This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Manual of Style/Layout page. |
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Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15Auto-archiving period: 150 days |
Manual of Style | ||||||||||
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Format of appendices Before proposing a change to the standard appendices, please study
Wikipedia:Perennial proposals § Changes to standard appendices. |
Maxeto0910 ( talk · contribs) has been adding periods to the end of see-also links when the short description provided in the link happens to resemble a grammatically complete sentence. Example: the link to Immerman–Szelepcsényi theorem in Savitch's theorem, provided using {{ annotated link}} to incorporate the short description of the linked article, currently "Nondeterministic space complexity classes are closed under complementation" (but significantly too long and in need of shortening). My position is that see-also entries in general, and the ones generated by annotated links in particular, are more often than not only sentence fragments, and that for consistency we should use a format for see-also sections in which the period is omitted from all entries. I don't see any guidance on this issue in MOS:SEEALSO, but this is consistent with all examples provided there, including the "Joe Shmoe" example which happens to resemble a grammatically complete sentence. Should this be addressed more explicitly there? — David Eppstein ( talk) 22:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
Perusing the Nationalism article, I couldn't help but feel its reference section felt obsolete, in light of the much more complete citation list above it. I'm sure this applies to (probably) every article with such a section, given all citations automatically go into the citation list. In most cases, reference lists only repeat the relevant information of the citations ad tend not to be updated in line with them either. It seems they just bog articles down, with the obvious exception of when those citations are not full citations. But perhaps I'm missing some other function they provide? Yr Enw ( talk) 09:21, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:Glossary did not have an entry for the body of an article, nor is there one here at MOS:LAYOUT. The definition at MOS:LAYOUT is merely implied negatively by what it isn't; namely, it's what's left after defining everything else: i.e., it's not the lead or table of contents, and not the Appendixes or bottom matter. Of course, not all articles have a lead, table of contents, or appendixes, and anyway, a negative definition isn't appropriate for a glossary entry. So I've attempted a positive definition. Here's what I came up with:
Note that MOS:BODY points to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout#Body sections, and nothing there disagrees with this definition, although it never actually defines it. I've added this definition to the Glossary just to have something, but will adjust it to conform to any consensus reached here. Your feedback would be appreciated. Mathglot ( talk) 01:33, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
I've recently sorted a couple unsorted "Further reading" sections by publication date, earliest first, but have had this sort order opposed by Skyerise over at User talk:Tollens/Archive 4#You call that sorted?. It seems to me from a reading of both MOS:FURTHER and Wikipedia:Further reading that while such sections are frequently alphabetized, sorting chronologically is also appropriate. I would think that a chronological sort order makes more sense in further reading sections.
Alphabetization is of course so that it is easier to locate a given entry in a list, which is important for a general reference section because it will be referenced by inline citations – readers will therefore be searching a general reference section for a particular entry. In the case of further reading sections, however, there is no possible way for a reader to know in advance what entries are contained in the list, because they weren't referenced in the text of the article at any point – otherwise they would belong in a general reference section. Readers are then never searching a further reading section, but instead browsing the section. As described at Wikipedia:Further reading, this allows readers to do multiple things: skip to the newest writings recommended in the section, or see how opinions expressed on the topic have changed over time. An alphabetized list allows neither, allowing only for works to be grouped by author, which is not helpful unless the authors are especially well-known (in which case yes, alphabetization is likely of more use).
Clarifying MOS:FURTHER to either explicitly allow chronological ordering, explicitly disallow it, or alternatively specify what cases the "usually" currently in the guideline does not cover, would be appreciated. Tollens ( talk) 23:13, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Is there any guidance anywhere for how long is "too long" for a paragraph in the new Vector skin or mobile view? This isn't a question about how to write better paragraphs and I'm not looking for answers about writing style. It's a question more about web accessibility. eg, now that the default skin maintains a narrower paragraph, do we hit "wall of text" problems in shorter paragraphs than before, or is that concern less relevant now? -- asilvering ( talk) 18:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Manual of Style/Layout page. |
|
Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15Auto-archiving period: 150 days |
Manual of Style | ||||||||||
|
Format of appendices Before proposing a change to the standard appendices, please study
Wikipedia:Perennial proposals § Changes to standard appendices. |
Maxeto0910 ( talk · contribs) has been adding periods to the end of see-also links when the short description provided in the link happens to resemble a grammatically complete sentence. Example: the link to Immerman–Szelepcsényi theorem in Savitch's theorem, provided using {{ annotated link}} to incorporate the short description of the linked article, currently "Nondeterministic space complexity classes are closed under complementation" (but significantly too long and in need of shortening). My position is that see-also entries in general, and the ones generated by annotated links in particular, are more often than not only sentence fragments, and that for consistency we should use a format for see-also sections in which the period is omitted from all entries. I don't see any guidance on this issue in MOS:SEEALSO, but this is consistent with all examples provided there, including the "Joe Shmoe" example which happens to resemble a grammatically complete sentence. Should this be addressed more explicitly there? — David Eppstein ( talk) 22:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
Perusing the Nationalism article, I couldn't help but feel its reference section felt obsolete, in light of the much more complete citation list above it. I'm sure this applies to (probably) every article with such a section, given all citations automatically go into the citation list. In most cases, reference lists only repeat the relevant information of the citations ad tend not to be updated in line with them either. It seems they just bog articles down, with the obvious exception of when those citations are not full citations. But perhaps I'm missing some other function they provide? Yr Enw ( talk) 09:21, 1 November 2023 (UTC)
The Wikipedia:Glossary did not have an entry for the body of an article, nor is there one here at MOS:LAYOUT. The definition at MOS:LAYOUT is merely implied negatively by what it isn't; namely, it's what's left after defining everything else: i.e., it's not the lead or table of contents, and not the Appendixes or bottom matter. Of course, not all articles have a lead, table of contents, or appendixes, and anyway, a negative definition isn't appropriate for a glossary entry. So I've attempted a positive definition. Here's what I came up with:
Note that MOS:BODY points to Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout#Body sections, and nothing there disagrees with this definition, although it never actually defines it. I've added this definition to the Glossary just to have something, but will adjust it to conform to any consensus reached here. Your feedback would be appreciated. Mathglot ( talk) 01:33, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
I've recently sorted a couple unsorted "Further reading" sections by publication date, earliest first, but have had this sort order opposed by Skyerise over at User talk:Tollens/Archive 4#You call that sorted?. It seems to me from a reading of both MOS:FURTHER and Wikipedia:Further reading that while such sections are frequently alphabetized, sorting chronologically is also appropriate. I would think that a chronological sort order makes more sense in further reading sections.
Alphabetization is of course so that it is easier to locate a given entry in a list, which is important for a general reference section because it will be referenced by inline citations – readers will therefore be searching a general reference section for a particular entry. In the case of further reading sections, however, there is no possible way for a reader to know in advance what entries are contained in the list, because they weren't referenced in the text of the article at any point – otherwise they would belong in a general reference section. Readers are then never searching a further reading section, but instead browsing the section. As described at Wikipedia:Further reading, this allows readers to do multiple things: skip to the newest writings recommended in the section, or see how opinions expressed on the topic have changed over time. An alphabetized list allows neither, allowing only for works to be grouped by author, which is not helpful unless the authors are especially well-known (in which case yes, alphabetization is likely of more use).
Clarifying MOS:FURTHER to either explicitly allow chronological ordering, explicitly disallow it, or alternatively specify what cases the "usually" currently in the guideline does not cover, would be appreciated. Tollens ( talk) 23:13, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
Is there any guidance anywhere for how long is "too long" for a paragraph in the new Vector skin or mobile view? This isn't a question about how to write better paragraphs and I'm not looking for answers about writing style. It's a question more about web accessibility. eg, now that the default skin maintains a narrower paragraph, do we hit "wall of text" problems in shorter paragraphs than before, or is that concern less relevant now? -- asilvering ( talk) 18:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)