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Throughout Wikipedia, words that are even occasionally represented by acronyms are capitalized, followed by the acronym. Sometimes the acronym is never used again in the article. Here is an example from the dense plasma focus article: "A Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) is a plasma machine that produces, by electromagnetic acceleration and compression, short-lived plasma..." I was wondering if it is inappropriate to capitalize just because words are represented by an acronym. Should the article say, "A dense plasma focus (DPF) is a plasma machine..." instead? Also, the same thing frequently results in the article's name being capitalized when it otherwise would not be. For example, digital subscriber line was Digital Subscriber Line before it was moved at my suggestion.
There are examples of the opposite, but I would say that the capitalization in the text style dominates. The capitalization of the article's name is frequent, but I would not say that it is dominant. Should this be addressed in the Manual of Style? My preference is to not capitalize in both cases, but I prefer even more that there be a standard style. -- Kjkolb 10:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
According this article, one should not create links unless they relate to the topic of the article. However, in this article, there are many links to totally unrelated subjects, such as "Wotan" and the "Republican Party". It seems to me like it's a bit hypocritical not to be following the rules that we lay out in the very article in which we lay them out. I didn't want to remove them all without some kind of consensus, so, does anyone else agree? G.bargsnaffle 22:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
As a student I remember at least one professor who had a thing for complete sentential quotes. His qualm was that partial quoting allowed the essayist too broad a stroke in painting the quoted text. Look at these sentences to see what I mean:
1) Mayor Brown said in his inaugural speech that he would allow "children to smoke marijuana" under the right legal conditions.
2) Mayor Brown said in his inaugural speech, "Parents that allow their children to smoke marijuana should only do so if it is permitted by federal and state law."
3) Mayor Brown said in his inaugural speech that children should be allowed to smoke marijuana.
(1) is a partial quote, (2) is a complete quote, and (3) is a paraphrase.
It should be obvious that (2) is the preferred sentence for any factual article. While the other sentences are not, strictly speaking, false, they are potentially (or seriously) misleading. But why is this a problem for Wikipedia? It's a problem because we want to present quality articles, and not everyone may have access to the source referred to by a partial quote. My suggestion is that, at least for articles with NPOV problems, we require complete quotes in a footnote if not in the article. SFinside 15:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
The article Movable type uses at least three different styles of referencing:
Where can I find out which style is correct? Shinobu 17:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. So the ref will always go directly after punctuation (if any), without spaces etc. Shinobu 16:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that somewhere I've seen some guidance on which of "eg" or the full phrase "for example" is preferred in Wikipedia. Can someone please clarify this for me?
Also, I have the same issue over the use of "ie" or "i.e." -- JAXHERE | Talk 15:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks all for helping. The reference to the Manual of Style was what I needed. -- JAXHERE | Talk 13:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Why are they to be avoided? In my copy of The Elements of Style it says nothing to that effect. Also, isn't the em-dash a special character? It's not on my keyboard, which is why I always use '--'. It's also what I was taught to use, because I went to school when people used typewriters. In my copy of The Scott Foresman Handbook for Writers it says, "Typed dashes are made up of two unspaced hyphens {--}." Really, I'm just curious what the reasoning is here. SFinside 21:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses. Until I get a keyboard with an em-dash on it I'll continue to use double dashes. You can call me the double dash bandit. SFinside 03:53, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
—
HTML entity. --
Rob Kennedy
04:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)One place the double dash came into common use was in email publications, because some email programs muck up the formatting of special characters like the em dash. I recommend that people who use it often either memorize the ALT or CTRL function that creates it, or assign it to some keyboard key they don't otherwise use (I use F11). 66.57.225.77 06:59, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Editors might want to know that there's been some recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts, which is part of the Manual of Style. What's being proposed is adding some new guidelines on lists of chart positions for singles (and now for albums): how much chart information an article needs and the best ways to present it. Anyone with even a remote interest in the topic is encouraged to look over the proposals and add an opinion or two. The relevant discussions are at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts#Component charts and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts#Chart trajectories. Thanks all! -- keepsleeping slack off! 02:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I was just wondering about what order things in an alphabetic list should be put in when numbers are concerned. What I'm talking about is here. The band is called 3 Inches of Blood, not Three. Therefore, shouldn't the numbers come before the A-Z, as is the style in most formats (or rather, most that I have seen) or should the first letter of the number be used for alphabetizing? The Haunted Angel ( The Forest Whispers My Name) 16:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
New Jersey Transit capitalizes one of their lines as "River LINE". However, this is not always used by the media: [1] Should we use the non-standard "River LINE" because NJT uses it? I note that we do not use REALTOR. -- NE2 08:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Obviously whatever we decide here also applies to MidTOWN DIRECT (ugh!), though that's only a redirect. -- NE2 05:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
The evidence is rather contradictory. There seems to be a mix of uses (LINE and Line) in the news articles referenced above, though New Jersey Transit is pretty consistent in the all caps version. WP:MOS-TM says to use proper initial caps, and explicitly states to use "Realtor" rather that "REALTOR", though does that apply to all cases or only to that one word. Does "Lowercased trademarks with no internal capitals should always be capitalized" apply here or is "LINE" an example of internal capitalization. I would support keeping the capitalized word, but we need to decide one way or ther other in the face of very ambiguous guidelines. Alansohn 06:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
This manual says:
In some cases I think this may be misleading. For example: "Captain X was fired by the Los Angeles Police Department. The Department said the reason for the firing was...". In the second sentence I've set the initial "D" in "Department" in capital because this is just an abbreviated proper name. This circumstance should be mentioned in the style manual. Michael Hardy 21:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Question: When an author writes a book under a pen name but that author's name is known would it not be proper to cite the pen name followed by the author's real name (in parenetheses)? If this area is the wrong place to pose such a question I kindly request that someone redirect me to the correct area. Thanks in advance. ( → Netscott) 13:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
(Sorry to abuse this important talk page, but I honestly don't know where else to go with this suggestion. It's a minor change I'm suggesting, but it could potentially end up on a major number of pages).
I have an idea for making IPA symbols more comprehensible, like this: ʒ (try rolling over that with your mouse). That is, {{ Ʒ}}. To discuss the concept, go here: template talk:Ʒ. If this idea were to come into use, it would need clear style guidelines on when it is preferred, when it is optional, and when it is a bad idea. I expect all three cases would exist. -- 200.6.254.170 18:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I've overhauled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) based on a 2nd round of feedback. Possibly it's complete and ready to be called a style-guideline? Feedback (at it's talkpage) or improvements welcome :) -- Quiddity 20:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I can't seem to find a standard for the case style of URLs (when case sensitivity doesn't matter, of course). I've always figured lowercase is the standard, but a quick glance at the articles for Apple and Martha Stewart Living show two, opposite, styles... And I can't find anything here, or on the two potentially relevant submanuals ( capital letters or links)... Chicago seems to prefer lowercase, but they seem to indicate they're not sure yet, either. Anybody familiar with a pre-existing Wiki style standard, or have advice on what to do to get clarification? Thanks in advance! Justen 06:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
The proposed convention, now up for adoption, on geographic names discusses the use of alternate names in text, and therefore is also to some extent a manual of style. I think the guideline is consistent with this page, although far more detailed; comments are welcome. Septentrionalis 22:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#Flag icons next to birth and death locations in infoboxes. – flamurai ( t) 03:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. A reply on my talk page will be greatly appriecated. 100110100 07:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Why can't Wikipedia set a rule to use either the English spelling or American, throughout the whole of Wikipedia. I think it would be the best idea to use the English (as I am English!) but mainly due to the fact the English spellings were the original and the language is, after all, called "English" I suppose. Either that or use the American spellings, as that is the (much!) bigger country. I stand up in order to be shot down.
Please Sign your names: ~~~, not ~~~~, as that produces the date and time too.
________________________
Arriva436 20:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
There are differences in spelling, vocabulary, and grammar. That's a lot to fix automatically (also disregarding the quotation troubles). I also think the trend to 'protect' American English users from seeing English English, and vice versa, should not be encouraged. It is bad enough that many books are 'translated' when crossing the Atlantic. JoergenB 13:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Someone did a formal proposal to standardize on American English spelling about a year ago. The vote was over 100 to 1 against the proposal when I took it off my watchlist. Blank Verse 04:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
On the point raised (in the proposal) about the "original" spellings, a cautionary tale comes in the form of the word, "tyre" / "tire". It seems that the spelling used in Britain was originally the same as that from the United States: "tire". It became "tyre" after somebody in Britain patented that word in the context of the pneumatic tyre, and the invention captured the public's attention sufficiently for the spelling to become standardised usage. So the current United States version is actually the original in that case. I say this is a cautionary tale because I prefer to stick to "older" spellings which give some hint to the etymology and origins of a word, and thus help in its understanding. But that should never mean that we presume that the "old world" spellings are the originals. – Kieran T ( talk) 04:43, 22 December 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 60 | Archive 61 | Archive 62 | Archive 63 | Archive 64 | Archive 65 | → | Archive 70 |
Throughout Wikipedia, words that are even occasionally represented by acronyms are capitalized, followed by the acronym. Sometimes the acronym is never used again in the article. Here is an example from the dense plasma focus article: "A Dense Plasma Focus (DPF) is a plasma machine that produces, by electromagnetic acceleration and compression, short-lived plasma..." I was wondering if it is inappropriate to capitalize just because words are represented by an acronym. Should the article say, "A dense plasma focus (DPF) is a plasma machine..." instead? Also, the same thing frequently results in the article's name being capitalized when it otherwise would not be. For example, digital subscriber line was Digital Subscriber Line before it was moved at my suggestion.
There are examples of the opposite, but I would say that the capitalization in the text style dominates. The capitalization of the article's name is frequent, but I would not say that it is dominant. Should this be addressed in the Manual of Style? My preference is to not capitalize in both cases, but I prefer even more that there be a standard style. -- Kjkolb 10:50, 25 November 2006 (UTC)
According this article, one should not create links unless they relate to the topic of the article. However, in this article, there are many links to totally unrelated subjects, such as "Wotan" and the "Republican Party". It seems to me like it's a bit hypocritical not to be following the rules that we lay out in the very article in which we lay them out. I didn't want to remove them all without some kind of consensus, so, does anyone else agree? G.bargsnaffle 22:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC)
As a student I remember at least one professor who had a thing for complete sentential quotes. His qualm was that partial quoting allowed the essayist too broad a stroke in painting the quoted text. Look at these sentences to see what I mean:
1) Mayor Brown said in his inaugural speech that he would allow "children to smoke marijuana" under the right legal conditions.
2) Mayor Brown said in his inaugural speech, "Parents that allow their children to smoke marijuana should only do so if it is permitted by federal and state law."
3) Mayor Brown said in his inaugural speech that children should be allowed to smoke marijuana.
(1) is a partial quote, (2) is a complete quote, and (3) is a paraphrase.
It should be obvious that (2) is the preferred sentence for any factual article. While the other sentences are not, strictly speaking, false, they are potentially (or seriously) misleading. But why is this a problem for Wikipedia? It's a problem because we want to present quality articles, and not everyone may have access to the source referred to by a partial quote. My suggestion is that, at least for articles with NPOV problems, we require complete quotes in a footnote if not in the article. SFinside 15:44, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
The article Movable type uses at least three different styles of referencing:
Where can I find out which style is correct? Shinobu 17:14, 27 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. So the ref will always go directly after punctuation (if any), without spaces etc. Shinobu 16:42, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that somewhere I've seen some guidance on which of "eg" or the full phrase "for example" is preferred in Wikipedia. Can someone please clarify this for me?
Also, I have the same issue over the use of "ie" or "i.e." -- JAXHERE | Talk 15:06, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks all for helping. The reference to the Manual of Style was what I needed. -- JAXHERE | Talk 13:35, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Why are they to be avoided? In my copy of The Elements of Style it says nothing to that effect. Also, isn't the em-dash a special character? It's not on my keyboard, which is why I always use '--'. It's also what I was taught to use, because I went to school when people used typewriters. In my copy of The Scott Foresman Handbook for Writers it says, "Typed dashes are made up of two unspaced hyphens {--}." Really, I'm just curious what the reasoning is here. SFinside 21:24, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses. Until I get a keyboard with an em-dash on it I'll continue to use double dashes. You can call me the double dash bandit. SFinside 03:53, 30 November 2006 (UTC)
—
HTML entity. --
Rob Kennedy
04:14, 30 November 2006 (UTC)One place the double dash came into common use was in email publications, because some email programs muck up the formatting of special characters like the em dash. I recommend that people who use it often either memorize the ALT or CTRL function that creates it, or assign it to some keyboard key they don't otherwise use (I use F11). 66.57.225.77 06:59, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
Editors might want to know that there's been some recent discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts, which is part of the Manual of Style. What's being proposed is adding some new guidelines on lists of chart positions for singles (and now for albums): how much chart information an article needs and the best ways to present it. Anyone with even a remote interest in the topic is encouraged to look over the proposals and add an opinion or two. The relevant discussions are at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts#Component charts and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Music/Tables for charts#Chart trajectories. Thanks all! -- keepsleeping slack off! 02:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
I was just wondering about what order things in an alphabetic list should be put in when numbers are concerned. What I'm talking about is here. The band is called 3 Inches of Blood, not Three. Therefore, shouldn't the numbers come before the A-Z, as is the style in most formats (or rather, most that I have seen) or should the first letter of the number be used for alphabetizing? The Haunted Angel ( The Forest Whispers My Name) 16:45, 3 December 2006 (UTC)
New Jersey Transit capitalizes one of their lines as "River LINE". However, this is not always used by the media: [1] Should we use the non-standard "River LINE" because NJT uses it? I note that we do not use REALTOR. -- NE2 08:08, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
Obviously whatever we decide here also applies to MidTOWN DIRECT (ugh!), though that's only a redirect. -- NE2 05:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
The evidence is rather contradictory. There seems to be a mix of uses (LINE and Line) in the news articles referenced above, though New Jersey Transit is pretty consistent in the all caps version. WP:MOS-TM says to use proper initial caps, and explicitly states to use "Realtor" rather that "REALTOR", though does that apply to all cases or only to that one word. Does "Lowercased trademarks with no internal capitals should always be capitalized" apply here or is "LINE" an example of internal capitalization. I would support keeping the capitalized word, but we need to decide one way or ther other in the face of very ambiguous guidelines. Alansohn 06:08, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
This manual says:
In some cases I think this may be misleading. For example: "Captain X was fired by the Los Angeles Police Department. The Department said the reason for the firing was...". In the second sentence I've set the initial "D" in "Department" in capital because this is just an abbreviated proper name. This circumstance should be mentioned in the style manual. Michael Hardy 21:27, 5 December 2006 (UTC)
Question: When an author writes a book under a pen name but that author's name is known would it not be proper to cite the pen name followed by the author's real name (in parenetheses)? If this area is the wrong place to pose such a question I kindly request that someone redirect me to the correct area. Thanks in advance. ( → Netscott) 13:59, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
(Sorry to abuse this important talk page, but I honestly don't know where else to go with this suggestion. It's a minor change I'm suggesting, but it could potentially end up on a major number of pages).
I have an idea for making IPA symbols more comprehensible, like this: ʒ (try rolling over that with your mouse). That is, {{ Ʒ}}. To discuss the concept, go here: template talk:Ʒ. If this idea were to come into use, it would need clear style guidelines on when it is preferred, when it is optional, and when it is a bad idea. I expect all three cases would exist. -- 200.6.254.170 18:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I've overhauled Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works) based on a 2nd round of feedback. Possibly it's complete and ready to be called a style-guideline? Feedback (at it's talkpage) or improvements welcome :) -- Quiddity 20:54, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
I can't seem to find a standard for the case style of URLs (when case sensitivity doesn't matter, of course). I've always figured lowercase is the standard, but a quick glance at the articles for Apple and Martha Stewart Living show two, opposite, styles... And I can't find anything here, or on the two potentially relevant submanuals ( capital letters or links)... Chicago seems to prefer lowercase, but they seem to indicate they're not sure yet, either. Anybody familiar with a pre-existing Wiki style standard, or have advice on what to do to get clarification? Thanks in advance! Justen 06:56, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
The proposed convention, now up for adoption, on geographic names discusses the use of alternate names in text, and therefore is also to some extent a manual of style. I think the guideline is consistent with this page, although far more detailed; comments are welcome. Septentrionalis 22:00, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
See Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biography#Flag icons next to birth and death locations in infoboxes. – flamurai ( t) 03:06, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
Thanks. A reply on my talk page will be greatly appriecated. 100110100 07:31, 10 December 2006 (UTC)
Why can't Wikipedia set a rule to use either the English spelling or American, throughout the whole of Wikipedia. I think it would be the best idea to use the English (as I am English!) but mainly due to the fact the English spellings were the original and the language is, after all, called "English" I suppose. Either that or use the American spellings, as that is the (much!) bigger country. I stand up in order to be shot down.
Please Sign your names: ~~~, not ~~~~, as that produces the date and time too.
________________________
Arriva436 20:25, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
There are differences in spelling, vocabulary, and grammar. That's a lot to fix automatically (also disregarding the quotation troubles). I also think the trend to 'protect' American English users from seeing English English, and vice versa, should not be encouraged. It is bad enough that many books are 'translated' when crossing the Atlantic. JoergenB 13:19, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
Someone did a formal proposal to standardize on American English spelling about a year ago. The vote was over 100 to 1 against the proposal when I took it off my watchlist. Blank Verse 04:33, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
On the point raised (in the proposal) about the "original" spellings, a cautionary tale comes in the form of the word, "tyre" / "tire". It seems that the spelling used in Britain was originally the same as that from the United States: "tire". It became "tyre" after somebody in Britain patented that word in the context of the pneumatic tyre, and the invention captured the public's attention sufficiently for the spelling to become standardised usage. So the current United States version is actually the original in that case. I say this is a cautionary tale because I prefer to stick to "older" spellings which give some hint to the etymology and origins of a word, and thus help in its understanding. But that should never mean that we presume that the "old world" spellings are the originals. – Kieran T ( talk) 04:43, 22 December 2006 (UTC)