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Originally on the Village Pump
I would like to start to develop a consistent style on marking up technical terms and defined terms in articles (especially technical or scientific articles) to be put somewhere in the Style Manual. I've looked and I see only a few pointers and how to's — no style definitions. Should I just go ahead and add where appropriate in the Manual(s), or has something like this been done before and 1) I missed it or 2) it proved too controversial ? I was thinking of an intro paragraph, a list of options (bold, obique, underline), then perhaps a bulleted list that others could alter or add to until the details are solidified. Any suggestions? - Marshman 18:09, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Are you talking about the style of the technical terms? Like those Latin species names? Because most chemistry, physics and other biological technical terms are not italicized, in the first or third mentioning. Or are you thinking of textbook keyword bolding style? If it's really important, it deserves its own article. -- Menchi 19:14, Aug 23, 2003 (UTC)
Yes, this all makes sense. Add it to wikipedia:manual of style or create a subpage. Martin 22:49, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I have created a Style Manual page for what I am proposing at Technical terms and definitions. The discussion can move to the talk page for that article - Marshman 18:09, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I am not sure where this should be discussed, but we have an computer technical issue that needs to be resolved as it is generating confusion. In particular the use of the terms of KB and MB, or kilobyte and megabyte which currently most manufacturers use inaccurately to define the memory capacity of devices. The technically correct term to use is KiB and MiB for memory as it is described using base 2 instead of base 10. The whole debate centers around whether to use the technically correct term that few people use or to use the technically incorrect term that few more people use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PlayStation_3#Memory_prefixes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Xbox_360#Mib_v._MB
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
http://www.iec.ch/zone/si/si_bytes.htm
It isn't feasible to have related pages intermix these terms. -- Thax 5 July 2005 18:26 (UTC)
See here for the discussion. — Omegatron 16:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
This page seems to be implying that the <tt> HTML element stands for technical term. I'm pretty certain it stands for teletype, and that is why text that occurs in <tt> elements appears in a monospaced font—because it is supposed to look like it came from a teletype. I may be wrong (I haven't checked the W3.org specs) but I'm pretty sure this is the case. Was the author confused or is there something else going on with <tt> that I'm not understanding? Nohat 07:05, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There needs to be some sort of policy on whether or not it is appropriate to have technical terms redirect to related but distinct technical terms. It's certainly very easy to do, and it allows the discussion of any particular topic to be consoldiated in one place, but it leads people to believe that the two terms are synonymous. -- Smack ( talk) 02:43, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
I think this should be merged with Wikipedia:Explain jargon and Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 00:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not at all clear what is meant by this. And the example that is given doesn't seem to illustrate this guideline. If it refers to the way conventional current is formatted, it is in italics, not bold as suggested by the guideline. -- Itub 11:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Is this true?
In school, I was taught that Latin was italicized, so "ungulate" ought not to be, and "Ungulata" should. This is in agreement with what I find in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (The Unabridged Edition) [1], which italicizes (and capitalizes) "Ungulata," but not "ungulate."
Also, is the word "title" used properly in the following sentence?
If so, the rule for titles ought to apply.
Also, I don't understand what the "name" of a term means in this context. Evidently, the "classification term" is meant to be "family," and the "name" is "Poaceae," but "Poaceae" isn't the classification term's name.
Except for the convention about capitalizing a genus, but not a species, I don't consider these rules necessary. They are already covered by broader rules, namely, those about foreign words and titles. Unfree ( talk) 21:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
This is a brief suggestion for a style change regarding the language used to describe the internment of people's bodies. Comments are appreciated. (Crossposted at WT:EJ, WT:MOSB, WT:TTD, WT:EJ, and WT:WTA) - Ste vertigo 21:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to propose a change that came up during a
review of a computer science-related article. We seem to be completely lacking any guideline stating how to write about
keywords and
identifiers. Most journal articles use Monospace font
to distinguish these terms (you can make a cursory verification of this by browsing the references at
Aspect weaver, for example). Wikipedia enables this functionality with the use of <code> tags. The
GAs
Python (programming language) and
Forth (programming language) (the only relevant articles out of all of
WikiProject Computer Science's GAs and
FAs) both use this formatting for keywords and identfiers, so there at least seems to be some agreement for this. So, I'd like to propose a formalization for this as a new section below the 'bold text section:
Monospaced text
(edited as<code>Monospaced text</code>
); used for:
- Programming language keywords such as
if
,else
, andfor
in C++.- Sections of program code, including expressions placed inline with article text.
- Identifiers related to:
- A particular programming language's or library's application programming interface (API).
- A section of program code supplied within the article.
Function calls should include any delimiters as monospaced text. For example,
Foo()
, notFoo
().
I think this proposal falls well in-line with what Wikipedia readers interested in Computer science articles would be expecting, and thus it makes sense for us to cater to that audience. This would also help clarify formatting constraints during GA and FA reviews for those that are less familiar with the subject domain. I welcome any comments on this proposal or proposed adjustments. Thanks. -- Shirik ( Questions or Comments?) 19:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
One issue that might come up is in articles about mathematical topics that include implementations of related algorithms; an example is
binary logarithm. For most of the article it follows the mathematical typographic conventions in which the variable whose logarithm is being taken is formatted in italic: n. However, there is also example code that has a variable named n
. I wouldn't want this convention to be interpreted as requiring that n
be used throughout the article in contravention of the mathematical standards of formatting in
WP:MOSMATH#Variables. —
David Eppstein (
talk)
19:52, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
monospace
formatting is rather standard in books about programming. --
Cybercobra
(talk)
03:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)m:=a[1]; for i:=2 to n do if ai] > m then m:=ai]
The Styleguide Taskforce is currently auditing three very similar styleguides:
I'm sorry to be blunt, but I find this "styleguide" contains nothing much substantive that does not appear in other styleguides (Legal, Biology, Italics, Bold, MoS main page). I wonder whether the opening is helpful to editors; i.e., does it state the obvious?
I'm struggling to come to terms with the convoluted rules for bolding, italics and bold italics. Apart from a few examples that are expressed in other styleguides, there appear to be a number of rules that are not generally practised or known by WP editors; forgive my directness, but some of these points seem to be alternatives to other standard practices; I have not seen them mentioned at WP:FAC, where it is mandatory to apply these rules.
For example:
"Although it is standard practice in text books to put in italics or bold font those words likely to be new to the reader only the first time the word appears, it is helpful to the learning process if newly defined terms that reappear are rendered in italic font elsewhere in a Wikipedia article."
I have no idea what this means:
"It is also the case that such an article can cover a range of related subjects that might not each justify a separate article or Wikipedia page, and therefore making technical terms stand out in the text is the first level in a sequence from definition to subtitle to separate article."
Nor this:
"On the other hand, do not treat every “scientific” word as a technical term. Ask the question: Is this the only article or one of a very few where the term might be encountered in Wikipedia?"
This styleguide seems to make the whole business of technical language impenetrable, even for experts. In the interests of rationalising our complicated and bloated system of styleguides, can anyone explain why this page should not be deleted? I mean no offense to editors who have contibuted to this page; please regard this proposal as in good faith. I am prepared to debate these matters and learn from editors here. Tony (talk) 10:08, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
I propose we demote this page to historical. There has been little editting in the past two years and more important I can't find one page that follows this MOS Gnevin ( talk) 12:48, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Wouldn't it make more sense to tag this with {{ failed}} instead? -- œ ™ 04:42, 28 July 2010 (UTC)
![]() |
Manual of Style ![]() ![]() | |||||||||
|
![]() | Wikipedia Help NA‑class Mid‑importance | |||||||||
|
Originally on the Village Pump
I would like to start to develop a consistent style on marking up technical terms and defined terms in articles (especially technical or scientific articles) to be put somewhere in the Style Manual. I've looked and I see only a few pointers and how to's — no style definitions. Should I just go ahead and add where appropriate in the Manual(s), or has something like this been done before and 1) I missed it or 2) it proved too controversial ? I was thinking of an intro paragraph, a list of options (bold, obique, underline), then perhaps a bulleted list that others could alter or add to until the details are solidified. Any suggestions? - Marshman 18:09, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
Are you talking about the style of the technical terms? Like those Latin species names? Because most chemistry, physics and other biological technical terms are not italicized, in the first or third mentioning. Or are you thinking of textbook keyword bolding style? If it's really important, it deserves its own article. -- Menchi 19:14, Aug 23, 2003 (UTC)
Yes, this all makes sense. Add it to wikipedia:manual of style or create a subpage. Martin 22:49, 23 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I have created a Style Manual page for what I am proposing at Technical terms and definitions. The discussion can move to the talk page for that article - Marshman 18:09, 24 Aug 2003 (UTC)
I am not sure where this should be discussed, but we have an computer technical issue that needs to be resolved as it is generating confusion. In particular the use of the terms of KB and MB, or kilobyte and megabyte which currently most manufacturers use inaccurately to define the memory capacity of devices. The technically correct term to use is KiB and MiB for memory as it is described using base 2 instead of base 10. The whole debate centers around whether to use the technically correct term that few people use or to use the technically incorrect term that few more people use.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PlayStation_3#Memory_prefixes
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Xbox_360#Mib_v._MB
http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html
http://www.iec.ch/zone/si/si_bytes.htm
It isn't feasible to have related pages intermix these terms. -- Thax 5 July 2005 18:26 (UTC)
See here for the discussion. — Omegatron 16:20, 30 January 2006 (UTC)
This page seems to be implying that the <tt> HTML element stands for technical term. I'm pretty certain it stands for teletype, and that is why text that occurs in <tt> elements appears in a monospaced font—because it is supposed to look like it came from a teletype. I may be wrong (I haven't checked the W3.org specs) but I'm pretty sure this is the case. Was the author confused or is there something else going on with <tt> that I'm not understanding? Nohat 07:05, 8 Dec 2004 (UTC)
There needs to be some sort of policy on whether or not it is appropriate to have technical terms redirect to related but distinct technical terms. It's certainly very easy to do, and it allows the discussion of any particular topic to be consoldiated in one place, but it leads people to believe that the two terms are synonymous. -- Smack ( talk) 02:43, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
I think this should be merged with Wikipedia:Explain jargon and Wikipedia:Make technical articles accessible.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk 00:16, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
It's not at all clear what is meant by this. And the example that is given doesn't seem to illustrate this guideline. If it refers to the way conventional current is formatted, it is in italics, not bold as suggested by the guideline. -- Itub 11:19, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Is this true?
In school, I was taught that Latin was italicized, so "ungulate" ought not to be, and "Ungulata" should. This is in agreement with what I find in The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (The Unabridged Edition) [1], which italicizes (and capitalizes) "Ungulata," but not "ungulate."
Also, is the word "title" used properly in the following sentence?
If so, the rule for titles ought to apply.
Also, I don't understand what the "name" of a term means in this context. Evidently, the "classification term" is meant to be "family," and the "name" is "Poaceae," but "Poaceae" isn't the classification term's name.
Except for the convention about capitalizing a genus, but not a species, I don't consider these rules necessary. They are already covered by broader rules, namely, those about foreign words and titles. Unfree ( talk) 21:19, 24 February 2008 (UTC)
This is a brief suggestion for a style change regarding the language used to describe the internment of people's bodies. Comments are appreciated. (Crossposted at WT:EJ, WT:MOSB, WT:TTD, WT:EJ, and WT:WTA) - Ste vertigo 21:53, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
I'd like to propose a change that came up during a
review of a computer science-related article. We seem to be completely lacking any guideline stating how to write about
keywords and
identifiers. Most journal articles use Monospace font
to distinguish these terms (you can make a cursory verification of this by browsing the references at
Aspect weaver, for example). Wikipedia enables this functionality with the use of <code> tags. The
GAs
Python (programming language) and
Forth (programming language) (the only relevant articles out of all of
WikiProject Computer Science's GAs and
FAs) both use this formatting for keywords and identfiers, so there at least seems to be some agreement for this. So, I'd like to propose a formalization for this as a new section below the 'bold text section:
Monospaced text
(edited as<code>Monospaced text</code>
); used for:
- Programming language keywords such as
if
,else
, andfor
in C++.- Sections of program code, including expressions placed inline with article text.
- Identifiers related to:
- A particular programming language's or library's application programming interface (API).
- A section of program code supplied within the article.
Function calls should include any delimiters as monospaced text. For example,
Foo()
, notFoo
().
I think this proposal falls well in-line with what Wikipedia readers interested in Computer science articles would be expecting, and thus it makes sense for us to cater to that audience. This would also help clarify formatting constraints during GA and FA reviews for those that are less familiar with the subject domain. I welcome any comments on this proposal or proposed adjustments. Thanks. -- Shirik ( Questions or Comments?) 19:30, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
One issue that might come up is in articles about mathematical topics that include implementations of related algorithms; an example is
binary logarithm. For most of the article it follows the mathematical typographic conventions in which the variable whose logarithm is being taken is formatted in italic: n. However, there is also example code that has a variable named n
. I wouldn't want this convention to be interpreted as requiring that n
be used throughout the article in contravention of the mathematical standards of formatting in
WP:MOSMATH#Variables. —
David Eppstein (
talk)
19:52, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
monospace
formatting is rather standard in books about programming. --
Cybercobra
(talk)
03:23, 31 January 2010 (UTC)m:=a[1]; for i:=2 to n do if ai] > m then m:=ai]
The Styleguide Taskforce is currently auditing three very similar styleguides:
I'm sorry to be blunt, but I find this "styleguide" contains nothing much substantive that does not appear in other styleguides (Legal, Biology, Italics, Bold, MoS main page). I wonder whether the opening is helpful to editors; i.e., does it state the obvious?
I'm struggling to come to terms with the convoluted rules for bolding, italics and bold italics. Apart from a few examples that are expressed in other styleguides, there appear to be a number of rules that are not generally practised or known by WP editors; forgive my directness, but some of these points seem to be alternatives to other standard practices; I have not seen them mentioned at WP:FAC, where it is mandatory to apply these rules.
For example:
"Although it is standard practice in text books to put in italics or bold font those words likely to be new to the reader only the first time the word appears, it is helpful to the learning process if newly defined terms that reappear are rendered in italic font elsewhere in a Wikipedia article."
I have no idea what this means:
"It is also the case that such an article can cover a range of related subjects that might not each justify a separate article or Wikipedia page, and therefore making technical terms stand out in the text is the first level in a sequence from definition to subtitle to separate article."
Nor this:
"On the other hand, do not treat every “scientific” word as a technical term. Ask the question: Is this the only article or one of a very few where the term might be encountered in Wikipedia?"
This styleguide seems to make the whole business of technical language impenetrable, even for experts. In the interests of rationalising our complicated and bloated system of styleguides, can anyone explain why this page should not be deleted? I mean no offense to editors who have contibuted to this page; please regard this proposal as in good faith. I am prepared to debate these matters and learn from editors here. Tony (talk) 10:08, 1 April 2010 (UTC)
I propose we demote this page to historical. There has been little editting in the past two years and more important I can't find one page that follows this MOS Gnevin ( talk) 12:48, 4 April 2010 (UTC)
Wouldn't it make more sense to tag this with {{ failed}} instead? -- œ ™ 04:42, 28 July 2010 (UTC)