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In all cases where this MOS page describes giving the article's subject, in the lead's first sentence, in bold font, the effect is achieved using ''' wiki markup</nowiki>
or the <b> HTML element
. Although this renders aesthetically identical text as the <strong> HTML element
or {{strong}} wiki markup
would, the former is
semantically meaningless.
Shouldn't we transition our MOS instructions to teach the use of semantic markup instead of mere typography? Especially where the editorial intent is to convey emphasis, importance, seriousness, or urgency through the altered font? I feel that the question is rhetorical as I believe it is incumbent on us that we must!
Considering that these semantic elements have been standard since HTML5 (and supported by all major browsers as well) [1] [2] we are considerably late implementing these already. And continued procrastination could easily be seen as editorial incompetence very soon; IMHO. What do others think about this? Thank you.-- John Cline ( talk) 22:14, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
<q>...</q>
element around all inline quotations (those not marked up as blockquotes). The demand seems rather low. A side issue is that even if we did go that route, it should probably be for the article title only.
Bolded synonyms are bolded for a different reason: a typographic visual aid for those who got to the page via a redirect and might otherwise wonder why they're at a page that doesn't match what they searched for. Bolding the subject/title itself in the lead is the kind of thing <strong>
is ostensibly for (according to the HTML5 spec; they changed the meaning of this tag, which originally meant "yelling more loudly than with <em>
"). —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 23:00, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
<q>
element, W3C says: "the use of <q>
elements to mark up quotations is entirely optional; using explicit quotation punctuation without <q>
elements is just as correct."
[3] And, your suggestion that "demand [for use of semantic markup] [is seemingly] low", is a bit of fallacy I am certain you did not maliciously proffer, and as certain, it could never emerge as a "finding of fact". I'd rather not debate the matter to any finer nuance, unless you feel a need to discuss it further. I'd much rather, instead, focus on the allegiance I share with the larger part of all that you said. I appreciate, very much, the insight you've shared.--
John Cline (
talk) 19:23, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<q>
would be semantically richer, and permit user-level CSS control (e.g. of different quotation-marks style). It would also be very useful for tools, like bots to build lists of quotations without a citation near them, and lists of long quotations that should be reformatted into block quotes, and so on. On the second point, that's a
straw man; I never said demand for semantic markup in general is low, only for those two elements. (I am the author of the vast majority of our semantic markup templates, and you can thank me for most of the mentions of semantic markup it the MoS. :-) —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 20:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC)Our use of the b element clearly meets this intent. -- Izno ( talk) 03:07, 28 June 2018 (UTC)The b element represents a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes without conveying any extra importance and with no implication of an alternate voice or mood, such as key words in a document abstract, product names in a review, actionable words in interactive text-driven software, or an article lede.
<b>
element has utilitarian value, as described it the <blockquote>
given but it has no semantic meaning whatsoever, and
accessibility is not increased one iota by its use. Here's another quote from the same page you cited above:I'm not suggesting that we never useThe
<b>
element should be used as a last resort when no other element is more appropriate. In particular, headings should use the<h1>
to<h6>
elements, stress emphasis should use the<em>
element, and importance should be denoted with the<strong>
element.
<b>...</b>
or '''...'''
; we clearly need the utility of that markup. I, nevertheless, am saying: "we should not forsake use of the <strong>
element when importance is meant to convey". The example I stated of giving the article's subject in the first sentence of the lead in boldface is textbook misuse of the <b>
element or '''
wiki markup. There izno string of text in an article more important than its very subject (when first given) and no better time to speak of semantic markup than when instructing editors to give that subject in the lead's first sentence using boldface font. Do you wholeheartedly disagree?--
John Cline (
talk) 09:33, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
Aside that, I am keenly interested in weighing as much information as the community will lay upon the question, as asked in the original posting. I do have strong inclinations regarding the answer as well, and will not sway except by extremely cogent rationale. If such exists, I know it will be given, and I remain.-- John Cline ( talk) 15:42, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<strong>
and it being logically applicable to the subject's name being highlighted in the lead sentence. It's just a matter of whether the community would
GaF enough to use it. All of our semantic markup templates were opposed early on, as was mentioning them in MoS and using them in articles, but today they are not controversial at all (though highly optional). The thing to do is probably to create a template with a very short name, and (for even better semantic markup) have it also apply the <dfn>
element (semantic markup for the defining instance of a term on the page; also used in {{
Term}}
for glossaries). MoS could say that the template can (not must) be used, and why. Then see if people start using it. I certainly would. This is something I've been thinking about since ca. 2006, shortly after I arrived here. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 18:06, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<q>...</q>
around quotations, and so on. A lot of this stuff is subjective. What really qualifies for <strong>
and how this differs from <b>
is open to some debate, and people have been arguing since day one about the finer points of <code>
, <samp>
, and <kbd>
. We should keep
WP:Don't be a fanatic in mind. >;-) —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 03:41, 13 July 2018 (UTC)<cite>
element away from W3C's definition (the gist of which pre-dates WHATWG's existence); W3C tried briefly going along with WHATWG's version, and the developer community rebelled, so WHATWG is off in the dark with their own stupid "spec-fork" that does not match real-world usage. I've been applying periodic pressure to get this resolved, and the handful of gatekeepers over at WHATWG refuse to budge, insisting that they have the One True Spec, and that W3C is full of it. There was a huge personality clash between some people at these two organizations over a decade ago, and I don't think anything is going to repair it, other than someone at WHATWG dying, getting fired, or gracefully retiring. It's really pretty shameful how childish this mess is. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 10:42, 12 July 2018 (UTC)Watchers of this page may be interested in WT:FILM#Request for comment on spoilers and lead sections and WT:MOS#Citations in the lead. -- Izno ( talk) 18:00, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
There seems to be a bug in the note that SMcCandlish added to format of first sentence. It does't open, can't see its contents. Thinker78 ( talk) 22:26, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
<ref>
tag is missing the closing </ref>
(see the
help page).References
As you can see, there are too many different ways in which the spelling differences are presented.
The proposal is to update the first sentence so that it is uniform and just contains the alternative names in bold, with no links or references, like caliber in the example above. Since the main topic has nothing to do with American or British spelling, I think it only serves as a distraction to mention it and should be removed. Vpab15 ( talk) 14:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
There is a conflict in the Manual of Style recommendations outlined in Bold title and Redundancy. This is specifically the case where the article is covering a topic within a series, common for sports events and awards ceremonies. The reasons for MOS:REDUNDANCY are very clear, in that the opening sentence should be brief, avoid repeated terms or long sentence constructions and outline in plain English a basic description of the topic, linking any relevant terms. I feel these are solid guidelines for writing a good first sentence and on that basis I've produced lead sentences such as the following:
Using MOS:BOLDTITLE as an edit summary, I've seen several instances of users removing the link to the main series topic from sentences like the above, or worse rephrasing the lead sentence to replace a basic description with a tautologous one:
For example, it seems like quite a failure for our readers that the lead of articles like 61st Annual Grammy Awards neither describe what the Grammy Awards are in plain English, nor contain a link to the main Grammy Awards topic. I believe application of MOS:BOLDTITLE is what is driving this negative outcome. The sole rationale given for MOS:BOLDTITLE in this instance is "some readers will miss the visual cue". I do not understand the logic of that for articles that are part of a series, where the article title is repeated verbatim in the text – the linking and bolding of the series article is surely just as effective a visual cue as bolding it? The current examples given in MOS:BOLDTITLE do not address this specific scenario as none of the article subjects are within a series, and all the examples achieve a reduction in redundancy and a plain English description, rather than hindering those aims as shown in the FIFA World Cup and Grammys examples. I believe linking of series articles should be an exception to MOS:BOLDTITLE on this basis. SFB 14:02, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence.(I guess maybe that needs to read, "If convenient and without resorting to linguistic gymnastics" instead of "if possible". Many things are possible...)
{{
sidebar}}
code, rather than having some shared, structured metatemplate code they all invoke. That's nasty.) Regardless, neither feels both effective and prominent enough to relate individual event articles to the parent event series article, especially as none of them are displayed on mobile. Nothing at
WP:CLNT even covers this particular case, really, in my reading.Linking part of the bolded text is also discouraged because it changes the visual effect of bolding; some readers will miss the visual cue which is the purpose of using bold face in the first place.
— MOS:BOLDAVOID footnote
Links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the opening sentence of a lead
— MOS:BOLDAVOID
If the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the opening sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it. Instead, simply describe the subject in normal English, avoiding redundancy.
— MOS:AVOIDBOLD
Also keep in mind that guidelines are not policies. The community is stricter about policies.A fair point. -- FeRDNYC ( talk) 19:37, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Danbloch, regarding this and this, what are you speaking on? Please don't ping me when you reply. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 17:52, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
I noticed several articles, whose plural form is not intuitive has the plural is beside it in parentheses. I was surprised to see there is not mention of this in MOS:LEAD, particularly MOS:BOLDSYN. Would anyone object if I boldly added it? (if you don't like it you can rephrase it or revert). Egs. Mitochondrion, Dice, Goose, nucleus, Quantum, Calf, Genus, Matrix (mathematics), ova.
Cheers, Dig deeper talk 16:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form, and it may include variations, including synonyms.
— MOS:FIRST
When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form, and it may include variations, including plural forms (particularly if they're unusual or confusing) or synonyms.-- FeRDNYC ( talk) 09:16, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Dig deeper talk 20:32, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Regarding
this,
this,
this and
this, I fully
reverted the introduction to its long-standing form. If there are any aspects that actually need changing, then let's discuss, but something like the "As a general rule of thumb" piece regarding the leads of articles has thorough consensus via various discussions, including
this extensive 2014 RfC. To soften the language after that extensive discussion is something that should be supported by another big discussion. Back then, editors were generally against softening the language changing the wording to "length should be commensurate with the size of the article," which removed any mention of generally sticking to four paragraphs. A number of editors supported softening it in some way, but slightly more supported no softening at all. It was felt by a number of editors that the "As a general rule of thumb" wording is all the softening that is needed; this aspect was duplicated in the introduction since it was already lower in the guideline.
Flyer22 Reborn (
talk) 18:31, 24 November 2019 (UTC) Updated post.
Flyer22 Reborn (
talk) 18:46, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I think that the only languages that should be used are the official language(s) of the countries or regions. Because some populations in countries have adopted their colonizers languages and after independence they changed their official language to their native language. However, some people still adding the colonizers language to countries lede paragraph which sounds like politically incorrect. For example, some people are adding the name of Ethiopia in Italian language in the article of Ethiopia. I can't find a relevant guideline in this article that says we should only use official languages so I propose adding it.-- SharabSalam ( talk) 04:42, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles/RFC on pharmaceutical drug prices. This guideline has been mentioned by some editors, and perhaps editors familiar with it would like to share their views. (This is a completely different RFC about WP:MEDMOS.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 03:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Redirect § Deletion section is out of step with practice. It is relevant to MOS:BOLDSYN. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:48, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
I've opened a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility about the recommended length of lead sections. Interested users may wish to contribute to the discussion there. Thank you. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 01:14, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
I thought I remembered a prohibition against "see" links from the end of the introduction's paragraphs to specific article sections ( such as I removed here) but I can't find it and am not sure if it's been rescinded or otherwise. Are such links preferred, discouraged, or neutral practice now? EllenCT ( talk) 15:41, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
When the company [[#New headquarter|relocated to Denver]], ...
(e.g., we encourage the paring down of "See also" sections by working the cross-referenced articles into the main article text instead). But there's generally no need to do even this in a lead section. The entire point of the lead is that it's a tight summary of an article rich in detail, and everyone already understand that the details are to be found below the lead. Using explicitly Wikipedia-self-referential "(see [[#Some section|Some section]])
" cross-references in the lead is just terrible encyclopedia writing. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 17:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)See the section on [[#Youth]]
, editors could write something like [[#Youth|Rising use by youth]] worries public health officials
.
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 04:24, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
When I first read "Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles...are placed in bold" per MOS:BOLDSYN, I understood it to mean boldface was limited to (1) the first occurrence of the title and (2) significant alternative titles, and no other uses. However, according to this edit by Mathglot, the word "only" is just limiting how many "occurrence[s] of the title" should be bolded.
This seems confusing, if not in conflict with MOS:BOLDREDIRECT: "Use boldface...for terms in the first couple of paragraphs of an article, or at the beginning of a section of an article, which are the subjects of redirects to the article or section (for example, subtopics of the article's topic...)". While such terms aren't too likely to be used in the first sentence, it still seems possible.
This could be solved with commas or dashes, but I like my previous solution that simply omitted the phrase "Only the first occurrence of the title" entirely. Since we've already told people to "display [the article title] in bold as early as possible in the first sentence", it just seems repetitive and awkward to re-state it here. Any thoughts? — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 07:26, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
If there are no objections I'll go ahead and make this change. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 01:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Use boldface only for the the first occurrence of the title. Significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article)[13] should also be in boldface: ...
<dt>
elements, etc.). However, there's an iffy quasi-convention of using manual boldfacing for pseudo-subheadings when the table of contents is already overly complex. When this is done, it should be as '''Pseudo-subheading here'''
on its own line; any instance of ;Pseudo-subheading here
should be fixed on-sight, per
MOS:DLIST, because that is invalid markup (it's actually saying "this is a description/definition/association list entry – a <dt>
– of which a description/definition follows", but it isn't one, isn't part of a <dl>
list, and has no associated <dd>
element after it).PS: I don't feel canvassed; I'm one of the main MoS "shepherds" and ultimately actually wrote a lot of this material, so if part of it is unclearly worded, or has drifted out-of-step with the ground truth (either by later edits to it or because consensus practice has overwhelmingly changed), I'm probably in a good position to comment on the matter. I don't have a particular view on this to push. I care that the guidelines reflect actual best practices, and that they do not substantively change without very good reason (non-trivial changes to MoS – actually different, rather than just clarified, rules – can affect thousands, potentially millions, of articles).
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 17:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article)[13] should also be in boldface, unless doing so would result in excessive bolding.
Hopefully this communicates the accepted practice without too much WP:CREEP. The example sentence(s) could be tweaked to emphasize the relative points of each statement as well. Thoughts? — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 20:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Only use boldface for the first occurrence of a given term, unless the term is a synonym of the title that redirects to a specific section.
Never underestimate the propensity for uncommon but insistent individuals trying to to pull the "There is no exact rule against the unhelpful thing I want to do" act. And that also gives us an easy way to link to MOS:BOLDREDIRECT without an explicit "See ..." cross-reference. zr would be important, since MOS:LEAD isn't what governs that redirect-bolding stuff, but is just mentioning it passing. I've learned the hard way that the best means of preventing WP:POLICYFORK problems is that when Page A is using/mentioning/summarizing a rule from Page B, we ensure that Page A's material has an in situ cross-ref. (of one style or the other) to Page B's pertinent and controlling material. Otherwise people are apt to make changes at Page A that make it conflict with Page B over time. That may even by why this very thread is open. PS: It's also worded (with "if it occurs in the lead") to make it clear that not everything that redirects to this page must necessarily be mentioned and bolded in the lead. Yet another loophole closed! — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:24, 4 March 2020 (UTC)Only use boldface for the first occurrence of a given term, unless the term is a synonym of the title that redirects to a specific section, in which case boldface it if it occurs in the lead and again at its first occurrence where the redirect is anchored.
Personally, I think it's more intuitive to speak of redirect "targets" than "anchors". Saying "a specific part of the article" instead of "a specific section" also allows for redirects to smaller subdivisions of text such as individual paragraphs. I think we only need to say "first occurrence" once; it should implicitly apply in both situations described ("once if it occurs in the lead and once again in the [other part]"). I think most users will instinctively want to emphasize the first (after the lead) occurrence if anything. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 12:02, 4 March 2020 (UTC)Only use boldface for the first occurrence of a given term, unless the term is a synonym of the title that redirects to a specific part of the article. Here, boldface the term once if it occurs in the lead and once again in the part targeted by the redirect.
I wouldn't redirect the term to a section if it's mentioned and bolded in the lead.Redirecting to a specific section depends on whether the redirected term is more relevant to the material contained in that section or the article as a whole, not on whether someone happened to boldface the term in the lead. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 00:17, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Should an SPLC classification as a hate group be automatically leadworthy? is the neutrally-worded RFC statement. I've left my nomination explanation below, and I'll notify the relevant places about the discussion ( Talk:SPLC, WP:CENT and WP:RSN are the ones that spring to mind). SITH (talk) 22:01, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
...a kraterocratic organization ...driven by a machiavellian agenda of galactic domination and revenge) Using a SPLC evaluation in the lede similarly often puts an organization into context. Trying to formulate the MOS to include or exclude SPLC smacks of politically-biased article gamesmanship when the real question is either for RSN (as Greyfell notes) or for the article's talk page. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:38, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
There is a discussion regarding pronunciations in leads at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation#cluttering with double brackets. Your input would be appreciated. Thank you. Nardog ( talk) 14:41, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
A Request for Comments has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education asking the following question: How should the ledes of articles about colleges and universities describe the general reputation, prestige, or relative ranking(s) of the institution? Your participation and input would be greatly appreciated! ElKevbo ( talk) 03:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
It's 2020 now. The vast majority of readers are using systems that are able to display a wide range of scripts. The slim potential benefit foreign character warning boxes used to offer is now outweighed by the clutter they cause. Several of them have been deleted at TfD. Maybe it's time to remove endorsement of their use from the MOS? -- Paul_012 ( talk) 17:53, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
I've nominated the templates for scripts up to Unicode 3.2, except the ones with further comments below, for deletion. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 May 17#Foreign character warning boxes. -- Paul_012 ( talk) 23:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC) The so-called "basic" Vietnamese chu nom character, translated as "person", shows up as a box on my screen. -anonymous|2020.5.28 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C44:237F:ACCB:1C05:1381:67CC:5940 ( talk) 15:11, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
There is currently a dicussion at Talk:Router (computing)#RFC about whether and how to mention alternate pronunciations of router. MOS:LEADPRON does not give any guidance on whether the fact of alternate pronunciation is by itself a legitimate reason for mentioning the pronunciation of a common English word. I don't believe that this is an isolated instance, and some guidance would be helpful. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 16:31, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
On this page at MOS:LEADLANG the example given is:
but at MOS:SINGLE the guidance says "Simple glosses that translate or define unfamiliar terms usually take single quotes". The example should therefore be:
Are there any objections to my making the change? Shhhnotsoloud ( talk) 07:53, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, but there shouldn't be a comma before the gloss. Fixed. Macrakis ( talk) 07:55, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Have noticed some editors removing parentheses from lead sentences with the rationale that this is more useful for users of search engines like Google or Alexa, which often omit the bracketed text. Is this something that should be borne in mind when writing a good opening sentence, or if not, can it teach us anything? I can see it might be helpful for the common names of plants, where the article title is the Latin name, and an unbracketed lead sentence won't mention any common names. -- Lord Belbury ( talk) 11:04, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
The dispute about Down/Down's syndrome has moved to Tourette syndrome. The main claim is that "national variations" are significant and therefore need to be represented in the first sentence. I am wondering whether LEADALT would benefit from some examples.
For example:
WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:55, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
It seems very confusing that the shortcuts MOS:BOLDAVOID and MOS:AVOIDBOLD are in separate but adjacent boxes. Why was it done this way? Is it the case that it can't be fixed because it would break links in edit summaries? -- Jameboy ( talk) 12:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
'''
. (Hey, I acknowledged from the start that the names are indeed all confusing!)
MOS:BOLDLEAD (or its synonym
MOS:BOLDTITLE) are the larger-topic shortcuts I should've been referencing. --
FeRDNYC (
talk) 22:42, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
In an article about a living person, we boldface the full name of the person on the first mention. Should we not do the same with a corporation or other organization?
This issue has arisen recently where Banan14kab has been unbolding the trailing part of the name of fraternities, bolding only the common name portion. By way of example, here is their edit to Alpha Phi Alpha: [5]. I can't find a clear statement in the MOS about this, but articles about other corporate entities (e.g., IBM) do bold the complete name, including "Corporation" or "Inc.". It also is less than jarring than having the dangling unbolded part of the name in the sentence.
Is there explicit guidance on this? If not, should we add something about corporations and organizations? — C.Fred ( talk) 11:34, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
I've noticed that people have started polluting biographies of many scientists who were members of different societies by adding acronyms of the institutions and fellowships right after the scientist's name. If the pronunciation of the name was given, the acronyms would be between the name and the pronunciation. So we have in Andre Geim "Sir Andre Konstantinovich Geim FRS, HonFRSC, HonFInstP (Russian: Андре́й Константи́нович Гейм; born 21 October 1958) is a Russian-born...", and on google "Sir Andre Konstantinovich Geim FRS, HonFRSC, HonFInstP is a Russian-born...". For James Dyson it gets even worse: "Sir James Dyson OM CBE RDI FRS FREng FCSD FIEE (born 2 May 1947)...". Do these acronyms mean anything to anyone, or do you need to click on them to find out what they mean? This is a terrible use of the template, and should be banned and reverted en masse. The template is now in many biographies of the members of the Royal Society ( Fellow of the Royal Society), and who knows where else. It's amazing what people will use just because they can. What if a person has 30 fellowships, are they all going to be listed? This, to me, is nothing but sophisticated WP:REFSPAM. Ponor ( talk) 14:02, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
An editor is deleting material from a lede, on his understanding that since it is a BLP, it should not contain any negative information in the lede. The related talk page discussion is here. Can someone take a look? Thanks. -- 2604:2000:E010:1100:3CC4:95F3:F526:24C0 ( talk) 08:24, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
What does the ideal first sentence of "History of X" articles look like?
MOS:LEADSENTENCE requires a statement of "what, or who, the subject is", which is not easy to apply to these articles. Across the project it is interpreted in different ways, such as:
Onceinawhile ( talk) 15:19, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
@ David Eppstein, Bait30, and Johnbod: honestly guys I find these comments very disappointing. This is a good faith effort to think through something that has been unclear for at least 15 years, and you are rushing to shut it down without engaging.
On reflection, perhaps my question was too narrowly worded, and perhaps putting it as an RfC seemed to serve only to raise the temperature rather than encourage outsiders to comment as I had hoped. I don't understand it, but here we are.
If I haven't lost you already, can I try this a different way? Perhaps my real point is that I have been here for more than a decade and I am still entirely unclear on how the first sentence of an article with a "descriptive title" is supposed to be. Currently this page says: "The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what, or who, the subject is... If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence. However, if the article title is merely descriptive... the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text."
...So the page explicitly points to the scenario where the "article title is merely descriptive", but it does not give any sense of what to do with the first sentence in that situation. I put all these WP:FAs as examples, and Bait30 did the same, to point out the situation in the best areas of our encyclopaedia. But if you think that is all over the place, try looking at the same but in lower quality articles.
Onceinawhile ( talk) 23:40, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
Hi, the following sentence has been removed as 'misplaced': [6]
'This section also gets most frequently translated and included in non-English Wikipedias.'
@ Flyer22 Frozen: and other editors: I'd like to provide my rationale for including this sentence.
The lead section is due to time constraints often the only section that gets translated when translating articles to other Wikipedias. The sentence contributes to the understanding of the lead section from this viewpoint and as such provides another reason to structuring it as a short article summary and with a balanced point of view. I find this reason important enough to include the sentence in the guideline, specifically in the paragraph that provides the reasons why the lead section should be "written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view". For this reason, I don't consider it misplaced there.
I appreciate any comment on this issue. - TadejM my talk 22:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
3O Response: I don't think this is worth adding here. Less is more. It already says what style to use, i.e., clear, accessible, etc. Adding the sentence about being translated doesn't really strengthen that guidance. Just because it is more likely to get translated doesn't make the policy more important. It's already important and should be done for its own sake. In contrast if you were to suggest that because it is likely to be translated you should avoid idiosyncratic regional vernacular idioms or some such, then that might make sense. As written, this sentence perhaps adds a little weight, but not much. If someone doesn't know enough to make a lead clear, accessible, etc., then telling them it might be more likely to get translated won't tip the balance and convince them to take the guidance more seriously. Since it doesn't add much, leave it out. Less is more. Coastside ( talk) 08:00, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Recently I have increasingly noticed articles which begin with a single-sentence "paragraph", and I have noticed editors specifically separating out the opening sentence from the rest of the paragraph (eg this). I think this is really poor style, and nothing in the current MOS supports it. Indeed, MOS:PARA says "The number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized, since they can inhibit the flow of the text", while WP:PARAGRAPH says "One-sentence paragraphs are unusually emphatic, and should be used sparingly." Should some text be added to MOS:BEGIN to address this? I'd suggest something like:
46.208.152.69 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:05, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree with the original post that single-sentence lead paragraphs are a common issue that are worth addressing. I agree with the second post that discouraging, and perhaps strongly discouraging, is preferable to a prohibition. Perhaps something like the following, linking to MOS:PARA would work:
You are invited to join the discussion at Module talk:Lang-zh § MOS compliance. — Goszei ( talk) 03:02, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
I posted this back in May and it was abandoned, so I thought I would post it here to get some fresh eyes on it.
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 15 | ← | Archive 18 | Archive 19 | Archive 20 | Archive 21 | Archive 22 | Archive 23 |
In all cases where this MOS page describes giving the article's subject, in the lead's first sentence, in bold font, the effect is achieved using ''' wiki markup</nowiki>
or the <b> HTML element
. Although this renders aesthetically identical text as the <strong> HTML element
or {{strong}} wiki markup
would, the former is
semantically meaningless.
Shouldn't we transition our MOS instructions to teach the use of semantic markup instead of mere typography? Especially where the editorial intent is to convey emphasis, importance, seriousness, or urgency through the altered font? I feel that the question is rhetorical as I believe it is incumbent on us that we must!
Considering that these semantic elements have been standard since HTML5 (and supported by all major browsers as well) [1] [2] we are considerably late implementing these already. And continued procrastination could easily be seen as editorial incompetence very soon; IMHO. What do others think about this? Thank you.-- John Cline ( talk) 22:14, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
<q>...</q>
element around all inline quotations (those not marked up as blockquotes). The demand seems rather low. A side issue is that even if we did go that route, it should probably be for the article title only.
Bolded synonyms are bolded for a different reason: a typographic visual aid for those who got to the page via a redirect and might otherwise wonder why they're at a page that doesn't match what they searched for. Bolding the subject/title itself in the lead is the kind of thing <strong>
is ostensibly for (according to the HTML5 spec; they changed the meaning of this tag, which originally meant "yelling more loudly than with <em>
"). —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 23:00, 27 June 2018 (UTC)
<q>
element, W3C says: "the use of <q>
elements to mark up quotations is entirely optional; using explicit quotation punctuation without <q>
elements is just as correct."
[3] And, your suggestion that "demand [for use of semantic markup] [is seemingly] low", is a bit of fallacy I am certain you did not maliciously proffer, and as certain, it could never emerge as a "finding of fact". I'd rather not debate the matter to any finer nuance, unless you feel a need to discuss it further. I'd much rather, instead, focus on the allegiance I share with the larger part of all that you said. I appreciate, very much, the insight you've shared.--
John Cline (
talk) 19:23, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<q>
would be semantically richer, and permit user-level CSS control (e.g. of different quotation-marks style). It would also be very useful for tools, like bots to build lists of quotations without a citation near them, and lists of long quotations that should be reformatted into block quotes, and so on. On the second point, that's a
straw man; I never said demand for semantic markup in general is low, only for those two elements. (I am the author of the vast majority of our semantic markup templates, and you can thank me for most of the mentions of semantic markup it the MoS. :-) —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 20:04, 28 June 2018 (UTC)Our use of the b element clearly meets this intent. -- Izno ( talk) 03:07, 28 June 2018 (UTC)The b element represents a span of text to which attention is being drawn for utilitarian purposes without conveying any extra importance and with no implication of an alternate voice or mood, such as key words in a document abstract, product names in a review, actionable words in interactive text-driven software, or an article lede.
<b>
element has utilitarian value, as described it the <blockquote>
given but it has no semantic meaning whatsoever, and
accessibility is not increased one iota by its use. Here's another quote from the same page you cited above:I'm not suggesting that we never useThe
<b>
element should be used as a last resort when no other element is more appropriate. In particular, headings should use the<h1>
to<h6>
elements, stress emphasis should use the<em>
element, and importance should be denoted with the<strong>
element.
<b>...</b>
or '''...'''
; we clearly need the utility of that markup. I, nevertheless, am saying: "we should not forsake use of the <strong>
element when importance is meant to convey". The example I stated of giving the article's subject in the first sentence of the lead in boldface is textbook misuse of the <b>
element or '''
wiki markup. There izno string of text in an article more important than its very subject (when first given) and no better time to speak of semantic markup than when instructing editors to give that subject in the lead's first sentence using boldface font. Do you wholeheartedly disagree?--
John Cline (
talk) 09:33, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
Aside that, I am keenly interested in weighing as much information as the community will lay upon the question, as asked in the original posting. I do have strong inclinations regarding the answer as well, and will not sway except by extremely cogent rationale. If such exists, I know it will be given, and I remain.-- John Cline ( talk) 15:42, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<strong>
and it being logically applicable to the subject's name being highlighted in the lead sentence. It's just a matter of whether the community would
GaF enough to use it. All of our semantic markup templates were opposed early on, as was mentioning them in MoS and using them in articles, but today they are not controversial at all (though highly optional). The thing to do is probably to create a template with a very short name, and (for even better semantic markup) have it also apply the <dfn>
element (semantic markup for the defining instance of a term on the page; also used in {{
Term}}
for glossaries). MoS could say that the template can (not must) be used, and why. Then see if people start using it. I certainly would. This is something I've been thinking about since ca. 2006, shortly after I arrived here. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 18:06, 28 June 2018 (UTC)
<q>...</q>
around quotations, and so on. A lot of this stuff is subjective. What really qualifies for <strong>
and how this differs from <b>
is open to some debate, and people have been arguing since day one about the finer points of <code>
, <samp>
, and <kbd>
. We should keep
WP:Don't be a fanatic in mind. >;-) —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 03:41, 13 July 2018 (UTC)<cite>
element away from W3C's definition (the gist of which pre-dates WHATWG's existence); W3C tried briefly going along with WHATWG's version, and the developer community rebelled, so WHATWG is off in the dark with their own stupid "spec-fork" that does not match real-world usage. I've been applying periodic pressure to get this resolved, and the handful of gatekeepers over at WHATWG refuse to budge, insisting that they have the One True Spec, and that W3C is full of it. There was a huge personality clash between some people at these two organizations over a decade ago, and I don't think anything is going to repair it, other than someone at WHATWG dying, getting fired, or gracefully retiring. It's really pretty shameful how childish this mess is. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 10:42, 12 July 2018 (UTC)Watchers of this page may be interested in WT:FILM#Request for comment on spoilers and lead sections and WT:MOS#Citations in the lead. -- Izno ( talk) 18:00, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
There seems to be a bug in the note that SMcCandlish added to format of first sentence. It does't open, can't see its contents. Thinker78 ( talk) 22:26, 25 July 2018 (UTC)
<ref>
tag is missing the closing </ref>
(see the
help page).References
As you can see, there are too many different ways in which the spelling differences are presented.
The proposal is to update the first sentence so that it is uniform and just contains the alternative names in bold, with no links or references, like caliber in the example above. Since the main topic has nothing to do with American or British spelling, I think it only serves as a distraction to mention it and should be removed. Vpab15 ( talk) 14:15, 1 March 2019 (UTC)
There is a conflict in the Manual of Style recommendations outlined in Bold title and Redundancy. This is specifically the case where the article is covering a topic within a series, common for sports events and awards ceremonies. The reasons for MOS:REDUNDANCY are very clear, in that the opening sentence should be brief, avoid repeated terms or long sentence constructions and outline in plain English a basic description of the topic, linking any relevant terms. I feel these are solid guidelines for writing a good first sentence and on that basis I've produced lead sentences such as the following:
Using MOS:BOLDTITLE as an edit summary, I've seen several instances of users removing the link to the main series topic from sentences like the above, or worse rephrasing the lead sentence to replace a basic description with a tautologous one:
For example, it seems like quite a failure for our readers that the lead of articles like 61st Annual Grammy Awards neither describe what the Grammy Awards are in plain English, nor contain a link to the main Grammy Awards topic. I believe application of MOS:BOLDTITLE is what is driving this negative outcome. The sole rationale given for MOS:BOLDTITLE in this instance is "some readers will miss the visual cue". I do not understand the logic of that for articles that are part of a series, where the article title is repeated verbatim in the text – the linking and bolding of the series article is surely just as effective a visual cue as bolding it? The current examples given in MOS:BOLDTITLE do not address this specific scenario as none of the article subjects are within a series, and all the examples achieve a reduction in redundancy and a plain English description, rather than hindering those aims as shown in the FIFA World Cup and Grammys examples. I believe linking of series articles should be an exception to MOS:BOLDTITLE on this basis. SFB 14:02, 28 September 2019 (UTC)
If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence.(I guess maybe that needs to read, "If convenient and without resorting to linguistic gymnastics" instead of "if possible". Many things are possible...)
{{
sidebar}}
code, rather than having some shared, structured metatemplate code they all invoke. That's nasty.) Regardless, neither feels both effective and prominent enough to relate individual event articles to the parent event series article, especially as none of them are displayed on mobile. Nothing at
WP:CLNT even covers this particular case, really, in my reading.Linking part of the bolded text is also discouraged because it changes the visual effect of bolding; some readers will miss the visual cue which is the purpose of using bold face in the first place.
— MOS:BOLDAVOID footnote
Links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the opening sentence of a lead
— MOS:BOLDAVOID
If the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the opening sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it. Instead, simply describe the subject in normal English, avoiding redundancy.
— MOS:AVOIDBOLD
Also keep in mind that guidelines are not policies. The community is stricter about policies.A fair point. -- FeRDNYC ( talk) 19:37, 19 October 2019 (UTC)
Danbloch, regarding this and this, what are you speaking on? Please don't ping me when you reply. Flyer22 Reborn ( talk) 17:52, 19 November 2019 (UTC)
I noticed several articles, whose plural form is not intuitive has the plural is beside it in parentheses. I was surprised to see there is not mention of this in MOS:LEAD, particularly MOS:BOLDSYN. Would anyone object if I boldly added it? (if you don't like it you can rephrase it or revert). Egs. Mitochondrion, Dice, Goose, nucleus, Quantum, Calf, Genus, Matrix (mathematics), ova.
Cheers, Dig deeper talk 16:09, 8 November 2019 (UTC)
When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form, and it may include variations, including synonyms.
— MOS:FIRST
When the page title is used as the subject of the first sentence, it may appear in a slightly different form, and it may include variations, including plural forms (particularly if they're unusual or confusing) or synonyms.-- FeRDNYC ( talk) 09:16, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Dig deeper talk 20:32, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
Regarding
this,
this,
this and
this, I fully
reverted the introduction to its long-standing form. If there are any aspects that actually need changing, then let's discuss, but something like the "As a general rule of thumb" piece regarding the leads of articles has thorough consensus via various discussions, including
this extensive 2014 RfC. To soften the language after that extensive discussion is something that should be supported by another big discussion. Back then, editors were generally against softening the language changing the wording to "length should be commensurate with the size of the article," which removed any mention of generally sticking to four paragraphs. A number of editors supported softening it in some way, but slightly more supported no softening at all. It was felt by a number of editors that the "As a general rule of thumb" wording is all the softening that is needed; this aspect was duplicated in the introduction since it was already lower in the guideline.
Flyer22 Reborn (
talk) 18:31, 24 November 2019 (UTC) Updated post.
Flyer22 Reborn (
talk) 18:46, 24 November 2019 (UTC)
I think that the only languages that should be used are the official language(s) of the countries or regions. Because some populations in countries have adopted their colonizers languages and after independence they changed their official language to their native language. However, some people still adding the colonizers language to countries lede paragraph which sounds like politically incorrect. For example, some people are adding the name of Ethiopia in Italian language in the article of Ethiopia. I can't find a relevant guideline in this article that says we should only use official languages so I propose adding it.-- SharabSalam ( talk) 04:42, 3 December 2019 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles/RFC on pharmaceutical drug prices. This guideline has been mentioned by some editors, and perhaps editors familiar with it would like to share their views. (This is a completely different RFC about WP:MEDMOS.) WhatamIdoing ( talk) 03:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
Please see Wikipedia talk:Redirect § Deletion section is out of step with practice. It is relevant to MOS:BOLDSYN. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 05:48, 18 February 2020 (UTC)
I've opened a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Accessibility about the recommended length of lead sections. Interested users may wish to contribute to the discussion there. Thank you. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 01:14, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
I thought I remembered a prohibition against "see" links from the end of the introduction's paragraphs to specific article sections ( such as I removed here) but I can't find it and am not sure if it's been rescinded or otherwise. Are such links preferred, discouraged, or neutral practice now? EllenCT ( talk) 15:41, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
When the company [[#New headquarter|relocated to Denver]], ...
(e.g., we encourage the paring down of "See also" sections by working the cross-referenced articles into the main article text instead). But there's generally no need to do even this in a lead section. The entire point of the lead is that it's a tight summary of an article rich in detail, and everyone already understand that the details are to be found below the lead. Using explicitly Wikipedia-self-referential "(see [[#Some section|Some section]])
" cross-references in the lead is just terrible encyclopedia writing. —
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 17:10, 2 March 2020 (UTC)See the section on [[#Youth]]
, editors could write something like [[#Youth|Rising use by youth]] worries public health officials
.
WhatamIdoing (
talk) 04:24, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
When I first read "Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles...are placed in bold" per MOS:BOLDSYN, I understood it to mean boldface was limited to (1) the first occurrence of the title and (2) significant alternative titles, and no other uses. However, according to this edit by Mathglot, the word "only" is just limiting how many "occurrence[s] of the title" should be bolded.
This seems confusing, if not in conflict with MOS:BOLDREDIRECT: "Use boldface...for terms in the first couple of paragraphs of an article, or at the beginning of a section of an article, which are the subjects of redirects to the article or section (for example, subtopics of the article's topic...)". While such terms aren't too likely to be used in the first sentence, it still seems possible.
This could be solved with commas or dashes, but I like my previous solution that simply omitted the phrase "Only the first occurrence of the title" entirely. Since we've already told people to "display [the article title] in bold as early as possible in the first sentence", it just seems repetitive and awkward to re-state it here. Any thoughts? — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 07:26, 27 February 2020 (UTC)
If there are no objections I'll go ahead and make this change. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 01:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Use boldface only for the the first occurrence of the title. Significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article)[13] should also be in boldface: ...
<dt>
elements, etc.). However, there's an iffy quasi-convention of using manual boldfacing for pseudo-subheadings when the table of contents is already overly complex. When this is done, it should be as '''Pseudo-subheading here'''
on its own line; any instance of ;Pseudo-subheading here
should be fixed on-sight, per
MOS:DLIST, because that is invalid markup (it's actually saying "this is a description/definition/association list entry – a <dt>
– of which a description/definition follows", but it isn't one, isn't part of a <dl>
list, and has no associated <dd>
element after it).PS: I don't feel canvassed; I'm one of the main MoS "shepherds" and ultimately actually wrote a lot of this material, so if part of it is unclearly worded, or has drifted out-of-step with the ground truth (either by later edits to it or because consensus practice has overwhelmingly changed), I'm probably in a good position to comment on the matter. I don't have a particular view on this to push. I care that the guidelines reflect actual best practices, and that they do not substantively change without very good reason (non-trivial changes to MoS – actually different, rather than just clarified, rules – can affect thousands, potentially millions, of articles).
—
SMcCandlish
☏
¢ 😼 17:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)
Significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article)[13] should also be in boldface, unless doing so would result in excessive bolding.
Hopefully this communicates the accepted practice without too much WP:CREEP. The example sentence(s) could be tweaked to emphasize the relative points of each statement as well. Thoughts? — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 20:01, 2 March 2020 (UTC)Only use boldface for the first occurrence of a given term, unless the term is a synonym of the title that redirects to a specific section.
Never underestimate the propensity for uncommon but insistent individuals trying to to pull the "There is no exact rule against the unhelpful thing I want to do" act. And that also gives us an easy way to link to MOS:BOLDREDIRECT without an explicit "See ..." cross-reference. zr would be important, since MOS:LEAD isn't what governs that redirect-bolding stuff, but is just mentioning it passing. I've learned the hard way that the best means of preventing WP:POLICYFORK problems is that when Page A is using/mentioning/summarizing a rule from Page B, we ensure that Page A's material has an in situ cross-ref. (of one style or the other) to Page B's pertinent and controlling material. Otherwise people are apt to make changes at Page A that make it conflict with Page B over time. That may even by why this very thread is open. PS: It's also worded (with "if it occurs in the lead") to make it clear that not everything that redirects to this page must necessarily be mentioned and bolded in the lead. Yet another loophole closed! — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 10:24, 4 March 2020 (UTC)Only use boldface for the first occurrence of a given term, unless the term is a synonym of the title that redirects to a specific section, in which case boldface it if it occurs in the lead and again at its first occurrence where the redirect is anchored.
Personally, I think it's more intuitive to speak of redirect "targets" than "anchors". Saying "a specific part of the article" instead of "a specific section" also allows for redirects to smaller subdivisions of text such as individual paragraphs. I think we only need to say "first occurrence" once; it should implicitly apply in both situations described ("once if it occurs in the lead and once again in the [other part]"). I think most users will instinctively want to emphasize the first (after the lead) occurrence if anything. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 12:02, 4 March 2020 (UTC)Only use boldface for the first occurrence of a given term, unless the term is a synonym of the title that redirects to a specific part of the article. Here, boldface the term once if it occurs in the lead and once again in the part targeted by the redirect.
I wouldn't redirect the term to a section if it's mentioned and bolded in the lead.Redirecting to a specific section depends on whether the redirected term is more relevant to the material contained in that section or the article as a whole, not on whether someone happened to boldface the term in the lead. — Sangdeboeuf ( talk) 00:17, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
Should an SPLC classification as a hate group be automatically leadworthy? is the neutrally-worded RFC statement. I've left my nomination explanation below, and I'll notify the relevant places about the discussion ( Talk:SPLC, WP:CENT and WP:RSN are the ones that spring to mind). SITH (talk) 22:01, 22 January 2020 (UTC)
...a kraterocratic organization ...driven by a machiavellian agenda of galactic domination and revenge) Using a SPLC evaluation in the lede similarly often puts an organization into context. Trying to formulate the MOS to include or exclude SPLC smacks of politically-biased article gamesmanship when the real question is either for RSN (as Greyfell notes) or for the article's talk page. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 15:38, 23 January 2020 (UTC)
There is a discussion regarding pronunciations in leads at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Pronunciation#cluttering with double brackets. Your input would be appreciated. Thank you. Nardog ( talk) 14:41, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
A Request for Comments has been opened at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Higher education asking the following question: How should the ledes of articles about colleges and universities describe the general reputation, prestige, or relative ranking(s) of the institution? Your participation and input would be greatly appreciated! ElKevbo ( talk) 03:59, 24 May 2020 (UTC)
It's 2020 now. The vast majority of readers are using systems that are able to display a wide range of scripts. The slim potential benefit foreign character warning boxes used to offer is now outweighed by the clutter they cause. Several of them have been deleted at TfD. Maybe it's time to remove endorsement of their use from the MOS? -- Paul_012 ( talk) 17:53, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
I've nominated the templates for scripts up to Unicode 3.2, except the ones with further comments below, for deletion. The discussion is at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2020 May 17#Foreign character warning boxes. -- Paul_012 ( talk) 23:28, 17 May 2020 (UTC) The so-called "basic" Vietnamese chu nom character, translated as "person", shows up as a box on my screen. -anonymous|2020.5.28 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C44:237F:ACCB:1C05:1381:67CC:5940 ( talk) 15:11, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
List of all existing and some deleted warning boxes, with corresponding Unicode versions and links to script articles —
59.149.124.29 (
talk) 06:17, 9 May 2020 (UTC)
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There is currently a dicussion at Talk:Router (computing)#RFC about whether and how to mention alternate pronunciations of router. MOS:LEADPRON does not give any guidance on whether the fact of alternate pronunciation is by itself a legitimate reason for mentioning the pronunciation of a common English word. I don't believe that this is an isolated instance, and some guidance would be helpful. Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul ( talk) 16:31, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
On this page at MOS:LEADLANG the example given is:
but at MOS:SINGLE the guidance says "Simple glosses that translate or define unfamiliar terms usually take single quotes". The example should therefore be:
Are there any objections to my making the change? Shhhnotsoloud ( talk) 07:53, 29 June 2020 (UTC)
Agreed, but there shouldn't be a comma before the gloss. Fixed. Macrakis ( talk) 07:55, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Have noticed some editors removing parentheses from lead sentences with the rationale that this is more useful for users of search engines like Google or Alexa, which often omit the bracketed text. Is this something that should be borne in mind when writing a good opening sentence, or if not, can it teach us anything? I can see it might be helpful for the common names of plants, where the article title is the Latin name, and an unbracketed lead sentence won't mention any common names. -- Lord Belbury ( talk) 11:04, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
The dispute about Down/Down's syndrome has moved to Tourette syndrome. The main claim is that "national variations" are significant and therefore need to be represented in the first sentence. I am wondering whether LEADALT would benefit from some examples.
For example:
WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:55, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
It seems very confusing that the shortcuts MOS:BOLDAVOID and MOS:AVOIDBOLD are in separate but adjacent boxes. Why was it done this way? Is it the case that it can't be fixed because it would break links in edit summaries? -- Jameboy ( talk) 12:09, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
'''
. (Hey, I acknowledged from the start that the names are indeed all confusing!)
MOS:BOLDLEAD (or its synonym
MOS:BOLDTITLE) are the larger-topic shortcuts I should've been referencing. --
FeRDNYC (
talk) 22:42, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
In an article about a living person, we boldface the full name of the person on the first mention. Should we not do the same with a corporation or other organization?
This issue has arisen recently where Banan14kab has been unbolding the trailing part of the name of fraternities, bolding only the common name portion. By way of example, here is their edit to Alpha Phi Alpha: [5]. I can't find a clear statement in the MOS about this, but articles about other corporate entities (e.g., IBM) do bold the complete name, including "Corporation" or "Inc.". It also is less than jarring than having the dangling unbolded part of the name in the sentence.
Is there explicit guidance on this? If not, should we add something about corporations and organizations? — C.Fred ( talk) 11:34, 3 September 2020 (UTC)
I've noticed that people have started polluting biographies of many scientists who were members of different societies by adding acronyms of the institutions and fellowships right after the scientist's name. If the pronunciation of the name was given, the acronyms would be between the name and the pronunciation. So we have in Andre Geim "Sir Andre Konstantinovich Geim FRS, HonFRSC, HonFInstP (Russian: Андре́й Константи́нович Гейм; born 21 October 1958) is a Russian-born...", and on google "Sir Andre Konstantinovich Geim FRS, HonFRSC, HonFInstP is a Russian-born...". For James Dyson it gets even worse: "Sir James Dyson OM CBE RDI FRS FREng FCSD FIEE (born 2 May 1947)...". Do these acronyms mean anything to anyone, or do you need to click on them to find out what they mean? This is a terrible use of the template, and should be banned and reverted en masse. The template is now in many biographies of the members of the Royal Society ( Fellow of the Royal Society), and who knows where else. It's amazing what people will use just because they can. What if a person has 30 fellowships, are they all going to be listed? This, to me, is nothing but sophisticated WP:REFSPAM. Ponor ( talk) 14:02, 2 October 2020 (UTC)
An editor is deleting material from a lede, on his understanding that since it is a BLP, it should not contain any negative information in the lede. The related talk page discussion is here. Can someone take a look? Thanks. -- 2604:2000:E010:1100:3CC4:95F3:F526:24C0 ( talk) 08:24, 6 October 2020 (UTC)
What does the ideal first sentence of "History of X" articles look like?
MOS:LEADSENTENCE requires a statement of "what, or who, the subject is", which is not easy to apply to these articles. Across the project it is interpreted in different ways, such as:
Onceinawhile ( talk) 15:19, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
@ David Eppstein, Bait30, and Johnbod: honestly guys I find these comments very disappointing. This is a good faith effort to think through something that has been unclear for at least 15 years, and you are rushing to shut it down without engaging.
On reflection, perhaps my question was too narrowly worded, and perhaps putting it as an RfC seemed to serve only to raise the temperature rather than encourage outsiders to comment as I had hoped. I don't understand it, but here we are.
If I haven't lost you already, can I try this a different way? Perhaps my real point is that I have been here for more than a decade and I am still entirely unclear on how the first sentence of an article with a "descriptive title" is supposed to be. Currently this page says: "The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what, or who, the subject is... If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence. However, if the article title is merely descriptive... the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text."
...So the page explicitly points to the scenario where the "article title is merely descriptive", but it does not give any sense of what to do with the first sentence in that situation. I put all these WP:FAs as examples, and Bait30 did the same, to point out the situation in the best areas of our encyclopaedia. But if you think that is all over the place, try looking at the same but in lower quality articles.
Onceinawhile ( talk) 23:40, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
Hi, the following sentence has been removed as 'misplaced': [6]
'This section also gets most frequently translated and included in non-English Wikipedias.'
@ Flyer22 Frozen: and other editors: I'd like to provide my rationale for including this sentence.
The lead section is due to time constraints often the only section that gets translated when translating articles to other Wikipedias. The sentence contributes to the understanding of the lead section from this viewpoint and as such provides another reason to structuring it as a short article summary and with a balanced point of view. I find this reason important enough to include the sentence in the guideline, specifically in the paragraph that provides the reasons why the lead section should be "written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view". For this reason, I don't consider it misplaced there.
I appreciate any comment on this issue. - TadejM my talk 22:35, 26 October 2020 (UTC)
3O Response: I don't think this is worth adding here. Less is more. It already says what style to use, i.e., clear, accessible, etc. Adding the sentence about being translated doesn't really strengthen that guidance. Just because it is more likely to get translated doesn't make the policy more important. It's already important and should be done for its own sake. In contrast if you were to suggest that because it is likely to be translated you should avoid idiosyncratic regional vernacular idioms or some such, then that might make sense. As written, this sentence perhaps adds a little weight, but not much. If someone doesn't know enough to make a lead clear, accessible, etc., then telling them it might be more likely to get translated won't tip the balance and convince them to take the guidance more seriously. Since it doesn't add much, leave it out. Less is more. Coastside ( talk) 08:00, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
Recently I have increasingly noticed articles which begin with a single-sentence "paragraph", and I have noticed editors specifically separating out the opening sentence from the rest of the paragraph (eg this). I think this is really poor style, and nothing in the current MOS supports it. Indeed, MOS:PARA says "The number of single-sentence paragraphs should be minimized, since they can inhibit the flow of the text", while WP:PARAGRAPH says "One-sentence paragraphs are unusually emphatic, and should be used sparingly." Should some text be added to MOS:BEGIN to address this? I'd suggest something like:
46.208.152.69 ( talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:05, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
I agree with the original post that single-sentence lead paragraphs are a common issue that are worth addressing. I agree with the second post that discouraging, and perhaps strongly discouraging, is preferable to a prohibition. Perhaps something like the following, linking to MOS:PARA would work:
You are invited to join the discussion at Module talk:Lang-zh § MOS compliance. — Goszei ( talk) 03:02, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
I posted this back in May and it was abandoned, so I thought I would post it here to get some fresh eyes on it.