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At Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine and other articles, User:Eric Corbett has styling the reference sections in a novel way using Template:style-nt that he created recently, to give himself control over text point size, whether or not an edit button appears by the headings, whether they show up in the TOC or not, and what-all. The coding looks cryptic, and it's hard to discern any good reason for not going with the usual default style that one gets with normal section and subsection heading markup. He keeps putting it back, with little justification; see User talk:Eric Corbett#What does Template:style-nt do?. Does the MOS have anything to say about editors going their own way on such styling? Dicklyon ( talk) 04:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
A specimen, for delectation. I like gadgets, this is fun! Batternut ( talk) 11:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
{{
h3}}
template (I shall probably be shot down for bringing up the matter here, but I see it as germane to the topic). When I first saw this thread, I hadn't actually realised that {{
style-nt}}
had originated as {{
h3}}
which is why I've not commented here previously. --
Redrose64 🌹 (
talk) 07:26, 19 May 2018 (UTC)Advice is requested at Talk:Regional corporations and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago#ndash vs hyphen in article titles. Shhhnotsoloud ( talk) 07:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Manual of Style has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
In Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Celestial_bodies, it says sun, earth, and moon are not capitalized except in astronomical use. MOS:CELESTIALBODIES says the same exact thing except with solar system added. I am questioning whether solar system should be added to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Celestial_bodies because the article title of the solar system on Wikipedia is capitalized while on other sites it is not. I can't think of other ways solar system is used outside of astronomical use. 2601:183:101:58D0:34E8:552C:3EB8:46BF ( talk) 20:07, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
Closing duplicate threads: This has also been forum-shopped or at least talk-forked to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Solar System capitalization (closed) and Talk:Solar System#Requested move 23 May 2018 (speedy closure requested). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:11, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
The lead of our Katano, Osaka doesn't quite sit well with me. According to ja.wiki, the town of Katano was formally declared a "city" in 1971, but using "founded" brings to my mind an image of settlers venturing into the wilderness and establishing a new settlement. Our Takizawa, Iwate article describes a similar process with the word "promoted". There's also the problem of "new" municipal governments being established from mergers or dissolutions, which I also wouldn't think "founded" would accurately describe.
But this might all just be me and my hang-ups, so rather than changing it unilaterally (and I could almost certainly "get away with it") I figured I'd ask here. Thoughts?
Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 01:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Is their a stylistic difference we should be aware of between en-us and en-gb usage of semicolons? There obviously is a difference in what we call conjunctival adverbs - does this permeate further?-- ClemRutter ( talk) 19:02, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
{{Use xxx English}}
tags should always be respected. —
Stanning (
talk) 20:20, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
I made an edit to change the wording "in particular" to "usually" to more accurately reflect the content of the § Article titles guideline, which state, "Capitalize the title's initial letter (except in rare cases, such as eBay), but otherwise follow sentence case[b] (Funding of UNESCO projects) not title case (Funding of UNESCO Projects). This does not apply where the title would be title case in ordinary prose". I summarize this that usually, not always, section headings should use sentence case, not title case. Dicklyon previously made an addition to the guideline, stating that "In particular, they should use sentence case, not title case (capitalize only the first word and proper names in headings)". This wording implies that in all cases the section heading should use sentence case, ignoring the exceptions mentioned in the article titles guideline. Therefore I changed "in particular" for "usually". Thinker78 ( talk) 06:14, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Someone added a list of symbol definitions for equations in the Lateral earth pressure article. All the definitions are correct, and they will help reading the equations in the article. My question is whether this table should be its own section, whether it should be a table or a list, and other stylistic questions about its placement. It's not whether the information belongs in the article, it's how the information should be presented. The presentation is a very textbook sort of presentation, and textbook is one of those things which Wikipedia is not. So what say you style mavens? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Argyriou ( talk • contribs) 00:06, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Comments welcome at Talk:Bruce McArthur#>>>Swearwords. The source reads I'm tired of these f---ing f---ots but that supports and verifies that the (alleged) statement was I'm tired of these fucking faggots. By the letter of the MOS we should reproduce the bowdlerised version, but by its spirit I think we should reproduce the quotation exactly as (allegedly) said. Andrewa ( talk) 16:20, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that we ever guess what the source means. But I am suggesting that when a reliable source is clear and explicit as to what was really said, but employs bowdlerisation because of the source's own style and content policies, and when the bowdlerisation has only one reasonable interpretation (as in the example), then we should read the source as verifying the unbowdlerised version. Because that is the only reasonable reading of the source.
If, on the other hand, we publish the bowdlerised version while knowing full well what the source means, we are ourselves guilty of bowdlerisation. Which is of course contrary to policy, and surely the MOS should reflect this policy? Andrewa ( talk) 18:51, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
See
WP:BOWDLERIZE on precisely this point "However, when quoting relevant material, rendering a quotation as it appears in the source cited trumps this style guideline". WP is not bowdlerising, the original source is. If you are worried, use the format suggested above and add {{
sic}}
to clarify: 'According to Title of Source, McArthur said: "I'm tired of these f---ing f---ots [
sic]".' See
MOS:SIC for guidance.
Martin of Sheffield (
talk) 19:16, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Please see
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks#Minor clarification to avoid interpretational conflict between MOS:TM and WP:TITLETM
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 20:59, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#To be or not to be a subsection, on whether the use of a single ===Subsection=== (rather than two or more) within a ==Section== is compatible with good writing style. Please comment over there, not here. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:33, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
I've started a draft Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Portals, which would formalise the applicability of the MOS to portals, with just a few exceptions. Your feedback would be appreciated – discussion is taking place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals § To what extent does the MOS apply to portals? (please respond there, not here). Thanks, Evad37 [ talk 16:35, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Portals#RfC: Adopt as a MoS guideline . - Evad37 [ talk 03:00, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Please see
Talk:Gender neutrality in languages with grammatical gender#Major update needed for Romance languages
People who edit here may be interested in it. The gist: there's a pattern of using the single character x as a stand-in for "a or e/i/o depending on your gender", and it's increasingly coming up in the proper names of organizations, forums, etc. So, we might want to address (in a footnote?) either here or at
WP:GNL that good markup for this sort of thing is, for example, usuari<var>x</var>s
or the equivalent usuari{{var|x}}s
(rendered: usuarixs) as the shorthand for "usuarios/usuarias" or "usuari[a|o]s" or whatever. This will alert editors that the x is not a typo but a
metasyntactic variable. This mark-it-up approach is consistent with various advised uses of {{
sic|hide=y}}
or {{
notatypo}}
. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 05:13, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
An RfC concerning the categorization of biracial people has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality#RfC on categorizing biracial people. St Anselm ( talk) 04:31, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
It's somewhat unfortunate that the section on Possessives includes "Jesus" as an example (Jesus's teachings). Whereas it's fine to add apostrophe+s on names ending in -s the most well-known exception to this in many style manuals is Jesus, which adds only the apostrophe: Jesus' teachings. I'm not saying that MOS needs to adhere to what most style manuals do, I'm only saying that we shouldn't pick as our example to illustrate the general -s rule, the most famous example which is an exception to that rule in many style guides; we can pick something else. Here is Bryan Garner:
To form a singular possessive, add -'s to most singular nouns—even those ending in -s and -x (hence witness's, Vitex's, Jones's, Nichols's). ... There are three exceptions to this rule. The first is the standard one: Biblical and classical names ending in -s take only an apostrophe:, hence Jesus' suffering, Moses' discovery, Aristophanes' plays, Grotius' writings. (No extra syllable is added in sounding the possessive form.) The second exception is words formed from the plural. Thus General Motors should make General Motors'—e.g.: "A merger by General Motors will excite great interest in an enforcement agency simply because of General Motors's [read General Motors' ] size."
HTH, Mathglot ( talk) 09:07, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Regardless, the CMoS shift is an indication that "Jesus'" isn't a rule in a sense we should care about here, but a subjective preference of some American writers and editors primarily (it's neither exclusive to them nor consistent among them), and is slipping in acceptance because it's confusing and illogical (it seems to've been picked from the Elizabethan-era [pre-orthography-standardization] King James Bible, used by many American Protestant sects, and retained in the 20th century because it coincides with a particular, blurred pronunciation in some variants of US Midwestern English (and some other dialects, e.g. in parts of Texas [that's /ˈtɛksəz/ !], though CMoS wouldn't care). But it isn't actually dominant across the language or even in the US. Our own conversations on this page show it; every time the issue comes up, editors from around the English speaking world and the US more narrowly tell us that they pronounce "Jesus" and "Jesus'[s]" differently, with a distinct syllable added to the possessive (the suprasegmental length is apt to vary, and might be rather short; it is for me).
There is no escaping a simple fact: for every single point of English usage on which different self-styled authorities disagree, there will always be some subset of readers and editors who don't like the version we pick. So, MoS works best when it detects and defuses "style-guide thumping" that's likely to recurrently arise. E.g., we've done the same thing with capitalization of prepositions in titles of works, something that style guides disagree on even in the same field, like journalism, and which is often laden with style-guide-specific exceptions. We just swept away the exceptions as inconsistent and troublesome, and went with neither of the more extreme approaches.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 12:05, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Move review#List of Presidents of the United States. Some comments at WT:MOSCAPS has suggested there could be insufficient input so far to reach a clear consensus. Depending on how it turns out, MOS:JOBTITLES might require substantial revision, which could in turn affect the wording at the main MoS guideline. (That might or might not be a good idea, but people who watch this page should be aware of it either way.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:12, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#Merge MOS:JOBTITLES to this MoS page.
The proposal is to merge WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Titles of people (a.k.a. MOS:JOBTITLES) to WP:Manual of Style/Biographies, where the rest of the material about human titles is (academic, post-nominal, honorific, regnal, etc.). A short summary and hatnote pointer would be left behind in MOS:CAPS (about the same as those presently at found at MOS:CAPS#Occupational titles pointing to MOS:CAPS#Titles of people; the relationship would simply be reversed). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:50, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see:
The "NOTES" one proposes that "MOS:" shortcuts should point to non-Manual of Style pages. The AMEN and BRIT ones are about ambiguity. The pseudo-namespace ones boil down to this: "MOS:" is a pseudo-namespace created, after a consensus discussion, to point to WP's Manual of Style and sections and subpages thereof, to deal with the decreasing availability of meaningful and memorable "WP:"-namespace shortcuts, and because there's often an MoS page and a content, naming, or other page about the same thing. However, pseudo-namespaces are actually in mainspace (articlespace). Some editors thus do not want to see a profusion of "typo redirects" like "MoS:CAPS", "mos:CAPS", "Wikipedia:MOS:CAPS", etc., while others are convinced that all redirects are necessarily "cheap" and always should be permitted even if only used by a handful of editors and of no use to readers. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:42, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Quick question... In a statement such as: “The media’s attitude toward(s) the military shifted during the war”, should we use “toward” or “towards”. Blueboar ( talk) 17:42, 3 June 2018 (UTC) Blueboar ( talk) 17:42, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Isn't this a better question for the Refdesk? Primergrey ( talk) 21:48, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
If this isn't a suggestion to include some sort of guidance on this particular point to the MOS, then this entire discussion ought to be at the refdesk or a user's talkpage...no? Primergrey ( talk) 00:13, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
I knew I would get a quicker answer here.Make that: This is not WP:RDL, speed of answer irrelevant. ― Mandruss ☎ 00:22, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Ellipsis#"Save As..." style. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:14, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
Why is this page titled Wikipedia:Manual of Style, not Wikipedia:Manual of style? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:06, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
Should Singapore English be included for Singapore-related articles? -- occono ( talk) 17:58, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
I've been looking for years, and I cannot find any "produced for public use" style guides for places like Malta, Pakistan, Kenya, Grenada, Singapore, Belize, etc., etc. These dialects exist almost entirely as spoken dialects and informal writing based on it, but WP isn't written in informal English, so it's not an ENGVAR matter. Formal writing from such places is generally indistinguishable from British, aside from some locally specific vocabulary words (just as you'll find in Wales or Scotland). Editors branding " their" articles as being written in such dialects is a) nonsense and b) a recipe for insertion of unencyclopedic colloquialisms. There's a good reason we don't have templates for "This article is written in Texan English" and "This article is written in Cockney". There's more difference between Texan and Manhattan English, and between Cockney and Shetland English as dialects than there is between written formal Singaporean or Maltese English and written formal British English. Basically, WP isn't written in bar/pub talk, and we mustn't pretend otherwise just because a handful of editors want to slap huge flag-waving banner templates in articles' editnotices for territorialism and national-pride reasons.
PS: Listing Irish English is basically an "avoid an ethno-political shitshow" concession; at the formal written level it also follows British norms (and I have yet to see an Irish English style guide), but people might quite literally threaten each other over putting "Use British English" templates on Ireland-related articles.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 18:41, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
{{
Use Commonwealth English}}
and {{
Commonwealth English}}
and related templates and categories now exist. We should consider nominating templates we don't need for merger with and redirection to the Commonwealth versions. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 20:17, 22 June 2018 (UTC)In sourcing for most contemporary entertainment, sources generally omit italics or the like to format the name of the work being discussed in the title of their articles. So it seems that most of our citations/references generally end up presented these citation titles without italics/etc. for named works. Should MOS:CONFORM apply to citation titles, considering that these are technically quotations ? I do know we frequently removal allcaps and other unreadible aspects of titles in citations, so it would seem logical to apply appropriate MOS-elements like italics where they can apply. -- Masem ( t) 13:21, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Should we ban links to wikidata within the body of an article? -- Rusf10 ( talk) 00:50, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
Over two months ago we had an RFC on linking to Wikidata, the result of which was "no consensus". I initiated the RFC after a user was continually adding links to wikidata to replace articles that were deleted through AfD for notability concerns, here is an example. Unfortunately, I did not create the question that we voted on and it was worded with the extreme position of "Never link to Wikidata" which got mixed support. I think most people generally agree that the links are the sidebar are useful (in particular the inter-language links) and should not be removed. However, within the body of the article there was less support for using wikidata. Some people also indicated that inline interlanguage links (see WP:ILL) may also be appropriate. However, almost everyone agreed wikidata links should not be a substitute for a red-link (or a deleted article). While I agree that linking different language versions of wikipedia is a great feature, otherwise I find wikidata to be unreliable and directly linking to it would be confusing for the average user.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 00:50, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
NOTE- Since there is another RFC on using wikidata in infoboxes, none of the options below will apply to the usage of wikidata in infoboxes since that is being determined separately.
I'm providing three options:
I am adding an additional option to clarify: --
RAN (
talk) 03:16, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
4. Oppose- Allow hidden text links with Wikidata Q-numbers such as <!-Q1123456--> so that a duplicate Wikidata entry is not created in the future
And another, because the one above isn't an oppose rationale but another exception:
5. Support, with two exceptions: for inline inter-language links and hidden-text Q numbers, as described above.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 09:54, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
*Support.
Tony
(talk) 06:25, 4 June 2018 (UTC) [Sorry, mistakenly posted support twice.
Tony
(talk) 03:34, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Since the RfC so badly formulated that the participants do not really understand what is exactly asked, and one week after it was open new proposals appear (which are not reflected in the past votes), and the proposer says that they are thinking about adding new options, I propose to close this RfC as invalid. Any user in good standing can open a new one, formulating the options clearly and not changing them as the RfC runs its course. I would have also suggested to topic-ban Rusf10 from opening new RfCs about Wikidata, since the previous one was a disaster and this one is going to be a disaster, but this is clearly not an appropriate forum for such a proposal.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 20:17, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
In an effort to make the RFC come to a clear consensus, I'd like to purpose the following: Wikidata may not be linked to within the WP:BODY of an article with the exception of inline inter-language links ( WP:ILL. Inline inter-language links may only be used when an article does not currently exist in en.wikipedia AND an article does exist in at least one other language. The ILL template will be modified to remove the Wikidata table of languages (ex. Jokery ) & Reasonator functions (ex. Jokery ))-- Rusf10 ( talk) 06:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Note: This still has no effect on infoboxes and would not impact other links that are not part of the body such as authority control templates, links on the sidebar, etc.
Support- I'm proposing this as a compromise to gain greater support. Although many have supported the complete ban of wikidata links, a sizable number had indicated they would support the ban if ILL were exempt. However, in order for me to accept ILL links there would have to be some restrictions on them to prevent pages like Mayor of Long Branch, New Jersey where the ILL is being used to link directly to wikidata even though no article exists in any other language and likely never will. I believe that it would not make sense to direct a reader to another language article if an one in English exists (after all this is an English encyclopedia and if they really wanted to find the article in another language all they would have to do is click the link and then look at the side bar). It only makes sense to me to link to another language if we currently do not offer an article about the subject, but another encyclopedia does. Furthermore, it seems most of us are in agreement that we do not want to "dump" the user into the middle of a wikidata page, so they why I proposing the phase-out of the table of languages and resonator links (I doubt many pages are using that function now anyway). I also dropped the ban on wikidata in hidden text from the proposal, although I still do question the wisdom of cluttering the editing screen with extra text that 99% of editors will find useless.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 06:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
What does everyone else think? @ Alsee, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), Jheald, Pburka, Mike Peel, Jc3s5h, CBM, Ealdgyth, Pigsonthewing, Jayron32, Jc86035 (1), Curly Turkey, Syced, Ymblanter, Reyk, Moxy, Jheald, Fram, SlimVirgin, Tony1, SMcCandlish, Peter coxhead, Lawrencekhoo, Martin of Sheffield, and David Eppstein:-- Rusf10 ( talk) 06:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Multiple arbitrators have requested additional input from regular editors here about whether the WP:ARBATC#Discretionary sanctions should be lifted from this and related pages. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:44, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#The lead date-range vs. full dates thing
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 13:39, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
I just noticed an editor going through and 'fixing' split infinitives on multiple articles, but I can't find any reference to such an issue in the MOS. Is there a consensus on the topic? Just wondering... WesT ( talk) 22:58, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
To WP:BOLDly split infinitives that no man had split beforeparaphrasing Douglas Adams, [1] who himself paraphrased Gene Roddenberry. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 13:26, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
If MoS ever advised anything on this, it should be long these lines: "Split infinitives and sentences ending with prepositions should be avoided by default, but used any time the alternative is confusing or stilted. The somewhat formal tone of encyclopedic writing is neither obtuse nor pompous." And, yes, that's a little joke.. Maybe with a footnote that it's not "bad grammar", but rather a matter of
register (sociolinguistics). But I don't know whether this comes up enough we need an MoS line item about it.
— Preceding
unsigned comment added by
SMcCandlish (
talk •
contribs) 21:25, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
References
Gist: The RfC at WP:GAMECAPS produced a clear result, but nothing was implemented. So I implemented a new MOS:SPORTCAPS section; a merger of the sports/games stuff, and the identical dance-related stuff from another MOS:CAPS section. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:23, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
WT:Manual of Style/Biography#Consolidation of MOS:BIO – a bullet list of recent merge and cleanup activity (one major to-do item remains). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:08, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Ever since the introduction of <
syntaxhighlight>
(and templates that use it, like {{
code}}
and {{
syntaxhighlight}}
), we've been having the problem that people are trying to expand its use, not just to mark up blocks of code (what it's actually for) but every single inline mention of a code fragment. This result is strange "outbursts" of color in mid-sentence, and which I think are apt to be confusing, because WP uses color in prose for a very limited number of pre-determined things, like indicating a link and whether it goes to a real article. It's even producing oddly conflicting code markup in the same sentence (because the highlighter only recognizes and colorizes some kinds of code). Example: "Lists with <ul><li> ...
are %block
elements ...". The syntax highlighter is also buggy and sometimes produces misleading output.
When I've tried to address this, I get responses like "I am not aware of any policy, guideline, or essay that discourages such syntax highlighting usage", as if the fact that all of MoS is against all extraneous over-stylization weren't enough. The state of articles like HTML element (from which the above example comes) strongly suggest that lack of an MoS item about this actually is a gap we need to fill, perhaps at MOS:COLOR.
I think we should advise to not use <
syntaxhighlight>
except:
It should not be used an alternative to <code>...</code>
in simple cases like "the <span>
element".
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:51, 25 June 2018 (UTC); revised 17:38, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
<code>...</code>
CSS; the latter is still questionably fine because the idea is to separate elements, not necessary for all elements to be styled consistently. --
Izno (
talk) 13:23, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
-0.5em
; it mistakes this for a "-0" (which isn't a real thing) in one color, followed by a ".5em" which it highlights as an alphanum input in another color. Just pretty ucked fup. I've filed
Phabricator bug report T198095 about it. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 03:59, 26 June 2018 (UTC)<syntaxhighlight>
. A new version of an old problem.I covered this stuff in considerably more detail at User talk:Nøkkenbuer#Misuse of syntax highlighting. A key bit: any time one is trying to impose a "consistency" with style, there's likely to be a conflict with another consistency. WP has very long-established and important consistencies in our encyclopedic prose, and when a tangential new consistency that's a trivial, largely decorative add-on collides with it, the latter loses.
All that said, I'm not totally opposed to the idea that we shouldn't use syntax highlighting in mainspace at all, but as a coder I find it actually helpful (when it's not bugged – see above) in actual code blocks. I seems a throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater solution to discourage or eliminate it even in block, just to avoid the problem of inline, not block, syntax highlighting making a mess of things. It's much simpler to just advise against inline highlighting except of complex code examples. Even then, we could actually advise instead to move them into discrete blocks, and "ban" syntaxhighlight inline, completely. I'm trying to be agnostic on that kind of stuff. Just want to deal with the "The purpose of the <span>
element is ..." over-stylization problem.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 03:59, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
More to the general point, we have many kinds of consistencies to deal with, and some of them are directly conflicting, and some of them are not applicable at all to particular contexts. The important consistency wins over the decorative one, especially when the latter is intended for a very narrow context (blocks of code). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Look at the article Gender role. Look at the "Model A" and "Model B" table inside it talking about the difference between 2 extreme views of gender stereotypes. I would like to know if anyone can make a similar table except that it deals with language rather than roles. That is, the "Model A" column should be about language that reflects male superiority and the "Model B" column should be about gender-neutral language. Also, read the text below the table saying that the model followed in practice falls in between these poles. I guess this is also true of language. WP has a mention of using GNL in this project page, but it appears that in practice the rule that most Wikipedians prefer is that either GNL or GML (this stands for generic male language) is acceptable and unless there's a real reason not to the variant in the first nonstub version of an article should be kept, just like AE and BE (these stand for American English and British English.) (The source of this information is the section of this talk page just 2 sections above this one for clarification, I suggest anyone who comments on this section should study what's going on in that section.) Georgia guy ( talk) 11:54, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
There has been an extensive discussion taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#To be or not to be a subsection that has covered multiple issues regarding what actually counts as a subsection and whether it is incorrect to have only one. From that discussion, as well as one at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Question on subsections, it has become clear that there is no technical issue (either in terms of accessibility or general logic) with having a "single subsection" in cases where a section is divided into general content and a more specific sub-section that both fit under the same general heading. For example:
==Development== General development information. ===Writing=== Specific writing information.
This format is common in film articles that are structured based on the phases of filmmaking (as laid out in MOS:FILM), where we can end up with a whole lot of different information fitting under one phase (such as "Development") with a significant chunk also fitting under a more specific heading (such as "Writing") and being easier to read that way. To repeat, this is both common and easier for the reader than having all of the content mixed together. Now, the reason this has become an issue at all is Bignole has noted that many external style guides specifically state to avoid having only a single subsection and some of that wording has been carried over to places in Wikipedia. Myself and several other editors at the MOS:FILM discussion agree that though this is something good to aim for in terms of professional styling, it should not be a hard-and-fast rule. So in the above situation, if there was an obvious subheading that we could use to cover the non-writing content (such as "Casting" or something along those lines) then we would want to recommend that this be used, otherwise it does not make sense to manufacture a subheading such as "General", which is just unnecessary, only because we want to satisfy this rule.
I am suggesting that any wording that insists Wikipedia not include single subsections be replaced with some more general guidelines making it clear that a second subheading is recommended, but is not required if there is no natural heading apparent. If anyone else is in support of this, or has any comments to add, please go ahead. Thoughts on how this could be worded are especially welcome. If there are any questions, I will do my best to better explain/elaborate and I am sure the other editors involved in the previous discussions will join in here as well. - adamstom97 ( talk) 08:43, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
===In the United States===
subsection heading, it gives a very strong impression that the subject is intrinsic to or dominated by the US. But if you do create that section, it is a key signal to later editors that more such sections should be added ASAP.This section currently has two very brief paragraphs, one of which exclusively addresses how to refer to ships (!!). Recent experience indicates that clearer guidelines might be helpful, but also that consensus might be difficult to achieve. Any thoughts? Clean Copy talk 06:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Milwaukee Bucks#RfC for team colors
This is really beyond the Milwaukee Bucks or even sports in particular, and relevant to coverage of organizations and their
house styles generally. This touches on all of:
MOS:CAPS,
MOS:TM,
WP:NOR,
WP:NPOV, and
WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE, in various aspects (see the more detailed discussion below the !vote section).
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 19:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Things like the "team colors" RfC pointed to just above, and many other recurrent specialized-style fallacies at sports articles (see also recent WP:SPORTSCAPS RfC, among others), strongly suggest that we really need a MOS:SPORTS page.
We could probably start by merging MOS:CUE and MOS:SNOOKER into a single page; much of their advice is generalizable (on purpose; I wrote most of MOS:CUE and had it in mind to broaden it, though it hasn't seen substantive revision in years and a lot of it needs trimming).
What is actually particular-sport-specific could be compressed to a section on the particular sport. Lots of sports wikiprojects have style advice essays. Points from them, that people actually already follow in writing articles on that sport and which aren't directly in conflict with general MoS stuff, could be merged into new sections.
This really should have happened a decade ago. Back then, it looked like we'd end up with an MoS page for every major sport, but we ended up with just two, the one a subtopic of the other. That's not very practical.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 21:14, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Along similar lines, I think a lot of redundant (and potentially conflicting) material at MOS:TV, MOS:FILM, MOS:ANIME, etc., could be merged into MOS:FICTION.
Have the medium-specific stuff be retained in the separate pages, but centralize the general stuff at the main FICTION page, and treat it in the medium-specific pages only in
WP:SUMMARY style with cross-referenced with {{
Main}}
to the general, main version at MOS:FICTION.
This would help prevent any further
"policy-forking" and inconsistent treatment of fictional material just based on it being a TV show versus a film (and what about a
television movie?).
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 21:14, 4 July 2018 (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 200 | ← | Archive 202 | Archive 203 | Archive 204 | Archive 205 | Archive 206 | → | Archive 210 |
At Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine and other articles, User:Eric Corbett has styling the reference sections in a novel way using Template:style-nt that he created recently, to give himself control over text point size, whether or not an edit button appears by the headings, whether they show up in the TOC or not, and what-all. The coding looks cryptic, and it's hard to discern any good reason for not going with the usual default style that one gets with normal section and subsection heading markup. He keeps putting it back, with little justification; see User talk:Eric Corbett#What does Template:style-nt do?. Does the MOS have anything to say about editors going their own way on such styling? Dicklyon ( talk) 04:28, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
A specimen, for delectation. I like gadgets, this is fun! Batternut ( talk) 11:08, 7 May 2018 (UTC)
{{
h3}}
template (I shall probably be shot down for bringing up the matter here, but I see it as germane to the topic). When I first saw this thread, I hadn't actually realised that {{
style-nt}}
had originated as {{
h3}}
which is why I've not commented here previously. --
Redrose64 🌹 (
talk) 07:26, 19 May 2018 (UTC)Advice is requested at Talk:Regional corporations and municipalities of Trinidad and Tobago#ndash vs hyphen in article titles. Shhhnotsoloud ( talk) 07:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
This
edit request to
Wikipedia:Manual of Style has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
In Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Celestial_bodies, it says sun, earth, and moon are not capitalized except in astronomical use. MOS:CELESTIALBODIES says the same exact thing except with solar system added. I am questioning whether solar system should be added to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Celestial_bodies because the article title of the solar system on Wikipedia is capitalized while on other sites it is not. I can't think of other ways solar system is used outside of astronomical use. 2601:183:101:58D0:34E8:552C:3EB8:46BF ( talk) 20:07, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
Closing duplicate threads: This has also been forum-shopped or at least talk-forked to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Solar System capitalization (closed) and Talk:Solar System#Requested move 23 May 2018 (speedy closure requested). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:11, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
The lead of our Katano, Osaka doesn't quite sit well with me. According to ja.wiki, the town of Katano was formally declared a "city" in 1971, but using "founded" brings to my mind an image of settlers venturing into the wilderness and establishing a new settlement. Our Takizawa, Iwate article describes a similar process with the word "promoted". There's also the problem of "new" municipal governments being established from mergers or dissolutions, which I also wouldn't think "founded" would accurately describe.
But this might all just be me and my hang-ups, so rather than changing it unilaterally (and I could almost certainly "get away with it") I figured I'd ask here. Thoughts?
Hijiri 88 ( 聖 やや) 01:33, 17 May 2018 (UTC)
Is their a stylistic difference we should be aware of between en-us and en-gb usage of semicolons? There obviously is a difference in what we call conjunctival adverbs - does this permeate further?-- ClemRutter ( talk) 19:02, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
{{Use xxx English}}
tags should always be respected. —
Stanning (
talk) 20:20, 22 May 2018 (UTC)
I made an edit to change the wording "in particular" to "usually" to more accurately reflect the content of the § Article titles guideline, which state, "Capitalize the title's initial letter (except in rare cases, such as eBay), but otherwise follow sentence case[b] (Funding of UNESCO projects) not title case (Funding of UNESCO Projects). This does not apply where the title would be title case in ordinary prose". I summarize this that usually, not always, section headings should use sentence case, not title case. Dicklyon previously made an addition to the guideline, stating that "In particular, they should use sentence case, not title case (capitalize only the first word and proper names in headings)". This wording implies that in all cases the section heading should use sentence case, ignoring the exceptions mentioned in the article titles guideline. Therefore I changed "in particular" for "usually". Thinker78 ( talk) 06:14, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Someone added a list of symbol definitions for equations in the Lateral earth pressure article. All the definitions are correct, and they will help reading the equations in the article. My question is whether this table should be its own section, whether it should be a table or a list, and other stylistic questions about its placement. It's not whether the information belongs in the article, it's how the information should be presented. The presentation is a very textbook sort of presentation, and textbook is one of those things which Wikipedia is not. So what say you style mavens? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Argyriou ( talk • contribs) 00:06, 23 May 2018 (UTC)
Comments welcome at Talk:Bruce McArthur#>>>Swearwords. The source reads I'm tired of these f---ing f---ots but that supports and verifies that the (alleged) statement was I'm tired of these fucking faggots. By the letter of the MOS we should reproduce the bowdlerised version, but by its spirit I think we should reproduce the quotation exactly as (allegedly) said. Andrewa ( talk) 16:20, 26 May 2018 (UTC)
Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that we ever guess what the source means. But I am suggesting that when a reliable source is clear and explicit as to what was really said, but employs bowdlerisation because of the source's own style and content policies, and when the bowdlerisation has only one reasonable interpretation (as in the example), then we should read the source as verifying the unbowdlerised version. Because that is the only reasonable reading of the source.
If, on the other hand, we publish the bowdlerised version while knowing full well what the source means, we are ourselves guilty of bowdlerisation. Which is of course contrary to policy, and surely the MOS should reflect this policy? Andrewa ( talk) 18:51, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
See
WP:BOWDLERIZE on precisely this point "However, when quoting relevant material, rendering a quotation as it appears in the source cited trumps this style guideline". WP is not bowdlerising, the original source is. If you are worried, use the format suggested above and add {{
sic}}
to clarify: 'According to Title of Source, McArthur said: "I'm tired of these f---ing f---ots [
sic]".' See
MOS:SIC for guidance.
Martin of Sheffield (
talk) 19:16, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
Please see
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks#Minor clarification to avoid interpretational conflict between MOS:TM and WP:TITLETM
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 20:59, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#To be or not to be a subsection, on whether the use of a single ===Subsection=== (rather than two or more) within a ==Section== is compatible with good writing style. Please comment over there, not here. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:33, 28 May 2018 (UTC)
I've started a draft Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Portals, which would formalise the applicability of the MOS to portals, with just a few exceptions. Your feedback would be appreciated – discussion is taking place at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Portals § To what extent does the MOS apply to portals? (please respond there, not here). Thanks, Evad37 [ talk 16:35, 27 May 2018 (UTC)
You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Portals#RfC: Adopt as a MoS guideline . - Evad37 [ talk 03:00, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
Please see
Talk:Gender neutrality in languages with grammatical gender#Major update needed for Romance languages
People who edit here may be interested in it. The gist: there's a pattern of using the single character x as a stand-in for "a or e/i/o depending on your gender", and it's increasingly coming up in the proper names of organizations, forums, etc. So, we might want to address (in a footnote?) either here or at
WP:GNL that good markup for this sort of thing is, for example, usuari<var>x</var>s
or the equivalent usuari{{var|x}}s
(rendered: usuarixs) as the shorthand for "usuarios/usuarias" or "usuari[a|o]s" or whatever. This will alert editors that the x is not a typo but a
metasyntactic variable. This mark-it-up approach is consistent with various advised uses of {{
sic|hide=y}}
or {{
notatypo}}
. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 05:13, 2 June 2018 (UTC)
An RfC concerning the categorization of biracial people has been opened at Wikipedia talk:Categorization/Ethnicity, gender, religion and sexuality#RfC on categorizing biracial people. St Anselm ( talk) 04:31, 31 May 2018 (UTC)
It's somewhat unfortunate that the section on Possessives includes "Jesus" as an example (Jesus's teachings). Whereas it's fine to add apostrophe+s on names ending in -s the most well-known exception to this in many style manuals is Jesus, which adds only the apostrophe: Jesus' teachings. I'm not saying that MOS needs to adhere to what most style manuals do, I'm only saying that we shouldn't pick as our example to illustrate the general -s rule, the most famous example which is an exception to that rule in many style guides; we can pick something else. Here is Bryan Garner:
To form a singular possessive, add -'s to most singular nouns—even those ending in -s and -x (hence witness's, Vitex's, Jones's, Nichols's). ... There are three exceptions to this rule. The first is the standard one: Biblical and classical names ending in -s take only an apostrophe:, hence Jesus' suffering, Moses' discovery, Aristophanes' plays, Grotius' writings. (No extra syllable is added in sounding the possessive form.) The second exception is words formed from the plural. Thus General Motors should make General Motors'—e.g.: "A merger by General Motors will excite great interest in an enforcement agency simply because of General Motors's [read General Motors' ] size."
HTH, Mathglot ( talk) 09:07, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Regardless, the CMoS shift is an indication that "Jesus'" isn't a rule in a sense we should care about here, but a subjective preference of some American writers and editors primarily (it's neither exclusive to them nor consistent among them), and is slipping in acceptance because it's confusing and illogical (it seems to've been picked from the Elizabethan-era [pre-orthography-standardization] King James Bible, used by many American Protestant sects, and retained in the 20th century because it coincides with a particular, blurred pronunciation in some variants of US Midwestern English (and some other dialects, e.g. in parts of Texas [that's /ˈtɛksəz/ !], though CMoS wouldn't care). But it isn't actually dominant across the language or even in the US. Our own conversations on this page show it; every time the issue comes up, editors from around the English speaking world and the US more narrowly tell us that they pronounce "Jesus" and "Jesus'[s]" differently, with a distinct syllable added to the possessive (the suprasegmental length is apt to vary, and might be rather short; it is for me).
There is no escaping a simple fact: for every single point of English usage on which different self-styled authorities disagree, there will always be some subset of readers and editors who don't like the version we pick. So, MoS works best when it detects and defuses "style-guide thumping" that's likely to recurrently arise. E.g., we've done the same thing with capitalization of prepositions in titles of works, something that style guides disagree on even in the same field, like journalism, and which is often laden with style-guide-specific exceptions. We just swept away the exceptions as inconsistent and troublesome, and went with neither of the more extreme approaches.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 12:05, 8 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Move review#List of Presidents of the United States. Some comments at WT:MOSCAPS has suggested there could be insufficient input so far to reach a clear consensus. Depending on how it turns out, MOS:JOBTITLES might require substantial revision, which could in turn affect the wording at the main MoS guideline. (That might or might not be a good idea, but people who watch this page should be aware of it either way.) — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 03:12, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#Merge MOS:JOBTITLES to this MoS page.
The proposal is to merge WP:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Titles of people (a.k.a. MOS:JOBTITLES) to WP:Manual of Style/Biographies, where the rest of the material about human titles is (academic, post-nominal, honorific, regnal, etc.). A short summary and hatnote pointer would be left behind in MOS:CAPS (about the same as those presently at found at MOS:CAPS#Occupational titles pointing to MOS:CAPS#Titles of people; the relationship would simply be reversed). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:50, 14 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see:
The "NOTES" one proposes that "MOS:" shortcuts should point to non-Manual of Style pages. The AMEN and BRIT ones are about ambiguity. The pseudo-namespace ones boil down to this: "MOS:" is a pseudo-namespace created, after a consensus discussion, to point to WP's Manual of Style and sections and subpages thereof, to deal with the decreasing availability of meaningful and memorable "WP:"-namespace shortcuts, and because there's often an MoS page and a content, naming, or other page about the same thing. However, pseudo-namespaces are actually in mainspace (articlespace). Some editors thus do not want to see a profusion of "typo redirects" like "MoS:CAPS", "mos:CAPS", "Wikipedia:MOS:CAPS", etc., while others are convinced that all redirects are necessarily "cheap" and always should be permitted even if only used by a handful of editors and of no use to readers. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:42, 10 June 2018 (UTC)
Quick question... In a statement such as: “The media’s attitude toward(s) the military shifted during the war”, should we use “toward” or “towards”. Blueboar ( talk) 17:42, 3 June 2018 (UTC) Blueboar ( talk) 17:42, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
Isn't this a better question for the Refdesk? Primergrey ( talk) 21:48, 3 June 2018 (UTC)
If this isn't a suggestion to include some sort of guidance on this particular point to the MOS, then this entire discussion ought to be at the refdesk or a user's talkpage...no? Primergrey ( talk) 00:13, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
I knew I would get a quicker answer here.Make that: This is not WP:RDL, speed of answer irrelevant. ― Mandruss ☎ 00:22, 13 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Ellipsis#"Save As..." style. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:14, 19 June 2018 (UTC)
Why is this page titled Wikipedia:Manual of Style, not Wikipedia:Manual of style? -- SmokeyJoe ( talk) 07:06, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
Should Singapore English be included for Singapore-related articles? -- occono ( talk) 17:58, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
I've been looking for years, and I cannot find any "produced for public use" style guides for places like Malta, Pakistan, Kenya, Grenada, Singapore, Belize, etc., etc. These dialects exist almost entirely as spoken dialects and informal writing based on it, but WP isn't written in informal English, so it's not an ENGVAR matter. Formal writing from such places is generally indistinguishable from British, aside from some locally specific vocabulary words (just as you'll find in Wales or Scotland). Editors branding " their" articles as being written in such dialects is a) nonsense and b) a recipe for insertion of unencyclopedic colloquialisms. There's a good reason we don't have templates for "This article is written in Texan English" and "This article is written in Cockney". There's more difference between Texan and Manhattan English, and between Cockney and Shetland English as dialects than there is between written formal Singaporean or Maltese English and written formal British English. Basically, WP isn't written in bar/pub talk, and we mustn't pretend otherwise just because a handful of editors want to slap huge flag-waving banner templates in articles' editnotices for territorialism and national-pride reasons.
PS: Listing Irish English is basically an "avoid an ethno-political shitshow" concession; at the formal written level it also follows British norms (and I have yet to see an Irish English style guide), but people might quite literally threaten each other over putting "Use British English" templates on Ireland-related articles.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 18:41, 22 June 2018 (UTC)
{{
Use Commonwealth English}}
and {{
Commonwealth English}}
and related templates and categories now exist. We should consider nominating templates we don't need for merger with and redirection to the Commonwealth versions. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 20:17, 22 June 2018 (UTC)In sourcing for most contemporary entertainment, sources generally omit italics or the like to format the name of the work being discussed in the title of their articles. So it seems that most of our citations/references generally end up presented these citation titles without italics/etc. for named works. Should MOS:CONFORM apply to citation titles, considering that these are technically quotations ? I do know we frequently removal allcaps and other unreadible aspects of titles in citations, so it would seem logical to apply appropriate MOS-elements like italics where they can apply. -- Masem ( t) 13:21, 16 June 2018 (UTC)
Should we ban links to wikidata within the body of an article? -- Rusf10 ( talk) 00:50, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
Over two months ago we had an RFC on linking to Wikidata, the result of which was "no consensus". I initiated the RFC after a user was continually adding links to wikidata to replace articles that were deleted through AfD for notability concerns, here is an example. Unfortunately, I did not create the question that we voted on and it was worded with the extreme position of "Never link to Wikidata" which got mixed support. I think most people generally agree that the links are the sidebar are useful (in particular the inter-language links) and should not be removed. However, within the body of the article there was less support for using wikidata. Some people also indicated that inline interlanguage links (see WP:ILL) may also be appropriate. However, almost everyone agreed wikidata links should not be a substitute for a red-link (or a deleted article). While I agree that linking different language versions of wikipedia is a great feature, otherwise I find wikidata to be unreliable and directly linking to it would be confusing for the average user.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 00:50, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
NOTE- Since there is another RFC on using wikidata in infoboxes, none of the options below will apply to the usage of wikidata in infoboxes since that is being determined separately.
I'm providing three options:
I am adding an additional option to clarify: --
RAN (
talk) 03:16, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
4. Oppose- Allow hidden text links with Wikidata Q-numbers such as <!-Q1123456--> so that a duplicate Wikidata entry is not created in the future
And another, because the one above isn't an oppose rationale but another exception:
5. Support, with two exceptions: for inline inter-language links and hidden-text Q numbers, as described above.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 09:54, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
*Support.
Tony
(talk) 06:25, 4 June 2018 (UTC) [Sorry, mistakenly posted support twice.
Tony
(talk) 03:34, 5 June 2018 (UTC)
Since the RfC so badly formulated that the participants do not really understand what is exactly asked, and one week after it was open new proposals appear (which are not reflected in the past votes), and the proposer says that they are thinking about adding new options, I propose to close this RfC as invalid. Any user in good standing can open a new one, formulating the options clearly and not changing them as the RfC runs its course. I would have also suggested to topic-ban Rusf10 from opening new RfCs about Wikidata, since the previous one was a disaster and this one is going to be a disaster, but this is clearly not an appropriate forum for such a proposal.-- Ymblanter ( talk) 20:17, 18 May 2018 (UTC)
In an effort to make the RFC come to a clear consensus, I'd like to purpose the following: Wikidata may not be linked to within the WP:BODY of an article with the exception of inline inter-language links ( WP:ILL. Inline inter-language links may only be used when an article does not currently exist in en.wikipedia AND an article does exist in at least one other language. The ILL template will be modified to remove the Wikidata table of languages (ex. Jokery ) & Reasonator functions (ex. Jokery ))-- Rusf10 ( talk) 06:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Note: This still has no effect on infoboxes and would not impact other links that are not part of the body such as authority control templates, links on the sidebar, etc.
Support- I'm proposing this as a compromise to gain greater support. Although many have supported the complete ban of wikidata links, a sizable number had indicated they would support the ban if ILL were exempt. However, in order for me to accept ILL links there would have to be some restrictions on them to prevent pages like Mayor of Long Branch, New Jersey where the ILL is being used to link directly to wikidata even though no article exists in any other language and likely never will. I believe that it would not make sense to direct a reader to another language article if an one in English exists (after all this is an English encyclopedia and if they really wanted to find the article in another language all they would have to do is click the link and then look at the side bar). It only makes sense to me to link to another language if we currently do not offer an article about the subject, but another encyclopedia does. Furthermore, it seems most of us are in agreement that we do not want to "dump" the user into the middle of a wikidata page, so they why I proposing the phase-out of the table of languages and resonator links (I doubt many pages are using that function now anyway). I also dropped the ban on wikidata in hidden text from the proposal, although I still do question the wisdom of cluttering the editing screen with extra text that 99% of editors will find useless.-- Rusf10 ( talk) 06:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
What does everyone else think? @ Alsee, Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ), Jheald, Pburka, Mike Peel, Jc3s5h, CBM, Ealdgyth, Pigsonthewing, Jayron32, Jc86035 (1), Curly Turkey, Syced, Ymblanter, Reyk, Moxy, Jheald, Fram, SlimVirgin, Tony1, SMcCandlish, Peter coxhead, Lawrencekhoo, Martin of Sheffield, and David Eppstein:-- Rusf10 ( talk) 06:25, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
Multiple arbitrators have requested additional input from regular editors here about whether the WP:ARBATC#Discretionary sanctions should be lifted from this and related pages. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 13:44, 23 June 2018 (UTC)
Please see
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#The lead date-range vs. full dates thing
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 13:39, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
I just noticed an editor going through and 'fixing' split infinitives on multiple articles, but I can't find any reference to such an issue in the MOS. Is there a consensus on the topic? Just wondering... WesT ( talk) 22:58, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
To WP:BOLDly split infinitives that no man had split beforeparaphrasing Douglas Adams, [1] who himself paraphrased Gene Roddenberry. -- Redrose64 🌹 ( talk) 13:26, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
If MoS ever advised anything on this, it should be long these lines: "Split infinitives and sentences ending with prepositions should be avoided by default, but used any time the alternative is confusing or stilted. The somewhat formal tone of encyclopedic writing is neither obtuse nor pompous." And, yes, that's a little joke.. Maybe with a footnote that it's not "bad grammar", but rather a matter of
register (sociolinguistics). But I don't know whether this comes up enough we need an MoS line item about it.
— Preceding
unsigned comment added by
SMcCandlish (
talk •
contribs) 21:25, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
References
Gist: The RfC at WP:GAMECAPS produced a clear result, but nothing was implemented. So I implemented a new MOS:SPORTCAPS section; a merger of the sports/games stuff, and the identical dance-related stuff from another MOS:CAPS section. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 06:23, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
WT:Manual of Style/Biography#Consolidation of MOS:BIO – a bullet list of recent merge and cleanup activity (one major to-do item remains). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:08, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Ever since the introduction of <
syntaxhighlight>
(and templates that use it, like {{
code}}
and {{
syntaxhighlight}}
), we've been having the problem that people are trying to expand its use, not just to mark up blocks of code (what it's actually for) but every single inline mention of a code fragment. This result is strange "outbursts" of color in mid-sentence, and which I think are apt to be confusing, because WP uses color in prose for a very limited number of pre-determined things, like indicating a link and whether it goes to a real article. It's even producing oddly conflicting code markup in the same sentence (because the highlighter only recognizes and colorizes some kinds of code). Example: "Lists with <ul><li> ...
are %block
elements ...". The syntax highlighter is also buggy and sometimes produces misleading output.
When I've tried to address this, I get responses like "I am not aware of any policy, guideline, or essay that discourages such syntax highlighting usage", as if the fact that all of MoS is against all extraneous over-stylization weren't enough. The state of articles like HTML element (from which the above example comes) strongly suggest that lack of an MoS item about this actually is a gap we need to fill, perhaps at MOS:COLOR.
I think we should advise to not use <
syntaxhighlight>
except:
It should not be used an alternative to <code>...</code>
in simple cases like "the <span>
element".
— SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 12:51, 25 June 2018 (UTC); revised 17:38, 29 June 2018 (UTC)
<code>...</code>
CSS; the latter is still questionably fine because the idea is to separate elements, not necessary for all elements to be styled consistently. --
Izno (
talk) 13:23, 25 June 2018 (UTC)
-0.5em
; it mistakes this for a "-0" (which isn't a real thing) in one color, followed by a ".5em" which it highlights as an alphanum input in another color. Just pretty ucked fup. I've filed
Phabricator bug report T198095 about it. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 03:59, 26 June 2018 (UTC)<syntaxhighlight>
. A new version of an old problem.I covered this stuff in considerably more detail at User talk:Nøkkenbuer#Misuse of syntax highlighting. A key bit: any time one is trying to impose a "consistency" with style, there's likely to be a conflict with another consistency. WP has very long-established and important consistencies in our encyclopedic prose, and when a tangential new consistency that's a trivial, largely decorative add-on collides with it, the latter loses.
All that said, I'm not totally opposed to the idea that we shouldn't use syntax highlighting in mainspace at all, but as a coder I find it actually helpful (when it's not bugged – see above) in actual code blocks. I seems a throw-the-baby-out-with-the-bathwater solution to discourage or eliminate it even in block, just to avoid the problem of inline, not block, syntax highlighting making a mess of things. It's much simpler to just advise against inline highlighting except of complex code examples. Even then, we could actually advise instead to move them into discrete blocks, and "ban" syntaxhighlight inline, completely. I'm trying to be agnostic on that kind of stuff. Just want to deal with the "The purpose of the <span>
element is ..." over-stylization problem.
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 03:59, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
More to the general point, we have many kinds of consistencies to deal with, and some of them are directly conflicting, and some of them are not applicable at all to particular contexts. The important consistency wins over the decorative one, especially when the latter is intended for a very narrow context (blocks of code). — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 21:28, 26 June 2018 (UTC)
Look at the article Gender role. Look at the "Model A" and "Model B" table inside it talking about the difference between 2 extreme views of gender stereotypes. I would like to know if anyone can make a similar table except that it deals with language rather than roles. That is, the "Model A" column should be about language that reflects male superiority and the "Model B" column should be about gender-neutral language. Also, read the text below the table saying that the model followed in practice falls in between these poles. I guess this is also true of language. WP has a mention of using GNL in this project page, but it appears that in practice the rule that most Wikipedians prefer is that either GNL or GML (this stands for generic male language) is acceptable and unless there's a real reason not to the variant in the first nonstub version of an article should be kept, just like AE and BE (these stand for American English and British English.) (The source of this information is the section of this talk page just 2 sections above this one for clarification, I suggest anyone who comments on this section should study what's going on in that section.) Georgia guy ( talk) 11:54, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
There has been an extensive discussion taking place at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film#To be or not to be a subsection that has covered multiple issues regarding what actually counts as a subsection and whether it is incorrect to have only one. From that discussion, as well as one at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Question on subsections, it has become clear that there is no technical issue (either in terms of accessibility or general logic) with having a "single subsection" in cases where a section is divided into general content and a more specific sub-section that both fit under the same general heading. For example:
==Development== General development information. ===Writing=== Specific writing information.
This format is common in film articles that are structured based on the phases of filmmaking (as laid out in MOS:FILM), where we can end up with a whole lot of different information fitting under one phase (such as "Development") with a significant chunk also fitting under a more specific heading (such as "Writing") and being easier to read that way. To repeat, this is both common and easier for the reader than having all of the content mixed together. Now, the reason this has become an issue at all is Bignole has noted that many external style guides specifically state to avoid having only a single subsection and some of that wording has been carried over to places in Wikipedia. Myself and several other editors at the MOS:FILM discussion agree that though this is something good to aim for in terms of professional styling, it should not be a hard-and-fast rule. So in the above situation, if there was an obvious subheading that we could use to cover the non-writing content (such as "Casting" or something along those lines) then we would want to recommend that this be used, otherwise it does not make sense to manufacture a subheading such as "General", which is just unnecessary, only because we want to satisfy this rule.
I am suggesting that any wording that insists Wikipedia not include single subsections be replaced with some more general guidelines making it clear that a second subheading is recommended, but is not required if there is no natural heading apparent. If anyone else is in support of this, or has any comments to add, please go ahead. Thoughts on how this could be worded are especially welcome. If there are any questions, I will do my best to better explain/elaborate and I am sure the other editors involved in the previous discussions will join in here as well. - adamstom97 ( talk) 08:43, 1 July 2018 (UTC)
===In the United States===
subsection heading, it gives a very strong impression that the subject is intrinsic to or dominated by the US. But if you do create that section, it is a key signal to later editors that more such sections should be added ASAP.This section currently has two very brief paragraphs, one of which exclusively addresses how to refer to ships (!!). Recent experience indicates that clearer guidelines might be helpful, but also that consensus might be difficult to achieve. Any thoughts? Clean Copy talk 06:20, 3 July 2018 (UTC)
Please see Talk:Milwaukee Bucks#RfC for team colors
This is really beyond the Milwaukee Bucks or even sports in particular, and relevant to coverage of organizations and their
house styles generally. This touches on all of:
MOS:CAPS,
MOS:TM,
WP:NOR,
WP:NPOV, and
WP:NOT#INDISCRIMINATE, in various aspects (see the more detailed discussion below the !vote section).
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SMcCandlish
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¢ 😼 19:20, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Things like the "team colors" RfC pointed to just above, and many other recurrent specialized-style fallacies at sports articles (see also recent WP:SPORTSCAPS RfC, among others), strongly suggest that we really need a MOS:SPORTS page.
We could probably start by merging MOS:CUE and MOS:SNOOKER into a single page; much of their advice is generalizable (on purpose; I wrote most of MOS:CUE and had it in mind to broaden it, though it hasn't seen substantive revision in years and a lot of it needs trimming).
What is actually particular-sport-specific could be compressed to a section on the particular sport. Lots of sports wikiprojects have style advice essays. Points from them, that people actually already follow in writing articles on that sport and which aren't directly in conflict with general MoS stuff, could be merged into new sections.
This really should have happened a decade ago. Back then, it looked like we'd end up with an MoS page for every major sport, but we ended up with just two, the one a subtopic of the other. That's not very practical.
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SMcCandlish
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¢ 😼 21:14, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
Along similar lines, I think a lot of redundant (and potentially conflicting) material at MOS:TV, MOS:FILM, MOS:ANIME, etc., could be merged into MOS:FICTION.
Have the medium-specific stuff be retained in the separate pages, but centralize the general stuff at the main FICTION page, and treat it in the medium-specific pages only in
WP:SUMMARY style with cross-referenced with {{
Main}}
to the general, main version at MOS:FICTION.
This would help prevent any further
"policy-forking" and inconsistent treatment of fictional material just based on it being a TV show versus a film (and what about a
television movie?).
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SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 21:14, 4 July 2018 (UTC)