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 85 | ← | Archive 89 | Archive 90 | Archive 91 | Archive 92 | Archive 93 | → | Archive 95 |
Maybe an edit war can be resolved here. Over at Talk:Stargate SG-1, there's a discussion centering around the formatting of the show's city of origin - should it read " Vancouver, Canada," " Vancouver, British Columbia," or " Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada"? (Or any of the other possible combinations...) Thank you! =David( talk)( contribs) 14:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
MJCDetroit, can you briefly summarize the changes in this? It's hard to tell what was done. Thanks, SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 17:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I propose changing:
to
Rationale: Using italics is grossly problematic. It confuses mention-demarking with emphasis, and effectively makes it impossible to adequately emphasize anything in an article or projectpage (such as WP:MOSNUM and other MOS pages) that uses a lot of examples, because the intended-to-be-emphasized item is too easily mistaken for yet another example (and boldfacing is too over-the-top). It also conflicts with italicization of foreign words, again leading to no choice but to inappropriately bold face them when they are also being used as mention-cases. It is routinely ignored as a MOS recommendation; the vast majority of examples I see in WP articles use quotation marks, not italics, for use-mention distinction. The can't-emphasize problem is compounded a bit by inappropriately making it look like any random example is in fact intended to emphasized, which it generally is not. The cited Use-mention distinction article actually gives italicization as the second, not first, option, and does not recommend one either way. I could go on, but this ought to be enough justification for the change. If necessary, it could be be changed to allow either but recommend quotes over italics; I'd prefer not being that wishy-washy about it. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
PS: User:Tony1 from over at WP:MOSNUM pretty much pleaded for guidance on usage with regard to this sort of thing, more than once, and received silence, which suggests to me that a) hardly anyone cares one way or the other, and b) there is no actual demonstrable consensus to keep the more problematic italic usage. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
In a phrase like “A man came” the first word a is composed of the uppercase variant <A> of the roman letter ‘a’, which is usually not pronounced /a/ in English – the sound [a] may be encountered in other words, though.
Is there some authoritative source on this? I'm no professional writer, and when this was raised as an issue about "sub-professional writing" on one of the FACs I was pushing, I thought italicising "words as words" is something that is done in professional writing. Now it seems like it's kind of arbitrarily decided amongst a few WP editors. Hong Qi Gong ( Talk - Contribs) 15:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I believe quotation marks are more problematic. It would be useful to use double quotes for quotations and single quotes for words as words, but we can't really do that, so it gets confused as to whether the word is quoted or not. The emphasis and foreign word examples you suggest are difficult, but if bold is over the top, there must not be much reason to emphasize at all, or perhaps the emphasis should be added in a more subtle manner than italics. — The Storm Surfer 19:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
A group is called a "pod," "herd," "school," or "bloat." A male is known as a "bull," a female as a "cow," and a baby as a "calf."
I am in favor of keeping the italics, mainly because switching will cause a whole bunch of people to come out of the woodwork and start circular arguments about whether punctuation goes inside or outside the quotation marks. Strad 00:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
This is a small detail, but when a word has a couple of uses, but one is recognized as being more informal, which is given preference in Wikipedia? Saying The US comprises fifty states is more formal than saying The US is comprised of fifty states. The first is the traditionally correct grammar, but both are "acceptable" today in that both are described in dictionaries and usually both are understood correctly. Which should be followed? My first impression is that the more formal should be used since some readers will be older and not accustomed to the newer, relaxed usage. Sancho 16:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
All of the below say that "comprised of" is attacked as wrong, or something to that effect, although it is getting more and more common. I propose the comprise should only be used in the active voice, and something else (e.g. composed of, made up of) be used for passive voice. Dictionary.com Encarta Ask Oxford Merriam Webster Online American Heritage Dictionary V2 Vocabulary Building Dictionary i said 00:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I would like to ask what's the rationale for the following guideline:
===
) headings, as this disconnects the heading from the text it precedes. For example, …I don't understand why this is a problem (and only if done with 2nd level headings). Anyway, this is against the Wikipedia:Accessibility#Article structure policy, so this guideline should be removed unless there are very good reasons to violate this policy. Best regards — surueña 18:42, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I reverted this as it doesn't say it should be outside, it says it shouldn't be left aligned, which makes it much easier for the vast majority of people to read. The two alternatives are making it right aligned or putting it somewhere else in the section. Owain.davies 06:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
While I am sure it is annoying for users that have low resolution screens (600x800) to see images that are too large for their current resolution we are far into a state were the average user has HD screens or at the very least screens with a resolution of 1024x768. I think that having someone run around shrinking images is annoying. Users shouldn't have to click on an image to see the picture. I think it is truly time to reconsider the recommendations of the MOS. I stress to readers that these are RECOMMENDATIONS not a hard rule or policy and I think that wikipedia may need to catch up to current standards. Plus when I view under low resolution it is not that bad, However when I view thumbnails at the default size in my full resolution I can barely see the image at all.-- Amadscientist 01:55, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow, this discussion goes round like a virus... see another further up the page with a link to a very long debate on the issue in archive #75. It seems to me that the time for that stage is now, as a growing number of users bring this same complaint up almost every month. It went to the Village Pump once, and never came back. As it might be a coding or markup issue, what's the best way of getting some action on it? mikaul talk 14:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Too soon. — The Storm Surfer 18:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a silly edit-war going on at Hawaii over whether to spell it Hawaii or Hawaiʻi throughout the article (even as the article is titled "Hawaii"). Can an administrator who is a WP:MOS expert intervene and resolve the dispute? THF 16:09, 9 August 2007 (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 85 | ← | Archive 89 | Archive 90 | Archive 91 | Archive 92 | Archive 93 | → | Archive 95 |
Maybe an edit war can be resolved here. Over at Talk:Stargate SG-1, there's a discussion centering around the formatting of the show's city of origin - should it read " Vancouver, Canada," " Vancouver, British Columbia," or " Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada"? (Or any of the other possible combinations...) Thank you! =David( talk)( contribs) 14:54, 4 August 2007 (UTC)
MJCDetroit, can you briefly summarize the changes in this? It's hard to tell what was done. Thanks, SandyGeorgia ( Talk) 17:29, 5 August 2007 (UTC)
I propose changing:
to
Rationale: Using italics is grossly problematic. It confuses mention-demarking with emphasis, and effectively makes it impossible to adequately emphasize anything in an article or projectpage (such as WP:MOSNUM and other MOS pages) that uses a lot of examples, because the intended-to-be-emphasized item is too easily mistaken for yet another example (and boldfacing is too over-the-top). It also conflicts with italicization of foreign words, again leading to no choice but to inappropriately bold face them when they are also being used as mention-cases. It is routinely ignored as a MOS recommendation; the vast majority of examples I see in WP articles use quotation marks, not italics, for use-mention distinction. The can't-emphasize problem is compounded a bit by inappropriately making it look like any random example is in fact intended to emphasized, which it generally is not. The cited Use-mention distinction article actually gives italicization as the second, not first, option, and does not recommend one either way. I could go on, but this ought to be enough justification for the change. If necessary, it could be be changed to allow either but recommend quotes over italics; I'd prefer not being that wishy-washy about it. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:45, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
PS: User:Tony1 from over at WP:MOSNUM pretty much pleaded for guidance on usage with regard to this sort of thing, more than once, and received silence, which suggests to me that a) hardly anyone cares one way or the other, and b) there is no actual demonstrable consensus to keep the more problematic italic usage. — SMcCandlish [ talk] [ cont] ‹(-¿-)› 01:49, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
In a phrase like “A man came” the first word a is composed of the uppercase variant <A> of the roman letter ‘a’, which is usually not pronounced /a/ in English – the sound [a] may be encountered in other words, though.
Is there some authoritative source on this? I'm no professional writer, and when this was raised as an issue about "sub-professional writing" on one of the FACs I was pushing, I thought italicising "words as words" is something that is done in professional writing. Now it seems like it's kind of arbitrarily decided amongst a few WP editors. Hong Qi Gong ( Talk - Contribs) 15:13, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
I believe quotation marks are more problematic. It would be useful to use double quotes for quotations and single quotes for words as words, but we can't really do that, so it gets confused as to whether the word is quoted or not. The emphasis and foreign word examples you suggest are difficult, but if bold is over the top, there must not be much reason to emphasize at all, or perhaps the emphasis should be added in a more subtle manner than italics. — The Storm Surfer 19:35, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
A group is called a "pod," "herd," "school," or "bloat." A male is known as a "bull," a female as a "cow," and a baby as a "calf."
I am in favor of keeping the italics, mainly because switching will cause a whole bunch of people to come out of the woodwork and start circular arguments about whether punctuation goes inside or outside the quotation marks. Strad 00:33, 7 August 2007 (UTC)
This is a small detail, but when a word has a couple of uses, but one is recognized as being more informal, which is given preference in Wikipedia? Saying The US comprises fifty states is more formal than saying The US is comprised of fifty states. The first is the traditionally correct grammar, but both are "acceptable" today in that both are described in dictionaries and usually both are understood correctly. Which should be followed? My first impression is that the more formal should be used since some readers will be older and not accustomed to the newer, relaxed usage. Sancho 16:26, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
All of the below say that "comprised of" is attacked as wrong, or something to that effect, although it is getting more and more common. I propose the comprise should only be used in the active voice, and something else (e.g. composed of, made up of) be used for passive voice. Dictionary.com Encarta Ask Oxford Merriam Webster Online American Heritage Dictionary V2 Vocabulary Building Dictionary i said 00:01, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
I would like to ask what's the rationale for the following guideline:
===
) headings, as this disconnects the heading from the text it precedes. For example, …I don't understand why this is a problem (and only if done with 2nd level headings). Anyway, this is against the Wikipedia:Accessibility#Article structure policy, so this guideline should be removed unless there are very good reasons to violate this policy. Best regards — surueña 18:42, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
I reverted this as it doesn't say it should be outside, it says it shouldn't be left aligned, which makes it much easier for the vast majority of people to read. The two alternatives are making it right aligned or putting it somewhere else in the section. Owain.davies 06:45, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
While I am sure it is annoying for users that have low resolution screens (600x800) to see images that are too large for their current resolution we are far into a state were the average user has HD screens or at the very least screens with a resolution of 1024x768. I think that having someone run around shrinking images is annoying. Users shouldn't have to click on an image to see the picture. I think it is truly time to reconsider the recommendations of the MOS. I stress to readers that these are RECOMMENDATIONS not a hard rule or policy and I think that wikipedia may need to catch up to current standards. Plus when I view under low resolution it is not that bad, However when I view thumbnails at the default size in my full resolution I can barely see the image at all.-- Amadscientist 01:55, 9 August 2007 (UTC)
Wow, this discussion goes round like a virus... see another further up the page with a link to a very long debate on the issue in archive #75. It seems to me that the time for that stage is now, as a growing number of users bring this same complaint up almost every month. It went to the Village Pump once, and never came back. As it might be a coding or markup issue, what's the best way of getting some action on it? mikaul talk 14:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
Too soon. — The Storm Surfer 18:15, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
There is a silly edit-war going on at Hawaii over whether to spell it Hawaii or Hawaiʻi throughout the article (even as the article is titled "Hawaii"). Can an administrator who is a WP:MOS expert intervene and resolve the dispute? THF 16:09, 9 August 2007 (UTC)