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"Task force" is two words.
And why be so militaristic? :) Maurreen ( talk) 01:09, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Before we embark on such an ambitious project as a restructuring of the MoS, we should find out what Wikipedians really need from their MoS. We can look at the pages and count the miscapitalized T's and whatnot, but it seems to me that the best way to find out whether the editors are more intimidated by the number of pages they have to click through or the size of the pages they find when clicked, whether the examples help or hinder, etc. etc. would be to ask them. We can rely on our own experiences only so much because we're a group pre-filtered for copyediting skill.
I'm pretty sure I could write a survey that we could easily translate into project goals, but I don't know how to program a delivery system or what permissions I would need to contact Wikipedia's users. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 13:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
1a. How long have you been a Wikipedia editor?
A: I'm new. B: More than one year. C: Several years.
1b. How familiar would you say that you are with Wikipedia's policies, guidelines and manuals of style?
A: Very familiar. I could Wikilawyer with the best of them (but I don't because that's WP:WIKILAWYERING). B: Somewhat familiar. Every once in the while, I find a new WP:SOMETHING that I've never heard of before. C: I am constantly butting heads against Wikipedia rules and guidelines that seem to come out of nowhere. D: I am not very familiar with Wikipedia policies, but I feel that this does not negatively effect my Wikipedia experience.
1c. How involved are you in Wikipedia?
A: I mostly just read. B: I do some editing, but I am not involved in any Wikiprojects. C: I do a lot of editing and/or am involved in one or more specific Wikiprojects. D: I am a pillar of the Wikipedia community. I am an admin, steward, founder or am otherwise heavily involved in Wikipedia and its projects.
2a. When contributing to or editing Wikipedia articles, how do you deal with copyediting and English-language issues such as grammar, formatting, capitalization, punctuation and style?
A: I leave copyediting to others; I'm more of a content person. B: I use the English that seems correct to me/that I was taught in school. C: I mostly use the English that seems correct to me/that I was taught in school but I sometimes consult the Wikipedia MoS. D: I consult the Wikipedia Manual of Style so that I know Wikipedia's preferred guidelines on these issues.
2b. Describe how you read the MoS.
A: I read it in its entirety from start to finish. B: I read just the section that I need. C: I dip in and out of the MoS as I am linked to it. D: I never/almost never read the MoS.
3. On a scale of one to five, please rate how user-friendly you find the current Wikipedia MoS to be with five being "very well-organized; I was able to find what I wanted right away" and one being "a mess; I gave up and left."
4. On a scale of one to five, please rate how user-friendly you find this sample short-form version of the Wikipedia MoS to be with five being "very well-organized; I was able to find what I wanted right away" and one being "a mess; I gave up and left."
5. In your experience, which of these problems is more common or frustrating?
A: The size of the MoS. It is too big to read comfortably. B: The number of pages I have to click through to find the Wikipedia policies and guidelines that I need. C: The MoS main page and subpages don't always match.
8-12. In your opinion, which of these sentences is more helpful and informative?
A: [Line from Tony's Beginner's Guide] B: [Full line with examples from the current MoS.] C: The second one but the examples aren't necessary. [Or similar question addressing the MoS issues raised on this page.]
13-14. In your opinion, which of these pages is easier to read?
A: [Large section from Tony's Beginner's Guide.] B: [Corresponding section from the current MoS.] C: The first one is less intimidating but also less informative. [Or similar question addressing the MoS issues raised on this page.]
15. The Manual of Style is classified as a Wikipedia guideline, not as an essay or policy. What does this mean to you? (Please consider what you actually do when you are editing rather than what you feel the "right" answer should be.)
A: The Manual of Style must be followed to the letter. B: The Manual of Style should be followed except when there is an official Wikipedia Consensus than an exception should be made. C: The Manual of Style should be followed except when making an exception would improve the article. D: I tried to do B or C, but then someone else came along and reverted my changes/started an argument on the talk page/etc. E: I tried to do C, but too many people disagreed about what was best for the article.
Darkfrog24 ( talk) 14:02, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
The numbering is going to become confusing, any suggestions? I want to add 5. How you did/do you read the MOS
A: I read it entirety it's from start to finish B: I read a particular MOS from start to finish C: I dip in and out of the MOS as I am linked to it
Gnevin ( talk) 20:23, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
The problem isn't that the MoS is badly built, the problem is that some people don't know how to read a manual of style, thus complain about whatever. What is my answer to these people? Give them the Chicago MoS and they would be just as intimidated by it if not more. This is a general manual of style, not a book, and thus should read like a general manual of style. In fact Wikipedia's MoS should be many times more massive because:
If people expect to read the MoS from front to back before editing pages, they are doing it wrong. A manual of style is a reference, meaning that you look at the TOC, go to the relevant section, and get your answer. When you have your answer, close the page, and get back to work. It makes no sense to complain about "It's too long, because it contains information about blazons!". If you don't edit heraldry pages, then you shouldn't be reading the section on heraldry in the first place. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:57, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know how to program a survey? Darkfrog24 ( talk) 23:36, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Record charts/Billboard charts guide ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Explain jargon ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Please choose sets of pages you think might be candidates for merging/rationalisation and are willing to audit. If you find yourself wanting to double up with a choice already made by someone on the list, just include it and we can negotiate or share the job.
You could advertise this at the Village Pump, I think. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:15, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
This styleguide is currently being audited by the Styleguide Taskforce. The aim is to make immediate improvements in the prose, structure, and relationship with similar styleguides. The results of the audit will be reported at the talk page of the main MoS styleguide.
The auditors, [insert username(s)], welcome participation by and comments from all interested editors.
Your thoughts? Tony (talk) 06:31, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
This styleguide isStyleguides that make up the Manual of Style are currently being audited by the Styleguide Taskforce. The aim is to make immediate improvements in the prose, structure, and relationshipswithbetween similar styleguides. The results of the audit will be reported at the talk page of the main MoS styleguide.The auditors of this styleguide, [insert username(s)], welcome participation by and comments from all interested editors.
Wikipedia's styleguides are currently being audited by the Wikipedia Styleguide Taskforce. The aim is to make improvements in the prose, formatting, structure and—critically—the relationships between similar styleguides. The results of the audit will be reported at the talk page of the main MoS styleguide
The auditor assigned to this page is [insert username(s)]. The Taskforce welcomes participation by and comments from all interested editors.
Tony (talk) 10:10, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Update - it might be necessary to add {{ clear}} or some such after this template to avoid clashes with other templates. See my talkpage for details -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 07:35, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Hello
At the article " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunyadi", an user added the line
The Hungarian form Hunyadi János was already presented in the lead:
János (John) Hunyadi ( Hungarian: Hunyadi János [ˈhuɲɒdi ˈjaːnoʃ] , Romanian: Iancu (Ioan) de Hunedoara, Slovak: Ján Huňady, Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко / Sibinjanin Janko;
Is that add really necessary? Isn't it redundant to specify that name twice? Thanks in advance for the answer( Umumu ( talk) 18:13, 1 April 2010 (UTC))
Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
I feel it is important that we only use one style of English being the international standard which is American English. Hollywood movies are shown through out the world, and this is the style of english which everyone understands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.50.16 ( talk) 23:23, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
How about the following? The Manual of Style is a guide applicable to all Wikipedia articles. It presents Wikipedia's house style, and is intended to help editors produce articles whose language, layout and formatting are consistent, clear and precise. This helps make the entire encyclopedia easier and more intuitive to use.
I took out these words and phrases that appeared to be not earning their keep: write and that maintain articles that follow a consistent pattern of style and, and, in turn, style defining standards and guidelines provided as a reference in order. Hope they are not too much missed. Rumiton ( talk) 13:28, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
I wrote this so Wikipedia books can become a bit more streamlined and have a more standardized feel. It's probably a bit drafty, but the core elements should be there. Feedback would be welcome and appreciated.
If you never heard of Wikipedia books, here's some basic details:
Wikipedia books (simply "books" from now on) are collections of article which can be downloaded electronically for free (in PDF or ODT formats, which can then be read offline, or printed by the user), or ordered in print. For examples, see Book:Hydrogen, Book:Canada, Book:Prostate, Book:Invincible class battlecruisers, (more can be found here). If you are still confused, I suggest clicking on "PDF" to see what exactly a book looks like when in PDF (ODT format is similar, printed books look better since they are printed on smaller pages, but the general idea is the same). The exact format of books can be varied: simpler books are just a bunch of links ( Book:Invincible class battlecruisers), more complex books are usually structured in chapters such as Book:Hadronic Matter.
For more informations, you can check these Signpost articles
- Books extension enabled
- New Book-Class released, WikiProject Wikipedia-Books looking for volunteers
- New Book namespace created
- Proposed deletion process extended to books, cleanup efforts
As well as
If you want to create a book, simply click on the "Create a book" link in the "print/export" toolbar on the left. (Or click here if you can't find it).
If you read all that and checked a few books in PDF, you should now be pretty familiar with what books are. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:36, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
In two consecutive edits seen side by side here two different editors decided that is would be a good idea to invoke WP:IAR at the very head of the MoS. Although I can (vaguely) see the point, I don't recall that we ever discussed this. Any thoughts on what just happened or is it just playtime and I never heard the bell go? (I reverted, BTW.) -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 00:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I usually don't visit the MoS, but I just wanted to check out a specific point in the Chronological items section. Lo and behold, when I get here, it is proposed that six pages be merged into the Manual of Style. I can't follow the above discussion – the sections which "discuss" is linked to seems to be inactive. What is the current status of the merger proposal? NW ( Talk) 16:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
All other Wikipedia Task Forces have a dedicated project page. We, on the other hand, are simply using this talk page as a base of operations. This may have contributed to to various heated discussion dotted around WP at present. I suggest we start Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style/Auditing task force or similar and leave this page clear for comments related directly to the main MoS. We can move relevent discussion over there and leave a prominant message about the task force at the top of this page. The audit templates on the various MoSes would need to be updated, of course. Anyone feel like creating an actual template that can be transcluded via the usual {{foo}} markup? -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 20:44, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (music)#Linking & capitalising definite article in band names as relating more directly to that specific MoS -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 02:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
WP:NEO is actually part notability guideline and part MoS guidance. The part of it that is a notability guideline needs to be promoted to a notability guideline by either merging into WP:N or as a new page. I think it's probably small enough that it could merge into WP:N. The rest of it could probably be merged into the main MoS, since it's not a lot. Gigs ( talk) 01:58, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Here's the distilled section I think we should merge into WP:N:
Neologisms
Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or even in larger society. It may be natural, then, to feel that Wikipedia should have a page devoted to this new term, and this is sometimes but not always the case.
To support an article about a particular term or phrase we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term or phrase, not books and papers that use the term. (Note that wikis such as Wiktionary are not considered to be a reliable source for this purpose.) Neologisms that are in wide use but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. The term does not need to be in Wikipedia in order to be a "true" term, and when secondary sources become available, it will be appropriate to create an article on the topic or use the term within other articles.
An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs, books, and articles that use the term rather than are about the term) are insufficient to support articles on neologisms because this may require analysis and synthesis of primary source material to advance a position (which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy). To paraphrase Wikipedia:No original research: If you have research to support the inclusion of a term in the corpus of knowledge that is Wikipedia, the best approach is to arrange to have your results published in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable news outlet and then document your work in an appropriately non-partisan manner.
Articles on neologisms are commonly deleted as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term. As Wiktionary's inclusion criteria differ from Wikipedia's, that project may cover neologisms that Wikipedia cannot accept. If you are interested in writing an article on a neologism, you may wish to contribute it to that project instead. In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a neologism in such a case. Instead, use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title.
Dear colleagues, Derk-Jan Hartman has reported at Buzilla 21117 that MediaWiki developers have just raised the default at the Commons, following on from the same change made here in February (I think it was that month).
It's pleasing that an overwhelming consensus built late last year on WT:IUP at en.WP has received no serious hurdles in spreading to a program of gradual application throughout WikiMedia's sites. Tony (talk) 11:41, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
All this reorganization comes at a great time for me, because I have duties now at WP:MILHIST that leave me less time to spend on the monthly update of Category:General style guidelines at WP:Update/2. It would have been tough to figure out which ones to stop keeping up with if I hadn't seen the reaction to all the merge proposals ... actually, the lack of reaction. Just going by page hits for March for WEASEL (68K) and PEACOCK (9K), I wouldn't have expected that there wouldn't be a fuss; there was certainly a lot of fuss when similar proposals were raised a couple of years ago. In addition to the style pages that have already been redirected or proposed for merging, a lot of the pages I have been tracking at WP:Update/2 got fewer hits in March than those two pages:
Does anyone have a proposal for how to divert more eyeballs to any of these pages? If not, I'll remove them from Category:General style guidelines. - Dank ( push to talk) 20:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I was looking through Category:Wikipedia style guidelines and I noticed a few articles that may or may not be appropriate for the MoS. I'm going to separate things into subsections as a pre-emptive measure, since the articles suggested different questions to me. Ozob ( talk) 01:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article message boxes. This describes the design and implementation of article message boxes. It's important if someone wants to introduce a new article message box. But it's not about writing well, nor about article layout, nor about Wikipedia content. Most people won't ever create a new article message box, so while the page is good, I wonder if it should be part of the MoS. Category:Wikipedia templates, which it's also in, seems much more appropriate. On the other hand, one might argue that template styling, like all styling, should be part of the MoS. So the question is: Should template styling be governed by the MoS?
Wikipedia:Article size. Should this sort of information be part of the MoS? It's a (overly long) description of how long an article should be. The style advice is easy to summarize: Be concise; consider splitting articles longer than 40k; do not write articles longer than 100k. But the article contains more information than just that. For instance, it describes some of the historical limitations that we used to have (the 32k limit imposed by old web browsers) but which aren't relevant anymore. It suggests workarounds for those limits. It mentions that some browsers have an upper limit of about 400k beyond which a page won't render properly. Is it in the scope of the MoS to contain historical information that was at one time appropriate to writing Wikipedia articles?
Wikipedia:Don't use line breaks. Rather than recommend a specific style, this article gives pros and cons of each position. It has essentially no content besides the arguments for and against; it draws no conclusions. Should the MoS include material which does not recommend a specific style?
Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Dear colleagues, it is high time we acted. The comments by Ohms, Hans, Art LP, AdM, DarkFrog, Jubilee and many others in the sections above are a strong indication that we have the motivation and energy to do something about the MoS mess that has grown around us unchecked over the years. Editors are irritated by the mess, and WP's styleguides do themselves no service by resisting basic reform. I'm referring to the whole list that winds down the right-hand side of the MoS page, including "Help" and "Culture", plus the other nooks and crannies that are less obvious but are still marked as style guides. The task also involves a rethink of the lax rules at Styleguide Category that are allowing anyone to elevate their pet page to MoS status without proper scrutiny and coordination.
But it will be a lot of work. The idealist, the optimist in me suggests that we might be willing to band together as the Styleguide Taskforce to share in the massive task of auditing the pages for:
and to report back here the opportunities we find for rationalisation, and to draw up plans for engineering the number of pages down to something that will serve editors much better. I believe we should be making a contribution to fixing local problems we find, during the audit, as well as reporting back here. That is likely to win greater acceptance by local editors who have a stake in the subpages. We should develop a template for talk pages that announces the auditing process and invites participation by local editors (a bonus, but I suspect many pages are ghost-towns).
I want to start the ball rolling by calling for editors to join the Styleguide Taskforce and to nominate which groups of pages they would like to audit. Until we know what we are dealing with, we are not in a position to clean up this central agent of cohesion and quality in the world's most important information site.
We could establish a timetable and method of reporting when we know who is willing to do the work and gather the knowledge. I suggest we cut our teeth on the easier ones—the groups of small, similar pages, leaving the conceptually and politically harder ones like MOSNUM vs MOSMAIN until later in the process.
It is easy to find groups of pages that look as though they should be merged just from their titles. Some are crying out for a good copy-edit.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 ( talk • contribs)
In fact, it was signed but the Call for Taskforce volunteers and MOS Taskforce audits sections broke off from it. Hope that clarifies this section for newcomers? -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 21:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Is the parenthetical birth/death info in the current version of the article Christoph Cellarius correctly-spaced? If it is correctly-spaced, then I need to request a change in AWB, which is trying to change 22 November 1638 – 1707 to 22 November 1638–1707. Thanks, -- Black Falcon ( talk) 17:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Date ranges are preferably given with minimal repetition, using an unspaced en dash where the range involves numerals alone (5–7 January 1979; January 5–7, 2002) or a spaced en dash where the opening or the closing date has internal spaces (5 January – 18 February 1979; January 5 – February 18, 1979).
This is 'above' | |
---|---|
Label | data |
The decision of whether to put infobox headings in the above
or title
position is an arbitrary one (inconsistent between even similar infoboxes) and often contentious (as seen in, for example
Infobox company#Name inside box). I feel we should standardise on one across Wikipedia. I have posted pointers to this discussion in {{
Cent}} and on relevant talk pages.
Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing);
Andy's talk;
Andy's edits
18:39, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
above
or title
position..." You said: "The rare instances in which having a title in the infobox..." Thus, "the latter" seems to refer to the caption-element, title
, described by
Jack Merridew, below --
Jubilee
♫
clipman
22:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)The terms being used here by the infobox template are a bit off; the 'title' is properly a caption-element (caption of the table) while the 'above' is a table-header-element (spanning two columns in this and many cases). Using 'captions' on tables is very good practice from an accessibility and Google-friendliness POV. There are some issues with some browsers and the styling of captions, which is, I believe, much of why they've not been used as much. Note that is is possible to style captions to have borders such that they appear to be inside the box (on good browsers, at least).
I'd be very inclined to support using captions (title) over the th-approach if there are not outright show-stoppers involved. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
One of the major issues, i've noted with the MOS is that a lot of the MOS will have see also to a other MOS . However these see also will often contradict the MOS its linking to or contradict a point a other MOS see also says is correct . I've done up (a terrible drawing) of how this looks if you map it out .
In the image we have 5 MOS. X the MOS that is being see also linked too
I believe if we create a MOS:X/core which contains the core concept of MOS X we can transclude it into Y,Z,A they will no long be able to contradict each other or X see below
Any thoughts?
Gnevin (
talk)
18:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Should we include an example of musical note progression in the en dash section? Should we warn against using hyphens between musical notes of a progression, as in D-C-A-G-A, and recommend en dashes like this: D–C–A–G–A? Binksternet ( talk) 19:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Record charts/Billboard charts guide ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Greetings to all. Capitalization of religious legal system names is uneven and falls in a gray area. Religious law is more than doctrine, dogma or law. Being in some ways indistinguishable from the religions they stem from, special care must be taken with their capitalization. Strictly speaking, capitalization and non-capitalization are bot correct. Wiki MOS is silent on the matter. The internet displays the same ambivalence exhibited in Wikipedia. I am taking my cue from the "Halakha" and "Religious law" articles, which ~tend to capitalize. Common usage tends towards capitalization, while specialized scholars tend to do so less frequently. I personally prefer capitalization, and my particular topic of interest is Sharia. I will add "religious law" to the list of capitalized nouns under "Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents" to clarify this point. The community's support is appreciated in this matter. Aquib ( talk) 22:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Org | Sharia | Canon | Halakha |
---|---|---|---|
Reuters | No pattern | No pattern | No result |
BBC | Caps | No pattern | No pattern |
NY Times | Most Caps | Lower case | No result |
Fox News | No pattern | Lower case | No result |
LA Times | Most Caps | Lower case | No result |
The difference may simply be that the Times considers Sharia a proper noun, that is refering to a specific code, while the others consider it more a general category, like canon law (which isn't a proper noun, unless refering to a specific church's code.) oknazevad ( talk) 00:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Embedded lists ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Embedded list ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
So what's the issue? These auto-notices are tedious and non-informative. :-/ I side somewhat with the contingent that "list" has two radically different meanings here, embedded lists and stand-alone lists, which have largely but not entirely separate guidance, plus further complications like glossaries. The section " Wikipedia:Lists#List articles" mentions several other [alleged] types, though I think it really could be collapsed a bit; looking that over all I see is variants of list article and in-article list (which may be, in either case, lists of episodes, lists of people, glossaries, or whatever, some of which have full-on or nascent guidelines and some of which do not).
The point being: What are the alleged problems, are they legitimate, and what do "we" (i.e., all editors who are interested and involved in the MoS) need to do about them, if anything? What do "we" (same definition) care to do or say? Can specific, actionable issues be raised and resolved? I've been at this over five years now, and I'm frankly getting tired of issues being raised and half-discussed and archived and re-raised and re-hashed and re-archived, and re-re-raised, and [repeat]. Let's just start resolving them. File RFCs if we have to. I don't think it would be a bad thing at all if this page had 5 concurrent RfCs running on it. Just get it done. MoS should be one of the most, not least, stable pages here. We (as in you, me and everyone reading this while it's still fresh) need to make that happen. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 10:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Pro and con lists ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
You might be interested in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#WP:BIRD and the Effort to Capitalize "Rhesus Macaques". Maurreen ( talk) 20:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
'dbe ok i/1articl=tolerans!-- --pl.note:i'v[[RSI]]>typin=v.v.hard4me!>contactme thruMSNpl.if unclear[sven70=alias ( talk) 15:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Do we need all of these really specific MOS pages? There's the one immediately above, for example. I don't have an issue with it or what it says, but... why can't the few unique points that it makes be made here? It seems that there are several mini-MOS pages out there, all attempting to fork off their own little corner of the MOS. Would anyone really object to a good effort to consolidate many of these?
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs)
13:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Organization and normalization is very helpful, but likely we will still want at least a couple different MOS pages to avoid one gargantuan page; example how to break them down, however, should be discussed. -- MASEM ( t) 14:43, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, but I think this is a big mistake. There may be work needed on some of those established detail pages, but the basic structure is entirely sound, reflects best practice in documentation generally (as well as WP:Summary style), and should be left alone—one main, summary article, and a set of detailed ones it refers out to. PL290 ( talk) 14:50, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Your proposal suggests you have not seriously considered how much space what you call the "few unique points" would actually take up if consolidated. The "Text issues" section is almost entirely about specific art matters with material that is not duplicated anywhere else; that alone takes up 2 1/2 screens on my pc. Some of the other sections are more general, but consolidating the whole thing would either mean dropping stuff or taking up several screens-worth. There are over 20 such specialized MOS sub-pages, many longer than this one. The suggestion is a non-starter. Johnbod ( talk) 15:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't be opposed to limited consolidation, but I've seen a policy tagged for consolidation (we can't incorporate a policy into a guideline), and one page that recently had guideline status removed. So long as we were careful not to extend the MoS's remit, and not to downgrade or upgrade any consolidated page, I'd support the proposal. As things stand, there are too many pages for people reasonably to keep an eye on, yet they all have guideline status, often only because of their link to the MoS. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 16:57, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
I like "summary style". I wish we used it. What we often have instead is an allegedly detailed page that often has little more information than the parent page. In those cases, consolidation would be preferable to what we have. The ideal would be a parent page that really summarizes the rest of the information, rather than restating most of it. There would be a much shorter introductory page, with links to all of the existing information in the detail pages. Art LaPella ( talk) 17:25, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
This seems like the model that I'd use. In most cases, I wouldn't delete/redirect the subpages, though, since having a venue for providing details is useful in itself. Croctotheface ( talk) 08:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
User:Ohms law's example further up the page, Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Capitalization vs. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters), is an excellent one for two reasons. Firstly, it confirms the reality and extent of the duplication between the MoS and its sub-articles, meaning we must take that seriously and address it as part of this exercise. Secondly, and more interestingly, it shows we must look at the TOC here, not just an individual sub-article, to see at what level to create summaries. This TOC is vast and unwieldy (to all intents and purposes unusable at almost 3 full pages in length), and I believe the summarization should start right there. Chopping out all but the level 2s, this is the current TOC:
1 General principles 2 Article titles, headings, and sections 3 Capital letters 4 Acronyms and abbreviations 5 Italics 6 Non-breaking spaces 7 Quotations 8 Punctuation 9 Geographical items 10 Chronological items 11 Numbers 12 Units of measurement 13 Common mathematical symbols 14 Simple tabulation 15 Grammar 16 Images 17 Bulleted and numbered lists 18 Links 19 Miscellaneous
That is more like a usable TOC. It's also more like the list of sections I think this document should limit itself to, without subsections. Just high-level concepts, with each of those sections itself identifying any applicable sub-concepts, summarizing and linking to them. (It seems to me that even some of these "high-level" entries are in fact too low-level to appear there; Capital letters is perhaps one of them, and could be grouped along with two or three other low-level items under some more general heading.) PL290 ( talk) 09:46, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
As a concrete example, I've created
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Clarity, which combines
Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms,
Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms,
Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words and
Wikipedia:Explain jargon, and is transcluded onto the page here.
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs)
17:10, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
For a better (as in, less controversial) example. Since nobody was watching the page (less than 30, at least), and nobody had touched either the page or the talk page in over a year, I've converted
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Blazon to be a transcluded sub-page. I also took the opportunity to fix the style and language of the page itself, since it was terribly written (where it was actually written, rather then being forced into a bullet list style...). Again, I understand and sympathize with the general reasons not to use this pattern, but in this particular instance it makes sense, to me. There are things that can be done to make editing the specific sub-pages easier, by providing special links for example, if there is serious concerns about accessibility.
—
V = IR (
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21:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Ohms has proposed to merge the WP:Image use policy into the MoS. In effect, this is a proposal to eliminate Wikipedia's primary (only?) policy specifically dealing with images, and to bloat the MoS with non-stylistic information, such as how to deal with non-free images and whether images of patients entering a medical facility unreasonably intrude on the patients' privacy (in the absence of their consent, of course).
Whatever the merits of the other merge proposals, I think this one should be removed from the list of considerations. A WP:POLICY is not a style guide. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:50, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear colleagues, as I've said above, thanks to Ohms for the Blazon experiment. However, we need a careful game-plan if we are to tackle the weeping, pustulating mess of style-guide pages in WP, for the sake of editors, readers, and the project as a whole.
In my view, these are the bare bones of a strategy:
IMO, there are two reasons for rationalisation: ease of consultation by editors; second, proper, professional management and coordination.
I am keen to explore the idea of establishing a managing committee to oversee this huge, complex beast—both its auditing and rationalisation in the short- to medium term, and its management in the long term. I would even be willing to explore the possibility of electing such a committee, such is our dire need for reform. WP:BAG seems to have a tightly conceived committee process; so does WP:WikiProject Military History. Why are the style guides left to self-degrade?
No one seems to take WP:WikiProject Manual of Style seriously, so perhaps we need to make a start here. Tony (talk) 10:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
The following shouldn't be so hard to implement and doesn't require a huge planning effort:
Here is a summary of WP:Manual of Style (abbreviations) as an example of what I have in mind:
Abbreviations
We used digital scanning (DS) technology produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). We applied the technology while working for the World Union of Billiards. The required software was delivered electronically and fit on approximately two CD-ROMs. It was paid for by the World Union of Billiards.
Abbreviations are normally defined before their first use, are not used unnecessarily (fit on approx. two CD-ROMs), are not made up by Wikipedia editors (was paid for by the WUB), and form their plurals without an apostrophe (CD-ROM's). When to use periods (full stops) is a complex question, especially in the case of "U.S."/"US". Abbreviations of units of measures are discussed in a different guideline, see WP:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).
Hans Adler 13:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
The above list is an overview over all pages of the form WP:Manual of Style (X) that are not redirects. If such a page is not actually an official part of MOS (typically because it was rejected or abandoned before inclusion), then I have still included it but put it in parentheses and italics. I have sorted the pages into the following five criteria: region & religion, subject areas, language, Wikipedia infrastructure, miscellanea. Hans Adler 16:53, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Here's a crazy thought: We should move the whole of the Manual of Style to become a book on Wikibooks.
I know that's likely impractical, but I at least wanted to throw the idea out there. I think that quite a bit of our current debate here revolves around the problem that we're artificially constrained right now. More realistically, we could ask for a namespace to be created specifically for the MOS. That would certainly have it's own utility.
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V = IR (
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17:34, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion has shown that there's quite a lot of interest in overhauling this MoS page. As to document structure, two fundamental approaches have been identified:
I would like to gauge opinion about which of these basic approaches we should adopt. I think it will be helpful if we try to locate any further substantive discussion in other sections outside the straw poll. Let's just consider this fundamental choice here. Please indicate your preference by signing under one of the three headings below (shrink, grow, or neither).
Straw poll: shrink, grow, or neither: Shrink
"This main MoS page should continue to act as a springboard from which all style guide detail information is accessed, but the main page should contain far less detail itself."
Straw poll: shrink, grow, or neither: Grow
"This main MoS page should expand to include all required style guide detail which is at present on sub-pages, and the sub-pages should be scrapped."
Straw poll: shrink, grow, or neither: Neither
"This main MoS page should neither shrink by moving detail off it to its sub-pages, nor grow by moving all the detail here and scrapping the sub-pages."
My opinion is that this should not be merged into MOS. Firstly, only a few people are interested in it. Secondly, there is still dispute over what it should say. Tuxedo junction ( talk) 18:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree that Wikipedia:Alternative text for images should not be merged into MOS, as WP:ALT will need a long list of examples: long and short ones; how the text for the same image can depend on the situation; etc. -- Philcha ( talk) 22:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
We're trying to figure out if long "S"es should be modernized at Talk:Wife_selling#Long_s_in_quotations. How does the Manual of Style address the issue? The relevant portion of the MOS is this:
Although the requirement of minimal change is strict, a few purely typographical elements of quoted text should be conformed to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment. This practice of conforming typographical styling to a publication's own "house style" is universal. Allowable typographical alterations include these: ... Disused glyphs and ligatures in old texts may be modified according to modern practice (see Ampersand, below)....
I think this means the change SHOULD occur. But someone else thinks this means the change MAY occur, but that it's not necessary (up to his discretion). Clarification is appreciated!-- Rsl12 ( talk) 21:38, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, we're still having trouble reaching concensus at Talk:Wife_selling#Long_s_in_quotations. A more definitive answer from the MOS would help set the matter straight very quickly. Should long "s"es be modernized when quoting? If the answer is "it depends", then under what circumstances? -- Rsl12 ( talk) 16:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
WP:NBSP recommends Boeing 747, but what about [[Boeing 747]]? Somehow Boeing 747 is blue and functional as a link, but does it work for everyone's operating systems? Art LaPella ( talk) 04:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
<a href="/wiki/Boeing_747" title="Boeing 747">Boeing 747</a>
Yes it works because, unlike other characters illegal in page-titles, the wikilinks silently will replace U+00A0 NO BREAK SPACE and U+0020 SPACE by U+005F LOW LINE in the url while leaving the inner (visible, clickable) text untouched. Also hand-written urls containing either kind of space, //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo%A0bar or //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo%20bar, will 301-redirect to //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_bar. ― AoV² 22:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
WP:MOS#Non-breaking spaces says "A non-breaking space (also known as a hard space) is recommended ... in other places where displacement might be disruptive to the reader (£11 billion ...)". So my AWB software generalizes that example to insert a nbsp into variations like $7.5 trillion (obviously) and 3 million (not so obviously because there's no currency symbol). Is that what was intended? "[W]here displacement might be disruptive to the reader" doesn't help explain it, because if we already knew when displacement might (allegedly) be disruptive, then we wouldn't need the guideline. Art LaPella ( talk) 05:53, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
£11 billion
only disrupts the editor. If we really want a non-breaking space before and/or after every numeral as a hard rule we should mention it to the devs. I can see the importance of line-break control in table cells (using white-space:nowrap;
as appropriate) but in a free-flowing paragraph I doubt enough readers ever would notice the difference. ―
AoV²
06:06, 5 April 2010 (UTC)£11_billion
which is nearly as user-friendly as it gets. (Underscores are seldom actually used in article texts – I searched the articles featured on the Main Page in the last four days and four random articles for _
using my browser's search and it found none. So putting <nowiki>
tags around the few ones used shouldn't be too troublesome.) ―
___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987)
09:54, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
In the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Conflict_regarding_non-breaking_spaces, the guideline is shown to contradict itself between the WP:NBSP guide and the WP:ORDINAL guide, where the latter says "When both a figure and spelled-out named number are used in a quantity, it is useful to use a non-breaking space." The former says to put non-breaking spaces in examples such as $7.5 trillion, with its currency symbol, and the latter says to put them in regardless of the presence of the currency symbol. This contradiction must be fixed! Binksternet ( talk) 19:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
s is ugly. But if A. di M.'s underline suggestion is implemented, then we wouldn't have that problem, either.
Ozob (
talk)
23:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Would deferring this to the render phase with some $t = preg_replace('/(\d) /', '$1 ', $t);
parser-juice make everyone happy, or no? ―
AoV²
07:45, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
This, from one of our “featured” articles:
The '''inauguration of Barack Obama''' as the [[List of Presidents of the United States|44th]] [[President of the United States]] took place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. The [[United States presidential inauguration|inauguration]], which set a record attendance for any event held in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington, D.C.]], marked the commencement of the four-year term of [[Barack Obama]] as President and [[Joe Biden|Joseph Biden]] as [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]]. Based on the combined attendance numbers, television viewership and Internet traffic, it was among the most observed events ever by the global audience. "A New Birth of Freedom", a phrase from the [[Gettysburg Address]], served as the inaugural theme to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth year of [[Abraham Lincoln]]. In his speeches to the crowds, Obama referred to ideals expressed by Lincoln about renewal, continuity and national unity. Obama mentioned these ideals in his speech to stress the need for shared sacrifice and a new sense of responsibility to answer America's challenges at home and abroad. Obama and others paid homage to Lincoln in the form of tributes and references during several of the events, starting with a commemorative train tour from {{city-state|Philadelphia|Pennsylvania}} to Washington, D.C. on January 17, 2009. The inaugural events held in Washington, D.C. from January 18 to January 21, 2009 included concerts, a national day of community service on [[Martin Luther King, Jr. Day|Martin Luther King, Jr. Day]], the swearing-in ceremony, luncheon and parade, inaugural balls, and the interfaith [[Prayers at United States presidential inaugurations|inaugural prayer service]]. The [[Oath of office of the President of the United States|presidential oath]] as administered to Obama during his swearing-in ceremony on January 20 strayed from the oath of office prescribed in the [[United States Constitution]], which led to its re‑administration the next evening.
I′ll let someone else throw the first punch. ― AoV² 11:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we agree that the two parts of a two-part name like "Kathie Lee" are logically inseparable. I am saying that logically inseparable items should also be typographically inseparable. I'm not arguing that logically separable items should have non-breaking spaces; a name like "John Q. Public" needs no non-breaking spaces. I think you are saying just about the same thing, but I'm not sure. Ozob ( talk) 21:45, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
[[Billy Ray Cyrus]]
) becomes <a href="/info/en/?search=Billy_Ray_Cyrus" title="Billy Ray Cyrus">Billy Ray Cyrus</a>
in fact, obviating some of the clutter. Literal nbsp characters (out of sight, out of mind) would be even prettier I think. Somewhere I have a simple javascript gadget which makes them glow as if under a black-light. Let me know if you′d like to use it. ―
AoV²
23:18, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes. My father told me not to break my last name across lines when I was about six years old, and he's not a typographer nor anything like that. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:31, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Should the underscore be used as mark-up for non-breaking spaces? ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Whatever we choose we would need to take extra care to escape all intended literals. The underscore and tilde will appear most commonly in programming contexts, for multi-word identifiers such as
std::rel_ops or
dynamic_cast. Ideally we would be able to identify and disregard these by the presence of a surrounding <code>
tag or {{
code}} template. The latter did use nowiki tags until I re-designed it to use inline source tags (to allow syntax-highlight if the user specifies a language, and because while nowiki escapes html/wikitext constructs—<>
to <>
, etc.—it does not escape the ampersands of character entity references). It still has some frustrating limitations (cough, cough, vertical bar operator) but works well in most cases.
One minor but glaring issue with current literalizing methods is the lack of an easy way to allow wiki-links within the code while escaping all other markup. Considering the underscore-titled examples above, one might want to use something like {{foo|[[Proper use of dynamic_cast]]}}
wherein “foo” is a hypothetical template/parser-function/etc. which (in light of re-purposed underscores) could prevent the intentional low-line between the last two words from becoming an nbsp, yet still allow the brackets to form a wiki-link. While it links to the same article regardless, I′d have to pipe the link and pack some markup into the alias-text to preserve formatting. Maybe that won′t arise often enough to matter.
On the other hand we might consider a “non-white” spacing character with fewer natural collisions, so cat UnicodeData.txt | grep "Pc"
perhaps.
However, I had to pick a visible character in the 7-bit range I might choose the tilde in fact (considering its aforementioned use in TeX), on the following conditions:
$wgLegalTitleChars
. Given its effects in the pre-save transform, this might be a good idea in any case—consider [[~~~~]]
.\n
, \t
, etc. serves no typographically constructive purpose, yet could disrupt the following in the absence of proper tagging:
~SomeClass() { /* destructor */ }
int a = ~b; /* bitwise NOT */
population: ~9,000 /* approximate figure */
― AoV² 21:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Not so much a short-cut as a placeholder which keeps word boundaries easily perceivable in the edit window rather than making several words appear to run together. For me, the easiest approach by far would be to use literal nbsp characters and edit my font to make nbsp′s appear differently than regular spaces. The only compelling argument against that is how older versions of firefox will send them back as regular spaces while making unrelated edits. There is a solution to that, see mw:Manual:$wgBrowserBlackList. This “safemode” replaces all characters above U+007F by their hexadecimal character references in the textarea for broken clients based on the user-agent string, then it converts them back before saving the page. But here′s the thing: users who want this functionality by default, despite not having a broken client, can spoof their user-agent, or better yet, request exposing this “safemode” as an option in Special:Preferences. I believe this combination of steps would be the best possible compromise. Failing that we can talk about underscores and tildes and other weirdness. ― AoV² 09:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Please see the following discussions.
--
Wavelength (
talk)
18:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Please see also the following archived discussions.
-- Wavelength ( talk) 19:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Could someone look into the work done by 7mike5000, such as the colorful, icon-filled table at Eating disorders#Personality_traits?
Do tables like these represent a permissible variation on normal style, or an undesirable cluttering of the page with unnecessary formatting (or something in between)? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:59, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
A minor point, but I wondered if the following two statements are entirely compatible:
"It is almost never a good idea to use other style changes, such as font family or color."
"It is certainly desirable to use color as an aid for those who can see it..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.47.224 ( talk) 03:22, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I've had a bit of back-and-forth editing at Already Gone (Kelly Clarkson song)#Charts, certifications and sales about using {{ n/a}} in table cells when the song did not chart or where information is not available. Another editor has changed it back to an emdash, asking "since when is N/A acceptable under guidelines?" I went looking at all guidelines I could think of, including here, WP:DASH, WP:Songs#Style, and WP:Songs#Chart performance, charts and succession (which directs editors to WP:MUSIC/TABLE) for chart tables. I haven't seen anything that says emdashes should be used over N/A when information is not available or not applicable and that N/A is unacceptable. Can editors here possibly direct me to anything that says emdashes are preferable or explain why they are, as to me it indicates that information is missing. Thanks, Matthewedwards : Chat 22:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Consider the following tables:
Em dashes | En dashes | Hyphens | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
For charged mesons (π+, π−, ρ+, ρ−), C-parity is not defined. For the neutral mesons (π0, ρ0), C-parity is defined (+ for the pion, − for the rho meson). Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
|
|
― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 10:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Getting back to the nominal topic of discussion, what does everyone think of:
Pion | π+ | π0 | π− |
---|---|---|---|
C-parity | — | + | — |
Rho meson | ρ+ | ρ0 | ρ− |
C-parity | — | − | — |
? Ozob ( talk) 13:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi there. A couple of points as I am passing through again.
1. Under "National varieties of English" the MoS says: "For example, use alternative route (or even other route) rather than alternate route, since alternate may mean only 'alternating' to a speaker of British English."
This is good advice but the reason given is implausible. All British English speakers understand that "alternate route" means "alternative route" (unless the context strongly indicates otherwise). The actual issue is that many find this usage sloppy and annoying (I do not intend any offence to AmE speakers).
2. The section "Italicized links" seems to be a "how-to" guide on Wikipedia syntax, not a MoS topic. 86.142.111.64 ( talk) 04:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
From the history:
There has never been consensus on this issue. See these sections for previous discussions on this subject in Footnotes and citation archives
The wording currently at WP:REFPUNCT is compromise wording worked out in 2007. The wording in the section " Punctuation and inline citations" of the MOS contradicts that compromise wording. What would you suggest is suitable wording as there is no agreement, nor has there ever been (see the archives), that ref tags should always go after punctuation. The compromise wording advises that after punctuation is used but does not mandate it. What do you suggest as compromise wording that everyone can live with?
I notice from the edit history that you Tony changed long standing wording with this edit on 13 February 2010. Before you made that edit the wording here was a brief summary of the compromise at WP:REFPUNCT. I am going to partially restore the wording you changed and I assume that as you say you made you last revert with the comment "Rv: no consensus here", as there was not a consensus for the change you made, you will not feel the need to revert it until after an agreement to change it is reached. -- PBS ( talk) 04:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
As part of the general cleanup effort currently underway, two proposals are currently under discussion on the Wikipedia Talk:Profanity page:
Hello. I'm looking for some fresh input into an increasingly bitter debate at Template talk:Infobox ice hockey player regarding the possible addition of the name in bold at the top of an infobox. I won't describe the details of the debate since I'm a party to it but the discussion desperately needs outsider input. Thanks, Pichpich ( talk) 19:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
The first item under the Bulleted list section says lists shouldn't be used if "a passage reads easily using plain paragraphs". Does "reads easily" mean that sentences should merely be complete, or that they should all be cohesive? Thanks. -Roger ( talk) 05:32, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
"In American English, U.S. (with periods) is more accepted as the standard abbreviation for United States; US (without periods) is more accepted in other national forms of English, and is becoming increasingly common in American English."
I propose to amend this sentence to the following: "In American English, U.S. (with periods) is more accepted as the standard abbreviation for United States and should be the format used in United States-specific articles; US (without periods) is more accepted in other national forms of English, and is sometimes used in American English."
I question the notion that "US (without periods) is ... becoming increasingly common in American English". About every respected manual of style and print media outlet uses the periods, so we don't really have anything to suggest that it is "becoming increasingly common".-- Jiang ( talk) 00:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Darkfrog, if you don't want to force Americans to use the ugly dots, why are you supporting "Jiang's proposal? BTW, I increasingly see US editors here writing without the dots on WP (or should I say W.P.?). And as for personal preference—we certainly allow editors who start articles to choose whether to use spaced en dashes or unspaced em dashes as interruptors; is there something wrong with allowing that personal choice, which is widespread in the language? Tony (talk) 09:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Americans don't even agree between themselves whether to use US or U.S. Mostly because most people don't care. No reason for forcing it one way or the other (I note here that the trend is moving towards undotted variants, so if anything the style should be undotted variants all-accross). Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
[Outdent] This is such total equine feces (compounded with bovine). I'm an American. I'm not a new American. Been around for 40+ years now, somehow, despite my sins and bad judgement. "We" (Americans, generally) do not spell it "U.S.A." or "U.S." A few cranks here and there do that, but they also write "A.T.M." and "S.C.U.B.A." and "R.A.D.A.R." and "S.U.V." A generation earlier, and they'd be writing "to-day not to-morrow" and "I will go a-shopping this after-noon." It's just plain obsolete. Freaky flag-wavin' yeehaws aside, there is nothing special and magical about the US[A] that it needs a special and magical typographic convention in WP articles, which are written for a global audience (to whom "UK" and "ROK" and "PRC" are normal, and "U.K.", etc., look goofy). The "killer" point here is the #1 issue of the entire WP:MOS and all sub-pages thereof: We aim for consistency within articles above all else, and consistency across articles where this is practical. This means use "US" (or "USA" when the longer form is needed for some reason), not "U.S." (or "U.S.A."). It just looks totally stupid to have a construction in WP articles such as "...the implications for U.S.–UK relations..." Just drop it, move on, live a happy life. Be honest with yourselves. When, really, is the last time you saw something like "E.E.C." or "I.R.S." instead of the dotless versions? I don't want to beleaguer a point here, but Americans like me and various others commenting here and in the various other times and places this issue has popped up, need to consider what we've, well, demanded that Commonwealth English speakers give up in the name of the consistency of the MOS. The most obvious is double vs. single quotation marks. I know this drives some Brits and Aussies and even South Africans damned near nuts, yet we still insist on it. My take on this is: If we were to enforce "U.S." then we would also have to enforce single-before-double quotes in [not just British-themed, but all] non-US-themed articles. And that's just a start. Any article that did not have an intimate connection to the US – 'scuse me, the "U.S." – would also have to use spellings like "colour" and "theatre", not to mention automobile "tyre" instead of "tire", and so on. If we're going to enforce a clearly biased convention (to the various extents that a non-policy guideline may have weight, which are not just several but also variable and temporal), there needs to be some balance. Your dialect or mine doesn't get to insist on some pet peeve without conceding one to the other side. Let's ("us" here meaning Americans) just deal with the fact that people, including our neighbors and co-workers and drinking buddies, don't put periods after acronym letters any more, not since I was about 5. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 10:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
There is exceptions to the rule. For example take a look at the example to the right. In that situation when using sortables US needs to be used instead of U.S. Lil-unique1 ( talk) 18:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC) |
|
As a form of diallect i was always told that in America its the USA or U.S. In British English its always US. I don't understand why there has to be one or the other. Should it not be: If the subject is American use U.S. if its not then use US. Lil-unique1 ( talk) 00:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Another thing: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) spells out abbreviations for Doctor, Captain, Corporal, Mister, Bachelor of Arts, department, Anno Domini, and a bunch of other commonly abbreviated terms and gives the option of both using periods and not using periods. Why is "U.S." being targeted with such passion in particular? Perhaps the entire section should be edited out and merged with a section on British/Australian vs. (or is that vs?) American/Canadian punctuation preferences.-- Jiang ( talk) 01:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Someone finally said something this! Thank you! Carry on, now.
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs)
01:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is a
failed proposal.
Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please do so below or initiate a thread at
the village pump. |
As part of the ongoing effort to rationalize the Manual of Style sprawl, Gnevin nine days ago proposed a system to improve consistency across multiple WP guideline pages. The system is based on the concept of the "core": a summary of the main principles expressed in a page, of the sort that often constitutes a lead paragraph. In the proposed system, a distinct paragraph-long page is created for such a core and transcluded via template into those full-length WP pages that, all too often inconsistently, reference the core's master page. This innovative system may sound complex, but it is very elegant and worthy of serious consideration.
The system is now being trialed with WP:Profanity/core; the MoS guideline WP:Profanity, where the transcluded core now constitutes the lead; the proposed MoS guideline WP:Words to watch (which we expect soon to replace the dysfunctional, logorrheic WP:Words to avoid); and the content guideline WP:Images. Note that Gnevin's smart design allows for targeted word substitution, so the transcluded core can focus on "words" in Words to watch, on "images" in Images, and on both in the Profanity master page. Please take a look and share your thoughts.— DCGeist ( talk) 06:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the idea, but not with the implementation. Almost nobody would watchlist the "core" pages, and this would make it too easy to push guideline changes by changing the "core" first, and the rest of the guideline half a year later.
To solve this problem, the "core" must be part of the guideline itself, in an <includeonly> tag. Then the entire guideline can be transcluded instead of the "core" page, with the same effect. Hans Adler 10:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Example of Hans' suggestion User:Gnevin/sandbox2 Gnevin ( talk) 17:40, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Moving swiftly along .... Should we go with the system as proposed by Hans? Gnevin ( talk) 01:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Next cores for Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Article titles
I have come here from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Trial of "core" concept. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) has no direct connection to the MOS. It is a guideline for helping to determine the title of an article, comes under the WP:AT policy. The use of English inside article is determined by WP:MOS#Foreign terms. I presume Gnevin that you did not know that, or is it just that when the only tool that is available is a hammer everything looks like a nail? -- PBS ( talk) 07:11, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
If you're going to do this then a lot more care has to be taken when inserting the template. This was definitely misguided in my opinion. -- NeilN talk to me 01:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Since the "core concept" trial has been unsuccessful, I wonder if is time for us to revisit what I've now titled #Hans Adler's "core concept" above. It came up amid a flurry of alternative suggestions, and its applicability may have been overlooked by some. As presented, it does rely on us to ignore details of actual content in the example given, and hence can be misunderstood unless read carefully. But overall, the concept has stayed with me as something we could usefully develop further in our attempt to produce a rational, top-down view of the MoS that solves the issue of duplication between levels. PL290 ( talk) 16:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I hadn't picked up that transclusion was unpopular and therefore the issue the first time round. How about using templates instead then? (As in {{ FAC-instructions}}, which is sourced in at the top of WP:FAC.) That's simpler to implement and maintain. But if that's not popular either, perhaps we should consider that transcluding/templating the summaries onto the central page is the icing on the cake, rather than the main point, of this proposal. If the summaries were simply plain content (a copy in both places), their getting slightly out of line from time to time would be far less of an issue than the same occurring with numerous large passages of detail, as presently happens. PL290 ( talk) 09:54, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Words to watch ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 38 ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Comment - I am still none the wiser. What caused the archive to be so marked? Is it still thus marked? (VeblenBot has not told us that it is "no longer part of the Manual of Style", so I guess so.) How do we unmark it, if so? Yours most bemused -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 19:05, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Further thought - are there any more tranclutions that cause pages to be so marked (rightly or wrongly) or any other mishits of any other nature? How do we find out? -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 19:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Can you list any Categories you've seen that is a relevant "guideline" category
I propose replacing both with
Category:Wikipedia's Manual of Style
Proposing that it be upmerged with Category:Wikipedia style guidelines. Comment here: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 April 20#Category:General style guidelines. harej 02:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
It is proposed that Wikipedia:Record charts/Billboard charts guide be merged into WP:record charts. Please comment over at the RfC merge proposal. Thanks -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 01:13, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)/IPA vs. other pronunciation symbols ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Writing better articles ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
I wonder why "Lists of works", for example, is in the "Manual" category, but "Lists" is in the "Guidelines" category. Shouldn't these two categories be conflated? Tony (talk) 03:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
A fellow editor and I are having a dispute over what WP:RETAIN applies to. I believe we both understand that it applies to variations of English and date formatting and whatnot. But does WP:RETAIN, or "the spirit of WP:RETAIN", also apply to other formatting, such as using {{reflist}} versus using <references /> on a page? Thanks. Sorafune +1 16:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Per the thread above, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Rationalizing MoS page titles, I identified 20 pages bannered as style guidelines linked to on our "universal" {{Style}} template that are not titled according to our current, partially instituted titling regime: WP:Manual of Style (layer cake). You may see all 20 of those pages in the collapsible table below (along with 10 other pages whose status we can get to later):
Pages linked in the "official" Style template that are not currently titled as Manual of Style pages |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Here are the seven pages bannered as Manual of Style pages, but not titled that way:
Here are the thirteen pages bannered as style guidelines, but not as part of the Manual of Style nor titled that way:
Here are the ten other pages currently hanging out in our Style template that are not actually marked as style guidelines in any way: |
Consensus is building in the aforementioned thread that—to serve consistency, clarity, and coherence—all accepted style guidelines should be titled according to a consistent titling regime incorporating the phrase Manual of Style (whether we maintain the current MoS titling style or switch to a new one as part of this rationalization effort is under debate above). Gnevin has proposed that the 20 non-MoS-titled style guidelines be speedily moved to MoS naming. This seems like a good idea, in general. I thought I would do a quick survey of the 20 and see if there is any reason that any of them should not be speedily moved (e.g., because they should not be labeled as style guidelines in the first place or because they are of such low quality that they would degrade the MoS). I invite anyone to join me in this survey—any part of it—and to report back here.
Of the 20, I have quickly identified 7 that require special treatment:
As for the other 13 (note that coincidentally, we have a 13-and-7 split that is different from the 7-and-13 split you'll find in the collapsible box), I'll begin my survey and report back. Again, any input on these is most welcome. In fact, I'll facilitate matters by listing them here:
And to conclude, I'll summarize my main queries:
Thanks.— DCGeist ( talk) 19:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Words to watch ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
MOS:FULLSTOP and MOS:EXCLAMATION are non-working shortcuts to WP:MOS#Terminal punctuation, and I can't fix them. Art LaPella ( talk) 22:22, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:External links ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Guideline ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Please spell out an official standard for whether to use n-dashes or hyphens in names and whether they should be spaced. It looks like you usually use n-dashes (either spaced or unspaced) to mean "vs" or "to", as in France–Germany relations, Canada – United States border, and Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. You usually use hyphens to mean "and", as in Kitchener-Waterloo or Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation even though WP:DASH says to use an n-dash for "and". There are some exceptions, to this, like Happy Valley–Goose Bay, which uses an n-dash but means "and") and Canada – United States relations with is spaced differently from France–Germany. -- 198.103.172.9 ( talk) 17:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
At Wikipedia talk:Record charts/Billboard charts guide#Time to move forward and formally propose this page as a Guideline? I asked whether that page was ready to be proposed as a Guideline. One editor supports instead the idea of merging the page to Wikipedia talk:Record charts. However, I looked at both pages again and came to the conclusion that a) the subpage is really a Content Guide and b) half of that main MoS page also appears to be Content Guide material rather than MoS material. I suggested that the MoS page could be split into MoS and Content Guide and then that subpage merged to the new Content Guide. Any thoughts? Perhaps comment over there for now to keep discussion centeralised. Thanks -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 04:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
In the linked discussion, I have suggested that I use my userspace to try splitting Wikipedia:Record charts into two guides, MoS and Content, and merge Wikipedia:Record charts/Billboard charts guide into the latter. Assuming there are no obvious reasons why I should not do that, I'll go ahead soon. I'll report back over at Wikipedia talk:Record charts/Billboard charts guide for now, though. If the experiment works, I'll try it out with WP:MUSTARD and WP:MOSMUSIC. The former appears primarily to cover Content while the latter is indeed primarily a Manual of Style, so it shouldn't be too hard. However, each one contains things that should be in the other if we make that distinction clear, IMO -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 17:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Done Click
here to see the links to my new subpages separating out MoS from Content for record charts. If this works, I'll try it with MUSTARD and MOSMUSIC as I said --
Jubilee
♫
clipman
21:33, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
The following sentence was reverted under "Allowable typographic changes" for quoted material under "Quotations":
The rationale given was that it contradicts what WP:MoS says. It was a good faith revert, but I don't think it does. However, I also don't want to dredge that discussion up again. I thought this was a reasonable addition given that the line directly above it states:
If this sentence is OK, I think the one on double sentence-spacing is reasonable. They are the same concept and both are equally true (see Sentence spacing). The section under "terminal punctuation" was left ambiguous so people can type however they want in their edit boxes. For the final "published" edition of a page (what people read), non-breaking spaces shouldn't be forced in quoted material though. Thoughts? Airborne84 ( talk) 20:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
In the realm of English language writing, within and outside of Wikipedia, direct quotes may be silently changed to use the fonts available in the quoting document, and the point where lines are broken may also be changed (except for poetry). The quote might even be handwritten. Since these kinds of changes will make the appearance of the amount of space after sentence termination change, I think it's safe to conclude that double spaces in the original can be silently changed to single spaces in Wikipedia if we want to. Jc3s5h ( talk) 00:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
[Moved to the bottom of the page where it's more visible; it was lost in the middle of a bunch of automated alarms. Ozob ( talk) 01:29, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposals for non-breaking spaces ( permanent link). -- Wavelength ( talk) 23:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Current audits are bolded. Please strike through when resolved.
Punk music, Albums, Composers, Opera, Contemporary music, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Stringed instrument tunings)
These are useful links for determining audit targets:
Discussion
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I have carefully perused three closely related MoS pages and have left comments at each talk page.
Given the suggestions I've made in all three cases, I've not copy-edited or restructured any of the text in these pages. Your feedback is welcome. Tony (talk) 10:59, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
I notified WT:GAN, since one of these guidelines is in WP:GACR. The only action I'll take myself is to remove style pages from Category:General style guidelines if support has weakened, if the page disappears or if they appear to be temporarily unstable, with no prejudice to restoring them if support and stability re-emerge in the future. - Dank ( push to talk) 16:50, 2 April 2010 (UTC) Hi, Tony, I'd regard * WP:Make_technical_articles_accessible or something as the law and prophets. I've seen in WP e.g. "WP's audience should be bright 14-year olds", and Readability tests such as Flesch–Kincaid readability test and Gunning fog index support that. In fact most adults stop at about that level - the exceptions are mostly academics and "technicians" (included e.g. lawyers). I propose that every part of MOS should include "WP's audience should be bright 14-year olds" as its priority and all the content in every part of MOS should be reviewed to ensure that it complies. -- Philcha ( talk) 10:19, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Moved, can members of this taskforce stop creating new sections for every issue that may arise Gnevin ( talk) 13:14, 4 April 2010 (UTC) Colleagues: WP:Technical terms and definitions, one of the subpages that is proposed to be merged into the new subsection here on Technical language (under "Miscellaneous"), presents rules I have never heard of; I'm sure they are not being followed in articles, and I wonder whether there's conflict with the other styleguides. After setting out what words should be italicised (I find it odd that we need this to be expressed again when we already have an Italics section here, and an Italics subpage), and bolded (same issue), we are told that this is a category for bolding:
And we are told then about a category of items that should be rendered in bold italic: "Bold italic (edited as
I am confused. Do we really use these conventions? Tony (talk) 04:20, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we need greater input from those that actually write technical articles --
Jubilee
♫
clipman
21:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Comment - Fern does not presently use bold italic... Just a thought to keep you all going (if you get bored) -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 13:44, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
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Discussion
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Replacement: Wikipedia:Words to watch I have surveyed the group that comprises Words to avoid, Avoid peacock terms, Avoid weasel words, and Avoid neologisms. It seems clear that the latter three should be merged into the first, and I have left comments on the Talk pages of the three to that effect. I have not commented on the WtA Talk page, pending further discussion here and, I hope, an independent ce appraisal. In brief, the page strikes me as verbose but relatively strong in substance. (I see that Slim has now similarly observed above that the page is "very wordy [and] could use significant tightening.") I have raised the idea that the page should be renamed as part of this process for clarity of purpose, accurate description of content, indication of transformation, and forbearance of a lexical blacklist. I suggested Expressions to avoid. PL290, concurring with the argument, suggested Choice of words. Individual reports:
“Noted” and “observed” yes, but I wouldn′t agree that “reported” implies truth. ― AoV² 22:49, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Just like article size, we should keep in mind that some users cannot load pages that are too long or loses attention span/readability issue when everything is shuffled into a long and dull page. They may end up skipping the parts they're looking for, or looked up the wrong stuff because they immediately assume whichever section near the top that they think most closely-related is the right one without going through all the way to the end of the page. OhanaUnited Talk page 06:13, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Proposed replacement Wikipedia:Words to watch Gnevin ( talk) 23:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC) |
Discussion
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I have asked on both talk pages why they shouldn't be merged.
Opinion is divided on both pages. Apparently there has been bickering between US and UK editors, and the UK people have walked out. This is no good at all. At the road-junction-list talk page, there's a discussion about highway rest areas. Why, oh why, are these MoS subpages not all covered under one umbrella: um ... Manual of Style (roads). That would bring together editors of highway, road junctions, and related matters all onto one page, albeit in sections as required, for national systems and types of road. Heavens, in Australia there are eight different road jurisdictions. What if they all wanted their own MoS subpage? Unkind to editors indeed. I have continued to suggest an integrated approach. Let us see how it pans out. Tony (talk) 03:03, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
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All of these claim MoS or guideline status but only one, WP:MoS (music), is clearly accepted as a MoS or guideline WP-wide. MUSTARD needs to be moved out of project space and more widely accepted, IMO. The other three need to be checked out and more widely discussed. The project guidelines (left unbolded above) need to be more widely discussed, also -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 02:31, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
There is also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Stringed instrument tunings). There are bound to be more... I'll check the main two (Music Mos and MUSTARD) first, though, before delving too far into the others -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 07:59, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Update - I have now copied both the Music MoS and MUSTARD into my userspace and am scrutinising them from every angle: User:Jubileeclipman/Manual of Style (music), User:Jubileeclipman/MUSTARD. I'll have a bash at rewriting tomorrow. BTW, any particular reason MUSTARD can't be in mainspace rather than project space? It is a widely accepted standard (I would say it is almost unanimously accepted among music article editors, whether or not they are members of the Music Project or similar) -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 00:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 2 - There is a lot of discussion about certain aspects of the two main MOS's, particularly the advice they give concerning band names and the capitalisation of the word "The" in running prose. I am still appraising (the rather complex) MUSTARD but my first impression is that is goes way beyond being a "Manual of Style" as it includes advice on content and sourcing among many other tidbits. It is also rather over-detailed, IMO. I'll soldier on but be warned that this could take quite a while... -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 20:24, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 3 - User:Jubileeclipman/Manual of Style (music)/Appraisal and User:Jubileeclipman/MUSTARD/Appraisal document my thoughts on these documents so far. I have also had a go at a rewrite of MOSMUSIC in my use space, but haven't yet got very far. There are many complex issues to deal with, not least the fact that there are multiple other music style guides (some claiming MoS status) that will need to be coordinated with these top level style guides... I have made several live edits to the actual documents themselves, but these are either copyedits or edits resulting from discussion over at MOS:MUSIC's talk page. The usage of the word "the" at the beginning of band names is one major bugbear at the moment. To capitalise or not to capitalise... (ditto "To link..."). I will be on a short Wikibreak over the next few days (back Weds or Thurs, I hope). Any feedback/corrections etc welcome. Perhaps use the talkpages of the appraisals for specific points about those appraisals and my own talk for general issues, for now? Cheers, and keep up the good work! I'll be back... -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 00:51, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 4 I'm back off Wikibreak and will resume my work on these tomorrow. The question of "the" seems to have been settled though: we have agreed (so far) to explicitly follow Chicago which uses lower case "the" in all cases except at the beginning of sentences -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 21:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 5 Have now made my appraisals public:
WT:Manual of Style (music)#Appraisal of Manual of Style (music) and WP:MUSTARD. Linked from
WT:MUSTARD,
WT:WPMUSIC and
WT:CM. Thoughts from you guys and gals welcome! Demanded, in fact...
--
Jubilee
♫
clipman
21:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 6 - I am looking at ways to separate out Style and Content. See here for a start on this -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 21:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Final update - I am going to be without internet connection for at least a month. I have made some progress in getting people talking about these pages and looked at various ways to sort them out long term. However, they are in no way near as bad a shape as many other MoS's and the structure is relatively clear (the names all at least imply they are to do with music). Also, there is ongoing discussion about the naming of MoS pages and the distinction between Style and Content: these need to be resolved before we go ahead and make changes that may be mooted by changes in the MoS structure etc. Therefore, I have called it a day, for now, though I have left the audit notices up on the talkpages in case anyone else wishes to take up this task. Either way, these guidelines still need auditing further so removing the audit notices might be premature. I will catch up after by forced Wikibreak is over. Cheers and thanks for your guidance and support -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 22:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Discussion
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I have suggested that IPA vs other pronunciation symbols, which hasn't been touched substantively since 2006, be merged into Pronunciation. Tony (talk) 13:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC) |
I have left a message at the Featured Lists talk page and with the two FLC Directors, asking for advice on how the list-related styleguides should be approached. Tony (talk) 12:08, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm suggesting removing all of these from the MoS.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage#References to peers states that when writing such things as "the Duke went fishing" and "the King visited the Alps", the titles should be capitalized. This does not seem to directly contradict the two points under Wikipedia:MOS#Titles of people, but should not the MOS specify this as well? If the MOS section is read without reading the wikiproject page, then a reader would presume it should be "the king" etc. Could this somehow be clarified in the MOS? Arsenikk (talk) 10:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I searched for a guideline about putting spaces behind periods, comma's, semicolons, colons, etc, but couldn't find anything. Shouldn't we have a section in the MOS, with a shortcut like for instance WP:PUNCTSPACE? If we already have such a thing, can someone tell me where I find it, and otherwise, could someone put together a little section on this? I'm not confident how it should be formulated. Thanks. DVdm ( talk) 09:06, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
I really don't see how this could possibly insult the reader. It's just basic information, exactly in line with "In normal prose, never place a space before commas, semicolons, colons, or terminal punctuation.". If the example is a bit overloaded, we could also expand this sentence to for instance: "In normal prose, never place a space before commas, semicolons, colons, or terminal punctuation. Always place a space after the punctuation unless when followed by a line break." This would add 14 words to the sentence, without the need for a new subsection and shortcut. How about that? DVdm ( talk) 11:30, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
DVdm, why do you think we need that much detail? Have there been any arguments about whether such spacing is correct? Maurreen ( talk) 17:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
(ec) Please don't add this. The MOS is bloated enough as it is, and adding such things that are blatantly obvious to anybody who would ever read it, only makes it harder to read for those who do. There seems to be no real communication going on with that user, so it seems most likely that he is doing it on purpose. (Another explanation would be if he were using a screenreader or something.) That's annoying, but it's a behavioural problem, not a style issue. I really don't want to see sections "How to tell capital letters from small letters" or "How to use a dictionary for checking your spelling", either. If you are dealing with many such users you should probably consider the possibility that they are trolling you and make it less attractive for them by not overreacting. Hans Adler 17:12, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
If we're going to put this in, we might as well use Woodstone's suggestion for the wording: "In normal prose, never place a space before commas, semicolons, colons, or terminal punctuation, but place a space after them." Maurreen ( talk) 18:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
The most logical place would be a new section in punctuation. If I were to look this up, that's where I would look. An illogical place would be under "terminal punctuation." Maurreen ( talk) 18:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
Unless noted otherwise, spacing and typographic matters should be consistent with the examples below.
That was quick. There are still rules about spacing in a host of places, including: section headings, acronyms, brackets, ellipsis, hyphen, dashes, slash, time, date (and still in terminating punctuation). There also is a whole section "non-breaking spaces", which could have been demoted into a general section "Spaces", making space (no pun intended) for our issue. And finally there is a section "fomatting issues" that mentions spacing. Either we gather all those in one place, or we spread the new section to its target locations. − Woodstone ( talk) 20:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
I've seen (and participated in) a few discussions regarding spacing recently. For the topic above, there wasn't an obvious place to insert the new entry because it was in a section on grammar. It occurred to me that is because spacing and text layout is a matter of typography. Yet, there is no such section in WP:MoS. Should we add a section on typography? There is a precedent to do so. There are comprehensive style guides that address typography. Some examples:
It is proposed that summaries of articles be kept in a subpage ~/Sum and that a (to-be-written) template transcludes the summary into (a) the lead after the first paragraph and (b) any other article that needs to summarize the article. Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:Lead_section#Proposal_for_a_new_template_and_/Sum_summary_pages.
Hpvpp ( talk) 08:03, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Not to make a big deal of this, but I think we should take heed of ArbCom's view, recently reiterated, that the stability of styleguide pages and the maintenance of harmony on their talk pages are a serious consideration. I include myself in this respect. Tony (talk) 09:08, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
'Oct. 24, 1766
It is this day agreed on between John Parsons, of the parish of Midsummer Norton, in the county of Somerset, clothworker, and John Tooker, of the same place, gentleman, that the said John Parsons, for and in consideration of the sum of six pounds and six shillings in hand paid to the said John Parsons, doth sell, assign, and set over unto the said John Tooker, Ann Parsons, wife of the said John Parsons; with all right, property, claim, services, and demands whatsoever, that he, the said John Parsons, shall have in or to the said Ann Parsons, for and during the term of the natural life of her, the said Ann Parsons. In witness whereof I, the said John Parsons, have set my hand the day and year first above written.
'JOHN PARSONS.
'Witness: WILLIAM CHIVERS.'
Bill of sale of a wife, contained within a petition of 1768
On Friday a butcher expoſed his wife to Sale in Smithfield Market, near the Ram Inn, with a halter about her neck, and one about her waiſt, which tied her to a railing, when a hog-driver was the happy purchaſer, who gave the huſband three guineas and a crown for his departed rib. Pity it is, there is no ſtop put to ſuch depraved conduct in the lower order of people.
The Times (July 1797)
Virtually every modern edition of an old text that uses the long s glyph (ſ) transcribes it with ordinary s. I said "virtually", but I am not aware of any that doesn't. The Chicago Manual of Style says "Retain original capitalization, spelling, and punctuation in titles and quotations from early modern sources, except for the long s. Do not modernize."
Well, our MOS doesn't say it. The MOS simply assumes that editors have a modicum of common sense, and that they apply it. One sentence ("Disused glyphs and ligatures in old texts may be modified according to modern practice (see Ampersand, below).") prevents editors from wikilawyering that we must preserve the long s, but it is written so inclusively that it also covers the ampersand, which of course in some situations shouldn't be replaced with and. On the other hand, the section WP:& which discusses the ampersand in detail, makes it clear that modernising the long s is probably quietly assumed to be done, because everybody does it: "Modern editions of old texts routinely replace ampersands with and (just as they replace other disused glyphs and ligatures), so an article's quotations may be cautiously modified, especially for consistency in quotations where different editions are used." One motivation here is that if we quote editions of two different texts, and one writes & while the other modernises it to and, then we should also modernise the first text, for consistency.
At wife selling we have these two quote boxes. The older one comes from a modern edition and does not use long s, although it is almost certain that the original had it. The (slightly) more recent one comes from a primary source and was rendered with long s when the article became featured. One editor is fighting for keeping the article in this state. The article was already protected for edit warring, now we have a new edit war about the long s. Discuss. Hans Adler 21:32, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I would propose replacing this line in the MOS:
Disused glyphs and ligatures in old texts may be modified according to modern practice (see Ampersand, below).
With this one:
Disused glyphs and ligatures should be normalized to modern usage unless there are good reasons to the contrary, as, for example, in full bibliographical descriptions. Also, see Ampersand, below.
My proposed quote is modified from this source: http://www.mhra.org.uk/Publications/Books/StyleGuide/StyleGuideV2_3.pdf -- Rsl12 ( talk) 22:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
One problem (a fairly obvious one that applies to most of these glyphs, in fact) is that very few people will be aware of how to render the long s. I don't even see it in the insert box under "Latin", though we do get ß, Š, ş etc as well as æ, œ, ə, ṝ, ð, þ, ł, ħ, etc. Anyway, most modern texts do indeed render those old glyphs using their modern equivalents unless there is good reason not to. I think it would be perverse for us to demand that long s in quotations be rendered always and everywhere as "ſ" and would support those that change the quoted text to use "s" or "ss" (depending) instead. BTW, I had to copy/paste that ſ I used above from the quotation supplied by Hans -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 22:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC) P.S. Furthermore, I don't see it anwhere in the insert box, even under Symbols which gives us all sorts of weird things: ₴, ₪, ₢, ₰, ₧, etc... Oddly, the thorn is included: Þ, þ -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 18:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
I was asked by someone to comment, since I like Unicode characters a lot, and have indeed added various long esses to the standard. My view is that long esses should be used where relevant to the content only, and it is hard to think of many instances in which it is relevant. Should the citation of the preamble to the US Declaration of Independence have the long s? It's in the original. No? I for one think No. Then the long s should not be used generally in citations in Wikipedia articles. It doesn't add information and interferes with reading even when people say it does not. I pronounce (in my head) Congreſs as [ˈkɔŋɡɹɛfs] even though I know better. -- Evertype· ✆ 17:37, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Comment - the consensus seems overwhelmingly to be to change long s glyphs (ſ) in quotations to modern "s". However, few seem to be interested in changing the actual guidelines as such. Can we now archive this section as "No conſenſus for change"? Either that or start a straw poll just to be sure there really is no consensus? -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 06:22, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps the guidelines do need to specifically state that outmoded glyphs should be changed, and even give some examples; æ→ae œ→oe ſ→s would be a good start. pablo hablo. 22:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
For the sake of clarity, the proposed change to the MOS is to change this line regarding quotations:
Disused glyphs and ligatures in old texts may be modified according to modern practice (see Ampersand, below).
With this one:
Disused glyphs and ligatures should be normalized to modern usage when doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text. Examples of such changes include: æ→ae, œ→oe, ſ→s, and ye→the. Also, see Ampersand, below.
Though ... do æ and œ count as disused ligatures? Aren't they still used by the English? -- Rsl12 ( talk) 18:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
One more suggested modification: When quoting from early modern sources, disused glyphs and ligatures should be normalized to modern usage when doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text. Examples of such changes include: ſ→s and ye→the. "Early modern sources" being the phrase used in the Chicago Manual of Style. This way, articles like Beowolf and Ayenbite of Inwyt aren't affected, and we don't have to worry so much about all the middle english esoterica. -- Rsl12 ( talk) 21:36, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Incorporating the changes suggested: When quoting from early modern sources, disused glyphs and ligatures should be normalized to modern usage when doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text. Examples of such changes include the following: æ→ae, œ→oe,ſ→s, and ye→the. Also, see Ampersand, below. No final objections? -- Rsl12 ( talk) 12:13, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
OK, I'll make the change. -- Rsl12 ( talk) 14:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
{{ subcat guideline}} V {{ style-guideline}}. We only need one and I prefer style-guideline Gnevin ( talk) 16:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Words to avoid ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Under WP:MOSQUOTE, this guideline specifies that the stylized block quotation used by {{ Cquote}} is not appropriate for articles. There are more than 16,000 articles that transclude this template right now. {{ Bquote}} is a template that was created specifically to replace the Cquote template in articles. I have an AWB run ready to go on replacing Cquote with Bquote to meet the MOS guideline, but before making a mass-change to 16,000 articles, is this part of the guideline supported by consensus? -- Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 04:37, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand what is meant by the phrase, "Do not use two subset terms". 160.39.221.188 ( talk) 21:19, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
A subset term identifies a set of members of a larger class. Common subset terms are including, among, and et cetera (etc.). Do not use two subset terms (so avoid constructions like these: Among the most well-known members of the fraternity include ...; The elements in stars include hydrogen, helium and iron, etc.). Do not use including to introduce a complete list, where comprising, consisting of, or composed of would be correct.
Since the stupid bot keeps removing the other list I've made a new list . Can you strike what done and mark where you think audits can be done Gnevin ( talk) 12:35, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Generated from Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style. With a total of 87 MoS pages
I've removed Wikipedia:Manual of Style (road junction lists) from the MoS as it is a project guide however a user is objecting . Have a look Gnevin ( talk) 22:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
These audits are ongoing and likely to take a long time as there are so many issues to resolve. I have been involved in very productive discussions with many editors over the past month or two to try to sort out the mess. (Don't be deceived by the small number of pages in the above list: the issues go far beyond merging etc and are more centered on the very nature of some of those pages, especially MUSTARD.) The Notability Guideline is under scrutiny for a number reasons, also, so all of these Music Guideline audits need to be taken in relation with each other and related Guidelines. BTW, I said I was hanging up my hat before: I have firmly put it back on, now, so expect far more activity in the next few weeks and months -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 00:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Can we pull these together ? Gnevin ( talk) 12:35, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Gnevin recently added a {{ Historical}} tag to " Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Singapore-related articles)". I have queried him about this, and he has suggested bringing the discussion to this page for more comments. I reproduce below the discussion that has taken place so far. — Cheers, JackLee – talk– 11:57, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
"Articles are supposed to introduce readers to topics, or remind them of what they had half-forgotten: it is not their purpose to dazzle readers with editors' learning or vocabulary."
Um ... The first sentence is highly conjectural; the second sentence will confuse many people as to the important issues. Learning and vocabulary, dazzling? The "plain English" does the job, yes? Tony (talk) 07:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
We have some confusion at Talk:Eating disorders about MOS:COLLAPSE. The text "should not be used in article prose" is being interpreted as meaning that it's okay to use {{ hide}} (and similar) to hide anything that isn't "prose", such as sentence-filled tables. Additionally, the fact that "only" two people have actively complained directly to the editor is being used as proof that our concerns are unimportant.
"Prose" is obviously the wrong word, because MOS:COLLAPSE then goes on to say that bibliographic citations should not be hidden. Perhaps "article content" would be better? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:53, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Searching 43 stylebooks ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 19:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
All can you have a look please Gnevin ( talk) 09:22, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The discussion has derailed, mainly because i tried to address the problem from too many angles. As explained at Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Proposed_addition_to_.22Common_names.22, my main point is that we need a rehabilitation of dictionaries as reliable sources. More specifically, we need to ban the rampant dictionary bashing on WP and stop the rampant OR on WP concerning general language questions and terminology questions.
This OR results, for example, in the banning of common colloquial and less precise terms that are proscribed in specialist literature. In other words, WP editors often base their terminology decisions on 1) personal and regional preferences, 2) ignorance about other kinds of English, 3) search engine testing, and 4) the prescriptivism in a field's reference works. We need to specifically state that all articles (even on difficult topics) can and should mention what colloquial terms are widely used to mean something even if experts frown on that usage and use a different term. We need to specify that WP is not a reference work only for specialists even if it also provides information for them.
Since we have no specific support for the use of dictionaries as sources and even complete silence/ignorance about them on policy pages where they should be mentioned, we have thousands of articles "owned" by "experts" (or experts) who despise dictionary entries and ban explanations of what terms are used in other countries or by non-experts. Discussions usually result in other "experts" shouting down attempts to mention the terms normally used and understood by most lay readers. It won't take long until the call for other experts at Talk:Roundabout#Lead will result in other experts concurring that dictionaries are crap. Of course there are errors in dictionaries too, but it's very naive to think that other dictionaries would duplicate them or that we could or should only consult the OED or any other dictionary.-- Espoo ( talk) 02:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The MOS currently begins with the hatnote:
This is wrong -- Template:about has let someone astray. The page about Wikipedia's Manual of Style is the talk page that you are reading now! The hatnote should read as follows:
(Or, personally, I think this wording:
would be better.)
Anyway, the page is semi-protected, so I can't change it. Would someone please do so? -- 70.48.232.24 ( talk) 20:58, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The duplicatively named "Spacing" paragraph of WP:ENDASH says "Use non-breaking spaces before en dashes.". Does that mean only the disjunctive en dashes in that paragraph, or does it mean there should be nbsp's before any en dash, including WP:MOS#Spaced en dashes as an alternative to em dashes? Art LaPella ( talk) 00:11, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed WP:NBSP also says "Use a non-breaking space ... on the left side of spaced en dashes, if necessary for comprehension". (I don't see how any nbsp is really necessary for comprehension, but that's what it says.) After this nbsp revert, I probably shouldn't do AWB edits until I can get some feedback about this. Art LaPella ( talk) 05:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
A user of WP:AIR has been removing the "thumb" attribute from line art images in articles, pointing to a general "disclaimer" on the WP:AIR MoS which says that users are not "obliged" to follow the image use guidelines. Comments are welcome at WT:AIR#Captions for line art. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
For a while, I'd been glancing over at our template that runs along the right-hand side of the page, thinking, "Gee, the distinction between the twenty-odd pages that appear under the "Manual" header and the twenty-odd pages that appear under the "Guidelines" header seems pretty damn arbitrary." It finally dawned on me—I can be slow—that this was a result of the different titling paradigms that had been applied to the different pages.
Of the 24 pages listed under "Guidelines", Wikipedia:Accessibility, Wikipedia:Captions, Wikipedia:Lead section, Wikipedia:Linking, Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable, and Wikipedia:Trivia sections are bannered as part of the Manual of Style (as is one loaner, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide). If they are part of the MoS, should their titles not be adjusted accordingly? Wikipedia:Manual of Style (accessibility), Wikipedia:Manual of Style (captions), and so forth...
The distinction raises other questions: By what logic is Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes) an MoS subpage, but Wikipedia:Tables and Wikipedia:Lists are not? (For that matter, why is Wikipedia:Manual of Style (anime- and manga-related articles) under "Manual" in the template, but Wikipedia:Manual of Style (road junction lists) under "Culture"?)
The conclusion I draw from this confusion is that the system is badly in need of rationalization. Either:
or:
It looks like we will soon be admitting Wikipedia:Words to watch to the style guideline pantheon. Let's start by getting this new entry right. Should it be retitled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (words to watch)?— DCGeist ( talk) 03:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I like this suggestion: WP:Manual of Style/Words to Watch. My favorite is still Gnevin's WP:Words to Watch (Manual of Style), but this is a fine alternative.
I'm glad to see there's grounds for consensus that every style guideline should be titled as a MoS page. I didn't start out certain about that, but it seems clear that's the sturdiest, most rational system. That leaves a little practical issue: the mess of (a) style guidelines pages bannered but not titled as part of the MoS, and (b) style guideline pages neither titled nor bannered as part of the MoS.
So everyone could get a better look at how those break down, I endeavored to rationalize the {{Style}} template that runs along the right-hand side of all (or most?) of our style guidelines. I'm not a whiz at templates, so ultimately I decided to copy it to a sandbox page. The rationalized template is visible at User:DCGeist/Style pages (or in the live template's history one edit back). For the moment I have neither added a single page to nor eliminated a single page from the template, merely rearranged the current roster of pages by their status vis-à-vis the Manual of Style. (I did maintain a distinct header for those titled MoS pages categorized in the live template as "Culture"). Some observations on and questions raised by the results:
Not sure how to pick examples, as the level of quality and significance varies quite a bit within each group. So I'll share them all in the collapsible box below:— DCGeist ( talk) 22:29, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Pages linked in the "official" Style template that are not currently titled as Manual of Style pages |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Here are the seven pages bannered as Manual of Style pages, but not titled that way:
Here are the thirteen pages bannered as style guidelines, but not as part of the Manual of Style nor titled that way:
Here are the ten other pages currently hanging out in our Style template that are not actually marked as style guidelines in any way: |
Wow, thanks . For the MoS but not titled as MoS and style guidelines speedy move to MoS naming . For the other 10 it's case by case. Gnevin ( talk) 08:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
One thing that may sway me can we have Manual of Style/Foo/Bar such as Manual of Style/Regional/Ireland or Manual of Style/Music/Music samples Gnevin ( talk) 18:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
{{User:Gnevin/sandbox3|MOS:Music|MOS:Music samples|MOS:Foo|MOS:Bar}}
or similar template
Gnevin (
talk)
20:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)If we're going to allow subsubpages, then (c) for the first-order (subpage) does offer the best combination of flexibility and coherence. However, (1) multiple slashes get difficult to read and are very unattractive, and (2) we're trying to rein in the kudzulike growth of the MoS, so I think we want a system that does not lead to subsubsubpages and subsubsubsubpages. I thus propose (c-p): slash for the subpage level, parentheses for the subsubpage level, giving us a tree of this design:
What do you think?— DCGeist ( talk) 21:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Retreating completely from slashville, I also think the (b) construct has a lot going for it. Rendered here using actual examples as proper nouns:
I still think multiple slashes is purest, and that we should be able to envisage a world where the depth doesn't spiral out of control; any significant depth of subpages would imply a serious failure of the wider rationalization we're currently attempting to bring, in which event title format would be the least of our concerns. PL290 ( talk) 05:36, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
The first set above I think does not work due to a fundamental taxonomic problem: in that scheme, pages lower in the hierarchy (subsubpages) appear to rank above pages that are actually higher (subpages). Can't do it, as W Sr. might say. Aside from that, you points are all well taken.
I'd say gauging the observations above from everyone that four choices are most viable, depending on whether or not we want to allow subsubpages. If we want to go down just one level from the main page:
(A) WP:Manual of Style (music)
(B) WP:Music (Manual of Style)
If we want to allow for subsubs (let's forget about subsubsubblebubbies for the moment):
(C) WP:Manual of Style/Music
WP:Manual of Style/Music/Samples
(D) WP:Manual of Style/Music
WP:Manual of Style/Music (music samples)
Does that look like something to vote on? It could be a triple-vote poll: (1) Whether or not to allow MoS pages more than one level down from the main page (2) Which style you prefer depending on the outcome of 1: (i) A vs. B, (ii) C vs. D. Or we could just run poll 1 and then a slimmed-down poll 2.— DCGeist ( talk) 06:46, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, I'm having trouble figuring out where to add my particular comment to this discussion, so I am going to do it here. I agree that systematic naming is good, but I am opposed to renaming all the pages listed above to be under the heading Manual of Style, because I don't think they are. A "manual of style" (or style guide, if you will), is generally about telling writers what choice to make from an arbitrary set of equally valid English choices, in order to provide consistent formatting and presentation. Some of the "guideline" pages are not really style guides though they are either "how to" manuals, e.g. how does one create a table in Mediawiki, or writers' guides explaining how to write a good Wikipedia article (while a style guide explains largely arbitrary preferences, a writers' guide teaches one to write well rather than poorly). As such, I think it would be a misnomer to move all of those pages under the heading Manual of Style (or similar), and hence I would be opposed to such a bulk renaming effort. Maybe we should collect the more general instruction pages under a separate heading like "Authors' Manual" or something, but I don't think Manual of Style (etc.) is an expansive enough heading to cover all the things being suggested above. Dragons flight ( talk) 21:26, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Straight vote
Where a vote for any of the slashes sub options would count as vote for slashes
Run off vote
Run off vote for type of slashes if slashes wins
Option 1 for the reasons I gave above. This voting scheme is getting too complex for me, so I'm going to limit myself to expressing a single preference. I would, however, like to speak out against the profusion of slashes: Why MoS/Regional/China/Language and not MoS/Linguistics/Chinese language? Hierarchies of subpages assume that we can organize our articles in a hierarchical way; they assume that knowledge can be parceled out into neat, separate containers. But when an MoS page discusses a topic relevant to several interests, the hierarchy will be—must be—wrong. Parentheses alone or a single slash alone do not have this problem, because they don't implicitly claim to organize knowledge. Ozob ( talk) 11:49, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Why are people voting when we haven't even agreed on the format of the poll? Gnevin ( talk) 07:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
A though occurs to me.We are using slashes to group like MoS together but we already have a system to group like articles together Categories. What if we went with B Foo (MoS) and it was a member of Category:Music (Manual of Style) which had as a parent Category:Arts (Manual of Style) Gnevin ( talk) 16:12, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Can you please indicate your preference for the naming style used by the MoS. There is no need to oppose the options you don't support . Gnevin ( talk) 20:43, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
#Support Slashes are being used like categories which will never work
Gnevin (
talk)
20:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Support - BUT qualified by the
usage principle suggested by Scott Alter, i.e., start with the assumption that each styleguide will be Manual of Style/Foo, with deeper levels only when certain guides lend themselves to it.
PL290 (
talk)
09:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
User:Gnevin/sandbox4 . What I found interesting while doing this (thanks to VernoWhitney for the help) was how naturally the groups formed Gnevin ( talk) 22:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Basically the majority of pages whos parent is the MoS itself .Currently we have over kill like Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Capital_letters Gnevin ( talk) 22:43, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
To facilitate the slash/not-slash discussion, we should really now get concrete about what we think the level 1 subpages are. If even that proves contentious, we may conclude we should settle for Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Foo). Conversely, if we quickly agree the level 1s, that will give us a much better reference point for the rest of the discussion. Does anyone have a quick way to produce a proposed list (going to level 1 only) in the format Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Foo? PL290 ( talk) 12:59, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
There should not be forward slashes in page names. Forward slashes have a specific meaning in URLs, and even if the subpage function has been turned off for page names, I believe it has not been turned off for talk pages, so it will causes problems with archives and if the talk pages have to be moved around with page name changes. -- PBS ( talk) 21:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
While I am not supporting this option, I believe that the proposed categories need revision. I agree with Ozob that there can not be one correct categorization, but if one is used, it should be based on an existing hierarchy (like Portal:Contents/Portals or Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. I absolutely do not agree that narrow-focused MoS including "Ships," "Poker," "Military history," and "Road junction lists" should be first-level subpages, while others like "Chinese language" are third-level. Also, I'm not sure why "Arts" was removed from this listing.
Another slashes option (which has not explicitly been proposed) is to NOT impose any categorical organizational structure, but not necessarily to set a 1-level limit. For example, most MoS would be first level. However, if there are very clearly closely-related MoS where one grew out of the other, there would be a second (or third) level. An example of this could be "Music" as a first level, with "Music samples," "MUSTARD," and possibly "Record charts" as second levels. A rule of thumb can be if the MoS contains the title of another MoS, it should be a subpage. This way, no one is forcing a MoS into a specific categorization; but if a specific MoS self-identifies as a sub-MoS as another, it can exist as a subpage. I think that creating tons of new MoS pages solely to categorize existing MoS is a bad thing, and this proposal is somewhat of a middle ground, which I would favor above any of the previously mentioned options. -- Scott Alter 02:45, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Should we set a time to close this ? Gnevin ( talk) 09:59, 20 May 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 110 | ← | Archive 113 | Archive 114 | Archive 115 | Archive 116 | Archive 117 | → | Archive 120 |
"Task force" is two words.
And why be so militaristic? :) Maurreen ( talk) 01:09, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Before we embark on such an ambitious project as a restructuring of the MoS, we should find out what Wikipedians really need from their MoS. We can look at the pages and count the miscapitalized T's and whatnot, but it seems to me that the best way to find out whether the editors are more intimidated by the number of pages they have to click through or the size of the pages they find when clicked, whether the examples help or hinder, etc. etc. would be to ask them. We can rely on our own experiences only so much because we're a group pre-filtered for copyediting skill.
I'm pretty sure I could write a survey that we could easily translate into project goals, but I don't know how to program a delivery system or what permissions I would need to contact Wikipedia's users. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 13:50, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
1a. How long have you been a Wikipedia editor?
A: I'm new. B: More than one year. C: Several years.
1b. How familiar would you say that you are with Wikipedia's policies, guidelines and manuals of style?
A: Very familiar. I could Wikilawyer with the best of them (but I don't because that's WP:WIKILAWYERING). B: Somewhat familiar. Every once in the while, I find a new WP:SOMETHING that I've never heard of before. C: I am constantly butting heads against Wikipedia rules and guidelines that seem to come out of nowhere. D: I am not very familiar with Wikipedia policies, but I feel that this does not negatively effect my Wikipedia experience.
1c. How involved are you in Wikipedia?
A: I mostly just read. B: I do some editing, but I am not involved in any Wikiprojects. C: I do a lot of editing and/or am involved in one or more specific Wikiprojects. D: I am a pillar of the Wikipedia community. I am an admin, steward, founder or am otherwise heavily involved in Wikipedia and its projects.
2a. When contributing to or editing Wikipedia articles, how do you deal with copyediting and English-language issues such as grammar, formatting, capitalization, punctuation and style?
A: I leave copyediting to others; I'm more of a content person. B: I use the English that seems correct to me/that I was taught in school. C: I mostly use the English that seems correct to me/that I was taught in school but I sometimes consult the Wikipedia MoS. D: I consult the Wikipedia Manual of Style so that I know Wikipedia's preferred guidelines on these issues.
2b. Describe how you read the MoS.
A: I read it in its entirety from start to finish. B: I read just the section that I need. C: I dip in and out of the MoS as I am linked to it. D: I never/almost never read the MoS.
3. On a scale of one to five, please rate how user-friendly you find the current Wikipedia MoS to be with five being "very well-organized; I was able to find what I wanted right away" and one being "a mess; I gave up and left."
4. On a scale of one to five, please rate how user-friendly you find this sample short-form version of the Wikipedia MoS to be with five being "very well-organized; I was able to find what I wanted right away" and one being "a mess; I gave up and left."
5. In your experience, which of these problems is more common or frustrating?
A: The size of the MoS. It is too big to read comfortably. B: The number of pages I have to click through to find the Wikipedia policies and guidelines that I need. C: The MoS main page and subpages don't always match.
8-12. In your opinion, which of these sentences is more helpful and informative?
A: [Line from Tony's Beginner's Guide] B: [Full line with examples from the current MoS.] C: The second one but the examples aren't necessary. [Or similar question addressing the MoS issues raised on this page.]
13-14. In your opinion, which of these pages is easier to read?
A: [Large section from Tony's Beginner's Guide.] B: [Corresponding section from the current MoS.] C: The first one is less intimidating but also less informative. [Or similar question addressing the MoS issues raised on this page.]
15. The Manual of Style is classified as a Wikipedia guideline, not as an essay or policy. What does this mean to you? (Please consider what you actually do when you are editing rather than what you feel the "right" answer should be.)
A: The Manual of Style must be followed to the letter. B: The Manual of Style should be followed except when there is an official Wikipedia Consensus than an exception should be made. C: The Manual of Style should be followed except when making an exception would improve the article. D: I tried to do B or C, but then someone else came along and reverted my changes/started an argument on the talk page/etc. E: I tried to do C, but too many people disagreed about what was best for the article.
Darkfrog24 ( talk) 14:02, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
The numbering is going to become confusing, any suggestions? I want to add 5. How you did/do you read the MOS
A: I read it entirety it's from start to finish B: I read a particular MOS from start to finish C: I dip in and out of the MOS as I am linked to it
Gnevin ( talk) 20:23, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
The problem isn't that the MoS is badly built, the problem is that some people don't know how to read a manual of style, thus complain about whatever. What is my answer to these people? Give them the Chicago MoS and they would be just as intimidated by it if not more. This is a general manual of style, not a book, and thus should read like a general manual of style. In fact Wikipedia's MoS should be many times more massive because:
If people expect to read the MoS from front to back before editing pages, they are doing it wrong. A manual of style is a reference, meaning that you look at the TOC, go to the relevant section, and get your answer. When you have your answer, close the page, and get back to work. It makes no sense to complain about "It's too long, because it contains information about blazons!". If you don't edit heraldry pages, then you shouldn't be reading the section on heraldry in the first place. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 03:57, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Does anyone know how to program a survey? Darkfrog24 ( talk) 23:36, 31 March 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Record charts/Billboard charts guide ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Explain jargon ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Please choose sets of pages you think might be candidates for merging/rationalisation and are willing to audit. If you find yourself wanting to double up with a choice already made by someone on the list, just include it and we can negotiate or share the job.
You could advertise this at the Village Pump, I think. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:15, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
This styleguide is currently being audited by the Styleguide Taskforce. The aim is to make immediate improvements in the prose, structure, and relationship with similar styleguides. The results of the audit will be reported at the talk page of the main MoS styleguide.
The auditors, [insert username(s)], welcome participation by and comments from all interested editors.
Your thoughts? Tony (talk) 06:31, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
This styleguide isStyleguides that make up the Manual of Style are currently being audited by the Styleguide Taskforce. The aim is to make immediate improvements in the prose, structure, and relationshipswithbetween similar styleguides. The results of the audit will be reported at the talk page of the main MoS styleguide.The auditors of this styleguide, [insert username(s)], welcome participation by and comments from all interested editors.
Wikipedia's styleguides are currently being audited by the Wikipedia Styleguide Taskforce. The aim is to make improvements in the prose, formatting, structure and—critically—the relationships between similar styleguides. The results of the audit will be reported at the talk page of the main MoS styleguide
The auditor assigned to this page is [insert username(s)]. The Taskforce welcomes participation by and comments from all interested editors.
Tony (talk) 10:10, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Update - it might be necessary to add {{ clear}} or some such after this template to avoid clashes with other templates. See my talkpage for details -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 07:35, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Hello
At the article " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hunyadi", an user added the line
The Hungarian form Hunyadi János was already presented in the lead:
János (John) Hunyadi ( Hungarian: Hunyadi János [ˈhuɲɒdi ˈjaːnoʃ] , Romanian: Iancu (Ioan) de Hunedoara, Slovak: Ján Huňady, Serbian: Сибињанин Јанко / Sibinjanin Janko;
Is that add really necessary? Isn't it redundant to specify that name twice? Thanks in advance for the answer( Umumu ( talk) 18:13, 1 April 2010 (UTC))
Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
I feel it is important that we only use one style of English being the international standard which is American English. Hollywood movies are shown through out the world, and this is the style of english which everyone understands. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.176.50.16 ( talk) 23:23, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
How about the following? The Manual of Style is a guide applicable to all Wikipedia articles. It presents Wikipedia's house style, and is intended to help editors produce articles whose language, layout and formatting are consistent, clear and precise. This helps make the entire encyclopedia easier and more intuitive to use.
I took out these words and phrases that appeared to be not earning their keep: write and that maintain articles that follow a consistent pattern of style and, and, in turn, style defining standards and guidelines provided as a reference in order. Hope they are not too much missed. Rumiton ( talk) 13:28, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state and territory highways) ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:01, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
I wrote this so Wikipedia books can become a bit more streamlined and have a more standardized feel. It's probably a bit drafty, but the core elements should be there. Feedback would be welcome and appreciated.
If you never heard of Wikipedia books, here's some basic details:
Wikipedia books (simply "books" from now on) are collections of article which can be downloaded electronically for free (in PDF or ODT formats, which can then be read offline, or printed by the user), or ordered in print. For examples, see Book:Hydrogen, Book:Canada, Book:Prostate, Book:Invincible class battlecruisers, (more can be found here). If you are still confused, I suggest clicking on "PDF" to see what exactly a book looks like when in PDF (ODT format is similar, printed books look better since they are printed on smaller pages, but the general idea is the same). The exact format of books can be varied: simpler books are just a bunch of links ( Book:Invincible class battlecruisers), more complex books are usually structured in chapters such as Book:Hadronic Matter.
For more informations, you can check these Signpost articles
- Books extension enabled
- New Book-Class released, WikiProject Wikipedia-Books looking for volunteers
- New Book namespace created
- Proposed deletion process extended to books, cleanup efforts
As well as
If you want to create a book, simply click on the "Create a book" link in the "print/export" toolbar on the left. (Or click here if you can't find it).
If you read all that and checked a few books in PDF, you should now be pretty familiar with what books are. Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 05:36, 2 April 2010 (UTC)
In two consecutive edits seen side by side here two different editors decided that is would be a good idea to invoke WP:IAR at the very head of the MoS. Although I can (vaguely) see the point, I don't recall that we ever discussed this. Any thoughts on what just happened or is it just playtime and I never heard the bell go? (I reverted, BTW.) -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 00:33, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I usually don't visit the MoS, but I just wanted to check out a specific point in the Chronological items section. Lo and behold, when I get here, it is proposed that six pages be merged into the Manual of Style. I can't follow the above discussion – the sections which "discuss" is linked to seems to be inactive. What is the current status of the merger proposal? NW ( Talk) 16:00, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
All other Wikipedia Task Forces have a dedicated project page. We, on the other hand, are simply using this talk page as a base of operations. This may have contributed to to various heated discussion dotted around WP at present. I suggest we start Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style/Auditing task force or similar and leave this page clear for comments related directly to the main MoS. We can move relevent discussion over there and leave a prominant message about the task force at the top of this page. The audit templates on the various MoSes would need to be updated, of course. Anyone feel like creating an actual template that can be transcluded via the usual {{foo}} markup? -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 20:44, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Discussion moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (music)#Linking & capitalising definite article in band names as relating more directly to that specific MoS -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 02:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
WP:NEO is actually part notability guideline and part MoS guidance. The part of it that is a notability guideline needs to be promoted to a notability guideline by either merging into WP:N or as a new page. I think it's probably small enough that it could merge into WP:N. The rest of it could probably be merged into the main MoS, since it's not a lot. Gigs ( talk) 01:58, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Here's the distilled section I think we should merge into WP:N:
Neologisms
Some neologisms can be in frequent use, and it may be possible to pull together many facts about a particular term and show evidence of its usage on the Internet or even in larger society. It may be natural, then, to feel that Wikipedia should have a page devoted to this new term, and this is sometimes but not always the case.
To support an article about a particular term or phrase we must cite reliable secondary sources such as books and papers about the term or phrase, not books and papers that use the term. (Note that wikis such as Wiktionary are not considered to be a reliable source for this purpose.) Neologisms that are in wide use but for which there are no treatments in secondary sources are not yet ready for use and coverage in Wikipedia. The term does not need to be in Wikipedia in order to be a "true" term, and when secondary sources become available, it will be appropriate to create an article on the topic or use the term within other articles.
An editor's personal observations and research (e.g. finding blogs, books, and articles that use the term rather than are about the term) are insufficient to support articles on neologisms because this may require analysis and synthesis of primary source material to advance a position (which is explicitly prohibited by the original research policy). To paraphrase Wikipedia:No original research: If you have research to support the inclusion of a term in the corpus of knowledge that is Wikipedia, the best approach is to arrange to have your results published in a peer-reviewed journal or reputable news outlet and then document your work in an appropriately non-partisan manner.
Articles on neologisms are commonly deleted as these articles are often created in an attempt to use Wikipedia to increase usage of the term. As Wiktionary's inclusion criteria differ from Wikipedia's, that project may cover neologisms that Wikipedia cannot accept. If you are interested in writing an article on a neologism, you may wish to contribute it to that project instead. In a few cases, there will be notable topics which are well-documented in reliable sources, but for which no accepted short-hand term exists. It can be tempting to employ a neologism in such a case. Instead, use a title that is a descriptive phrase in plain English if possible, even if this makes for a somewhat long or awkward title.
Dear colleagues, Derk-Jan Hartman has reported at Buzilla 21117 that MediaWiki developers have just raised the default at the Commons, following on from the same change made here in February (I think it was that month).
It's pleasing that an overwhelming consensus built late last year on WT:IUP at en.WP has received no serious hurdles in spreading to a program of gradual application throughout WikiMedia's sites. Tony (talk) 11:41, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
All this reorganization comes at a great time for me, because I have duties now at WP:MILHIST that leave me less time to spend on the monthly update of Category:General style guidelines at WP:Update/2. It would have been tough to figure out which ones to stop keeping up with if I hadn't seen the reaction to all the merge proposals ... actually, the lack of reaction. Just going by page hits for March for WEASEL (68K) and PEACOCK (9K), I wouldn't have expected that there wouldn't be a fuss; there was certainly a lot of fuss when similar proposals were raised a couple of years ago. In addition to the style pages that have already been redirected or proposed for merging, a lot of the pages I have been tracking at WP:Update/2 got fewer hits in March than those two pages:
Does anyone have a proposal for how to divert more eyeballs to any of these pages? If not, I'll remove them from Category:General style guidelines. - Dank ( push to talk) 20:12, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I was looking through Category:Wikipedia style guidelines and I noticed a few articles that may or may not be appropriate for the MoS. I'm going to separate things into subsections as a pre-emptive measure, since the articles suggested different questions to me. Ozob ( talk) 01:23, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Article message boxes. This describes the design and implementation of article message boxes. It's important if someone wants to introduce a new article message box. But it's not about writing well, nor about article layout, nor about Wikipedia content. Most people won't ever create a new article message box, so while the page is good, I wonder if it should be part of the MoS. Category:Wikipedia templates, which it's also in, seems much more appropriate. On the other hand, one might argue that template styling, like all styling, should be part of the MoS. So the question is: Should template styling be governed by the MoS?
Wikipedia:Article size. Should this sort of information be part of the MoS? It's a (overly long) description of how long an article should be. The style advice is easy to summarize: Be concise; consider splitting articles longer than 40k; do not write articles longer than 100k. But the article contains more information than just that. For instance, it describes some of the historical limitations that we used to have (the 32k limit imposed by old web browsers) but which aren't relevant anymore. It suggests workarounds for those limits. It mentions that some browsers have an upper limit of about 400k beyond which a page won't render properly. Is it in the scope of the MoS to contain historical information that was at one time appropriate to writing Wikipedia articles?
Wikipedia:Don't use line breaks. Rather than recommend a specific style, this article gives pros and cons of each position. It has essentially no content besides the arguments for and against; it draws no conclusions. Should the MoS include material which does not recommend a specific style?
Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Dear colleagues, it is high time we acted. The comments by Ohms, Hans, Art LP, AdM, DarkFrog, Jubilee and many others in the sections above are a strong indication that we have the motivation and energy to do something about the MoS mess that has grown around us unchecked over the years. Editors are irritated by the mess, and WP's styleguides do themselves no service by resisting basic reform. I'm referring to the whole list that winds down the right-hand side of the MoS page, including "Help" and "Culture", plus the other nooks and crannies that are less obvious but are still marked as style guides. The task also involves a rethink of the lax rules at Styleguide Category that are allowing anyone to elevate their pet page to MoS status without proper scrutiny and coordination.
But it will be a lot of work. The idealist, the optimist in me suggests that we might be willing to band together as the Styleguide Taskforce to share in the massive task of auditing the pages for:
and to report back here the opportunities we find for rationalisation, and to draw up plans for engineering the number of pages down to something that will serve editors much better. I believe we should be making a contribution to fixing local problems we find, during the audit, as well as reporting back here. That is likely to win greater acceptance by local editors who have a stake in the subpages. We should develop a template for talk pages that announces the auditing process and invites participation by local editors (a bonus, but I suspect many pages are ghost-towns).
I want to start the ball rolling by calling for editors to join the Styleguide Taskforce and to nominate which groups of pages they would like to audit. Until we know what we are dealing with, we are not in a position to clean up this central agent of cohesion and quality in the world's most important information site.
We could establish a timetable and method of reporting when we know who is willing to do the work and gather the knowledge. I suggest we cut our teeth on the easier ones—the groups of small, similar pages, leaving the conceptually and politically harder ones like MOSNUM vs MOSMAIN until later in the process.
It is easy to find groups of pages that look as though they should be merged just from their titles. Some are crying out for a good copy-edit.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony1 ( talk • contribs)
In fact, it was signed but the Call for Taskforce volunteers and MOS Taskforce audits sections broke off from it. Hope that clarifies this section for newcomers? -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 21:16, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Is the parenthetical birth/death info in the current version of the article Christoph Cellarius correctly-spaced? If it is correctly-spaced, then I need to request a change in AWB, which is trying to change 22 November 1638 – 1707 to 22 November 1638–1707. Thanks, -- Black Falcon ( talk) 17:58, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Date ranges are preferably given with minimal repetition, using an unspaced en dash where the range involves numerals alone (5–7 January 1979; January 5–7, 2002) or a spaced en dash where the opening or the closing date has internal spaces (5 January – 18 February 1979; January 5 – February 18, 1979).
This is 'above' | |
---|---|
Label | data |
The decision of whether to put infobox headings in the above
or title
position is an arbitrary one (inconsistent between even similar infoboxes) and often contentious (as seen in, for example
Infobox company#Name inside box). I feel we should standardise on one across Wikipedia. I have posted pointers to this discussion in {{
Cent}} and on relevant talk pages.
Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing);
Andy's talk;
Andy's edits
18:39, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
above
or title
position..." You said: "The rare instances in which having a title in the infobox..." Thus, "the latter" seems to refer to the caption-element, title
, described by
Jack Merridew, below --
Jubilee
♫
clipman
22:11, 6 April 2010 (UTC)The terms being used here by the infobox template are a bit off; the 'title' is properly a caption-element (caption of the table) while the 'above' is a table-header-element (spanning two columns in this and many cases). Using 'captions' on tables is very good practice from an accessibility and Google-friendliness POV. There are some issues with some browsers and the styling of captions, which is, I believe, much of why they've not been used as much. Note that is is possible to style captions to have borders such that they appear to be inside the box (on good browsers, at least).
I'd be very inclined to support using captions (title) over the th-approach if there are not outright show-stoppers involved. Cheers, Jack Merridew 20:55, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
One of the major issues, i've noted with the MOS is that a lot of the MOS will have see also to a other MOS . However these see also will often contradict the MOS its linking to or contradict a point a other MOS see also says is correct . I've done up (a terrible drawing) of how this looks if you map it out .
In the image we have 5 MOS. X the MOS that is being see also linked too
I believe if we create a MOS:X/core which contains the core concept of MOS X we can transclude it into Y,Z,A they will no long be able to contradict each other or X see below
Any thoughts?
Gnevin (
talk)
18:36, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Should we include an example of musical note progression in the en dash section? Should we warn against using hyphens between musical notes of a progression, as in D-C-A-G-A, and recommend en dashes like this: D–C–A–G–A? Binksternet ( talk) 19:34, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Record charts/Billboard charts guide ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Greetings to all. Capitalization of religious legal system names is uneven and falls in a gray area. Religious law is more than doctrine, dogma or law. Being in some ways indistinguishable from the religions they stem from, special care must be taken with their capitalization. Strictly speaking, capitalization and non-capitalization are bot correct. Wiki MOS is silent on the matter. The internet displays the same ambivalence exhibited in Wikipedia. I am taking my cue from the "Halakha" and "Religious law" articles, which ~tend to capitalize. Common usage tends towards capitalization, while specialized scholars tend to do so less frequently. I personally prefer capitalization, and my particular topic of interest is Sharia. I will add "religious law" to the list of capitalized nouns under "Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents" to clarify this point. The community's support is appreciated in this matter. Aquib ( talk) 22:57, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Org | Sharia | Canon | Halakha |
---|---|---|---|
Reuters | No pattern | No pattern | No result |
BBC | Caps | No pattern | No pattern |
NY Times | Most Caps | Lower case | No result |
Fox News | No pattern | Lower case | No result |
LA Times | Most Caps | Lower case | No result |
The difference may simply be that the Times considers Sharia a proper noun, that is refering to a specific code, while the others consider it more a general category, like canon law (which isn't a proper noun, unless refering to a specific church's code.) oknazevad ( talk) 00:33, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Embedded lists ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Embedded list ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
So what's the issue? These auto-notices are tedious and non-informative. :-/ I side somewhat with the contingent that "list" has two radically different meanings here, embedded lists and stand-alone lists, which have largely but not entirely separate guidance, plus further complications like glossaries. The section " Wikipedia:Lists#List articles" mentions several other [alleged] types, though I think it really could be collapsed a bit; looking that over all I see is variants of list article and in-article list (which may be, in either case, lists of episodes, lists of people, glossaries, or whatever, some of which have full-on or nascent guidelines and some of which do not).
The point being: What are the alleged problems, are they legitimate, and what do "we" (i.e., all editors who are interested and involved in the MoS) need to do about them, if anything? What do "we" (same definition) care to do or say? Can specific, actionable issues be raised and resolved? I've been at this over five years now, and I'm frankly getting tired of issues being raised and half-discussed and archived and re-raised and re-hashed and re-archived, and re-re-raised, and [repeat]. Let's just start resolving them. File RFCs if we have to. I don't think it would be a bad thing at all if this page had 5 concurrent RfCs running on it. Just get it done. MoS should be one of the most, not least, stable pages here. We (as in you, me and everyone reading this while it's still fresh) need to make that happen. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 10:57, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Pro and con lists ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
You might be interested in Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#WP:BIRD and the Effort to Capitalize "Rhesus Macaques". Maurreen ( talk) 20:07, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
'dbe ok i/1articl=tolerans!-- --pl.note:i'v[[RSI]]>typin=v.v.hard4me!>contactme thruMSNpl.if unclear[sven70=alias ( talk) 15:44, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Do we need all of these really specific MOS pages? There's the one immediately above, for example. I don't have an issue with it or what it says, but... why can't the few unique points that it makes be made here? It seems that there are several mini-MOS pages out there, all attempting to fork off their own little corner of the MOS. Would anyone really object to a good effort to consolidate many of these?
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs)
13:32, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Organization and normalization is very helpful, but likely we will still want at least a couple different MOS pages to avoid one gargantuan page; example how to break them down, however, should be discussed. -- MASEM ( t) 14:43, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Sorry, but I think this is a big mistake. There may be work needed on some of those established detail pages, but the basic structure is entirely sound, reflects best practice in documentation generally (as well as WP:Summary style), and should be left alone—one main, summary article, and a set of detailed ones it refers out to. PL290 ( talk) 14:50, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Your proposal suggests you have not seriously considered how much space what you call the "few unique points" would actually take up if consolidated. The "Text issues" section is almost entirely about specific art matters with material that is not duplicated anywhere else; that alone takes up 2 1/2 screens on my pc. Some of the other sections are more general, but consolidating the whole thing would either mean dropping stuff or taking up several screens-worth. There are over 20 such specialized MOS sub-pages, many longer than this one. The suggestion is a non-starter. Johnbod ( talk) 15:02, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
I wouldn't be opposed to limited consolidation, but I've seen a policy tagged for consolidation (we can't incorporate a policy into a guideline), and one page that recently had guideline status removed. So long as we were careful not to extend the MoS's remit, and not to downgrade or upgrade any consolidated page, I'd support the proposal. As things stand, there are too many pages for people reasonably to keep an eye on, yet they all have guideline status, often only because of their link to the MoS. SlimVirgin TALK contribs 16:57, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
I like "summary style". I wish we used it. What we often have instead is an allegedly detailed page that often has little more information than the parent page. In those cases, consolidation would be preferable to what we have. The ideal would be a parent page that really summarizes the rest of the information, rather than restating most of it. There would be a much shorter introductory page, with links to all of the existing information in the detail pages. Art LaPella ( talk) 17:25, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
This seems like the model that I'd use. In most cases, I wouldn't delete/redirect the subpages, though, since having a venue for providing details is useful in itself. Croctotheface ( talk) 08:06, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
User:Ohms law's example further up the page, Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Capitalization vs. Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters), is an excellent one for two reasons. Firstly, it confirms the reality and extent of the duplication between the MoS and its sub-articles, meaning we must take that seriously and address it as part of this exercise. Secondly, and more interestingly, it shows we must look at the TOC here, not just an individual sub-article, to see at what level to create summaries. This TOC is vast and unwieldy (to all intents and purposes unusable at almost 3 full pages in length), and I believe the summarization should start right there. Chopping out all but the level 2s, this is the current TOC:
1 General principles 2 Article titles, headings, and sections 3 Capital letters 4 Acronyms and abbreviations 5 Italics 6 Non-breaking spaces 7 Quotations 8 Punctuation 9 Geographical items 10 Chronological items 11 Numbers 12 Units of measurement 13 Common mathematical symbols 14 Simple tabulation 15 Grammar 16 Images 17 Bulleted and numbered lists 18 Links 19 Miscellaneous
That is more like a usable TOC. It's also more like the list of sections I think this document should limit itself to, without subsections. Just high-level concepts, with each of those sections itself identifying any applicable sub-concepts, summarizing and linking to them. (It seems to me that even some of these "high-level" entries are in fact too low-level to appear there; Capital letters is perhaps one of them, and could be grouped along with two or three other low-level items under some more general heading.) PL290 ( talk) 09:46, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
As a concrete example, I've created
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Clarity, which combines
Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms,
Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms,
Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words and
Wikipedia:Explain jargon, and is transcluded onto the page here.
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs)
17:10, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
For a better (as in, less controversial) example. Since nobody was watching the page (less than 30, at least), and nobody had touched either the page or the talk page in over a year, I've converted
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Blazon to be a transcluded sub-page. I also took the opportunity to fix the style and language of the page itself, since it was terribly written (where it was actually written, rather then being forced into a bullet list style...). Again, I understand and sympathize with the general reasons not to use this pattern, but in this particular instance it makes sense, to me. There are things that can be done to make editing the specific sub-pages easier, by providing special links for example, if there is serious concerns about accessibility.
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs)
21:39, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Ohms has proposed to merge the WP:Image use policy into the MoS. In effect, this is a proposal to eliminate Wikipedia's primary (only?) policy specifically dealing with images, and to bloat the MoS with non-stylistic information, such as how to deal with non-free images and whether images of patients entering a medical facility unreasonably intrude on the patients' privacy (in the absence of their consent, of course).
Whatever the merits of the other merge proposals, I think this one should be removed from the list of considerations. A WP:POLICY is not a style guide. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:50, 27 March 2010 (UTC)
Dear colleagues, as I've said above, thanks to Ohms for the Blazon experiment. However, we need a careful game-plan if we are to tackle the weeping, pustulating mess of style-guide pages in WP, for the sake of editors, readers, and the project as a whole.
In my view, these are the bare bones of a strategy:
IMO, there are two reasons for rationalisation: ease of consultation by editors; second, proper, professional management and coordination.
I am keen to explore the idea of establishing a managing committee to oversee this huge, complex beast—both its auditing and rationalisation in the short- to medium term, and its management in the long term. I would even be willing to explore the possibility of electing such a committee, such is our dire need for reform. WP:BAG seems to have a tightly conceived committee process; so does WP:WikiProject Military History. Why are the style guides left to self-degrade?
No one seems to take WP:WikiProject Manual of Style seriously, so perhaps we need to make a start here. Tony (talk) 10:38, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
The following shouldn't be so hard to implement and doesn't require a huge planning effort:
Here is a summary of WP:Manual of Style (abbreviations) as an example of what I have in mind:
Abbreviations
We used digital scanning (DS) technology produced by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). We applied the technology while working for the World Union of Billiards. The required software was delivered electronically and fit on approximately two CD-ROMs. It was paid for by the World Union of Billiards.
Abbreviations are normally defined before their first use, are not used unnecessarily (fit on approx. two CD-ROMs), are not made up by Wikipedia editors (was paid for by the WUB), and form their plurals without an apostrophe (CD-ROM's). When to use periods (full stops) is a complex question, especially in the case of "U.S."/"US". Abbreviations of units of measures are discussed in a different guideline, see WP:Manual of Style (dates and numbers).
Hans Adler 13:49, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
The above list is an overview over all pages of the form WP:Manual of Style (X) that are not redirects. If such a page is not actually an official part of MOS (typically because it was rejected or abandoned before inclusion), then I have still included it but put it in parentheses and italics. I have sorted the pages into the following five criteria: region & religion, subject areas, language, Wikipedia infrastructure, miscellanea. Hans Adler 16:53, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
Here's a crazy thought: We should move the whole of the Manual of Style to become a book on Wikibooks.
I know that's likely impractical, but I at least wanted to throw the idea out there. I think that quite a bit of our current debate here revolves around the problem that we're artificially constrained right now. More realistically, we could ask for a namespace to be created specifically for the MOS. That would certainly have it's own utility.
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs)
17:34, 28 March 2010 (UTC)
The above discussion has shown that there's quite a lot of interest in overhauling this MoS page. As to document structure, two fundamental approaches have been identified:
I would like to gauge opinion about which of these basic approaches we should adopt. I think it will be helpful if we try to locate any further substantive discussion in other sections outside the straw poll. Let's just consider this fundamental choice here. Please indicate your preference by signing under one of the three headings below (shrink, grow, or neither).
Straw poll: shrink, grow, or neither: Shrink
"This main MoS page should continue to act as a springboard from which all style guide detail information is accessed, but the main page should contain far less detail itself."
Straw poll: shrink, grow, or neither: Grow
"This main MoS page should expand to include all required style guide detail which is at present on sub-pages, and the sub-pages should be scrapped."
Straw poll: shrink, grow, or neither: Neither
"This main MoS page should neither shrink by moving detail off it to its sub-pages, nor grow by moving all the detail here and scrapping the sub-pages."
My opinion is that this should not be merged into MOS. Firstly, only a few people are interested in it. Secondly, there is still dispute over what it should say. Tuxedo junction ( talk) 18:01, 29 March 2010 (UTC)
Agree that Wikipedia:Alternative text for images should not be merged into MOS, as WP:ALT will need a long list of examples: long and short ones; how the text for the same image can depend on the situation; etc. -- Philcha ( talk) 22:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
We're trying to figure out if long "S"es should be modernized at Talk:Wife_selling#Long_s_in_quotations. How does the Manual of Style address the issue? The relevant portion of the MOS is this:
Although the requirement of minimal change is strict, a few purely typographical elements of quoted text should be conformed to English Wikipedia's conventions without comment. This practice of conforming typographical styling to a publication's own "house style" is universal. Allowable typographical alterations include these: ... Disused glyphs and ligatures in old texts may be modified according to modern practice (see Ampersand, below)....
I think this means the change SHOULD occur. But someone else thinks this means the change MAY occur, but that it's not necessary (up to his discretion). Clarification is appreciated!-- Rsl12 ( talk) 21:38, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Unfortunately, we're still having trouble reaching concensus at Talk:Wife_selling#Long_s_in_quotations. A more definitive answer from the MOS would help set the matter straight very quickly. Should long "s"es be modernized when quoting? If the answer is "it depends", then under what circumstances? -- Rsl12 ( talk) 16:22, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
WP:NBSP recommends Boeing 747, but what about [[Boeing 747]]? Somehow Boeing 747 is blue and functional as a link, but does it work for everyone's operating systems? Art LaPella ( talk) 04:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
<a href="/wiki/Boeing_747" title="Boeing 747">Boeing 747</a>
Yes it works because, unlike other characters illegal in page-titles, the wikilinks silently will replace U+00A0 NO BREAK SPACE and U+0020 SPACE by U+005F LOW LINE in the url while leaving the inner (visible, clickable) text untouched. Also hand-written urls containing either kind of space, //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo%A0bar or //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo%20bar, will 301-redirect to //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foo_bar. ― AoV² 22:29, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
WP:MOS#Non-breaking spaces says "A non-breaking space (also known as a hard space) is recommended ... in other places where displacement might be disruptive to the reader (£11 billion ...)". So my AWB software generalizes that example to insert a nbsp into variations like $7.5 trillion (obviously) and 3 million (not so obviously because there's no currency symbol). Is that what was intended? "[W]here displacement might be disruptive to the reader" doesn't help explain it, because if we already knew when displacement might (allegedly) be disruptive, then we wouldn't need the guideline. Art LaPella ( talk) 05:53, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
£11 billion
only disrupts the editor. If we really want a non-breaking space before and/or after every numeral as a hard rule we should mention it to the devs. I can see the importance of line-break control in table cells (using white-space:nowrap;
as appropriate) but in a free-flowing paragraph I doubt enough readers ever would notice the difference. ―
AoV²
06:06, 5 April 2010 (UTC)£11_billion
which is nearly as user-friendly as it gets. (Underscores are seldom actually used in article texts – I searched the articles featured on the Main Page in the last four days and four random articles for _
using my browser's search and it found none. So putting <nowiki>
tags around the few ones used shouldn't be too troublesome.) ―
___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987)
09:54, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
In the discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)#Conflict_regarding_non-breaking_spaces, the guideline is shown to contradict itself between the WP:NBSP guide and the WP:ORDINAL guide, where the latter says "When both a figure and spelled-out named number are used in a quantity, it is useful to use a non-breaking space." The former says to put non-breaking spaces in examples such as $7.5 trillion, with its currency symbol, and the latter says to put them in regardless of the presence of the currency symbol. This contradiction must be fixed! Binksternet ( talk) 19:31, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
s is ugly. But if A. di M.'s underline suggestion is implemented, then we wouldn't have that problem, either.
Ozob (
talk)
23:44, 9 April 2010 (UTC)
Would deferring this to the render phase with some $t = preg_replace('/(\d) /', '$1 ', $t);
parser-juice make everyone happy, or no? ―
AoV²
07:45, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
This, from one of our “featured” articles:
The '''inauguration of Barack Obama''' as the [[List of Presidents of the United States|44th]] [[President of the United States]] took place on Tuesday, January 20, 2009. The [[United States presidential inauguration|inauguration]], which set a record attendance for any event held in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington, D.C.]], marked the commencement of the four-year term of [[Barack Obama]] as President and [[Joe Biden|Joseph Biden]] as [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]]. Based on the combined attendance numbers, television viewership and Internet traffic, it was among the most observed events ever by the global audience. "A New Birth of Freedom", a phrase from the [[Gettysburg Address]], served as the inaugural theme to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth year of [[Abraham Lincoln]]. In his speeches to the crowds, Obama referred to ideals expressed by Lincoln about renewal, continuity and national unity. Obama mentioned these ideals in his speech to stress the need for shared sacrifice and a new sense of responsibility to answer America's challenges at home and abroad. Obama and others paid homage to Lincoln in the form of tributes and references during several of the events, starting with a commemorative train tour from {{city-state|Philadelphia|Pennsylvania}} to Washington, D.C. on January 17, 2009. The inaugural events held in Washington, D.C. from January 18 to January 21, 2009 included concerts, a national day of community service on [[Martin Luther King, Jr. Day|Martin Luther King, Jr. Day]], the swearing-in ceremony, luncheon and parade, inaugural balls, and the interfaith [[Prayers at United States presidential inaugurations|inaugural prayer service]]. The [[Oath of office of the President of the United States|presidential oath]] as administered to Obama during his swearing-in ceremony on January 20 strayed from the oath of office prescribed in the [[United States Constitution]], which led to its re‑administration the next evening.
I′ll let someone else throw the first punch. ― AoV² 11:22, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we agree that the two parts of a two-part name like "Kathie Lee" are logically inseparable. I am saying that logically inseparable items should also be typographically inseparable. I'm not arguing that logically separable items should have non-breaking spaces; a name like "John Q. Public" needs no non-breaking spaces. I think you are saying just about the same thing, but I'm not sure. Ozob ( talk) 21:45, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
[[Billy Ray Cyrus]]
) becomes <a href="/info/en/?search=Billy_Ray_Cyrus" title="Billy Ray Cyrus">Billy Ray Cyrus</a>
in fact, obviating some of the clutter. Literal nbsp characters (out of sight, out of mind) would be even prettier I think. Somewhere I have a simple javascript gadget which makes them glow as if under a black-light. Let me know if you′d like to use it. ―
AoV²
23:18, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
Yes. My father told me not to break my last name across lines when I was about six years old, and he's not a typographer nor anything like that. ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:31, 11 April 2010 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Should the underscore be used as mark-up for non-breaking spaces? ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 15:31, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Whatever we choose we would need to take extra care to escape all intended literals. The underscore and tilde will appear most commonly in programming contexts, for multi-word identifiers such as
std::rel_ops or
dynamic_cast. Ideally we would be able to identify and disregard these by the presence of a surrounding <code>
tag or {{
code}} template. The latter did use nowiki tags until I re-designed it to use inline source tags (to allow syntax-highlight if the user specifies a language, and because while nowiki escapes html/wikitext constructs—<>
to <>
, etc.—it does not escape the ampersands of character entity references). It still has some frustrating limitations (cough, cough, vertical bar operator) but works well in most cases.
One minor but glaring issue with current literalizing methods is the lack of an easy way to allow wiki-links within the code while escaping all other markup. Considering the underscore-titled examples above, one might want to use something like {{foo|[[Proper use of dynamic_cast]]}}
wherein “foo” is a hypothetical template/parser-function/etc. which (in light of re-purposed underscores) could prevent the intentional low-line between the last two words from becoming an nbsp, yet still allow the brackets to form a wiki-link. While it links to the same article regardless, I′d have to pipe the link and pack some markup into the alias-text to preserve formatting. Maybe that won′t arise often enough to matter.
On the other hand we might consider a “non-white” spacing character with fewer natural collisions, so cat UnicodeData.txt | grep "Pc"
perhaps.
However, I had to pick a visible character in the 7-bit range I might choose the tilde in fact (considering its aforementioned use in TeX), on the following conditions:
$wgLegalTitleChars
. Given its effects in the pre-save transform, this might be a good idea in any case—consider [[~~~~]]
.\n
, \t
, etc. serves no typographically constructive purpose, yet could disrupt the following in the absence of proper tagging:
~SomeClass() { /* destructor */ }
int a = ~b; /* bitwise NOT */
population: ~9,000 /* approximate figure */
― AoV² 21:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Not so much a short-cut as a placeholder which keeps word boundaries easily perceivable in the edit window rather than making several words appear to run together. For me, the easiest approach by far would be to use literal nbsp characters and edit my font to make nbsp′s appear differently than regular spaces. The only compelling argument against that is how older versions of firefox will send them back as regular spaces while making unrelated edits. There is a solution to that, see mw:Manual:$wgBrowserBlackList. This “safemode” replaces all characters above U+007F by their hexadecimal character references in the textarea for broken clients based on the user-agent string, then it converts them back before saving the page. But here′s the thing: users who want this functionality by default, despite not having a broken client, can spoof their user-agent, or better yet, request exposing this “safemode” as an option in Special:Preferences. I believe this combination of steps would be the best possible compromise. Failing that we can talk about underscores and tildes and other weirdness. ― AoV² 09:50, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Please see the following discussions.
--
Wavelength (
talk)
18:40, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Please see also the following archived discussions.
-- Wavelength ( talk) 19:09, 12 April 2010 (UTC)
Could someone look into the work done by 7mike5000, such as the colorful, icon-filled table at Eating disorders#Personality_traits?
Do tables like these represent a permissible variation on normal style, or an undesirable cluttering of the page with unnecessary formatting (or something in between)? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:59, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
A minor point, but I wondered if the following two statements are entirely compatible:
"It is almost never a good idea to use other style changes, such as font family or color."
"It is certainly desirable to use color as an aid for those who can see it..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.47.224 ( talk) 03:22, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I've had a bit of back-and-forth editing at Already Gone (Kelly Clarkson song)#Charts, certifications and sales about using {{ n/a}} in table cells when the song did not chart or where information is not available. Another editor has changed it back to an emdash, asking "since when is N/A acceptable under guidelines?" I went looking at all guidelines I could think of, including here, WP:DASH, WP:Songs#Style, and WP:Songs#Chart performance, charts and succession (which directs editors to WP:MUSIC/TABLE) for chart tables. I haven't seen anything that says emdashes should be used over N/A when information is not available or not applicable and that N/A is unacceptable. Can editors here possibly direct me to anything that says emdashes are preferable or explain why they are, as to me it indicates that information is missing. Thanks, Matthewedwards : Chat 22:59, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Consider the following tables:
Em dashes | En dashes | Hyphens | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
For charged mesons (π+, π−, ρ+, ρ−), C-parity is not defined. For the neutral mesons (π0, ρ0), C-parity is defined (+ for the pion, − for the rho meson). Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 12:45, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
|
|
― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 10:12, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Getting back to the nominal topic of discussion, what does everyone think of:
Pion | π+ | π0 | π− |
---|---|---|---|
C-parity | — | + | — |
Rho meson | ρ+ | ρ0 | ρ− |
C-parity | — | − | — |
? Ozob ( talk) 13:13, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
Hi there. A couple of points as I am passing through again.
1. Under "National varieties of English" the MoS says: "For example, use alternative route (or even other route) rather than alternate route, since alternate may mean only 'alternating' to a speaker of British English."
This is good advice but the reason given is implausible. All British English speakers understand that "alternate route" means "alternative route" (unless the context strongly indicates otherwise). The actual issue is that many find this usage sloppy and annoying (I do not intend any offence to AmE speakers).
2. The section "Italicized links" seems to be a "how-to" guide on Wikipedia syntax, not a MoS topic. 86.142.111.64 ( talk) 04:01, 18 April 2010 (UTC).
From the history:
There has never been consensus on this issue. See these sections for previous discussions on this subject in Footnotes and citation archives
The wording currently at WP:REFPUNCT is compromise wording worked out in 2007. The wording in the section " Punctuation and inline citations" of the MOS contradicts that compromise wording. What would you suggest is suitable wording as there is no agreement, nor has there ever been (see the archives), that ref tags should always go after punctuation. The compromise wording advises that after punctuation is used but does not mandate it. What do you suggest as compromise wording that everyone can live with?
I notice from the edit history that you Tony changed long standing wording with this edit on 13 February 2010. Before you made that edit the wording here was a brief summary of the compromise at WP:REFPUNCT. I am going to partially restore the wording you changed and I assume that as you say you made you last revert with the comment "Rv: no consensus here", as there was not a consensus for the change you made, you will not feel the need to revert it until after an agreement to change it is reached. -- PBS ( talk) 04:45, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
As part of the general cleanup effort currently underway, two proposals are currently under discussion on the Wikipedia Talk:Profanity page:
Hello. I'm looking for some fresh input into an increasingly bitter debate at Template talk:Infobox ice hockey player regarding the possible addition of the name in bold at the top of an infobox. I won't describe the details of the debate since I'm a party to it but the discussion desperately needs outsider input. Thanks, Pichpich ( talk) 19:19, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
The first item under the Bulleted list section says lists shouldn't be used if "a passage reads easily using plain paragraphs". Does "reads easily" mean that sentences should merely be complete, or that they should all be cohesive? Thanks. -Roger ( talk) 05:32, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
"In American English, U.S. (with periods) is more accepted as the standard abbreviation for United States; US (without periods) is more accepted in other national forms of English, and is becoming increasingly common in American English."
I propose to amend this sentence to the following: "In American English, U.S. (with periods) is more accepted as the standard abbreviation for United States and should be the format used in United States-specific articles; US (without periods) is more accepted in other national forms of English, and is sometimes used in American English."
I question the notion that "US (without periods) is ... becoming increasingly common in American English". About every respected manual of style and print media outlet uses the periods, so we don't really have anything to suggest that it is "becoming increasingly common".-- Jiang ( talk) 00:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Darkfrog, if you don't want to force Americans to use the ugly dots, why are you supporting "Jiang's proposal? BTW, I increasingly see US editors here writing without the dots on WP (or should I say W.P.?). And as for personal preference—we certainly allow editors who start articles to choose whether to use spaced en dashes or unspaced em dashes as interruptors; is there something wrong with allowing that personal choice, which is widespread in the language? Tony (talk) 09:14, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
Americans don't even agree between themselves whether to use US or U.S. Mostly because most people don't care. No reason for forcing it one way or the other (I note here that the trend is moving towards undotted variants, so if anything the style should be undotted variants all-accross). Headbomb { talk / contribs / physics / books} 09:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
[Outdent] This is such total equine feces (compounded with bovine). I'm an American. I'm not a new American. Been around for 40+ years now, somehow, despite my sins and bad judgement. "We" (Americans, generally) do not spell it "U.S.A." or "U.S." A few cranks here and there do that, but they also write "A.T.M." and "S.C.U.B.A." and "R.A.D.A.R." and "S.U.V." A generation earlier, and they'd be writing "to-day not to-morrow" and "I will go a-shopping this after-noon." It's just plain obsolete. Freaky flag-wavin' yeehaws aside, there is nothing special and magical about the US[A] that it needs a special and magical typographic convention in WP articles, which are written for a global audience (to whom "UK" and "ROK" and "PRC" are normal, and "U.K.", etc., look goofy). The "killer" point here is the #1 issue of the entire WP:MOS and all sub-pages thereof: We aim for consistency within articles above all else, and consistency across articles where this is practical. This means use "US" (or "USA" when the longer form is needed for some reason), not "U.S." (or "U.S.A."). It just looks totally stupid to have a construction in WP articles such as "...the implications for U.S.–UK relations..." Just drop it, move on, live a happy life. Be honest with yourselves. When, really, is the last time you saw something like "E.E.C." or "I.R.S." instead of the dotless versions? I don't want to beleaguer a point here, but Americans like me and various others commenting here and in the various other times and places this issue has popped up, need to consider what we've, well, demanded that Commonwealth English speakers give up in the name of the consistency of the MOS. The most obvious is double vs. single quotation marks. I know this drives some Brits and Aussies and even South Africans damned near nuts, yet we still insist on it. My take on this is: If we were to enforce "U.S." then we would also have to enforce single-before-double quotes in [not just British-themed, but all] non-US-themed articles. And that's just a start. Any article that did not have an intimate connection to the US – 'scuse me, the "U.S." – would also have to use spellings like "colour" and "theatre", not to mention automobile "tyre" instead of "tire", and so on. If we're going to enforce a clearly biased convention (to the various extents that a non-policy guideline may have weight, which are not just several but also variable and temporal), there needs to be some balance. Your dialect or mine doesn't get to insist on some pet peeve without conceding one to the other side. Let's ("us" here meaning Americans) just deal with the fact that people, including our neighbors and co-workers and drinking buddies, don't put periods after acronym letters any more, not since I was about 5. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ Contribs. 10:25, 13 April 2010 (UTC)
There is exceptions to the rule. For example take a look at the example to the right. In that situation when using sortables US needs to be used instead of U.S. Lil-unique1 ( talk) 18:15, 13 April 2010 (UTC) |
|
As a form of diallect i was always told that in America its the USA or U.S. In British English its always US. I don't understand why there has to be one or the other. Should it not be: If the subject is American use U.S. if its not then use US. Lil-unique1 ( talk) 00:46, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Another thing: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) spells out abbreviations for Doctor, Captain, Corporal, Mister, Bachelor of Arts, department, Anno Domini, and a bunch of other commonly abbreviated terms and gives the option of both using periods and not using periods. Why is "U.S." being targeted with such passion in particular? Perhaps the entire section should be edited out and merged with a section on British/Australian vs. (or is that vs?) American/Canadian punctuation preferences.-- Jiang ( talk) 01:32, 14 April 2010 (UTC)
Someone finally said something this! Thank you! Carry on, now.
—
V = IR (
Talk •
Contribs)
01:13, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is a
failed proposal.
Consensus for its implementation was not established within a reasonable period of time. If you want to revive discussion, please do so below or initiate a thread at
the village pump. |
As part of the ongoing effort to rationalize the Manual of Style sprawl, Gnevin nine days ago proposed a system to improve consistency across multiple WP guideline pages. The system is based on the concept of the "core": a summary of the main principles expressed in a page, of the sort that often constitutes a lead paragraph. In the proposed system, a distinct paragraph-long page is created for such a core and transcluded via template into those full-length WP pages that, all too often inconsistently, reference the core's master page. This innovative system may sound complex, but it is very elegant and worthy of serious consideration.
The system is now being trialed with WP:Profanity/core; the MoS guideline WP:Profanity, where the transcluded core now constitutes the lead; the proposed MoS guideline WP:Words to watch (which we expect soon to replace the dysfunctional, logorrheic WP:Words to avoid); and the content guideline WP:Images. Note that Gnevin's smart design allows for targeted word substitution, so the transcluded core can focus on "words" in Words to watch, on "images" in Images, and on both in the Profanity master page. Please take a look and share your thoughts.— DCGeist ( talk) 06:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the idea, but not with the implementation. Almost nobody would watchlist the "core" pages, and this would make it too easy to push guideline changes by changing the "core" first, and the rest of the guideline half a year later.
To solve this problem, the "core" must be part of the guideline itself, in an <includeonly> tag. Then the entire guideline can be transcluded instead of the "core" page, with the same effect. Hans Adler 10:15, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Example of Hans' suggestion User:Gnevin/sandbox2 Gnevin ( talk) 17:40, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Moving swiftly along .... Should we go with the system as proposed by Hans? Gnevin ( talk) 01:10, 18 April 2010 (UTC)
Next cores for Wikipedia:Categorization and Wikipedia:Article titles
I have come here from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English)#Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Trial of "core" concept. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) has no direct connection to the MOS. It is a guideline for helping to determine the title of an article, comes under the WP:AT policy. The use of English inside article is determined by WP:MOS#Foreign terms. I presume Gnevin that you did not know that, or is it just that when the only tool that is available is a hammer everything looks like a nail? -- PBS ( talk) 07:11, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
If you're going to do this then a lot more care has to be taken when inserting the template. This was definitely misguided in my opinion. -- NeilN talk to me 01:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Since the "core concept" trial has been unsuccessful, I wonder if is time for us to revisit what I've now titled #Hans Adler's "core concept" above. It came up amid a flurry of alternative suggestions, and its applicability may have been overlooked by some. As presented, it does rely on us to ignore details of actual content in the example given, and hence can be misunderstood unless read carefully. But overall, the concept has stayed with me as something we could usefully develop further in our attempt to produce a rational, top-down view of the MoS that solves the issue of duplication between levels. PL290 ( talk) 16:27, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
I hadn't picked up that transclusion was unpopular and therefore the issue the first time round. How about using templates instead then? (As in {{ FAC-instructions}}, which is sourced in at the top of WP:FAC.) That's simpler to implement and maintain. But if that's not popular either, perhaps we should consider that transcluding/templating the summaries onto the central page is the icing on the cake, rather than the main point, of this proposal. If the summaries were simply plain content (a copy in both places), their getting slightly out of line from time to time would be far less of an issue than the same occurring with numerous large passages of detail, as presently happens. PL290 ( talk) 09:54, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Words to watch ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)/Archive 38 ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Comment - I am still none the wiser. What caused the archive to be so marked? Is it still thus marked? (VeblenBot has not told us that it is "no longer part of the Manual of Style", so I guess so.) How do we unmark it, if so? Yours most bemused -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 19:05, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Further thought - are there any more tranclutions that cause pages to be so marked (rightly or wrongly) or any other mishits of any other nature? How do we find out? -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 19:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Can you list any Categories you've seen that is a relevant "guideline" category
I propose replacing both with
Category:Wikipedia's Manual of Style
Proposing that it be upmerged with Category:Wikipedia style guidelines. Comment here: Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 April 20#Category:General style guidelines. harej 02:28, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
It is proposed that Wikipedia:Record charts/Billboard charts guide be merged into WP:record charts. Please comment over at the RfC merge proposal. Thanks -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 01:13, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style (pronunciation)/IPA vs. other pronunciation symbols ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Writing better articles ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
I wonder why "Lists of works", for example, is in the "Manual" category, but "Lists" is in the "Guidelines" category. Shouldn't these two categories be conflated? Tony (talk) 03:02, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
A fellow editor and I are having a dispute over what WP:RETAIN applies to. I believe we both understand that it applies to variations of English and date formatting and whatnot. But does WP:RETAIN, or "the spirit of WP:RETAIN", also apply to other formatting, such as using {{reflist}} versus using <references /> on a page? Thanks. Sorafune +1 16:51, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Per the thread above, Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Rationalizing MoS page titles, I identified 20 pages bannered as style guidelines linked to on our "universal" {{Style}} template that are not titled according to our current, partially instituted titling regime: WP:Manual of Style (layer cake). You may see all 20 of those pages in the collapsible table below (along with 10 other pages whose status we can get to later):
Pages linked in the "official" Style template that are not currently titled as Manual of Style pages |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Here are the seven pages bannered as Manual of Style pages, but not titled that way:
Here are the thirteen pages bannered as style guidelines, but not as part of the Manual of Style nor titled that way:
Here are the ten other pages currently hanging out in our Style template that are not actually marked as style guidelines in any way: |
Consensus is building in the aforementioned thread that—to serve consistency, clarity, and coherence—all accepted style guidelines should be titled according to a consistent titling regime incorporating the phrase Manual of Style (whether we maintain the current MoS titling style or switch to a new one as part of this rationalization effort is under debate above). Gnevin has proposed that the 20 non-MoS-titled style guidelines be speedily moved to MoS naming. This seems like a good idea, in general. I thought I would do a quick survey of the 20 and see if there is any reason that any of them should not be speedily moved (e.g., because they should not be labeled as style guidelines in the first place or because they are of such low quality that they would degrade the MoS). I invite anyone to join me in this survey—any part of it—and to report back here.
Of the 20, I have quickly identified 7 that require special treatment:
As for the other 13 (note that coincidentally, we have a 13-and-7 split that is different from the 7-and-13 split you'll find in the collapsible box), I'll begin my survey and report back. Again, any input on these is most welcome. In fact, I'll facilitate matters by listing them here:
And to conclude, I'll summarize my main queries:
Thanks.— DCGeist ( talk) 19:59, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Words to watch ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
MOS:FULLSTOP and MOS:EXCLAMATION are non-working shortcuts to WP:MOS#Terminal punctuation, and I can't fix them. Art LaPella ( talk) 22:22, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/US Guideline ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has recently been edited to mark it as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:External links ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Cities/Guideline ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:01, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Please spell out an official standard for whether to use n-dashes or hyphens in names and whether they should be spaced. It looks like you usually use n-dashes (either spaced or unspaced) to mean "vs" or "to", as in France–Germany relations, Canada – United States border, and Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. You usually use hyphens to mean "and", as in Kitchener-Waterloo or Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation even though WP:DASH says to use an n-dash for "and". There are some exceptions, to this, like Happy Valley–Goose Bay, which uses an n-dash but means "and") and Canada – United States relations with is spaced differently from France–Germany. -- 198.103.172.9 ( talk) 17:56, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
At Wikipedia talk:Record charts/Billboard charts guide#Time to move forward and formally propose this page as a Guideline? I asked whether that page was ready to be proposed as a Guideline. One editor supports instead the idea of merging the page to Wikipedia talk:Record charts. However, I looked at both pages again and came to the conclusion that a) the subpage is really a Content Guide and b) half of that main MoS page also appears to be Content Guide material rather than MoS material. I suggested that the MoS page could be split into MoS and Content Guide and then that subpage merged to the new Content Guide. Any thoughts? Perhaps comment over there for now to keep discussion centeralised. Thanks -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 04:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
In the linked discussion, I have suggested that I use my userspace to try splitting Wikipedia:Record charts into two guides, MoS and Content, and merge Wikipedia:Record charts/Billboard charts guide into the latter. Assuming there are no obvious reasons why I should not do that, I'll go ahead soon. I'll report back over at Wikipedia talk:Record charts/Billboard charts guide for now, though. If the experiment works, I'll try it out with WP:MUSTARD and WP:MOSMUSIC. The former appears primarily to cover Content while the latter is indeed primarily a Manual of Style, so it shouldn't be too hard. However, each one contains things that should be in the other if we make that distinction clear, IMO -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 17:21, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Done Click
here to see the links to my new subpages separating out MoS from Content for record charts. If this works, I'll try it with MUSTARD and MOSMUSIC as I said --
Jubilee
♫
clipman
21:33, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
The following sentence was reverted under "Allowable typographic changes" for quoted material under "Quotations":
The rationale given was that it contradicts what WP:MoS says. It was a good faith revert, but I don't think it does. However, I also don't want to dredge that discussion up again. I thought this was a reasonable addition given that the line directly above it states:
If this sentence is OK, I think the one on double sentence-spacing is reasonable. They are the same concept and both are equally true (see Sentence spacing). The section under "terminal punctuation" was left ambiguous so people can type however they want in their edit boxes. For the final "published" edition of a page (what people read), non-breaking spaces shouldn't be forced in quoted material though. Thoughts? Airborne84 ( talk) 20:59, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
In the realm of English language writing, within and outside of Wikipedia, direct quotes may be silently changed to use the fonts available in the quoting document, and the point where lines are broken may also be changed (except for poetry). The quote might even be handwritten. Since these kinds of changes will make the appearance of the amount of space after sentence termination change, I think it's safe to conclude that double spaces in the original can be silently changed to single spaces in Wikipedia if we want to. Jc3s5h ( talk) 00:37, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
[Moved to the bottom of the page where it's more visible; it was lost in the middle of a bunch of automated alarms. Ozob ( talk) 01:29, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposals for non-breaking spaces ( permanent link). -- Wavelength ( talk) 23:05, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Current audits are bolded. Please strike through when resolved.
Punk music, Albums, Composers, Opera, Contemporary music, Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Stringed instrument tunings)
These are useful links for determining audit targets:
Discussion
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I have carefully perused three closely related MoS pages and have left comments at each talk page.
Given the suggestions I've made in all three cases, I've not copy-edited or restructured any of the text in these pages. Your feedback is welcome. Tony (talk) 10:59, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
I notified WT:GAN, since one of these guidelines is in WP:GACR. The only action I'll take myself is to remove style pages from Category:General style guidelines if support has weakened, if the page disappears or if they appear to be temporarily unstable, with no prejudice to restoring them if support and stability re-emerge in the future. - Dank ( push to talk) 16:50, 2 April 2010 (UTC) Hi, Tony, I'd regard * WP:Make_technical_articles_accessible or something as the law and prophets. I've seen in WP e.g. "WP's audience should be bright 14-year olds", and Readability tests such as Flesch–Kincaid readability test and Gunning fog index support that. In fact most adults stop at about that level - the exceptions are mostly academics and "technicians" (included e.g. lawyers). I propose that every part of MOS should include "WP's audience should be bright 14-year olds" as its priority and all the content in every part of MOS should be reviewed to ensure that it complies. -- Philcha ( talk) 10:19, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Moved, can members of this taskforce stop creating new sections for every issue that may arise Gnevin ( talk) 13:14, 4 April 2010 (UTC) Colleagues: WP:Technical terms and definitions, one of the subpages that is proposed to be merged into the new subsection here on Technical language (under "Miscellaneous"), presents rules I have never heard of; I'm sure they are not being followed in articles, and I wonder whether there's conflict with the other styleguides. After setting out what words should be italicised (I find it odd that we need this to be expressed again when we already have an Italics section here, and an Italics subpage), and bolded (same issue), we are told that this is a category for bolding:
And we are told then about a category of items that should be rendered in bold italic: "Bold italic (edited as
I am confused. Do we really use these conventions? Tony (talk) 04:20, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
I think we need greater input from those that actually write technical articles --
Jubilee
♫
clipman
21:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Comment - Fern does not presently use bold italic... Just a thought to keep you all going (if you get bored) -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 13:44, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
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Discussion
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Replacement: Wikipedia:Words to watch I have surveyed the group that comprises Words to avoid, Avoid peacock terms, Avoid weasel words, and Avoid neologisms. It seems clear that the latter three should be merged into the first, and I have left comments on the Talk pages of the three to that effect. I have not commented on the WtA Talk page, pending further discussion here and, I hope, an independent ce appraisal. In brief, the page strikes me as verbose but relatively strong in substance. (I see that Slim has now similarly observed above that the page is "very wordy [and] could use significant tightening.") I have raised the idea that the page should be renamed as part of this process for clarity of purpose, accurate description of content, indication of transformation, and forbearance of a lexical blacklist. I suggested Expressions to avoid. PL290, concurring with the argument, suggested Choice of words. Individual reports:
“Noted” and “observed” yes, but I wouldn′t agree that “reported” implies truth. ― AoV² 22:49, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
Just like article size, we should keep in mind that some users cannot load pages that are too long or loses attention span/readability issue when everything is shuffled into a long and dull page. They may end up skipping the parts they're looking for, or looked up the wrong stuff because they immediately assume whichever section near the top that they think most closely-related is the right one without going through all the way to the end of the page. OhanaUnited Talk page 06:13, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Proposed replacement Wikipedia:Words to watch Gnevin ( talk) 23:14, 15 April 2010 (UTC) |
Discussion
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I have asked on both talk pages why they shouldn't be merged.
Opinion is divided on both pages. Apparently there has been bickering between US and UK editors, and the UK people have walked out. This is no good at all. At the road-junction-list talk page, there's a discussion about highway rest areas. Why, oh why, are these MoS subpages not all covered under one umbrella: um ... Manual of Style (roads). That would bring together editors of highway, road junctions, and related matters all onto one page, albeit in sections as required, for national systems and types of road. Heavens, in Australia there are eight different road jurisdictions. What if they all wanted their own MoS subpage? Unkind to editors indeed. I have continued to suggest an integrated approach. Let us see how it pans out. Tony (talk) 03:03, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
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All of these claim MoS or guideline status but only one, WP:MoS (music), is clearly accepted as a MoS or guideline WP-wide. MUSTARD needs to be moved out of project space and more widely accepted, IMO. The other three need to be checked out and more widely discussed. The project guidelines (left unbolded above) need to be more widely discussed, also -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 02:31, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
There is also Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Stringed instrument tunings). There are bound to be more... I'll check the main two (Music Mos and MUSTARD) first, though, before delving too far into the others -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 07:59, 3 April 2010 (UTC)
Update - I have now copied both the Music MoS and MUSTARD into my userspace and am scrutinising them from every angle: User:Jubileeclipman/Manual of Style (music), User:Jubileeclipman/MUSTARD. I'll have a bash at rewriting tomorrow. BTW, any particular reason MUSTARD can't be in mainspace rather than project space? It is a widely accepted standard (I would say it is almost unanimously accepted among music article editors, whether or not they are members of the Music Project or similar) -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 00:56, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 2 - There is a lot of discussion about certain aspects of the two main MOS's, particularly the advice they give concerning band names and the capitalisation of the word "The" in running prose. I am still appraising (the rather complex) MUSTARD but my first impression is that is goes way beyond being a "Manual of Style" as it includes advice on content and sourcing among many other tidbits. It is also rather over-detailed, IMO. I'll soldier on but be warned that this could take quite a while... -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 20:24, 8 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 3 - User:Jubileeclipman/Manual of Style (music)/Appraisal and User:Jubileeclipman/MUSTARD/Appraisal document my thoughts on these documents so far. I have also had a go at a rewrite of MOSMUSIC in my use space, but haven't yet got very far. There are many complex issues to deal with, not least the fact that there are multiple other music style guides (some claiming MoS status) that will need to be coordinated with these top level style guides... I have made several live edits to the actual documents themselves, but these are either copyedits or edits resulting from discussion over at MOS:MUSIC's talk page. The usage of the word "the" at the beginning of band names is one major bugbear at the moment. To capitalise or not to capitalise... (ditto "To link..."). I will be on a short Wikibreak over the next few days (back Weds or Thurs, I hope). Any feedback/corrections etc welcome. Perhaps use the talkpages of the appraisals for specific points about those appraisals and my own talk for general issues, for now? Cheers, and keep up the good work! I'll be back... -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 00:51, 10 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 4 I'm back off Wikibreak and will resume my work on these tomorrow. The question of "the" seems to have been settled though: we have agreed (so far) to explicitly follow Chicago which uses lower case "the" in all cases except at the beginning of sentences -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 21:24, 15 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 5 Have now made my appraisals public:
WT:Manual of Style (music)#Appraisal of Manual of Style (music) and WP:MUSTARD. Linked from
WT:MUSTARD,
WT:WPMUSIC and
WT:CM. Thoughts from you guys and gals welcome! Demanded, in fact...
--
Jubilee
♫
clipman
21:46, 17 April 2010 (UTC)
Update 6 - I am looking at ways to separate out Style and Content. See here for a start on this -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 21:36, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
Final update - I am going to be without internet connection for at least a month. I have made some progress in getting people talking about these pages and looked at various ways to sort them out long term. However, they are in no way near as bad a shape as many other MoS's and the structure is relatively clear (the names all at least imply they are to do with music). Also, there is ongoing discussion about the naming of MoS pages and the distinction between Style and Content: these need to be resolved before we go ahead and make changes that may be mooted by changes in the MoS structure etc. Therefore, I have called it a day, for now, though I have left the audit notices up on the talkpages in case anyone else wishes to take up this task. Either way, these guidelines still need auditing further so removing the audit notices might be premature. I will catch up after by forced Wikibreak is over. Cheers and thanks for your guidance and support -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 22:06, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
Discussion
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I have suggested that IPA vs other pronunciation symbols, which hasn't been touched substantively since 2006, be merged into Pronunciation. Tony (talk) 13:41, 5 April 2010 (UTC) |
I have left a message at the Featured Lists talk page and with the two FLC Directors, asking for advice on how the list-related styleguides should be approached. Tony (talk) 12:08, 6 April 2010 (UTC)
I'm suggesting removing all of these from the MoS.
Wikipedia:WikiProject Peerage and Baronetage#References to peers states that when writing such things as "the Duke went fishing" and "the King visited the Alps", the titles should be capitalized. This does not seem to directly contradict the two points under Wikipedia:MOS#Titles of people, but should not the MOS specify this as well? If the MOS section is read without reading the wikiproject page, then a reader would presume it should be "the king" etc. Could this somehow be clarified in the MOS? Arsenikk (talk) 10:29, 28 April 2010 (UTC)
I searched for a guideline about putting spaces behind periods, comma's, semicolons, colons, etc, but couldn't find anything. Shouldn't we have a section in the MOS, with a shortcut like for instance WP:PUNCTSPACE? If we already have such a thing, can someone tell me where I find it, and otherwise, could someone put together a little section on this? I'm not confident how it should be formulated. Thanks. DVdm ( talk) 09:06, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
I really don't see how this could possibly insult the reader. It's just basic information, exactly in line with "In normal prose, never place a space before commas, semicolons, colons, or terminal punctuation.". If the example is a bit overloaded, we could also expand this sentence to for instance: "In normal prose, never place a space before commas, semicolons, colons, or terminal punctuation. Always place a space after the punctuation unless when followed by a line break." This would add 14 words to the sentence, without the need for a new subsection and shortcut. How about that? DVdm ( talk) 11:30, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
DVdm, why do you think we need that much detail? Have there been any arguments about whether such spacing is correct? Maurreen ( talk) 17:01, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
(ec) Please don't add this. The MOS is bloated enough as it is, and adding such things that are blatantly obvious to anybody who would ever read it, only makes it harder to read for those who do. There seems to be no real communication going on with that user, so it seems most likely that he is doing it on purpose. (Another explanation would be if he were using a screenreader or something.) That's annoying, but it's a behavioural problem, not a style issue. I really don't want to see sections "How to tell capital letters from small letters" or "How to use a dictionary for checking your spelling", either. If you are dealing with many such users you should probably consider the possibility that they are trolling you and make it less attractive for them by not overreacting. Hans Adler 17:12, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
If we're going to put this in, we might as well use Woodstone's suggestion for the wording: "In normal prose, never place a space before commas, semicolons, colons, or terminal punctuation, but place a space after them." Maurreen ( talk) 18:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
The most logical place would be a new section in punctuation. If I were to look this up, that's where I would look. An illogical place would be under "terminal punctuation." Maurreen ( talk) 18:15, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
Unless noted otherwise, spacing and typographic matters should be consistent with the examples below.
That was quick. There are still rules about spacing in a host of places, including: section headings, acronyms, brackets, ellipsis, hyphen, dashes, slash, time, date (and still in terminating punctuation). There also is a whole section "non-breaking spaces", which could have been demoted into a general section "Spaces", making space (no pun intended) for our issue. And finally there is a section "fomatting issues" that mentions spacing. Either we gather all those in one place, or we spread the new section to its target locations. − Woodstone ( talk) 20:50, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
I've seen (and participated in) a few discussions regarding spacing recently. For the topic above, there wasn't an obvious place to insert the new entry because it was in a section on grammar. It occurred to me that is because spacing and text layout is a matter of typography. Yet, there is no such section in WP:MoS. Should we add a section on typography? There is a precedent to do so. There are comprehensive style guides that address typography. Some examples:
It is proposed that summaries of articles be kept in a subpage ~/Sum and that a (to-be-written) template transcludes the summary into (a) the lead after the first paragraph and (b) any other article that needs to summarize the article. Please comment at Wikipedia_talk:Lead_section#Proposal_for_a_new_template_and_/Sum_summary_pages.
Hpvpp ( talk) 08:03, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Not to make a big deal of this, but I think we should take heed of ArbCom's view, recently reiterated, that the stability of styleguide pages and the maintenance of harmony on their talk pages are a serious consideration. I include myself in this respect. Tony (talk) 09:08, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
'Oct. 24, 1766
It is this day agreed on between John Parsons, of the parish of Midsummer Norton, in the county of Somerset, clothworker, and John Tooker, of the same place, gentleman, that the said John Parsons, for and in consideration of the sum of six pounds and six shillings in hand paid to the said John Parsons, doth sell, assign, and set over unto the said John Tooker, Ann Parsons, wife of the said John Parsons; with all right, property, claim, services, and demands whatsoever, that he, the said John Parsons, shall have in or to the said Ann Parsons, for and during the term of the natural life of her, the said Ann Parsons. In witness whereof I, the said John Parsons, have set my hand the day and year first above written.
'JOHN PARSONS.
'Witness: WILLIAM CHIVERS.'
Bill of sale of a wife, contained within a petition of 1768
On Friday a butcher expoſed his wife to Sale in Smithfield Market, near the Ram Inn, with a halter about her neck, and one about her waiſt, which tied her to a railing, when a hog-driver was the happy purchaſer, who gave the huſband three guineas and a crown for his departed rib. Pity it is, there is no ſtop put to ſuch depraved conduct in the lower order of people.
The Times (July 1797)
Virtually every modern edition of an old text that uses the long s glyph (ſ) transcribes it with ordinary s. I said "virtually", but I am not aware of any that doesn't. The Chicago Manual of Style says "Retain original capitalization, spelling, and punctuation in titles and quotations from early modern sources, except for the long s. Do not modernize."
Well, our MOS doesn't say it. The MOS simply assumes that editors have a modicum of common sense, and that they apply it. One sentence ("Disused glyphs and ligatures in old texts may be modified according to modern practice (see Ampersand, below).") prevents editors from wikilawyering that we must preserve the long s, but it is written so inclusively that it also covers the ampersand, which of course in some situations shouldn't be replaced with and. On the other hand, the section WP:& which discusses the ampersand in detail, makes it clear that modernising the long s is probably quietly assumed to be done, because everybody does it: "Modern editions of old texts routinely replace ampersands with and (just as they replace other disused glyphs and ligatures), so an article's quotations may be cautiously modified, especially for consistency in quotations where different editions are used." One motivation here is that if we quote editions of two different texts, and one writes & while the other modernises it to and, then we should also modernise the first text, for consistency.
At wife selling we have these two quote boxes. The older one comes from a modern edition and does not use long s, although it is almost certain that the original had it. The (slightly) more recent one comes from a primary source and was rendered with long s when the article became featured. One editor is fighting for keeping the article in this state. The article was already protected for edit warring, now we have a new edit war about the long s. Discuss. Hans Adler 21:32, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
I would propose replacing this line in the MOS:
Disused glyphs and ligatures in old texts may be modified according to modern practice (see Ampersand, below).
With this one:
Disused glyphs and ligatures should be normalized to modern usage unless there are good reasons to the contrary, as, for example, in full bibliographical descriptions. Also, see Ampersand, below.
My proposed quote is modified from this source: http://www.mhra.org.uk/Publications/Books/StyleGuide/StyleGuideV2_3.pdf -- Rsl12 ( talk) 22:14, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
One problem (a fairly obvious one that applies to most of these glyphs, in fact) is that very few people will be aware of how to render the long s. I don't even see it in the insert box under "Latin", though we do get ß, Š, ş etc as well as æ, œ, ə, ṝ, ð, þ, ł, ħ, etc. Anyway, most modern texts do indeed render those old glyphs using their modern equivalents unless there is good reason not to. I think it would be perverse for us to demand that long s in quotations be rendered always and everywhere as "ſ" and would support those that change the quoted text to use "s" or "ss" (depending) instead. BTW, I had to copy/paste that ſ I used above from the quotation supplied by Hans -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 22:40, 23 April 2010 (UTC) P.S. Furthermore, I don't see it anwhere in the insert box, even under Symbols which gives us all sorts of weird things: ₴, ₪, ₢, ₰, ₧, etc... Oddly, the thorn is included: Þ, þ -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 18:02, 24 April 2010 (UTC)
I was asked by someone to comment, since I like Unicode characters a lot, and have indeed added various long esses to the standard. My view is that long esses should be used where relevant to the content only, and it is hard to think of many instances in which it is relevant. Should the citation of the preamble to the US Declaration of Independence have the long s? It's in the original. No? I for one think No. Then the long s should not be used generally in citations in Wikipedia articles. It doesn't add information and interferes with reading even when people say it does not. I pronounce (in my head) Congreſs as [ˈkɔŋɡɹɛfs] even though I know better. -- Evertype· ✆ 17:37, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Comment - the consensus seems overwhelmingly to be to change long s glyphs (ſ) in quotations to modern "s". However, few seem to be interested in changing the actual guidelines as such. Can we now archive this section as "No conſenſus for change"? Either that or start a straw poll just to be sure there really is no consensus? -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 06:22, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
Perhaps the guidelines do need to specifically state that outmoded glyphs should be changed, and even give some examples; æ→ae œ→oe ſ→s would be a good start. pablo hablo. 22:02, 27 April 2010 (UTC)
For the sake of clarity, the proposed change to the MOS is to change this line regarding quotations:
Disused glyphs and ligatures in old texts may be modified according to modern practice (see Ampersand, below).
With this one:
Disused glyphs and ligatures should be normalized to modern usage when doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text. Examples of such changes include: æ→ae, œ→oe, ſ→s, and ye→the. Also, see Ampersand, below.
Though ... do æ and œ count as disused ligatures? Aren't they still used by the English? -- Rsl12 ( talk) 18:04, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
One more suggested modification: When quoting from early modern sources, disused glyphs and ligatures should be normalized to modern usage when doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text. Examples of such changes include: ſ→s and ye→the. "Early modern sources" being the phrase used in the Chicago Manual of Style. This way, articles like Beowolf and Ayenbite of Inwyt aren't affected, and we don't have to worry so much about all the middle english esoterica. -- Rsl12 ( talk) 21:36, 29 April 2010 (UTC)
Incorporating the changes suggested: When quoting from early modern sources, disused glyphs and ligatures should be normalized to modern usage when doing so will not change or obscure the meaning of the text. Examples of such changes include the following: æ→ae, œ→oe,ſ→s, and ye→the. Also, see Ampersand, below. No final objections? -- Rsl12 ( talk) 12:13, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
OK, I'll make the change. -- Rsl12 ( talk) 14:41, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 4 May 2010 (UTC)
{{ subcat guideline}} V {{ style-guideline}}. We only need one and I prefer style-guideline Gnevin ( talk) 16:25, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Words to avoid ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been edited so that it is no longer marked as part of the Manual of Style. This is an automated notice of the change ( more information). -- VeblenBot ( talk) 02:00, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Under WP:MOSQUOTE, this guideline specifies that the stylized block quotation used by {{ Cquote}} is not appropriate for articles. There are more than 16,000 articles that transclude this template right now. {{ Bquote}} is a template that was created specifically to replace the Cquote template in articles. I have an AWB run ready to go on replacing Cquote with Bquote to meet the MOS guideline, but before making a mass-change to 16,000 articles, is this part of the guideline supported by consensus? -- Joshua Scott (LiberalFascist) 04:37, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
I don't understand what is meant by the phrase, "Do not use two subset terms". 160.39.221.188 ( talk) 21:19, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
A subset term identifies a set of members of a larger class. Common subset terms are including, among, and et cetera (etc.). Do not use two subset terms (so avoid constructions like these: Among the most well-known members of the fraternity include ...; The elements in stars include hydrogen, helium and iron, etc.). Do not use including to introduce a complete list, where comprising, consisting of, or composed of would be correct.
Since the stupid bot keeps removing the other list I've made a new list . Can you strike what done and mark where you think audits can be done Gnevin ( talk) 12:35, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Generated from Category:Wikipedia Manual of Style. With a total of 87 MoS pages
I've removed Wikipedia:Manual of Style (road junction lists) from the MoS as it is a project guide however a user is objecting . Have a look Gnevin ( talk) 22:16, 9 May 2010 (UTC)
These audits are ongoing and likely to take a long time as there are so many issues to resolve. I have been involved in very productive discussions with many editors over the past month or two to try to sort out the mess. (Don't be deceived by the small number of pages in the above list: the issues go far beyond merging etc and are more centered on the very nature of some of those pages, especially MUSTARD.) The Notability Guideline is under scrutiny for a number reasons, also, so all of these Music Guideline audits need to be taken in relation with each other and related Guidelines. BTW, I said I was hanging up my hat before: I have firmly put it back on, now, so expect far more activity in the next few weeks and months -- Jubilee ♫ clipman 00:27, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
Can we pull these together ? Gnevin ( talk) 12:35, 8 May 2010 (UTC)
Gnevin recently added a {{ Historical}} tag to " Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Singapore-related articles)". I have queried him about this, and he has suggested bringing the discussion to this page for more comments. I reproduce below the discussion that has taken place so far. — Cheers, JackLee – talk– 11:57, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
"Articles are supposed to introduce readers to topics, or remind them of what they had half-forgotten: it is not their purpose to dazzle readers with editors' learning or vocabulary."
Um ... The first sentence is highly conjectural; the second sentence will confuse many people as to the important issues. Learning and vocabulary, dazzling? The "plain English" does the job, yes? Tony (talk) 07:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)
We have some confusion at Talk:Eating disorders about MOS:COLLAPSE. The text "should not be used in article prose" is being interpreted as meaning that it's okay to use {{ hide}} (and similar) to hide anything that isn't "prose", such as sentence-filled tables. Additionally, the fact that "only" two people have actively complained directly to the editor is being used as proof that our concerns are unimportant.
"Prose" is obviously the wrong word, because MOS:COLLAPSE then goes on to say that bibliographic citations should not be hidden. Perhaps "article content" would be better? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:53, 3 May 2010 (UTC)
Searching 43 stylebooks ― ___A._di_M. (formerly Army1987) 19:37, 10 May 2010 (UTC)
All can you have a look please Gnevin ( talk) 09:22, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The discussion has derailed, mainly because i tried to address the problem from too many angles. As explained at Wikipedia_talk:Article_titles#Proposed_addition_to_.22Common_names.22, my main point is that we need a rehabilitation of dictionaries as reliable sources. More specifically, we need to ban the rampant dictionary bashing on WP and stop the rampant OR on WP concerning general language questions and terminology questions.
This OR results, for example, in the banning of common colloquial and less precise terms that are proscribed in specialist literature. In other words, WP editors often base their terminology decisions on 1) personal and regional preferences, 2) ignorance about other kinds of English, 3) search engine testing, and 4) the prescriptivism in a field's reference works. We need to specifically state that all articles (even on difficult topics) can and should mention what colloquial terms are widely used to mean something even if experts frown on that usage and use a different term. We need to specify that WP is not a reference work only for specialists even if it also provides information for them.
Since we have no specific support for the use of dictionaries as sources and even complete silence/ignorance about them on policy pages where they should be mentioned, we have thousands of articles "owned" by "experts" (or experts) who despise dictionary entries and ban explanations of what terms are used in other countries or by non-experts. Discussions usually result in other "experts" shouting down attempts to mention the terms normally used and understood by most lay readers. It won't take long until the call for other experts at Talk:Roundabout#Lead will result in other experts concurring that dictionaries are crap. Of course there are errors in dictionaries too, but it's very naive to think that other dictionaries would duplicate them or that we could or should only consult the OED or any other dictionary.-- Espoo ( talk) 02:16, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The MOS currently begins with the hatnote:
This is wrong -- Template:about has let someone astray. The page about Wikipedia's Manual of Style is the talk page that you are reading now! The hatnote should read as follows:
(Or, personally, I think this wording:
would be better.)
Anyway, the page is semi-protected, so I can't change it. Would someone please do so? -- 70.48.232.24 ( talk) 20:58, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
The duplicatively named "Spacing" paragraph of WP:ENDASH says "Use non-breaking spaces before en dashes.". Does that mean only the disjunctive en dashes in that paragraph, or does it mean there should be nbsp's before any en dash, including WP:MOS#Spaced en dashes as an alternative to em dashes? Art LaPella ( talk) 00:11, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
I just noticed WP:NBSP also says "Use a non-breaking space ... on the left side of spaced en dashes, if necessary for comprehension". (I don't see how any nbsp is really necessary for comprehension, but that's what it says.) After this nbsp revert, I probably shouldn't do AWB edits until I can get some feedback about this. Art LaPella ( talk) 05:23, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
A user of WP:AIR has been removing the "thumb" attribute from line art images in articles, pointing to a general "disclaimer" on the WP:AIR MoS which says that users are not "obliged" to follow the image use guidelines. Comments are welcome at WT:AIR#Captions for line art. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:52, 18 May 2010 (UTC)
For a while, I'd been glancing over at our template that runs along the right-hand side of the page, thinking, "Gee, the distinction between the twenty-odd pages that appear under the "Manual" header and the twenty-odd pages that appear under the "Guidelines" header seems pretty damn arbitrary." It finally dawned on me—I can be slow—that this was a result of the different titling paradigms that had been applied to the different pages.
Of the 24 pages listed under "Guidelines", Wikipedia:Accessibility, Wikipedia:Captions, Wikipedia:Lead section, Wikipedia:Linking, Wikipedia:Make technical articles understandable, and Wikipedia:Trivia sections are bannered as part of the Manual of Style (as is one loaner, Wikipedia:WikiProject Military history/Style guide). If they are part of the MoS, should their titles not be adjusted accordingly? Wikipedia:Manual of Style (accessibility), Wikipedia:Manual of Style (captions), and so forth...
The distinction raises other questions: By what logic is Wikipedia:Manual of Style (infoboxes) an MoS subpage, but Wikipedia:Tables and Wikipedia:Lists are not? (For that matter, why is Wikipedia:Manual of Style (anime- and manga-related articles) under "Manual" in the template, but Wikipedia:Manual of Style (road junction lists) under "Culture"?)
The conclusion I draw from this confusion is that the system is badly in need of rationalization. Either:
or:
It looks like we will soon be admitting Wikipedia:Words to watch to the style guideline pantheon. Let's start by getting this new entry right. Should it be retitled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (words to watch)?— DCGeist ( talk) 03:28, 19 April 2010 (UTC)
I like this suggestion: WP:Manual of Style/Words to Watch. My favorite is still Gnevin's WP:Words to Watch (Manual of Style), but this is a fine alternative.
I'm glad to see there's grounds for consensus that every style guideline should be titled as a MoS page. I didn't start out certain about that, but it seems clear that's the sturdiest, most rational system. That leaves a little practical issue: the mess of (a) style guidelines pages bannered but not titled as part of the MoS, and (b) style guideline pages neither titled nor bannered as part of the MoS.
So everyone could get a better look at how those break down, I endeavored to rationalize the {{Style}} template that runs along the right-hand side of all (or most?) of our style guidelines. I'm not a whiz at templates, so ultimately I decided to copy it to a sandbox page. The rationalized template is visible at User:DCGeist/Style pages (or in the live template's history one edit back). For the moment I have neither added a single page to nor eliminated a single page from the template, merely rearranged the current roster of pages by their status vis-à-vis the Manual of Style. (I did maintain a distinct header for those titled MoS pages categorized in the live template as "Culture"). Some observations on and questions raised by the results:
Not sure how to pick examples, as the level of quality and significance varies quite a bit within each group. So I'll share them all in the collapsible box below:— DCGeist ( talk) 22:29, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
Pages linked in the "official" Style template that are not currently titled as Manual of Style pages |
---|
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
Here are the seven pages bannered as Manual of Style pages, but not titled that way:
Here are the thirteen pages bannered as style guidelines, but not as part of the Manual of Style nor titled that way:
Here are the ten other pages currently hanging out in our Style template that are not actually marked as style guidelines in any way: |
Wow, thanks . For the MoS but not titled as MoS and style guidelines speedy move to MoS naming . For the other 10 it's case by case. Gnevin ( talk) 08:36, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
One thing that may sway me can we have Manual of Style/Foo/Bar such as Manual of Style/Regional/Ireland or Manual of Style/Music/Music samples Gnevin ( talk) 18:37, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
{{User:Gnevin/sandbox3|MOS:Music|MOS:Music samples|MOS:Foo|MOS:Bar}}
or similar template
Gnevin (
talk)
20:23, 21 April 2010 (UTC)If we're going to allow subsubpages, then (c) for the first-order (subpage) does offer the best combination of flexibility and coherence. However, (1) multiple slashes get difficult to read and are very unattractive, and (2) we're trying to rein in the kudzulike growth of the MoS, so I think we want a system that does not lead to subsubsubpages and subsubsubsubpages. I thus propose (c-p): slash for the subpage level, parentheses for the subsubpage level, giving us a tree of this design:
What do you think?— DCGeist ( talk) 21:58, 21 April 2010 (UTC)
Retreating completely from slashville, I also think the (b) construct has a lot going for it. Rendered here using actual examples as proper nouns:
I still think multiple slashes is purest, and that we should be able to envisage a world where the depth doesn't spiral out of control; any significant depth of subpages would imply a serious failure of the wider rationalization we're currently attempting to bring, in which event title format would be the least of our concerns. PL290 ( talk) 05:36, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
The first set above I think does not work due to a fundamental taxonomic problem: in that scheme, pages lower in the hierarchy (subsubpages) appear to rank above pages that are actually higher (subpages). Can't do it, as W Sr. might say. Aside from that, you points are all well taken.
I'd say gauging the observations above from everyone that four choices are most viable, depending on whether or not we want to allow subsubpages. If we want to go down just one level from the main page:
(A) WP:Manual of Style (music)
(B) WP:Music (Manual of Style)
If we want to allow for subsubs (let's forget about subsubsubblebubbies for the moment):
(C) WP:Manual of Style/Music
WP:Manual of Style/Music/Samples
(D) WP:Manual of Style/Music
WP:Manual of Style/Music (music samples)
Does that look like something to vote on? It could be a triple-vote poll: (1) Whether or not to allow MoS pages more than one level down from the main page (2) Which style you prefer depending on the outcome of 1: (i) A vs. B, (ii) C vs. D. Or we could just run poll 1 and then a slimmed-down poll 2.— DCGeist ( talk) 06:46, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Honestly, I'm having trouble figuring out where to add my particular comment to this discussion, so I am going to do it here. I agree that systematic naming is good, but I am opposed to renaming all the pages listed above to be under the heading Manual of Style, because I don't think they are. A "manual of style" (or style guide, if you will), is generally about telling writers what choice to make from an arbitrary set of equally valid English choices, in order to provide consistent formatting and presentation. Some of the "guideline" pages are not really style guides though they are either "how to" manuals, e.g. how does one create a table in Mediawiki, or writers' guides explaining how to write a good Wikipedia article (while a style guide explains largely arbitrary preferences, a writers' guide teaches one to write well rather than poorly). As such, I think it would be a misnomer to move all of those pages under the heading Manual of Style (or similar), and hence I would be opposed to such a bulk renaming effort. Maybe we should collect the more general instruction pages under a separate heading like "Authors' Manual" or something, but I don't think Manual of Style (etc.) is an expansive enough heading to cover all the things being suggested above. Dragons flight ( talk) 21:26, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Straight vote
Where a vote for any of the slashes sub options would count as vote for slashes
Run off vote
Run off vote for type of slashes if slashes wins
Option 1 for the reasons I gave above. This voting scheme is getting too complex for me, so I'm going to limit myself to expressing a single preference. I would, however, like to speak out against the profusion of slashes: Why MoS/Regional/China/Language and not MoS/Linguistics/Chinese language? Hierarchies of subpages assume that we can organize our articles in a hierarchical way; they assume that knowledge can be parceled out into neat, separate containers. But when an MoS page discusses a topic relevant to several interests, the hierarchy will be—must be—wrong. Parentheses alone or a single slash alone do not have this problem, because they don't implicitly claim to organize knowledge. Ozob ( talk) 11:49, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Why are people voting when we haven't even agreed on the format of the poll? Gnevin ( talk) 07:51, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
A though occurs to me.We are using slashes to group like MoS together but we already have a system to group like articles together Categories. What if we went with B Foo (MoS) and it was a member of Category:Music (Manual of Style) which had as a parent Category:Arts (Manual of Style) Gnevin ( talk) 16:12, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
Can you please indicate your preference for the naming style used by the MoS. There is no need to oppose the options you don't support . Gnevin ( talk) 20:43, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
#Support Slashes are being used like categories which will never work
Gnevin (
talk)
20:52, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Support - BUT qualified by the
usage principle suggested by Scott Alter, i.e., start with the assumption that each styleguide will be Manual of Style/Foo, with deeper levels only when certain guides lend themselves to it.
PL290 (
talk)
09:06, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
User:Gnevin/sandbox4 . What I found interesting while doing this (thanks to VernoWhitney for the help) was how naturally the groups formed Gnevin ( talk) 22:22, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
Basically the majority of pages whos parent is the MoS itself .Currently we have over kill like Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Capital_letters Gnevin ( talk) 22:43, 22 April 2010 (UTC)
To facilitate the slash/not-slash discussion, we should really now get concrete about what we think the level 1 subpages are. If even that proves contentious, we may conclude we should settle for Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Foo). Conversely, if we quickly agree the level 1s, that will give us a much better reference point for the rest of the discussion. Does anyone have a quick way to produce a proposed list (going to level 1 only) in the format Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Foo? PL290 ( talk) 12:59, 23 April 2010 (UTC)
There should not be forward slashes in page names. Forward slashes have a specific meaning in URLs, and even if the subpage function has been turned off for page names, I believe it has not been turned off for talk pages, so it will causes problems with archives and if the talk pages have to be moved around with page name changes. -- PBS ( talk) 21:47, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
While I am not supporting this option, I believe that the proposed categories need revision. I agree with Ozob that there can not be one correct categorization, but if one is used, it should be based on an existing hierarchy (like Portal:Contents/Portals or Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. I absolutely do not agree that narrow-focused MoS including "Ships," "Poker," "Military history," and "Road junction lists" should be first-level subpages, while others like "Chinese language" are third-level. Also, I'm not sure why "Arts" was removed from this listing.
Another slashes option (which has not explicitly been proposed) is to NOT impose any categorical organizational structure, but not necessarily to set a 1-level limit. For example, most MoS would be first level. However, if there are very clearly closely-related MoS where one grew out of the other, there would be a second (or third) level. An example of this could be "Music" as a first level, with "Music samples," "MUSTARD," and possibly "Record charts" as second levels. A rule of thumb can be if the MoS contains the title of another MoS, it should be a subpage. This way, no one is forcing a MoS into a specific categorization; but if a specific MoS self-identifies as a sub-MoS as another, it can exist as a subpage. I think that creating tons of new MoS pages solely to categorize existing MoS is a bad thing, and this proposal is somewhat of a middle ground, which I would favor above any of the previously mentioned options. -- Scott Alter 02:45, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
Should we set a time to close this ? Gnevin ( talk) 09:59, 20 May 2010 (UTC)