Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 95

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Contents

Ellipses – Proposal to expand the treatment thereof

I feel like I'm missing something (have I?), but I see two arguable omissions in the current treatment of ellipses:

  • First, the MoS doesn't clearly state a preference regarding placing a space before the ellipses, i.e., "this... way" or "this ... way". I see each method used frequently on WP, but only the first appears regularly in the real world; I think we should clarify. (Note: if we're going with the second, spaced method, a non-breaking space is required, I think.)
  • Second, I was taught that in formal writing a four-dot ellipsis was used when multiple sentences were omitted – essentially, it's a period either preceding or following an ellipsis. This looks ugly, but I believe is widely followed. Some Wikipedia editors do it, some don't (and some used the spaced ellipsis for multiple-sentence omissions and the unspaced for single-sentence, which just looks weird to me); I think the MoS should address it explicitly. atakdoug (talk) 21:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I think you're missing the fact that the MOS does in fact state a preference, and it is for the latter. (Put a space on each side of an ellipsis, except at the very start or end of a quotation--the latter clause merely meaning you don't need a space between the quotation mark and the initial period, I suppose.) I myself prefer no initial space, and no trailing space when a quote begins with ellipses ("...this"), and despite having been chided for this above I fully intend to ignore this element of the MOS until such time as I am presented with a convincing argument for the unnecessary spaces. Andyvphil (talk) 13:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Andy. I felt like I'd seen it somewhere. I wonder who in the world thought of this one -- I have never seen it done that way in the real world. If I thought there were any chance at all of altering the status quo, I'd propose changing it. atakdoug (talk) 05:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

It looks perfectly normal usage to me. The ellipsis is spaced at both sides because it assumes the same role as [...] (which I prefer); we do not use ellipses in prose, so its usual "real-world" usage is very rare, only present in quotations. Waltham, The Duke of 16:00, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

So, what's up with capital letters?

I remember editing the .hack pages here because of capital letter problems; for instance, here the title of ".hack//SIGN" is ".hack//Sign", with no capitals, even though in all official .hack-related print and such, it's SIGN. Why are we forced to use regular capitalization when a title is different, due to its creator? Yuki Shiido (talk) 01:52, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Pediapress and typography

Currently the MoS sometimes prefers ease of input over standard typography (e.g. with the style of quotation marks and apostrophe, but not for hyphens and dashes where different characters may help semantic clarification). One argument in the discussion was that Wikipedia is mostly used in browsers with computer screens, where typography commonly doesn’t reach as high a standard as in print. Does Wikis Go Printable change this significantly?

That’s all I want to know, I don’t want to rehash the whole discussion. Christoph Päper (talk) 11:21, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

See my excerpts from their example above, Crissov. I note also inconsistency of punctuation, stray spaces before and after points of punctuation, both sorts of double quotes, etc. They can't get it right. We have to make the task easier, with realistic rules. They are not professional print publishers, any more than WP editors generally are professional HTML writers. We need to be realistic. Painful, but true.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 12:44, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
I am too bothered by the typeface they used to actually read the PDF. Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:04, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Use of units in tables

While there seems to be agreement of parallel usage of metric and US units in general in the Manual of Style, I am not certain whether this was ment to apply to statistical tables also. Use of metric AND US units in one table can enlarge the table beyond practical proportions. An shortened example from the Gilbert Islands:

  • normal version with metric units only:
Atoll/Island Main
village		 Land
area
(km²)		 Lagoon
area
(km²)		 Pop.
(c. 2005)		 Min. number
of islets		 Number of
villages		 Location
Makin Makin 6.7 - 2,385 5 2 3°23′N, 173°00′E
Butaritari Butaritari? 13.6 191.7 3,280 11 11 3°09′N, 172°50′E
Marakei Rawannawi 13.5 19.6 2,741 1 8 2°00′N, 173°17′E
Gilbert Islands Tarawa 281.10 1866.5 83,382 117+ 156 3°23'N to 2°38S
172°50' to 176°49'E
  • expaned version with metric and US units, from User:MJCdetroit, who used a presumably self-developed template for unit conversions:
Atoll/Island Main
village		 Land
area		 Lagoon
area		 Pop.
(c. 2005)		 Min. number
of islets		 Number of
villages		 Location
Makin Makin 6.7 km² (2.6 sq mi) - 2,385 5 2 3°23′N, 173°00′E
Butaritari Butaritari? 13.6 km² (5.3 sq mi) 191.7 km² (74.0 sq mi) 3,280 11 11 3°09′N, 172°50′E
Marakei Rawannawi 13.5 km² (5.2 sq mi) 19.6 km² (7.6 sq mi) 2,741 1 8 2°00′N, 173°17′E
Gilbert Islands Tarawa 281.10 km² (108.5 sq mi) 1,866.5 km² (720.7 sq mi) 83,382 117+ 156 3°23'N to 2°38S
172°50' to 176°49'E

Besides making it too wide for many displays, some numbers are not aligned anymore, and the units (km² or sq mi) are repeated with each number. I envision another solution, and I ask the programmers if it can be done, better yet, if someone would volunteer to proceed: a clickable toggle that switches a column (or the whole table) between a metric and a predefined US measure (eg. meters/feet, hectares/acres, km²/sq mi, kg/pound, or °C/°F). This could look similar to sortable tables where a click on a small field in the column header sorts the table according to this colum. If it can be done, I ask if there is agreement for that type of solution, instead of using tables getting out of proportion by parallel use of metric and US measures in one view.--Ratzer (talk) 21:12, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, I didn't develop {{convert}} and that example was from a few months ago. If I was doing that table today I'd leave out the unit symbols. Here's a quick example for what I am talking about:
No. Region Area Western Border Eastern Border
km² sq mi
1 Kronprinsesse Märtha Kyst 970,000 370,000 020°00' W 005°00' E
2 Prinsesse Astrid Kyst 580,000 220,000 005°00' E 020°00' E
3 Prinsesse Ragnhild Kyst 540,000 210,000 020°00' E 034°00' E
4 Prins Harald Kyst 230,000 90,000 034°00' E 040°00' E
5 Prins Olav Kyst 180,000 70,000 040°00' E 044°38' E
6 Haakon VII's Vidde The Polar Plateau is considered a sixth region.
With an undefined northern border (approx. 80°S)
its area is contained in sectors 1 through 5
  Dronning Maud Land 2,500,000 970,000 020°00' W 044°38' E

Regards,—MJCdetroit (yak) 22:16, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

For further discussion, it might be helpful to show how this improved method would render the Gilbert Islands table. The Queen Maud Land table, after all, originally had only one column to be converted, so the second column with the US conversions didn't enlarge the table beyond reasonable dimensions. If more than one column must be converted, tables tend to get messy if metric and US units are shown at the same time. Which is why I renew my plea for a toggle that lets columns or whole tables to be switched between metric and US units, if US units must be shown at all (or metric units in some tables concerning the United States).--Ratzer (talk) 09:24, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
To see how the new method renders the table, go have a look. I took the liberty of adding {{convert}} back in but in table mode this time. To my eye it hasn't cluttered the table: I took some of the blank space which had been sitting idle in the number of islets and villages columns. Of course, there is a limit to how much you can squeeze into a table but I don't think we've gone past that in this case. Jɪmp 07:04, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
This is a significant improvement, we should use it until we have something better. Now before I further pursue my thought of a toggle to switch colums or whole tables between metric and US measures, I would like to know beforehand if such a solution will get the consent of the English Wikipedia. Is it important for the users of US measures to see the metric equivalents in the same view of the table, or would a toggle be sufficient? It's just much more elegant IMHO to have a optimally compact table with two columns less, two colums that provide no additional information but only redundancy. It would be nice to get a few opinions on that.--Ratzer (talk) 20:20, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Where is this example Jimp and Ratzer are talking about. Do not expect people who have been lurking until a concrete idea comes forth to read every word of your posts to figure out where the example is. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 22:12, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
True.
Jɪmp 03:31, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
Jimp, thanks for collecting those examples. It certainly seems like a neat system for those cases where both units should be shown. As for some toggle that changes a column based on user preferences, I would want any such mechanism to be under the control of the person who creates the table. There are instances where conversion would be inappropriate, for example, a topic that is usually written about in SI units even by American authors and publishers. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 03:44, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
[deindent] It is possible to toggle a page between different units, though I've no idea how it's done. See http://www.peakbagger.com/list.aspx?lid=21425 for an example. The link in the upper right, "Show List using ...", adds "&u=m" or "&u=ft" to the URL.
—WWoods (talk) 19:18, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

That

I would like to suggest a section be entered into the MoS to encourage the removal of extraneous "that"s. 9 times out of 10, the word "that" simply does not belong. I do not tell you THAT my plans for global domination will occur, I simply tell you they will occur. You do not tell me that I am stupid, you simply tell me I am stupid. That guy over there, however, works. I find sentances flow better without random thats. It's in the vernacular, true, but so is "like" prefacing every announcement of past action or emotion. I was like, totally pissed off! And if "like," is not really appropriate, why should extraneous "that"s? Howa0082 (talk) 20:29, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

An interesting opinion, H. It's in the vernacular, you say? In fact, such a that is commonly omitted these days, and the effect is often poor prose. Let's take your first sentence:

I would like to suggest a section be entered into the MoS...

(I'll confine myself to commenting on presence or absence of that. More could be said.)
The reader is left momentarily unsure whether a section is the object of suggest. Of course, it turns out that the object is [that] a section be entered into the MoS... . So what, you say? The reader soon understands. Yes. But the more you burden the reader with such fleeting uncertainties, the harder it is for your message to get across clearly and efficiently.
There are many worse cases than that one! I was just lucky to find it right in front of me. Consider this more serious example:

We expect a Democratic victory, after years of domination by successive Republican presidents and adverse rulings from a partisan Supreme Court, will be impossible unless more citizens take the trouble to vote. And they will not.

You see? Because that is missing, the reader is misled by the beginning of the sentence. Skimming the text would give the wrong impression altogether; and a page break might intervene, making things even worse. Several commentators make this point, and it is an important one. What may seem redundant is often vital, and readers often feel this even if the writer does not.
Because that is a common word with several uses, sometimes it clutters a sentence:

He said that that was the last thing that he wanted.

Of course this can be improved, and it is pedantic to insist on the first and the last that. Far more natural, and at least as easy to grasp:

He said that was the last thing he wanted.

But you can't always trim in that way! Clarity comes first. We should also guard against what I call straining for formality. People do that a lot at Wikipedia. By default, they choose what seems like a more "formal" word: thus (not so), thusly (not thus or so), whilst (not while), on a daily basis (not daily or everyday), and so on. Here's one I can't stand:

He loved the way in which she painted.

This in which is becoming common, but it serves no purpose except to "formalise" and to obstruct the easy flow of the sentence. It's similar to what you object to, Howa; but I would argue that it has no redeeming value.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 23:30, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
Some of the fleeting uncertainties which arise from omitting that fall into a group of sentences called garden path sentences. They are examples of syntactic ambiguity, illustrated by "The horse raced past the barn fell" and "The old man the boat". Not all garden path sentences can be disambiguated by including an omitted that (with suitable other small alteration.) The problem is that one may be too bound up with what one has just written to realise an ambiguity exists and so think a that can be safely omitted.  DDStretch  (talk) 00:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Ban every instance of that where it's not absolutely needed? Some people have strange ideas about what constitutes good writing... Strad (talk) 00:08, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Why don't we also ban every instance of a vowel where it's not absolutely needed, as in text-speak? There's a worrying ascetism creeping into the MoS; words that aren't absolutely necessary aren't always bad for you, or more importantly, the reader. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Thts a gd pnt. -- Jza84 · (talk) 00:40, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. Not all redundancy is bad. It can often help things flow more smoothly and produce better writing. I don't think we should give the Language Police any more powers by banning thats thought of as being unnecessary.  DDStretch  (talk) 01:24, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow, you guys are anal as hell, aren't you? Please re-read my comment, wherein I never said "ban the use of the word that!" If we've got a section which says not to use contractions, because of Bullshit Aesthetic Reason X, why not one for this, too? Oh, and the example about the Democrats not being able to win because of Bullshit Reason Y? I managed to figure it out in one pass, dude. It's not my fault if you can't. So please turn down your snob dial, folks; 11 is a bit too high for my tastes. Anyway, I'll let you guys sit on your shitpile and not bother to contribute on this page again. Have fun. Howa0082 (talk) 16:54, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no experience of hell. How anal is it? --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 17:00, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
I apologise for taking you seriously, Howa0082. Have a nice wikilife! :)
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 23:28, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Avoiding any further exchange of insults, suffice it to say that people disagree about under what circumstances one ought or include "that". Lacking consensus, it's best if we don't regulate it here; it's okay if our articles lack consistency in use of "that" as this is a subtle differentiator, unlike the spelling issue. Dcoetzee 00:21, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

Spaces after Punctuation

I just would like to document here that there should probably be two spaces after a period as it is possible for someone to write a converter for the MediaWiki engine that converts string "(punctuation)(space)(space)" to (punctuation) . —Dispenser (talk) 05:05, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

So then document it, please. Most typography books that I have read state that the 2-space rule is a typewriter convention which is not used in typesetting.--Curtis Clark (talk) 05:30, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
Please don't attempt to make any such change in MOS, though. Putting long spaces after punctuation is a pain in the proverbial. It is a mercy that HTML ignores repetitions of normal spaces (as opposed to hard spaces, em spaces, and so on). Practice is so variable and inconsistent that we'd be asking for trouble and unmanageable complexity, even if longer spaces were found to be desirable. (Which they won't be, except by a minority of diehard typewriter types.)
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 05:35, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
According to Full stop#Spacing after full stop its 1.5 spaces in with proportional type face at least it was. —Dispenser (talk) 05:59, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Orthography differs by country. I was taught (in England) to leave two spaces after a full stop, and that Americans leave one space after a period, but I've seen plenty of variations from respectable authorities in both regions. I don't know the situation in the rest of the English-speaking world, so I'll just add a gentle reminder that it may need to be considered. At WP, I habitually type two ordinary spaces after a . and am vaguely aware that "the computer" (form posting, HTML renderer or whatever) converts it to a single space. Certes (talk) 14:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Markup for the hard space: update

I am pleased to announce that we have a complete draft proposal for you to inspect, comment on, and modify.

Just go to the working group's development page, read the instructions at the top, and take it from there.

Or click "show" to see a draft, right here:

– Noetica♬♩ Talk 07:03, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Geographic features: not capitalised?

Currently there is a lot of inconsistentcy in the capitalisation of many generic geographic features, like northern (southern, western, eastern) hemisphere, arctic circle, equator, north (south) pole. These are not proper names and so I would conclude from the manual of style that they should not be capitalised. Is that a correct conclusion? Is it ok to decapitalise them? If not, can the rules be amended to create more clarity? −Woodstone (talk) 09:03, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

They may not be proper names but they are proper nouns, because they represent unique entities. This is a reason to capitalise them. To my mind, lower case does have a welcome modern feel but mixed case seems more encyclopedic. Any clarified rule must make an exception for "real" proper names including those words, such as North Korea. A pedant might also mention the usual grammatical reasons for deploying a capital, such as starting a sentence. Certes (talk) 14:33, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Redirect to section

WP:section link#Redirects with section links says:

A redirect to a page section does not go to the section. However, one can add the section anyway as a clarification, and it will work if the redirect is manually clicked from the redirect page. However, links with a section to a redirect will lead to the section on the redirect's page.

This is no longer correct in Wikipedia and so the text should be changed. See meta:Help:Section#Section linking and redirects.

This is relevant for WP:MOS#Section management which currently says

  • Change a heading only after careful consideration, because this will break section links to it from the same and other articles. If changing a heading, try to locate and fix broken links; for example, searching for wikipedia "section management" will probably yield links to the current section.
  • When linking to a section, leave an editor's note to remind others that the title is linked. List the names of the linking articles, so that if the title is altered, others can fix the links more easily. For example: ==Evolutionary implications==<!-- This section is linked from [[Richard Dawkins]] and [[Daniel Dennett]] --> .

That's tedious. There's even a bot User:Anchor Link Bot doing it. It would be easier to create a redirect to the section and replace all sectionlinks from other articles with links to the redirectpage. Then, if you want to change the sectiontitle, you only need to change one inlink, i.e. the redirectpage. Also, if you refactor the section into anew page, you can just use the redirectpage (moving it to a new name if necessary). For example: ==Evolutionary implications==<!-- This section is linked from redirect [[Evolutionary implications of Foo]] --> . I think the current advice is no longer best practice and should be replaced. And Anchor Link Bot reprogrammed accordingly. jnestorius(talk) 16:35, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

There have been no comments, so I'm going to be bold and change the page...maybe...soon...jnestorius(talk) 11:40, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Research guide

I point out {{Research guide}}, as used in David Baltimore#Research guide, in case there are suggestions about the article or section style. There are article and user interface issues involved in the guide concept. -- SEWilco (talk) 16:41, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Please consider replacing the existing External Links section on some pages with the Research Guide. The substitution may actually REDUCE the number of links appearing in many articles. The results are more substantial and they are dynamically updated. The basic research guide template could be copied so the secondary template is modified to fit individual cases when necessary. The following is an example: Template: Research guide Baltimore. I am working on improvements.

Note that the user who deleted my template from the Baltimore article User:SEWilco has this message on their user page: "This user's activities on Wikipedia have been restricted by illegal[1], unreasonable[2], and arbitrary[3] ArbCom restrictions [4] and enforcement[5][6]." Shannon bohle (talk) 03:00, 20 January 2008 (UTC)


When is text a quotation and when is it just text?

An RFC at Wikipedia talk:Citing sources#Style guideline for PD sourced content involves interpretation of whether all pieces of text are a quotation. Some editors claim any public domain text in an article must be in quotation marks, while others distinguish between public domain text being used as text versus what is intended as "a brief excerpt" as a "direct source of … insight" (as Wikipedia:Quotations mentions). This carries implications for existing EB 1911 text and reuse of free material from other projects (Wikipedia and other). Some examination of the situation and the MOS description of a quotation may be helpful. -- SEWilco (talk) 07:19, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

If it's public domain text being repurposed, e.g. Encyclopaedia Britannica 1911 text serving as the basis for a WP article, it would not be quoted. If it is a quotation for purposes of the prose at a hand (e.g. "According to the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 'foo bar baz' "), then it should be quoted, and whether it is public domain or not is of no relevance. Agree that MOS could be clearer on this. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:34, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's that simple, besides your agreement that some more clarity in MOS would be helpful. For instance, I've taken issue with SEWilco before, involving the copying of long passages of PD text from a particularly eloquent National Park Service writer. Especially if a text is really well written, shouldn't it be "better" to credit the actual writer for the writing, by using quotation marks to indicate that exact wording is copied (and separating that material from other non-copied, wikipedia-editorship-written material). I don't think it is good policy to leave it to any copier (plagiarist?) to state whether it is his/her intend to repurpose or to quote. Perhaps some limitations should be applied, that for instance the encyclopedic quality, or not, of the source should be considered. DANFS or the 1911 EB may be very well regarded, and very factual, while other PD sources are valuable and factual and unbiased in the view of only a small minority. It is a simple policy, on the other hand to say that it may be "better" to use quotation marks when copying text from a source, PD or otherwise. Anyhow, I agree with SEWilco that your participation over in the other discussion might be helpful. Sincerely, doncram (talk) 23:38, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Copyediting support

User Drphilharmonic does a fair bit of text editing on Wikipedia for "logic, grammar, syntax". He recently cleaned up some articles which are on my regular watchlist. In my opinion, some of his work was useful (e.g., removing informal contractions), some of it was unnecessary imposition of his personal preferences (e.g., substituting "in general" for "generally"), and some of it actually introduced punctuation errors into the text (e.g., hyphenating "relatively-few patients") or made inappropriate changes to the meaning (e.g., he changed "treatments are medically necessary" to "medical treatments are necessary," presumably because he doesn't know that medical necessity is a technical issue).

I tried to engage him in a conversation about my concerns on his talk page, but his responses have been insulting and irrelevant. I have asked him to rephrase his rude remarks to address my specific concerns, but I don't really expect to make much progress. Is there are copyediting group that could review his recent changes for me? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:52, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

There is the WikiProject:League of Copyeditors, who may feel able to help. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 20:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks, I knew there'd be a group somewhere; I just couldn't find it earlier. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:26, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
But next time, please consider not raising such personal criticisms in a public place; at least not in this amount of critical detail. Tony (talk) 00:04, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Where is this supposed to be used?

I couldn't find on here anywhere where this is supposed to be used. I would guess that it doesn't apply to talk pages, but it does apply to articles, and it probably applies to project pages (policies and guidelines). Will someone please update the manual of style with where it's supposed to be used? Fredsmith2 (talk) 19:50, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Hey, hold on a moment, dear fellow, catch your breath first! What exactly are you referring to? Waltham, The Duke of 22:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
Fredsmith posted to Policy and Guidelines, that some editor(s) told him that this Manual of Style applied to article-space, but not to wiki-space. That is, that it did not apply to the WP: space. When you read the main page here, he is saying it doesn't specifically state to which space it applies. Wjhonson (talk) 23:02, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
I was at a loss for a while too, Waltham. Fred wants to know about the scope of MOS's application. The answer? All articles, certainly. Beyond that, who really knows? Good question.
There are also uncertainties about the status of some pages as components of the MOS. Is Wikipedia:Citing_sources/example_style in the fold as an offshoot of Wikipedia:Citing_sources, which itself is a component of MOS? (That is the wording at the top of such "official" pages: "This guideline is a part of Wikipedia's Manual of Style.") The question has been asked, and it is now buried somewhere in achives – unanswered.
I have said before that the suite of MOS articles needs rationalising from the top down. I still think so. Another special project for a working group, perhaps.
Wjhonson, please give a link to that other posting.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 23:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)
It certainly doesn't apply to user comments or user pages. It certainly applies to templates that are used in articles. Most parts of it seem to apply to portals. Beyond that, I really don't know. Dcoetzee 00:05, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Noetica trying to make me remember what I did five minutes ago is pure evil. Here's your link. I do agree that this page should state that MOS applies to WP: space as well as article space, template, categories, but not to user pages nor to any talk pages anywhere. Wjhonson (talk) 00:08, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I've made the assumption that the MOS applies to WP: space. When I have changed misused hyphens into endashes in essays and in policy pages no one has reverted me. An explicit declaration would please me. --Paul Erik (talk)(contribs) 00:31, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
We hope that MOS is worth following in all WP spaces; I think that its function as a guideline officially applies to WP space. I agree with Noetica: an overhaul of the structure is long overdue. But please consider making this page the base for discussion, with links to proposed texts/sandboxes to avoid clutter. Simplicity and time-lines are essential. Tony (talk) 00:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) If a declaration is ever made that the MOS should be followed in places other than the article space, it might be worth pointing out that while other style guides usually include prescriptions on how to format citations, this MOS does not; that is all in a separate Citing sources guideline. The use of anything but in-text citations may be impractical on many non-article pages. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm keener to rationalise the structure of the myriad MOSs and styleguides before making such a declaration. Tony (talk) 00:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree wholeheartedly, Tony. There is a desperate need for that.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 01:10, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
Could you explain more fully what you mean by "rationalise the structure of the myriad MOSs and styleguides"Wjhonson (talk) 01:39, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
The relationship between MOS central, its subpages, the style guidelines that aren't officially part of MOS, the policy pages for—say—naming conventions: there are probably too many of them and they need to be coordinated more efficiently. Internal changes on these pages are probably necessary, too. Tony (talk) 01:47, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm not convinced the MoS should formally apply to policy or other "Wikipedia:" pages. Informally, yes: it's worthwhile for our internal-use pages to use good writing style. But the purpose of policy pages is vastly different from that of articles, and aside from basics like grammar, spelling, and usage consistency, I'd say little of the MoS has relevance to them.
Yes, there are some policy or other Wikipedia pages that are terribly written. Some are scarred due to edit-warring (the MoS will not fix those); others suffer from neglect. In the latter case, I doubt we need to invoke the MoS: just {{sofixit}}.--Father Goose (talk) 22:24, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
My opinion on the applicability of the Manual of Style is this: all pages likely to be viewed by plain readers should follow the MoS because they need to be well-written, clear, and adequately formal. Of course, all non-deleted pages of the English Wikipedia are ultimately viewable (except some Special pages), but I am specifically referring to pages containing information of interest to non-editors. This definition includes the entire main and Portal namespaces, most of the Category namespace (which has little text anyway), and from the project namespace (yes, it has a name) all policies, guidelines, and disclaimers. Oh, and all the templates transcluded into any of the aforementioned types of pages (mostly article message boxes). This is our face to the world, and, as has been said time and again, we put the reader first, and the editor next. It is for the readers' benefit that we have a Manual of Style—in other words, it could be argued that it is part of the encyclopaedia side of Wikipedia, and not so much a part of its community side. Waltham, The Duke of 14:06, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Style Rationalisation Project

Tony is there a centralized list of all these subpages, style guidelines and policy pages? Perhaps that would be one important place to start, just with that linkfarm and then we can all see the scope of the problem.Wjhonson (talk) 01:51, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

It has been discussed on this page over the past six months, but the archives now make it so hard to locate material. The nearest you get to lists is on the templates such as the one top-right of MOS. But there are other lists, too. Tony (talk) 12:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hyphen in political family names

I noticed that some political families use a hyphen, although others use an endash. (Ex: Smoot–Rowlett family compared to South-Cockrell-Hargis family. As I understand the manual, they should all be endashes. They should all be moved, correct? Cool Hand Luke 19:43, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Luke. On the model of Michelson–Morley experiment, these contructions should have en dashes. If they represented real family names (like Bowes-Lyon), they would have hyphens.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 20:55, 24 January 2008 (UTC)
That sounds correct to me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 03:30, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
If I am not mistaken, there ought to be redirects from the versions using hyphens, so this ought to be taken care of every time an article is moved to a version using an en-dash. Normally, I should ask you to flag these redirects with the appropriate template, only that I am not quite sure myself which one that would be (either {{R from alternative spelling}} or {{R from ASCII}}). Redirect categorisation is, sadly, still in a foetal state, and the overseeing WikiProject is on the verge of complete abandonment. I actually plan to join it when my exams are over, try and help a little. Waltham, The Duke of 12:09, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Furthermore, when an en dash is used in the article name, all of them should contain a sort key with a hyphen (or maybe a space), not an en dash, through the magic word defaultsort or individual sort keys. Gene Nygaard (talk) 18:49, 25 January 2008 (UTC)
Why so? Is there a categorisation problem with en-dashes? Waltham, The Duke of 13:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, I'm not understanding this. At any rate, I'll move joint family names (as opposed to single hyphenated names) to have en dashes. Cool Hand Luke 04:54, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Dashes: Parent-instructor example

Under the section on dashes, specifically the part on slashes, there is an example given which states that "parent/instructor" should be rewritten as "parent-instructor", under certain conditions. However, it states that a hyphen should be used, whereas the example text appears actually to have an en dash (not a hyphen). I would correct this myself but am not quite sure which is correct? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mpavey (talk • contribs) 14:27, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Well spotted, Mpavey. I have changed it to a hyphen, in conformity with MOS. We say: "...a hyphen is used instead in Mon-Khmer languages which lacks a relationship...". The coverage of such cases – joined nouns, whether used adjectivally or as composite nouns – is uneven and indeterminate in major style guides. We do the best we can. By the way, sign at the end of your contribution by typing ~~~~.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 23:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)
Even the MoS itself doesn't comply with the MoS. So what chance does a poor little FAC have? :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 01:11, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
That's right, Malleus. As I have pointed out before, the world is imperfect and variegated. So is Wikipedia, so is MOS. So are all style guides that I am familiar with – and that's all the major ones, and more. But we shouldn't be complacent. I'd like to see a major effort to improve all MOS pages systematically, rather than in the present haphazard way.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 01:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
You may perhaps have misunderstood me. I am not complacent, and I fully support your efforts to improve the MoS. I was simply echoing the conclusion that any reasonable editor would probably already have come to. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 02:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Ah, dear Malleus! I think I did not misunderstand you! And I do not say that you are complacent, but that we shouldn't be. We tend to coast along, dealing with small concerns as they appear in our visual field, and we do not work hard at the big picture. Many are beginning to realise this, now. Something will start happening about it – if we make it happen. It would take a much larger effort than specialised projects like the hard space push, for example. And believe me: it's been extraordinarily difficult to get where we are with that, even.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 02:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Manual of Style title

I was just wondering what the rationale behind the capitalisation of the word Style. I'm writing a manual of style for my wiki and was thinking it contradicted the guidelines to use a capital S, where a capital should only be used on the first letter of the first word unless a word is a proper noun. Could some one explain please? --Leirith (talk) 02:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

It's intended to be a proper noun, I think; the idea is that it's a work entitled the "Manual of Style", rather than just a manual of style. Kirill 02:34, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Exactly so, Kirill.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 02:40, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Energy Solutions arena...

I have a question: On the EnergySolutions Arena page, we have a bit of a disagreement, and so I thought I'd ask for a consensus. Until a few days ago, the first three words read "The EnergySolutions Arena ..." but now it has been changed to read "The EnergySolutions Arena ..." and I'm not sure that's correct. If you go to energysolutions.com, it is written as EnergySolutions only, so I reverted it to EnergySolutions Arena, but it was quickly changed back and given the justification of

"Thanks, but no thanks. Energysolutions.com is entitled to have its a style. Wikipedia has its own, at WP:MOS, and this is no exception."

So, I took a look at WP:MOS and couldn't find anything relevant, so I'd love some opinions. Thanks, Darkage7 (talk) 06:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I don't see anything either, but we should go with what reliable sources use—not necessarily what the source itself uses. No newspaper report I can find retains the italics. Therefore, we shouldn't either. If sources did adopt their typography, I would feel differently, but they don't. Cool Hand Luke 06:52, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Most relevant guidelines:
  • WP:MOS (trademarks): "When deciding how to format a trademark, editors should choose among styles already in use (not invent new ones) and choose the style that most closely resembles standard English, regardless of the preference of the trademark owner. This practice helps ensure consistency in language and avoids drawing undue attention to some subjects rather than others."
  • WP:MOS (text formatting): explains when boldface and italics are to be used on Wikipedia.
  • Style used by most other publications that follow guidelines like the AP Stylebook don't do this either. It's almost unheard of. It's quite understandable how EnergySolutions, or any other company, might do this on their own web sits. It's also true that publications commonly include decorative diacritics (such as Häagen-Dazs or Stüssy), but if Wikipedia is to consider formatting such as italics as part of a proper name, where do we draw the line? Should we duplicate the coloring, fonts, and character spacing as well? That's probably another good reason nobody else does it either. Reswobslc (talk) 08:13, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Yeah, then we might wind up with articles named I ♥ Huckabees. Oh wait...
Our policy favoring English is very weak for a variety of reasons. We have a lot of users committed to diacriticals. We include diacriticals when virtually no English source does (say, Slobodan Milošević). Nonetheless, I view these as failures of our process—the same committed users repeatedly vote in favor of diacriticals and other dubious "official names." In all of these cases, I think it would be much better if we deferred to reliable sources.
Reliable sources don't italicize, so neither should we. Cool Hand Luke 11:48, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Non-breaking spaces in citations

Discussion at MOSDATE. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Columns: New template?

I've created the template {{columns-list}}, which is based off of {{reflist}}. I think that it's simpler to use than {{col-begin}}, {{col-2}}, {{col-end}}. Additionally, if new items are added to the list on either side, {{columns-list}} will automatically adjust, while the {{col-begin}} series will have an imbalance unless it is manually fixed. Any comments or objections before I start migrating {{col-begin}} to {{columns-list}} with AWB? (Please suggest any improvements you may think of.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 02:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

The auto-adjustment isn't necessarily a good idea; sometimes (for example, when the columns include blocks that shouldn't be split) the uneven columns are actually the desired layout. The new template is a neat idea, as an additional layout option; but I strongly object to forcing its use in place of the existing ones. Kirill 02:41, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Actually, a somewhat more obvious practical issue: it simply doesn't work on IE, since the multicolumn div CSS isn't supported there. {{col-begin}} et al. work fine there, since they're actually implemented as a table rather than a true multi-column div. Kirill 02:46, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Is there an IE-compatible way to way to automatically align columns? (I'm not trying to replace all uses, but in most cases you would want the columns to match up.) -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 06:28, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Use of boldface in film articles (copied from MOSBOLD)

There has been long-standing agreement over at the manual of style for film articles for the inclusion of boldface in cast lists which are written as prose. When written as prose, these lists are far easier to supplement with real world cast and character information, and it is the recommended method when such information is available. Using boldface on the actor and character names can be a genuine aid to reader comprehension when entries span more than a couple of lines at normal resolution; where boldface is not used, the names of the actors and their characters are not immediately apparent when quickly scanning the section for such information.

Examples of articles which use boldface like this include Sunshine (2007 film)#Characters and State of Play (film)#Casting, amongst many others.

However, some editors have recently pointed out (quite rightly) a potential conflict between the guidance given at the manual of style for films and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)#Boldface. As SandyGeorgia points out above, there are issues at stake as to which MOS guideline trumps which, and so I'm bringing this out of the local MOSFILM guideline (which I see may not have been subject to the wider community consensus) in order to find out what you all think. At the latter MOS I reference, three examples are given on the permitted use of boldface. I would like to propose the addition of a further entry which permits the use of boldface in some lists (such as film article cast lists) in certain circumstances only, worded something along the lines of:

  • Film article cast lists which are written as prose, only where the use of boldface would be an aid to reader comprehension. e.g. Sunshine (2007 film)

Or, y'know, something a little less clumsy. Your thoughts and guidance on this are very much appreciated. All the best, Steve T • C 09:53, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

  • Have you seen how ugly it is? Look HERE. Tony (talk) 10:23, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I oppose that addition, as it disagrees with current WP:MOSBOLD guidelines, is ugly, and impedes readability. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:13, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
  • The Transformers one is formatted quite differently to what the current MOSFILM guideline recommends, in fact. It was a stylistic choice on the part of the primary contributor to the article in order to surmount the unusual problem of a film which features human characters, speaking non-human characters, and non-speaking non-human characters. I thought it was a novel solution, and a decent idea, but I realise that not everyone agrees with that, and I have recommended to the editor in question that if resistance persists on the issue, he should amend the article accordingly in order to bring it back to what the current MOSFILM guideline recommends. In short, the Transformers matter at present has little relevance to the issue I'm bringing up here. All the best, Steve T • C 10:33, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You've posted this in two places, splitting up the discussion. Since this page has more responses, I'll reply here.

There has been long-standing agreement over at the manual of style for film articles for the inclusion of boldface in cast lists which are written as prose. That doesn't seem to be in line with the way I read the FILM guidelines. Both the film guidelines and WP:MOSBOLD make it clear that bolding is use in definitional lists, as in David E. Kelley. Bolding is used in lists, not in prose, and when it is used in prose—such as currently at Transformers (film)—it's unsightly use of fonts that impedes readability. FA must comply with WP:MOS; MoS calls for boldface in lists, not prose.

The Film guidelines have a bigger problem; someone added them to the MOS back in September, but they don't appear to have ever been subjected to community wide consensus (via posts here, at Village pump, at FAC, at other Projects, for example) as WP:MEDMOS and WP:MILHIST guidelines were. By what process were those guidelines made part of MOS? Do you have the history on that, because they don't appear to have been subject to broad (outside the Project) scrutiny. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately, I have no history on that as, IIRC, I was not fully active in that area in September. As for the issue at hand, the Transformers example, as I have said, is not a typical one and should probably not be cited here. The issue of MOSFILM's compliance/acceptance, etc. is also one I'd like to leave to one side for the time being, which is why I've brought the bolding issue here to gauge the wider community thinking. The the manual of style for films does indeed give an explicit example of the type of thing I'm looking to add:

"Robert Russell as John Stearne: Playing Hopkins’s thuggish assistant, Russell certainly looked the part. However, as filming progressed, Reeves found the actor’s high pitched voice unsuitable for such a rough character, and after production was completed he had all of his dialogue dubbed by another actor, Jack Lynn (who also appeared in a small role as an innkeeper)."

Which could be classed as a list of prose entries once the other cast members are added. I'm not disputing that this might conflict with MOSBOLD; what I'm looking for is to gauge opinion on a potential amendment to MOSBOLD to permit such use. Your objection seems to be directed at the non-standard use of bolding in the Transformers article; can you clarify and tell me whether a similar objection would apply to the use of boldface as I have presented above? Steve T • C 12:24, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Addition: in fact, upon closer inspection I note the definitional list example at David E. Kelley isn't actually that different from this usage. A properly-bulleted and bolded cast list which contains prose does not in fact contravene the example. I appear to have wasted everyone's time here, for which I apologise. Steve T • C 12:38, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Sorry, Steve, I was in a hurry this morning to get to an app't. Yes, the example you've given above (Robert Russell) looks fine. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:51, 31 January 2008 (UTC)
Thanks; I was worried about the potential conflict for a minute there, and having to go through dozens of film articles to remove such usage. All the best, Steve T • C 16:32, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Caveat

Maybe I mis-remember but rather than "Editors should follow it" didn't the gist once used to be was "This is what we are aiming at and if you can follow it please do, but at all events, make your contribution, someone else will fix up the spelling and style if needed" Rich Farmbrough, 14:17 1 February 2008 (GMT).

Can of worms, that. Although not ideal, IMV, the current version is better. Tony (talk) 15:10, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Blockquotes

Sorry, I just undid an edit without a decent explanation. Here it is.

(cur) (last) 15:05, 4 February 2008 Jimp (Talk | contribs) (112,311 bytes) (Undid revision 189016809 by Ms2ger (talk)) (undo)
(cur) (last) 13:13, 4 February 2008 Ms2ger (Talk | contribs) m (112,301 bytes) (→Quotations - mw doesn't indent anything) (undo)

What the passage was saying is that <blockquote></blockquote> automatically indents the quote and it does. See the example above. Jɪmp 15:14, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

Content of bold text in lead section

Is there guidance anywhere on what exactly should be in the bold text at the top of an article? Usual usage, so far as I can see, seems to be that the article title itself is the most commonly-used name; whereas the first bold text is the full formal name (followed by alternative names if necessary). So, for example, the article United Kingdom starts with "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ..."; and Will Smith starts with "Willard Christopher "Will" Smith, Jr. (born 25 September 1968) is...".

What's specifically brought this up in my mind is the article Richard Sternberg, where there's a mild controversy over whether he should be "Richard von Sternberg" in the bold text. The "von" seems to be used intermittently; it's not used on the front page of his website (where he is "Dr. Richard Sternberg" and "Rick Sternberg", but is used on his CV and other formal documents on there. In external sources, it seems to be used about half the time.

My feeling is that it is part of his full formal name, so should be in the bold text (but not in the article title). Does the MOS have an opinion on this? Neither Wikipedia:MOS#First_sentences nor Wikipedia:Lead_section#Bold_title seems very clear on the matter. TSP (talk) 13:53, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't like the first example; I could say that I am more used to seeing the official name first, and the alias or stage name later. I mean, although it is technically correct, nobody refers to Will Smith as "Will Smith, Jr.", nor are the quotation marks pretty here (in my opinion). I should prefer "Willard Christopher Smith, Jr. (born 25 September 1968), more widely known as Will Smith, is..." or something similar, like the cases with more different names.
In any case, I mostly agree with you: although the "Bold title" section hints at this by "article subject", I think it ought to make it clearer that we want the full, formal name or title of the subject. It often goes without saying, of course, but nothing really ought to be held as common knowledge in a Manual of Style. Waltham, The Duke of 14:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Supplementary guides

Is there any validity to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (exit lists) being titled and tagged as a part of the Manual of Style? The page appears to be provide project-specific guidance and does not appear to be linked from by the main MOS page or any of its supplements and is not in any MOS categories. Can any project create a page and call it a part of the Manual of Style? Is there some other tag that is more appropriate for such pages? older ≠ wiser 15:37, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Excellent questions, O≠W. It is indicative of the poor state of the MOS pages that no one has responded to your questions in over two days. One reason: a lot of this is not settled and hardly examined. We don't know. People prefer to look at the trees rather than the forest. What we need is a complete and general reform of Wikipedia's MOS, starting with an examination of structure and process.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 01:30, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
I put this question late last year, and no one seemed to have an answer. I think we need to form a priority list for overhauling the structural relationships between and within the MOSes and the styleguides. Towards the top of that list should be the creation of a written-down process for becoming part of MOS. Tony (talk) 07:55, 29 January 2008 (UTC)
The only thing we need to do is to stop attempting to give pages called MOSWHATSIT any special status; at which point this non-problem will go away. A guideline is a guideline. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Or stop listening to the bleatings of someone whose chief agenda is to downgrade the status and function of the Manual of Style. He's been banging this drum for a long time now, to little avail. Tony (talk) 00:35, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

"We" in mathematics

I intend to remove the following sentence: "It is also acceptable to use we in mathematical derivations (To normalize the wavefunction, we need to find the value of the arbitrary constant A)." The only discussion I could find on this is Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 93#Recent edit to "avoid first-person pronouns", in one editor argues in favour it and one against it. It contradicts the guidance in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics), which was arrived at after a discussion among a larger group; see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Encyclopedic vs conversational tone and discussions linked at the bottom. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 23:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Jitse. "We" is good for journal articles, not encyclopedia articles. --Trovatore (talk) 23:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't know the answer to this question for sure, but you just touched on the one issue I feel passionate about at Wikipedia (I'm entitled to my one, right?). I do see that Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Writing style in mathematics says to avoid "we". I haven't looked at the history, but I suspect that was written by a MoS editor who had no actual experience reading scholarly math articles. It was a long time ago that I got my masters in math, but I do recall that we used "we" an awful lot. I also recall that we were perfectly aware of how funny that sounded to non-mathematicians, and we tended not to care. My question is: how many Wikipedia readers will be reading a math proof on Wikipedia that you probably need 4 years of graduate school to understand? Do you see the silliness of objecting to, for instance, "We intend to show a constructive proof of the Heine-Borel Theorem" on the grounds that the "we" sounds funny? Who does "Heine-Borel Theorem" not sound funny to, other than certain mathematicians, who may not hear anything wrong in the "we"? (Although understand, I'm not speaking for them, I'm saying it might be a good idea to ask them.)
The reason for my passion is that building an encyclopedia (in my case, mostly about robotics) is only half of my reason for putting enormous amounts of time into Wikipedia. The other half is that I actually want to see people benefiting from robots in the home...we desperately need them before all the baby boomers retire, and the developing world needs them to help provide food and power. I see both goals, building an encyclopedia and building robotics community, succeeding or failing together. I believe that both goals will fail if expert roboticists are not comfortable here. They won't be comfortable if their articles are reverted on the grounds that they don't sound right, when they know perfectly well that the articles are using language acceptable for their field...language that MoS editors aren't familiar with and didn't bother to ask about. I have some familiarity with manuals of style from a previous life, and this is most of the reason I'm trying to get up to speed on as much of MoS as I can...because the roboticists are very unlikely to care, and are likely to simply go back to the communities they came from in the first place if they feel disrespected here. Uninformed criticism of language is a great way to make someone feel demeaned. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:33, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
With apologies, there are one or two more points that are essential in this argument. Two months ago, I saw nothing wrong with the argument that "nothing technical needs to be in Wikipedia, that's for Wikibooks or Wikiversity". After two months of talking with students, hobbyists, academics and professionals, I realize that I was completely wrong. There is no, none, zilch, desire among these people to stop their productive pursuits long enough to go write a book on Wikibooks. Wikipedia is the top .org site in the world and has enormous cachet, enough to pull people in and get them involved. Either we make them feel welcome here, or we never get an encyclopedic treatment of robotics. (This is in no way a criticism of the many fine robotics articles here. Details are best left to WP:WikiProject Robotics.) Also, I have enormous respect for the incredibly large number of incredibly talented editors around here who would do a bang-up job on, say, an article about using a robotic vacuum for a general audience. But there is already solid support for inclusion of articles dealing with, for instance, path-finding algorithms used by robotic vacuums...you'll find similar articles through the AI Portal. But these articles should be written with the readers in mind who will actually be reading them...that is, they should be written at their level, using concepts they understand and language they are comfortable with. A MoS-aware editor, who might in all other respects be an incredibly talented and feted Wikipedian, but who has never read such an article before, would probably not be the right person to decide what to revert in such an article, and might, if successful, harm the community that some of us are trying very hard to build here. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:20, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
You're preaching to the choir. I agree Wikipedia needs highly technical articles. In fact, both Trovatore and I know Heine-Borel and stuff like that and write and edit very specialized articles.
Your suspicion regarding who wrote Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics) does fortunately not reflect reality. It is written by people who write scholarly maths articles and who are perfectly aware that "we" is used there (including myself). Nevertheless, this group decided that "we" should be avoid, for the following two reasons: journal articles and textbooks are written in a less formal style than encyclopaedia articles, and it is jargon (as you say, it sounds funny). I agree that the latter reason is not really relevant for specialized articles, but the former one still stands.
I don't want to sound dismissive. Personally, I don't care about the "we" issue, I just want to clear up a contradiction. Perhaps we should discuss the use of "we" again and see whether the consensus shifted. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
You don't sound dismissive at all, you sound supportive, which is nice, given how argumentative I was (it didn't sound that way to me last night, now it does). Glad that you guys are on top of this. The context for my argument is that I am going around saying the things that I feel need saying to the relevant audiences, attempting to be honest about what connections I do and don't have and how my goals do and don't differ. I love the occasional "archness" of MoS discussions, it's a guilty pleasure, and I very much want to stay up on MoS discussions because I don't think anyone else in WikiProject Robotics will, and we need to be able to play by the same rules everyone else does. I honestly don't expect the community of MoS-aware editors to be the problem, the roboticists themselves are much more of a handful at the moment, and some past arguments made by admins seem less than helpful, and we seem to have an order of magnitude more vandalism than I would expect, given that we rarely have heated arguments.
Still, I'd just like to say: people are invited to read my argument above, and if you have any serious disagreement, I'd appreciate it if you could record it here so that I can post it over at WP:ROBO/AEL. My thesis, I suppose, is: we (the copyediting or MoS-aware community) should go a little bit easy on new editors who have technical skills that we very much need here, especially when a new WikiProject like WikiProject Robotics is starting up, and...despite the fact that there's more in WT:MoS and the relevant archives than anyone can ever know...we should accept the additional burden of learning a bit more about how various technical communities talk, and how to use language to make them feel welcome. We should do it because we can. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:34, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

So let me elaborate a hair on my objection to "we". It has nothing to do with technical usage; I think technical usage is fine, though articles should of course be written to be as accessible as possible given their subject matter. It's a question of tone. "We" is too discursive, too narrative. It's what you say when you're presenting your own material, or when you're teaching a subject (as in a textbook). Wikipedia on the other hand is a reference work, and needs to be written in a more "just the facts" kind of style. --Trovatore (talk) 18:53, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a scholarly mathematical paper, so it should not be written in the style of one. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and therefore should be written in the style of an encyclopedia. That is what is behind the long accepted guidelines stated in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics), and especially the "Writing style in mathematics" section. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics) is an application of the basic, Wikipedia-wide principles of style in WP:MOS to the special requirements of math articles on Wikipedia. It specifically points out some particulars of math paper style, with which the contributors to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics) are well aware, that should be avoided on Wikipedia. Finell (Talk) 02:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree completely with Jitse and Trovatore, the editorial "we", while fine in other mathematical writing, e.g. journal articles, it should be avoided in encyclopedic writing. Paul August ☎ 22:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Alphabetization

Wikipedia really ought to have some sort of guidelines for alphabetization/collation. Which comes first, "Silver Spring" or "Silverdale"? (I'd say "Silver Spring"). How about "Sap" vs. "St. Joseph" (I'd go with St. Joseph). "Mainland" vs. "McAllen" (I'd go with McAllen). Even if my preferences aren't followed, this is exactly the kind of thing the Manuel of Style needs to set an arbitrary rule for. john k (talk) 22:06, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

I'll add that with "St.", there's really only one decent way to do it, since it's pretty much never the case that something is always written "St." and never "Saint". Alphabetization shouldn't depend on whether one has decided to use an abbreviation or not. john k (talk) 22:07, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

Does nobody care? This is exactly the kind of thing a manual of style needs to deal with. john k (talk) 23:38, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

I care, John. I think it's a good idea (and I agree with your ordering on all three examples). The solution needs to handle all characters likely to be used in English WP lists, including those in foreign place names. It's not obvious whether Viðey comes before or after Vígľaš. ASCII and Unicode numbers may help, but they aren't a complete solution because both place ñ after o, and a after Z. I think we can restrict ourselves to A-Z (with accents) and "foreign" letters commonly mixed with them like å and þ, ignoring alphabets like Greek that most editors would transliterate. Certes (talk) 23:53, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

A big issue is German umlauts. ä,ö, and ü can be written in English as "ae," "oe," and "ue," and I've sometimes seen them alphabetized that way, but that's pretty counterintuitive, and doesn't seem to be universally done. "å," as I understand it, can be written as "aa" - again, the alphabetization is confusing. For accents used in Spanish, Portuguese, and French, so far as I know, alphabetization is not effected by accents marks. This is all complicated stuff. I do think, though, that we should try to immediately resolve the other issues mentioned - "St.", "Mc," and the one word/two word issue, since all of those are independent of the foreign characters issue. And we should certainly ignore Greek and Cyrillic. john k (talk) 05:55, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

There's plenty of reading material for us both (and anyone else we can interest) in Collation and the documents reached from there such as [Unicode collation algorithm]. Certes (talk) 17:57, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm heavily involved in maintaining a number of long aviation-related lists here, and think that some kind of Wikipedia-wide standard for this is long overdue. I've long believed that there must be an ISO or some other standard out there that we could adopt, but I've been unable to locate one. So summarising the above; the issues we could consider include (in no particular order):
  1. Spaces (ignore or not?)
  2. Accents on basic latin characters - á, è, î, ö, ç, š, ñ, ł, å, ø (ignore or alphabetise separately?)
  3. Ligatures - œ, æ (treat as spelled-out elements, or alphabetise separately?)
  4. Abbreviations like "St" and "Mc"
  5. Extended latin characters - ß, ð, þ (alphabetise as transliterations, or alphabetise separately?)
  6. Non-latin characters (Beyond the purview of this discussion?)
Any others? --Rlandmann (talk) 03:11, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Mac as a separated prefix (Mac Donald vs MacDonald see Heather Mac Donald); O'Surname. Hyphenated words (is hyphen treated as space, or a special character filing separately from space, or as a null so the hyphenated words file as one). Does Macdonald file differently from MacDonald (ie does capitalisation affect sorting)? Presumably all these will need a "Defsort".There must be more. Then there are things like "ll" in spanish which alphabetises differently in Spanish... but this is English Wikipedia, so perhaps we stick to English sorting order. PamD (talk) 13:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Speaking as someone who shelved library books in college, I found that most patrons got that St. would be found in the S-a-i's because St. stood for Saint, but they were surprised that Mc's were found in the M-a-c's...even though that was the correct bibliographic order, most people didn't think that Mc "stood" for Mac. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:18, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

For US editors there's the Chicago Manual of Style but that's free from neither payment nor copyright. The nearest thing I can find to an ISO standard is the Unicode collation algorithm I mentioned above, but of course that doesn't cover St or Mc. For what it's worth, my personal opinions are:

  1. Exclude spaces, in other words alphabetize letter-by-letter rather than word-by-word: Newton before New York.
  2. Treat accents on basic latin characters as "tie breakers": place schön immediately after schon.
  3. Treat ligatures as spelled-out elements: sort œ as if it were oe.
  4. Treat St as if it were Saint and Mc as if it were Mac: I'd look for it there, but then I live in Scotland.
  5. Put extended latin characters where they would go in their national alphabets: sort ß as if it were ss; ð between d and e; þ between z and æ. This may cause rare inconsistencies where languages disagree on the ordering of homoglyphs like ö.
  6. Treat non-latin characters like extended latin characters: what's the difference?
I think Spanish changed in 1984 to alphabetize LL between LK and LM (and CH between CG and CI), matching its treatment of RR. LL and CH in Welsh may still be an issue but I think we can get away with the same rule.

My suggestions for 1-4 are arbitrary but they make it easier for a reader to find an item in a list if the relevant space, accent, ligature or abbreviation is optional, or the reader is unsure of the exact spelling. (I was originally in favour of including spaces but changed my mind for this reason.)

In case anyone else was confused, I think Defsort is described in Template:DEFAULTSORT. Certes (talk) 19:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry to be cryptic - DEFAULTSORT is central to this discussion, as it determines how things file in Category listings (and perhaps elsewhere?) (and "defsort" is my own edit-summary abbreviation for it!). See Category:Water industry, unless anyone has since added a DEFAULTSORT for Águas de Portugal, which currently files after "Z"! If we wanted it to sort ignoring the accent, we could add {{DEFAULTSORT:Aguas de Portugal}}. PamD (talk) 11:11, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I disagree with Certes on several points; since Certes and PamD agree in numbering, mine here should match those.
  1. This is a key issue. Spaces cannot be "ignored" when it comes to category sorting; all characters are sorted, whether it is based on the article name, DEFAULTSORT magic word (including in some cases its hidden inclusion as part of a template, other sort keys added by a template to categories which might not appear in category listings, or by piping on an individual category listing. This fact is even used to some advantage to get some articles at the top of a category listing by using a space as the first sort character, and if we are to ignore spaces that usage needs to be considered and addressed.
    • This has to do with word breaks, sorting by whole words first or all the letters run together. Should "port wine" come between "port" and "Portland", or should it be after Portland? It would be possible to treat independent words differently situations where it is closely associated, almost like a prefix or suffix to, another word. But then consider the following, assuming that as North Americans who would normally appear under L in a telephone directory or other listing, they should so appear in Wikipedia. How would you sort the following: David LaFleur, Guy Lafleur, Bronson La Follette, Greg LaFleur, Richard A. la Vay, Eriq La Salle.
    • A convention has developed in people's names that they are separated into pseudo-fields by a comma+space combination. Both need to appear, even if the order isn't changed from the order in the article's name. For example, Park Chu-Young should be sorted as either "Park, Chu-Young" or "Park, Chu Young" (depending on the separate issue of how hyphens are treated). That "pseudo-field" divider should not be ignored. Maybe it would be best, however, to ignore any spaces before that divider, and to ignore any spaces or hyphens after that divider. I'd like something along those lines
  2. Ignore the accents (strip them from sort keys in category sorting) and treat them indiscriminately with the English letters. Disagree with Certes on this one; some languages might sort ö between o and p, but English does not (German usually doesn't either, in the case of the schön example; German sorts ö with o. But other languages, IIRC, do sort ö between o and p, and others such as Swedish sort ö after z. That's one good reason why English Wikipedia should never follow any other languages sorting rules for anything. Readers of our English Wikpedia should not have to learn the sorting rules of 500 other languages to be able to find something in our lists and categories, and then on top of know what languages sorting rules might be followed for whatever they are looking for.)
  3. Treat œ as oe, æ as ae, anything else as a single letter. If I were dealing only with Norwegian and English, I'd sort å as "aa", and if I were dealing only with German and English, I might sort ö as "oe", but when we are dealing with hundreds of languages the only reasonable choice is to sort as the base letter, what readers can see when looking at it, alone. We shouldn't have to know if a word or a name is German or Swedish or whatever to know where to find it sorted in a list.
  4. I like treating "St." (or British "St") as spelled-out "Saint". But what if it is the abbreviation for a non-English spelling? What about "Ste." and "SS." for Sainte and Saints? What about hyphens following the "St." ? What should come first, St.-Charles, Ontario or St. Charles, Kentucky? It is also possible to treat "Mac" and "Mc" as either the same or different, but what about the capitalization or noncapitalization of the next letter. Should Macdonald be sorted differently from MacDonald?
  5. Disagree strongly with Certes on this one. First of all, it is unclear what exactly is presumed to fit in this class rather than number 2 above, but let's just consider the ones pointed to by Certes as being inclusive (though I'd say ð in particular should be in 2 above). Furthermore, note that many characters are used in several different languages, and the sorting order is not the same in all of them. But that's irrelevant; we aren't using some other language, we are using English. Either ß as "ss", ð as d, þ as "th", else those characters need to be banned from article names and from lists. If they aren't sortable in the English alphabet, they should not be used in English Wikipedia; its as simple as that. We only have 26 letters to sort on in English. That's what normally appears now in Category TOC navigation bars, and that is the way it should always remain.
  6. Agree with PamD, beyond the scope. We shouldn't have lists with only non-latin characters in any case, and as far as article names go they should never appear on English Wikipedia except as redirects or possible articles about individual characters.
Gene Nygaard (talk) 17:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Actually, DEFAULTSORT isn't a template, except that the template was created to provide an explanation for those who think it is. It is actually something called a "magic word" in Wikijargon, described under Help:magic words.

Some of this is, and should be, dealt with under Wikipedia:Categorization and subpages such as Wikipedia:Categorization of people. Look in particular at the quarter of a million entries in Category:Living people and see how the general sorting is done there. Not always consistent, but much more so than in a lot of other categories.

Lists and infoboxes are often sorted manually by editors. But in many ways the situation is different for category sorting. There, every character gets sorted. The first default is the article's name. The rules being discussed here might have to be explained differently in the two cases.

There is more, of course.

  1. Uppercase vs. lowercase. I'd say that in most cases, our sorting should be case-independent. But that is hard to achieve, especially in the case of the category sorting and the existing sort keys for that purpose. Note that due in large part to initial capitalization being turned on in Wikipedia, and thus all article names starting with an uppercase letter, we almost always sort the first letter as uppercase.
  2. Hyphens. Consider in particular the French penchant for inserting a hyphen between two given names. Should an American "Jean Claude Whatever" be sorted differently from a French "Jean-Claude Whatever"?
  3. Other punctuation. Sure, most people wouldn't even think of including it when Strip out most every other punctuation mark. This is especially important in the case of category sorting with quotation marks or question marks and the like in the title, including of course the inverted question marks and inverted explanation points in some titles of Spanish-language works.
    • En dashes and em dashes are another special problem, especially with some people pushing to change many hyphens to dashes. These should normally be treated the same as a space, or at a hyphen depending on how hyphens should be treated. Note that in the rudimentary Unicode-number sorting we have for categories, those dashes come in a much diffreent place than the hyphens which are, like spaces, before any numbers and letters.
    • Special consideration needs to be given to the use of an initial space or initial asterisk in category sorting, as a method to get the article listed at the top of a category listing, above the alphabetical (or alphanumeric) indexing. This can also be, but often is not, followed by additional characters to sort the ones listed at the top. It isn't any special software trick; it is just that every character in the sort key gets sorted, including spaces. This is often done for the main article or a couple of related ones about the subject of the classification to separate it from the individuals listed therein. For example, you might have the article List of French architects at the top of Category:French architects, separating it from the listings of individual people who fit the category.

There are still more things to be added to this list. Gene Nygaard (talk) 09:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC) More:

  • Case-sensitivity and acronyms. Note that an all-uppercase acronym as a sort key will put it before anything else where the second letter is a lowercase letter. SQL is listed before Sather in Category:Programming languages, whether it should be or not. Note that this sorting is also done, at least sometimes intentionally, in other places. Most American telephone books list businesses whose names are acronyms at the top of each letters listing, above those names of businesses or people whose second letter is lowercase. Gene Nygaard (talk) 10:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for those comments. I can see the logic of your arguments too. Like the UK practice of driving on the left, I don't feel strongly about which convention we use but I know it's important that everyone agrees on one. If I've helped to prompt a debate that reaches a different consensus then I'm happy.

I don't see any merit in sorting SQL before Sather. Q and q need to be equivalent. Case must be ignored or relegated to a second level of sorting, used only to break ties between two entries which have identical sort values at the first level.

How should we treat leading articles and other "noise words"? I think almost everyone would agree with the existing DEFAULTSORT entries that file The Who under W and Simon Le Bon under L, but there is a grey area in between.

I don't think anyone has mentioned explicitly that we sort people by surname before other names. It's an obvious point but perhaps one worth including briefly in any new MoS section. Working out what is the surname can occasionally be difficult for some names from oriental cultures. Certes (talk) 14:54, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I've just found a related, heated if historic, discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Categorization_of_people#Ordering_of_Mac.2C_Mc_and_M.27 which may be of interest. PamD (talk) 08:19, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Paragraphs

I suggest a new main section, between section 1 (Article titles...) and section 2 (Capital letters) as follows:

Paragraphs
Paragraphs are separated by a blank line, which is ordinarily entered by pushing the enter key twice. A line break, which is usually entered by pushing the enter key once, is not a sufficient separation for paragraphs.

I also intend to apply this rule to the MOS. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Is that a style issue? It sounds more like a technical wiki-markup issue. A single line break is equivalent to a space character; if you find one in an article you cannot assume that anyone intended a paragraph break. –Henning Makholm 01:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Enter key or Return key. Maybe pressing sted pushing? Or using? GeorgeLouis (talk) 03:24, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Mashing. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
It's both a sytle issue and a technical markup issue. The style issue is that when the text is rendered on the screen or page, paragraphs should be separated by a blank line. Other publications may have other styles, such as indented paragraphs, or both indentation and a blank line, so we should state what our style is. Pressing enter twice is the most common markup to achive this. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Perhaps specifying the difference between the style guidance and the technical issue: "A line break, which can be made by <br> or a single carriage return, does not in fact produce a new paragraph in Wikipedia's markup system" ? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:07, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Boats and ships

The names of boats and ships should NOT be italicized. Agreed? Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 17:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

They should be, they generally are on Wikipedia (and elsewhere), and this is one case where Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting), which says they should be, should be controlling over whatever is said here at Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Gene Nygaard (talk) 18:00, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Another example of the need for coordination. This logically could be addressed in at least four different MOS pages: the main MoS, the text-formatting sub-MoS page, and the MilHist and Ship projects. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

OK. I don't agree, and neither do most style manuals (I think — because I haven't checked them), but I will go along until the style is changed. Thanks for the link. Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 19:25, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Nygaard, allowing any little group of editors on an outlying sub-page to rule over what is here in the central MOS is just as bizarre as Parnham's statement above that it's just fine if our styleguides disagree with each other. Tony (talk) 07:53, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Nothing at all bizarre about it. It is a longstanding rule of legal interpretation, for example: the specific controls over the general. Good grief, you don't think Wikipedia is the first place that has ever had conflicting rules, do you? This should apply primarily to a small group of articles which are identified as the "Main article" for a section of the main MoS page, or otherwise identified in some way. Gene Nygaard (talk) 09:07, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Furthermore,
  • If you want to change the rules about capitalization (even if you spell it capitalisation), you most certainly ought to be discussing such changes, gaining consensus, and changing the rules accordingly on the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters) page. Changes in those rules should not, as a general rule, come from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page. If such a discussion starts here, it should be moved to the appropriate page, leaving behind a note about the existence of that discussion and where it can be found.
  • If you want to change the rules about dates, you most certainly ought to be discussing such changes, gaining consensus, and changing the rules accordingly on the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) page. Changes in those rules should not, as a general rule, come from the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page.
  • Etc.
People might look to the main MoS page for broad, general rules. When some other page is the main article for a topic, they logically expect that to be the place to find those rules more fleshed out, going into greater detail about specific examples and problems, and areas where there is no consensus and more than one style remains acceptable.
The core MoS pages to which this rule applies, and no others, should be named in the "Wikipedia:Manual of Style (something parenthetical)" format. These should also appear as a "Main article" for a setion of the top MoS page. The topic-specific rules (for which issues of style are only one component) should be in some other format, whether part of a WikiProject or otherwise. The MoS navigation tools should clearly reflect such a breakdown.
A part of the whole discussion has to be what exactly is within the scope of the Manual of Style in the first place. There are many things peripherally related to style which are more appropriately left to the determination of various other sections of Wikipedia space, such as Wikipedia:Naming conventions and Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Disambiguation and their subpages and the like. In case of conflict, it may well be the MoS whose rule should be thrown out. Gene Nygaard (talk) 10:37, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't care where they're discussed:;just as long as conflicting rules don't both have equal status, and as long as there's inbuilt motivation for prompt identification and resolution. Tony (talk) 00:39, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
We do have a system that resolves such differences: if the guidance difference matters in article space, it is discussed on the relevant talk page, and general attention is drawn to the issue. This will include each side appealling to the relevant guidelines. If there is real consensus on the matter, the consensus will ignore or rewrite the guidelines involved; if there is none, they should stay different, as a mark of genuine disagreement. (Ideally, both would mention the disagreement, but we can't expect too much.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:15, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
Well, that would be just fine if it worked. But it doesn't. There are discrepancies all over the place. Tony (talk) 23:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
It does work under two conditions: that the issue actually matters, and that there is actual consensus on the solution. The recent upset on Talk:Brunei dollar and the related guideline page is an example, not quite finished (we have yet to see if the fiercest proponent of the minority view will yield to overwhelming numbers). We ought not be uniform where these conditions do not apply. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:32, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
This is just the kind of attitude I'd expect from the chief flag-flyer for the anarchists. To take your view further, why have outlying specialist sub-pages of MOS, if you encourage them to conflict (where, in your opinion, the issue doesn't "matter" and there's no consensus on a solution). Why have any MOS at all? Why not just let WP's articles fight it out individually on their talk pages, the whole thing, with no guidance on style and formatting, no cohesion, just a jungle? That is where your view would lead us, if you succeeded in gaining traction. Just as well you don't, since people realise where you're trying to take us. PS What is the difference between "consensus" and "actual consensus"? (Serious question.) Tony (talk) 08:10, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Thank you; I have not yet been called an anarchist. I will add it to my collection of political abuse: although I cannot be an anarchist, because Wikipedia is not a state.
  • Tony's questions are an excellent list. None of them is what Tony appears to think them, a reductio ad absurdum; they will, if seriously considered, lead to what we actually do everywhere but here: Guidelines are collections of useful arguments, most of which consensus holds to be valid. Their only power is that we don't have to type the guidance over again, and the guidance is often better phrased than a spur of the moment recreation of the same point.
  • As WP:Consensus observes, consensus is often claimed where it does not exist, sometimes by both sides in an argument. I meant, and emphasized, actual consensus, as distinguished from this sort of spurious "consensus". Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:40, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for explaining the third point: it was a stretch to expect that your meaning would be understood without that footnote. As for the preceding two comments, well, I can't make sense of them—they seem to twist and turn and to owe more to the circle than the straight line. Tony (talk) 11:22, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

See also at GTL

Proposed change[1] in See also sections discussed at WP:GTL. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:34, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

Project guidelines

Back in September when we had the discussion that WikiProject guidelines shouldn't be part of WP:WIAFA unless they were part of WP:MOS,[2][3][4] as I recall, the only WikiProjects that had garnered community-wide MOS approval for their Project guidelines were WP:MEDMOS and WP:MILHIST. Both had (or MilHist was going to) subjected their guidelines to community wide approval via posts to multiple projects, Village Pump, etc. In three recent FAC/FARs, I've come up against Project members who believe that Project guidelines trump WP:MOS (see the F-4 FAR, Boeing 747 FAC, although a lot of that dialogue was on my talk page, and now the Transformers (film) FAC, where WP:MOSBOLD isn't being followed.) I see that the film guidelines were added to MOS in September.[5] Where is a the global discussion for the addition of these guidelines to MOS? Was it discussed here? There needs to be some overall guidance on these Project standards before they become part of MOS. Did that happen, for example, for Music and Film? By what process are these Project guidelines getting tagged as part of MOS? WP:MEDMOS was only added after it was posted at Village Pump and over 20 other Projects to gain community wide consensus, for example. Can someone point me to that process for Film? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:10, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

More generally, by what process are we determining that any of the recent additions conform to WP:MOS and have achieved broad consensus for addition to the MOS template? I know MilHist and MEDMOS went through the "process" of garnering broad consensus,[6] but what about others and who is watching this template? Examples in addition to Music and Film:[7][8][9] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Also, can we address the general problem of Project guidelines that may be out of step with WP:MOS by adding to MOS a statement outlining the overall hierarchy, and making it clear that MOS trumps when Projects are out of step? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Very pertinent questions, Sandy. They are all part of an even broader question. Using the term WP:MOS most inclusively, how should WP:MOS be structured, with what range of content, with what process in place for maintenance and coordination, endowed with what level of authority over what pages?
Such a broad question should trump all others at this talkpage because it affects how all subordinate questions are dealt with, and what effect the answers to those questions can ultimately have. If no else formally initiates this dauntingly important discussion, I will. When I have time.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 02:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Fine, but that's a long-term project which ignores the fact that there's an immediate problem. A proper project to address this problem ought to have both long and short term goals I would suggest. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:00, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Malleus, I couldn't have said it better. I have two, soon to be three, FAC/FARs that hinge on this issue, and editors insisting that their Project guidelines "count", even when they are out of step with WP:MOS. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:02, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I agree with both of you. But I for one can't answer your excellent questions, Sandy, and I wanted to explain why I can't. I doubt whether anyone can provide a definitive answer, given the present chaos. Most pointedly: "Where is [the] global discussion for the addition of these guidelines to MOS? Was it discussed here?" That puts the difficulty in a nutshell. As far as I can see, such things are not addressed in any forum that is at all obvious to the searcher. No ready solution presents itself. There is no genuine alternative to tackling the overarching problem.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 03:26, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't agree. I think that a definitive statement that the MoS trumps any local MoS would be both common sense and hopefully lead to a productive debate on why any project would feel it necessary to come up with a different style guide. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:33, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
But Malleus, who is to make that statement? How is it to be arrived at? The question spills beyond the boundaries of any particular MOS-talkpage. Are you sure you disagree with me? I would like definitive statements about all sorts of things, too.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 03:49, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Anyone who is sufficiently WP:BOLD can make that statement.There are no rules. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:03, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Goodness, if it's not abundantly clear that WP:MOS, which enjoys wide community input, trumps over every little group of editors who put together some Project guidelines and may or may not run them by the broader community, the problem is bigger than I thought. I thought this was given, straightforward, but somehow never got stated. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
I really don't envy you in your role as FA director(?), but I do have faith in your common sense. I know that's not much help though. :-) --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 03:23, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
Not director: delegate, proxy, just a helper :-) The problem is that my prose is crappy; can't someone draft an overall statement for discussion? It should be clear to everyone that MOS trumps, but shouldn't we discuss a way to state that here? Noetica or Malleus, both of you would be better at drafting something than I am. No, it won't solve the immediate problem with specific articles, since we need to discuss this addition, but it will get us started. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:44, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
But it should not "trump". No guideline trumps any other; the strength of amy guideline is the arguments and practices it contains; it has no real power that the arguments and evidence would not separately. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:40, 4 February 2008 (UTC)
And this is a recipe for chaos. Whatever "real power", "arguments" and "evidence" you're referring to, Anderson, better that they be expressed in a single place, so we all know where we and WP stands. Would you have the fair-use policy and copyright issues expressed in a multitude of different, competing pages? Would you dismantle the five pillars of WP and let them push and pull each other to bits on competing pages? No, of course you wouldn't, so why object to a rational step to centralise discussion/consensus/objection WRT style and formatting where there is disagreement among MOS pages? Tony (talk) 10:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Oddly, it's how the rest of Wikipedia works, and how these pages worked before a handful of editors claimed ownership of them. Less than half-a-dozen editors ever discuss anywhere which page "trumps" which; and we should ignore the bores here as elsewhere.
Our guidelines proliferate because we have a large encyclopedia to write; they disagree when editors disagree. This is how it should be; claiming a sham consensus is the act of a bully. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:03, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

  • I formally propose, as a first and relatively straightforward step, that where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS prevails. This is the only sane way of organising the Manual. If editors at a subpage disagree with a particular MOS guideline, let them come here and argue it out. This proposal concerns attracting discussion onto this very talk page, where things can be debated and both MOS and its subpages managed centrally where the left and right hands say different things. It is a means of encouraging rational interplay between the groups of editors who inhabit MOS and the subpages. And it is a means of clarifying what is what for the hapless nominators and reviewers of FACs, who might well complain at the moment that they find it confusing. We owe it to WPians, especially newbies, to provide proper, coordinated guidance. I suggest that this arrangement be expressed in the lead of MOS. Tony (talk) 10:25, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
It would be prudent to announce this discussion on the talk pages of the other MOS pages so that their readers are aware of this discussion. Fg2 (talk) 11:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I've done the active ones for the time being. Tony (talk) 12:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
You missed MOSFILM. Do you want me to copy your message over, or will you do it? Steve T • C 16:47, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the spirit but the specialism sometimes need to override the generalisms. Rich Farmbrough, 21:41 5 February 2008 (GMT).
And so it should; who suggested that MOS-central wouldn't change where joint consensus among the custodians of both pages was for the wording on the sub-page? See my example below. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 (talk • contribs) 12:42, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Please support (or oppose), provide brief feedback if you wish, and sign.


  • Support—It's a good first step towards rationalising the chaos. Tony (talk) 10:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support - agree, there is such a rabbit warren of information there has to be a default option at a particular point in time until changes are nutted out properly (in cases of discrepancy). cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 10:29, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support which will become a support should clarification be received. This is a good idea, for the reasons stated by Tony. However, I would like to know if there will be scope in the wording to allow the listing of certain exceptions which individual projects might bring up. A one-size-fits-all approach for different article types is not necessarily the best aid to reader comprehension in some circumstances, and it is that which we should be primarily concerned with. Any such exceptions would of course have to be discussed and approved on this talk page before being implemented on the MOS subpage in question, so overall control would still retained here. Steve T • C 10:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC) I'd envisaged the new arrangement as two-way—that MOS central might very well change to the wording of a sub-page if it suits everyone. Tony (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support – This is an essential preliminary if we want a properly organised MOS, worthy of respect throughout the WP community. Long overdue. The details will need sorting out, as Steve points out above: longer discussion should often be at a subpage first (like the protracted conversations at WT:MOSNUM about the hard space, and about spacing in long decimal numbers). But all matters affecting the substantial content of MOS should come here in the end for final community discussion and endorsement.– Noetica♬♩ Talk 10:58, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Question How does anyone propose to enforce this? Sorry, but if project editors are willing to not adopt the "prescriptions" of a guideline which enjoys "community wide approval" without discussing it here, then adopting a proposal which says "WP:MOS pwns you all!" seems in danger of resembling the act of someone putting on a tinfoil crown and declaring themselves king. Moreover, the wording of the proposal "where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS prevails" appears to go against the very nature of guidelines themselves -- to quote a policy page, "Guidelines are more advisory in nature than policies." Is the advice that WP:MOS offers "Do as we say"? --—Preceding unsigned comment added by Charles Sturm (talk • contribs) 11:17, 5 February 2008
    • "Enforce"? I didn't see it as black and white as that, like houses of parliament rejecting each others' bills. More like a centralised place for consensus-generation, which is what HAS to happen anyway to coordinate policy. And FAC people need to know which one prevails, frankly. It's a serious process that is bound to follow these pages, so ... which one? It's only fair to make it transparent and straighforward, isn't it? And BTW, MOS-central editors don't own MOS or any other pages; all editors are welcome to contribute to debate here, yes? Tony (talk) 12:02, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • To be perfectly honest I assumed this was the accepted practise. Hiding T 13:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Need more examples. Tinfoil hats? MOS discussions are such a guilty pleasure for me, even when I suspect a certain amount of, um, inefficiency. Count me in - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:52, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Question: what are we defining "inconsistency" to cover here? Is it only active contradiction (i.e. the MoS says to to X while another page says to not to do X), or passive contradiction (i.e. the MoS says nothing while another page says to do Y, or the MoS says to do X while another page says to do X+Y) as well? In other words, does the omission of some point from the MoS allow other groups to specify such a point, or prohibit it? And, more generally, are more specific guidelines—as appropriate for particular subject areas—to be permitted, or will "the main MoS doesn't require this" be a valid objection to all of them. Kirill 14:03, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
A great question, and personally I plan to go by the sniff test. If moving a discussion to a sub-page feels like "forum-shopping" to me, then I would tend to support the sense of the main page, whether the sense is conveyed by expression or omission. If the information on the sub-page feels like it really needed to be on the sub-page to be argued properly, then I would tend to respect the more nuanced or more detailed answer on the sub-page, although anything that the main page stated explicitly would still govern, at least if the current consensus holds. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:27, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Only active; see my reply below. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Ok, good; I'm fine with the proposal based on that understanding. Kirill 02:26, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
  • The proposal may give the impression that you're trying to overrule sub-MoSs by stealth. I can understand the argument that a consensus here should trump a consensus at a sub-MoS, but first of all a discussion between the people here and the people at the sub-MoS should take place. I think it's improper to say that this MoS prevails over a sub-MoS before such a discussion has taken place. For instance, I just saw that WP:MOS and WP:MOSMATH disagree over one point: WP:MOS says you can use we in mathematical articles and WP:MOSMATH says you cannot. Looking at the relevant discussions at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 93#Recent edit to "avoid first-person pronouns" and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (mathematics)#Encyclopedic vs conversational tone, it seems to me that the text in WP:MOSMATH has seen wider discussion and should thus prevail over the text here (on this one point) if it's necessary to pick one rule. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 15:00, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong support, absolutely essential to tame the chaos and create a central MoS. We have FACs and FARs appearing that contradict MoS because they are following other Project guidelines. Sub-pages must come into compliance with MoS or propose/discuss changes here. Per Kirill's question, only active contradiction (i.e. the MoS says to to X while another page says to not to do X); passive contradiction (i.e. the MoS says nothing while another page says to do Y, or the MoS says to do X while another page says to do X+Y) is no problem, if those additional guidelines have gained broad consensus from outside that individual Project. By the way, wording was added last week. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:46, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

In the case of a discrepancy between a guideline as stated here and how it's described in one of those sub-pages, then the guideline as stated here takes precedence.

SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:48, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose – a blanket rule as is suggested is not a good idea. As far as possible, sub-pages should follow the conventions set out in MoS. However, I believe the purpose of sub-pages is to deal with specific situations not covered by MoS. In such cases, generalia specialibus non derogant (a general provision does not derogate from a special one). — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 16:24, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Your response contradicts itself; have you read Kirill's query above? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:38, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Thanks for pointing out Kirill's posting. However, I'm still slightly uncomfortable with the wording "In the case of a discrepancy between a guideline as stated here and how it's described in one of those sub-pages, then the guideline as stated here takes precedence." Let me try and clarify my first comment. What I meant is that editors should, as far as possible, ensure that what is stated on sub-pages is in line with the guidelines set out in MoS. However, isn't it possible that there may be situations where compliance is simply inappropriate (e.g., because of certain regional conventions)? I realize it's a difficult to talk in the abstract, but shouldn't any proposed guideline on the matter take that possibility into account? That having been said, the MoS deals with pretty basic matters and not with issues such as how people's names should be indicated, so perhaps the scenario I've posited may not happen too often. — Cheers, JackLee –talk– 17:15, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
No one is suggesting that providing a means to encourage MOS to speak with one voice is going to alter the status of MOS in relation to the project as a whole—not one jot. It will still be a guideline, with the same caveat in the template at the top. The proposal concerns only the internal relationship between MOS and its sub-pages. It seeks to provide a default mechanism for resolving inconsistencies, rather than allowing them to survive unchecked in a way that is unprofessional and smacks of the sloppiness that gives WP's detractors ammunition. Tony (talk) 11:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Weak oppose. I agree with the overall goal, but I'm not sure that this is the best way to get there. I'd support a policy that says "Sub-MoS guidelines should not conflict with MoS; exceptions can be granted through the following process: (add a couple of reasonable steps, like announcing the conflict on the MoS talk page)." I'd also support a policy that says that compliance with a project MoS is strictly optional until it has been accepted by (fill in this blank with a couple of reasonable steps). What I don't like about the current proposal is that it basically says, "When there is a conflict between MoS and a project MoS, even if it involves a technical issue that has never been considered in MoS, please use MoS rules instead of the good sense that the MoS is supposed to promote." WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • So, it sounds like you support the proposal, but want clarification on the wording. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, I'd characterize my concerns as having more to do with the content and application of the proposal than with word choice. I do not support a mindless and absolute preference for one set of rules, especially when we can't predict what conflicts may appear. For example, you will readily agree with me when I say that env is a gene, and Env is the protein it produces. On its face, MoS doesn't approve of following this convention: the name of a gene is not an authorized opportunity for using italics, and it's not clear that Env should be considered a proper noun. I'd be sad to see someone remove the italics from the gene and the capital letter from the protein simply because MoS doesn't accommodate this convention.
Ultimately, where there are conflicts, I think that the specific conflicts should be addressed and resolved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
If you're saying that genes should always be italicized, that is reflected neither at WP:MOS nor at WP:MEDMOS, and you should put up a proposal to get it added to both. Again, no reason for the two to be out of sync. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:40, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
I give this as an example of something which could be reasonably specified at MEDMOS, and which might reasonably excluded from the main MoS page, and which a non-expert might object to as an "inconsistency." If a non-expert actually tried to turn a statement like "env is translated into Env" into the de-formatted "env is translated into env," under the mistaken impression that the Manual of Style approved of producing unintelligible nonsense, then I will certainly propose a formal approval of this convention at that time.
The possibility that more obscure technical conventions will affected by this rule is the basis of my opposition. I would support the proposal if it said, "where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS can be assumed to prevail until the conflicts have been properly addressed on the MoS talk page." WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
So if you discover that inconsistency, you'd probably raise it at both MEDMOS and MOS, suggesting which you think should be changed. Until that time, the MOS wording would prevail. Rather than the ridiculous situation in which the hapless editor doesn't know which to believe, here's inbuilt motivation for all MOS-interested WP's to sort it out promptly. That is the intent. At the moment, there's no such motivation to house-clean regularly, to reconcile, to cross-talk at both pages. The proposal has in mind the fostering of a collaborative culture—a sharing of expertise—among MOS and sub-page editors. It's not an attempted power-grab or coup d'etat. The striking thing about MOS and its plethora of sub-pages at the moment is how litttle the experts talk to each other; this should be of concern to all WPians who yearn for a cohesive project. Tony (talk) 11:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I would oppose the proposal if it said "where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS can be assumed to prevail until the conflicts have been properly addressed on the MoS talk page." The MOS and subpages should agree on their face; readers shouldn't have to search through years of talk page archives to see if they actually agree, even though the plain text disagrees. If the details of a certain style issue are too complex to repeat in the MOS, it could contain a statement along the lines of "see Wikipedia:Manual of Style (medicine-related articles) for rules concerning italics in medicine-related articles." --Gerry Ashton (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Agree with Gerry. WhatamIdoing, First, we're extending into unreasonable hypotheticals; as one of the main writers of MEDMOS (along with Colin and a few others), I can assure you that it conforms with MoS and was subjected to broad community consensus before it was added to MoS, and will conform with MoS as long as we're watching it. In fact, it may be the only subpage that was subjected to that consensus, and that is the concern (that other Projects have not). If you want genes italicized, I encourage you to bring it to MoS for broad consensus. There should be no problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I can't find any indication of genes being italicized in any FA, so this is a good example of why centralization is needed. Do you have a sample? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Strike. This is already part of WP:ITALICS, so I don't know what the discussion was about. MEDMOS doesn't contradict MoS, and MoS covers it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support per Sandy and Krill's discussion. Also, people who declare themselves kings stopped wearing tinfoil crowns years ago. The latest fashion trends dictate that they wear aluminium foil crowns! Unless they're poor, then they just steal the paper ones from Burger King. —MJCdetroit (yak) 20:01, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support, but ... As a matter of logic, the main MoS should state the general guidelines for style to be used throughout Wikipedia; sub-pages should elaborate on specific guidelines. Therefore, if this proposal passes, any editor would be justified in deleting or changing any material on a sub-page that contradicts anything in the main MoS. Indeed, in my opinion, logic dictates that this would be so if this proposal had never been made. Still, logic notwithstanding, I have a few practical reservations.
    • The Wikipedians who regularly edit particular a sub-page tend to be individuals with special expertise in the the sub-page's topic. The attention given to a sub-page's topic on that sub-page is generally more focused and thorough than the attention given the same topic on the main MoS page. Therefore, one could argue that, for topics that are treated on a sub-page, the main MoS should summarize the main points of, and should conform to, the sub-page. This would be analogous to an article that has a section about a topic that is treated in its own article, often introduced with {Main} template.
    • Unlike a real (pardon me: I write from the perspective of a former editor of an academic journal) style manual—that is, one that is prescriptive, is systematically revised every several years rather than haphazardly modified every few minutes, and is actually followed by those publications that profess to adopt it—inconsistency among the pages that comprise the Wikipedia MoS is inevitable. Here, a relatively small number number of Wikipedians are extraordinarily active on the MoS pages. Some edits, including significant ones, are made without discussion. Where there is discussion, a so-called consensus on some point may be based on fewer than five non-unanimous expressed opinions. While it would be nice if those who revise some part of the MoS revise other parts that treat the same point, not all Wikipedians are this conscientious. So our MoS understandably, and for the same reasons, mirrors the inconsistency throughout Wikipedia articles, where subsections of several articles will treat a topic that is the subject of its own article, often inconsistently with one another and with the main article.
    • If this proposal were adopted, who would police it? It is unrealistic to believe that adopting a new guideline will affect the behavior of Wikipedians. Could the time that would have to be devoted to maintaining consistency of sub-pages with the main MoS page be invested more productively in improving Wikipedia articles themselves? Indeed, how much time should be devoted to refining the MoS, given that most Wikipedians ignore it when editing articles? Finell (Talk) 20:26, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
      • MoS is not ignored at WP:FAC and WP:FAR, and it is enforced on featured articles; clarity is needed in those cases where individual Projects have put guidelines in place, supported by a few editors, which disagree with the main MoS page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:35, 5 February 2008 (UTC) Further, for examples of Project guidelines which did gain widespread support from outside their Projects and do conform with the main MoS and do contain specific guidelines which go beyond MoS, see WP:MEDMOS and WP:MILHIST. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:36, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
I know that MoS compliance is considered for WP:FAs; that represents a tiny percentage of Wikipedia and Wikipedians. Consideration of WP:GAs pays some attention to the MoS, but less rigorously. Personally I devote a large proportion of my edits to Wikifying and to copy editing. Still, my statement that "most Wikipedians ignore" the MoS is accurate, unfortunately. As for the projects, their enthusiasm for following the MoS, or even knowledge of it, is mixed. Articles within Wikipedia:WikiProject Architecture largely ignore the MoS. Math articles largely ignore Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics), especially the section on Writing style in mathematics. Finell (Talk) 00:50, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Support. I'm slightly concerned that someone may use a strained application of a rule in the main MOS as justfication for making an inappropriate edit to a subpage, when a reasonable reading of the main MOS is that it really does not apply to the situation. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 21:51, 5 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Sure, but this can happen at the moment. Tony (talk) 11:54, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose as above; the force of a guideline consists solely of the cogency and general acceptance of the arguments in it. If MOS is weaker in either aspect (and it is not impossible for it to be weaker in both) it should not prevail; and it cannot make itself prevail merely by saying so. If it can, then any obscure guideline can prevail against it by the same method. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:13, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
If I can make out the twists and turns in your comment, Anderson, if any part of MOS lacks cogency or general acceptance, it's up to the editors to argue it out, as has always been the case. As I've stated above, the proposal has no effect on the status of MOS a propos the rest of the project, and will make no difference to the push-and-pull gradualist mechanism that characterises all of WP. It is, if you like, a matter of disciplining ourselves, within MOS and its sub-pages, to interact more often and more productively. The default prevalence of the main MOS page is simply more practical than a default that a sub-page should prevail. The expectation is that inconsistency will be short-lived—and certainly not be allowed by the custodians to persist for long periods as now, simply through neglect. We do need to work more as a team on MOS and its sub-pages: it's as simple as that. Tony (talk) 11:55, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    • This entire violation of our guideline policy is provoked by the silly claim that every jot and tittle of a MOS page should be binding at FA, whether it was intended to be or not, whether it represents more than a couple of cranks or not. The easy way out is to stop saying that. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:17, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Question: I don't come here often so I am not familiar with MOS main contents, or with its discussion page. It would help me form an opinion if some examples were provided of inconsistencies that are causing concern. It would be particularly helpful if the examples could be discrepancies with WP:MOSNUM, with which I am more familiar. Thunderbird2 (talk) 07:44, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
As far as I can make out, the precipitating concern is that MOSFILM has declared that the names of actors and the characters they play should be in bold text in all film-related encyclopedia articles, and everyone who is not part of the film-industry project is horrified to see text formatting rules derived from celebrity column stylebooks, as if Wikipedia were just another promotional opportunity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:36, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Thank you WhatamIdoing. I think the main page should contain general principles, with details thrashed out in the sub-pages. Mostly I would expect the details to clarify the principles, in a manner that is consistent with the main page. But I would also expect to find the odd exception, and I think the best place to spell out exceptions should be the sub-page not the main page. Like Rich Farmbrough I find myself agreeing with the principle but questioning the details. It's tempting to sit comfortably on the fence, but on balance I oppose the proposal. Thunderbird2 (talk) 23:05, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Actually, that's not the precipitating concern at all. The current situation is that any Project (say six or eight editors) can put together some Project guidelines that contradict the overall WP:MOS guidelines and consider them part of MOS, without gaining broad community consensus. The proposal is designed to make sure that Projects attempt to conform with MOS, or bring exceptions to the broader community for input. Otherwise we have chaos, as Projects consisting of a small number of editors can contradict the community consensus that MoS enjoys. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:12, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
Just on a point of fact, WhatamIdoing, while some interpretations of the guideline have resulted in difficulties recently, MOSFILM does not actually conflict with the main MOS on bolding. Steve T • C 00:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I have doubtless been incomplete, but your note at the top of this discussion (immediately above the proposal) specifically names the discrepancy between the rules on using bold-faced text as stated in MoS and in MOSFILM (which, IMO, does not officially exist, precisely because it is low-consensus subversion standard MoS rules) as an example of the kind of problem that needs to be addressed. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:43, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
And, as Steve correctly points out, MOSFILM doesn't contradict MoS. The question is a general one, since everybody and his/her brother can add random guidelines to MoS unless we put something in place to govern the chaos. MEDMOS submitted to at least 20 projects and Village Pump; since then, other Projects have randomly added guidelines, and we have no means of making sure they have attained community consensus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose - whatever practices are widely accepted should be followed, and the guideline which does not reflect the commonly accepted practice should be modified to conform. Christopher Parham (talk) 03:32, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
If the content of Wikipedia articles as a whole (not just the better ones), rather than the content of the MoS, determines "whatever practices are widely accepted", then the answer is that no practices on which reasonable minds can differ are widely accepted, and there are no guidelines to which the MoS can "conform". If there is any place for prescriptivism on Wikipedia, it is in a style manual. If that degree of prescriptivism is inconsistent with Wikipedia's culture, then at least the MoS should reflect some consensus on best practices to which Wikipedia should aspire. Finell (Talk) 02:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
If indeed its impossible to get a widely accepted consensus on this issue, then we won't be able to have rules. It wouldn't hurt the MoS to become 95% shorter. One of the problems with this page is that its content has historically been controlled by people who like making rules for their own sake; unfortunately that spirit is detrimental to the growth and continuing success of Wikipedia. Christopher Parham (talk) 04:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose in the strongest possible terms. This frankly looks like a power grab by the sort of folks who hang around the MOS. Tony, this is frankly reprehensible. Even if the proposal passes I intend to ignore it entirely, because the people likely to oppose it are, naturally, not likely to be here. --Trovatore (talk) 02:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Please work on WP:AGF; this proposal was likely precipitated by me, not Tony, since contradictions in MoS pages have arisen at FAC and FAR. Since consensus isn't determined by "votes", do you have a logical reason to oppose some sort of coordination of sub-pages and the main page? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Whoever "precipitated" it, Tony "formally proposed" it. Personally I don't care much about FAC and FAR or the other dens of wikiwonkery, as long as they stay out of the hair of the mathematics articles. But I do say that if mathematicians and non-mathematicians disagree on a style point for the math articles, the mathematicians should be listened to. --Trovatore (talk) 02:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I think the proposal should be read as, if the MOS and a subpage disagree, the MOS prevails, but if those knowledgable about the subject matter of the subpage don't like the MOS, they can gather a consensus and either change it, or put in an exception for certain subject matter. If we consider the case of mathematics articles, what about the case of an editor who knows math, but seldom if ever publishes in math journals, so is not familiar with the finer points of math style. This editor takes the trouble to read the MOS, but doesn't notice that a MOS for mathematics exists. As things stand, he might follow the general MOS. If there was coordination, he would find a warning that he ought to go look at the mathematics MOS for certain style rules. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:08, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Which they can do by coming to MoS, to make sure both/all are on the same page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:12, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, this strategy that Trovatore uses every time is to launch into a personal attack on me and accuse me of power-grabbing every time I'm involved in proposing a change. It really is childish. I could play the same game with him, but I wouldn't bother. Perhaps he says that he intends "to ignore it entirely" because people tend to ignore him entirely. It's perfectly plain why they do. Tony (talk) 08:08, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree with Trovatore 100% and strongly oppose this "formal proposal." Policies and ArbCom decisions span all of Wikipedia -if a policy says "do this" we do it, no matter where we're working. Style guidelines are the exact opposite. The MOS tells us wonderful things about how to style articles, but there is no uniform format for Wikipedia - things like section headers are written "Like this" not "Like This." But the MOS is a general guideline - it gets refined and adapted to whatever region of Wikipedia we're talking about. Am I qualified to speak on the MOS? No, not really, I don't contribute to it, I'm not 100% familiar with every aspect of it, but it is not something to be enforced throughout the land of Wikipedia by decree of the MOS-regulars. I assume that is not the intent, but that's what this "formal proposal" amounts to, as far as I'm concerned. I'm extraordinarily surprised that people even use the term "enforce." If the MoS disagrees with another guidline (let's not forget, these are guidelines), it's not a moment for MoS people to flex their muscle and "enforce" anything. In fact, if the project, subject-specific manual, or local consensus disagrees with the MoS about how to deal with issues related to that project/manual/locality, then there's something wrong with the MoS, not the other way around. --Cheeser1 (talk) 04:04, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I'm curious at how far off-topic these comments are going, and the reluctance to address the core issue. If three different subpages of MoS or the main page of MoS say three different things, which do our editors follow? And by what process that a small group of editors, say a dozen, turn a page into a Guideline if there is no consensus gleaned via, for example, Village Pump? There are currently subpages of MoS that have never gained community consensus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:09, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • They use their judgment. The MoS has a role to play, but there are those here who want to go too far in supplanting the role of the judgment of individual editors. --Trovatore (talk) 04:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • That doesn't answer the question or address the issue. What stops ten different groups of editors from having ten contradictory guidelines, right hand not aware of the left? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Is that rhetorical? I'll assume it's not and say that they would follow whichever is most specifically applicable to the article in question (with flexibility - something else that this "proposal" seeks to abolish). If that cannot be immediately determined, the issue should be discussed at the artlce's talkpage. I don't understand why this convoluted "formal proposal" was made, but it looks alot to me like declaring absolute power to a guideline. It doesn't make any sense, and it continues to inform alot of people who work in specific fields/projects/whatever on how the MoS is used or will be used by people foreign to those areas. --Cheeser1 (talk) 04:17, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Manuals of Style are supposed to reduce flexibility, but not to the point that it becomes impossible to express a thought, or to the extent that expressing the thought is much more difficult than if the MOS were ignored. The goal is to make different articles look like each other, so long as doing so does not prevent or impede the expression of thought. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 04:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, up to a point. There is a role for the MoS, as I said. But the MoS is already pretty near that point, and may be past it. Further attempts to extend the reach of the central MoS strike me as a shift of power from the experts on content to the process wonks. When this shift is proposed by those very wonks themselves, it is not out of line to point out that they are not disinterested parties. --Trovatore (talk) 04:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Every professional writer will be aware that their work has to conform to the style guide of the publication that their work is to appear in. The purpose is not to "reduce flexibility", but to increase consistency, for the benefit of the readers. Remember them? BTW, you ought not to be "expressing your thoughts" as you put it, you ought to be writing encyclopedia articles, which by definition express the thoughts of others. Think about it. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 04:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I think Malleus Fatuarum is the first one in this thread to use the phrase "expressing your thoughts" [emphasis added]. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gerry Ashton (talk • contribs) 04:52, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Clearly I wasn't the first, as I was quoting. If you have a point to make about anything that I have said, then I must admit that I am yet to understand it. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 05:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • My point is that Malleus Fatuarum misquoted me. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 06:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose as worded. I offer a counter proposal: If editors find a discrepancy between the MOS and one of its subpages they should bring the issue to the talk pages of each to hammer out the differences and build a consensus. I think this addresses the issue at hand without the appearance of "power-grabbing". -- Fropuff (talk) 04:57, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I think Fropuff's idea is pretty good. --Trovatore (talk) 05:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm more interested in examples than in yes/no. Trovatore, can you think of something done in math articles that you wouldn't want to bring up to the entire community of MoS editors, for fear that they will try to overrule and override you? (Hm, I guess if the answer is "yes", you wouldn't want to say. Okay, warn me, at least :) - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:58, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose per PMAnderson above. In matters like this, you can lead people, but you cannot drive them before you. Wishing that it were otherwise will not make it so. -- Dominus (talk) 06:22, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. A manual of style offers guidelines, which must be interpreted applied with common sense. The aim in having a manual of style is to make the encyclopedia easier to read for our users. In specific cases common sense may dictate that not literally following the guidelines serves that aim better. Often, when the more specific guidelines of subpages appear to contradict the guidelines of the main page, the reason will be that in the specific circumstances covered by the the more specific guidelines, the latter do a better job of serving the purpose of readable presentation of the information. Making it mandatory that all such cases be added as a rider to the main page will only result in making that page unreadable, like a legal contract with lots of clauses and small print.  --Lambiam 06:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • No, the page doesn't change; the subpages are linked in a template, just as they currently are. Do you have other objections? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    If the page does not change, it would (under this proposal) continue to trump the subpage and nothing would change.  --Lambiam 18:05, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment Unfortunately, the time, energy, and vehemence devoted thus far to this argument exemplifies the third reservation I expressed above in casting my Support, but ... vote. First, it is logically indefensible that the main MoS and a sub-page should contradict. Logic aside, what's a poor, conscientious newbie supposed to do when the MoS taken as a whole contradicts itself? Second, there are sub-pages and there are sub-pages. That is, some sub-pages elaborate guidelines in the main MoS (e.g., date and numbers, links, text fromatting, citing sources); there is no conceivable argument for inconsistency for this type of sub-page, although inconsistencies do arise through inadvertence. Other sub-pages deal with particular types of articles (e.g., biography, math). At the Wikipedia-wide level of generality that the main MoS addresses, logically there should be no contradiction between the main MoS and a topical sub-page. The math sub-page should not promote guidelines for heading capitalization (one of clearest, most widely accepted, and also most violated guidelines) or use of italic that contradicts the main MoS. On the other hand, for stylistic matters that are unique to a specialized topic (e.g., punctuation within mathematical expressions), there is no occasion for inconsistency and the wonks on the main MoS page need not be consulted. Third, it is pointless to try to make order out of the chaos of Wikipedia, because the proponents of chaos are numerous and vocal. Finell (Talk) 07:51, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Did you read Kirill's post above? I'm sorry this was set up as a "vote" and not a discussion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Re what is a newbie (or an oldbie for that matter) supposed to do upon seeing an apparent contradiction: what's wrong with talking to someone, rather than trying to find another rule to follow in cases of contradictions? It may not be a contradiction after all, or it may indicate a problem with one of the guidelines that needs fixing, neither of which will be uncovered by blindly following rules. And if it really is a newbie, how do we expect him or her to know about the rule describing which guideline to choose from? —David Eppstein (talk) 08:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Why not clean it up in the first place? None of us would put up with inconsistencies within an article. We'd all, to a person, scoff at inconsistencies between an in-text statement and a reference cited in support of it. Why do we object to a simple measure for default resolution in our style guide, which will only ever be temporary until the inconsistency is resolved by getting together and talking it through. That is what any self-respecting publication or organisation strives for: mechanisms that encourage self-correction through collaboration, not chaos by neglect. Tony (talk) 12:13, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
        • If it's a temporary measure I switch my 'oppose' to weak support, but I would like to see a clearly identifiable end-point, so I know when it's safe to dip my toe back in the water. Thunderbird2 (talk) 12:49, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, but some clarification along those lines is clearly needed.
    1. There should be a distinction between subpages of general applicability (abbreviations, dates and numbers, capitalization, and the like) and subpages of more limited scope (Anime & manga articles, Japan-related articles, Latter Day Saints), with the former as a group generally being controlling over the latter.
    2. More specifically, for those parts of the main MoS page which include a Main article cross-reference, that subpage should be controlling in some sense, but not necessarily as proposed here, over both the MoS main page and the specific-topic subpages, for the scope of that section of the MoS. It would be pretty good to go why what has the "Main article" pages now, but it would be reasonable to review that if a breakdown of these lines is given a more formal recognition as being part of the main MoS, and it would be helpful to include more cross-references on the main MoS page to the other subpages which are not "main articles" on the topic.
    3. I think it would be helpful to have a discussion page devoted specifically to perceived conflicts between the MoS and its subpages. Or maybe conflicts between a "core MoS" group of pages of general applicability vs. the special-topic pages also connected to the MoS.
    4. There are some rules that could maybe be specifically identified in some way as controlling over special-topic guidelines, but not all the details associated with the rules on the MoS page and the examples shown deserve the same treatment.
    5. The ever-changing nature of all these pages are a factor that needs to be taken into consideratino. Not all of the rules presented on the MoS at any one time have been put there due to general support. Gene Nygaard (talk) 08:10, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Wikipedia is not a bureaucracy. While I sympathise with SandyGeorgia and others that inconsistencies between MoS, its subpages, and WikiProject guidelines cause problems at FAC, this is not the answer. This "first and relatively straightforward step" is nothing of the sort. By declaring that one guideline trumps another, it goes completely against community principles such as Pillar Five and WP:What Wikipedia is not (policy). The solution is to stop taking MoS so seriously: it is just a style guideline, for goodness sake, to be treated with common sense. I'm quite shocked to hear editors speak of "enforcing" it: guidelines are advisory. I'm also surprised by the changes to Template:Style-guideline: we should not be using the word "breach" to describe not following a guideline! Guidelines reflect consensus, they do not determine it: their applicability comes entirely from the consensus they reflect. MoS carries greater weight only to the extent that it reflects greater consensus.
Discussions at FAC should be based on what improves the article and hence the encyclopedia, not on Wikilawyering between different guidelines. If there is a conflict between one MoS guideline and another, the solution is to go back to Wikipedia's policy on improving the encyclopedia: either apply a little common sense, or quite possibly, if two style guidelines conflict, then perhaps it means that the difference doesn't actually matter. Geometry guy 10:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment on "subpages". To refer to the guidelines on Wikipedia with "Manual of Style" in the title as subpages of this page already begs the question. The actual subpages of this page are are all proposals, surveys or redirects. An alternative viewpoint is that the various manual of style guidelines on different issues are the manual of style, and this page is just a summary of some general points. For instance, pages such as WP:MEDMOS and WP:MSM are quite independent guidelines on stylistic issues that arise in medical or mathematics articles. They are not subpages of this page and I see no consensus for the recent edit to {{Style}} to suggest that they are. Geometry guy 12:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Fine, GG. It's good that you have pointed it out: the term subpage has been used in two different senses. That's just a small part of the confusion that arises when things are never given a clear explicit structure, and never clearly and publicly named. That's the very sort of confusion the present proposal begins to address, though a huge amount more would then need to be done. A related ambiguity: as the template at the top of the page has it, the various "subsidiaries" (or what you will) are included as a part of MOS:

This guideline is a part of the English Wikipedia's Manual of Style.

Not a subsidiary at all, but a part. Yet when we refer to MOS we often mean just WP:MOS, and paradoxically the wording in the template does that as well, in a way.
All very mixed up. Reading through the analyses above, I am not convinced that people understand just what a mess we have on our hands. Even if you are entirely laissez-faire about adherence to Wikipedia's Manaual of Style, surely you'd want it to be a coherent, readily identifiable, and hierarchically organised body of text, wouldn't you? It's useless otherwise.
– Noetica♬♩ Talk 13:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Indeed. The mess should be cleaned up. But this cannot be done by fiat. Simply declaring the mess gone will accomplish nothing of value. -- Dominus (talk) 15:32, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm particularly impressed by Geometry Guy's negative, Gerry's affirmative (although perhaps more relevant generally than to math in particular), Trovatore's negative, and David Eppstein's invocation of WP:instruction creep. I have great sympathy (and a little fearfulness) concerning Trovatore's point that he expects bad things to happen when someone comes to the MoS community and says, "Our little community at Wikipedia has always followed the following policy and needs this exception to MoS rules in order to engage and appeal to our readers". So, what's the track record on questions like this? Is he right? I don't think his concern should be dismissed or outvoted; I would appreciate examples, and lots of them.
But on the other hand, what makes Gerry's argument so compelling is that policy questions at Wikipedia work by consensus or don't work at all...we can't solve any problem with Balkanization. We all know that manuals such as the Chicago Manual of Style are already regarded by even professional journalists as being so large that it's not reasonable to expect journalists to know all the material...that's what copyeditors are for, is the consensus. We also all know that (our) MoS and related pages don't have the luxury of being as compact as even the Chicago Manual of Style, because we can't simply say that "this is how it should be done" in a self-satisfied way; we must admit that we live in a world of people with various abilities who follow various usage rules, and we must be as inclusive as possible because we need as many people as possible to help us work on our encyclopedia. Therefore we don't have the luxury of restricting the question to what's best, we must constantly ask what is acceptable, how far tolerance can stretch, what is practical. But, as the kids say, ZOMG: that means that even in the best possible world, MoS and related guidelines would be an order of magnitude larger than a body of knowledge that professional journalists already consider to be an order of magnitude larger than what they can be expected to know. Gerry is pointing out the obvious: if we compound this problem by having subcommunities go their own way without debate or acknowledgement, on the grounds of being pessimistic about ever getting consensus, then we've just added a third order of magnitude to the number of rules that conscientious people would need to read to know what to do read, or worse, to intuit on their own, in order get a good feel for what everyone is doing and why. Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:07, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
P.S. I'm also impressed by Noetica's comment just above mine - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:11, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
P.P.S. I also want to point to Tony's comments in font=brown above. I really like how Sandy and Tony have defined the goals. What I'm taking from the negative arguments is that they know from experience, or predict, that certain things will go wrong. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Interestingly, most of the opposition to a coordinated MOS (at least seven that I count so far, maybe more) is coming from the Math Project, who has also in the past sworn off of GA because of differences they had over guidelines and policy. It's unfortunate that one Project (for reasons I'm not aware of) would stall coordination on MOS, where we currently have a situation allowing for multiple, contradictory guidelines. I didn't know Tony1 had planned to put this up for a "vote", and would have preferred we hammer out some wording first, since many people reading this proposal don't appear to understand the proposal and don't appear to have read the discussion. Specifically, pls see Kirill's query early on in this section. I'm not sure how we should handle one Project stalling aims to better coordinate MOS; perhaps the proposal should be withdrawn, wording should be hammered out, and we should approach a broader audience via Village Pump. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:46, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't think any of us are opposed to coordinating the MOS with its subpages. I think we can all agree that this is a good and noble goal. We are opposed to the notion that the MOS should automatically trump the subpages. This is just the wrong way to go about things. When discrepancies are found they need to be addressed and resolved. Maybe the subpage is right or maybe the main page is, but this can only be determined by a discussion and a consensus. I think the proposal under discussion has enough opposition to withdraw it for now. -- Fropuff (talk) 18:31, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
While I disagree that opposition from one Project constitutes broad opposition, I still feel the proposal was premature in that wording hadn't been hammered out and discussed, and one Project appears to have overreacted and misunderstood the issues. For those reasons, I suggest withdrawing and re-approaching a broader audience when wording is ready. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
I confess to being a bit taken aback by some of these comments from you, Sandy. First, this is not a vote, it is a discussion to determine consensus on a specific proposal (there are no support/oppose sections and arguments are preceded by bullets, not numbers). What counts in such a discussion is weight of argument, not numbers of editors, or where they "come from". This last is rather difficult to define anyway, as most editors work on a variety of different things on Wikipedia. Were you counting me as "coming from the math project" for example? Whether you were or not, your comment that the math project "has... sworn off GA" is incorrect and irrelevant to the present discussion, and borders on being the project equivalent of an ad hominem argument. :-)
Anyway, I guess we can pass over this: I agree with your main substantive assertion that this proposal is poorly worded, and your suggestion to withdraw the current proposal and rework it. If a proposal can be put forward which addresses the perceived problems of inconsistencies without violating basic principles of Wikipedia policy and without referring to one guideline "prevailing" over another, then my arguments against this proposal would immediately become invalid. Geometry guy 19:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose per WP:NOT#BUREAUCRACY WP:CREEP. Individual manuals of style are tailored for a reason. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:47, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • More than anything, this is a question. I can see where the Math project is coming from, but could we have some examples? I'm on the fence on this one, and I could be persuaded either way. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:24, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Tito, look at this section and the one right below it. A simple guideline that could be covered at least on four different pages, creating potential for contradiction/confusion. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I see you fixed the ArticleHistory template, but I'm not sure which section I'm supposed to be looking at... Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • grrrr ... darn new laptop/touchpad. Link fixed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:34, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Actually, that example gives me even more pause. You can have four pages that prescribe different treatments to the same text, correct; but that doesn't necessarily mean that the proper way to treat this conundrum is by making the MOS the prevalent page, elevating it to the level of policy. An alternative way is to treat the MOS subpagesmanual pages as the normative recommendations, with WP:MOS being the summary of those recommendations. In a way, that would transform this page into more of a portal or introduction page to the Manual of Style. But even then, the way this proposal is worded is just too ambiguously to accept. So, oppose for now. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 20:21, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't disagree with your reasoning. Wording might have been hammered out via discussion before this turned into a "support/oppose vote". The idea is that we need a method for coordinating all these pages. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Paul, do you consider it CREEPY that we currently have a system where we could have as many as four pages (in one example given below) covering the same guideline, and perhaps contradicting each other? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:01, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes having pages contradict each other is a problem. But it is a problem better solved through discussion and consensus than rules. Paul August ☎ 21:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • So the next question is how we even bring those situations to light if we don't have some sort of central coordination, whatever we label it, however it's handled. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • The entire Wiki experiment is based on the virtues of decentralization of power over centralization of power. Paul August ☎ 21:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • OK. Why do you consider consistency in style guidelines a "power" issue? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:37, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I have an idea to address the issue. See below. Geometry guy 21:53, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Consider a "sub-page" of MOS as inheriting (in the sense of OO) from the general to the specific. A general guideline, meant to be broadly applicable, can and should be over-ruled by a specific guideline formulated for a particular area; just like slowing for school zones on a road that generally supports a higher speed limit. Mathematics, for example, has very hoary ancient traditions about typography (such as the restriction to single-letter names for everything, obliging the use of multiple alphabets and typefaces) which can't, and should not, be consistent with more general style guidelines. Of course I don't mean to imply that the current (spaghetti bowl?) system of MOS articles is hierarchically organized, but we want to allow for development in that way. Pete St.John (talk) 20:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Did you read Kirill's post at the top of this proposal? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:30, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Strong oppose. What PeterStJohn said. There is no way to write down universal rules that will cover everything that can arise in a work as large as Wikipedia. The only way to structure things reasonably is to have some general guidelines that give good results in most cases, and supplement them with more specific guidelines about cases where unthinking application of the general guidelines lead to bad result. This proposal seeks to forbid such and organization; it says that no matter how necessary and well thought out an exception from a general rule in a particular context may be, the general rule must still take precedence. Under such a system, all special-case exceptions need to be stated at the same time as the general rule; this will make the guidelines impossible to read, impossible to edit, impossible to maintain, and impossible to disucuss. It will be a disaster. –Henning Makholm 22:36, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Another failure to understand the proposal: in fact, the proposal seeks to coordinate the very structure you describe. Obviously, there is a problem with how the wording has been put forward here. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Did some vandal remove a negation in the proposal, or flip words to make it say something else? Right at the moment it reads: "where there is inconsistency between MOS and its subpages, MOS prevails." This says in clear and plain English that subpages cannot define exceptions to general rules in the superpage, because in that case the superpage will still prevail. –Henning Makholm 22:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Which I think is perfectly correct. Someone introduced the OO analogy earlier, not entirely correctly, but to take that one step further it is for the superclass to say what may be overridden by its subclasses, not the other way around. The superclass must always prevail. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 23:15, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Consensus is what prevails, not subclasses, superclasses, subpages or whatever. As I pointed out above, MoS does not have subpages. It doesn't have subclasses or superclasses either. Geometry guy 23:27, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

CONCLUSION: The proposal fails for lack of consensus. Finell (Talk) 23:50, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

  • CONCLUSION: The proposal will eventually pass, but many "opposes" appear to be under a misapprehension; clearly this needs more discussion, which should take place here, now. Tony (talk) 02:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
    • Tony: Don't patronize. Finell (Talk) 05:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
      • Tony: How do you come to that conclusion? The only real support came at the beginning, from hard-core MOSers; as time goes on I expect more opposition than support. By my count there are more than twice as many !votes opposing than supporting. This is more than lack of support; this verges on consensus to oppose! CRGreathouse (t | c) 14:16, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
      • "Eventually", I said. In any case, many of the opposes appear to come from little empire-builders on MOS sub-pages: those who have ownership issues and are here to protect their patch from what they fear is an encroachment on their agendas, without bothering to think through the larger issues. Tony (talk) 14:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
        • Funny, the issue strikes me the same from the other side: the MOS minority seems to be making a radical move toward encroaching on everyone's agenda, while each project simply wants to be left alone. As for eventually... 90% of the support (literally, count the !votes) came in the first 12 hours, while more than 90% of the !votes in the several days since have been for opposing the proposal. Discussion is good, dicta bad; monolithic style document bad, interlocking encyclopedias good. CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:06, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

(Feel free to move this around, this section is already 66K.) Okay, so we're back on. Affirmatives: you never presented your best argument, the order-of-magnitude argument: it's simply impossible for someone who considers WT:MOS to be their "hangout" to simultaneously keep up with all usage guides, but it's not impossible for someone who feels primary connection with a specialized usage guide to keep up with at least WP:MOS, and possibly also WT:MOS. For reasons I gave earlier, this would be a completely unreasonable burden to put on WT:MOS editors, and therefore it's only appropriate to put the primary burden on proponents of the other (I think we've all learned not to say sub :) guides to bring discrepancies to everyone's attention. Negatives, you gave solid general principles, but they generally relied on distrust of the people who hang out at WT:MOS...that is, there was generally implicit the idea that if you did what I just said, and always brought up discrepancies to the WT:MOS guys, bad things would happen, since you know more about your subject area and they wouldn't be willing to admit that or step aside. Well, where is the evidence that that has happened? I don't doubt that you have some, at least looking at it from your side, but your argument would be strengthened considerably by presenting it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:24, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

On the very contrary, it would be a staggeringly unresonable burden to put on WP:MOS editors and readers, if that page had to spell out explicitly every little special-case exception to the general rules that has been found needed. Exceptions for special cases belong on the subpages that treat those special cases. A policy that voids any exception that is not stated on the main page will prevent any reasonable attempt to keep the MOS well structured. This is not about power or influence, it is about allowing the MOS to be structured in a readable way at all. –Henning Makholm 21:04, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, particularly the current wording. Trying to invest central authority to one arm of the multi-limbed manual of style is both impractical and conflicts with our understanding of what a guideline should be – something to be treated with common sense, and not as a prescription; moreover, it's certainly not clear that WP:MOS would be the natural place in which to invest such authority, were we capable of doing so. While, I understand there are concerns about inconsistencies between different MOS guidelines, and with practices in at least one mentioned project, the way to address this is via discussion, and not by decree. (FWIW, some kind of task force/project to focus on style inconsistencies sounds a more practical solution to me.) --Sturm 11:59, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Another example of an Oppose which supports the principle aim of the proposal; the only way to discuss the differences among the many subpages is to have a mechanism where we even know when those differences exist. Asking the main MoS page to go out and find differences in dozens of guideline pages isn't feasible; asking those Projects to come to a central place and discuss differences when they exist is more practical. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:23, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose. These are supposed to be guidelines, not a legal system where some laws have precedence over others. Consistency is good but can be achieved through normal means. --Itub (talk) 12:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, if I'm not too late. Sometimes one branch of knowledge uses a different style to the rest, either for sound reasons or just by historical convention. I feel that listing exceptions to MoS on a sub-page is a good way to document that real-world inconsistency. However, I would support a gradual review of the sub-pages to flag entries that contradict MoS. Each flagged point can then be justified (retained and marked as an exception), removed or even promoted with cross-discipline consensus to replace a weaker MoS entry. Certes (talk) 15:15, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Yet another example of someone entering an Oppose who actually supports the ultimate goal of coordination among the pages. Asking MoS-main to review and keep up with scores of pages isn't practical; asking those pages to come to one central place to assue coordination when differences existed is what the proposal was about. A large number of the Opposes actually support the overall aim of coordination of the chaos, confusion and contradiction that reigns on multiple pages. The problem is in the wording and groupthink of people who don't seem to have understood the aim of the proposal. It's revealing how many of the Opposes are actually Supports in principle. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:20, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • If that's the case then close the vote and come up with a reasonable proposal. A proposal can be disagreeable even if the aims are agreeable. For an example, see A Modest Proposal. :) --Itub (talk) 15:26, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Yes, I'm supporting the noble principle of consistency between pages but opposing the details of the proposed implementation (or at least my understanding of it). Certes (talk) 17:02, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Oppose, for a reason that no one else has directly invoked: WP:COI. Both the opening remarks in the project and every word that has followed supports the thesis that there are some people who feel ownership of MoS issues (and don't get me wrong...with very good reason, and I'm glad they've done all the work they've done). These people got annoyed that other people weren't listening to them properly, and introduced a proposal to force them to listen. WP:COI (certainly the spirit of it, anyway) predicts that what will follow is exactly what has followed, and it suggests a solution: disinterested parties have to take up both the pro and con debate. I oppose this proposal for that reason, and I will oppose any future proposal on the same subject that is either introduced or principally argued by the same people, for that reason. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
To clarify: I was in fact supportive at the very first, then agnostic...it seemed to me that there were "people" issues, but this was a debate and those issues needed to be ignored to get the right answer on this important question (which is the tip of the iceberg of larger questions of who should listen to whom, and when, and for what reasons...you really stepped in something here, guys.) Today, I've reached my limit. The legitimate concerns of the many, many negatives have all been dismissed as irrelevant and as coming from a single cabal. There is insufficient reasoned debate here, and we all have lives.
Sorry you've "reached your limit", but the problem of multiple pages with contradictory information will persist, and those who have more patience will have to continue to find ways to address it. Since you've pointed out that you will oppose any further efforts to do, should we consider your future input as pointy? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I got angry when I read that but I hope I am more motivated by the big picture now. What I think I'm doing here is working on exactly the problems that I'm having at WP:ROBO. The problem relevant to this discussion is, there's a big display of which articles are FA, GA etc. on our front page that I haven't been able to talk Jameson into moving (and I'm trying to avoid an early edit war). I kind of naively (arrogantly is more accurate) assumed that I'd be able to get up to speed on these issues quickly and get back to work...and btw, yes I don't have much time now for MoS issues...but what I'm finding is a quagmire. As you admit right from the start, there are a lot of WikiProject people, and I'm finding, a large majority of technophiles, who say "meh" to MoS issues, with the result that (take this with a grain of salt, I really don't know yet) their articles may not make it into Version 1.0 or Veropedia or be featured on the front page, but more than that, they may feel like they've just been given a low grade in school, and leave. Note that I have not had any direct experience with the GA/FA process and I certainly don't know what I'm talking about. But all this rancor is really leaning me in the direction of saying "Anyone who cares about MoS issues here (at WP:ROBO), other than the designated masochists, will be shot."
Sandy, in the response you just gave me, you made two big mistakes (given that it was clear that I was referring to you and Tony and not anyone else...I hope that was clear, guys, I think MoS people in general are wonderful), illustrative of exactly what I was talking about. I totally understand if you were speaking out of anger, so you might want to go back and change what you said, before I use that to illustrate my point. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:33, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Anger? References specifically to Tony and me? WikiProject issues unrelated to MoS? I'm sorry Dank, but I have no idea what you're talking about, but if it's anything specific to either Tony or me, then please take if off of this page and onto individual talk pages where it belongs. To bring you up to speed, no FAC has ever failed because of MoS issues as far as I know, so no, that is not the issue you make it out to be. If the personalization of this entire discussion, a needed one, continues, we may need to ask a previously uninvolved admin to watch over this discussion and help keep it on track. The issues still need to be addressed; I regret that proposed wording wasn't worked out before "voting" took place, leading many to Oppose when their comments show they support the principles raised. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:25, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Because I feel strongly about the connection between my own project and these issues, you are right, Sandy, and I shouldn't be arguing here any more. Also, not for Sandy and Tony because they probably won't hear it at the moment, but for anyone else unfortunate enough to read all of this, do not use any of this to claim that I think that there is anything wrong with Sandy or Tony. Wikipedia has been built on the backs of people exactly like them (dare I say, us). However, as happens so often on WP, you and Tony have gotten too close to the issue, and this discussion has every one of the elements of other discussions that I've read that were closed down for COI reasons. What I was referring to above was, I said that you and Tony (everyone knew who I meant) probably should step aside for COI reasons and let other people argue the point. You said that that meant that I was violating WP:POINT...that is, any resistance to you and Tony was equivalent to disrupting Wikipedia. That's not the case, there are other people who can argue this, without accusing the negatives (who are in the majority) of all being misguided, cabalish spies and saboteurs (including on my talk page, I think the inference was clear, Tony). - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:17, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

P.S. It would be totally fair if you dropped into a discussion at WP:ROBO sometime in the future, when I'm sure I'll feel as attached to my project as you are now to yours, and get me thrown out of a discussion on grounds of WP:COI :) - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:32, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

  • This discussion really isn't going anywhere. The proposal was rushed in, poorly worded, and then received some opposes that failed to assume good faith. Extending the discussion is just making matters worse, with more opposes and rebuttals dividing editors rather than helping to address the issue: Finell (who supported the proposal) attempted to close it last night, and I think this attempt was in the spirit that the discussion was going nowhere. I mistakenly backed this attempt up, because I think it is the only way we can move forward to address the issues raised: it was a mistake because there is no WP:IT'S ABOUT TO SNOW, and because there is much personal energy invested in this.
But it doesn't change the fact, that as predicted, this discussion is still going nowhere. Sandy suggested closing this discussion yesterday: if she had done so, I would have supported that. Hence I welcome her "New Start" thread below. Geometry guy 20:47, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to close discussion

The use of term sub-pages, in retrospect, may have unfortunate. However, everyone understands that the MoS includes all the pages that have been referred to here as sub-pages, so the problem being discussed arises where any page of the MoS contradicts another MoS page (including but not limited to the page named Wikipedia:Manual of Style). And it is a problem, regardless of how one feels about bureaucracy. Further, it is factually incorrect to say that the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page itself is just a summary of the other MoS pages: some matters treated in the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page are not treated elsewhere in the MoS. However, even without adopting a new policy, editors can and should edit MoS pages so that they are consistent with one another, just as inconsistencies elsewhere in Wikipedia can and should be fixed. For example, if something said in Nicolaus Copernicus were to contradict something in Heliocentrism, editors should fix the contradiction when they discover it. Those Wikipedians who find inconsistencies within the MoS pages can and should harmonize them, always with discussion at all the involved pages to achieve consensus on the best solution to the contradiction. Time would be better spent doing that than in continuing the necessarily abstract argument here. Let's please close this discussion or proposal and get back to improving Wikipedia, including its articles and its MoS. Finell (Talk) 18:39, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal to close the discussion, and also agree that "summary" is not an accurate description of this page (I described it as an alternative viewpoint, not an accurate one). I would urge you, however, not to make analogies between guidelines and articles. There's been a whole load of trouble over at WP:LEAD recently, caused partly by one editor insisting that WP:LEAD should be written in accordance with WP:LEAD, despite the fact that WP:LEAD is a guideline for writing articles, and WP:LEAD itself is not an article. In this case, if something said in Nicolaus Copernicus contradicts something in Heliocentrism, then editors can consult reliable sources to resolve the contradiction, and if reliable sources are contradictory, then both articles should discuss the disagreement in accordance with WP:NOR. However, neither WP:RS or WP:NOR apply to guidelines, so the process for resolving disagreement is entirely different. As you say, it is called consensus. Geometry guy 20:28, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
On the other hand, the flat-out refusal of the people editing the Wikipedia:Manual of Style page and the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) page to follow, on those pages, the universal rule that symbols for units of measure are never italicized, is a serious detriment to the credibility of both of those pages. That is especially true when Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting), Wikipedia:Manual of Style (mathematics), and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers) itself all state the very rule which a few editors refuse to let these two MoS pages follow. Gene Nygaard (talk) 16:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Was closing the proposal some kind of joke? It was open for two days and active discussion was taking place. --Malleus Fatuorum (talk) 00:21, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject MoS?

I have been struck (in a good way, I hope) by the following exchange, which I quote from the proposal discussion above.

  • Yes having pages contradict each other is a problem. But it is a problem better solved through discussion and consensus than rules. Paul August ☎ 21:03, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
  • So the next question is how we even bring those situations to light if we don't have some sort of central coordination, whatever we label it, however it's handled. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:14, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, what do we normally do when we need to provide a mechanism to coordinate editors of multiple different but related pages? How do we provide central coordination, communication and discussion without centralizing authority?

Answer: we form a WikiProject. So how about WP:WikiProject Manual of Style? Not associated with any individual guideline, and with no more authority than the consensus it reflects, is something like this not the right Wikipedian way to find and discuss inconsistencies between individual MoS guidelines? Geometry guy 21:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)

Projects are good, in principle. Centralization of discussion is good. Consensus is ideal. However, the MoS is already treated as a project. Each MoS page is a project page, with an associated Talk page. If a new project would help coordinate the MoS pages and would be a means to consensus, fine. If, as I suspect, it would become another sandbox for the denizens of the MoS pages to have another place to argue at each other, then a new project is a bad idea. As I proposed above, further argument (that is all it is) is getting nowhere. We don't need another guideline and we don't need another project. What we need to do is go out and fix whatever inconsistencies exist among the MoS pages, resolve specific differences of opinion by consensus, and PLEASE STOP THIS USELESS ARGUMENT ABOUT ABSTRACT PHILOSOPHY NOW! [Notes to other editors: (1) Talk page posts need not conform to MoS text formatting conventions. (2) Yes, I am shouting.] I intend to refrain from further discussion of this topic. The proposal for a new guideline obviously fails for lack of consensus and should be closed. End of discussion, PLEASE! Finell (Talk) 23:43, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
NO! IF WE HAVE NO PHILOSOPHY, WE DON'T KNOW WHY WE ARE WRITING A MOS. DOCUMENTS WHICH HAVE NO REASON TO EXIST ARE ALMOST ALWAYS CRAP! --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I'm both sorry and surprised to the see the hard feelings. I left a nice message of support on Tony's page, and got this in return:

I don't know what to make of your strong expression of support when I see a similar posting on the talk page of this Geometry person, who has just tried to sabotage the whole process. Very strange behaviour on your part. Tony (talk) 00:19, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

So...once again, from the top. I was not aware that there were two "camps", because no one told me (and I still don't have convincing evidence that that's true. Not all of the negatives came from mathematicians...I had reservations, for instance...and all the negative comments seemed, and seem, perfectly sensible, even if the lack of examples was unhelpful). I pointed out Tony's 3 comments in brown...how could anyone not support those? I pointed out Geometry Guy's two comments, no one disagreed, they added important relevant facts to the discussion, why should I not support that? And sure enough, GGuy has continued to think hard and carefully about the problem, and said that my support and input was helpful. Now, exactly what sin was it I committed? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 01:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC) Actually...let me rephrase, that sounds like I'm lobbying for support, and I really don't care. What I would like is for you guys to acknowledge that this problem is really very hard, that was the entire point of my argument...as in, the amount you have to know in order to feel really comfortable with all the issues that would form the "facts" (if this were a trial, which it's starting to sound like) is 3 orders of magnitude higher than journalists are generally willing to put up with. Isn't it possible that people are simply not understanding each other, rather than trying to blow each other up? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 01:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Sensible remarks again. I'm also somewhat taken aback by the heatedness of the discussion. This is another reason why I think a WikiProject might work better: WikiProject talk pages tend to encourage a more constructive spirit of discussion than guideline talk pages (again, recent experience at WP:LEAD). I don't see two camps here, more a spectrum of opinion, ranging from supporters of the proposal as is through to some downright distrustful opposition. In between there are a great number of editors who do not support the proposal exactly as written, but agree that there is a problem here that needs to be addressed.
No one seems to have addressed my comments or similar comments about the nature of guidelines; that may be because they are so firmly grounded in community policy and principles that there is little one can say in response. I'm sad when ad hominem arguments individuals and projects fill the void when arguments of substance remain unaddressed.
The proposal above would not have to be modified a great deal to line up better with community policy. On the other hand there may be better alternatives, and a WikiProject is one which has merit, I believe. Geometry guy 09:00, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I could go either way on this proposal, Gguy. On the one hand, I'd oppose having yet another place where MoS issues are discussed, as these discussions are already all over the place and there are limited numbers of people who might want to keep up with the maintenance chores of running a Project. But if having a Project would lessen the perception of ownership at the main MoS page, it could help.

What I am opposed to is the red bold font shouting above, see WP:TALK, avoid excessive markup, would be nice if it was removed by its authors. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:29, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Sandy, and I also objected to all the font shouting yesterday: it made me see red :-). I think a WikiProject could be good both for perception, and for organisation. I had some additional comments in response to the assertion above that "the MoS is already treated as a project." I suggested then, why does it not have a project page? I find it unsatisfactory to use the talk page of a guideline as a project page: some of the recent discussions here are not focussed on improving the content of WP:MoS, which is what talk pages are for. If this is a project, then where do we list the participants and their interests? At the moment, they are inferred in discussions, and not always in a particularly helpful way. And wouldn't it be a good idea to have central place to list MoS issues, such as contradictions between the various pages in the MoS fleet? A project page would provide a place to do all of this, and more. Geometry guy 21:04, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Well ... getting down to brass tacks, who is going to initiate and manage the process of getting that Project up and running? You're up to your eyeballs in work, so is Tony (and considering the ownership accusations leveled at him, he can't do it anyway), and I can't do it (COI). I'm worried about the practical. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:12, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I'll have more time soon, and would be willing to help with wiki-gnome-like activity. As it would be a WikiProject rather than a guideline, I don't see any real COI issues: the ideal would surely be to make the project inclusive. I also think that if there were consensus here that such a WikiProject would provide real benefits, then actually, rather a lot of people would want to be involved. Geometry guy 11:26, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

New start

I prefer that my commentary not be chopped up, so respectfully request that others respond below my sig. I'll number my paragraphs in case others find that makes responding easier.

1. Reading the proposal section above, I see agreement in principle even among most of the Opposes, and disagreement largely over wording that may have been premature. The discussion also sidetracked into personalization of the issues; I hope that will stop so we don't need to request an uninvolved admin to assist. There are still issues to be resolved; I hope we can find some areas of agreement so we can move forward.

2. Since my initial post here apparently initiated this imbroglio, what brought me to this discussion to begin with? I helped in the crafting of the medicine guidelines; at one point, the guideline tag was removed, we were told it was an essay, and we were told we had to submit to community-wide consensus before the page could be considered a guideline. We submitted to over 20 other Projects and the Village Pump and gained broad consensus before we added the page to {{style}}. We made sure nothing in the page contradicted WP:MOS, or we came to MOS to work out areas of disagreement, and we crafted a page that didn't cover territory already covered at WP:MOS, rather addressed only issues specific to health-related articles. I am not saying this process is correct, I am not proposing this, but I am pointing out that we were apparently subjected to requirements that other pages have not been subjected to, so there's inconsistency. I have been surprised since to find that other pages are added to {{style}} without being forced through those hoops as we were. So ...

3. The current situation is that a group of six or eight editors can get together, put together some guidelines that don't enjoy broad consensus and may contradict multiple other pages, and add them to {{style}}. There is no means of coordinating these pages. For example, ship naming conventions could be covered under WP:MOS, WP:ITALICS, WP:MILHIST, WP:SHIPS, WP:Shipwrecks and probably others I'm not aware of. For example, a new essay was added just yesterday, and there was recently a strange split of the pages in {{style}} that makes no sense to me and appears to be undiscussed. There are currently almost 70 pages listed on the Style template; there's no way any one editor can know how many of them contradict each other, unless we can find a way to get them to come to a central discussion point. Several examples of contradiction, or potential for contradiction, have already been posted on this page.

4. It appears that several of the WikiProjects that stay in sync with the main MoS page, or work to iron out differences at talk (example, Medicine, MilHist and Film, there may be others) haven't opposed the proposal, while other Projects or individuals who may be in conflict with MoS or individuals who edit MoS have opposed. Just an observation.

5. Another observation is a few editors deprecating MoS or scoffing at it; the heated discussion here argues that we need a coordinated means of resolving these issues, and that they do matter to a lot of editors.

6. Asking any given set of editors who monitor MoS to attempt to coordinate the pages isn't feasible or practical, considering there are over 60 pages. Asking those pages to come to some central location to iron out differences when they become aware of them seems to make more sense, and offer the best way of keeping "big brother" out of each Project (that is what happened at MEDMOS).

7. There seems to have been confusion about the scope of the proposal, addressed very early on by Kirill, but ignored by many subsequent Opposers.

Question: what are we defining "inconsistency" to cover here? Is it only active contradiction (i.e. the MoS says to to X while another page says to not to do X), or passive contradiction (i.e. the MoS says nothing while another page says to do Y, or the MoS says to do X while another page says to do X+Y) as well? In other words, does the omission of some point from the MoS allow other groups to specify such a point, or prohibit it? And, more generally, are more specific guidelines—as appropriate for particular subject areas—to be permitted, or will "the main MoS doesn't require this" be a valid objection to all of them. Kirill 14:03, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

This needs to be ironed out, but I agreed with Kirill that it was the former, not the latter (which is exactly what MilHist and MEDMOS do).

8. There was also some apparent confusion about the featured article process. To my knowledge, a FAC has never failed strictly on MoS issues, but given the amount of heat and passion we've seen in this discussion, and that the number of potential contradictory pages is growing, the potential for this kind of imbroglio to land at FAC is only growing. My motivation is to iron out a way to coordinate pages and resolve issues before one lands at FAC. I don't care what the procedure is, as much as I care that we have something, because the issue isn't going away.

9. I request that Tony consider tagging as closed the Proposal section, so we can reorient the discussion and attempt to craft some new wording, but also agree that it was earlier closed prematurely without his discussion or input, considering he is in a time zone that may be significantly different than the rest of us. I also ask that others refrain from personalizing any further discussion, and consider the big picture. We have almost 70 pages added to the Style template, and no means of knowing how many of them contradict each other.

Based on these points, and having the attention of a broader audience now, can we re-orient the discussion to finding areas of agreement? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Care to give examples of #4? Actually I'd like to see many examples of conflicts between the MOS and individual manuals of style, but in 4 you seem to be railing against a small group of projects, and I'd like to know more before commenting further. CRGreathouse (t | c) 19:58, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
No, I don't really care to engage the discussion by overly focusing on any given Projects or individuals; I've already said I think we should avoid personalizing this, and focus on the big picture (the potential that exists for chaos, confusion, contradiction among conflicting pages). I pointed out some examples of Projects that work to stay in sync with the main MoS page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

You have pointed out that quote by Kiril several times now. It doesn't make much sense to me. What is the difference between "main page says do X, subpage says do Y" and "main page says do X, subpage says do X+Y"? I cannot see any difference between the two except an editorial choice of what one chooses to abbreviate to "Y", yet you seem to say that one is okay and the other is not?

And you're completely ignoring the most common and necessary case of inconsistency between the main page and a subpage: Main page says "do X", subpage says "do X, except do Y in such-and-such special case". Is that supposed to be forbidden or not? I cannot overstate how disasterous it would be if such all such inconsistencies were declared to default to the main page. It would make it absolutely, utterly impossible for the main page to be useful to editors if it had to enumerate all the little special-cased exceptions that will be needed in a work with the scope that Wikipedia has. –Henning Makholm 21:18, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The reason it matters is that many of the opposes appeared not to understand the distinction drawn by Kirill. I'll give a hypothetical example of the two scenarios you question, intentionally keeping it as trivial as possible, and (partly) fictional:
A. Active contradiction: main page says italicize the names of genes, MEDMOS says do not italicize the names of genes. This would need to be ironed out, as an active contradiction. Your example of subpage says "do X, except do Y in such-and-such special case" can and should be discussed and added to the main page, so we don't have contradiction. But the main page doesn't know the contradiction exists if the sub-page doesn't bring it to attention. You seem to be saying there are many of those, but I'm not aware of more than a few (discussed on this page). Do you have examples of specific situations where those exceptions actively contradict the main page of MoS?
B. Passive contradiction: main page says hierarchical section of headings subject to certain guidelines about how those headings are formed, MEDMOS suggests specific headings particular to health articles, as this helps assure comprehensiveness. This sort of passive contradiction (main page says X, other page says X + Y, is fine). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:34, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
What about "main page says italicize the names of genes, MEDMOS says italicize and bolden the names of genes"? Is that "active" (with X="italicize", Y="italicize and bolden") or "passive" (with X="italicize" and Y="bolden")?
Since you respond to my question about the common (and necessary) case of contradiction by specialization under case A, I tentatively presume that you do want do forbid that. It looks like I will have to continue opposing, then. I hold it to be completely impossible to expect the main page to list all special cases. It would make the general principles completely drown in exceptions; such a main page would be completely useless to a new editor who just wants an overview of the general principles. And what would we even need subpages for, if everything had to be stated on the main page anyway?
You ask for examples: Every case where a subpage considers a question in greater detail than the main page has space for, and identifies particular situations where the quick rule on the main page would lead to bad results, is an example. To point out particular examples one by one would be counterproductive, because each individual example I were to point at could conceivably be folded into the main page without much damage. It is folding all of them at the same time into the main page that will bring forth disaster. –Henning Makholm 21:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
(Later) Oh, wow, it's been a while since I actually looked at the main page. It seems that the disaster has already happened. That does not make me support a proposal to formally forbid un-disasterifying it, of course. –Henning Makholm 22:27, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I've identified why I am against MoS over-ruling subpages, and perhaps why some others don't share my views. I think the best approach depends on the quality of the MoS and particularly of its subpages. If they are felt to be (and remain) an unruly mess of contradictory opinion then having MoS keep them in line may well be the best practical solution. On the other hand, if they are (or can become) a coordinated work of higher quality then there are advantages to allowing subpages to take priority.

In my ideal world, MoS would contain general guidance useful to most editors. Subpages would have two functions: to cover matters omitted from MoS due to their narrow scope, and to document rare local exceptions to MoS to reflect real-world differences (where one discipline consistently does things differently from the rest of us). This would cause occasional conflicts and give a good reason for resolving them in favour of a relevant subpage. Everything else would be covered once only, with a few judicious links to help us find our way around the content.

I am wondering whether others share this vision and, if so, how close we are to that level of quality. If the aim is misguided or simply unachievable, what do you feel is a realistic target? This question may seem like a nebulous diversion, but I think it needs to be answered before WP can sensibly decide on more detailed matters. Certes (talk) 18:19, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

We are very far from that level of quality. MOS is a collection of tendentious opinions, each opinion having some handful of editors who would like to see it control all Wikipedia; so are many subpages. Fortunately, these pages don't really matter, despite the hysterical cries of "chaos, chaos" any time the system is threatened. What matters is consensus on actual pages; we have too few controlling editors to actually tyrannize. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:56, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I like Titoxd's suggestion: "An alternative way is to treat the MOS manual pages as the normative recommendations, with WP:MOS being the summary of those recommendations." CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:52, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
    • How does this resolve the problem that Sandy is identifying, where the MOS pages contradict each other without people being aware of it? I think it's perfectly acceptable to expect editors from other MOS pages that want to contradict WP:MOS to drop a note here and discuss the issue. On the other hand, I would also expect that when WP:MOS is changed in a way that clearly affects other MOS pages, the editors of the relevant MOS pages are warned and given a change to comment. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 21:25, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

[copied at Sandy's and Tony's talk pages] An apology here is appropriate: I want to thank people for being supportive recently. A week ago when I was arguing here, I was under the impression that I was making a useful, if clumsy contribution. I now understand that having passion in no way gives me permission to make accusations about Sandy and Tony, and I'm sorry about that. I have agreed to stick to writing boring, factual articles here and to start a blog as an outlet for my passion. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

In my view, your contributions here have been valuable, primarily because they show you have read and thought about the comments by other editors, and have assimilated multiple viewpoints. Apologies are always appreciated, but we all make mistakes, so the real distinction is between those who are willing to admit to their mistakes and/or apologize for the them, and those who are not. I hope that your apology will be well appreciated, and that you will continue to contribute here rather than censor yourself. Geometry guy 21:33, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
Being new to this one (I just posted a contrary opinion about the "editorial we" in the math MOS subarticle) I skimmed around just now regarding the apology above. I note this item (italics denote the copied material):
To me this is an example of my suggestion that if two guidelines do not line up on a minor issue such as this, then it probably means that the issue is unimportant to article or encyclopedia quality. As it happens, in this case, that is essentially what MoS-central says (it permits either approach). But also MOSNUM only implicitly rules out the other format. If this is the kind of issue that causes problems during FAC discussions, then FAC needs to think seriously about its priorities. Geometry guy 19:48, 7 February 2008 (UTC)
Keep your dirty hands off the discussion section and this section that needs independent resolution, Geometry. What a hide, thinking you can walk in and do what you like at almost no notice. Tony (talk) 00:14, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm sure I'm missing something from the context, but after skimming several items along similar lines (particularly, not addressing content specifics), this juxtaposition struck me vividly. It's not plain to me that all appropriate apologies are forthcoming. Pete St.John (talk) 22:18, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I made a mistake, which I acknowledged at the bottom (currently) of this thread. I was upset by the thread you quote, but suggest that any other apology issues are best resolved on user talk pages, not here. Geometry guy 22:36, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
I'm concerned about certain kinds of intimidation tactics getting under the radar. It would seem the wrong person was bullied into an apology, but of course, y'all want to address content issues here. Good people trying to ignore bad behaviour let's too much bad behaviour pay off, IMO. But I have my own problems to deal with; here I just wanted to advocate "we", and incidentally call a spade when I happen to see a spade. Pete St.John (talk) 22:45, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I was very upset at Geometry's action, and I overreacted, as I often do when stressed out at what people do (you must be used to it by now). I'm assured by someone here that I should be collaborating with him, not taking an adversarial angle. I was perplexed by Dank's seemingly contradictory stances on talk pages, but in the storm I may have got it wrong. I second Gimmetrow's advice to him. It's unclear whose behaviour PeterStJohn is calling "bullying" and "intimidation"; not mine, I hope. I don't go around squeezing apologies out of people.
The proposal to bring sanity to the structure of MOS and its sub-pages appears to have brought out lots of ownership attitudes surrounding the sub-pages, and consequent outrage that anyone could suggest that the main MOS here should have precedence, even if only as a fulcrum for dealing with inconsistencies. It's very sad that the current structure has atrophied, and that those who propose change are labelled with such words as "power-grabbers". Tony (talk) 14:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I don't go around doing that either, but I appreciated these comments very much. Anyway, it is definitely time to move on and work together to address the issues.
I agree that there is a genuine problem that needs a solution, and ownership and/or percieved ownership issues have been getting in the way of solving it. In my view, the best way to sidestep these ownership issues is to place the fulcrum for dealing with inconsistencies in a neutral place. I have suggested one approach: a WikiProject for MoS. I think it has potential, and I think it might work, but it needs to have support, and it needs to have its scope discussed and elaborated here. It is also not the only possible answer, and there may be other suggestions. All ideas are welcome! Geometry guy 22:28, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
So it's an idea worthy of consideration, but my concern is that any central location will simply be taken over by those who favor a detailed and assertive (or meddlesome, depending on your POV) MoS. They have a natural advantage because they're more interested in that sort of thing; those of us who oppose it also tend to find the whole thing tedious. So I lean against a central location. I might be persuaded if there were firm guarantees that the relevant WikiProjects would be scrupulously notified in the event that an inconsistency had been identified. --Trovatore (talk) 22:52, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
That's not workable; a Project shouldn't/can't go out and survey daily 70 sub-pages. They should come to a central point when a discrepancy needs to be resolved. The other problem with the way this was approached is that, in attempting to achieve consensus, Tony notified the very Projects who are likely to have ownership issues; a wider audience should be sought via a more neutral forum like the Village Pump. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:56, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
A Project doesn't need to involve itself with 70 "sub-pages". The math project is unlikely to be interested in a discrepancy involving, say, the MoS page on ships. But if an inconsistency involving MOSMATH is being discussed, then the project should be specifically notified. The ownership issues go both ways here -- frankly I see them more from the other side, with the MoS regulars being at least equally guilty, perhaps more so. Obviously this is a "where you stand depends on where you sit" kind of thing. --Trovatore (talk) 23:07, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Going in circles again; a main MoS page doesn't know if there are discrepancies on 60 or 70 other pages unless those pages self-identify when there's a problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:13, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
Why does it need to? My rule of thumb would be, if the problem doesn't come up, then it's not a problem --Trovatore (talk) 23:15, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
You two are talking about different issues, though. Sandy is concerned with damage control; Trovatore, with actual resolution. You could get away with something like:

In cases of inconsistency between the main Manual of Style and a subsidiary guideline, the inconsistency shall be resolved by [... add stuff about cross-notification, etc. here]. Until the resolution process is complete, the version in the central manual shall be considered the canonical one for the purposes of any process which requires a binding Manual of Style.

which would allow you to make the process as complex as it needs to without impacting the short-term matter of which version should be followed at FAC. Any articles temporarily switched to the "wrong" version can be switched back post-resolution anyways. Kirill 23:27, 13 February 2008 (UTC)
I would support that if you removed the last sentence, because I believe that declaring one version effective by fiat would make an effective, consensus-based resolution less likely. (In the same way that protecting a page can often inhibit resolution of a content dispute because the party whose version is protected has little incentive to discuss.) In the mean time I don't believe that the absence of a clear guideline would have a materially detrimental effect on FAC. Christopher Parham (talk) 00:07, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

(←) I really hope we can move on from the ownership/perceived ownership issues. Perception does indeed depend on where you stand, which is why I do not distinguish between ownership and perceived ownership in my comments. Both are a distraction.

The advantage of the WikiProject approach is that a WikiProject page is not a guideline. If a WikiProject fails to notify WP:MSM about an issue which is relevant WP:MSM then it is shooting itself in the foot, not excluding WP:MSM. In other words we need a system which not only makes parts of the manual of style accountable to the manual of style as a whole (by which I mean the totality of MoS pages, not just this page), but also a system which ensures that the coordination of the manual of style is itself accountable to the consensus of all of its satellite pages. Geometry guy 23:31, 13 February 2008 (UTC)

I do wish Trovatore could move on from his us and them mindspace, which I see as the root of the problem in the first place. Just why he thinks that this page itself wouldn't resolve to the wording of a sub-page at least half the time is beyond me. No, instead, he prefers to set up and maintain an adversarial, insular frame: that is what is preventing MOS and its sub-pages from achieving harmony. Along with Anderson, who seems to encourage inconsistency (under some circumstances—see above), this makes reform far more difficult than it ought to be among intelligent, adult, cooperative editors.
The problem at the moment is that there is no formal motivation for resolving inconsistencies: look at how many inconsistencies there are—clearly, we're not doing a good job at coordination. WPians out there may be the most likely people to come across inconsistencies as they consult MOS and the sub-pages. I can think of no better way than notice from a user that there's an inconsistency, prompt advice from a sub-page requesting MOS central to either change its wording or negotiate the issue, and in the meantime, a mechanism for WPians to be advised in one way, not two conflicting ways, at any one time. Sandy is quite right to be alarmed at this situation WRT to the hapless FAC nominators, who deserve better than this. But no, apparently this is enough to threaten ownership. I suppose this scenario arises because Travatore and friends conceive MOS here as bound by walls, an exclusive club of insiders. But that would be of their own making, since anyone, including them, is welcome to contribute here, occasionally or regularly, just as you should not object if others contribute to sub-pages. It's not only sub-pages of MOS that suffer from this: there's one person in particular who acts as though he rules the Naming Conventions policy page—most unpleasant and unWikipedian. Why the fractured little empires? Tony (talk) 13:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

(de-indenting because I'm not replying to the last two posts) I agree with Christopher that there are two issues here. Firstly, if an inconsistency is discovered, then we need a way to discuss and resolve it. I don't care where this happens, but if it's an inconsistency between, say, WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM then obviously editors on both pages needs to be warned. Secondly, the FAC process apparently needs to know a specific rule at every point. I'd say that this is an issue for FAC; if they decide that they will follow WP:MOS in case of a contradiction that's fine with me. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 14:30, 14 February 2008 (UTC)

From the above discussion it appears that there are cases where specific MOS's deviate from guidelines in the generic MOS for valid reasons. A way to signal this would be to refer to the specific MOS from the section in the generic MOS that is modified. This should become a strongly recommended rule. Interested editors could go have a look and start a discussion on the talk page of the specific MOS page. How's that for a procedure? −Woodstone (talk) 15:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)