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This article Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad#2005_.22World_Without_Zionism.22_speech caught my attention (...adding that " Westerners are free...), should there be (or is there) an policy on whether to provide wikilinks in a quote? In the example mentioned I suppose the wikilink point to a relevant article, but perhaps usage of wikilinks in quotes might be misleading (intentionally or unintentionally) especially when dealing with political statements that might be controversional and open for interpretation. Non-controversial quotes that refer to objects and the like such as "a bottle may contain liquids" might be another issue. Comments? Scoo 15:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm generally a hard-liner about the importance of quoting an original source exactly. I don't think that even spelling errors should be corrected. In the case of a wikilink, though, the reader will know that we added it. Therefore, it's not a misrepresentation of the original quotation. In a few exceptional circumstances, it would be relevant to note whether a hyperlink was or was not in the original (e.g., a website might mention Stormfront and be criticized for making the word a hyperlink to the Stormfront site).
Because wikilinking and external hyperlinking are so common, I don't think they convey a false emphasis. We can trust our readers to understand that, when a term is linked, it looks different than it did in the original, and that it's not a matter of emphasis. JamesMLane 06:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I think we should start making "external links" sections subsections of "see also" sections, agreed? (unsigned comment from anon)
Hello! I recently reverted a change that I thought was major:
... Also, try not to include other bold phrases in the first sentence.
only to realise (if I'm (re)reading it correctly) that this does not include words other than the bolded title (which is ubiquitous in Wp). I support the general notion. But if I misunderstood, others might too; I've massaged it for clarity, but I'm neither here nor there with it. In any event, it should be discussed to ensure clarity. Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 09:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Nice, thanks. One question though. Do terms like "bolding" and "emboldening" actually exist or are we making them up? Can we not simply use "making it bold"?
Uhm... according to dictionary.cambridge.org
embolden verb [T] FORMAL to make someone brave: Emboldened by drink, he walked over to speak to her.
As for www.m-w.com
Main Entry: em·bold·en Pronunciation: im-'bOl-d&n Function: transitive verb to instill with boldness or courage
Don't you think it's a bit of a stretch to use it speaking of bold typeface? Also IMHO it sounds unnecessarily pompous. "To make bold" is more standard, more direct, simpler and more readable. 81.211.228.151 23:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Is there a guideline for the displayed text of A#B links? I've seen "A#B", and "A (B section)", and could imagine others such as "A:B". Thx, "alyosha" 04:02, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Another newbie question: i've found lots of discussion of pronouns, but not of other gendered/sexist language, such as "chairman" for a chair/chairperson of unknown gender. If i correct language like that, will it be accepted as a valid correction appropriate to an encyclopedia, or will it waste energy (re-)starting a debate that won't be helpful or come to consensus? I know that'll vary with the readers of the page, but i'm looking for the current sense of wikipedia. (And btw, i've found a little about racism, but is there no guideline about avoiding even more extreme forms of sexism, and similar offensive language?) Thx, "alyosha" 04:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
While I use non-gender-specific language wherever possible, I think that some caution should be exercised here. It would be wrong to state that Frank Sinatra was nicknamed "the Chairperson of the Board". Would anyone ever have called Mao Zedong "Chair Mao"? No, I don't think so. We have to be careful about applying non-gender-specific language in circumstances where it has not been used. An encyclopaedia should be descriptive, not prescriptive. If the article is about an organization that uses "chair", then use it. If the article is about the strucutre of organizations in general, then "chair" or "chairperson" should work. But don't apply to that term to an organization or person that doesn't use it. Ground Zero | t 12:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed that nearly every article refers to females as an actress, although for an encyclopedia "actor" would probably be more appropriate for use.-- Fallout boy 06:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I propose that it is acceptable and preferred, as mandated by the Hawaiian English standard (solely co-official with Hawaiian in the State of Hawaiʻi), to use full proper Hawaiian language spellings (including ʻokina and kahakō) in every instance of a word of Hawaiian origin in Wikipedia articles, except specifically in situations where a proper name (e.g. Hawaii Five-O) omits the detail. This includes the State of Hawaiʻi's official names for itself and its political terms and units (which differ from the United States national records—a note of this can be made where relevant). Article titles should also be appropriately rendered this way, with the flexible exception that (until Wikipedia either uses {{unicode|template}}-style Unicode character resolution for the display of article titles in HTML, or until the ʻokina becomes displayable for most computer users) article names can use a simple apostrophe (') for ʻokina, with existing redirects for (`) and the absence of the ʻokina altogether (where there is no confusion among minimal pairs), and additional redirects (also without confusion of minimal pairs) for article names without ʻokina nor kahakō. The {{okina}} template can be used for each instance of the ʻokina—this template also internally uses the {{unicode|template}}, which forces even obselete browsers such as Internet Explorer to scour each system's installed fonts for any font that includes the ʻokina character. Browsers such as Firefox do not have this problem, but the user must still have a font such as Arial Unicode MS or Code2000 that contains this character. In practice, Hawaiʻi-related articles and Hawaiian names and terms in other articles are already steadily integrating these conventions into article texts, as per Hawaiian English. For those who may dispute the appropriateness of using Hawaiian English and not American English in these contexts, it should be noted that:
- Gilgamesh 07:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia badly needs a standard for personal name formats. In particular, name order. Outside of Western Europe and its offshoots, most cultures use surname-first order. Most Wikipedia articles in which Chinese names appear follow this practice. Many articles also follow this practice in naming Japanese, but many others don't.
There are pitfalls, no matter what you do. I know from experience that Japanese and Chinese can feel resentful if names of their countrymen are presented in the "wrong" order. Yet what do you do about a person of Japanese or Chinese origin who lives in a western nation and has adopted the name order prevailing there? For that matter, what about westerners who have gone the other way? And what about Hungarians, who use surname-first too, except when they don't? How can we be sure that readers will always know which is the surname?
It seems to me that the only truly practical solution in a one-size-fits-all source such as Wikipedia is to use the same name order for everyone, except where there is some compelling reason not to -- and to flag any such cases very clearly. In any event, a standard is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Will O'Neil ( talk • contribs) 04:24, 19 December 2005
A comment probably not very relevant here, but I had *great* difficulty finding the article on Hiuen Tsang, because I had no clue that the Chinese spelling is
Xuanzang. I've read about him in umpteen number of books, but they all use Hiuen Tsang. Shouldn't the "use common name" policy be applied in names such as these? Thanks!
deeptrivia (
talk)
05:19, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I've asked a similar question before to yield no response. So, once and for all, should this template be applied to all the supplementary manuals of style? They are, after all, style guides, so it makes sense. Neonumbers 09:37, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Currency units should start with a capital letter. Examples of these are Rhodesian Dollar & Rand. The only time that a lower case is used in quoting from conversations. An example of this is,"I paid 5 dollars". - ( Aidan Work 06:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC))
I was recently working on a page of a video game where the player could pick their gender. In the artcle, it mentions this, and goes on to use masculine pronouns for the rest of the article (which I thought was typical). However, some anon keeps changing every one to "he/she" and such. I didn't see this in the manual, can I get a ruling? -- InShaneee 05:28, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Since we have already reached a consensus that "as a general rule" implies "there are reasonable exceptions", and that we should not list all such exceptions for clarity and maintenance purposes, I zapped the following.
"An exception may be allowed if a link to the second bolded phrase redirects to this article, and if the second bolded phrase is not a spelling, grammatical, or abbreviated variation of the article name. (Example: Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain. . . )" PizzaMargherita 08:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't like split infinitives, but I see them all over the place. Is there a policy yet?
I'm having trouble finding the section of the style guide or other reference that says when or when not to link dates in articles. Dates such as November, November 22, or November 22, 1999. In some articles, I have had someone come and remove all or most of the wikilinks that refer to dates as described above and in their edit note say "as per the style guide." And then in other articles I have and someone come and ADD links to most or all the dates and say "as per the style guide." Soo.... what gives? :) Someone please point me in the right direction, I want to know when to properly link dates and when to not. Thanks! -- Naha| (talk) 19:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow, the style guide is really offensive—to everyone— in implying Muhammad is a deity. It's sort of appalling it's survived in this form for a month, and it really needs to be fixed. At present, it reads
Deities begin with a capital letter: God, Allah, Freya, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Messiah. The same is true when referring to Muhammad as the Prophet.
. The justification for capitalizing Prophet is not that Muhammad is a diety. No one believes that Muhammad is a deity! I'm going to be bold and rephrase. - Nunh-huh 03:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow, some people can be offended very easily... By the way I don't think the cited text implies that Mohammed is a deity. On the other hand, it is my understanding that both the Messiah and the Lord refer to Jesus Christ. Now, I don't know anything about religion, but I thought Jesus was not really a deity... much like Mohammed he was the prophet of a religion. Is that not so? PizzaMargherita 09:40, 29 December 2005 (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 30 | ← | Archive 35 | Archive 36 | Archive 37 | Archive 38 | Archive 39 | Archive 40 |
This article Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad#2005_.22World_Without_Zionism.22_speech caught my attention (...adding that " Westerners are free...), should there be (or is there) an policy on whether to provide wikilinks in a quote? In the example mentioned I suppose the wikilink point to a relevant article, but perhaps usage of wikilinks in quotes might be misleading (intentionally or unintentionally) especially when dealing with political statements that might be controversional and open for interpretation. Non-controversial quotes that refer to objects and the like such as "a bottle may contain liquids" might be another issue. Comments? Scoo 15:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm generally a hard-liner about the importance of quoting an original source exactly. I don't think that even spelling errors should be corrected. In the case of a wikilink, though, the reader will know that we added it. Therefore, it's not a misrepresentation of the original quotation. In a few exceptional circumstances, it would be relevant to note whether a hyperlink was or was not in the original (e.g., a website might mention Stormfront and be criticized for making the word a hyperlink to the Stormfront site).
Because wikilinking and external hyperlinking are so common, I don't think they convey a false emphasis. We can trust our readers to understand that, when a term is linked, it looks different than it did in the original, and that it's not a matter of emphasis. JamesMLane 06:40, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
I think we should start making "external links" sections subsections of "see also" sections, agreed? (unsigned comment from anon)
Hello! I recently reverted a change that I thought was major:
... Also, try not to include other bold phrases in the first sentence.
only to realise (if I'm (re)reading it correctly) that this does not include words other than the bolded title (which is ubiquitous in Wp). I support the general notion. But if I misunderstood, others might too; I've massaged it for clarity, but I'm neither here nor there with it. In any event, it should be discussed to ensure clarity. Thanks! E Pluribus Anthony 09:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
Nice, thanks. One question though. Do terms like "bolding" and "emboldening" actually exist or are we making them up? Can we not simply use "making it bold"?
Uhm... according to dictionary.cambridge.org
embolden verb [T] FORMAL to make someone brave: Emboldened by drink, he walked over to speak to her.
As for www.m-w.com
Main Entry: em·bold·en Pronunciation: im-'bOl-d&n Function: transitive verb to instill with boldness or courage
Don't you think it's a bit of a stretch to use it speaking of bold typeface? Also IMHO it sounds unnecessarily pompous. "To make bold" is more standard, more direct, simpler and more readable. 81.211.228.151 23:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Is there a guideline for the displayed text of A#B links? I've seen "A#B", and "A (B section)", and could imagine others such as "A:B". Thx, "alyosha" 04:02, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Another newbie question: i've found lots of discussion of pronouns, but not of other gendered/sexist language, such as "chairman" for a chair/chairperson of unknown gender. If i correct language like that, will it be accepted as a valid correction appropriate to an encyclopedia, or will it waste energy (re-)starting a debate that won't be helpful or come to consensus? I know that'll vary with the readers of the page, but i'm looking for the current sense of wikipedia. (And btw, i've found a little about racism, but is there no guideline about avoiding even more extreme forms of sexism, and similar offensive language?) Thx, "alyosha" 04:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
While I use non-gender-specific language wherever possible, I think that some caution should be exercised here. It would be wrong to state that Frank Sinatra was nicknamed "the Chairperson of the Board". Would anyone ever have called Mao Zedong "Chair Mao"? No, I don't think so. We have to be careful about applying non-gender-specific language in circumstances where it has not been used. An encyclopaedia should be descriptive, not prescriptive. If the article is about an organization that uses "chair", then use it. If the article is about the strucutre of organizations in general, then "chair" or "chairperson" should work. But don't apply to that term to an organization or person that doesn't use it. Ground Zero | t 12:53, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed that nearly every article refers to females as an actress, although for an encyclopedia "actor" would probably be more appropriate for use.-- Fallout boy 06:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I propose that it is acceptable and preferred, as mandated by the Hawaiian English standard (solely co-official with Hawaiian in the State of Hawaiʻi), to use full proper Hawaiian language spellings (including ʻokina and kahakō) in every instance of a word of Hawaiian origin in Wikipedia articles, except specifically in situations where a proper name (e.g. Hawaii Five-O) omits the detail. This includes the State of Hawaiʻi's official names for itself and its political terms and units (which differ from the United States national records—a note of this can be made where relevant). Article titles should also be appropriately rendered this way, with the flexible exception that (until Wikipedia either uses {{unicode|template}}-style Unicode character resolution for the display of article titles in HTML, or until the ʻokina becomes displayable for most computer users) article names can use a simple apostrophe (') for ʻokina, with existing redirects for (`) and the absence of the ʻokina altogether (where there is no confusion among minimal pairs), and additional redirects (also without confusion of minimal pairs) for article names without ʻokina nor kahakō. The {{okina}} template can be used for each instance of the ʻokina—this template also internally uses the {{unicode|template}}, which forces even obselete browsers such as Internet Explorer to scour each system's installed fonts for any font that includes the ʻokina character. Browsers such as Firefox do not have this problem, but the user must still have a font such as Arial Unicode MS or Code2000 that contains this character. In practice, Hawaiʻi-related articles and Hawaiian names and terms in other articles are already steadily integrating these conventions into article texts, as per Hawaiian English. For those who may dispute the appropriateness of using Hawaiian English and not American English in these contexts, it should be noted that:
- Gilgamesh 07:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
Wikipedia badly needs a standard for personal name formats. In particular, name order. Outside of Western Europe and its offshoots, most cultures use surname-first order. Most Wikipedia articles in which Chinese names appear follow this practice. Many articles also follow this practice in naming Japanese, but many others don't.
There are pitfalls, no matter what you do. I know from experience that Japanese and Chinese can feel resentful if names of their countrymen are presented in the "wrong" order. Yet what do you do about a person of Japanese or Chinese origin who lives in a western nation and has adopted the name order prevailing there? For that matter, what about westerners who have gone the other way? And what about Hungarians, who use surname-first too, except when they don't? How can we be sure that readers will always know which is the surname?
It seems to me that the only truly practical solution in a one-size-fits-all source such as Wikipedia is to use the same name order for everyone, except where there is some compelling reason not to -- and to flag any such cases very clearly. In any event, a standard is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Will O'Neil ( talk • contribs) 04:24, 19 December 2005
A comment probably not very relevant here, but I had *great* difficulty finding the article on Hiuen Tsang, because I had no clue that the Chinese spelling is
Xuanzang. I've read about him in umpteen number of books, but they all use Hiuen Tsang. Shouldn't the "use common name" policy be applied in names such as these? Thanks!
deeptrivia (
talk)
05:19, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
I've asked a similar question before to yield no response. So, once and for all, should this template be applied to all the supplementary manuals of style? They are, after all, style guides, so it makes sense. Neonumbers 09:37, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Currency units should start with a capital letter. Examples of these are Rhodesian Dollar & Rand. The only time that a lower case is used in quoting from conversations. An example of this is,"I paid 5 dollars". - ( Aidan Work 06:05, 22 December 2005 (UTC))
I was recently working on a page of a video game where the player could pick their gender. In the artcle, it mentions this, and goes on to use masculine pronouns for the rest of the article (which I thought was typical). However, some anon keeps changing every one to "he/she" and such. I didn't see this in the manual, can I get a ruling? -- InShaneee 05:28, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
Since we have already reached a consensus that "as a general rule" implies "there are reasonable exceptions", and that we should not list all such exceptions for clarity and maintenance purposes, I zapped the following.
"An exception may be allowed if a link to the second bolded phrase redirects to this article, and if the second bolded phrase is not a spelling, grammatical, or abbreviated variation of the article name. (Example: Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain. . . )" PizzaMargherita 08:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
I don't like split infinitives, but I see them all over the place. Is there a policy yet?
I'm having trouble finding the section of the style guide or other reference that says when or when not to link dates in articles. Dates such as November, November 22, or November 22, 1999. In some articles, I have had someone come and remove all or most of the wikilinks that refer to dates as described above and in their edit note say "as per the style guide." And then in other articles I have and someone come and ADD links to most or all the dates and say "as per the style guide." Soo.... what gives? :) Someone please point me in the right direction, I want to know when to properly link dates and when to not. Thanks! -- Naha| (talk) 19:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow, the style guide is really offensive—to everyone— in implying Muhammad is a deity. It's sort of appalling it's survived in this form for a month, and it really needs to be fixed. At present, it reads
Deities begin with a capital letter: God, Allah, Freya, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Messiah. The same is true when referring to Muhammad as the Prophet.
. The justification for capitalizing Prophet is not that Muhammad is a diety. No one believes that Muhammad is a deity! I'm going to be bold and rephrase. - Nunh-huh 03:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
Wow, some people can be offended very easily... By the way I don't think the cited text implies that Mohammed is a deity. On the other hand, it is my understanding that both the Messiah and the Lord refer to Jesus Christ. Now, I don't know anything about religion, but I thought Jesus was not really a deity... much like Mohammed he was the prophet of a religion. Is that not so? PizzaMargherita 09:40, 29 December 2005 (UTC)