round of feedback. Possibly it's complete and ready to be called a style-guideline? Feedback (at it's talkpage) or improvements welcome :) --Quiddity 20:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Style for URL case

I can't seem to find a standard for the case style of URLs (when case sensitivity doesn't matter, of course). I've always figured lowercase is the standard, but a quick glance at the articles for Apple and Martha Stewart Living show two, opposite, styles... And I can't find anything here, or on the two potentially relevant submanuals (capital letters or links)... Chicago seems to prefer lowercase, but they seem to indicate they're not sure yet, either. Anybody familiar with a pre-existing Wiki style standard, or have advice on what to do to get clarification? Thanks in advance! Justen 06:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

URLs are usually cut-and-pasted, so I think the primary recommendation should be match the source. Anything other than cut-and-paste introduces an unnecessary opportunity for error. --Gerry Ashton 18:08, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
Cut and paste from where? If we're talking about Apple.com, and if we're talking about copying the url from the address bar, my browser automatically lowercases the domain name portion of any url. The domain name portion of any url is case insensitive, meaning ApPlE.com would work just as well as APPLE.com or apple.com. So, the question is, should the standard be to use title or camel case, for example, AppleComputer.com and Apple.com, or use lowercase, applecomputer.com and apple.com? Justen 00:15, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
If a URL is being written out, then it’s obviously intended to be read by a human. Otherwise, it should just be a hyperlink behind a descriptive text. Therefore, write Apple.com or MarthaStewart.com. Camel case is especially useful — it helps the reader pick out the words that make up the address, and should therefore make it more likely that the reader will remember it and spell it correctly when typing it into the address bar later. I’d even recommend dropping the leading www if the shorter address still goes to the same place. --Rob Kennedy 05:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Very logical. I think this should be clarified on the Style page. Do you agree? Right now, there's no standard from page to page. If there was a style to cite, I think it would help start to build some consistency... Justen 05:50, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)

The proposed convention, now up for adoption, on geographic names discusses the use of alternate names in text, and therefore is also to some extent a manual of style. I think the guideline is consistent with this page, although far more detailed; comments are welcome. Septentrionalis 22:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Help reach consensus on flags in infoboxes

See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#Flag icons next to birth and death locations in infoboxes. – flamurai (t) 03:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What Is The Policy Regarding {{seealso}}?

Thanks. A reply on my talk page will be greatly appriecated.100110100 07:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

You asked the same question a month ago. It’s not any less vague than it was before. Please be more specific about what it is you’re actually looking for. Since there doesn’t seem to be a “policy” regarding the seealso template, perhaps you can suggest one to get the discussion going. What sort of policy were you expecting to find? --Rob Kennedy 08:06, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Oh, I asked this before? I was just wondering if it should be at the end or start of a section? Thanks Rob for letting me know you've posted a reply.100110100 08:24, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] American Spellings

Why can't Wikipedia set a rule to use either the English spelling or American, throughout the whole of Wikipedia. I think it would be the best idea to use the English (as I am English!) but mainly due to the fact the English spellings were the original and the language is, after all, called "English" I suppose. I stand up in order to be shot down.

Please Sign your names: ~~~, not ~~~~, as that produces the date and time too.

  • YES
  • Arriva436
  • NO
  • Gerry Ashton: If I tried to write using English spelling and grammar, I'm sure I would misspell some word without realizing it. Also, I do not have a dictionary that shows English spellings. (Fair enough Arriva436)
  • JoergenB: Vide infra.

________________________

Arriva436 20:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

I think it could be an interesting idea, in that then there could be some sort of dynamic, on-the-fly "translation" built into Wikipedia. For example, en-uk and en-us articles could be automatically translated, with the former carrying colour, centre, rationalise, etc. and the latter carrying color, center, rationalize, etc. It's one of those rare language things that can be pretty much completely automated... Does that make sense? Justen 20:32, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
It could not be done automatically because the original spelling would have to be preserved in quotations, and automatically detecting quotation would be difficult. --Gerry Ashton 21:11, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
It would be impossible, because many quotations are in non-standard templates like template:cquote. —Michael Z. 2006-12-12 21:34 Z

There are differences in spelling, vocabulary, and grammar. That's a lot to fix automatically (also disregarding the quotation troubles). I also think the trend to 'protect' American English users from seeing English English, and vice versa, should not be encouraged. It is bad enough that many books are 'translated' when crossing the Atlantic.JoergenB 13:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps the "Media Wiki", or whatever Wikipiedia's system is called, should create a system where you can save a preference (in your user account) to see the English or American spelling. However this is near imposible, and was be really hard to do. Perhaps we should just stick to seeing each others spellings, but hopefully not in the same article! Arriva436 19:36, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fixed px size for images

Note: there is currently a vote and/or discussion going on at Wikipedia talk:Image use policy about removing the recommendation not to use fixed pixel sizes for images. Shinobu 07:24, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template:cquote is up for deletion

Template:cquote, which formats block quotations as a table with purple quotation marks linked to image pages, has been proposed for deletion. Please vote or comment at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2006 December 12#Template:Cquote. —Michael Z. 2006-12-13 17:18 Z

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