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 145 | ← | Archive 148 | Archive 149 | Archive 150 | Archive 151 | Archive 152 | → | Archive 155 |
Which is correct for the first line of a lede?
The cantata is best known by its name in German, so the article title should be in that language and should come first. It is useful to the reader to know what the German words mean so a translation should be provided. The question is whether the English translation is a title or just a translation. The same issues apply to foreign language novels, TV shows, etc. I can't find any guidance in the MoS. SchreiberBike talk 00:06, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
Where a foreign language composition is known by an English title, give the English translation in parentheses following normal formatting for titles: Les Liaisons dangereuses (The Dangerous Liaisons). Where the work has not been published in English, give an English translation in sentence case, roman type, inside parentheses: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing).
Why is "Weeping" capitalized? A parenthetical in the middle of a sentence is not capitalized, even if it explains the first word of that sentence. — kwami ( talk) 11:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Including the English equivalent seems good, but I query why in parentheses. In general editorial emendations (such as missing data, or expansion of an author's name) are done in square brackets: and . This also avoids conflicts where (in rare cases) parentheses are included in a title. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) ( talk) 20:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
SchreiberBike, I think the first sentence of your proposal is now better, but the second sentence still makes reference to publication. This misses works that may not have been published in English even though they have an English title (e.g. a painting, a piano sonata) as well as works that have been published in English but not under a title which is a translation or under the original language title. How about:
Where a work originally produced under a non-English title is known by an English language title, give that title in parentheses following normal formatting for titles: Les Liaisons dangereuses (The Dangerous Liaisons). Where there is no English title in common use, or where the English title is not a translation, give a translation in sentence case, roman type, inside parentheses: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing). Where it is appropriate to include both a translation and an English title, put the translation first and preface the title with the words "English title" and a colon.
I also think this should be added at the beginning, for clarity:
For works originally produced under a title not in English, refer to WP:COMMONNAME to determine whether the original title or an English language title should be given priority.
Note: I've also copyedited out the word foreign, since the guidance would apply to languages which are not necessarily foreign in English-speaking countries (Welsh, for example).
Formerip ( talk) 01:01, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
For works originally named in languages other than English, use WP:COMMONNAME to determine whether the original title or an English language version should be used as the article title. For works best known by their title in a language other than English, an English translation of that title may be helpful. If the work is also well known by an English title, give the English translation in parentheses following normal formatting for titles: Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons). Where the work is not known by an English title, give the translation in parentheses without special formatting in sentence case: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing). In references, square brackets are used: Il Giornale dell'Architettura [The journal of architecture].
As it was explained to me, mdashes in page ranges are allowed in the case that the page started with this format, but should otherwise be left in whatever format it was originally created in. Is that basically correct?
I've looked through the MoS and the talk pages going back some time in history. It appears the above statement is basically the lay of the land, but that I should expect "pendants" (interesting turn of phrase) who insist on mdashes being "correct".
It was also explained to me that, in the past perhaps, using hyphens instead of mdashes may work better with search engines, which may not correctly parse the text otherwise. Is this also correct, or now outdated? Maury Markowitz ( talk) 17:58, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through
• pp. 211–19; 64–75%; the 1939–45 war
As an editor who edits almost exclusively in medical articles, I am surprised that it has just come to my attention that WP:MEDMOS#Anatomy is encouraging image galleries in Anatomy articles, resulting in articles with galleries at the end of the article like this. Apparently that text at MEDMOS has stood since 2008, and I cannot determine that it was initially added based on any consensus. Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Revert. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 03:04, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Each user's Appearance Preferences includes an option labelled "Auto-number headings" which automatically numbers headings (1., 2., 3., etc.) and sub-headings (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.) in each article. I have noticed in some cases headings are manually entered with numbering, which then disrupts reading the headings when auto-numbering is used. For example:
I suggest that it would be helpful to add the following into the bullet list in MOS:HEAD:
People who don't have the option selected probably don't realise that this happens, so this might help to call attention to it. — sroc 💬 10:05, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
There are often good reasons to start a heading with a number, such as years. - Ypnypn ( talk) 23:48, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Noting the above concern but seeing no other opposition, I have added the following point to MOS:HEAD:
— sroc 💬 12:40, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
MOS:POSS says:
* Official names (of companies, organizations, or places) should not be altered. ( St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital, even for consistency.)
I feel that there is a degree of ambiguity about this, and that ambiguity is part of a current discussion at Talk:Mrs Macquarie's Chair#Requested move. Specifically:
Discussion of the general rule belongs here of course, but interested parties are invited to comment on the specific case at Talk:Mrs Macquarie's Chair#Requested move. Mitch Ames ( talk) 08:51, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
Names
- When using an official name (e.g. of companies, organizations, or places) maintain the official punctuation, or lack thereof. ( St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital, even for consistency.)
Names
- Official names (e.g. of companies, organizations, places, etc.) should not be altered by adding, moving or omitting apostrophes. ( St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital, even for consistency.)
- When using a WP:COMMONNAME, follow the possessive punctuations that are used in sources.
I think we are making this overly complex... and missing the point. It does not matter whether a name is "Official" or "COMMON"... what is important is that it is a NAME, and we should not "correct" a name. I think we can cut through the confusion by simply saying:
Names
- Names (e.g. of companies, organizations, places, etc.) that contain a possessive word as part of the name should not be altered by adding, moving or omitting apostrophes. ( St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital, even for consistency.)
Do we really need to say anything else? Blueboar ( talk) 15:48, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Names
- Proper names (e.g. of companies, organizations, places, etc.) that contain a possessive word as part of the name should not be altered by adding, moving or omitting apostrophes (e.g., St Thomas' Hospital should not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital), even if this leads to inconsistency.
The main trouble here is the assumption that each such name has an obviously "correct" version that we should not change. Most often, I think that's not the case. Look at the RM on Mrs Macquarie's Chair for example. Most reputable publishers are going to exercise some editorial discretion in deciding whether to include the period in "Mrs." and the apostrophe in "Macquarie's"; some will follow what's carved in stone, some will follow what's in the park brochures, and some will follow common usage of other good sources. Many will consider their own style guidelines in the process. Is this a problem? Dicklyon ( talk) 03:48, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Descriptions of the storylines of long-running TV series, especially those that have now that have ceased airing, are best written in the past tense. The strain of trying to sustain the present tense over perhaps years of a show's internal chronology is exhausting for editors and readers alike. 86.151.119.39 ( talk) 04:14, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
I have just spent some time trying to do this on the Malcolm X article, but it doesn't seem to work. If this situation is a peculiarity of WP software and not just my screen, perhaps the Bulleting section should mention it? Rumiton ( talk) 14:35, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
In numerous episode list articles under the "Written by" column the terms "Story by" and "Teleplay by" are set in italics. Is this correct? Examples:
— Whisternefet ( t · c) 05:11, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
A change was made this past summer to the documentation of that template to encourage/allow what was before nonstandard use. The accompanying WP:SS page was not changed however. I've opened a RfC on that issue and the more general structure and relationship between various SS templates at Template talk:Main#RfC. Someone not using his real name ( talk) 04:00, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
I'd like to revive this archived discussion from six months ago: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_140#En_dashes_and_suffixes I would agree with User:DocWatson42 that the MoS should at least allow—and preferably recommend—the use of en dashes rather than hyphens in both prefixed and suffixed compounded compound modifiers. The current MoS recommendation to use en dashes for prefixes, and hyphens for suffixes, is confusing, inconsistent, and seemingly unfounded. It also conflicts with the explanation at Dash#Attributive_compounds. Thanks! Startswithj ( talk) 05:09, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
To encourage editors to read Wikipedia's Manual of Style (
WP:MOS), I have been considering the option of composing a MOS reading schedule (similar to a Bible reading schedule—
http://www.dmoz.org/search?q=bible+reading+schedule&cat=all&all=no). (See also
Wikipedia:Tip of the day.) It could be on a subpage of MOS (for example,
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Reading schedule). MOS could be apportioned by the day, by the week, or by the month, so that it could be read in its entirety in one year. Of course, some editors may have enough self-motivation to read all of it without using a schedule. Alternatively, some may prefer to set for themselves the easier goal of reading
Wikipedia:Simplified Manual of Style.
—
Wavelength (
talk)
04:07, 24 December 2013 (UTC) and 05:51, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Reading schedule is ready for use.
—
Wavelength (
talk)
03:44, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Should a blank line be used between {{
disambiguation}}
and DEFAULTSORT? (See
this article) (
t)
Josve05a (
c)
12:33, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
MOS:COMMA currently states:
Incorrect: | On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
Correct: | On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
This overlooks that the final comma may be superseded by other punctuation. There is also heated debate regarding whether the final comma is needed when the place name or date is used as an adjective, although there is a general consensus that such constructions should be avoided (for example, see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names) § Commas in metro areas). It is therefore proposed to replace the above section with the following:
Incorrect: | On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
Correct: | On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
Avoid: | The April 7, 2011[,] trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio[,] courtroom. |
Better alternative: | On April 7, 2011, the trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the courtroom in Toledo, Ohio. |
This is an alternative that gained support in an earlier RFC, Should it be "optional" as to whether a second comma after a date/place should be included?.
Please comment below. — sroc 💬 08:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year" seems to say the bracketed commas are mandatory. If they are mandatory, why are they in brackets? The proposal is confusing (and so is this discussion in general – perhaps because of the way "support" and "oppose" comments are separated from each other in a way that prevents interactive discussion). — BarrelProof ( talk) 11:36, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
When a date in mdy format appears in the middle of text, include a comma after the year", and in the sentence of the proposal that says "
Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year". Absent an agreement to change that prescription, it is the guidance, isn't it? If the proposal is intended to remove that prescription, it should be phrased differently to make that clear. That lack of clarity has been my complaint here. I haven't expressed a preference for the MOS to say the comma is optional, and I haven't expressed a preference for the MOS to say it's mandatory. But I think it's a problem if it says it's mandatory and some people deny that it says that. That is a problem. The construction is unlikely to be avoided in all cases. — BarrelProof ( talk) 03:38, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose - this proposal achieves the opposite of its endeavor. In seeking to clarify styling guidelines, we are asked to support changes which introduce ambiguity. It befuddles logic to imagine suggestions to avoid particular sentence constructions will intuitively be understood, and uniformly applied, by even a majority of those who encounter its presents. The fallacy compounds when showing an example to avoid which is otherwise, a grammatically correct, properly punctuated sentence.
If an article is well-written when "its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard", [1] how is writing well augmented by extolling one to avoid grammatically correct, even brilliant, sentence constructions? We should follow our own, tried and true, best practices, and write our guidelines using neutral prose; particularly when neither approach is wrong, and either approach can be correct. For clarity, we ought to instead ensure we include diverse examples; showing correct constructions of various creative styles; in my opinion.— John Cline ( talk) 06:31, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Then I would include some creative examples, endeavoring to highlight as much insight as concision was able to convey. A guideline similar to this is much more clearly weighing caution against an acceptable alternative than a mere instruction to avoid; in my opinion.— John Cline ( talk) 09:03, 6 December 2013 (UTC)As several independent Manuals of Style recommend avoiding sentence constructions which present dates and place names as adjectives, editors should be diligent to ensure sentence constructions of such form are unambiguous, grammatically correct, (including punctuation), and written with easily read prose.
"ensure sentence constructions of such form are unambiguous, grammatically correct, (including punctuation)"when the style guides disagree on which form (with or without the second comma) is correct? — sroc 💬 12:57, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
"Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year (except at the end of a sentence)"), so it hardly seems to matter. — sroc 💬 10:51, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Modern writers have taken to making adjectives out of dates, just as they do place names—e.g.: "His July 1998 book contract resulted in a record advance." The more traditional rendering of the sentence would be: "His book contract of July 1998 resulted in a record advance." Although occasionally using dates adjectivally is a space-saver, the device should not be overworked: it gives prose a breezy look.
And the practice is particularly clumsy when the day as well as the month is given—e.g.: "The court reconsidered its July 12, 2001 privilege order." Stylists who use this phrasing typically omit the comma after the year, and justifably so: in the midst of an adjective phrase (i.e., the date), it impedes the flow of the writing too much. Still, that second comma sometimes surfaces…
Most usage books that call uniformly for a comma after the year in a full date, by the way, don't address the question raised just above. They show the comma without illustrating what happens when the date functions as an adjective. In other words, they illustrate the easy cases, not the more difficult ones.
A place-name containing a comma—such as Toronto, Canada, or New Delhi, India—should generally not be used as an adjective because a second comma may be deemed obligatory [we met in a Toronto, Ontario, restaurant] (the comma after Ontario is awkward).
11.7 City and state act as an adjective. When a city and state precede a noun and help to describe it, no hyphens are used. Also, make sure a comma (,) follows the name of the state. …
The Miami, Florida, building contractors were up in arms about the proposed new taxes.
The practice of using as adjectives place names having two or more words is generally to be resisted. But it is increasingly common. Although California home and Austin jury are perfectly acceptable, Sacramento, California home and Austin, Texas jury are not. To make matters worse, some writers place a second comma after the state. Thus, using a city plus the state as an adjective disrupts the flow of the sentence… Such constructions contribute to NOUN PLAGUE, lessen readability and bother literate readers.
When you indicate month, day, and year, put a comma after the dat and after the year (unless some other punctuation mark, like a period or question mark, follows the year). Include these commas even if the month-day-year expression serves as an adjective:
On July 1, 1991, the committee dismissed the employee.
We already responded to your July 1, 1991, letter.
A Note of Inevitable Disagreement
Many writers express their displeasure at putting a comma after the year when the expression serves as an adjective, because "it looks funny." Perhaps so. But this seems to be the rule, and it does make sense. The year is serving in apposition to the month and day, and thus requires commas before and after. You can design around the problem by inserting a prepositional phrase: Use "letter of January 17, 1998," instead of "January 17, 1998, letter."
…
The same would apply if we revealed a city and state:
Greensboro, N.C., is where Miss Hamrick taught Damron and me English.
If we used that expression as an adjective, the commas would remain:
He traveled to the Greensboro, N.C., regional office.
Is there seriously no consensus over the grammatical rules for commas? Some WP editors say two commas are always required, some say the second comma of a parenthetical isn’t grammatically required under any circumstances… I did not expect this to be a point of disagreement. — Frungi ( talk) 00:06, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
The first example in the original proposal is:
Incorrect: | On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
Correct: | On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
As Tony1 has pointed out, because it begins with the prepositional phrase "On…," editors may expect there to be a comma following the date regardless of the date format. I therefore suggest the following alternative:
Incorrect: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863 on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan to parents William and Mary. |
Correct: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan, to parents William and Mary. |
This has the added advantage that it is shorter. It also avoids the possible misconception that the comma before "and" is a serial comma. It does have the disadvantage that the example does not end an a place name or date in order to illustrate the comma being pre-empted by other punctuation, but we don't necessarily need an example to illustrate this common-sense point, otherwise we could substitute the following alternative example:
Incorrect: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863 on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan and died on April 7, 1947. |
Correct: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan, and died on April 7, 1947. |
Please offer your preferences or comments below. — sroc 💬 06:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
In light of concerns raised by Blueboar below, another alternative would be to show separate examples, like so:
Incorrect: | They settled in Geneva, New York where they founded the Domestic school. |
Correct: | They settled in Geneva, New York, where they founded the Domestic school. |
Incorrect: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863 on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan. |
Correct: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan. |
— sroc 💬 00:45, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Incorrect: | October 1, 2011 was the deadline for Chattanooga, Tennessee to comply with the new educational mandate. |
Correct: | October 1, 2011, was the deadline for Chattanooga, Tennessee, to comply with the new educational mandate. |
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dohn joe ( talk • contribs) 01:31, 11 November 2013
1 October 2011 was the deadline(although I'd then avoid starting a sentence with a number). Peter coxhead ( talk) 10:57, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
"The deadline for Chattanooga to comply with the new mandate was October 1, 2011.") achieves neither, thus is useless. — sroc 💬 13:25, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Template:Brunei English ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.112 ( talk) 05:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Template:Malaysian English ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.112 ( talk) 05:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
There has been contention over whether to add Infoboxes or remove them. Can editors please give their views here ? Thanks. Acabashi ( talk) 03:51, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
There is a logical flaw with the statement "Headings should not refer redundantly to the subject of the article" - "headings can be assumed to be about the subject unless otherwise indicated". In a non-paper encyclopedia with hyper-linking (Wikipedia) it can not be assumed the reader even knows what the subject of an article is. If a reader follows a link to a subsection of another article he/she actually has not read any other part of that target article. The Section heading may be the readers only clue as to why he/she is even there. For example: Currently in Telescope, if a reader clicks a the link link catadioptric telescope, they are taken to a sub-section of Catadioptric system titled "Catadioptric telescopes". If we follow the logic of this guideline the reader at the article " Telescope" clicks that link and is taken to an article section titled "Telescopes". This is not very helpful to the reader and sets up a bit of a WP:ASTONISH, of "huh, why am I here"? I saw there was discussion re: "Sirius A" and "Sirius B" [4] and proper names (discussion seemed to reach no real conclusion) - we may have something like that here. Fountains of Bryn Mawr ( talk) 21:58, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I thought we had a fairly solid consensus here back in October for the changes I made here. These changes are important, not in themselves, but because they impact on a lot of articles. Our goals in drafting a project-wide MoS are to promote consistency and clarity. I see my changes have now been reverted. Does anyone here wish to seriously quibble with the consensus we reached? Should this be a matter for WP:AN, or do we need to seek wider input? -- John ( talk) 22:10, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
The entire discussion of pronunciation needs to rethought and possibly eliminated. As it stands it is quite incomprehensible to at least one speaker of RP Oxford-style English (me), making apparent distinctions between homophones such as "James's house" and "James' house". Nor by the way does a following initial s make any difference in the usage I am accustomed to: in St. James's Square the three consecutive s/z sounds are all pronounced. If the possessive s were not pronounced, I would expect the orthography to be "St. James Square". Justlettersandnumbers ( talk) 11:36, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
It seems somewhat confusing that we have two different sections of the MoS that have the name "Common mathematical symbols" (even though their content is generally consistent with each other). Specifically, we have Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Common mathematical symbols and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Common mathematical symbols. Can we rename or remove one of those? For example, I was thinking of creating shortcuts called MOS:COMMONMATH and WP:COMMONMATH to refer to that information, but discovered that there are two possible candidates for the destination of such shortcuts, so it is not clear which destination the shortcut should refer to. — BarrelProof ( talk) 16:08, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Does anyone know how best to punctuate in biographies when a postnominal is added to the name in the first sentence? There are three ways of doing it, none of which look right:
The second option, with one comma, seems to be the most common on WP, but using just one comma is surely wrong. WP:POSTNOM offers no guidance on this point. Any advice gratefully received. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:04, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
So to recap, we have:
SlimVirgin (talk) 16:15, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
This edit, reverting the removal of a comma after i.e., popped up on my watchlist. I poked a bit just now and didn't see guidance on the point in the MoS (or in the talk archives). Both of the editors seem to have discussed it out on their talk pages ( User:NebY and User:SHCarter), but I'm wondering if it should be raised as a question here for other input. -- Izno ( talk) 21:47, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Proposal:_MOS_should_apply_to_portals. Evad37 [ talk 01:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Hm, MOS:HYPHEN seems to be a bit confusing when exemplifying the use of en dash in article titles. A clear question is why should en dash be used in "Eye–hand span" (as specified in Dashes section), when it's earlier described that in fact hyphens indicate such conjunctions (as specified in Hyphens section)? Well, it is because of the independent status of these linked elements, but that should be additionally clarified within the Dashes section, where "Eye–hand span" is used as an example; currently it's quite confusing.
Thoughts? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! — Dsimic ( talk) 14:54, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
''here,'' this
) or not (like in ''there'', that
)? That's typography, but however is quite interesting, if you agree. Is there maybe already a rule or guideline for that? —
Dsimic (
talk)
23:07, 3 January 2014 (UTC)... and "this."
– for example. Doing that makes sense to me only if the punctuation is also quoted, but not in the opposite case; with that, I'm actually leaning towards something similar to the italicizing rules in
MOS:ITAL.I sympathize with the principle of logical quotation, but I don't think it applies to italics nearly as often, because italics usually emphasize rather than delimit, and the comma doesn't introduce ambiguity. For example, at the start of this sentence, is the comma part of the emphasized phrase or not? There's really no meaningful answer, so I think visual aesthetics should prevail. Even when indicating a single word to mention rather than use it, like this, the context usually indicates that what is being talked about is a word, so there is no danger that a reader would think that the comma is part of what's being talked about. In cases where there is genuine ambiguity, then sure, romanize the comma and tolerate the clash. But in most such cases, the sentence is better with quotation marks or reworded. — Ben Kovitz ( talk) 03:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
''this'', that
format. Though, as I already mentioned, there are some patenting or licensing issues preventing kerning and anti-aliasing to be used out-of-the-box in various Linux distributions – what's just an example that we're far away from the ideal technical solution to this dilemma. —
Dsimic (
talk)
03:39, 6 January 2014 (UTC)P.S. I just took another crack at clarifying the difference in meaning between a hyphen and an en dash. Have at it, grammarians. — Ben Kovitz ( talk) 03:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:STABLE redirects to the introduction of this page. It is being discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 January 1. John Vandenberg ( chat) 05:28, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
There are several discussions in the archive about whether the guideline MOS:IDENTITY conflicts with the policy WP:VERIFIABLE. However I cannot find any guidance about conflicts between the guideline MOS:IDENTITY and the policies WP:STAGENAME and WP:COMMONNAME . Please can an experienced editor explain whether or not the guideline MOS:IDENTITY trumps WP:STAGENAME and WP:COMMONNAME ? Please can these three policies/guidelines be updated to reflect the outcome of any archived decision? If this has already been resolved, apologies for my inability to find the right archive, please can you point me to it? Thanks. Andrew Oakley ( talk) 12:07, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Should nbsp be used in between e.g. 12 and km. (12 km
) if it is in a header, e.g == The football field (12 m) ==
? (
t)
Josve05a (
c)
12:38, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Chhatra_Sangram. Thanks! - Richfife ( talk) 23:36, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Agree with Tony1, we need some context. In general, if "Comrade" were part of an actual quote like X said "if we were to obey Comrade Stalin..."[231], etc., it would likely be allowable. But if we were to write a general fact, like in a biography, as Comrade Stalin was born... it would be wrong and horribly POV.-- ColonelHenry ( talk) 14:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm currently bringing the article A Song for Simeon through FAC and the question came up about italicising the title when referring to its publication as a two-page one-poem pamphlet in 1928.
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books) indicates that the MOS prefers poem names to be italicised like book titles. MOS:QUOTEMARKS says otherwise. Most style guides say "quotations", including notably MLA, Chicago, APA, and AP. A lot of commentary delineates a bright line difference between long poem, like Paradise Lost, which should be italicised since it is book-length, and shorter poems, which should only have quotations around unitalicised titles. I took a cursory look at about 50-60 articles on well-known poems by Eliot, Auden, Wordsworth, Blake, Keats, Whitman, etc., (many of which were originally published as one-poem pamphlets), most of them are not italicised anywhere in the article. Further, almost all of the reliable sources used in those articles do not italicise shorter poem names.
Looking forward to the comments here (please ping me when you comment...since this page isn't on my watchlist and I might not check back more than once a day)-- ColonelHenry ( talk) 14:25, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Quotation marks should be used for the following names and titles:
...
- Poems (long or epic poems italicized)
Hello. I am surprised the MOS is mute on the subject of writing, if at all possible, in the active voice style rather than the passive voice (except in specific, minor circumstances). Another editor and I have been discussing the matter and this person is not convinced of the power of the active voice—simply because the MOS doesn't mention it. (It was once touched on fairly inadequately in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Clarity but no longer.) To me, it is obvious that "Writers love Wikipedia" is better than "Wikipedia is loved by writers". Thanks very much for your reply. Prhartcom ( talk) 05:11, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
But more generally, do editors who need to improve their writing actually read MOS, and if they do, is it the right context for that type of improvement? (There's a kerfuffle going on right this moment about one established editor who steadfastly refuses to engage with concerned fellow editors about improving his/her writing.) What about the aspects of style that are on the boundary between prescription and personal preference? Should it be aimed at both natives and non-natives?
My own feeling is that a distinction somehow has to be drawn between a style guide and a how-to-improve-your-writing resource (as it largely has been). MOS is already pretty long. Perhaps there's a better place for this type of good-writing advice? Or perhaps exercises should be the focal point (but my own exercises are mostly not on specific themes).
If we're looking to put energy into improving MOS, my inclination would be not to write piecemeal expansions but to completely restructure it (on a sandbox page until ready) into a hierarchy for each section, so that readers first encounter summary points in each section—very rationed—and can click at a number of points for further levels of information. That would remove the daunting aspect and make the guidance more accessible. In many cases we need to convey the important points as readily as possible, while still retaining the fine-grained advice for those who want it. This might also be a way of integrating some of the sub-pages of MOS into the one resource (clickable). But it would be a big task ... possibly taking a team of us six months. Tony (talk) 13:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Keep in mind, everyone, that active vs. passive is generally taught at the college level. There's a strong chance that many of our writers have never heard of the concept. Active voice is better for technical writing; passive is more acceptable for opinion pieces / essays. Since an encyclopedia should feature technical writing, we should be encouraging its use AND explaining the concept to the uninformed. - Floydian τ ¢ 06:22, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Fear and Loathing of the English Passive by Pullum might also be of interest. -- Boson ( talk) 01:30, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
Actually, active vs. passive brings a whole range of choices in the English clause for construing marked–unmarked, theme–rheme (also known as topic–comment), and the given and the new. It is very complex and should not be dismissed. Native speakers are geniuses at unknowingly using the passive to these ends. Tony (talk)
From the main article: "Use italics within quotations if they are already in the source material. When adding italics on Wikipedia, add an editorial note [emphasis added] after the quotation. 'Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest' [emphasis added]. If the source has used italics (or some other styling) for emphasis and this is not otherwise evident, the editorial note [emphasis in original] should appear after the quotation." SUGGESTIONS: I won't make these changes, but if anyone else agrees/wants to, how about we delete "on Wikipedia". Then, consider changing "should appear" to "may appear" since otherwise the whole thing would seem like a redundancy with "emphasis added", if it were ALWAYS necessary to indicate when it was not added. It seems that "emphasis in original" is a somewhat subjective editorial decision based on, whether explicit or not, what the context calls for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobEnyart ( talk • contribs) 17:57, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi, I wasn't sure what should be done with the large (overlarge?) quote on this page; given that the Telegraph reference (which I possess from the paper) gives a detailed account, would I be justified in removing the quote from the article? Thanks, Mat ty. 007 12:52, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
More a comment than anything, I have been trawling through all the ' MOS:' shortcuts, and found that only the following are not linked to either 'Manual of Style' pages, or pages that are essentially part of the MOS (like naming convention policies):
They all have 'WP:' shortcut equivalents (e.g. WP:PSEUDOCODE, however WP:PSEUDO is not aligned with MOS:PSEUDO), and most of those guides list those WP: shortcuts instead of the MOS: shortcuts. I think the Comp Sci MOS might have a few too many MOS: shortcuts, and the idea of 'JESUS' redirecting to the MOS defined by WikiProject Judaism is interesting. Has any of these WikiProject MOS topics been covered in the 'real'/centralised MOS? John Vandenberg ( chat) 16:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Styletips provides editing advice in conveniently small portions. (I am mentioning it here to increase awareness.)
—
Wavelength (
talk)
17:50, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Comments are invited at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks#Proposed change. -- Rob Sinden ( talk) 09:01, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the WikiProject Cycling about when to use country subdivisions (states, provinces, regions etc.) and when not, when listing a cyclist's birth place in an infobox. Example:
We seem to agree that in some cases this is appropriate (the Silver Spring case) and in some cases it is not (the Amsterdam case). I have tried to look for something in the MoS or in the discussion archives, but I was unable to find anything. Is there some agreement within Wikipedia on for which countries the subdivisional entity should be mentioned and for which it should be avoided? Or is there a rule that says always use subvision or never use subdivision that I am unable to find?-- EdgeNavidad ( Talk · Contribs) 17:41, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
2013 in film is 332,397 bytes (without images). Please discuss whether or not to sub-divide it, at Talk:2013 in film#Length. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:24, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
There is currently an RFC on a proposal to update MOS to explicitly state that it covers Portals - Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 112#Proposal: MOS should apply to portals. Editors are invited to contribute to the discussion there. Mitch Ames ( talk) 08:17, 19 January 2014 (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 145 | ← | Archive 148 | Archive 149 | Archive 150 | Archive 151 | Archive 152 | → | Archive 155 |
Which is correct for the first line of a lede?
The cantata is best known by its name in German, so the article title should be in that language and should come first. It is useful to the reader to know what the German words mean so a translation should be provided. The question is whether the English translation is a title or just a translation. The same issues apply to foreign language novels, TV shows, etc. I can't find any guidance in the MoS. SchreiberBike talk 00:06, 16 November 2013 (UTC)
Where a foreign language composition is known by an English title, give the English translation in parentheses following normal formatting for titles: Les Liaisons dangereuses (The Dangerous Liaisons). Where the work has not been published in English, give an English translation in sentence case, roman type, inside parentheses: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing).
Why is "Weeping" capitalized? A parenthetical in the middle of a sentence is not capitalized, even if it explains the first word of that sentence. — kwami ( talk) 11:53, 30 November 2013 (UTC)
Including the English equivalent seems good, but I query why in parentheses. In general editorial emendations (such as missing data, or expansion of an author's name) are done in square brackets: and . This also avoids conflicts where (in rare cases) parentheses are included in a title. ~ J. Johnson (JJ) ( talk) 20:39, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
SchreiberBike, I think the first sentence of your proposal is now better, but the second sentence still makes reference to publication. This misses works that may not have been published in English even though they have an English title (e.g. a painting, a piano sonata) as well as works that have been published in English but not under a title which is a translation or under the original language title. How about:
Where a work originally produced under a non-English title is known by an English language title, give that title in parentheses following normal formatting for titles: Les Liaisons dangereuses (The Dangerous Liaisons). Where there is no English title in common use, or where the English title is not a translation, give a translation in sentence case, roman type, inside parentheses: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing). Where it is appropriate to include both a translation and an English title, put the translation first and preface the title with the words "English title" and a colon.
I also think this should be added at the beginning, for clarity:
For works originally produced under a title not in English, refer to WP:COMMONNAME to determine whether the original title or an English language title should be given priority.
Note: I've also copyedited out the word foreign, since the guidance would apply to languages which are not necessarily foreign in English-speaking countries (Welsh, for example).
Formerip ( talk) 01:01, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
For works originally named in languages other than English, use WP:COMMONNAME to determine whether the original title or an English language version should be used as the article title. For works best known by their title in a language other than English, an English translation of that title may be helpful. If the work is also well known by an English title, give the English translation in parentheses following normal formatting for titles: Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons). Where the work is not known by an English title, give the translation in parentheses without special formatting in sentence case: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (Weeping, lamenting, worrying, fearing). In references, square brackets are used: Il Giornale dell'Architettura [The journal of architecture].
As it was explained to me, mdashes in page ranges are allowed in the case that the page started with this format, but should otherwise be left in whatever format it was originally created in. Is that basically correct?
I've looked through the MoS and the talk pages going back some time in history. It appears the above statement is basically the lay of the land, but that I should expect "pendants" (interesting turn of phrase) who insist on mdashes being "correct".
It was also explained to me that, in the past perhaps, using hyphens instead of mdashes may work better with search engines, which may not correctly parse the text otherwise. Is this also correct, or now outdated? Maury Markowitz ( talk) 17:58, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
In ranges that might otherwise be expressed with to or through
• pp. 211–19; 64–75%; the 1939–45 war
As an editor who edits almost exclusively in medical articles, I am surprised that it has just come to my attention that WP:MEDMOS#Anatomy is encouraging image galleries in Anatomy articles, resulting in articles with galleries at the end of the article like this. Apparently that text at MEDMOS has stood since 2008, and I cannot determine that it was initially added based on any consensus. Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Revert. SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 03:04, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Each user's Appearance Preferences includes an option labelled "Auto-number headings" which automatically numbers headings (1., 2., 3., etc.) and sub-headings (1.1, 1.2, 1.3, etc.) in each article. I have noticed in some cases headings are manually entered with numbering, which then disrupts reading the headings when auto-numbering is used. For example:
I suggest that it would be helpful to add the following into the bullet list in MOS:HEAD:
People who don't have the option selected probably don't realise that this happens, so this might help to call attention to it. — sroc 💬 10:05, 1 December 2013 (UTC)
There are often good reasons to start a heading with a number, such as years. - Ypnypn ( talk) 23:48, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Noting the above concern but seeing no other opposition, I have added the following point to MOS:HEAD:
— sroc 💬 12:40, 21 December 2013 (UTC)
MOS:POSS says:
* Official names (of companies, organizations, or places) should not be altered. ( St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital, even for consistency.)
I feel that there is a degree of ambiguity about this, and that ambiguity is part of a current discussion at Talk:Mrs Macquarie's Chair#Requested move. Specifically:
Discussion of the general rule belongs here of course, but interested parties are invited to comment on the specific case at Talk:Mrs Macquarie's Chair#Requested move. Mitch Ames ( talk) 08:51, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
Names
- When using an official name (e.g. of companies, organizations, or places) maintain the official punctuation, or lack thereof. ( St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital, even for consistency.)
Names
- Official names (e.g. of companies, organizations, places, etc.) should not be altered by adding, moving or omitting apostrophes. ( St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital, even for consistency.)
- When using a WP:COMMONNAME, follow the possessive punctuations that are used in sources.
I think we are making this overly complex... and missing the point. It does not matter whether a name is "Official" or "COMMON"... what is important is that it is a NAME, and we should not "correct" a name. I think we can cut through the confusion by simply saying:
Names
- Names (e.g. of companies, organizations, places, etc.) that contain a possessive word as part of the name should not be altered by adding, moving or omitting apostrophes. ( St Thomas' Hospital should therefore not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital, even for consistency.)
Do we really need to say anything else? Blueboar ( talk) 15:48, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Names
- Proper names (e.g. of companies, organizations, places, etc.) that contain a possessive word as part of the name should not be altered by adding, moving or omitting apostrophes (e.g., St Thomas' Hospital should not be rendered as St Thomas's Hospital), even if this leads to inconsistency.
The main trouble here is the assumption that each such name has an obviously "correct" version that we should not change. Most often, I think that's not the case. Look at the RM on Mrs Macquarie's Chair for example. Most reputable publishers are going to exercise some editorial discretion in deciding whether to include the period in "Mrs." and the apostrophe in "Macquarie's"; some will follow what's carved in stone, some will follow what's in the park brochures, and some will follow common usage of other good sources. Many will consider their own style guidelines in the process. Is this a problem? Dicklyon ( talk) 03:48, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
Descriptions of the storylines of long-running TV series, especially those that have now that have ceased airing, are best written in the past tense. The strain of trying to sustain the present tense over perhaps years of a show's internal chronology is exhausting for editors and readers alike. 86.151.119.39 ( talk) 04:14, 18 December 2013 (UTC)
I have just spent some time trying to do this on the Malcolm X article, but it doesn't seem to work. If this situation is a peculiarity of WP software and not just my screen, perhaps the Bulleting section should mention it? Rumiton ( talk) 14:35, 22 December 2013 (UTC)
In numerous episode list articles under the "Written by" column the terms "Story by" and "Teleplay by" are set in italics. Is this correct? Examples:
— Whisternefet ( t · c) 05:11, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
A change was made this past summer to the documentation of that template to encourage/allow what was before nonstandard use. The accompanying WP:SS page was not changed however. I've opened a RfC on that issue and the more general structure and relationship between various SS templates at Template talk:Main#RfC. Someone not using his real name ( talk) 04:00, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
I'd like to revive this archived discussion from six months ago: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_140#En_dashes_and_suffixes I would agree with User:DocWatson42 that the MoS should at least allow—and preferably recommend—the use of en dashes rather than hyphens in both prefixed and suffixed compounded compound modifiers. The current MoS recommendation to use en dashes for prefixes, and hyphens for suffixes, is confusing, inconsistent, and seemingly unfounded. It also conflicts with the explanation at Dash#Attributive_compounds. Thanks! Startswithj ( talk) 05:09, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
To encourage editors to read Wikipedia's Manual of Style (
WP:MOS), I have been considering the option of composing a MOS reading schedule (similar to a Bible reading schedule—
http://www.dmoz.org/search?q=bible+reading+schedule&cat=all&all=no). (See also
Wikipedia:Tip of the day.) It could be on a subpage of MOS (for example,
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Reading schedule). MOS could be apportioned by the day, by the week, or by the month, so that it could be read in its entirety in one year. Of course, some editors may have enough self-motivation to read all of it without using a schedule. Alternatively, some may prefer to set for themselves the easier goal of reading
Wikipedia:Simplified Manual of Style.
—
Wavelength (
talk)
04:07, 24 December 2013 (UTC) and 05:51, 24 December 2013 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Reading schedule is ready for use.
—
Wavelength (
talk)
03:44, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Should a blank line be used between {{
disambiguation}}
and DEFAULTSORT? (See
this article) (
t)
Josve05a (
c)
12:33, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
MOS:COMMA currently states:
Incorrect: | On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
Correct: | On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
This overlooks that the final comma may be superseded by other punctuation. There is also heated debate regarding whether the final comma is needed when the place name or date is used as an adjective, although there is a general consensus that such constructions should be avoided (for example, see Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names) § Commas in metro areas). It is therefore proposed to replace the above section with the following:
Incorrect: | On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
Correct: | On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
Avoid: | The April 7, 2011[,] trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the Toledo, Ohio[,] courtroom. |
Better alternative: | On April 7, 2011, the trial of John Smith brought a capacity crowd to the courtroom in Toledo, Ohio. |
This is an alternative that gained support in an earlier RFC, Should it be "optional" as to whether a second comma after a date/place should be included?.
Please comment below. — sroc 💬 08:02, 7 November 2013 (UTC)
Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year" seems to say the bracketed commas are mandatory. If they are mandatory, why are they in brackets? The proposal is confusing (and so is this discussion in general – perhaps because of the way "support" and "oppose" comments are separated from each other in a way that prevents interactive discussion). — BarrelProof ( talk) 11:36, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
When a date in mdy format appears in the middle of text, include a comma after the year", and in the sentence of the proposal that says "
Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year". Absent an agreement to change that prescription, it is the guidance, isn't it? If the proposal is intended to remove that prescription, it should be phrased differently to make that clear. That lack of clarity has been my complaint here. I haven't expressed a preference for the MOS to say the comma is optional, and I haven't expressed a preference for the MOS to say it's mandatory. But I think it's a problem if it says it's mandatory and some people deny that it says that. That is a problem. The construction is unlikely to be avoided in all cases. — BarrelProof ( talk) 03:38, 13 November 2013 (UTC)
Oppose - this proposal achieves the opposite of its endeavor. In seeking to clarify styling guidelines, we are asked to support changes which introduce ambiguity. It befuddles logic to imagine suggestions to avoid particular sentence constructions will intuitively be understood, and uniformly applied, by even a majority of those who encounter its presents. The fallacy compounds when showing an example to avoid which is otherwise, a grammatically correct, properly punctuated sentence.
If an article is well-written when "its prose is engaging, even brilliant, and of a professional standard", [1] how is writing well augmented by extolling one to avoid grammatically correct, even brilliant, sentence constructions? We should follow our own, tried and true, best practices, and write our guidelines using neutral prose; particularly when neither approach is wrong, and either approach can be correct. For clarity, we ought to instead ensure we include diverse examples; showing correct constructions of various creative styles; in my opinion.— John Cline ( talk) 06:31, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Then I would include some creative examples, endeavoring to highlight as much insight as concision was able to convey. A guideline similar to this is much more clearly weighing caution against an acceptable alternative than a mere instruction to avoid; in my opinion.— John Cline ( talk) 09:03, 6 December 2013 (UTC)As several independent Manuals of Style recommend avoiding sentence constructions which present dates and place names as adjectives, editors should be diligent to ensure sentence constructions of such form are unambiguous, grammatically correct, (including punctuation), and written with easily read prose.
"ensure sentence constructions of such form are unambiguous, grammatically correct, (including punctuation)"when the style guides disagree on which form (with or without the second comma) is correct? — sroc 💬 12:57, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
"Dates in month–day–year format also require a comma after the day and after the year (except at the end of a sentence)"), so it hardly seems to matter. — sroc 💬 10:51, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Modern writers have taken to making adjectives out of dates, just as they do place names—e.g.: "His July 1998 book contract resulted in a record advance." The more traditional rendering of the sentence would be: "His book contract of July 1998 resulted in a record advance." Although occasionally using dates adjectivally is a space-saver, the device should not be overworked: it gives prose a breezy look.
And the practice is particularly clumsy when the day as well as the month is given—e.g.: "The court reconsidered its July 12, 2001 privilege order." Stylists who use this phrasing typically omit the comma after the year, and justifably so: in the midst of an adjective phrase (i.e., the date), it impedes the flow of the writing too much. Still, that second comma sometimes surfaces…
Most usage books that call uniformly for a comma after the year in a full date, by the way, don't address the question raised just above. They show the comma without illustrating what happens when the date functions as an adjective. In other words, they illustrate the easy cases, not the more difficult ones.
A place-name containing a comma—such as Toronto, Canada, or New Delhi, India—should generally not be used as an adjective because a second comma may be deemed obligatory [we met in a Toronto, Ontario, restaurant] (the comma after Ontario is awkward).
11.7 City and state act as an adjective. When a city and state precede a noun and help to describe it, no hyphens are used. Also, make sure a comma (,) follows the name of the state. …
The Miami, Florida, building contractors were up in arms about the proposed new taxes.
The practice of using as adjectives place names having two or more words is generally to be resisted. But it is increasingly common. Although California home and Austin jury are perfectly acceptable, Sacramento, California home and Austin, Texas jury are not. To make matters worse, some writers place a second comma after the state. Thus, using a city plus the state as an adjective disrupts the flow of the sentence… Such constructions contribute to NOUN PLAGUE, lessen readability and bother literate readers.
When you indicate month, day, and year, put a comma after the dat and after the year (unless some other punctuation mark, like a period or question mark, follows the year). Include these commas even if the month-day-year expression serves as an adjective:
On July 1, 1991, the committee dismissed the employee.
We already responded to your July 1, 1991, letter.
A Note of Inevitable Disagreement
Many writers express their displeasure at putting a comma after the year when the expression serves as an adjective, because "it looks funny." Perhaps so. But this seems to be the rule, and it does make sense. The year is serving in apposition to the month and day, and thus requires commas before and after. You can design around the problem by inserting a prepositional phrase: Use "letter of January 17, 1998," instead of "January 17, 1998, letter."
…
The same would apply if we revealed a city and state:
Greensboro, N.C., is where Miss Hamrick taught Damron and me English.
If we used that expression as an adjective, the commas would remain:
He traveled to the Greensboro, N.C., regional office.
Is there seriously no consensus over the grammatical rules for commas? Some WP editors say two commas are always required, some say the second comma of a parenthetical isn’t grammatically required under any circumstances… I did not expect this to be a point of disagreement. — Frungi ( talk) 00:06, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
The first example in the original proposal is:
Incorrect: | On November 24, 1971 Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
Correct: | On November 24, 1971, Cooper hijacked an aircraft that had taken off from Portland, Oregon, and was destined for Seattle, Washington. |
As Tony1 has pointed out, because it begins with the prepositional phrase "On…," editors may expect there to be a comma following the date regardless of the date format. I therefore suggest the following alternative:
Incorrect: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863 on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan to parents William and Mary. |
Correct: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan, to parents William and Mary. |
This has the added advantage that it is shorter. It also avoids the possible misconception that the comma before "and" is a serial comma. It does have the disadvantage that the example does not end an a place name or date in order to illustrate the comma being pre-empted by other punctuation, but we don't necessarily need an example to illustrate this common-sense point, otherwise we could substitute the following alternative example:
Incorrect: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863 on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan and died on April 7, 1947. |
Correct: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan, and died on April 7, 1947. |
Please offer your preferences or comments below. — sroc 💬 06:04, 10 November 2013 (UTC)
In light of concerns raised by Blueboar below, another alternative would be to show separate examples, like so:
Incorrect: | They settled in Geneva, New York where they founded the Domestic school. |
Correct: | They settled in Geneva, New York, where they founded the Domestic school. |
Incorrect: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863 on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan. |
Correct: | Henry Ford was born July 30, 1863, on a farm in Greenfield, Michigan. |
— sroc 💬 00:45, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Incorrect: | October 1, 2011 was the deadline for Chattanooga, Tennessee to comply with the new educational mandate. |
Correct: | October 1, 2011, was the deadline for Chattanooga, Tennessee, to comply with the new educational mandate. |
— Preceding unsigned comment added by Dohn joe ( talk • contribs) 01:31, 11 November 2013
1 October 2011 was the deadline(although I'd then avoid starting a sentence with a number). Peter coxhead ( talk) 10:57, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
"The deadline for Chattanooga to comply with the new mandate was October 1, 2011.") achieves neither, thus is useless. — sroc 💬 13:25, 11 November 2013 (UTC)
Template:Brunei English ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.112 ( talk) 05:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
Template:Malaysian English ( | talk | history | links | watch | logs) has been nominated for deletion -- 76.65.128.112 ( talk) 05:19, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
There has been contention over whether to add Infoboxes or remove them. Can editors please give their views here ? Thanks. Acabashi ( talk) 03:51, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
There is a logical flaw with the statement "Headings should not refer redundantly to the subject of the article" - "headings can be assumed to be about the subject unless otherwise indicated". In a non-paper encyclopedia with hyper-linking (Wikipedia) it can not be assumed the reader even knows what the subject of an article is. If a reader follows a link to a subsection of another article he/she actually has not read any other part of that target article. The Section heading may be the readers only clue as to why he/she is even there. For example: Currently in Telescope, if a reader clicks a the link link catadioptric telescope, they are taken to a sub-section of Catadioptric system titled "Catadioptric telescopes". If we follow the logic of this guideline the reader at the article " Telescope" clicks that link and is taken to an article section titled "Telescopes". This is not very helpful to the reader and sets up a bit of a WP:ASTONISH, of "huh, why am I here"? I saw there was discussion re: "Sirius A" and "Sirius B" [4] and proper names (discussion seemed to reach no real conclusion) - we may have something like that here. Fountains of Bryn Mawr ( talk) 21:58, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
I thought we had a fairly solid consensus here back in October for the changes I made here. These changes are important, not in themselves, but because they impact on a lot of articles. Our goals in drafting a project-wide MoS are to promote consistency and clarity. I see my changes have now been reverted. Does anyone here wish to seriously quibble with the consensus we reached? Should this be a matter for WP:AN, or do we need to seek wider input? -- John ( talk) 22:10, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
The entire discussion of pronunciation needs to rethought and possibly eliminated. As it stands it is quite incomprehensible to at least one speaker of RP Oxford-style English (me), making apparent distinctions between homophones such as "James's house" and "James' house". Nor by the way does a following initial s make any difference in the usage I am accustomed to: in St. James's Square the three consecutive s/z sounds are all pronounced. If the possessive s were not pronounced, I would expect the orthography to be "St. James Square". Justlettersandnumbers ( talk) 11:36, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
It seems somewhat confusing that we have two different sections of the MoS that have the name "Common mathematical symbols" (even though their content is generally consistent with each other). Specifically, we have Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Common mathematical symbols and Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#Common mathematical symbols. Can we rename or remove one of those? For example, I was thinking of creating shortcuts called MOS:COMMONMATH and WP:COMMONMATH to refer to that information, but discovered that there are two possible candidates for the destination of such shortcuts, so it is not clear which destination the shortcut should refer to. — BarrelProof ( talk) 16:08, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
Does anyone know how best to punctuate in biographies when a postnominal is added to the name in the first sentence? There are three ways of doing it, none of which look right:
The second option, with one comma, seems to be the most common on WP, but using just one comma is surely wrong. WP:POSTNOM offers no guidance on this point. Any advice gratefully received. SlimVirgin (talk) 18:04, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
So to recap, we have:
SlimVirgin (talk) 16:15, 29 December 2013 (UTC)
This edit, reverting the removal of a comma after i.e., popped up on my watchlist. I poked a bit just now and didn't see guidance on the point in the MoS (or in the talk archives). Both of the editors seem to have discussed it out on their talk pages ( User:NebY and User:SHCarter), but I'm wondering if it should be raised as a question here for other input. -- Izno ( talk) 21:47, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Proposal:_MOS_should_apply_to_portals. Evad37 [ talk 01:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
Hm, MOS:HYPHEN seems to be a bit confusing when exemplifying the use of en dash in article titles. A clear question is why should en dash be used in "Eye–hand span" (as specified in Dashes section), when it's earlier described that in fact hyphens indicate such conjunctions (as specified in Hyphens section)? Well, it is because of the independent status of these linked elements, but that should be additionally clarified within the Dashes section, where "Eye–hand span" is used as an example; currently it's quite confusing.
Thoughts? Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! — Dsimic ( talk) 14:54, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
''here,'' this
) or not (like in ''there'', that
)? That's typography, but however is quite interesting, if you agree. Is there maybe already a rule or guideline for that? —
Dsimic (
talk)
23:07, 3 January 2014 (UTC)... and "this."
– for example. Doing that makes sense to me only if the punctuation is also quoted, but not in the opposite case; with that, I'm actually leaning towards something similar to the italicizing rules in
MOS:ITAL.I sympathize with the principle of logical quotation, but I don't think it applies to italics nearly as often, because italics usually emphasize rather than delimit, and the comma doesn't introduce ambiguity. For example, at the start of this sentence, is the comma part of the emphasized phrase or not? There's really no meaningful answer, so I think visual aesthetics should prevail. Even when indicating a single word to mention rather than use it, like this, the context usually indicates that what is being talked about is a word, so there is no danger that a reader would think that the comma is part of what's being talked about. In cases where there is genuine ambiguity, then sure, romanize the comma and tolerate the clash. But in most such cases, the sentence is better with quotation marks or reworded. — Ben Kovitz ( talk) 03:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
''this'', that
format. Though, as I already mentioned, there are some patenting or licensing issues preventing kerning and anti-aliasing to be used out-of-the-box in various Linux distributions – what's just an example that we're far away from the ideal technical solution to this dilemma. —
Dsimic (
talk)
03:39, 6 January 2014 (UTC)P.S. I just took another crack at clarifying the difference in meaning between a hyphen and an en dash. Have at it, grammarians. — Ben Kovitz ( talk) 03:03, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
WP:STABLE redirects to the introduction of this page. It is being discussed at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2014 January 1. John Vandenberg ( chat) 05:28, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
There are several discussions in the archive about whether the guideline MOS:IDENTITY conflicts with the policy WP:VERIFIABLE. However I cannot find any guidance about conflicts between the guideline MOS:IDENTITY and the policies WP:STAGENAME and WP:COMMONNAME . Please can an experienced editor explain whether or not the guideline MOS:IDENTITY trumps WP:STAGENAME and WP:COMMONNAME ? Please can these three policies/guidelines be updated to reflect the outcome of any archived decision? If this has already been resolved, apologies for my inability to find the right archive, please can you point me to it? Thanks. Andrew Oakley ( talk) 12:07, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
Should nbsp be used in between e.g. 12 and km. (12 km
) if it is in a header, e.g == The football field (12 m) ==
? (
t)
Josve05a (
c)
12:38, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
Chhatra_Sangram. Thanks! - Richfife ( talk) 23:36, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Agree with Tony1, we need some context. In general, if "Comrade" were part of an actual quote like X said "if we were to obey Comrade Stalin..."[231], etc., it would likely be allowable. But if we were to write a general fact, like in a biography, as Comrade Stalin was born... it would be wrong and horribly POV.-- ColonelHenry ( talk) 14:10, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
I'm currently bringing the article A Song for Simeon through FAC and the question came up about italicising the title when referring to its publication as a two-page one-poem pamphlet in 1928.
Wikipedia:Naming conventions (books) indicates that the MOS prefers poem names to be italicised like book titles. MOS:QUOTEMARKS says otherwise. Most style guides say "quotations", including notably MLA, Chicago, APA, and AP. A lot of commentary delineates a bright line difference between long poem, like Paradise Lost, which should be italicised since it is book-length, and shorter poems, which should only have quotations around unitalicised titles. I took a cursory look at about 50-60 articles on well-known poems by Eliot, Auden, Wordsworth, Blake, Keats, Whitman, etc., (many of which were originally published as one-poem pamphlets), most of them are not italicised anywhere in the article. Further, almost all of the reliable sources used in those articles do not italicise shorter poem names.
Looking forward to the comments here (please ping me when you comment...since this page isn't on my watchlist and I might not check back more than once a day)-- ColonelHenry ( talk) 14:25, 10 January 2014 (UTC)
Quotation marks should be used for the following names and titles:
...
- Poems (long or epic poems italicized)
Hello. I am surprised the MOS is mute on the subject of writing, if at all possible, in the active voice style rather than the passive voice (except in specific, minor circumstances). Another editor and I have been discussing the matter and this person is not convinced of the power of the active voice—simply because the MOS doesn't mention it. (It was once touched on fairly inadequately in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Clarity but no longer.) To me, it is obvious that "Writers love Wikipedia" is better than "Wikipedia is loved by writers". Thanks very much for your reply. Prhartcom ( talk) 05:11, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
But more generally, do editors who need to improve their writing actually read MOS, and if they do, is it the right context for that type of improvement? (There's a kerfuffle going on right this moment about one established editor who steadfastly refuses to engage with concerned fellow editors about improving his/her writing.) What about the aspects of style that are on the boundary between prescription and personal preference? Should it be aimed at both natives and non-natives?
My own feeling is that a distinction somehow has to be drawn between a style guide and a how-to-improve-your-writing resource (as it largely has been). MOS is already pretty long. Perhaps there's a better place for this type of good-writing advice? Or perhaps exercises should be the focal point (but my own exercises are mostly not on specific themes).
If we're looking to put energy into improving MOS, my inclination would be not to write piecemeal expansions but to completely restructure it (on a sandbox page until ready) into a hierarchy for each section, so that readers first encounter summary points in each section—very rationed—and can click at a number of points for further levels of information. That would remove the daunting aspect and make the guidance more accessible. In many cases we need to convey the important points as readily as possible, while still retaining the fine-grained advice for those who want it. This might also be a way of integrating some of the sub-pages of MOS into the one resource (clickable). But it would be a big task ... possibly taking a team of us six months. Tony (talk) 13:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
Keep in mind, everyone, that active vs. passive is generally taught at the college level. There's a strong chance that many of our writers have never heard of the concept. Active voice is better for technical writing; passive is more acceptable for opinion pieces / essays. Since an encyclopedia should feature technical writing, we should be encouraging its use AND explaining the concept to the uninformed. - Floydian τ ¢ 06:22, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
Fear and Loathing of the English Passive by Pullum might also be of interest. -- Boson ( talk) 01:30, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
Actually, active vs. passive brings a whole range of choices in the English clause for construing marked–unmarked, theme–rheme (also known as topic–comment), and the given and the new. It is very complex and should not be dismissed. Native speakers are geniuses at unknowingly using the passive to these ends. Tony (talk)
From the main article: "Use italics within quotations if they are already in the source material. When adding italics on Wikipedia, add an editorial note [emphasis added] after the quotation. 'Now cracks a noble heart. Good night sweet prince: And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest' [emphasis added]. If the source has used italics (or some other styling) for emphasis and this is not otherwise evident, the editorial note [emphasis in original] should appear after the quotation." SUGGESTIONS: I won't make these changes, but if anyone else agrees/wants to, how about we delete "on Wikipedia". Then, consider changing "should appear" to "may appear" since otherwise the whole thing would seem like a redundancy with "emphasis added", if it were ALWAYS necessary to indicate when it was not added. It seems that "emphasis in original" is a somewhat subjective editorial decision based on, whether explicit or not, what the context calls for. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BobEnyart ( talk • contribs) 17:57, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
Hi, I wasn't sure what should be done with the large (overlarge?) quote on this page; given that the Telegraph reference (which I possess from the paper) gives a detailed account, would I be justified in removing the quote from the article? Thanks, Mat ty. 007 12:52, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
More a comment than anything, I have been trawling through all the ' MOS:' shortcuts, and found that only the following are not linked to either 'Manual of Style' pages, or pages that are essentially part of the MOS (like naming convention policies):
They all have 'WP:' shortcut equivalents (e.g. WP:PSEUDOCODE, however WP:PSEUDO is not aligned with MOS:PSEUDO), and most of those guides list those WP: shortcuts instead of the MOS: shortcuts. I think the Comp Sci MOS might have a few too many MOS: shortcuts, and the idea of 'JESUS' redirecting to the MOS defined by WikiProject Judaism is interesting. Has any of these WikiProject MOS topics been covered in the 'real'/centralised MOS? John Vandenberg ( chat) 16:45, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Styletips provides editing advice in conveniently small portions. (I am mentioning it here to increase awareness.)
—
Wavelength (
talk)
17:50, 14 January 2014 (UTC)
Comments are invited at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks#Proposed change. -- Rob Sinden ( talk) 09:01, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
There is a discussion on the WikiProject Cycling about when to use country subdivisions (states, provinces, regions etc.) and when not, when listing a cyclist's birth place in an infobox. Example:
We seem to agree that in some cases this is appropriate (the Silver Spring case) and in some cases it is not (the Amsterdam case). I have tried to look for something in the MoS or in the discussion archives, but I was unable to find anything. Is there some agreement within Wikipedia on for which countries the subdivisional entity should be mentioned and for which it should be avoided? Or is there a rule that says always use subvision or never use subdivision that I am unable to find?-- EdgeNavidad ( Talk · Contribs) 17:41, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
2013 in film is 332,397 bytes (without images). Please discuss whether or not to sub-divide it, at Talk:2013 in film#Length. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:24, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
There is currently an RFC on a proposal to update MOS to explicitly state that it covers Portals - Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 112#Proposal: MOS should apply to portals. Editors are invited to contribute to the discussion there. Mitch Ames ( talk) 08:17, 19 January 2014 (UTC)