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Archive 35 | Archive 36 | Archive 37 | Archive 38 | Archive 39 | Archive 40 | → | Archive 45 |
Recently, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason has been working on a new software footnote [1] system.
There may still be some bugs to be worked out, so it can't yet replace all other styles of footnoting. And since there doesn't appear to be a page dedicated to this footnote style, I'm not sure where to post. I'm trying to find a way/place to generate discussion.
Also, if an administrator happens to agree with me, I'd like to suggest that some of the relevant MediaWiki messages be changed. MediaWiki:Cite references link one and MediaWiki:Cite_references_link_many govern part of the formatting of the footnotes (the numbered list). They currently stipulate that each footnote is preceded by a ^, which I'd like to change to a bolded ^, as per {{ note}}. Also per {{ note}}, I'd like to change the formatting of the cite tag to normal, as opposed to the default italics, so that editors can have free control over what part of a footnote is an actual citation, and what part is explanatory text.
I thank you for your time. -- Ec5618 00:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
ol.references cite { font-style: normal; }
to
MediaWiki:Common.css, or I could add it to the default message, the former would probably preferrable since it would be overriding any custom CSS the user may have. —
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)The other issue is noted on the talk page as well: ideally, in-line external links should be treated as references, and many pages do in fact do so. This does however currently have a drawback with simple external links, as it forces a reader to first visit the 'references'-section; and only then can ve follow the actual link. It has been suggested that it would be useful to somehow remove this redundant step, possibly by adding two links in each reference ([3][*], for example). One link would lead to the footnotes section, while the other links directly to the external site.
Alternatively, references that contain only an external link (there is only an external link within the <ref></ref>-tags) could be formatted differently (like this 3, for example), and could lead directly to the external site, while still displaying the reference in the references section as well, though without a convenient link to that section. The logic being that a reader hardly ever cares to go to the footnotes section if the footnote of interest is merely a link, but that a reader might still be interested in a list of references used by the page.
There hasn't really been a lot of discussion regarding this specific point, and it isn't really a priority. Any input is of course welcome. -- Ec5618 01:15, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Root page for info on this proposed policy.
I've actually listed it on MfD since I feel it is instruction/confusion creep. A discussion is also on going at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Root pages.... Thanks/ wangi 01:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed that quite a lot of articles, such as EBay, start some of their sentences with lowercase, allegedly because it starts with a proper noun. The problem is, if you put that through any grammar checker, it'll be flagged as incorrect, and it doesn't look right anyway. I've tried changing the sentences, but I've been reverted several times, so I really think someone should add a section to the manual of style which states that the first word of a sentence is always capitalized, proper noun or not. -- 82.7.125.142 15:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I prefer headings with only first letter capitalized (except for proper nouns, etc.), as does the current Manual of Style. For example, "External links" should be used instead of "External Links". However, I've increasingly come across capitalized headings. For a while I started "correcting" them to conform to MoS, but I gave up as I kept coming across too many. (It's strange, whenever I find a particular pet peeve on Wikipedia, I'm confronted with it more and more...) So I'm wondering if this MoS guideline should stay as-is or not, and what I should do when I come across the nonstandard capitalization. - furrykef ( Talk at me) 01:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
According to both Skrunk & White's Elements of Style ( http://orwell.ru/library/others/style/e/estyle_1.htm) and the Chicago Manual of Style s always follows the apostrophe after a name. In other words, it's
Given that the error of omitting the s is so common I was wondering if anyone would object particularly strongly if I include a section on possessives? Mikkerpikker 15:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
"Charles's
"Cousins's
...
"Zacharias's
"In longer names not accented on the penult, 's is also preferable, though ' is here admissible, e.g. Theophilus'.
"But poets in all these cases sometimes use s' only; and Jesus' is an accepted litugical archaism. ...
"In ancient classical names use s' (not s's): Mars', Venus', Herodotus'." (Hart goes on a bit longer, but is this crux of it.) Puffball 16:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
This issue has already been discussed here. Perhaps a perusal through the archives would be useful. There is already a section on possessives in the Manual of Style. It says:
"Possessives of singular nouns ending in s may be formed with or without an additional s. Either form is generally acceptable within Wikipedia. However, if either form is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with Achilles' heel."
If my memory serves correctly, this guideline was chosen since there was no consensus among style guides as to how to treat possessives of words ending in 's'. I believe several other wordings were prososed and that is the one that gained consensus. Please refer to the archived discussions before making any changes. Thanks.
Kaldari 17:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I was taught that quotation marks were always outside punctuation, even if the words were "quoted" for emphasis. For example,
This goes against what I now read as wikipedia "style." Am I out in left field? I was about to change some of the many examples I'm running across, but, apparently, I have been "out voted." Or, is it because of my American grammar text? JJ 22:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
There is a discussion and poll at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Disambiguation subcategories. We are discussion the future of separate disambig subcategories (e.g. TLAdisambig, geodis, ...), or if everything should just be tagged with {{ disambig}}. Thanks/ wangi 22:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Poll results are in!
The result of the debate was remove all *LAdisambig templates, with no consensus on several related templates, and remove for templates 5LA through 9LA.
The overwhelming consensus is to eliminate all disambiguation subcategories.
Several different types are already required to be maintained as lists to prevent " orphan" pages. These lists are currently:
Presumably more lists will be added to comply with the separate poll results for {{ TLAdisambig}}. There are already:
I have noticed that articles, when displaying an amount of currency, will frequently use both the dollar sign and the word dollar, at the same time. For example: "I have $1 dollar." This is clearly wrong, as one of the indicators of currency is redundant - there should only be one indicator per reference. The sentence I used previously should be written either as "I have $1," or "I have 1 dollar." Does everybody agree with me? If nobody disagrees, can someone please add something like this to the style guides (either this one, or other ones, or both/multiple)? Thanks.
I cannot find anything in the MoS about the practice of using apostrophes to indicate decades: is it "the 1960s" or "the 1960's"? The only guidance I can find on my bookshelf is in my out-of-date copy of Collins's Author's and Printers' Dictionary, which says the apostrophe should not be used. Many years ago I used the apostrophized form without really thinking, till I was told in no uncertain terms by a newspaper editor that "it's wrong". There is no logical reason for such an apostrophe. Nothing is omitted, and no possessive is involved. However, I keep coming across it in WP. Any thoughts? Puffball 17:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
"Commonwealth English uses capitals more widely than American English does." says the MoS. I don't think I agree, "creeping capitlisation" seems more prevelaqnt in US text than UK text. Rich Farmbrough. 18:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
For many, many months there has been a {{ dubious}} on the "look of quotation marks" section, but no corresponding section on the talk page that the template links to. Yes, I know there's a Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Quotation marks and apostrophes), but it's had little activity in the past few months and weeks, and yet the dispute tag remains.
Let me be clear: I do not want to discuss the issue of straight versus curly quotes right here. Go back to that subpage for that. What I do want to discuss is:
Please don't change the heading of this section — it's what the tag points at, and it's false advertising to have a link inviting readers to discuss "there" when there's no "there" there :-) -- TreyHarris 22:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
While I don't necessarily agree with it, the current version seems inoffensive enough. If anyone disagrees, please replace the removed tag! Xxxxxxxx 16:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
The current guideline includes the statement:
I fail to see what distinguishes an "explicit cross reference" from any other wikilink. Is it a link from A to B where B also links from B to A? I don't see why that should be bold. The example is totally unilluminating to me. Joestynes 13:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Not that I've seen anybody actually use these lately, but this language in the guideline was not unilateral and was adopted after discussion:
To change such a long standing guideline might require a bit more research into the reasons and more discussion here, please. Heck, these folks seem to be around, we could ask them?
Any guideline must meet the test of practical use, so if this one has not been adopted in practice, it should be removed. At the time, I thought it could help tying articles closer together which have been torn apart, but the Main article paradigm seems to have become dominant for that purpose.-- Eloquence * 05:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, nobody uses them, they have been replaced by Summary style, and I've removed the text in both places.
Paul McGrath is an article where "See also" includes a link to List of people on stamps of Ireland. This kind of thing is common workaround for adding a non-existent category like Category:People on stamps of Ireland to an article. I find this practice inelegant. The information is often of marginal relevance. Where it is irrelevant, it should be deleted; where it is very relevant, there should be a category instead. There is a grey area in between. Is there any policy on this? Joestynes 19:04, 9 January 2006 (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 35 | Archive 36 | Archive 37 | Archive 38 | Archive 39 | Archive 40 | → | Archive 45 |
Recently, Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason has been working on a new software footnote [1] system.
There may still be some bugs to be worked out, so it can't yet replace all other styles of footnoting. And since there doesn't appear to be a page dedicated to this footnote style, I'm not sure where to post. I'm trying to find a way/place to generate discussion.
Also, if an administrator happens to agree with me, I'd like to suggest that some of the relevant MediaWiki messages be changed. MediaWiki:Cite references link one and MediaWiki:Cite_references_link_many govern part of the formatting of the footnotes (the numbered list). They currently stipulate that each footnote is preceded by a ^, which I'd like to change to a bolded ^, as per {{ note}}. Also per {{ note}}, I'd like to change the formatting of the cite tag to normal, as opposed to the default italics, so that editors can have free control over what part of a footnote is an actual citation, and what part is explanatory text.
I thank you for your time. -- Ec5618 00:54, 30 December 2005 (UTC)
ol.references cite { font-style: normal; }
to
MediaWiki:Common.css, or I could add it to the default message, the former would probably preferrable since it would be overriding any custom CSS the user may have. —
Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:55, 30 December 2005 (UTC)The other issue is noted on the talk page as well: ideally, in-line external links should be treated as references, and many pages do in fact do so. This does however currently have a drawback with simple external links, as it forces a reader to first visit the 'references'-section; and only then can ve follow the actual link. It has been suggested that it would be useful to somehow remove this redundant step, possibly by adding two links in each reference ([3][*], for example). One link would lead to the footnotes section, while the other links directly to the external site.
Alternatively, references that contain only an external link (there is only an external link within the <ref></ref>-tags) could be formatted differently (like this 3, for example), and could lead directly to the external site, while still displaying the reference in the references section as well, though without a convenient link to that section. The logic being that a reader hardly ever cares to go to the footnotes section if the footnote of interest is merely a link, but that a reader might still be interested in a list of references used by the page.
There hasn't really been a lot of discussion regarding this specific point, and it isn't really a priority. Any input is of course welcome. -- Ec5618 01:15, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Root page for info on this proposed policy.
I've actually listed it on MfD since I feel it is instruction/confusion creep. A discussion is also on going at Wikipedia talk:Disambiguation#Root pages.... Thanks/ wangi 01:45, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I've noticed that quite a lot of articles, such as EBay, start some of their sentences with lowercase, allegedly because it starts with a proper noun. The problem is, if you put that through any grammar checker, it'll be flagged as incorrect, and it doesn't look right anyway. I've tried changing the sentences, but I've been reverted several times, so I really think someone should add a section to the manual of style which states that the first word of a sentence is always capitalized, proper noun or not. -- 82.7.125.142 15:28, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
I prefer headings with only first letter capitalized (except for proper nouns, etc.), as does the current Manual of Style. For example, "External links" should be used instead of "External Links". However, I've increasingly come across capitalized headings. For a while I started "correcting" them to conform to MoS, but I gave up as I kept coming across too many. (It's strange, whenever I find a particular pet peeve on Wikipedia, I'm confronted with it more and more...) So I'm wondering if this MoS guideline should stay as-is or not, and what I should do when I come across the nonstandard capitalization. - furrykef ( Talk at me) 01:57, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
According to both Skrunk & White's Elements of Style ( http://orwell.ru/library/others/style/e/estyle_1.htm) and the Chicago Manual of Style s always follows the apostrophe after a name. In other words, it's
Given that the error of omitting the s is so common I was wondering if anyone would object particularly strongly if I include a section on possessives? Mikkerpikker 15:32, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
"Charles's
"Cousins's
...
"Zacharias's
"In longer names not accented on the penult, 's is also preferable, though ' is here admissible, e.g. Theophilus'.
"But poets in all these cases sometimes use s' only; and Jesus' is an accepted litugical archaism. ...
"In ancient classical names use s' (not s's): Mars', Venus', Herodotus'." (Hart goes on a bit longer, but is this crux of it.) Puffball 16:43, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
This issue has already been discussed here. Perhaps a perusal through the archives would be useful. There is already a section on possessives in the Manual of Style. It says:
"Possessives of singular nouns ending in s may be formed with or without an additional s. Either form is generally acceptable within Wikipedia. However, if either form is much more common for a particular word or phrase, follow that form, such as with Achilles' heel."
If my memory serves correctly, this guideline was chosen since there was no consensus among style guides as to how to treat possessives of words ending in 's'. I believe several other wordings were prososed and that is the one that gained consensus. Please refer to the archived discussions before making any changes. Thanks.
Kaldari 17:37, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
I was taught that quotation marks were always outside punctuation, even if the words were "quoted" for emphasis. For example,
This goes against what I now read as wikipedia "style." Am I out in left field? I was about to change some of the many examples I'm running across, but, apparently, I have been "out voted." Or, is it because of my American grammar text? JJ 22:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
There is a discussion and poll at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)/Disambiguation subcategories. We are discussion the future of separate disambig subcategories (e.g. TLAdisambig, geodis, ...), or if everything should just be tagged with {{ disambig}}. Thanks/ wangi 22:57, 2 January 2006 (UTC)
Poll results are in!
The result of the debate was remove all *LAdisambig templates, with no consensus on several related templates, and remove for templates 5LA through 9LA.
The overwhelming consensus is to eliminate all disambiguation subcategories.
Several different types are already required to be maintained as lists to prevent " orphan" pages. These lists are currently:
Presumably more lists will be added to comply with the separate poll results for {{ TLAdisambig}}. There are already:
I have noticed that articles, when displaying an amount of currency, will frequently use both the dollar sign and the word dollar, at the same time. For example: "I have $1 dollar." This is clearly wrong, as one of the indicators of currency is redundant - there should only be one indicator per reference. The sentence I used previously should be written either as "I have $1," or "I have 1 dollar." Does everybody agree with me? If nobody disagrees, can someone please add something like this to the style guides (either this one, or other ones, or both/multiple)? Thanks.
I cannot find anything in the MoS about the practice of using apostrophes to indicate decades: is it "the 1960s" or "the 1960's"? The only guidance I can find on my bookshelf is in my out-of-date copy of Collins's Author's and Printers' Dictionary, which says the apostrophe should not be used. Many years ago I used the apostrophized form without really thinking, till I was told in no uncertain terms by a newspaper editor that "it's wrong". There is no logical reason for such an apostrophe. Nothing is omitted, and no possessive is involved. However, I keep coming across it in WP. Any thoughts? Puffball 17:20, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
"Commonwealth English uses capitals more widely than American English does." says the MoS. I don't think I agree, "creeping capitlisation" seems more prevelaqnt in US text than UK text. Rich Farmbrough. 18:48, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
For many, many months there has been a {{ dubious}} on the "look of quotation marks" section, but no corresponding section on the talk page that the template links to. Yes, I know there's a Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Quotation marks and apostrophes), but it's had little activity in the past few months and weeks, and yet the dispute tag remains.
Let me be clear: I do not want to discuss the issue of straight versus curly quotes right here. Go back to that subpage for that. What I do want to discuss is:
Please don't change the heading of this section — it's what the tag points at, and it's false advertising to have a link inviting readers to discuss "there" when there's no "there" there :-) -- TreyHarris 22:49, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
While I don't necessarily agree with it, the current version seems inoffensive enough. If anyone disagrees, please replace the removed tag! Xxxxxxxx 16:58, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
The current guideline includes the statement:
I fail to see what distinguishes an "explicit cross reference" from any other wikilink. Is it a link from A to B where B also links from B to A? I don't see why that should be bold. The example is totally unilluminating to me. Joestynes 13:34, 6 January 2006 (UTC)
Not that I've seen anybody actually use these lately, but this language in the guideline was not unilateral and was adopted after discussion:
To change such a long standing guideline might require a bit more research into the reasons and more discussion here, please. Heck, these folks seem to be around, we could ask them?
Any guideline must meet the test of practical use, so if this one has not been adopted in practice, it should be removed. At the time, I thought it could help tying articles closer together which have been torn apart, but the Main article paradigm seems to have become dominant for that purpose.-- Eloquence * 05:59, 11 January 2006 (UTC)
OK, nobody uses them, they have been replaced by Summary style, and I've removed the text in both places.
Paul McGrath is an article where "See also" includes a link to List of people on stamps of Ireland. This kind of thing is common workaround for adding a non-existent category like Category:People on stamps of Ireland to an article. I find this practice inelegant. The information is often of marginal relevance. Where it is irrelevant, it should be deleted; where it is very relevant, there should be a category instead. There is a grey area in between. Is there any policy on this? Joestynes 19:04, 9 January 2006 (UTC)