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Right now it says 'trivial spelling and typographic errors should simply be corrected without comment (for example, correct basicly to basically and harasssment to harassment), unless the slip is textually important'. I have always learned, and a quick Google search confirms ( example), that direct quotations are never to be messed with, even if the author makes a trivial spelling mistake. Wikipedia is the only exception to this rule I have encountered so far. Are we sure we want this? Banedon ( talk) 08:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
— sroc 💬 14:04, 18 March 2015 (UTC)Of course, quotations do not always convey that the speaker actually said or wrote the quoted material. "Punctuation marks, like words, have many uses. Writers often use quotation marks, yet no reasonable reader would assume that such punctuation automatically implies the truth of the quoted material." Baker v. Los Angeles Examiner, 42 Cal. 3d, at 263, 721 P. 2d, at 92. In Baker, a television reviewer printed a hypothetical conversation between a station vice president and writer/producer, and the court found that no reasonable reader would conclude the plaintiff in fact had made the statement attributed to him. Id., at 267, 721 P. 2d, at 95. Writers often use quotations as in Baker, and a reader will not reasonably understand the quotations to indicate reproduction of a conversation that took place. In other instances, an acknowledgement that the work is so-called docudrama or historical fiction, or that it recreates conversations from memory, not from recordings, might indicate that the quotations should not be interpreted as the actual statements of the speaker to whom they are attributed.
The work at issue here, however, as with much journalistic writing, provides the reader no clue that the quotations are being used as a rhetorical device or to paraphrase the speaker's actual statements. To the contrary, the work purports to be nonfiction, the result of numerous interviews. At least a trier of fact could so conclude. The work contains lengthy quotations attributed to petitioner, and neither Malcolm nor her publishers indicate to the reader that the quotations are anything but the reproduction of actual conversations. Further, the work was published in The New Yorker, a magazine which at the relevant time seemed to enjoy a reputation for scrupulous factual accuracy. These factors would, or at least could, lead a reader to take the quotations at face value. A defendant may be able to argue to the jury that quotations should be viewed by the reader as nonliteral or reconstructions, but we conclude that a trier of fact in this case could find that the reasonable reader would understand the quotations to be nearly verbatim reports of statements made by the subject.
.......
In some sense, any alteration of a verbatim quotation is false. But writers and reporters by necessity alter what people say, at the very least to eliminate grammatical and syntactical infelicities. If every alteration constituted the falsity required to prove actual malice, the practice of journalism, which the First Amendment standard is designed to protect, would require a radical change, one inconsistent with our precedents and First Amendment principles. Petitioner concedes this absolute definition of falsity in the quotation context is too stringent, and acknowledges that "minor changes to correct for grammar or syntax" do not amount to falsity for purposes of proving actual malice. Brief for Petitioner 18, 36-37. We agree, and must determine what, in addition to this technical falsity, proves falsity for purposes of the actual malice inquiry.
Petitioner argues that, excepting correction of grammar or syntax, publication of a quotation with knowledge that it does not contain the words the public figure used demonstrates actual malice. The author will have published the quotation with knowledge of falsity, and no more need be shown. Petitioner suggests that by invoking more forgiving standards the Court of Appeals would permit and encourage the publication of falsehoods. Petitioner believes that the intentional manufacture of quotations does not "represen[t] the sort of inaccuracy that is commonplace in the forum of robust debate to which the New York Times rule applies," Bose Corp., 466 U. S., at 513, and that protection of deliberate falsehoods would hinder the First Amendment values of robust and well-informed public debate by reducing the reliability of information available to the public.
We reject the idea that any alteration beyond correction of grammar or syntax by itself proves falsity in the sense relevant to determining actual malice under the First Amendment. An interviewer who writes from notes often will engage in the task of attempting a reconstruction of the speaker's statement. That author would, we may assume, act with knowledge that at times she has attributed to her subject words other than those actually used. Under petitioner's proposed standard, an author in this situation would lack First Amendment protection if she reported as quotations the substance of a subject's derogatory statements about himself.
Even if a journalist has tape recorded the spoken statement of a public figure, the full and exact statement will be reported in only rare circumstances. The existence of both a speaker and a reporter; the translation between two media, speech and the printed word; the addition of punctuation; and the practical necessity to edit and make intelligible a speaker's perhaps rambling comments, all make it misleading to suggest that a quotation will be reconstructed with complete accuracy. The use or absence of punctuation may distort a speaker's meaning, for example, where that meaning turns upon a speaker's emphasis of a particular word. In other cases, if a speaker makes an obvious misstatement, for example by unconscious substitution of one name for another, a journalist might alter the speaker's words but preserve his intended meaning. And conversely, an exact quotation out of context can distort meaning, although the speaker did use each reported word.
As an aside - typos within transcripts should not be ascribed to the speaker - nor should "um" and the like be used. People do not speak with typewriters, and an occasional "um" is done by the best of us, and is usually not placed in real transcripts. Thus using "sic" where any transcript is used is marginal at best. IMO. Nor should transcripts carp on UK/American spelling issues. Collect ( talk) 15:52, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
My opinion on this is that it is totally not important for readers to know that whoever is being quoted made a typo. I mean, really, why would it be? Typos happen to even the best of us and really aren't a reflection of anything substantive at all, I don't think, so it's just pedantic and disruptive to throw in [sic]s all the time. I also think that [sic] is in poor taste in general (it's like saying "aha! I managed to discover a blatant flaw in your work!", and a lot of the time it even seems somewhat gleeful). So, assuming it is worth noting that a typo was made, which again I dont think it is, I think a much better practice is to fix the typo yourself and add brackets where necessary. AgnosticAphid talk 15:50, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
Interesting question at Convert, decimal notation. In South Africa, the decimal symbol is a comma, not period. So 1.5 km in USA is written 1,5 km in SA (forget about miles for now). The question is, when the WP:ENGVAR for an article is South African, should the decimal symbol be comma?
(see also Category:All Wikipedia articles written in South African English, WP:ENGVAR, WP:MOSNUM). - DePiep ( talk) 19:31, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
There are as many different conventions for this as there are days in the year. I'd suggest the most important thing is to pick one and stick with it consistently, which is what the current standard does. It doesn't particularly matter whether the decimal separator is a period or a comma, so long as readers are in no doubt as to which is which. Personally I'd suggest the SI standard of using thin spaces between groups of digits would be clearer in this regard, since it has the advantage that a thousands separator could never be confused for a decimal separator. Archon 2488 ( talk) 00:30, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
I believe that MOS:DECIMAL and MOS:DIGITS (as indicated by Wavelength above) are both definitive and explicit on the subject. Cinderella157 ( talk) 03:52, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
I see, MOS:DECIMAL is absolutely clear, had not see that one. Thanks all, these responses help me improve my knowledge & thinking about style. - DePiep ( talk) 09:49, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
101325 Pa (101.325 kPa)using {{convert|101325|Pa|kPa|abbr=on|comma=gaps}} for clarity when reading and to deter tampering (I hope). NebY ( talk) 11:15, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
Hello.
Is the word medalist (single L), or medallist (double L), a WP:ENGVAR issue? I.e. are there two correct spellings? I came across Category:Asian Games medalists, and the spelling wasn't consistent in the subcategories, so I wonder which categories, if any, should be renamed.
HandsomeFella ( talk) 12:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
Believe doublesingle-L is US according to Macquarie Dictionary.
Cinderella157 (
talk) 13:06, 30 March 2015 (UTC) I misread my dictionary - apologies.
Cinderella157 (
talk)
21:44, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
See the second para at [1]. Is that the correct treatment for the BEA? Should the French name be included? If so, should it be italicized? I apologize for being unable to extract the answer from the maze of apparently relevant guidelines. ― Mandruss ☎ 03:42, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Many of our polices and guidelines have affiliated Noticeboard pages - a place where editors can raise and discuss specific situations, and get opinions on how to interpret the policy or guideline in the context of those specific situations. I have realized that there is no equivalent WP:MOS/Noticeboard. Do you think creating one would be beneficial to the project? Blueboar ( talk) 12:56, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
"for discussing improvements to the Manual of Style page"(so technically this whole thread is out of order), but occasionally people ask questions here and it's only slightly disruptive. If the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal: creation of "style noticeboard" fails, clarifying that people can ask questions here would help. Also, if more questions are raised here and it becomes disruptive, that would provide good evidence of the need for a noticeboard in a future RfC. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 14:52, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
No idea where to put this. Does the lead of a bio article have to state the person's birthplace? I remember reading somewhere that only the birthdate is stated in lead, with birthplace in the infobox. Mac Dreamstate ( talk) 20:29, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Was wondering if I could get another opinion on the use of a definite article vs a zero article in use when talking about Microsoft's Surface line of tablets. See talk:Surface 2#Definite articles and countable proper names. I want to make sure I'm not missing something with regards to if the article should be used or not in prose. I know this page is more about the MOS itself, but as we don't have a separate style yet noticeboard, seemed like the best place to get knowledge third opinions. I tried checking the guidelines but we don't have anything handling the general case, though some topic specific guidelines exist. PaleAqua ( talk) 07:45, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
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Right now a lot of us are taking some flak at WP:VPPR for being sticklers for rules and standards. If anyone needs a boost, Science-based Medicine seems to show some appreciation. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 13:24, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
This will be hitting the Main Page in about 11 hours. Thoughts welcome here or at User talk:Dank#Bond TFA blurb (see discussion). - Dank ( push to talk) 12:58, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
This also applies to List of James Bond novels and short stories (which should not be italicised) and the discussion at Talk:List of James Bond novels and short stories § Small reversion. — sroc 💬 16:34, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
Can we keep the discussion centralised, please? I suggest leaving the discussion at Talk:List of James Bond novels and short stories § Small reversion where it belongs. — sroc 💬 17:10, 12 April 2015 (UTC) |
That works for me, I can ask future TFA questions on some relevant article's talk page and give a link here. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:05, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
I recently fielded a
semi-protected edit request where an IP editor requested that {{
Italic title}} be added to the article. They also requested the italics be used consistently throughout the article. I rarely see actual page names using that template, yet a visit to
WP:ITALICTITLE made no mention of it being preferred or disallowed or ... yet I vaguely remember seeing another page (perhaps related to
WP:WIZARD or
WP:YFA) that said that it shouldn't be done. So, I'm kind of confused and unsure what proper English for it would be and what the Wikipedian community's stand on it is. Please advise. — {{U|
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14:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox of individuals that have no religion.
The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.
Please help us determine consensus on this issue. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 23:58, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
In German, the prefix SS- is a part of the formal name of most units and organizations of the Nazi SS ( Schutzstaffel). Our usage is inconsistent in article titles, and within articles themselves, and I have not been able to find any discussion about hyphenating these names. My feeling is that names in German ought to follow German usage, forex Waffen-SS, and names translated into English, forex 1st SS Police Regiment, probably should as well, as do many, perhaps even most, English-language sources. Thoughts, comments?-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 21:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Should we include a recommendation on whether to use a comma immediately following these two abbreviations (i.e. before the parenthetical addition)? Should we, at least, be consistent at WP:MOS? Oxford style is to omit the comma "to avoid double punctuation", but New Hart's Rules does state that "commas are often used in US practice". I believe this has been discussed several times before, but I don't recall the conclusion. -- Boson ( talk) 17:09, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
PS: The rationale that we always use commas after full English phrases in place of these abbreviations, such as "in essence" or "that is" for "i.e.", or "for example" or "such as" for "e.g.", isn't compelling. The very fact that they'e intentionally abbreviated means they're an attempt to shorten, not expand, the text, so this contraindicates automatic addition of a comma. Rather, a comma should be added where it is helpful in parsing the sentence, but not added where it does not help (or even hinders, as does addition of the serial comma after the second item in a "list" of two). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:47, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
We have to divorce our approach to this question from what we are used to on a day-to-day basis. I spend a lot of time in live online communication where speed is of more essence than precision, and I had to revise this post to contain more commas than it did when I originally blurted it out. For example, I originally wrote "These next cases are basically run-ons and are sloppy writing as I think even most British readers would recognize despite being less accustomed to this comma in, say, British journalism". Many people, especially those young enough to have grown up with computer-mediated communications as part of day-to-day life, wouldn't even see anything wrong with that version, and much journalistic writing is heading this direction, especially in less formal publications like British lad mags and American tabloids. This anti-comma bias in textual communication in the days since the rise of the Internet and text messaging, and the fact that such telegraphic writing style increasingly colors our talk page discussions (note my shameless use of a terminal preposition in this subsection heading, and the upcoming smiley :-), is no reason to not think and write in a more critical, deliberative, precise register in the actual encyclopedic text. I think our increasing familiarity with comma-free, hyper-expedient writing in our daily lives is having a notable if gradual negative effect on WP article quality, and we need to be more vigilant against this corrosion of encyclopedic tone and style, but without descending into a stuffy stiltedness. (And in this regard, it is certainly possible to add too many commas. I have a substantial collection of publications from ca. the 1880s to 1930s, and it's quite an eye-opener to see how different both comma and hyphen usage were in that period compared to today – or "to-day" as they wrote then.)
By way of cross-media analogy, we should aim for something textually akin to the narrative style of high-end documentaries produced by PBS and BBC, vs. that of low-end infotainment like most of what comes out of the History Channel and the Discovery Channel, which often slides into "gee whiz" colloquialism, and breathless bombastics borrowed from tabloid journalism and sportscasting. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:47, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Does the MOS include any guidance on how to handle using the word “the” (as a definite article) before a title that begins with the same word? I.e., do we say, “In the The Hunger Games books”; or do we drop it from the title as in, “In the Hunger Games books”; or do we treat the one in the title as if it’s part of the sentence, as in, “In The Hunger Games books”? Or is the MOS silent on this? — 174.141.182.82 ( talk) 15:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
{{U|
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16:07, 20 April 2015 (UTC)By the way, do we recommend (or discourage or neither) inclusion of "the" in ordinary (no proper noun) linknames. For instance, in the lead section of the same article: "By the time the film adaptation of The Hunger Games [novel] was released in 2012" rather than, say, "By the time the film adaptation of the first book". Or, suitably modified for this context, one of "the film of the same name" and "the 2012 film of the same name". -- P64 ( talk) 18:19, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
By the time the [[The Hunger Games (film)|film adaptation of the first book]] ...
; not By the time [[The Hunger Games (film)|the film adaptation of the first book]] ...
. I thought we actually covered this in some other page, but I don't see it at
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking, which is where it should be if we add it. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
11:19, 23 April 2015 (UTC)There was a novel published in 1953 7½ Cents, which was turned into a hit Broadway show, which became a Doris Day movie, never shown on TV because the wrong rights were negotiated blah blah blah. One of the song numbers in the show and the film was (according to the WP articles) "7½ Cents" but on the album's article it's listed as "Seven and a Half Cents". On Talk:The Pajama Game (album) I raised the question of which is the "correct" title, and provided a link to an eBay listing showing nice pictures of both the insert and the LP. Annoyingly, the insert gives the numeric title, the LP gives the verbal title (with hyphens and all-caps). I do not know if this is a "style" question or not. If it is, I presume consistency is the goal. It may well be "factual", i.e., certain versions are definitive. Choor monster ( talk) 13:17, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I'm on board with these edits from 6 days ago. (In their favor, they haven't been reverted. Looking quickly, I don't see a discussion.) If we're going to say that it's better not to use quote marks when we're quoting people, could we be more specific about when and why, since that's going to come as news to a lot of Wikipedians? Also, compare:
Isn't the second one a bit harder to read, and easier to misunderstand? Do you reword in some fashion when the listing is "least concern"? - Dank ( push to talk) 03:28, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Quotation marks are interruptive, distracting, and serve multiple purposes, some of them inimical to an encyclopedic tone. This example, "listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as of 'least concern'", looks like "scare quotes", and many readers will infer there's something implausible about IUCN's listing. Given the amount of leftist/progressive/environmentalist vs. rightist/conservative/capitalist PoV pushing and counter-pushing running throughout Wikipedia, such an interpretation is probable among many readers, not just possible. We need not use quotation marks when summarizing, and it's poor writing style to do so, even when the summary happens to use some of the same common words and phrases. If you say "The pilot's hair is red", I can report this as "Dank said the pilot has red hair", not "Dank said the pilot has 'red' hair". We only need to put quotation marks about reported descriptions when they are emotive, figurative, contrarian, detailed, or otherwise unusual, e.g. "Dank said the pilot has 'screaming red' hair". I'm pretty sure all writing guides cover this. We need no quotation marks around "endangered" or whatever on the IUCN list. If a spokesperson for IUCN says "it's is the most endangered species on the planet, and we expect it be extinct next week if they don't stop cutting down this section of rain forest", yes, quote that.
The solution to any subjective awkwardness of your second example is simply to reword, as we always do when things are awkward, e.g. "Listed as of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature". I don't find your second example "a bit harder to read" than the first one; the opposite actually, because it doesn't trigger any "hmm, why does this have quotation marks around it?" questions. But both of your examples don't flow well, and adding quotation marks to something that doesn't need them doesn't help that problem. In this case, the endangered-or-not status is the important point, so that point should come first, not what organization said so with what label. (The IUCN labels, however, are widely accepted worldwide, another reason to not quotation-mark them.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 11:02, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Do not put quotation marks around a term of art or other jargon. If we have an article (or section) to which the term can be explanatorily linked, then do so upon its first use in an article.This fits nicely with existing practice, in literally millions of cases in WP where we aren't scare-quoting technical or other specialized terminology, but linking it. Indeed, the entire raison d'etre of our glossary articles, even if they're not fully developed yet, is to provide link targets for such terms instead of having to re-re-re-explain them in situ every time they're used in articles. Did you have any suggested wording for how to avoid the problem that "There are a lot of editors out there who would love to drop quote marks from various statements, because they want the world to hear that something is TRUE, spoken in Wikipedia's voice; they'd rather not clue the reader in that the words actually came from Dr. Quack"? The extant wording here, and WP:V and WP:RS, and WP:NPOV, still require attribution when we paraphrase/summarize. I have limited brain capacity to memorize the exact location of every rule, but I'm fairly certain we have guidance or policy on when statements are to be directly attributed in the text, and when a simple citation will suffice, but it wouldn't be in MOS, since it's a verifiability and reliable sourcing matter at one level, and a neutrality one at another. MOS is about how to write here, and shouldn't introduce new rules about how to source, so if we address that here it should be illustratively, and/or by reference to existing policy, not by introduction of a new rule about it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
The rule is: As much as possible, avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader.
In the Restoring Honor rally-article I linked this quote from Alveda King: "My daddy, Rev. A. D. King, my granddaddy, Martin Luther King, Sr. – we are a family of faith, hope and love. And that's why I'm here today. Glenn says... (etc.)" See [2]I thought it would be beneficient for the reader to be able to see who A.D. King and MLK sr. were. But by doing that, did I do wrong by violating the principle? The purpose was to clarfy things to the readers, not to "mislead or confuse" them. In short, I wonder if, in such cases, the principle is leading, or the risk of confusing the reader. Best regards, Jeff5102 ( talk) 08:54, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
That's what I'd say. I'd edit this in, but I'm pretty sure being bold isn't very wise on the official Wikipedia Manual of Style. ― Nøkkenbuer ( talk • contribs) 15:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)It is permissible to wikilink relevant information within quotes in order to clarify or specify what's being discussed and who's being mentioned. Linking within quotes should be avoided if it clutters the quotation, violates any of the principles or guidelines regarding quotations, or misleads or confuses the reader. Any and all wikilinks which fail to constructively clarify the quote should be removed.
Any thoughts on [3]? Semi-trailer truck is an international article, language version previously not labelled, but probably US English. However it's an international article, with national sections within it. There is a strong local variation in terminology between such sections - to the point where using US English in the UK context sounds bizarre.
Should such an article have one language version flattened across it "for consistency", or should the existing international variation be recognised within the relevant sections? Andy Dingley ( talk) 08:17, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't know if this is the place to ask (if not, please tell me where).
It seems to me that many articles, or parts of articles, are in the past tense when they should not be. If something existed in the past, and still exists, to me it should be explained in present tense. I tried to find any description of this in the style section, but didn't find it. Gah4 ( talk) 23:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
WP:TENSE currently points to an essay section concerning fiction. I propose it point instead to § Verb tense of the main MOS page, and we include here a sentence or two and a link to the current target. — 174.141.182.82 ( talk) 18:00, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Content forking#Distinction between acceptable and unacceptable forks. A WP:Permalink for that discussion is here. Flyer22 ( talk)
I've added a (hopefully noncontroversial) note to WP:ARTCON reminding editors not to break URLs when editing an article for ENGVAR consistency. I've seen this breakage happen more than once, and while this "exception" is slightly the odd man out among the others, which are more linguistic, it's definitely a point that needs to be kept in mind when doing consistency edits and I think it's useful to list it there. -- Trovatore ( talk) 18:32, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
For much of my Wikipedia editing career I have italicized names of companies, organizations, etc. whenever they were written in a Latin-based language that was not English. For example I italicize Lycée Français d'Accra in that particular article (but if the name was "French School of Accra" while using English that would not be italicized). However an editor informed me that Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Foreign_words says: "Proper names (such as place names) in other languages, however, are not usually italicized, nor are terms in non-Latin scripts." WhisperToMe ( talk) 17:16, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
We should specify when such a proper name is italicized. I can think of only two cases. Proposed wording:
lang-xx
templates will handle this italicization for you, and properly do not italicize non-Latin scripts. If using {{
lang}}
, the italicization must be added manually, around the template.Maybe someone can think of another case to illustrate, but these are the only two that come to mind for me. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:10, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
So per MOS a exception to using the present tense is past events. so I guess what I'm unsure of is if being the first of something was an "event" for example should I say "the Game Boy is an 8 bit hand held game... that was the first hand held" or would I say "Is the first hand held" an advance search shows 170,000 instances of "Was the first" and 65,000 "Is the first" Just not sure which way to go if MOS could give a bit more detail on what constitutes an event or have an example shed some light on this it would be eternally appreciated. Bryce Carmony ( talk) 21:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
There appears to be inconsistent spelling on two MOS pages:
I thought this was meant to be a plain apostrophe ("Qur'an"); Peter coxhead changed it back to "Qur’an"; Codename Lisa changed this back to "Qur'an" but Peter reverted on the basis that it is the traditional glottal stop symbol in Arabic.Religious texts (scriptures) are capitalized, but often not italicized (... the Qur’an ...).
The names of major revered works of scripture like the Bible, the Qur'an, the Talmud, and the Vedas ...
Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Punctuation §§ Apostrophes ( MOS:PUNCT) says:
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As the glyph in "Qur’an" is a foreign character, not an apostrophe, presumably MOS:CAPS should be updated to reflect the same glyph? I don't see why these MOS pages should treat it differently.
Note also that the alternative spelling at the article Quran is "Qurʾan". So which is the correct symbol? — sroc 💬 13:38, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
I've changed it to "the Quran", as that seems to be the common spelling in
Quran. -- [[
User:Edokter]] {{
talk}}
18:01, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
ʿ
and ʾ
.ʾ
) but it's not - as
MOS:PUNCT points out - a punctuation mark at all. Alif is - like aleph and alpha and a - the first letter of the alphabet, and it is the "a" in "Qur'an". The apostrophe in "Qur'an" stands for the Arabic diacritic
maddah, placed over the alif to indicate a glottal stop followed by the alif's long "a". Many English-speakers find that stop difficult to pronounce at will and so we often have "Quran" or "Koran" instead, without any stop pronounced or written.
NebY (
talk)
19:42, 4 May 2015 (UTC)-- [[
User:Edokter]] {{
talk}}
20:26, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
'
), glottal stop (’
) and alif (ʾ
). —
sroc
💬
02:15, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
There's no difference between the use of an apostrophe as a glottal stop in "Qu'ran", and in "li'l".It's a standard convention in English to use an apostrophe to indicate non-standard pronunciations which appear to have omitted letters, such as runnin' for running or 'is 'at for his hat. The apostrophe only indicates a substituted glottal stop in English words like li'l or bo'le (for "bottle"). By contrast, the issue in transliterating Arabic is how to represent alif maddah. There are a variety of systems for the Romanization of Arabic, most of which require the use of two distinct 'left' and 'right' marks. ISO uses ʿ ʾ; other systems use ‘ ’. Peter coxhead ( talk) 11:16, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
A user, Unibond ( talk · contribs), has edited the article on Reg Smythe, changing "he grew up poor" to "he grew up in poverty", on the grounds that "poor is not an adverb". I looked at his recent editing history and saw he'd done the same thing to the article on Liam Neeson, changing "He was raised Roman Catholic" to "He was raised as a Roman Catholic" for the same reason. This seems to me to be a hypercorrection, "correcting" perfectly normal and acceptable usage for the sake of a prescriptive grammar rule that doesn't really apply. Are there any issues in the MOS with constructions like "grew up poor" or "raised Roman Catholic"? -- Nicknack009 ( talk) 21:22, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
I completely agree that you should use the present tense to refer to historic aircraft (i.e: "The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and other conflicts."). I think this should definitely apply to historic aircraft where examples still exist, but what about aircraft where no survivors exist (like Hispano HA-100), or other articles about aircraft that do not mention survivors one way or other (like Mitsubishi Ki-21)? -- rogerd ( talk) 17:23, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
RG's proposal that we establish a style noticeboard has not passed. There was a small majority against, and the closer also seems to be concerned with hypothetical problems. We should establish the MoS as the official place for style questions. By that I mean that we should do the following:
In effect, this would make WT:MoS the official Wikipedia style help desk/noticeboard instead of the unofficial one.
Likely result: This works. We keep doing what we're doing with respect to answering people's questions but there's no more overlap and a few newbs who wouldn't otherwise know where to go for help get directed here. Also possible: We get so many style questions that we can revisit the idea of a noticeboard with something more concrete to show participants, which might outweigh any hypothetical concerns that are currently affecting the issue.
We should probably work out the exact text that we want before taking it to WP:VPPR. Does anyone want to add or subtract from this list? Would anyone like to suggest an exact wording? EDIT: I'd also like to personally request that no one person go to WP:VPPR on their own until we've all had a chance to talk about it for a bit. Let's work out exactly what we want to say together, notify the regulars at other style talk pages, identify problems, etc. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 16:00, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
If there's a desire to have somewhere specific for style questions, but also a desire not the mix that with the purpose of this noticeboard, why not just create a sub-page. That wouldn't need a special consensus, just enough support to prevent it getting deleted. Formerip ( talk) 13:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Neither have the "force of policy", and the proposal was very clear that there was no "force of policy" involved. Look at RS/N, for instance, which says, "While we attempt to offer a second opinion, and the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not official policy". Please read WP:PNB, the convention governing noticeboards, "Noticeboards on Wikipedia are pages where editors can ask questions and request assistance from people who are familiar with the policies and guidelines covered by each individual board. They are to be used for specific problems that editors encounter in writing and maintaining Wikipedia articles". I really don't know what you're talking about. It seems that lies and misconceptions have clouded the field of view.
"establishment of a new Wikipedia process that was rejected", but as a discussion to develop a new proposal which will reflect what was learned from the RfC. Right or wrong, people see noticeboards in a negative light. If we can create something that serves the needs of writers, which doesn't have those negative associations, we are moving forward. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 04:23, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
So let's say we do want to establish either this talk page or a subpage (Wt:MoS/questions, etc.) as the official style Q&A site. Is everyone all right with the idea of posting notices at other style talk pages that questions are to be asked here instead? Ideally, I'd love to get a few words into the notice that is sent to new users. How about the wording? "If you have a question about Wikipedia's rules and guidelines concerning punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting and other style issues, please ask at WT:MoS(/questions)"? Darkfrog24 ( talk) 01:55, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
The 34 "oppose" votes given in the noticeboard proposal listed the following reasons:
All opposers have my permission to correct the position of their own number on this list. Ask for any other changes.
We can expect that most of the people who objected for reason #2 would be on board with making the MoS official. At least some of the people who objected for #1 and #4 will be okay with merely endorsing an existing page rather than creating a new one. We can fix #6 with better communication (working out exactly what to say with care before submitting a formal proposal). Overall, it looks like endorsing WT:MoS would go over better than creating WT:MoS/Questions. Thoughts? Darkfrog24 ( talk) 03:49, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
If we're going to address the concerns of the people who objected to the noticeboard, we should also address those of the 28 people who supported it:
All editors have my permission to move, add or remove their own number. Ask for any other changes.
Most of the people in group #1 did not specifically express opposition to answering questions at WT:MoS but one or two did. It was mostly along the lines of "Well a noticeboard would be better." We already know that RG (first responder) does not like this idea, but that doesn't mean they all wouldn't. The people who cited reason #2 will probably be pleased with establishing WT:MoS as the official site for questions. For the most part, it looks like people who supported the noticeboard would support this. It also looks like most of these people would support establishing WT:MoS/questions. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 19:01, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Unless someone can summarise the hectares of text above, I'll never know what happened. Except that Darkfrog's original suggestion seems like a good one. Here are the reasons for centralising Q and A here, as I see them:
Tony (talk) 12:02, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
I believe that because the last proposal was made at Village Pump: Proposals, this one should be made there too. It's arguable that we don't need permission to make this kind of change, but doing so would avoid even the appearance of impropriety, especially because one of the big objections to creating a dedicated noticeboard was forum shopping. Here is my draft. Because this is a proposal and not an RfC, I'm not trying to be neutral.
Because the proposal to establish a dedicated style noticeboard has fallen through, it is now proposed that WT:MoS be established as Wikipedia's official page for style Q&A. This would involve the following actions:
- 1) Adding text to the effect of "and for questions about the use of capitalization, punctuation, organization and other matters of style on Wikipedia" to "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Manual of Style page."
- 2) Inserting text to the effect of "ask style questions at WT:MoS" any place that would otherwise have pointed to a style noticeboard, including notes sent automatically to newcomers.
- 3) Inserting text to the effect of "ask style questions at WT:MoS (and not here)" in the talk pages of other style guides so that style Q&A is more centralized.
The goal of this proposal is make help with Wikipedia style issues easier to find and to reduce opportunities for forum shopping. WT: MoS has already served as an unofficial Q&A board for many years. Examples: (link1), (link2), (link3). The discussion leading up to this proposal is available here [link to this conversation].
Thoughts? Do any of you see things that should go in or come out? Anyone want to recommend a specific question and answer that would make a good example? If there are no comments, I'll put it up in a day or so. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 17:38, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
And we're up. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 05:07, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
There is now a proposal at the Village Pump that Wikipedia talk:MoS be established as Wikipedia's official page for style Q&A. This would involve actively guiding editors with style questions to WT:MoS and away from other pages. Participation is welcome. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 12:41, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy/Standards is the de facto MOS guideline for anthroponymy pages, yet it's currently located as a subpage of a Wikiproject. This page clearly belongs in the MOS, and I have proposed moving it there. If you want to comment, please do so in that thread. Thanks! — Swpb talk 13:08, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
I've hardly ever seen anyone else but me interested in creating our English texts for the easiest possible reading aloud, to children and the blind and others, by the avoidance of an unnecessary amount of foreign words. Foreign words, often hard or impossible for English readers to pronounce, are being added to our articles in what I consider an alarming extent noiwadays nowadays, and some of the users doing so seem to have their own agendas in pushing as many words as they can from their (non-Engliush) languages into all kinds of texts here, where I can't see it's necessary to do that to improve them. What, if anything, can be dome done to stem the tide? --
SergeWoodzing (
talk)
23:47, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
I am surprised, and frankly sort of disappointed, to see that two colleagues would be so cavalier as to try to ridicule or even bully me by remarking on my typos (now corrected) and Latin grammar, rather than dealing with what I consider an increasingly serious problem on English Wikipedia. How sad!
Even as an old person with poor eyesight, with English as my first language, and having taught English for many decades, I can't see how what I wrote can be interpreted as a wish, in general, to "protect children, the blind and others from foreign words". ?
The fact I'm addressing here is that more and more foreign language words are being added where it is not necessary to do so, and that (just like ridiculing other editors), I believe is not constructive to this project.
I am aware of, and appreciate, Simple English Wikipedia, whereas I think our regular readers should be able to use regular English Wikipedia without the unnecessary (note: unnecessary!) obstacles that the addition of an unnecessary (note; unnecessary!) amount of hard-or-impossible-to-pronouce foreign words obviously creates.
Thank you Wavelength for those valuabe links! Could/should something be added there more specifically about not adding foreign words unnecessarily?
There is at least one editor I know of (among 5-6 I've seen doing this a lot) who does not consider foreign words to be "technical terms", and thus sees no limit to what h/s can go about doing, more and more. -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 16:42, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
Started a discussion regarding part of the MoS at the Village pump. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Should the holder of a political office be linked within an infobox more than once (i.e. as the successor), when they have already been linked (e.g. as the vice president, predecessor, lieutenant, etc.)?. — Godsy( TALK CONT) 06:38, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
What will the archive box at the top of this talk page look like when the talk page reaches 1000 archives?? The box will get wordier and wordier, that somewhere along the line it will take up too much space. Any thoughts?? Georgia guy ( talk) 17:54, 23 May 2015 (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 160 | ← | Archive 163 | Archive 164 | Archive 165 | Archive 166 | Archive 167 | → | Archive 170 |
Right now it says 'trivial spelling and typographic errors should simply be corrected without comment (for example, correct basicly to basically and harasssment to harassment), unless the slip is textually important'. I have always learned, and a quick Google search confirms ( example), that direct quotations are never to be messed with, even if the author makes a trivial spelling mistake. Wikipedia is the only exception to this rule I have encountered so far. Are we sure we want this? Banedon ( talk) 08:22, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
— sroc 💬 14:04, 18 March 2015 (UTC)Of course, quotations do not always convey that the speaker actually said or wrote the quoted material. "Punctuation marks, like words, have many uses. Writers often use quotation marks, yet no reasonable reader would assume that such punctuation automatically implies the truth of the quoted material." Baker v. Los Angeles Examiner, 42 Cal. 3d, at 263, 721 P. 2d, at 92. In Baker, a television reviewer printed a hypothetical conversation between a station vice president and writer/producer, and the court found that no reasonable reader would conclude the plaintiff in fact had made the statement attributed to him. Id., at 267, 721 P. 2d, at 95. Writers often use quotations as in Baker, and a reader will not reasonably understand the quotations to indicate reproduction of a conversation that took place. In other instances, an acknowledgement that the work is so-called docudrama or historical fiction, or that it recreates conversations from memory, not from recordings, might indicate that the quotations should not be interpreted as the actual statements of the speaker to whom they are attributed.
The work at issue here, however, as with much journalistic writing, provides the reader no clue that the quotations are being used as a rhetorical device or to paraphrase the speaker's actual statements. To the contrary, the work purports to be nonfiction, the result of numerous interviews. At least a trier of fact could so conclude. The work contains lengthy quotations attributed to petitioner, and neither Malcolm nor her publishers indicate to the reader that the quotations are anything but the reproduction of actual conversations. Further, the work was published in The New Yorker, a magazine which at the relevant time seemed to enjoy a reputation for scrupulous factual accuracy. These factors would, or at least could, lead a reader to take the quotations at face value. A defendant may be able to argue to the jury that quotations should be viewed by the reader as nonliteral or reconstructions, but we conclude that a trier of fact in this case could find that the reasonable reader would understand the quotations to be nearly verbatim reports of statements made by the subject.
.......
In some sense, any alteration of a verbatim quotation is false. But writers and reporters by necessity alter what people say, at the very least to eliminate grammatical and syntactical infelicities. If every alteration constituted the falsity required to prove actual malice, the practice of journalism, which the First Amendment standard is designed to protect, would require a radical change, one inconsistent with our precedents and First Amendment principles. Petitioner concedes this absolute definition of falsity in the quotation context is too stringent, and acknowledges that "minor changes to correct for grammar or syntax" do not amount to falsity for purposes of proving actual malice. Brief for Petitioner 18, 36-37. We agree, and must determine what, in addition to this technical falsity, proves falsity for purposes of the actual malice inquiry.
Petitioner argues that, excepting correction of grammar or syntax, publication of a quotation with knowledge that it does not contain the words the public figure used demonstrates actual malice. The author will have published the quotation with knowledge of falsity, and no more need be shown. Petitioner suggests that by invoking more forgiving standards the Court of Appeals would permit and encourage the publication of falsehoods. Petitioner believes that the intentional manufacture of quotations does not "represen[t] the sort of inaccuracy that is commonplace in the forum of robust debate to which the New York Times rule applies," Bose Corp., 466 U. S., at 513, and that protection of deliberate falsehoods would hinder the First Amendment values of robust and well-informed public debate by reducing the reliability of information available to the public.
We reject the idea that any alteration beyond correction of grammar or syntax by itself proves falsity in the sense relevant to determining actual malice under the First Amendment. An interviewer who writes from notes often will engage in the task of attempting a reconstruction of the speaker's statement. That author would, we may assume, act with knowledge that at times she has attributed to her subject words other than those actually used. Under petitioner's proposed standard, an author in this situation would lack First Amendment protection if she reported as quotations the substance of a subject's derogatory statements about himself.
Even if a journalist has tape recorded the spoken statement of a public figure, the full and exact statement will be reported in only rare circumstances. The existence of both a speaker and a reporter; the translation between two media, speech and the printed word; the addition of punctuation; and the practical necessity to edit and make intelligible a speaker's perhaps rambling comments, all make it misleading to suggest that a quotation will be reconstructed with complete accuracy. The use or absence of punctuation may distort a speaker's meaning, for example, where that meaning turns upon a speaker's emphasis of a particular word. In other cases, if a speaker makes an obvious misstatement, for example by unconscious substitution of one name for another, a journalist might alter the speaker's words but preserve his intended meaning. And conversely, an exact quotation out of context can distort meaning, although the speaker did use each reported word.
As an aside - typos within transcripts should not be ascribed to the speaker - nor should "um" and the like be used. People do not speak with typewriters, and an occasional "um" is done by the best of us, and is usually not placed in real transcripts. Thus using "sic" where any transcript is used is marginal at best. IMO. Nor should transcripts carp on UK/American spelling issues. Collect ( talk) 15:52, 16 March 2015 (UTC)
My opinion on this is that it is totally not important for readers to know that whoever is being quoted made a typo. I mean, really, why would it be? Typos happen to even the best of us and really aren't a reflection of anything substantive at all, I don't think, so it's just pedantic and disruptive to throw in [sic]s all the time. I also think that [sic] is in poor taste in general (it's like saying "aha! I managed to discover a blatant flaw in your work!", and a lot of the time it even seems somewhat gleeful). So, assuming it is worth noting that a typo was made, which again I dont think it is, I think a much better practice is to fix the typo yourself and add brackets where necessary. AgnosticAphid talk 15:50, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
Interesting question at Convert, decimal notation. In South Africa, the decimal symbol is a comma, not period. So 1.5 km in USA is written 1,5 km in SA (forget about miles for now). The question is, when the WP:ENGVAR for an article is South African, should the decimal symbol be comma?
(see also Category:All Wikipedia articles written in South African English, WP:ENGVAR, WP:MOSNUM). - DePiep ( talk) 19:31, 24 March 2015 (UTC)
There are as many different conventions for this as there are days in the year. I'd suggest the most important thing is to pick one and stick with it consistently, which is what the current standard does. It doesn't particularly matter whether the decimal separator is a period or a comma, so long as readers are in no doubt as to which is which. Personally I'd suggest the SI standard of using thin spaces between groups of digits would be clearer in this regard, since it has the advantage that a thousands separator could never be confused for a decimal separator. Archon 2488 ( talk) 00:30, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
I believe that MOS:DECIMAL and MOS:DIGITS (as indicated by Wavelength above) are both definitive and explicit on the subject. Cinderella157 ( talk) 03:52, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
I see, MOS:DECIMAL is absolutely clear, had not see that one. Thanks all, these responses help me improve my knowledge & thinking about style. - DePiep ( talk) 09:49, 25 March 2015 (UTC)
101325 Pa (101.325 kPa)using {{convert|101325|Pa|kPa|abbr=on|comma=gaps}} for clarity when reading and to deter tampering (I hope). NebY ( talk) 11:15, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
Hello.
Is the word medalist (single L), or medallist (double L), a WP:ENGVAR issue? I.e. are there two correct spellings? I came across Category:Asian Games medalists, and the spelling wasn't consistent in the subcategories, so I wonder which categories, if any, should be renamed.
HandsomeFella ( talk) 12:45, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
Believe doublesingle-L is US according to Macquarie Dictionary.
Cinderella157 (
talk) 13:06, 30 March 2015 (UTC) I misread my dictionary - apologies.
Cinderella157 (
talk)
21:44, 30 March 2015 (UTC)
See the second para at [1]. Is that the correct treatment for the BEA? Should the French name be included? If so, should it be italicized? I apologize for being unable to extract the answer from the maze of apparently relevant guidelines. ― Mandruss ☎ 03:42, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Many of our polices and guidelines have affiliated Noticeboard pages - a place where editors can raise and discuss specific situations, and get opinions on how to interpret the policy or guideline in the context of those specific situations. I have realized that there is no equivalent WP:MOS/Noticeboard. Do you think creating one would be beneficial to the project? Blueboar ( talk) 12:56, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
"for discussing improvements to the Manual of Style page"(so technically this whole thread is out of order), but occasionally people ask questions here and it's only slightly disruptive. If the RfC at Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Proposal: creation of "style noticeboard" fails, clarifying that people can ask questions here would help. Also, if more questions are raised here and it becomes disruptive, that would provide good evidence of the need for a noticeboard in a future RfC. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 14:52, 3 April 2015 (UTC)
No idea where to put this. Does the lead of a bio article have to state the person's birthplace? I remember reading somewhere that only the birthdate is stated in lead, with birthplace in the infobox. Mac Dreamstate ( talk) 20:29, 2 April 2015 (UTC)
Was wondering if I could get another opinion on the use of a definite article vs a zero article in use when talking about Microsoft's Surface line of tablets. See talk:Surface 2#Definite articles and countable proper names. I want to make sure I'm not missing something with regards to if the article should be used or not in prose. I know this page is more about the MOS itself, but as we don't have a separate style yet noticeboard, seemed like the best place to get knowledge third opinions. I tried checking the guidelines but we don't have anything handling the general case, though some topic specific guidelines exist. PaleAqua ( talk) 07:45, 8 April 2015 (UTC)
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Right now a lot of us are taking some flak at WP:VPPR for being sticklers for rules and standards. If anyone needs a boost, Science-based Medicine seems to show some appreciation. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 13:24, 14 April 2015 (UTC)
This will be hitting the Main Page in about 11 hours. Thoughts welcome here or at User talk:Dank#Bond TFA blurb (see discussion). - Dank ( push to talk) 12:58, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
This also applies to List of James Bond novels and short stories (which should not be italicised) and the discussion at Talk:List of James Bond novels and short stories § Small reversion. — sroc 💬 16:34, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
Can we keep the discussion centralised, please? I suggest leaving the discussion at Talk:List of James Bond novels and short stories § Small reversion where it belongs. — sroc 💬 17:10, 12 April 2015 (UTC) |
That works for me, I can ask future TFA questions on some relevant article's talk page and give a link here. - Dank ( push to talk) 19:05, 12 April 2015 (UTC)
I recently fielded a
semi-protected edit request where an IP editor requested that {{
Italic title}} be added to the article. They also requested the italics be used consistently throughout the article. I rarely see actual page names using that template, yet a visit to
WP:ITALICTITLE made no mention of it being preferred or disallowed or ... yet I vaguely remember seeing another page (perhaps related to
WP:WIZARD or
WP:YFA) that said that it shouldn't be done. So, I'm kind of confused and unsure what proper English for it would be and what the Wikipedian community's stand on it is. Please advise. — {{U|
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14:56, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
There is an RfC on the question of using "Religion: None" vs. "Religion: None (atheist)" in the infobox of individuals that have no religion.
The RfC is at Template talk:Infobox person#RfC: Religion infobox entries for individuals that have no religion.
Please help us determine consensus on this issue. -- Guy Macon ( talk) 23:58, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
In German, the prefix SS- is a part of the formal name of most units and organizations of the Nazi SS ( Schutzstaffel). Our usage is inconsistent in article titles, and within articles themselves, and I have not been able to find any discussion about hyphenating these names. My feeling is that names in German ought to follow German usage, forex Waffen-SS, and names translated into English, forex 1st SS Police Regiment, probably should as well, as do many, perhaps even most, English-language sources. Thoughts, comments?-- Sturmvogel 66 ( talk) 21:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Should we include a recommendation on whether to use a comma immediately following these two abbreviations (i.e. before the parenthetical addition)? Should we, at least, be consistent at WP:MOS? Oxford style is to omit the comma "to avoid double punctuation", but New Hart's Rules does state that "commas are often used in US practice". I believe this has been discussed several times before, but I don't recall the conclusion. -- Boson ( talk) 17:09, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
PS: The rationale that we always use commas after full English phrases in place of these abbreviations, such as "in essence" or "that is" for "i.e.", or "for example" or "such as" for "e.g.", isn't compelling. The very fact that they'e intentionally abbreviated means they're an attempt to shorten, not expand, the text, so this contraindicates automatic addition of a comma. Rather, a comma should be added where it is helpful in parsing the sentence, but not added where it does not help (or even hinders, as does addition of the serial comma after the second item in a "list" of two). — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:47, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
We have to divorce our approach to this question from what we are used to on a day-to-day basis. I spend a lot of time in live online communication where speed is of more essence than precision, and I had to revise this post to contain more commas than it did when I originally blurted it out. For example, I originally wrote "These next cases are basically run-ons and are sloppy writing as I think even most British readers would recognize despite being less accustomed to this comma in, say, British journalism". Many people, especially those young enough to have grown up with computer-mediated communications as part of day-to-day life, wouldn't even see anything wrong with that version, and much journalistic writing is heading this direction, especially in less formal publications like British lad mags and American tabloids. This anti-comma bias in textual communication in the days since the rise of the Internet and text messaging, and the fact that such telegraphic writing style increasingly colors our talk page discussions (note my shameless use of a terminal preposition in this subsection heading, and the upcoming smiley :-), is no reason to not think and write in a more critical, deliberative, precise register in the actual encyclopedic text. I think our increasing familiarity with comma-free, hyper-expedient writing in our daily lives is having a notable if gradual negative effect on WP article quality, and we need to be more vigilant against this corrosion of encyclopedic tone and style, but without descending into a stuffy stiltedness. (And in this regard, it is certainly possible to add too many commas. I have a substantial collection of publications from ca. the 1880s to 1930s, and it's quite an eye-opener to see how different both comma and hyphen usage were in that period compared to today – or "to-day" as they wrote then.)
By way of cross-media analogy, we should aim for something textually akin to the narrative style of high-end documentaries produced by PBS and BBC, vs. that of low-end infotainment like most of what comes out of the History Channel and the Discovery Channel, which often slides into "gee whiz" colloquialism, and breathless bombastics borrowed from tabloid journalism and sportscasting. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 09:47, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Does the MOS include any guidance on how to handle using the word “the” (as a definite article) before a title that begins with the same word? I.e., do we say, “In the The Hunger Games books”; or do we drop it from the title as in, “In the Hunger Games books”; or do we treat the one in the title as if it’s part of the sentence, as in, “In The Hunger Games books”? Or is the MOS silent on this? — 174.141.182.82 ( talk) 15:10, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
{{U|
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16:07, 20 April 2015 (UTC)By the way, do we recommend (or discourage or neither) inclusion of "the" in ordinary (no proper noun) linknames. For instance, in the lead section of the same article: "By the time the film adaptation of The Hunger Games [novel] was released in 2012" rather than, say, "By the time the film adaptation of the first book". Or, suitably modified for this context, one of "the film of the same name" and "the 2012 film of the same name". -- P64 ( talk) 18:19, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
By the time the [[The Hunger Games (film)|film adaptation of the first book]] ...
; not By the time [[The Hunger Games (film)|the film adaptation of the first book]] ...
. I thought we actually covered this in some other page, but I don't see it at
Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking, which is where it should be if we add it. —
SMcCandlish ☺
☏
¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼
11:19, 23 April 2015 (UTC)There was a novel published in 1953 7½ Cents, which was turned into a hit Broadway show, which became a Doris Day movie, never shown on TV because the wrong rights were negotiated blah blah blah. One of the song numbers in the show and the film was (according to the WP articles) "7½ Cents" but on the album's article it's listed as "Seven and a Half Cents". On Talk:The Pajama Game (album) I raised the question of which is the "correct" title, and provided a link to an eBay listing showing nice pictures of both the insert and the LP. Annoyingly, the insert gives the numeric title, the LP gives the verbal title (with hyphens and all-caps). I do not know if this is a "style" question or not. If it is, I presume consistency is the goal. It may well be "factual", i.e., certain versions are definitive. Choor monster ( talk) 13:17, 15 April 2015 (UTC)
I'm not sure if I'm on board with these edits from 6 days ago. (In their favor, they haven't been reverted. Looking quickly, I don't see a discussion.) If we're going to say that it's better not to use quote marks when we're quoting people, could we be more specific about when and why, since that's going to come as news to a lot of Wikipedians? Also, compare:
Isn't the second one a bit harder to read, and easier to misunderstand? Do you reword in some fashion when the listing is "least concern"? - Dank ( push to talk) 03:28, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Quotation marks are interruptive, distracting, and serve multiple purposes, some of them inimical to an encyclopedic tone. This example, "listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as of 'least concern'", looks like "scare quotes", and many readers will infer there's something implausible about IUCN's listing. Given the amount of leftist/progressive/environmentalist vs. rightist/conservative/capitalist PoV pushing and counter-pushing running throughout Wikipedia, such an interpretation is probable among many readers, not just possible. We need not use quotation marks when summarizing, and it's poor writing style to do so, even when the summary happens to use some of the same common words and phrases. If you say "The pilot's hair is red", I can report this as "Dank said the pilot has red hair", not "Dank said the pilot has 'red' hair". We only need to put quotation marks about reported descriptions when they are emotive, figurative, contrarian, detailed, or otherwise unusual, e.g. "Dank said the pilot has 'screaming red' hair". I'm pretty sure all writing guides cover this. We need no quotation marks around "endangered" or whatever on the IUCN list. If a spokesperson for IUCN says "it's is the most endangered species on the planet, and we expect it be extinct next week if they don't stop cutting down this section of rain forest", yes, quote that.
The solution to any subjective awkwardness of your second example is simply to reword, as we always do when things are awkward, e.g. "Listed as of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature". I don't find your second example "a bit harder to read" than the first one; the opposite actually, because it doesn't trigger any "hmm, why does this have quotation marks around it?" questions. But both of your examples don't flow well, and adding quotation marks to something that doesn't need them doesn't help that problem. In this case, the endangered-or-not status is the important point, so that point should come first, not what organization said so with what label. (The IUCN labels, however, are widely accepted worldwide, another reason to not quotation-mark them.) — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 11:02, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
Do not put quotation marks around a term of art or other jargon. If we have an article (or section) to which the term can be explanatorily linked, then do so upon its first use in an article.This fits nicely with existing practice, in literally millions of cases in WP where we aren't scare-quoting technical or other specialized terminology, but linking it. Indeed, the entire raison d'etre of our glossary articles, even if they're not fully developed yet, is to provide link targets for such terms instead of having to re-re-re-explain them in situ every time they're used in articles. Did you have any suggested wording for how to avoid the problem that "There are a lot of editors out there who would love to drop quote marks from various statements, because they want the world to hear that something is TRUE, spoken in Wikipedia's voice; they'd rather not clue the reader in that the words actually came from Dr. Quack"? The extant wording here, and WP:V and WP:RS, and WP:NPOV, still require attribution when we paraphrase/summarize. I have limited brain capacity to memorize the exact location of every rule, but I'm fairly certain we have guidance or policy on when statements are to be directly attributed in the text, and when a simple citation will suffice, but it wouldn't be in MOS, since it's a verifiability and reliable sourcing matter at one level, and a neutrality one at another. MOS is about how to write here, and shouldn't introduce new rules about how to source, so if we address that here it should be illustratively, and/or by reference to existing policy, not by introduction of a new rule about it. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 07:58, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
The rule is: As much as possible, avoid linking from within quotes, which may clutter the quotation, violate the principle of leaving quotations unchanged, and mislead or confuse the reader.
In the Restoring Honor rally-article I linked this quote from Alveda King: "My daddy, Rev. A. D. King, my granddaddy, Martin Luther King, Sr. – we are a family of faith, hope and love. And that's why I'm here today. Glenn says... (etc.)" See [2]I thought it would be beneficient for the reader to be able to see who A.D. King and MLK sr. were. But by doing that, did I do wrong by violating the principle? The purpose was to clarfy things to the readers, not to "mislead or confuse" them. In short, I wonder if, in such cases, the principle is leading, or the risk of confusing the reader. Best regards, Jeff5102 ( talk) 08:54, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
That's what I'd say. I'd edit this in, but I'm pretty sure being bold isn't very wise on the official Wikipedia Manual of Style. ― Nøkkenbuer ( talk • contribs) 15:23, 22 April 2015 (UTC)It is permissible to wikilink relevant information within quotes in order to clarify or specify what's being discussed and who's being mentioned. Linking within quotes should be avoided if it clutters the quotation, violates any of the principles or guidelines regarding quotations, or misleads or confuses the reader. Any and all wikilinks which fail to constructively clarify the quote should be removed.
Any thoughts on [3]? Semi-trailer truck is an international article, language version previously not labelled, but probably US English. However it's an international article, with national sections within it. There is a strong local variation in terminology between such sections - to the point where using US English in the UK context sounds bizarre.
Should such an article have one language version flattened across it "for consistency", or should the existing international variation be recognised within the relevant sections? Andy Dingley ( talk) 08:17, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
I don't know if this is the place to ask (if not, please tell me where).
It seems to me that many articles, or parts of articles, are in the past tense when they should not be. If something existed in the past, and still exists, to me it should be explained in present tense. I tried to find any description of this in the style section, but didn't find it. Gah4 ( talk) 23:42, 21 April 2015 (UTC)
WP:TENSE currently points to an essay section concerning fiction. I propose it point instead to § Verb tense of the main MOS page, and we include here a sentence or two and a link to the current target. — 174.141.182.82 ( talk) 18:00, 23 April 2015 (UTC)
Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Content forking#Distinction between acceptable and unacceptable forks. A WP:Permalink for that discussion is here. Flyer22 ( talk)
I've added a (hopefully noncontroversial) note to WP:ARTCON reminding editors not to break URLs when editing an article for ENGVAR consistency. I've seen this breakage happen more than once, and while this "exception" is slightly the odd man out among the others, which are more linguistic, it's definitely a point that needs to be kept in mind when doing consistency edits and I think it's useful to list it there. -- Trovatore ( talk) 18:32, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
For much of my Wikipedia editing career I have italicized names of companies, organizations, etc. whenever they were written in a Latin-based language that was not English. For example I italicize Lycée Français d'Accra in that particular article (but if the name was "French School of Accra" while using English that would not be italicized). However an editor informed me that Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Foreign_words says: "Proper names (such as place names) in other languages, however, are not usually italicized, nor are terms in non-Latin scripts." WhisperToMe ( talk) 17:16, 27 April 2015 (UTC)
We should specify when such a proper name is italicized. I can think of only two cases. Proposed wording:
lang-xx
templates will handle this italicization for you, and properly do not italicize non-Latin scripts. If using {{
lang}}
, the italicization must be added manually, around the template.Maybe someone can think of another case to illustrate, but these are the only two that come to mind for me. — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼ 21:10, 2 May 2015 (UTC)
So per MOS a exception to using the present tense is past events. so I guess what I'm unsure of is if being the first of something was an "event" for example should I say "the Game Boy is an 8 bit hand held game... that was the first hand held" or would I say "Is the first hand held" an advance search shows 170,000 instances of "Was the first" and 65,000 "Is the first" Just not sure which way to go if MOS could give a bit more detail on what constitutes an event or have an example shed some light on this it would be eternally appreciated. Bryce Carmony ( talk) 21:50, 8 May 2015 (UTC)
There appears to be inconsistent spelling on two MOS pages:
I thought this was meant to be a plain apostrophe ("Qur'an"); Peter coxhead changed it back to "Qur’an"; Codename Lisa changed this back to "Qur'an" but Peter reverted on the basis that it is the traditional glottal stop symbol in Arabic.Religious texts (scriptures) are capitalized, but often not italicized (... the Qur’an ...).
The names of major revered works of scripture like the Bible, the Qur'an, the Talmud, and the Vedas ...
Wikipedia:Manual of Style § Punctuation §§ Apostrophes ( MOS:PUNCT) says:
|
As the glyph in "Qur’an" is a foreign character, not an apostrophe, presumably MOS:CAPS should be updated to reflect the same glyph? I don't see why these MOS pages should treat it differently.
Note also that the alternative spelling at the article Quran is "Qurʾan". So which is the correct symbol? — sroc 💬 13:38, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
I've changed it to "the Quran", as that seems to be the common spelling in
Quran. -- [[
User:Edokter]] {{
talk}}
18:01, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
ʿ
and ʾ
.ʾ
) but it's not - as
MOS:PUNCT points out - a punctuation mark at all. Alif is - like aleph and alpha and a - the first letter of the alphabet, and it is the "a" in "Qur'an". The apostrophe in "Qur'an" stands for the Arabic diacritic
maddah, placed over the alif to indicate a glottal stop followed by the alif's long "a". Many English-speakers find that stop difficult to pronounce at will and so we often have "Quran" or "Koran" instead, without any stop pronounced or written.
NebY (
talk)
19:42, 4 May 2015 (UTC)-- [[
User:Edokter]] {{
talk}}
20:26, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
'
), glottal stop (’
) and alif (ʾ
). —
sroc
💬
02:15, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
There's no difference between the use of an apostrophe as a glottal stop in "Qu'ran", and in "li'l".It's a standard convention in English to use an apostrophe to indicate non-standard pronunciations which appear to have omitted letters, such as runnin' for running or 'is 'at for his hat. The apostrophe only indicates a substituted glottal stop in English words like li'l or bo'le (for "bottle"). By contrast, the issue in transliterating Arabic is how to represent alif maddah. There are a variety of systems for the Romanization of Arabic, most of which require the use of two distinct 'left' and 'right' marks. ISO uses ʿ ʾ; other systems use ‘ ’. Peter coxhead ( talk) 11:16, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
A user, Unibond ( talk · contribs), has edited the article on Reg Smythe, changing "he grew up poor" to "he grew up in poverty", on the grounds that "poor is not an adverb". I looked at his recent editing history and saw he'd done the same thing to the article on Liam Neeson, changing "He was raised Roman Catholic" to "He was raised as a Roman Catholic" for the same reason. This seems to me to be a hypercorrection, "correcting" perfectly normal and acceptable usage for the sake of a prescriptive grammar rule that doesn't really apply. Are there any issues in the MOS with constructions like "grew up poor" or "raised Roman Catholic"? -- Nicknack009 ( talk) 21:22, 10 May 2015 (UTC)
I completely agree that you should use the present tense to refer to historic aircraft (i.e: "The North American Aviation P-51 Mustang is an American long-range, single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber used during World War II, the Korean War and other conflicts."). I think this should definitely apply to historic aircraft where examples still exist, but what about aircraft where no survivors exist (like Hispano HA-100), or other articles about aircraft that do not mention survivors one way or other (like Mitsubishi Ki-21)? -- rogerd ( talk) 17:23, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
RG's proposal that we establish a style noticeboard has not passed. There was a small majority against, and the closer also seems to be concerned with hypothetical problems. We should establish the MoS as the official place for style questions. By that I mean that we should do the following:
In effect, this would make WT:MoS the official Wikipedia style help desk/noticeboard instead of the unofficial one.
Likely result: This works. We keep doing what we're doing with respect to answering people's questions but there's no more overlap and a few newbs who wouldn't otherwise know where to go for help get directed here. Also possible: We get so many style questions that we can revisit the idea of a noticeboard with something more concrete to show participants, which might outweigh any hypothetical concerns that are currently affecting the issue.
We should probably work out the exact text that we want before taking it to WP:VPPR. Does anyone want to add or subtract from this list? Would anyone like to suggest an exact wording? EDIT: I'd also like to personally request that no one person go to WP:VPPR on their own until we've all had a chance to talk about it for a bit. Let's work out exactly what we want to say together, notify the regulars at other style talk pages, identify problems, etc. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 16:00, 4 May 2015 (UTC)
If there's a desire to have somewhere specific for style questions, but also a desire not the mix that with the purpose of this noticeboard, why not just create a sub-page. That wouldn't need a special consensus, just enough support to prevent it getting deleted. Formerip ( talk) 13:39, 5 May 2015 (UTC)
Neither have the "force of policy", and the proposal was very clear that there was no "force of policy" involved. Look at RS/N, for instance, which says, "While we attempt to offer a second opinion, and the consensus of several editors can generally be relied upon, answers are not official policy". Please read WP:PNB, the convention governing noticeboards, "Noticeboards on Wikipedia are pages where editors can ask questions and request assistance from people who are familiar with the policies and guidelines covered by each individual board. They are to be used for specific problems that editors encounter in writing and maintaining Wikipedia articles". I really don't know what you're talking about. It seems that lies and misconceptions have clouded the field of view.
"establishment of a new Wikipedia process that was rejected", but as a discussion to develop a new proposal which will reflect what was learned from the RfC. Right or wrong, people see noticeboards in a negative light. If we can create something that serves the needs of writers, which doesn't have those negative associations, we are moving forward. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 04:23, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
So let's say we do want to establish either this talk page or a subpage (Wt:MoS/questions, etc.) as the official style Q&A site. Is everyone all right with the idea of posting notices at other style talk pages that questions are to be asked here instead? Ideally, I'd love to get a few words into the notice that is sent to new users. How about the wording? "If you have a question about Wikipedia's rules and guidelines concerning punctuation, spelling, capitalization, formatting and other style issues, please ask at WT:MoS(/questions)"? Darkfrog24 ( talk) 01:55, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
The 34 "oppose" votes given in the noticeboard proposal listed the following reasons:
All opposers have my permission to correct the position of their own number on this list. Ask for any other changes.
We can expect that most of the people who objected for reason #2 would be on board with making the MoS official. At least some of the people who objected for #1 and #4 will be okay with merely endorsing an existing page rather than creating a new one. We can fix #6 with better communication (working out exactly what to say with care before submitting a formal proposal). Overall, it looks like endorsing WT:MoS would go over better than creating WT:MoS/Questions. Thoughts? Darkfrog24 ( talk) 03:49, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
If we're going to address the concerns of the people who objected to the noticeboard, we should also address those of the 28 people who supported it:
All editors have my permission to move, add or remove their own number. Ask for any other changes.
Most of the people in group #1 did not specifically express opposition to answering questions at WT:MoS but one or two did. It was mostly along the lines of "Well a noticeboard would be better." We already know that RG (first responder) does not like this idea, but that doesn't mean they all wouldn't. The people who cited reason #2 will probably be pleased with establishing WT:MoS as the official site for questions. For the most part, it looks like people who supported the noticeboard would support this. It also looks like most of these people would support establishing WT:MoS/questions. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 19:01, 6 May 2015 (UTC)
Unless someone can summarise the hectares of text above, I'll never know what happened. Except that Darkfrog's original suggestion seems like a good one. Here are the reasons for centralising Q and A here, as I see them:
Tony (talk) 12:02, 7 May 2015 (UTC)
I believe that because the last proposal was made at Village Pump: Proposals, this one should be made there too. It's arguable that we don't need permission to make this kind of change, but doing so would avoid even the appearance of impropriety, especially because one of the big objections to creating a dedicated noticeboard was forum shopping. Here is my draft. Because this is a proposal and not an RfC, I'm not trying to be neutral.
Because the proposal to establish a dedicated style noticeboard has fallen through, it is now proposed that WT:MoS be established as Wikipedia's official page for style Q&A. This would involve the following actions:
- 1) Adding text to the effect of "and for questions about the use of capitalization, punctuation, organization and other matters of style on Wikipedia" to "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Manual of Style page."
- 2) Inserting text to the effect of "ask style questions at WT:MoS" any place that would otherwise have pointed to a style noticeboard, including notes sent automatically to newcomers.
- 3) Inserting text to the effect of "ask style questions at WT:MoS (and not here)" in the talk pages of other style guides so that style Q&A is more centralized.
The goal of this proposal is make help with Wikipedia style issues easier to find and to reduce opportunities for forum shopping. WT: MoS has already served as an unofficial Q&A board for many years. Examples: (link1), (link2), (link3). The discussion leading up to this proposal is available here [link to this conversation].
Thoughts? Do any of you see things that should go in or come out? Anyone want to recommend a specific question and answer that would make a good example? If there are no comments, I'll put it up in a day or so. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 17:38, 11 May 2015 (UTC)
And we're up. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 05:07, 14 May 2015 (UTC)
There is now a proposal at the Village Pump that Wikipedia talk:MoS be established as Wikipedia's official page for style Q&A. This would involve actively guiding editors with style questions to WT:MoS and away from other pages. Participation is welcome. Darkfrog24 ( talk) 12:41, 15 May 2015 (UTC)
Wikipedia:WikiProject Anthroponymy/Standards is the de facto MOS guideline for anthroponymy pages, yet it's currently located as a subpage of a Wikiproject. This page clearly belongs in the MOS, and I have proposed moving it there. If you want to comment, please do so in that thread. Thanks! — Swpb talk 13:08, 19 May 2015 (UTC)
I've hardly ever seen anyone else but me interested in creating our English texts for the easiest possible reading aloud, to children and the blind and others, by the avoidance of an unnecessary amount of foreign words. Foreign words, often hard or impossible for English readers to pronounce, are being added to our articles in what I consider an alarming extent noiwadays nowadays, and some of the users doing so seem to have their own agendas in pushing as many words as they can from their (non-Engliush) languages into all kinds of texts here, where I can't see it's necessary to do that to improve them. What, if anything, can be dome done to stem the tide? --
SergeWoodzing (
talk)
23:47, 16 May 2015 (UTC)
I am surprised, and frankly sort of disappointed, to see that two colleagues would be so cavalier as to try to ridicule or even bully me by remarking on my typos (now corrected) and Latin grammar, rather than dealing with what I consider an increasingly serious problem on English Wikipedia. How sad!
Even as an old person with poor eyesight, with English as my first language, and having taught English for many decades, I can't see how what I wrote can be interpreted as a wish, in general, to "protect children, the blind and others from foreign words". ?
The fact I'm addressing here is that more and more foreign language words are being added where it is not necessary to do so, and that (just like ridiculing other editors), I believe is not constructive to this project.
I am aware of, and appreciate, Simple English Wikipedia, whereas I think our regular readers should be able to use regular English Wikipedia without the unnecessary (note: unnecessary!) obstacles that the addition of an unnecessary (note; unnecessary!) amount of hard-or-impossible-to-pronouce foreign words obviously creates.
Thank you Wavelength for those valuabe links! Could/should something be added there more specifically about not adding foreign words unnecessarily?
There is at least one editor I know of (among 5-6 I've seen doing this a lot) who does not consider foreign words to be "technical terms", and thus sees no limit to what h/s can go about doing, more and more. -- SergeWoodzing ( talk) 16:42, 17 May 2015 (UTC)
Started a discussion regarding part of the MoS at the Village pump. Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Should the holder of a political office be linked within an infobox more than once (i.e. as the successor), when they have already been linked (e.g. as the vice president, predecessor, lieutenant, etc.)?. — Godsy( TALK CONT) 06:38, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
What will the archive box at the top of this talk page look like when the talk page reaches 1000 archives?? The box will get wordier and wordier, that somewhere along the line it will take up too much space. Any thoughts?? Georgia guy ( talk) 17:54, 23 May 2015 (UTC)