Wikipedia:Manual of Style (France & French-related)

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The purpose of this supplementary manual is to create guidelines for editing France and French-related articles in the English Wikipedia to conform to a neutral encyclopedic style as well as to make things easy to read by following a consistent format. The following rules do not claim to be the last word. One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does it the same way, Wikipedia will be easier to read and use, not to mention easier to write and edit. This manual is open to all proposals, discussion, and editing.

There is considerable disagreement between the editors of French and France-related articles about which sources are reliable. The important thing to remember is that all sources and articles must conform to Wiki policies such as WP:NOR, WP:V and WP:NPOV.

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Contents

[edit] General rules

The most general rule of the Wikipedia is that editors should use the most common form of the name or expression used in English. There are however many cases in which this rule is difficult to put into practice. When giving a parenthetical French expression after a English word, editors may use {{lang-fr|word}} where "word" is the French word. Example: National Assembly (French: Assemblée nationale).

[edit] Orthography

Main article: French orthography

[edit] Accents & ligatures

French proper names and expressions should respect the use of accents and ligatures in French. These are:

Accent a e i o u y
grave à è ù
acute é
circumflex â ê î ô û
trema ë ï ÿ
Others ç œ æ

Common French usage is to omit accents in capitals, however this is not the proper usage and accents should be included in capitals (as required by the Imprimerie nationale). When used in article names, all common non-accented/non-ligatured forms should redirect to the article. There will often be many redirects, but this is intentional and does not represent a problem.

[edit] Sorting

Accented characters and ligatures should not affect the sort order of articles in categories etc. So, where proper names have accents or ligatures, include the {{DEFAULTSORT}} template in the article, with those accented characters and ligatures replaced by plain versions. See Évisa (source) for an example.

[edit] Capitalization

Main article: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Capitalization of expressions borrowed from other languages

Capitalization of French expressions and titles is currently highly chaotic. For capitalization of noble titles or of French works of art, see below.

[edit] Naming conventions

[edit] Noble titles

Main article: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles)

There is currently no standard convention for French noble titles and present-day English usage varies greatly. In Wikipedia articles, French noble titles are currently listed in two different ways:

  • in English translation (Duke of, Count of...) for historical figures and royalty most well-known by their English forms.
  • in French for other cases, maintaining the French title spelling (seigneur, chevalier, marquis, duc, comte) and the de.

Furthermore, in the second case—French titles in French form—capitalization is currently chaotic:

Present English usage itself varies on how to spell such French forms and there is currently no consensus among editors on the issue of capitalization. As a general rule, if the individual is not better known by an English equivalent and a French form is to be used, it is recommended, regardless of which form of capitalization is utilized, that forms remain consistent throughout a specific article and that redirects be made from the other acceptable forms.

[edit] Works of art

In Wikipedia articles and article titles, French titles of works of art should be put into English, if the work of art is well-known by its title in English (with redirects from the French title). If it is more well-known by its title in French, then French should be maintained (with redirects from the English title).

Usage varies in contemporary French with regards to the capitalization of words in titles, and especially to the capitalization of initial words after a definite article. For consistency of French titles on the English Wikipedia, the general consensus has been to follow the rules used on the French Wikipedia, which are those used by the French National publishing house (l'Imprimerie nationale) and put forth in its Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l'Imprimerie nationale. Titles which adhere to these rules may however differ from the actual form of capitalization adopted by the author, the cover's graphic artist, or the publishing house.[3]

These rules are a follows:

The words capitalized in titles of works of art (books, paintings, etc.) are:

  • proper nouns (names, cities)
  • the initial word of the title and:
    • if this initial word is a definite article (le, la, les, l'), both the article and its noun and any adjectives or adverbs preceding the noun are capitalized (e.g. Le Grand Meaulnes)
    • if the initial word is an adjective followed by a noun, both are capitalized (e.g. Tristes Tropiques)

However:

  • if the title is a sentence, only the first letter and proper nouns are capitalized (e.g. La vie est un long fleuve tranquille)
  • if the title contains an enumeration (e.g. La Belle et la Bête), subsequent nouns are capitalized
  • in cases of a double title (e.g. Émile ou De l'éducation), both parts of the title are treated individually by the above rules

Examples:

All common forms with variant capitalization should redirect to the article. There will often be many redirects, but this is intentional and does not represent a problem.

Note: certain WikiProjects have adopted other rules. WikiProject Opera, for example, uses the style used in the most recent editions of New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians and New Grove Dictionary of Opera (see their rules here) which only capitalize the first word and any proper nouns (e.g. La bohème and not La Bohème).

[edit] Cities & communes

Main article: Wikipedia:Naming conventions (city names)

Where possible, articles on cities and communes in France should go under [[placename]]. Where disambiguation is needed, articles have traditionally used the "comma convention" (the standard convention for place names on the English language Wikipedia) and been placed under [[placename, département]]. Thus Tours, but Duras, Lot-et-Garonne and Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis.

Note that on the French wikipedia, disambiguation is done with the "parentheses convention" and cities appear as [[placename (département x)]]. There is currently much discussion (see the talk page) for replacing the comma convention with a parentheses convention.

[edit] Administrative conventions

[edit] French administrative terms

The French administrative terms département and région should not be used, except parenthetically in cases of ambiguity. Instead, the English-language terms "department" and "region" should be used.[4]

The English-language terms urban area and metropolitan area are inexact equivalents for the French terms aire urbaine and unité urbaine. Piped links to the French terms should be used.

[edit] Transport conventions

[edit] Rail (SNCF - RFF)

stub: {{France-rail-stub}}

[edit] Multiple train units

[edit] Locomotives

[edit] Railways

Should the railway be a touristic railway, use the name used commercially (ex. Lézarde Express Régionale). If it is owned by the RFF, use the basis Ligne de XXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXX (ex. Ligne de Grenoble - Montmélian). When deciding which end to put first, use the biggest end, or if they are both equally significant (or insignificant), just use what sounds right. Don't forget to redirect the name in the other order!!!

You should also use WP:TRAIL, and can base the map on the site Rail 21. Also, add a link to its regional "TER REGION" and "List of SNCF stations in REGION" and the Categories: Railway lines of France, Région SNCF REGION and REGION.

[edit] Stations

Stations must go under the name "Gare de XXXXXXXX", or should the name comprise more that one word, it should be joined by hyphens. ex: "Gare de XXXXXX-YY-ZZZZZZZZ"

Like above include a link to "TER REGION" and "List of SNCF stations in REGION" and the Categories: Railway lines of France, Région SNCF REGION and REGION

A good (but not perfect) example would be Gare de Lyon or (on a smaller scale) Gare de Grenoble-Universités-Gières

[edit] Tram

All articles about tramways should go under the title Tramway de CITY (don't forget that with cities that start with "Le", the "le" and "de" merge to become "du" like at Le Havre). You should also add the template {{France Metro Tramway}} and the categories [[Category:Transport in CITY]], [[Category:Tram transport in France|CITY]] and [[Category:CITY]]. Most pages will have a French equivalent, so add it (it can be found at fr:Liste des tramways de France)

WikiProject France
General information (edit · changes)
Departments
France article statistics

This list is generated automatically every night around 10 PM EST.
view full worklist

France
articles		 Importance
Top High Mid Low None Total
Quality
Featured article FA 3 10 4 2 9 28
A 2 1 1 1 5
Good article GA 6 9 1 19 35
B 39 74 72 34 173 392
Start 15 79 220 369 2440 3123
Stub 4 32 159 1589 36591 38375
List 1 2 4 223 230
Assessed 61 204 467 2000 39456 42188
Unassessed 5 20 2 6 11459 11492
Total 66 224 469 2006 50915 53680

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b See, for example, the Britannica Online Encyclopedia ([1]). The entry for Étienne François, duc de Choiseul is given as: "Etienne Francois de Choiseul, duke de Choiseul".
  2. ^ See, for example, the New York Times and the New Yorker which generally use "Comte de" (e.g. Comte de Buffon) and "Marquis de" (e.g. Marquis de Sade). The New York Review of Books appears to use both "comte de" and "Comte de", "marquis de" and "Marquis de".
  3. ^ See, for example, the French titles "Les caves du Vatican" (André Gide, Folio edition, ISBN 2070360342), "Le ravissement de Lol V. Stein" (Marguertite Duras, Folio edition, ISBN 2070368106) and "Le plaisir du texte" (Roland Barthes, Seuil, ISBN 2020060604).
  4. ^ For the discussion leading to this convention, see Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_France/Archive_01 and Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_France/Archive_02).

[edit] External links