Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 98

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Frenzy of unilateral alterations today

MOS relies on consensus for changes. I request that the user who has been making numerous changes to the page desist and raise the matters at talk first. TONY (talk) 05:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Are there any substantial changes editors need to know about at FAC? And what became of the long thread about italics in headers? I've never understood correct usage on that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
What's at issue? Seems simple to me: Do it for titles or other things that must be italicized, do not do it for emphasis, as headings are already self-emphasizing. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:Good Article Usage

The conflict between Sept and Tony has moved to WP:ANI; I think it would be a good idea for all of us to own up to the fact it's not just the people who are being loudest about the MoS disagreements who are the problem; we're all complicit, if we aren't dealing with the problems. I'd like to begin with two quotes from Albert Einstein: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler", and: "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." This is not going to be easy; it's going to require good faith, intelligence and hard work.

It's obvious that some style practices on Wikipedia are unwritten, but commonly followed. Let's call this usage. Even though usage sometimes means rules, it has more of a flavor of the way things are actually done in a language community. But there's a trap: if we start a page where we attempt to describe a wider range of common usage than is mentioned in WP:MoS, people will change their usage to bias the outcome, and you don't need a lot of experience with Wikipedia to know that, in about two seconds, you'll have people writing articles on "bastard Slobovians" in an attempt to make "bastard Slobovians" the standard usage when referring to Slobovians. Even when attempting to describe common practices, there has to be some level, some bar, below which we're not interested in the data. When WP:Flagged Revisions comes in, we'll have new data mining tools that might conceivably be useful, but until then, the only candidate I can see for a waypoint between stubs and Featured Articles is Good Articles; anything less than a Good Article just has no mechanism to avoid manipulation by people trying to bias usage rules. As a bonus, if someone is really intent on bringing "bastard Slobovians" into common usage, so intent that they're willing to write something that might pass a WP:GAN on the subject, we can always delete the "bastard" and keep the benefit of another Good Article.

So. We have style guidelines, and we have unwritten folk wisdom, and unfortunately, these unwritten ideas vary tremendously depending on the background of the editor, the perceived level of maturity of an article, and the standards of the various wikiprojects. Put another way: there are changes that WP:Wikignomes are willing to make to articles even when the editors haven't invited comment, because they're pretty sure that they're doing the editors and the readers a favor and that the changes will be welcome, and there are changes that they won't usually make, even though WP:MoS has a particular recommendation. The first few changes I made to Robot were suggestions I read about in WP:MoS, and that turned out to be a mistake. It was immediately assumed by several of the editors that I was being officious (even though the changes weren't particularly intrusive or idiosyncratic) and that I didn't know what I was talking about; it took a lot of work to overcome that perception. I think we will do everyone a favor, and especially ourselves, if we make an attempt to describe the difference between style rules that are "best practice" and style rules that are "good enough" for the Wikipedia community. The scientific method underlies everything in Wikipedia ... hypothesis, data collection, summary, building on that ... and there's no exemption for style usage. The fact that trying to describe the whole world's usage of the English language, as reflected on Wikipedia, is impossibly hard, is no justification for the kind of behavior described in WP:BIKE.

I apologize for mentioning specific people, especially if I've got this wrong, but I think it might be helpful. In my view, Sandy has a perfectly reasonable and consistent view of Wikipedia. She knows that Wikipedia is judged, in part, according to how closely the best articles conform to some set of style guidelines. This is a shame, but anyone who reads a lot of newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books knows that we live in a sea of well-written trash. The "well-written" part is not optional, even if it is very hard to nail down. Even poorly written blogs have a hard time surviving as public discourse; a poorly written encyclopedia is a disaster.

Geometry Guy also has a perfectly reasonable and consistent view of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been written largely by the masses. Well-paid writers (academics, journalists, politicians, etc) have, until recently, been absolutely sure that the unwashed masses would never be able to produce anything that mounted any serious challenge to their dominance of the public sphere. Well, the unwashes masses kicked their asses, on the web in general, but especially in Wikipedia. If we want to keep kicking their asses, it is essential that Wikipedia remain Wikipedia: it must accept articles which are "good enough", and rely on the mob to slowly improve them. Any style guidelines which serve as a barrier to participation should be ignored to whatever extent is necessary to get the job done.

I don't see any way to keep the marriage between these two points of view alive, and since both viewpoints are absolutely valid and correct, what's needed is a divorce. I suggest that WP:MoS be retained, maintained and improved as a tool and an expression of the former viewpoint, and a new page called WP:Good Article Usage be created in order to express, in a way "as simple as possible, but not simpler", the conclusions of people who follow the latter viewpoint. The double meaning is intentional; as I said, I think the focus on what's good enough for a Good Article is necessary, and I also mean "good" as in "not perfect". As Voltaire wrote, "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien": the best is the enemy of the good. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(copied from my talk page: note that I'm injecting this, not G-Guy:) That's an interesting thread you started at MoS. As in any good marriage, Sandy and I have frequent rows, but rumours of a divorce have been greatly exaggerated. Unless there is something that Sandy is not telling me... :-) Good luck with the thread: you may need it! All the best, Geometry guy 18:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I thought of so many caveats and "what-ifs", until I gave up and decided to just field the questions as they come. I specifically picked you and Sandy because you both respect each other and are both widely respected; I am definitely not talking about a divorce between you and Sandy. I am saying that there is enormous tension these days between the two viewpoints, on talk pages and in wikiprojects. In a sense, I "feel" for Tony and Sept; they may be the loudest proponents of their views, but to some extent, they are expressing the conflict that we're all participating in. (Please note: I am not saying that either Tony or Sept, or anyone else, is either "loud" or "crazy"; if that sentence didn't make sense, please ignore it.) The bottom line is: even if it's difficult, it can't be a bad thing to try to be honest about actual Wikipedia practices, and it might bring clarity, reduce tensions, and increase the number of active editors. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes I know what you meant: my comment was light-hearted, which is why I posted it on your talk page. I highlighted the same tension myself in the thread above on dashes (and killed off the entire thread with the depth of my insight!) It is true that I lean towards a more permissive approach to MoS issues, but I see the benefits of both viewpoints. Geometry guy 18:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Noted. It was your comments that gave me the chutzpah to post this. Yes, I'm blaming you. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Featured Article Usage. The contention that every tittle of this page is compulsory at FA is the root of the problem. GA can approximate FA standards. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
  1. How can GG and Sandy get divorced if she's married to me?
  2. Anderson's crazy—either that or seriously unhinged; I am not.
  3. I disagree with the bifurcation put forward by Dank55. TONY (talk) 00:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, goodness, what is happening here to my marital status (I don't believe in divorce by the way). I guess I'm going to have to come back to read this jolly thread after I get through my morning watchlist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Coming back to this now. Goodness, Dank, you start off with "Make everything as simple as possible", and then write an essay that fills up the page; keeping up with MoS becomes difficult because of the verbosity of several of the participants. I stopped by here for my twice-a-week (more or less) attempt to keep up with MoS changes, after the busy mainpage day yesterday, and find I'm being discussed and engaging in polygamy to boot. I respect all editors who work with consensus for the good of the Project and to make participation easier for editors, and that includes both of my recent new husbands, who both work well with others. As far as I can tell from a year or so of following this page, Tony1 is committed to improving the MoS and article pages, while PMA enjoys needling Tony and making pointy posts about MoS, and makes unilateral changes to MoS that result in unproductive, hard-to-follow discussions. If we are all complicit, it's because we haven't done enough to put an end to this. As far as your proposal here, to the extent I can sort out what you seem to be proposing, I don't agree. We need a coherent, stable, briefer (in terms of not repeating guidelines across many pages) Manual of Style, we need a monthly log of changes so editors can stay current, and Wiki is a large enough website that our work should conform to a Manual of Style for a professional appearance (which doesn't mean we need non-breaking hard spaces on page numbers in citations, for example, or that MoS is a law never to be broken.) G guy, what happened to the WikiProject as a vehicle for beginning to sort some of this out? Looks like it stalled and the long, unproductive discussions are still happening here? So, I've spent my MoS time allotment for the day not being apprised of any recent changes at MoS, and will probably read about something new on some FAC page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Understood, I value your time, Sandy. I will bet you 2 barnstars that you and Tony will be thanking me in a couple of months; this plan to encourage people to think about what usage is good enough for GA is going to deal with about 90% of the sentiment behind recent MoS "revolts" (really deal with it, not push it aside), and it's going to create more and better GAs and eventually more FAs. Wait, you might not thank me for increasing your work load :) Most of what I have in mind is giving myself a ton of work to do, doing the language part of as many GAs as I can, and slowly recording observations at WP:GAU. It will be a while before that page has helpful content; but it's possible that it will be immediately helpful in reducing tensions. Bear with me, please. Interested parties, see me at WT:GAU. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
You're always quick to open new pages, Dan... Perhaps a little more discussion would be better? For one thing, I don't agree with the split as well. (I shall explain the rationale after a good night's morning's sleep.)
On a more important note, I should like to ask Sandy if she wants to divorce her other two husbands and marry me. I have a huge fortune and no heir to inherit it; in exchange, Sandy, you could spend away a large part of it without any complaints from my side. What do you think? Waltham, The Duke of 05:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Dank, I'm not sure I've figured out just yet what your proposal is: can you tell me in one sentence what you're proposing? Duke, you've lost count of my husbands; one more, and I'm going to jail for life. I don't want for money; only chocolate. If I divorce them and marry you, do I get a title, like Queen for Life or something? Seriously, can't we all just get along here? If I could understand why PMA hates the MOS so much, and takes it out on Tony, maybe I'd know how to stop all the silliness. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The official title would be Duchess of Waltham, but unofficially we could use whatever you wish. And as far as chocolate is concerned, how does buying out Cadbury Schweppes sound? (I'm a chocolate lover myself, although I can't stand chocolate-flavoured ice-cream for some reason.)
Then, united, we could unlock the mysteries of the Style Curse.
PS: Waltham Hall features a huge library full of rare books. Surely that would help with some referencing work? Waltham, The Duke of 06:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
But I don't hate MOS; I agree entirely with SV's post about grandmothers in this section, and GGuy's examples in reply. I also agree with Sandy's post that MOS is not a law, never to be broken. The recurrent demand that MOS be binding is incompatible with this.
I wish the two (three? four?) of you all happiness together. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Dan, there have been frequent MoS revolts for years. The way to avoid them is to stress throughout that this page offers guidance, but does not mandate anything. The more detailed it is, and the more forcefully people try to apply it, the more unpopular it becomes. People get especially ruffled about being challenged on style issues, in part because they're seen as peripheral, and in part because editors get used to a certain way of doing things (punctuating, or whatever), and feel their comfort zones are being attacked if they're asked to change. For all these reasons, the key to better MoS compliance is not to force it on people. This guideline should be like a much-loved grandparent who always gives great advice, but who never offers it unless asked. :) SlimVirgin talk|edits 05:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I completely agree with SlimVirgin. From what I see, however, most people view the Manual of Style as the evil mother-in-law... Waltham, The Duke of 06:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I agree with that. Since making my post on dashes I have become more sensitive to whether they are spaced or not in articles I visit. I find that many editors prefer to space them. A much-loved grandparent might say "Unspaced em-dashes are more compact and are less likely to result in bad line breaks". The evil mother-in-law says "Em-dashes should not be spaced on Wikipedia".
Concerning Dank's proposal, I also disagree with any idea to split MoS. However, I think his proposal to examine actual style usage could be an extremely valuable contribution to consensus. For one thing, entire MoS compliance is not a good article requirement, so it would be good to know how much of the MoS is, in practice, required for good articles. For another, it would be useful to know how much of the MoS does have widespread acceptance. This could feed back useful information into the debate about how prescriptive the MoS should be, so that we can steer the guidelines towards the grandparent model. Geometry guy 09:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I hear the discomfort with "splitting MoS", and I obey. WP:GAU should be nothing more than a slow collection of observations about where Good Article usage differs from MoS, not a replacement for MoS. Duke, off the top of my head, I can't think of any other page I've created in the WP space, other than shortcuts and WP:STYLE1.0, which was only created after a long discussion at WP:VPP. And this is exactly the point: I participate in discussions all over the place, but before now, I have never been so sure that something is so important. I respect your judgment, as you know, and if you feel strongly that WT:GAU is a non-starter, feel free to nominate it for deletion. The more discussion this gets, the more lenses this problem is viewed through, the happier I'll be.
Sandy, I can answer your question with a very short sentence: the plan is to record unspoken truths about usage in Good Articles on Wikipedia. After a lot of data is collected, we may be able to tease important things out of the data. (If forced to make a prediction, it would be that there is usage which doesn't follow MoS and never will, because the people writing the articles are writing for the benefit of their peers and not for us; and before we simply throw all their preferences in the trash, we should attempt to see what those preferences are and what purposes they supposedly serve. If forced to make a prediction for why you're going to love me in two months, it would be that people stop expecting the FAR people to fill this need.) This will be a huge amount of work, and I will be giving WP:GAN and this project something close to 14 hours a day for quite a while. Which is sad, because I really love the conversations at for instance WT:V, but this is more important.
SlimVirgin, I like your take on it, and I've said similar things myself.
G-guy, by George, I think you've got it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
OK, so you're proposing we look at what WP:GAs do, and base our guidelines around that ?? I can't come up with one good reason why we should look at what good articles do in any area, assuming you're referring to WP:GA? They're passed by one editor, too often a friend who returns a favor, and GA status means ... often ... nothing in terms of quality, sourcing, standards, prose, anything. Imagine if we looked at what good articles do in terms of reliable sources and did away with WP:V based on the practices set by our standards at GA? (Note: now that Ealdgyth is checking them all, we're finding how many John Smith's personal websites and blogs are showing up at FAC in articles that passed GAN.) I didn't understand what you were proposing, but this is worse than what I suspected :-)) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, Sandy, either you believe me or you don't, I'll say it again: I like MoS, I think you guys have a very good ear for how encyclopedia articles should sound, and I think FAs are essential for maintaining Wikipedia's reputation. Why would I want to change the guidelines all around when I like them just fine like they are? And if you don't like the quality of GAs, I don't see how I could do better than working on GANs. As a bonus, you'll get to blame me for a lot of them now :) (And I hope you guys will be quick to tell me anything you think I'm doing wrong.) But the other side of the coin is in my last comment under #Prescriptive versus descriptive below. Despite the fact that I support MoS, despite the fact that I will conform a lot of GANs to MoS in many ways, I am going to be very careful about changing the tone of articles, and the distinction is going to be very hard to learn. The idea is to maintain a quality standard suitable for GA, while at the same time not losing a single editor from Wikipedia by creating a perception that I'm not letting them speak in their own voice, or from demanding that they learn things that they have no intention of learning. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 05:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

(de-indent) I am sorry if I was over-generalising here, Dan, but the impression I got was that you created two new discussion forums in a single month—this tends to make one think that this is part of a general trend. After all, I've read all sorts of scientific studies on how humans are prone to see patterns everywhere, especially where none exist—List of cognitive biases makes for an extremely interesting read, by the way.

For the record, I like the new orientation of the GAU page, and it could be useful in the long run. Even though it is in the project namespace, however, it will be, at least in the beginning, a personal project, so make sure to work hard, Dan, or it simply won't go far. (You probably know that already, but I thought I'd mention it; my, erm, position gives me this privilege, after all.)

I only have one grievance with its creation: more bloody acronyms...

On the other issue, that of the Manual of Style's granparentification (more bloody terminology...), I think I also agree with Geometry Guy. I have read many, many manuals (not style manuals, but still), and adequately justifying why something is suggested is a guaranteed recipe for success, both in terms of the Manual's acceptance and in terms of how well the individual guidelines will be remembered. Hell, if it works for video games, why wouldn't it work here? (We shouldn't forget the background of half our editors, after all.)

And yes, for those who are thinking about it, I do use parentheses a lot. (Get used to it. :-p) Waltham, The Duke of 01:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, and your brickbats and bouquets are welcome over there at any time. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 05:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I think the WP:GAU idea is quite interesting. I just hope it does not really lead to a major conflict along the lines of "well, I'm a MOS editor, and you're a GAU editor so..." About the personal conflicts: Shite happens. We are so used to Tony and Sept/PMA gnashing at each other that no one even bothers brings up civility issues any more when they call each other names. I personally tend to agree most of the time with Tony on MOS issues. I have from time to time agreed with PMA on a few things, but I disagree with his editing style here (i.e. WP:BRD taken to its extreme) but I do not find him crazy or unintelligent. He was one of the saner and more cogent voices in the WP:ATT debates. It is easy to fly off the handle, especially in here (for whatever reason). Noetica and I really got into it a while back, up to the point of flaming the living crap out of each other in User talk. The surprising thing was that my criticisms of Noetica and Noetica's criticisms of me were nearly identical. We both just left each other alone for about a month, I think we both gave some hard thought to both the criticisms in their details and the fact that they mirrored each other, renewed conversation after this period of omphaloskepsis, and now we get along quite well. Something like that may work well for Tony and PMA. I've also felt it very, very refreshing to go into "MOS rehab" for a couple of months. As many of you will have noticed, I simply disappeared in mid-thread from all of the MOS pages a couple of months ago. I woke up one day and, still in my bathrobe, I did my usual sitting down at the keyboard to see what MOS crap I just had to deal with immediately, and then had a semi-enlightenment that this was no longer fun or even interesting, and a major source of frustration and anxiety in my life. So I just closed the browser windows and went and did something else. And kept doing other things. I now think that with some perspective and rest I can re-enter these discussions a lot more productively. Hope this idea will work for others. PS: Sandy should marry me. All the rest of you are nuts. >;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:47, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Reminder to put a polygamy tally on my userpage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm perfectly happy being Third Husband, BTW. >;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I was disappointed not to see you around here, I generally found myself agreeing with your contributions ... I've done a lot of reading since you saw me last. Welcome back! I'm delighted to hear you like the WP:GAU project. It's mainly an exercise in data gathering and civility. It is in no way intended to compete with MOS ... one MOS is enough. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Keen. Just been busy. Finishing my degree after 15 years. University is pretty hard after being away that long – I'm not attuned, as it were, to doing homework. Like, WTF? I could actually effectively teach a few of the classes I'm taking to fulfill the core curriculum graduation requirements. "Reason and Critical Thinking" (PHIL 156) anyone? Aiiieee... I've been arguing circles around the instructor. Granted, she's a virtue ethics pundit, so that is like shooting fish in a barrel if you have an anthropological background and understand that values as seemingly "core" and "simple" as "courage" or "honesty" or (gods forbid) "justice" are radically culturally variant. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Question

Resolved. Question answered.

Please excuse my ignorance. I am pretty sure that the answer to this question is "no", but I'll ask anyway:

Can the Manual of Style get Featured Article status?

Feel free to respond at your own accord. I really don't care, but I said it anyway. So there. Kodster (Willis) (Look what I can do) 01:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not an article. (Whether it even is in sight of FA standards is what we're debating elsewhere.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I'd like to seize the opportunity to mention a historical paradox, however: Wikipedia:List of shortcuts was once a Featured List candidate.
There's not much more to say (the candidacy failed, of course), but with a little spicing-up it could make for a lovely bed-time story for Wikipe-tan. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 03:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
See WP:FFA; there was a brief period long ago when Wiki pages could be featured. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
A nice little corner there. I must admit that the featured content pages are very presentable; I'd like to visit them more often, but my line of work doesn't bring me very close. Waltham, The Duke of 02:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Captions

I'd like to remove that captions ought to be succinct. I personally like reading and writing longish captions that become part of the story rather than a thing removed from it, and I don't think it's the kind of thing the MoS should specify, because it's very much a matter of editorial judgment. Does anyone mind if I remove it? SlimVirgin talk|edits 10:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I certainly don't mind, SlimVirgin. I wholeheartedly support removing the directive that captions ought to be succinct. It is certainly not grounded in an appreciation of the best available published reference literature—much of which features longish, substantive, interesting captions. Nor does it reflect much of the best work here at Wikipedia, our featured articles. I can think of several FAs right off the top of my head where editorial judgment led to the use of information-filled captions, judgment whose soundness was confirmed by our FAC vetters: Mutual Broadcasting System, Kinetoscope, Film Booking Offices of America, B movie, sound film. And, as I say, that's just off the top of my head. Go for it, SV. Best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 10:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I think agree, captions doesn't need to be that short. So you could change the wording to perhaps: "Captions should not be overly long". But then that sentence probably becomes unnecessary and thus it is better to simply remove it. Since manuals of style should not be overly long themselves. So weak support, remove it.
--David Göthberg (talk) 10:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Hang on there; it says "succinct", not "short". I'm uneasy about removing this:

Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text.

Has this become an issue in articles? My concern is that long captions look ungainly, are harder to read than the main text, and often involve repetition of information in the main text (hence "succinct"). After all, if the image is smoothly integrated into the main text, there should be reference to it. Should there not also be a controlled balance between the amount of info in the caption and in the main text? TONY (talk) 11:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I support Tony's desire, when possible, to use one little word which perfectly captures the spirit of what we want ... that's the way to keep MoS as succinct as possible. I think what I'm hearing here is that there's no one magic word that conveys what we want to convey. I looked at the FA's in question, and I agree that someone might say, "You can't do that, it's not succinct", after reading MoS. Therefore, I support "spelling it out". - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
That is my worry about the wording, that someone will use it to make an objection. Tony, can you link to a caption that you feel is unacceptably long or repetitive so I have an idea of your concern? SlimVirgin talk|edits 15:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm strongly opposed to changing this (in fact, the captions that DCGeist writes come to mind). Captions should remain succint, and the article shouldn't be written in the captions, creating a distraction to the reader. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The point is that it's a matter of editorial judgment, not really an issue for a style manual. Sandy, can you give an example of a caption you feel is too long, or not succinct enough? SlimVirgin talk|edits 16:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I can help here. One article where Sandy specifically raised a concern about the length of the captions (that I wrote) is Mutual Broadcasting System. What is instructive here is that Sandy raised that concern in FAC. Aside from myself as nominator, 10 people engaged in the FAC—with only one participant opposed, the article was promoted, retaining narrative captions. This is just one piece of evidence from the community vetting of articles with substantive, "storytelling" captions that reveals general agreement with your position that caption design for any given article is a matter of editorial judgment.—DCGeist (talk) 17:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree that these kinds of captions can be very interesting and helpful. SlimVirgin talk|edits 17:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm fairly certain this came up in several other places (B movie comes to mind), but I'm out the door for the afternoon. And 1) yes, it is an issue for the Manual of Style and 2) giving examples where excessive captions squeaked through FAC only tells half the story, look at those that didn't as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Back quickly with one, the version of B movie that passes, and IIRC, captions were subsequently reduced at FAR. I am strongly opposed to these full paragraphs in image captions, and do not support this proposal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I can't see how Mutual Broadcasting System squeaked through; it seemed to have a lot of support, and the version of B movie that passed also had long ones. But again, I am wondering why this would be an issue for the MoS. I think we should definitely leave this up to editors, and I would hate to think of someone failing an FA just because they thought the image captions were too long. SlimVirgin talk|edits 17:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
If not MoS, where? Repeating the mantra, AFAIK, an article has never failed FAC because of MoS issues; they're guidelines, not law, hence MoS is a perfect place for this to be included. (Really out the door now.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
How about nowhere? What is the problem that requires this to be addressed in the first place? Having "guidelines" for caption length at all strikes me as something to satisfy the obsessions of people with "control issues", not to improve the encyclopedia. - JasonAQuest (talk) 18:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

When Sandy returns, we can ask her, Which is it? Have articles failed FAC because of captions that transgressed MoS ("look at those that didn't as well") or not ("an article has never failed FAC because of MoS issues")? The contradiction is revealing. The fact is, if a directive appears in the MoS, it will be used against articles that don't comply, just as Sandy used it against Mutual Broadcasting System. The fact that the article won a broad consensus for promotion nonetheless ("squeaked through"—aw, Sandy, I know you meant to type "sailed through") indicates that the MoS as currently worded is out of touch. The community appears to recognize that caption length is a matter of editorial judgment specific to each article where editors strive for excellence. In many cases, the judgment will be that captions should be short; in some, that they should be longer and substantive. Our work here—in article development, maintenance, and improvement—will be made easier if the MoS reflects that fact.—DCGeist (talk) 17:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I have never seen anyone object to the length of a caption in the three and a half years I've been editing, and I've seen them in all shapes and sizes. The policies and guidelines have to be both descriptive and prescriptive, so I think it's a mistake to highlight an opinion on an issue that good editors seem to be widely ignoring, including at FA level. If anything, I'd say that longer captions tend to be an indicator of a higher quality article, simply because they're a sign that the editors care about their work.
We can easily tweak the writing here to include some reference to "succinct," but also to make clear that it's a matter of editorial judgment. SlimVirgin talk|edits 18:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Happy to explain, DCGeist. Perhaps you're familiar with the Wiki concepts of consensus, guidelines and IAR? MoS is a guideline. When consensus on a particular FAC is that there are good reasons to ignore a specific guideline (for example, WP:SIZE often comes up) for a specific article, and if a good case is made for why the guideline should be overlooked for a specific case, the guideline can be ignored in interpreting whether there is consensus that the article meets WP:WIAFA. That doesn't argue that the guideline should be eliminated, or that it is globally unnecessary, or that it should be ignored in every case. I think your captions are too long and impede readability on your articles. That others disagree and that your articles pass FAC is completely consistent with the way FAC should and does work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Sandy's claim depends on a careful piece of phrasing; she does not classify [[1]] as having failed because of MOS issues. The nominator abandoned it; but he abandoned it when the article was strongly opposed solely on MOS issues, and no one would listen to him. I'm sure there are other cases. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • You've brought back this one example multiple times in your rally against MoS, ignoring (again) that it also failed a second time on multiple other issues, that also went unaddressed by the nominator. Also, if you can only come up with one example every time this conversation comes up (and that example doesn't show what you say it shows anyway), it seems there's not much of a problem, considering FAC is reviewing about 120 articles per month. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
    • Without the MOScruft, we should have gotten to substantive criticism on the first FAC, and we might not have lost the nominator. That would have been a benefit to Wikipedia, at least in efficiency. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The problem here might be that people are getting mixed up between captions and cutlines, perhaps because the terms are often used interchangeably. But there is a difference, and what we are talking about here are cutlines. In newspapers, a caption is a short headline, usually above the image, and the cutline is a longer description of the image or its context underneath it. For example, a cutline might be: "Prime Minister Smith said he was furious yesterday after demonstrators entered the House of Commons for the third day running, hurling bags of flour at ministers in protest at the increase in bread prices." The caption above that image might be: "White-hot debate!"
Cutlines are the next most-read item in an article (in newspapers) after the headlines, so they are important, and they need to be well-written and evocative. They should not describe what the reader can see already ("this is an example of a red house"), but should give more details (e.g. the names of people) and the backstory, if there is one. That can't be done if the cutline is expected to be as short as a caption.
They do need to be carefully worded, and crisp, because there are only a few words to make an impact. In that sense, "succinct" is correct. But "succinct" also suggests "short," which is the problem here — what is a reasonable length will depend on the image, the context, and what the editor wants to draw to the readers' attention. Therefore, saying it is a matter of editorial judgment is the best way to leave it. SlimVirgin talk|edits 20:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think that's where I'm getting mixed up at least; I dislike DCG's paragraphs added under images, as they cause the reader to bounce around too much. If that much text is worth including in the article, it should be in the main body. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, well, good points, SlimVirgin, but there is a perceptible difference between the two media in question, in terms of how the attention of the readers is directed. In newspapers, readers indeed read the headlines and the cutlines the most, but this is simply because that's the first thing a reader will notice in a page, and it will help them decide whether they wish to read the article for further information. The situation with Wikipedia articles is arguably quite different—instead of scrolling up and down to see the images and read the captions, readers are rather expected to go through the lead section first (and perhaps the infobox, if one exists); for an overview of the rest of the article, there is also the table of contents. This is actually one of the foundations upon which the layout of our articles is based: the order lead section → sections → subsections → specialised articles. Captions simply don't have the same function. As I see it, our captions ought to be something between the captions and cutlines of your example; anything more is rarely necessary, as it is explained in the text, while too short a caption could be unclear, depending on the occasion. It certainly is, to an extent, a matter of editorial judgement, but we shouldn't leave it too open. Waltham, The Duke of 18:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggested compromise

I've posted a suggestion here and reverted myself until we discuss it.

I mention the caption/cutline confusion, but say we use "caption" here to refer to below-image text.

I've used "crisp" instead of "succinct," because the former doesn't have the connotation of "short" that the latter does. So instead of:

  • "Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text."

the suggestion is:

  • "When a longer description of an image is included in a caption, the writing should be crisp, because only a few words are available to make an impression. More information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text."

Thoughts? SlimVirgin talk|edits 21:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Overall I prefer your version. Placing information about images (e.g. diagrams or graphs) in the main text is often confusing because (1) images get moved around by editors, (2) images are in different places depending on your screen size, etc; captions should be as long as needed to contain all the important information that is specifically relevant to the image. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I think "in the main text" in this context means that whatever information is contained in a long caption can just as easily go into the main text, rather than "see right," referring to the image (if that's what you meant when you mentioned images being moved). It's certainly true of most information that it need not be highlighted in a caption, but I think it significantly improves an article if captions are interesting and well-written, given how closely they tend to be read. There are awards available in print journalism for good caption/cutline writing, which is a measure of their importance within a text. SlimVirgin talk|edits 22:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
The point is that if the information belongs with the image, not with the main text, then it should go in the caption, even if this makes the caption lengthy. Different information fits best in different places and that should generally be the deciding factor, and keeping the caption to a good length is probably a bad reason to move information from the caption to the image page or to the main text. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

This is from an editing guide on the web [2], "Cutlines (includes image captions) should be as concise as possible, but they should not sound like telegrams or machine guns," "Be concise; be precise; don't be trite," and "Shorter is better." I don't have a problem with changing the wording, but I think the same message should be conveyed, that image captions should be as concise as possible while still presenting adequate information about the picture. Cla68 (talk) 23:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

"Crisp" for me is a word that is too judgmental, subject to opinion, and I think some words could be chosen from the text Cla68 provided if a change is needed. Also, in the ongoing interest of trying to trim down the MoS, I hesitate to introduce new/more terminology about cutlines and captions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like "crisp" either; what is wrong with "succinct"? There's room for longer captions that are succinct, surely; a whole paragraph can be succinct (or verbose, the antonym given in my dictionary). Dan's examples are OK, although I'd prefer them to be shorter; what we don't want is an undisciplined approach to blowing out the length of captions for the sake of it. SV's proposed wording lacks the simplicity of the current wording, and implies by accident that shorter captions do not need to be succinct. I don't understand the phrase "because only a few words are available to make an impression". Parham's comment about the subsequent relocation of images in an article merely underlines the need to attend to the linguistic embedding of images in WP articles whether inserting them initially or relocating them. TONY (talk) 01:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Further to this, I think Dan's caption in Mutual is too discursive for a caption:
"At first, Orson Welles played the part of the Shadow
anonymously. But, as one chronicler puts it, "nothing to do
with Welles could remain a secret for very long."[20] A
predecessor in the role delivered the show's intro, with its
famous catchphrase, "Who knows what evil lurks in the
hearts of men? The Shadow knows...." According to historian
Frank Brady, Welles's "voice as the 'invisible' Shadow was
perfect." The intro, however, also called for a sinister
chuckle; Welles's effort "seemed more an adolescent giggle
than a terrifying threat."[21]"
But the way the main text around it has been written does not easily admit this information, and no one wants a disjointed parastub. What sways me that this is acceptable—although not ideal—is that he's such a good writer, and it is succinct, damn it. There's not a word wasted. So it's on the boundary of the MOS guideline, I'd say, and provides no reason to get upset. At the hands of lesser writers, however, I quail at the effect of long, undisciplined captions. I presume that is why the current wording is in MOS; I see nothing wrong with it. Slim, can you bring to our attention an example that you think might be ruled out by the current MOS guideline? TONY (talk) 01:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Nothing would be ruled out by reasonable people who understand what the word "succinct" means. But it does suggest "short," which gives people who want to object to long cutlines an excuse. Perhaps all that is needed is to clarify that we do not mean cutlines must be short. I also think we do need to say something about cutlines/captions, because it's at the heart of this confusion. Captions should be short, but cutlines not necessarily.
If we want to cut down on the number of words in that section, I suggest we get rid of the advice to place periods after sentences — if something is a sentence, it's obviously going to have a period at the end — and that they start with capital letters. We should also remove that most captions (meaning cutlines) are not complete sentences, because we can't know that, and ideally, cutlines should be complete sentences, except when we're just giving a name. SlimVirgin talk|edits 01:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I just (in the last hour, can't remember which article though :-) put a period on a full sentence in a caption on an article at FAC or FAR; surprising how often I have to do that. Also, I don't mean to pick on this section in terms of cutting words down; we need to do it everywhere (and we can probably do it by better consolidating and rationalizing all the pages, because there is repetition all over the place). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I was just thinking how much tighter the writing is since I last looked at it carefully, though of course things can always do with tightening some more. SlimVirgin talk|edits 02:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for your comments, Tony. They're appreciated. The captions in Mutual Broadcasting System are of an exceptional length—driven, as you observed, by the structure of the main text, which would not comfortably admit such content. I'd be interested to see if the captions in an article I've been working on—tone cluster—strike anyone as long; I'm thinking particularly of the captions accompanying the four images of composers. While they don't bear comparison to the more expansive MBS captions, they are longer than most captions in most articles here. (They are specifically longer than the captions in the classical music FAs I surveyed, except for Olivier Messiaen, which has several long captions accompanying score excerpts). In this case, without literally duplicating the accompanying main text, the captions summarize and, in a couple instances, amplify it a bit. Sandy, Do you look at those captions and think, "It would be better if they had nothing but the name of the composer. If there is an amplifying datum, it should be brought into the main text"? Or do captions of this size not raise a concern for you?—DCGeist (talk) 05:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Sandy's absent periods are in part a (predictable) side effect of the present phrasing: seeing periods on captions often opposed at FA, editors omit them, even where they shouldn't be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems odd to recommend simply crisp. Is there some place where articles should not be crisp? (The same may apply to succinct; is there somewhere we should loosen the belts on our prose and let it hang out?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Largely for this reason, I support the position originally articulated by SlimVirgin, supported by David Göthberg and JasonAQuest, and supported per argumentum if not directly by Christopher Parham: the entire bullet point ("Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text") should be struck.
  • All of our writing should be succinct. There is no logical reason that caption writing in Wikipedia should be particularly succinct. The clause is thus redundant.
  • Tony raises the concern that "long captions look ungainly." This may be true when they accompany default-sized images. However, as SlimVirgin suggests, long captions are usually "a sign that the editors care about their work." Editors that care about their work also tend to specify image sizing, in part so that long captions do not look ungainly.
  • Tony raises the concern that captions are "harder to read than the main text." I think that this is a matter entirely of personal perception. I find them easier to read than the main text because they stand out from it and accompany an eye-catching image. Though its formatting directives apply specifically to journalistic publications, the style guide referenced by Cla68 suggests that my response as a reader is more common: "Photo captions and cutlines are the most read body type in a publication. Of all the news content, only the titles of stories or headlines have higher readership than captions."
  • It is possible that eliminating the clause will free a few editors to write unproductively long and undisciplined captions that they may currently feel restrained from writing. On the other hand, it is just as likely to cut down on gnomish interference with and disruption of the work of our better contributors and their exercise of sound editorial judgment. On balance, the effect should be positive—poorly conceived captions can always be improved down the line.
  • Eliminating the clause may well have an additional positive effect—facilitating the assessment and improvement of caption text on the basis of clarity, felicity, and focus. Though it serves a different purpose in general, caption text of any length should be held to the same standards of writing quality as other article text. Restricting our Formatting directives to particularly relevant matters of orthography, punctuation, and type style should help us concentrate on that.
—DCGeist (talk) 18:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
In case it's helpful, this is from the Canadian Press style guide (their needs differ from ours, but the same principles apply):
“ [Captions] tell the reader, briefly and clearly, the basic details of the picture and tie it to the story it illustrates. Remember that photos attract even the most casual reader, so captions are probably the best-read words in the paper, after headlines. Like headlines, caption must be crisp. Like stories, they must be readable and informative, interesting and lively ... Use at least two short, snappy sentences. One long, involved sentence is boring. Stick primarily to explaining the action in the picture, but don't speculate. Watch attribution and don't let libel creep in. ”
SlimVirgin talk|edits 19:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
In place of the clause, it certainly could be helpful to direct editors to a professional quality link (or, failing that, textbook) with analogous suggestions, if one exists that addresses caption writing in reference works, rather than journalistic ones. But I'm not sure one does exist. And while some of the same principles apply in very similar ways, others do not.
In the context of a reference work like Wikipedia for instance, I believe pictures are used much more often not to illustrate an "action" or event detailed in the main text, but as vehicles for summary and/or amplification. For instance, consider the images from two sections in United States (neither of which I added to the article): United_States#Environment and United_States#Transportation (please, let's no one get into a tizzy about the lack of periods; the entire article currently uses the no-periods-at-end-of-captions style). Neither illustrates something detailed in the main text, but rather serve as amplifying content for the accompanying section—a common function here, much less so in a journalistic context.—DCGeist (talk) 20:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Those two captions look just fine; I'm unsure of their relevance to this debate, nor of why captions that summarise or amplify need to be voluminous (i.e., are ruled out by the current requirement to be "succinct"—the antonym of which is "verbose").
The argument that captions are the most-read text in WP doesn't appear relevant; I'm keen not to cater to fly-by readers to do not want to engage with the main text of our articles and who would treat them as comics; looking only at images is fine, if let's not assume that WP's key goals of NPOV and accuracy can be achieved just in images. Little children who look only at the images? Good training for their impending engagement with the text as they acquire the skills and habit of reading longer chunks of integrated text. So let's not treat images in isolation to cater for image-and-caption-only readers; smoothly integrating images into the text (and the appearance of the page) is our prime responsibility.
As I implied before, I'm greatly concerned by long, vertical slabs of caption under images; they look bad, can act as an undesirably involved diversion from the main text (and thus an integrated reading experience), and when not handled well can duplicate information in the main text.
Perhaps those who are concerned that the current wording might be an issue for the well-written, succinct, longer-than-normal caption (e.g., Dan's examples) might consider a caveat in the wording WRT to the need to consider the disadvantages of long captions under small images. But I still think the current wording covers this, is neat, and is simple. TONY (talk) 02:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't like repeating myself, so I shall refer you to my message just before this sub-section's heading: who says that images and captions function in Wikipedia as they do (or, at least, exactly as they do) in newspapers and magazines? I disagree with this view, and in my opinion all these parallels between practice in the printed media and Wikipedia are not necessarily very accurate.
Mind you, I am not referring to the journalism – reference work difference, but to the way the readers' attention is drawn by the images.
About the wording, now... Mr Geist's argument that the succinct reference is redundant makes little sense to me, considering that most editors do not seem to be especially aware that succinct writing is the most desirable thing as far as prose is concerned. One should pause and reflect; perhaps some things are considered self-evident without really being so. And, in any case, I don't think that it is to our benefit to exchange the regulation of captions with some minor "tightening" of the Manual of Style.
One thing that has not been mentioned (in this thread) is the reduced space that large captions leave for text, in the sense that, as analysed lower in this page, it is not desirable to "sandwich" text between images. Captions function like images in this respect, and are actually part of the same box; having large captions greatly increases the chance that text will end up "sandwiched". It is a matter of layout, in addition to everything else. Waltham, The Duke of 05:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
SV's version works for me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Related Issue: Infoboxes

We need to say somewhere in MOS* that infoboxes are not independent mini-articles: Any fact mentioned in an infobox needs to also be in the main body-text of the article, and sourced there. (This also means by implication that source citations should not appear in infoboxes; footnotes appearing in them defeat their purpose of being a quick-and-easy summary.) Far, far too often, especially in sports bio and film articles, all sorts of details appear in the infobox that are no where to be found in the article's main text. This is especially problematic in that people seem loath to flag a suspicious item in an infobox with {{dubious}} or {{fact}} for fear of messing up the infobox layout. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Use of mdash

I'm confused with this. Please explain. --Efe (talk) 06:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

That edit replaced an html emdash with a "real" emdash; I believe it's easier on the servers, not sure. End result is the same. See WP:DASH. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It is easier to understand in the edit screen, and therefore easier to edit thereafter. That should be enough to justify, not require, the change. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Calm down, Mr Anderson, it is not required by any one. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 07:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
(deleted first half of message to avoid repetition)
It happens all the time, although the Manual of Styles has no special preference. Waltham, The Duke of 06:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Ok. No worries. --Efe (talk) 05:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
WP:DASH is full of it if it is still recommending the actual dash-family characters instead of the HTML entity codes. I've already been over this before, but will rehash it again: In many fonts, the characters are completely indistinguishable to the human eye, and thus the entity codes should be used; it is the only way for any/all editors to be certain that the correct dash-family character is being used. I convert Unicode en and em dashes to the &-entity version on sight for this reason, and revert their unconversion when I catch it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
PS: The MediaWiki developers have repeatedly stated at WP:VP/P, WP:RFC and elsewhere that "this will make it easier/harder on the servers" should never be a WP concern, because any server drain issue is a background matter that will be promptly dealt with by the paid development staff. Such an argument is generally considered utterly invalid on WP. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
No, Mr McCandlish, the Manual of Style is not recommending anything of the sort. However, I believe I should say that I disagree with you on which option is better, and that I actually do the opposite of what you do: I often change HTML dashes to their Unicode counterparts. The em dashes are readily distinguishable in most browsers, and for all the cases that dashes are not easily told apart there is this little magic button called Preview. The HTML dashes are too intrusive and make it hard to read in the edit window—this is exactly the reason why the double-comma hard-space proposal has come to be. Waltham, The Duke of 17:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Prescriptive versus descriptive

I wonder if a big part of the problem here (the cause of the various disputes) is that we need to emphasize that policies and guidelines are descriptive, not only prescriptive. That is, we should be describing here the best practices of good editors, in order to prescribe those practices to others. We should never have a situation where the page advises against things that lots of good editors do.

I wonder whether it would be worth making that explicit somewhere on the page. The guideline is being increasingly used, as others have pointed out, by wikignomes who go around undoing people's work and inserting their own preferences, using something in here to justify it, which is having the effect of bringing this page into disrepute. SlimVirgin talk|edits 22:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

What an odd way of looking at it. A Manual of Style surely has to be prescriptive by its very nature. We agree best practice for things, then people refer to the agreed best practice when editing or when disputes arise. If a section comes to be seen as unhelpful, or if best practice is agreed by a decent consensus to have changed, then we change the MoS. If editors are going around changing articles to comply with best practice, surely they are to be commended for that. If editors are acting disruptively, we have AN/I, RfC etc to deal with them. If anything is likely to bring this page into disrepute it is adding caveats pointing out that adherence to the recommendations here is optional. Imagine if we brought this approach to spelling; "Proper spelling is preferred, but uf cors ol speling rools ar opshinul". Professional? I don't think so. --John (talk) 23:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
You appear to have misread SlimVirgin, John. She does not suggest that a manual of style, our Manual of Style, is not prescriptive by nature. She argues the need to make clear that its guidelines are also "descriptive, not only prescriptive" (emphasis added). The immediate crux of the matter is the source of those prescriptions. Some here seem to believe that the source should be solely ideals (i.e., "best practices") conceived externally and thence applied here (i.e., a priori prescriptions). But it is no less valid to examine and describe the work of our best editors here (i.e, "best practices") and use those practical observations as the source of our directives here as well (i.e, a posteriori prescriptions).—DCGeist (talk) 23:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Agree with John, disagree with a change, and wonder how we define "best editors". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
John, it does have to be prescriptive, but it must be descriptive too. What we shouldn't have is a situation where de facto best practice is being described here as though it's not allowed. SlimVirgin talk|edits 23:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The prescriptions we adopt, I think, should emerge in describing best practices that are already widespread on the wiki. Prescriptions that are developed from proposals on a talk page tend to be less successful. Writing guidelines is about codifying the best practices of the wider community, not developing rules to impose on that community. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Obviously, but as Sandy said, who gets to define best practice? --John (talk) 23:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
To quote your answer above, "we" (i.e. the community) define best practice. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I don't think it's so hard. We can all judge when articles are well-written and researched. SlimVirgin talk|edits 23:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Well sure, we all do that as individuals all the time. A manual of style is how we collectively agree on standards. If we make our guidance over-prescriptive, we have problems, but there are problems too with a laissez-faire approach. I think there are more potential problems in saying (here of all places) that anything goes than with adopting an approach that standardises best practice, which is what we are supposed to be about here. --John (talk) 23:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I agree that it's a question of balance. We need to make sure the guideline doesn't go too far in either direction. SlimVirgin talk|edits 23:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

We could decide to describe, and prescribe, best practices. However, the manual of style for a particular publication has the option of arbitrarily select one practice from several equally good practices, just for the sake of consistency. I don't think there is much hope of making that stick on Wikipedia, but it is an option that some readers of a manual of style might expect. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Where we don't have a hope of making things stick (among good editors), we shouldn't try. Most organizations that have a stylebook have paid employees who are told that this is how things are done, or else, but that doesn't apply here. What we do here is look to see what good editors are actually doing, which means that guidelines are subject to (slow) change, as best practice changes. We need to preserve that dynamic, or the guidelines make themselves irrelevant. SlimVirgin talk|edits 00:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
SV, I see little difference between the motivation for a degree of stylistic cohesion in what could easily turn into a jungle of a project, and the motivation of paid writers to abide by their organisation's style guidelines. Both types of writer strive for professional standards; the goal of professional standards is ensconced in our FA criteria and elsewhere.
Saying that we should just give up if we believe that things won't "stick" among editors would have stymied much of our effort to improve the standards of writing and formatting on WP since the beginning. It's hard to make the habit of crisp prose "stick" among users, but that doesn't stop us trying; it's hard to stop people writing "obviously" and "note that ...", but that's no reason to exclude the guideline from MOS. TONY (talk) 02:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Please phrase this carefully; this comes close to saying that we should enforce MOS on the mass of editors when they actively disagree, which would be contrary to policy.
  • Editor: "So, you don't care what Wikipedians think?"
  • Mos: No.
Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I did phrase it carefully. This is more AndersonCruft (your turn of phrase, I'm afraid) as part of your agenda to downgrade the status and function of style guides on WP. TONY (talk) 02:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
    • On the contrary, it is policy that the consensus of editors should prevail. If we don't have a hope of persuading them to accept some change, however passively, there is consensus against that change, and this page should not prescribe it. Comments from third parties are welcome. Septentrionalis PMAnderson
      • That sounds like circular logic and a rather dangerous and confused point of view, if you don't mind me saying so. --John (talk) 03:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
        • Of course I mind your saying so, but not very much. Other editors have said worse, but anything you feel it necessary to apologize for in advance is probably contrary to WP:CIVIL. However, it may be worth it to get straight answers to a couple of questions.
        • Dangerous? To what? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
        • Circular logic requires a circle. Rereading my post I see a straight line. Where's the circle? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
  1. Let G be a style decision that we have no hope of persuading the bulk of good editors to comply with. (This is SV's hypothesis).
  2. If most of that bulk were truly neutral towards G, we would have a hope; we could call a discussion and persuade the editors who showed up, and they would persuade others.
  3. Therefore, as the contrapositive, since we have no hope of persuading the bulk to comply with G, most of them are at least passively opposed to G, and will remain so (digging in their heels, if necessary).
  4. By WP:CONSENSUS, which is policy, Wikipedia should not do G if a large number of good editors are opposed to it.
  5. MOS, which is a guideline, should not issue guidance opposed to policy.
  6. MOS should not demand G.

That's my argument. Whatever its flaws, it's a line from 1 to 6. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Sept. Forgive my lack of faith, but I wasn't entirely sure where you were really coming from in some of your arguments; this is clear and reasonable. You know that the FA people will respond, "You don't have a case, because even if MoS demands something, we are demanding nothing. If people don't want to try for FA, that's their business." But of course, John's hypothetical roaming wikignomes could conceivably cause this problem that you're talking about, that a minority has been allowed to dictate to the masses, which is not the Wiki way, regardless of the perceived benefits. Your argument lacks just one thing: carefully collected data, to show that people actually are being offended, that articles are actually being forced to comply with MoS in opposition to the will of the masses. What do you have along those lines? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
This is the minor premise: if, hypothetically, there were a style point about which we had no hope of persuading most editors , MOS is obligated not to require it. You want the major premise: X, Y and Z are such style points. We need both, one at a time. Until the minor premise is granted, there is no basis for the conclusion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I must say: the discussions on this page would be a gold mine for any psychology student. The transparent hubris, the desperate neediness to control others through the perceived authority of this page, the petty interpersonal bickering over trivialities... It's utterly unwiki in its haughty contempt for the wisdom of the crowds and baffling in its disregard for civility. It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic. -66.93.200.101 (talk) 04:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I hope the things I've been talking about aren't seen as support for this kind of drive-by psychoanalysis; I think we're past this. It's unfortunate, but the better the writing in Featured Articles in particular, the more seriously Wikipedia will be taken. And, like it or not, Tony and all the FA people have a very good ear for what an encyclopedia is supposed to sound like. On the other hand, I'm hazy on exactly what John and Tony are saying here, could I get a clarification? Are we agreed that we're in deep trouble if the only editors left on Wikipedia are the ones who already write in the style of Featured Articles, or don't mind at all if people drop by at any time and change their writing so that it doesn't sound at all like them, and instead sounds like the FA people? We won't even keep up with the vandals if those are the only people left on Wikipedia, much less get anything new written. Most editors want their writing to sound like it came from them, and I am pretty sure that the majority of writers on Wikipedia are not trying to conform to our guidelines, they're trying to put up with our guidelines, while they write things that impress their colleagues, family and friends. So, John, when you say it's a good thing whenever a wikignome conforms an article to WP:MoS, you're talking about things that are relatively inoffensive, and wouldn't tend to put off editors ... punctuation, wikification ... not changes in the tone of the article, right? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Dan, that's correct. I am talking about things like image policy, date formatting, flag use, capitalisation; I've seen far more wars break out over silly minor formatting issues when MoS was vague. For the sort of people who care about this kind of thing, it helps if things are nailed down; it certainly helps to have a stable and well-written MoS to refer people to if arguments break out. Like all guidelines and policy though, it destabilises them and reduces their credibility if they are changing from week to week. I am emphatically not talking about article content or writing style though, more the formatting issues. --John (talk) 04:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
(to PMAnderson, got edit-conflicted) Thanks, that is a very clear outline of your argument. Here are the points that I think your argument fails on.
As a few people have asked, who gets to define who the "good" editors are in line 1? "Good" as in good-faith, non-vandalistic editors? Or some other meaning?
  • It's Slim Virgin's word; I would say good-faith, non-vandalistic, experienced editors. The opinion of trolls, newbies and vandals will be discounted, so it's the same consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
In line 3, it is only your contention that we have "no hope of persuading the bulk to comply". I find this defeatist and potentially dangerous. Imagine if we took this approach to civility, or to spelling, or to copyright. We don't though, because as a community we care about the quality and professionalism of our end product. We know there is no deadline, but we advance in small increments towards perfection, knowing that we will probably never reach it. Knowing this, we nevertheless draft, write and discuss policies, guidelines and so on. We do it knowing that enforcement can be lax; in many ways we are a very tolerant community. What we don't do is retreat from consensual ideas because they seem unattainable.
In line 4, it is only your contention that there is a consensus to do what you are proposing. If I saw an actual demonstrable consensus obviously my view would change on this one.
  • No, line three shows that there is a large body of editors who oppose G; therefore there is no consensus to do it. None of my argument asserts a consensus to do anything. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
In line 5, there is no question that MOS could ever issue guidance opposed to policy. It doesn't, it hasn't, and it couldn't. Policies trump guidelines.
This is a very curious verbal distinction. It is manifestly physically possible for this page to say almost anything; some things it could say would not be valid. But if you prefer that sense of cannot, read lines 5 and 6 as "MOS cannot do..." and the argument still flows and gets to the same place. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
So, as I say, poor logic in that it is based on many untested or unproven assertions. Perhaps "circular logic" was not the right term. Perhaps "subjective and seemingly flawed" or "unsupported by any evidence" was what I was looking for. If you care about the quality and professionalism of the encyclopedia I urge you to reconsider further watering down the advice we give here. --John (talk) 04:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I trust these notes will clarify. This is a purely hypothetical argument: I made one hypothesis, and asserted nothing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
And I'm sorry to blether on even more, but I have to say I am not as absolutist as reading the above may make me sound. Of course I recognise that on many things, the MoS trails usage rather than trailblazes it. That, of course, is as it should be. I just think that we need to have firm and stable guidelines and that this will circumvent more problems than it will create.
Problematic editor behaviour and disputes can be dealt with in well-established ways, and all guidelines should always be applied with a sense of humour and an eye for the possible exception. IAR exists, most editors are aware of it and know how to use it, and we should not remind them of it unnecessarily as the wise know that guidelines are there for a reason, and IAR is to be used with extreme caution. --John (talk) 04:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Professionalism?

For Wikipedia, professionalism is clarity, accuracy, neutrality, verifiability. MoS has nothing to do with three of these; it is one of many factors which could contribute to clarity.

But does it? What has this page been arguing about?

  • Whether we should use ten or 10 (unless any of a dozen other factors intervene).
  • Whether to have spaces on either end of emdashes.
  • Whether to have periods at the end of certain complex captions.
  • How and whether to use the large quotes in {{cquote}}.

and so on ad nauseam. All these have one thing in common: they have nothing to do with clarity, or anything else actually of value to the encyclopedia. Many of them will never be noticed. These are the "firm, stable guidelines" which will bring us to "professionalism"; these are the things we grade articles on. May Jimbo forgive us. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Clarity is pretty important in an informational text though, don't you think? Obviously many of the things folks argue about here will seem trivial, even lame, to many who are otherwise good editors.
And where this contributes to clarity, it is useful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
But you're also missing a major point here. We are here first and foremost to do this big writing job, but we are also a community. We have to be able to get along with each other and to agree on things we might otherwise waste energy fighting over. Three examples of historical compromise on related issues off the top of my head: WP:IMOS specifies that the city in Northern Ireland with the disputed name is referred to as Derry, while the county it lies in is called County Londonderry. Aluminium and sulfur are so spelled in chemistry (and all science-related) articles, following the lead of IUPAC. And airplane and aeroplane are both redirects to fixed-wing aircraft. Now, these sort of (highly prescriptive) compromises were adopted with the consent of the community, to end edit-warring over styles and to give greater consistency and stability in articles. If you think they are lame, or even nauseating, you may have a point. I think it would be even more lame and even more nauseating if these guidelines did not exist or were unusably vague and we had to deal with even more edit-warring, RfCs, Arbcom etc. --John (talk) 05:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
And we avoid edit wars over style by leaving things alone, as with WP:ENGVAR and the Date Wars; by agreeing to differ. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
As George Orwell once said: "Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes." Oh, the Manual of Style is our most useful instrument for such shaping. --Laser brain (talk) 06:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I agree with everything here, except the last sentence. Which of the matters discussed in Politics and the English Language come under any Manual of Style? Which of them are even approached in this MOS?
And yet Laserbrain has expressed himself clearly and succinctly — while using double dashes, which this MOS would prohibit. I applaud him for doing so, and wish only that we would encourage article writers to do the same. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
ENGVAR does not say we agree to differ though; on the contrary it specifies exactly where and when different styles should be used. It is very clear and highly prescriptive, and therein lies its effectiveness. If we didn't have it, or if it was rewritten to be less clear, there would be far more unproductive conflict. Thank goodness it is not so. --John (talk) 06:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Speaking only for myself, of course, regarding whether em-dashes tend to be spaced in encyclopedia-quality writing: if I spend the evening going for a walk, or looking up punctuation usage in style guides and reading material, rather than fixing some earth-shattering problem on Wikipedia, how does that give you the right to complain about how I use my time, Sept? I'm not violating WP:BIKE; I'm tackling hard problems, I'm just not doing it 100% of the time. And if you really think participation in such a conversation is a waste of time and an insult to Jimbo, then why did you participate in it as much as anyone else? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 06:22, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Sept, let me add exactly what it is that bugs me, since I'm obviously bugged, about "What has this page been arguing about? ... Whether to have spaces on either end of emdashes." Politics is an old game, and everyone here knows how it's played. One trick is populism, the framing of a debate as "the people" against "the elites". Ineffective populist politicans may actually believe what they're saying, but the really effective ones know that it's all a game for personal political power, and they will carefully shift their message depending on what works best. Based on my past statements and my project at WT:GAU, it's reasonable to at least entertain the worry that I'm being a populist, that I am trying to shift power from someone else to myself by championing "the little people". As I've said before, this is completely inappropriate on Wikipedia, because we don't need representative democracy here, and there are no "little people". One should invite everyone to the debate, and if they don't show up, they don't get a voice ... no one speaks for anyone else here, although large, careful, random surveys can be useful. My position is that, even if it wasn't your intention, Sept, your statement uses what I (among others) do in my spare time, like working on easy problems such as punctuation, as evidence that I am out of touch with what the people need and totally on the wrong track. This is both factually wrong and also populist ... "look at the pointy-headed, out-of-touch geeks; follow me instead". The worst part is that it throws suspicion on me and other people like me who are trying to do something positive; when a debate is polarized, it tends to cast even centrist positions in a negative light, and make people suspect that all the combatants are secretly trying to pull in one direction or the other. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I was responding, quite narrowly, to one claim above, that we need large, hard guidelines on such matters as the three above, in order to be professional; that is hyperbole, and I object to it. I am not advocating any political theory of Wikipedia, doing so would, again, be contrary to this policy.
  • Out of touch with what people need and totally on the wrong track? Not what I think, nor what I said. I encourage data on punctuation choices; I support what SV calls "grandmotherly" approach: the provision of reasons for editors to make one or another of these. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I accept that you didn't mean to demean my contributions, but it certainly sounded like you did; I don't know how else to read: "they have nothing to do with clarity, or anything else actually of value to the encyclopedia." I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it's really very simple: I don't know everything there is to know about what looks professional these days, so for those times when I need to answer a question for someone or make a contribution to WP:MoS, I subscribe to TCMOS and the AP Style Manual and pick up my copy of NYTM and look it up, and I try to remember what I've seen in EB and online opinion magazines and blogs to confirm that online usage doesn't significantly differ. Yes, part of the charm and potency of Wikipedia is the wide range of styles and backgrounds of the editors, and if you'd like to help me promote some form of appropriate diversity and tolerance at the GA level, I could sure use some help. For FA and WP:MoS issues, yes, the 3 style manuals I use are not perfect, and some people don't consider them entirely appropriate to Web 2.0. But I'm not smarter than the consensus of large numbers of professional copyeditors; I'll just have to take their word for it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Alright, what do we gain by establishing cross-article uniformity on the use of ten (as opposed to 10)? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I didn't make a contribution to that one, and I'd like to stay busy at WP:GAN and WP:GAU and avoid putting too much time into MoS, when possible. But if those three style manuals say "use ten", then my reply would be just what I said: I'm not smarter than the consensus of large numbers of professional copyeditors; I'll just have to take their word for it. I do believe that Featured Articles will be judged by language criteria that I find distastefully picky ... but judged they will be, by journalists, academics, professionals, and policymakers who are used to reading articles that are professionally copyedited, and I'm glad there are people who are willing to look it up, and use judgment when the answers are cloudy. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 01:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Ho hum, Anderson goes on and on and on. He talks of clarity, yet have a look at Dan Geist's critique of one of Anderson's recent unilateral attempts to get his own way at MOS (without bothering with the concept of consensus). It beggars belief that Anderson should lecture people here about clarity. TONY (talk) 09:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Best practices

It has been wondered above just how we might define our "best editors." Wonder no more—our best editors are those who do our best work. And how do we define our best work? By vetting it and according it Featured Article status.

Having cracked that conundrum, what can we learn? Here's a couple things for starters:

  • Many—the evidence adduced a few threads above suggests most—of our best editors specify image sizes in Wikipedia's best articles. As SlimVirgin suggests, it brings the Manual of Style into disrepute when it advises against our best practices as defined by the work of our best editors as defined by our...yes...Featured Articles. There is a case to be made that our less-than-best editors do better leaving images at default sizing, so it is reasonable to argue that the MoS should not prescribe specified image sizing. But given our real-life-here-at-Wikipedia best practices, as evidenced by our Featured Articles, the MoS should certainly not recommend against specified image sizing.
  • Many of our best editors write image captions that many wikignomes would not call "short." Our MoS should not suggest—via the connotation of the redundant use of the word "succinct"—that text length is an acceptable reason for a gnome with no particular knowledge or interest in a given article to tamper with the size and thus content of its captions. Gnomes aside, the MoS should not be written so as to encourage an editor who favors shorter captions to claim to be "right" on the basis of MoS compliance. Our best editors are "right" in our best articles—some of those articles have incontrovertibly short captions, some have longish ones, some have even longer ones, some even have long ones. When our best work demonstrates such a diversity on a matter that (a) affects not just article style but also substance and (b) it is impossible to ever achieve pan-Wikipedia consistency on, given the subjective meaning of "succinct" (and of the connoted "short"), our MoS serves us best when it remains silent, prescribing nothing beyond the general virtue: all our writing in the main namespace—the encyclopedia proper—should be succinct.—DCGeist (talk) 07:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
We can almost guarantee that our best editors are able to understand and follow community norms. As you have previously expressed your contempt for these norms by your conduct at punk rock, I don't know why you would think your opinion is of any particular consequence to this discussion. If articles which don't follow our norms are being awarded FA status, maybe it is the FA process which is broken. I don't know either as all this is based on your flawed survey above which relies on articles selected by you and contains at least one error. Please bring something other than your opinion (eg a consensus, a proper survey) if you decide to continue here. Thanks. --John (talk) 14:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Your J-ness, what is this magical power you bring other than your opinion? In our colloquy concerning punk rock, you did demonstrate a special talent for fantasizing "norms" that are in fact...enjoy the moment...just your own opinion. And you are especially adept at informing people that their views don't count; that they should be silent; that they should go away. Is that the sort of thing you'd like me to start bringing? Sorry, Johnny Bear, you're just going to have to keep putting up with people who fail to recognize that you are always right and they are always wrong when they happen not to share your...wait for it, it's gonna be special...opinion. I have supplied evidence—citing many Featured Articles whose content belies your claim that your opinion reflects a "norm" that is actually practiced in our best work. Anyone can check the evidence, expand the survey, argue its logic—I've given our fellow contributors something tangible to grapple with. You have supplied nothing but your individual opinion and a royally pronounced "almost guarantee" based, it would seem, on intense examination of your cute widdle belly button.
Now that you have initiated another of our enjoyable tête-à-têtes by commenting on the contributor rather than responding to the substance of my observations, and I have duly responded, try doing something useful. Here's a menu of choices: (a) realizing your opinion is of no particular consequence to this discussion; (b) deciding not to continue here (Is this how you like it, baby? Am I bringing it?); (c) retreating to the dictionary and learning the meaning of the words "we", "guarantee", "norm", and "if", all of which you used improperly in the span of three sentences; (d) thanking me for giving you so many options to choose from. Yours lastingly, D. —DCGeist (talk) 19:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
DCG, I think I agree with your overall take on this issue, but that level of sarcasm toward another editor isn't particularly helpful to anyone. My horse is not very high on this one, as I've taken that tone here myself before, I'm just saying it's really, really dripping in this case, enough to splash all over the debate. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

MOS is prescriptive, by its very nature

Like so much else on this page right now, this too has already been hashed over many times before. WP:MOS and its subpages are necessarily prescriptive, because their purpose is to offer guidance on how to write articles. The MOS is not an exercise in linguistics, it is a help page for WP editors. Furthermore, the MOS is not in any way bound to agree with the Chicago Manual of Style, the Guardian style guide, or any other published work, because they are all intended for different media and audiences than WP's MOS is. WP's MOS is not even just about Web style, but WP style in particular: the style that best serves our readers, which includes users of Commonwealth and North American English alike, doctorates and mentally handicapped alike (the existence of the Simple English Wikipedia notwithstanding). No one is (or should) be pretending that WP:MOS is written as a general style guide for the general public for general purposes. It is none of the above. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

PS: I generally agree with SlimVirgin's original thesis, other than I think it goes a little too far. She says "We should never have a situation where the page advises against things that lots of good editors do", yet we actually do do this from time to time and for good reason. It was once common practice to include "In popular culture" a.ka. "Trivia" sections in articles, especially film and television ones, and also common practice to put spoiler-warning templates on "Plot" or "Synopsis" sections in articles about films, novels and other works of fiction, but these practices have been deprecated by broad consensus over the last year or two, and many "good" editors have not yet caught up. MOS in particular is in a special position to make unusually prescriptive recommendations. Left to their own devices, many excellent editors would fill articles with contractions like "didn't", etc., and make other things that any MOS editor would regard as stylistic mistakes because their personal usage patterns do not match what consensus has determined to be encyclopedic usage. As as side point, I would like everyone who questions this to consider that what even constitutes encyclopedic usage is a moving target, and has been drifting more toward formal than informal. A great way to see this for yourself is to look at articles based on the 1911 Britannica articles on the same topic. Of those that are entirely or almost entirely copy-paste jobs, a great number of them are flagged for tone cleanup, because the old encyclo. was written in a tone – very user-direct and chatty, with lots of "one must observe..." and "as the reader can see..." types of asides – that WP no longer considers appropriate at all. PS: WP:MOSFLAG's entire existence is one of "advis[ing] against things that lots of good editors do", but it actually survived the full-on guideline proposal process, with virtually no controversy, despite the fact that lots of otherwise-great editors were sticking flagicons all over the place. Just because X number of people do it doesn't make it a good practice. Or I could say, in the dialect of the locals where I live, "I done reckon just cuz lots o' them-there folks be doing stuff ain't makin' it right." — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm really glad you're back, Stanton, you were missed. It's probably not a stretch that you're directing those comments at me and other MoS editors who are relatively new to the process, especially given that I said, earlier in that thread, "I subscribe to TCMOS and the AP Style Manual and pick up my copy of NYTM and look it up, and I try to remember what I've seen in EB and online opinion magazines and blogs to confirm that online usage doesn't significantly differ." Whether that's the right answer depends on the question. My take on "prescription" is that it will probably work best to go in both directions at the same time. I am relatively new to WP:GAN, but I'm struck by how enthusiastic so many editors are for the style advice they get, prescriptive or otherwise; it's the opposite of what I was expecting from reading all the drive-by "you people suck" comments on WP:MoS. Most editors there really do want to "dress up nice"; in fact, almost every person to respond to the GAU survey so far says they want additional advice. (I know that many FAC reviewers are not happy with the quality of GAN style advice, I'm just saying that people are generally happy.) They know that academics, journalists and professionals are used to reading professionally copyedited work. When this is the goal, then I think for many questions, it would be arrogant for me to say "this looks right", without any further explanation, when I've got at my fingertips WP style guidelines, plus archives, plus the consensus wisdom of large numbers of highly paid copyeditors who have exactly the job of making things look right in the relevant publications (TCMOS etc). Of course, opinions can differ on which manuals and publications are relevant; personally, the online EB, the NYT Magazine, the New Yorker, Wired, and Scientific American probably reflect what I think of as good professional style.
At the same time, it's absolutely correct that Web 2.0 in general and Wikipedia in particular is something different. And even if it weren't, if the only editors we had were the ones who either write in this style or are perfectly happy to have their articles conformed to this style at any time, then we'd be in deep trouble, so we have to have a big tent. And that doesn't mean that we approve some articles and sniff at the others or treat them with benign neglect; it means we survey to get a sense of different styles and different goals, and we engage people to see where a meeting of the minds is possible and where it isn't. The initial results at WP:GAU suggest that just listening to people makes all the difference in how "huffy" they are about the divergence of styles on Wikipedia, but it's early days. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Query

I was wondering what the purpose of this is: "Avoid sandwiching text between two images facing each other." SlimVirgin talk|edits 23:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

What I take from "sandwiching" is, don't let multiple images create narrow text columns; maybe it could use simpler language. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 23:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It's just that it's sometimes okay; it depends how narrow the text column becomes. Obviously too narrow is bad, but often it's fine to have two images facing each other. SlimVirgin talk|edits 23:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Not in my opinion. It makes the text much harder to read, and serves no possible purpose, unlike the occasional exception to the image stacking rule. VanTucky 00:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
There are no occasional exceptions to the image-stacking rule, because there is no image-stacking rule. Images are routinely placed next to each other, unless I've misunderstood what's meant by stacking. SlimVirgin talk|edits 00:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I mean what is described in the linked passage currently in the text here: it's not just simple near placement, it's literally stacking the images (in the edit window), which can create problems for text. How close you want to place images otherwise is just aesthetics. VanTucky 00:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Just to be clear we're talking about the same thing, I'm asking what the problem is with this. SlimVirgin talk|edits 00:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Like I say above: harder to read, ugly, has no discernible benefit. There's a reason you never see this kind of placement in publications. VanTucky 00:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
You see it all the time in publications. :-) Which part of the text is hard to read? SlimVirgin talk|edits 00:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Um, no you don't. The part that is sandwiched between the two images. It's visually distracting, and the text is floating without connection to either the right or left side, which disrupts the flow of reading. There's no benefit that this type of placement has, and it's easily solved by moving one up or down when staggering images l-r. VanTucky 00:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Depending on your monitor, it's awful when editors sandwich text between right- and left-aligned images (worse when they force the image size), because you can end up with a sliver of text with one or two words on each line in between the images. That item is an important one; SV, are you saying it's not clearly phrased so that readers don't understand what it refers to? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
And, depending on the sizes involved, the text can break after a few words, leaving a white hole between the two images. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I do agree with Anderson entirely. TONY (talk) 02:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Much obliged. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Has anybody noticed that the first and fifth general guidelines under Images are redundant: both say to start with a right-aligned image?
  • TOCs and right aligned images can have sandwiching problems too; that's one "compelling reason" not to do it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Observation: the usage of dashes in Marshalsea is absolutely infuriating. SlimVirgin hates me, or she would have used another link.
Question: All right, plain text between images does not lend itself for comfortable reading (I hope I've used the expression correctly here). What about other forms of text, however? Tables? Pull quotes? Anything? I don't think flanking images are unsuitable for everything. Waltham, The Duke of 05:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Too many dashes? I can remove some if you think it's overdone. It's a feature of liking long sentences. When I find myself getting entangled, out pops the em dash.
The point about images facing each other and big quotation marks is that we ought to leave them to editorial/aesthetic judgment. There's too much of a desire for uniformity here. We have to leave editors room to express themselves, because we're not robots, and we surely don't want every article to look the same. That's not to say I'm advocating anarchy, and I appreciate the need for a good MoS, but this one is wandering into areas most stylebooks leave to the judgment of the writers and page editors. SlimVirgin talk|edits 06:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Not too many—too carelessly used. I saw hyphens and em dashes for date ranges, scores of spaced em dashes, and Unicorn knows what else.
I would have expressed myself more delicately had I known it were your creation, though.
...Or not. (evil grin)
In any case, I volunteer to copy-edit the article, either today or tomorrow (call it penitence if you like). You shall see what I mean after that. Do we have an agreement? Waltham, The Duke of 07:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
It's in the process of being tightened, copy edited, and possibly reorganized, so now would not be a good time, but once that's done, I'll given you a shout if you're still willing. (I do use spaced em dashes on purpose though. They look too cramped to me without spaces.) SlimVirgin talk|edits 07:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
SV, use space en dashes, not em dashes. MOS got consensus on that one (which is also echoed in CMoS, etc.) over a year ago (with me being in favor of space em dashes but outvoted, I would add: I sympathize with your preference, but accepted my defeat and went with the majority on that one. It actually takes very little practice to get used to either using unspaced em dashes – which, with you, I detest – or using spaced en dashes, which have the readability effect you and I both like, but are a tiny bit shorter). At this point, I'm not even sure I can think of a valid use of em dashes at all in WP, other than as a hideous, unspaced alternative to spaced en dashes. They don't seem to have any other function at all. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
Except in people's signatures? ;-) Phaunt (talk) 08:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
I have no problem with that. Although I should warn you that spaced em dashes have some quirky habits when it comes to line-breaking; they are actually discouraged by the MoS now for that very reason (well, amongst others—their taking up too much space is another one). You might want to consider spaced en dashes if you really like the "airy" feel of the spaces. Waltham, The Duke of 07:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Slim, sounds like you're a spaced-en-dash kinda gal. Tell me, why not? The article looks to be shaping up nicely. TONY (talk) 08:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Thank you. Actually, I think I'd prefer to wean myself onto em dashes without spaces than en dashes with them. The latter look too hesitant, almost apologetic. I need something bold when I'm trying to batten down a long sentence. :-) SlimVirgin talk|edits 22:20, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I've been an unspaced-em-dash guy, but Noetica has partially sold me the virtues of spaced en dashes. Mind you, they do look different according to font, and the one you and I use on our talk pages is not ideal (I think the en dash is almost indistinguishable from a hyphen—pity). TONY (talk) 01:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I am also an unspaced-em-dash user. Apart from the visual effect thereof, which I prefer, I also like distinguishing the roles of en dashes and em dashes, using the former for disjunction and lists and the latter for interruption. And there is also, of course, the matter of the edit window to consider. Waltham, The Duke of 10:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

MoS for Maps

There has been an ongoing discussion about what map should be used for Talk:Scotland. I was wondering is there a MoS for maps? I noted that out of the 193 countries in the world there are only 2 styles of maps used for major subdivisions of countries. Does that mean that there is a MoS for them or is this just by accident? Any reply would be appreciated. Thanks -- UKPhoenix79 (talk) 11:14, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

There is indeed a submanual, not yet approved as part of MOS, though; however, it is almost totally inadequate. Given the appalling standard of many of our maps, it should be a high priority to fix it up. TONY (talk) 12:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Where would that be located? Also check my research at Talk:Scotland/Archive_17#Major_Subdivisions_list I don't know if it is helpful or not. -- UKPhoenix79 (talk) 19:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
It's listed in the template top-right of MOS. I've several ideas on how to improve it, but not the expertise or experience to formulate them in detail. Perhaps it needs an audit along the lines proposed at MOSCO. Here's the map subpage: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(diagrams). TONY (talk) 09:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Break out image usage?

I am noticing that as this page has developed, the material about image usage... has not. Clearly the denizens of Wt:MoS have a passion for prose, and most of the guideline consists of tightly-worded directions for how to write articles. But #Images is just a hodgepodge of frankly half-baked and inconsistent bullet points. My recent effort to improve and clarify some of the contradictory material received little input (and just got archived again without resolution). The issues of how to layout a page are distinct from how to write an article. It's also difficult to talk about images meaningfully without visuals, which this article clearly does not have room for. Wikipedia:Picture tutorial fills some of that gap, but as a introductory tutorial what it describes isn't necessarily recommended, and it doesn't provide guidance for when editors are in doubt. There isn't a huge amount to say about image usage, but it does need to be consistent and clear. I'm suggesting that it might be advantageous to create a separate page where this information could be addressed better than it can be in this one. - JasonAQuest (talk) 13:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Would you like to propose new/additional wording for discussion? TONY (talk) 14:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
I already did. Twice. The fact that most of y'all didn't have a strong opinion about it – and most visual arts people aren't interested in tiptoeing around heated discussions about BC vs BCE or the use of the serial comma – is one reason I figured it might be helpful to separate the topic. - JasonAQuest (talk) 16:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Or write a draft, and let us know; if it expresses consensus, it can eventually become WP:MOSIMAGES. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Jason, I have no strong opinion on whether image usage should be broken out or not—I would lean (a) to keeping it here and also (b) to bringing in the style points concerning audio sample usage from Wikipedia:Music samples and improving those. For that to be viable, you do—as you say—need other people to participate. I went into the archives here to find the proposals you made that weren't picked up on.
  • I fully support the position you state in the following: "The suggestion to move the TOC just to accommodate a face pointing the wong way is (IMHO) bad UI design, and should be removed in favor of statement that precedes it." Specifically, per Jason's proposal, the following sentence should be cut: "Where this is the lead image, it may be appropriate to move the Table of Contents to the right by using {{TOCright}}." The paragraph containing it should (a) have the lead term Exception deleted and (b) be recast as an advisory on positioning of portraits, while affirming that right alignment is always preferred for lead images, whichever way the eyes face. (Mind you, I say this having knowingly moved the TOC away from the left in one particular circumstance: RKO Pictures. But that's an exceptional design case and a couple reviewers did oppose my choice there.)
I couldn't find (or, perhaps, recognize) the other proposal you made. Could you restate it here? Best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 19:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
It was one proposal (in response to the same subject being brought up by others a couple times), which has twice been archived with minimal comment. If guidelines are needed for audio samples, perhaps that means that a broader guide for media usage in general would be beneficial. I just don't see it dovetailing well with a writing style guide. - JasonAQuest (talk) 02:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
You may well be right. The overriding concern is to improve the style guidance for media usage. If you're inspired to take the lead on that and feel it would be better accomplished on a separate project page, I would support you and assist as able.—DCGeist (talk) 02:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that articles with a right-facing lead image on the right look kind of strange. See Ludwig Wittgenstein. SlimVirgin talk|edits 22:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes they do, but the greater problem is that left-aligning a lead image 1) displaces the lead paragraph from beginning in the upper-left corner, 2) displaces the TOC from the left margin, and 3) precludes the use of a standard infobox. Taken altogether, that looks even stranger. - JasonAQuest (talk) 02:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Agreed. We can certainly add to the language of the section that a left-facing image, where available and not markedly inferior to any available right-facing image, is preferred for the lead.—DCGeist (talk) 02:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
That seems reasonable. If only a right-facing image is available, though, then JasonAQuest's proposal to cut the TOCright option goes further than I'd like. I'd suggest letting article editors choose between TOCright or no lead image in those circumstances, which is what the current wording says (it says "may be appropriate"). Mike Christie (talk) 03:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
This is surprising, but that's part of what makes these conversations valuable. To be clear, Do you find a right-facing image on the right so distracting that you think some articles are actually better served by having no lead image at all?—DCGeist (talk) 03:54, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm not really sure what the problem is with a left-aligned image and a left-aligned TOC - see Joseph Priestley, for example. That was the consensus we came to there (I also like letting editors choose - let's avoid instruction creep as much as possible). Squashing the lead between the image and TOC does not look particularly good, by the way. I also don't see a problem with moving the lead text over to better place the image. The text is already not left-aligned, since there is the menu bar - moving it over a few more inches doesn't matter much. Finally, precluding the use of an infobox does not seem like a big loss to me - they are not required, most are grotesque, and most repeat information found in the article. Those that are truly useful, such as those for a chemical element, are not going to be affected by portraiture issues. Awadewit (talk) 04:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the example you provide looks just fine, because the lead text is long enough that the left alignment of the image does not force the TOC out of position. (By the way, I must disagree with your observation that "The text is already not left-aligned, since there is the menu bar." As a reader, I certainly register the specific content of the name article field as left-aligned, discounting the automated content of the menu bar.) However, in other articles, the same sort of placement would cause a substantial problem. Let's take another featured article where the figure in the lead portrait is positioned essentially the same as that in Joseph Priestley: Harriet Arbuthnot. The body aims right, as does the head—though less so—and the eyes aim straight out. She looks great too, if you move her to the left side of the lead—but because the lead text in this case is considerably shorter, such a move displaces the TOC to a centered position. That's a particularly egregious (and, obviously, hypothetical) example, but we really should guide against that sort of thing in general.

I'd like to quote Jason at length from the earlier thread where he initiated the proposal I've reintroduced here. As Jason observed, our MoS currently suggests

that the TOC – a navigation element. – be shoved out of the way to make room for a left-aligned image. Now, I don't claim to the world's foremost expert on user interface design, but I have taken classes in the subject, in which I was told that it is a Bad Thing for user interface elements to move around the screen, because that can be disorienting and it requires the user to spend more time looking for them. My professional experience supports this. It's less-than-ideal that the TOC moves up and down to accommodate the length of the intro, but that's tolerable because readers quickly come to expect it within WP. However, having seemingly-random articles substitute left-placement of the TOC with right-placement is confusing to many readers. After all, the rule about which way portraits should face is not generally known, nor is it self-evident. But the rules that UI elements should stay in place, and that articles should be formatted consistently unless there is "a compelling reason to do otherwise" (WP:MOS#Images, line 1), are intuitively understood. The suggestion to move the TOC just to accommodate a face pointing the wong way is (IMHO) bad UI design, and should be removed in favor of statement that precedes it.

That's very well stated and demonstrates an admirable understanding of good design. While I'm sensitive to avoiding instruction creep, this is a case where the design imperative is clear: making placement of user interface elements consistent, to the degree practical, is a Very Good Thing.—DCGeist (talk) 05:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree that it shows admirable understanding of good design, because it contains this: After all, the rule about which way portraits should face is not generally known, nor is it self-evident. If it is not well known (it should be), it is certainly self evident. Look at any painting or illustration and you will see that the outer elements of the design face inwards (unless they are clearly subordinate). Look through a good art book (where the principle is understood) on pages where text and illustrations are combined and you will usually see the principle of inward-looking figures (or elements: the face of buildings, for example) applied. When a portrait figure looks off a Wikipedia page, it creates an exit for the eye where there shouldn't be one, and therefore makes the look of the composition—and a page is a composition—uneasy. All non-forward-looking portraits have the effect of leading the eye off the image in the direction of the subject's gaze, and so an inward-looking portrait will lead the eye to the text, which, at the start of an article, should be the dominant place. An inward-facing portrait on the left will therefore lead the readers to the text better than the same portrait facing outward on the right. To quote Henry Poore, Composition in Art, "the eye travels the line of least resistance".
However, I agree that editors should look for a left-looking first portrait, if they can find one. Though I can see no problem with inward-looking portraits on the left for articles with full introductions, I can see that there's a problem with such a portrait pushing a small introduction and TOC around. The issue of the infobox is to me irrelevant, because those wretched things are not mandatory. qp10qp (talk) 13:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
It appears to be a good thing, but it is not universal, so I don't see how it can be self-evident. Consider the arms of Scotland; the lilies of the tressure face alternately in and out; it is even possible to have principal charges facing out of both sides of the shield. Charges in orle are all faced the same way. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
But the lilies are subordinate elements. The outer elements will incline inwards (or forwards) if they are major elements. I believe it is self evident. Even a child will draw this way; most family snaps are taken on this principle. qp10qp (talk) 14:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
The principle that figures should be inward-facing may be self-evident to you (and it became evident to me as soon as it was pointed out to me as a freshman in art school), but the fact that it is so widely ignored demonstrates that it isn't self-evident to everyone. It's my experience that most people simply aren't conscious of such things. (I don't know what family snapshots you've been looking at, but most of those I've seen are paragons of poor composition, taken too far from the subject, which is centered bullseye in the frame... and if they're at a sightseeing attraction they're looking away from it!) Of course you'll find the principle applied properly in books and magazines; those are laid out by design professionals who are conscious of that principle. Wikipedia editors don't generally have that background (nor should they be expected to) and it shows. It's certainly more subtle than aspects of page layout that tend to be obvious to the casual observer, such as the placement of lead photos in the upper-right corner and the placement of the lead paragraph in the upper-left, left-aligned within the margins of the content area. People notice when that's violated, and as the edit history on Jane Austen demonstrates, they'll try to fix it, even if it means having the subject gaze off the screen. And IMprofessionalO rightly so, because it is a more serious error of article layout. (I doubt you'll find examples of professionally-published books or magazines where the opening paragraph of an individual article or chapter is indented to make room for a left-aligned photo; it done, it it's a deliberate stylistic quirk of the publication and done consistently throughout.) There are issues of user-interface design here as well, which may not be evident to many people, but which are nonetheless important. In UI design the principles of page layout apply, but there's the added layer that certain items on the page are also controls, and should not be moved around arbitrarily unless there is no other solution; the TOC is one of them. (It's bad enough that it moves up and down on the page; moving it to the right margin contributes to Wikipedia resembling a game of Whac-A-Mole.) - JasonAQuest (talk) 14:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
The fact that it is widely ignored here doesn't mean that it should be. It's a form of visual grammar, and, as with written grammar, ignorance does not invalidate it.
(I doubt you'll find examples of professionally-published books or magazines where the opening paragraph of an individual article or chapter is indented to make room for a left-aligned photo. But have you noticed that chapters nearly always begin on the right page of a double page? And that often the page on the left will contain a portrait, and that the portrait will be aligned inward, to the right? A Wikipedia page is not, so long as we have this tendency to put a picture at the top, equivalent to the beginning of a chapter.
In short, my main point here is just to oppose any potential banning of images on the top left of an article, though I believe such a disposition will remain rare. Part of the problem is our set-up for leads (with wandering TOCs), which is intrinsically unsatisfactory. I would like to see a top template containing just the page title, the TOC, and an optional image (as on Encarta), with the article starting below in a separated area. But perhaps it is believed that that would delay the reader too much. qp10qp (talk) 15:23, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
The problem is that JasonAQuest places the needs of page design above those of aesthetics and I place the needs of aesthetics above page design - that is why I think editors should be allowed to choose. We haven't been able to find a principle on which to base the MOS rule, so we shouldn't establish one yet. Also, I am unconvinced that readers have as much trouble as Jason is arguing - that is a bit of an insult to the readers, in my opinion. They navigate successfully for one website to another, with totally different designs. I'm sure small changes in our pages will not bother them. Finally, I'm not sure why we must always sacrifice beauty and elegance for utility. Awadewit (talk) 15:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Page design and aesthetics are not separate issues. And it should be obvious from the inability to reach a stable consensus on the Jane Austen page (before the discovery that the image was facing the wrong way in the first place) that making that page different from others on Wikipedia did bother people. - JasonAQuest (talk) 16:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, please let's not get confused. Page design is an aesthetic issue. Thus, we have two aesthetic ideals: (1) predictably left-aligning the TOC—the primary article-specific user interface/navigation element, and (2) positioning portraits so they face inward—most relevantly here, portraits accompanying the article lead. Given (a) the universal stricture imposed by the layout of the content area and (b) the occasional stricture imposed by our image resources, we can usually, but not always achieve ideal 1 and ideal 2 in the same article. So: Are the two aesthetic ideals equally important, or is the imperative toward achieving one greater than that toward achieving the other? I believe relevant evidence from many different sources supports the view that ideal 1 is more important to achieve than ideal 2.
Take a look at the New York Times main page—right now, if you can. The user interface elements are exactly where they were yesterday, and where they will be tomorrow. Now notice the images on the edge of the page that happen to face outward. Look at that in-house ad for "The Kitchen Incubator" on the far right. The primary figure, in the middle, aims out to the right. And the figure farthest to the right? He faces out to the right. Scroll down to the Inside NYTimes.com gallery—the image on the far left, of Dean Wareham, faces left, out. Fine, not a perfect example (good luck finding a perfect example)—these images are not set against body text, though the in-house ad is set against headline-and-summary text. The point is still clear: maintaining predictable placement of user interface elements is a top priority; keeping figures facing inward much less so. [A particularly imperfect example—the images have already changed. Ah well...]
A very different example, also imperfect. I picked up a volume of my treasured 1971 Encyclopedia Britannica. Beautiful books. Some of the articles are long enough to have a TOC. The design of the TOC (roman numerals for sections; arabic for subsections) and its placement (after a lead paragraph and a single, indented lead-in line) is always the same. There's a lot of pictures in this book. And of the figures placed in the outside columns (the design is two columns per page), yes, it would appear that most do face inward, but many face outward (when I say "many," I mean roughly a third).

[[Image:Wittgenstein1930-mirror.jpg|thumb|right|Ludwig Wittgenstein image mirrored to be "inward looking"]]

The point is this: When we turn for guidance on these aesthetic issues to media or publications that deal with (a) user interface/navigation elements and (b) pictures of people, we find that predictable design and placement of user interface/navigation elements is a top priority and orienting portraits so they face inward, away from the edge of the page, is a secondary one—and by some distance.—DCGeist (talk) 17:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
The NYT page is not very luminous, with so many columns; and I can't check your encyclopedia (we are talking about gaze, I hope, and not stance). I've just checked your userpage, since I've never met you before; and I must say, you have laid it out very well. If you placed your photo on the right, it would not look so well, in my opinion.
By the way, I agree that aesthetics and page design partake of each other. Correct placing of images contributes to good page design by leading the reader's eyes to the central text and the TOC rather than off the page.qp10qp (talk) 19:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
Yes, I do mean "gaze." Thanks for your comment on my userpage—I agree, I don't think it would look as good if that image was positioned on the right. But there's no imperative for uniformity in our personal user pages, where individual expression is the very point. Again, positioning figures so they gaze inward toward article text is a virtue, but predictably positioning the TOC is a greater virtue—and I warrant that virtually all evidence that can be adduced from other media and publications that share comparable design concerns supports that.—DCGeist (talk) 19:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)
If this image accompanied a magazine story they would simply flip it over. I've mirrored the Ludwig Wittgenstein image and added it to this thread as an example. I have no idea if there are requirements to use images in their original format on the Wikipedia. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Sorry - I see that mirroring is already discussed at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Images. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Aesthetics and page design can be linked, but the above discussion of page design seemed to revolve around utility. Jason has made a good argument for utility. However, I do not feel that utility is the principle that should necessarily underlie this decision. Sacrificing aesthetics for the sake of utility (which is really standardization) is not convincing to me - I do not yet understand why utility should trump aesthetics. To me, the argument reduces to something like this: "we should have standardization, not beauty". Moreover, I agree with Qp that the NYTimes example is a poor one - that page represents poor page design AND poor aesthetics, in my opinion. (Flipping photographs and paintings is generally not considered a good idea - it misrepresents and alters the original art work. We don't do that to poetry!) Awadewit (talk) 08:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
Mr. Awadewit, could you point us to a respectable website that you do consider an example of good design which consistently points faces inwards but may or may not consistently locate standardized elements like TOCs or navigation bars? DocKino (talk) 09:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
I have to respectfully disagree with this denigration of the aesthetic standards of page layout as mere "utility". The proper location of a left-aligned TOC along the left margin is an aesthetic issue. So is the placement of the lead paragraph in the upper left corner; putting an image there instead looks... amateurish. Visual consistency is an aesthetic matter as well; coming to an encyclopedia page which looks substantially different from its peers is visually jarring. Why do you think people hated that layout so much? It was aesthetically upsetting. Please trust me on this. I hate appeals to authority like this, but... I have a BFA with honors in the visual arts, from a multidisciplinary program that encompassed everything from ancient art history to new media design. Has it occurred to you that a literature student might not have as complete an understanding of visual aesthetics as someone who deals with it every day for a living? - JasonAQuest (talk) 22:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
By chance, I have just read this page. I read it every day, and its design does change [this page has now changed]. Here you have an inward-facing image (direction of kick) on the left, then text, then an equivalent of TOC. Only one face on the page doesn't point to the text: I'm not against exceptions, which is what I am arguing for here in the first place (that occasionally an image may sit better to the left of the lead); this seems to me to be more in the spirit of Wikipedia than inflexible and insensitive rules. I agree that TOCs are a problem for us, but as a design issue, that should be approached separately from the issue of image orientation.
I cannot repeat Awadewit's point about flipping strongly enough. For works of art and photographs by professional photographers, it is inappropriate to flip images (Ludwig will have to wear his carnation in his right lapel), even though we are legally free to do so if the images are free. (Cropping needs caution, too, but I presume it is justifiable for our purposes, since one often sees a "detail" in publications.) You never see orientation flipped in professional publications, so that's a bridge too far. qp10qp (talk) 14:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
If you're speaking of works of art in their own right, that's true. If you're speaking of photos for use as illustrative portraits, they are sometimes mirrored in "professional publications" when it suits the editor to do so. It should certainly be discouraged, but it shouldn't be categorically prohibited. - JasonAQuest (talk) 22:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
You're quite right that mirroring is sometimes done in professional publications. In the context of an encyclopedia, however, I believe the practice should be categorically prohibited. It's simply and always improper for us to represent the left side of someone's face as the right side of his face—that's a plain violation of fact that we can't ever countenance here, right?—DCGeist (talk) 04:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
By that logic, we need to ban the use of photos that represent a person's skin tone or hair color incorrectly (e.g. anything taken under unbalanced artificial lighting), and especially those that show a person as if she appeared only in shades of gray. Paintings and drawings of subjects should be prohibited, because those never get the person's features 100% correct, and for all we know the artist may have deliberately made the subject look better than she really looks, a blatant violation of WP:NPOV and WP:V! And we need an immediate upgrade of MediaWiki to support 3D, because flat images don't truthfully represents a person's features. Or we could keep this in perspective, and let editors use their collective best judgment in individual cases, guided by the understanding that flipping an image produces a less accurate representation of the subject and is therefore strongly discouraged. - JasonAQuest (talk) 13:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
My belated input: A) No, do not break out image usage into a new page; there are already way, way too many MOS subpages - so many that we cannot really keep track of them and keep them in synch any longer, even as a collective effort (if anything we need to collapse several of them back into MOS-proper). B) Flipping images around like that is a form of blatant falsification. Human faces are not really very symmetrical at all, and in many cases we would be directly misleading the reader, especially if the article subject has a scar, mole, off-center parting of the hair, or other noticeable difference between the left and right sides of his or her head. While I personally am arguably not quite notable enough for my own article here (thank goodness! It would suck to not be able to edit an article about me due to WP:COI but have one floating around that misrepresented me!), a left-right inversion of an image of me would directly misrepresent my appearance, due to the right-side part in my hair, and my left eye being slightly lower than my right one. This is not an insignificant issue at all - someone may well do a research paper on whether philosophers or whatever have a larger left or right nostril, and cite WP-published photos as evidence. DO NOT FALSIFY ANYTHING ON WP. Duh. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
PS to SlimVirgin and Marc Kupper: I don't think the Wittgenstein article looks weird at all; some pics have people looking this way and some have people looking that way, and some straight ahead, or down, or up. It's just what we have to work with. I understand that some designers might find the L.W. article weird looking, but everyday encyclopedia readers do not think about such layout issues or notice them. WP is not supposed to be "perfect" according to any discipline like page layout psychology, simply eminently useful to the end readership, and accurate. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
PPS to DCGeist: "Predictably positioning the TOC is a greater virtue" - Absolutely, even the other issues aside. I routinely nuke non-standard ToCs when I find them in articles; non-article pages, I don't care - it is not a general reader problem to have a WikiProject that wants a right-justified ToC. People seem to forget that just because a template or other feature exists somewhere on WP does not mean that it makes sense to use it in an actual article. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)