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This editing guide was renamed as a MoS guide last year on an understanding that an agreement had been made during a discussion on this page. As this has always been an editing guide, and the advice here is still about making an editing decision rather than a style or formatting one, I feel it should be returned to an editing guide, and the previous name of WP:Summary style restored. The discussion linked above referenced this guideline in order to make editing decisions during the MoS consolidation drive, but there was no discussion regarding bringing the guideline itself into the MoS. I have informed the editor who made the move. Views are encouraged. SilkTork * YES! 12:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
A problem I note with a lot of articles (for example, Milton Keynes Dons F.C.) is that when articles are split, people just cut-and-paste sections into new articles and leave the parent articles devoid of information. Obviously, this fails the spirit of WP:SUMMARY, as "summary style" means that a main article should give a summary and give links to "main articles" if it makes an article too unwieldy to combine all the information, but it seems not to be an important part of the policy. Should this be rectified or not? Sceptre ( talk) 23:44, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list. As a longtime fan of the summary guideline, I have read this N quote as affirming that a breakout is "part of" its main article for N purposes. That is, we recognize that List of minor planets: 200001-201000, Later life of Isaac Newton, and List of centenarians (educators, school administrators, social scientists and linguists) are not notable in themselves, and yet they are clearly not deletable at AFD for N reasons, since their main topics ( List of minor planets, Isaac Newton, Lists of centenarians) are notable. This N exception seems to be a natural corollary of the COMMONNAMES exception that breakouts enjoy.
In a content dispute, it has been raised by some that this might count as a backdoor to inherent notability, because it does "the same thing" as inherence. It makes all consensus breakouts "inherently article-worthy" (which sounds a lot like "inherently notable"). Clearly someone who did not understand the summary structure might easily raise a good-faith AFD, rightly arguing the topic is nonnotable but is being treated as if it were inherently notable solely because its notable main topic is sufficiently long. This happens particularly with lists. It would seem there would be a standardized method of communicating the structure to notability checkers. (Incidentally, I guarantee that if you look up the particular content dispute in my history, you will face a topic maelstrom largely irrelevant to these present sitewide questions; but feel free.)
Q1: Since WP:LISTs are articles, does this guideline apply equally to lists as it does to other articles, though lists are not mentioned herein? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q2: What is the best way to handle the tension between the rightness of breakout articles vs. the objection, frequently met, that the breakout's title is nonnotable as a topic? (I see that N failures are not "encouraged" per AVOIDSPLIT, but this is accommodating language because the above demonstrates that sometimes there is no notable split and yet split is still indicated due to size.) JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q3: In particular, in a comprehensive list combining notable and nonnotable topics, I have observed the tendency for the notable ones to be broken out with short summaries and the nonnotable ones to accumulate long entries (especially if primary sources are involved), which seems to lean against guidance here for main-page balance. Is this guideline leaning more toward balanced breakouts, or is it toward imbalance (so as to indicate varying notability), or is this a local question? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q4: Since breakout method itself should be decided locally, should choice of breakout method include consideration of whether individual breakout candidates "look notable" or "look nonnotable" if they are considered without reference to being broken out? (My answer is it doesn't seem that this should be a consideration.) JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q5: Should local method determination rely primarily on anticipation of the detail levels that various user cases would typically look for? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q6: Since the guideline affirms breakouts must be able to stand alone, but only contextualizes this for V purposes, should we conclude that breakouts must stand alone for N (which would fail many articles like the above), or that they need not (which would indicate a clarification to the guideline)? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q7: What are the best style methods of communicating in-article that an article is a breakout, to transcend argumentation over N? (Obviously I start with the "Main article:" link at top, the navtemplate(s) indicating a place in a series, and sufficient sourcing and weighting; "Previous article:" and "Next article:" come to mind; anything else?)
JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I think the main template is better for linking to detail articles. The point about te summary is to be a summary, not details. Saying more details is just wrong and it also encourages unnecessary details in the summary. Dmcq ( talk) 23:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Links to world war 2 were stuck in where the context was as a title of an article or section. This is one of the problem when people do large trivial edits, they just stick in errors without helping. They should be confined to articles. It would also be better if one is really desperate to mess around to be very careful and separate the substantive edits out. Dmcq ( talk) 23:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I didn't understand WP:SS#Lead section
The links didn't help me at all. Dmcq ( talk) 00:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Dmcq has referred to this edit as warring and "absolutely definitely wrong". The significant parts of this edit were taken from other policy and guidelines:
The remainder of this edit enfolded or copyedited Dmcq's text. Warring does not refer to new insertion or new enfolding of noncontroversial content, but to reversion. Accordingly, Dmcq is free to express concerns with the extant quotes here or in the respective talk pages of the quoted pages. JJB 16:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
This is not about "bits" split out, this is about what editors have always done when splitting is necessary due to very long article size and when there is no clear subdivision. JJB 17:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Four examples are above. Many more are findable. JJB 17:23, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
We can disagree about our views of the examples, but your view does not seem to object to the policies and guidelines I imported into this article. If you have a specific text objection, please propose a change with a substantive reason. JJB 17:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
In re your charge that I am committing an "end run around WP:Notability", I found this interesting discussion in WT:N archives, with reference to this community RFC. At WT:N Dmcq seems to have said that objecting to List of Shakespearean characters (A–K) because it has no independent notability is not useful. That's almost exactly the point I'm trying to make: objecting that such a list does have independent notability is also not useful. These splits are arbitrary.
Since you object to the wording from WP:SIZE, you might take the objection there. Your second objection seems to relate to the wording from WP:LSC, but does not give a reason for deleting the parenthesis; the stated case is a significant case of disregarding notability for subsections. I have taken out "also", which was intended to mean "beyond subtopically", not "as a nonprimary source". JJB 18:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Here's another one I neglected, which might need to be worked in:
I have raised this general question at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive 96#Splitting_articles_arbitrarily Dmcq ( talk) 23:14, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
I believe Jclemens didn't see the syn either. Please respond to my logic above that there is no syn. JJB 01:45, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, Dennis saw fit to step into the consensus matrix here by cold-reverting backwards prior to a bunch of other agreed improvements to the article. Dennis's rationale at ANI continues the misstatements that my "central point is based upon a policy", that I'm "arguing how WP:SS is why [my] proposal is 'right'", that MMA is "a conflict that is based on it", that it is "central to dispute resolution". In fact, I said this is no central point but only one vague resolution possibility; I'm not arguing that SS favors the possibility but that practice (which I was trying to document) favors it; the MMA conflict is not based on SS (although my suggesting it to Agent00f has led him both to a basis in SS and a greater basis in policy interest generally); and resolution can proceed without SS changes.
Because it's a cold revert, Dennis has also committed the metaphorical throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Dennis has thrown out a useful edit by uninvolved HueSatLum and also inappropriately reverted contrary to Jclemens's decision to step in. He has thrown out a very large number of grammar and style improvements that Dmcq and I agreed on. Dennis believes himself to be unbiased and sufficiently uninvolved to make this determination. And this is all to keep only two sentences out of this page that already appear in another guideline because an alleged, never-proven synthesis has been tendentiously held. Dmcq was not involved in MMA when this SS discussion began, and yet Dennis reverted from Dmcq's version, which contained all the interim improvements agreed to except for the last discussion about the 2 sentences. This is a bit punitive to me because Dmcq has no COI by Dennis's definition, and yet Dennis is removing Dmcq's version of a lot of work Dmcq and I agreed on.
I do appeal to Dennis, Dmcq, and Jclemens (and HueSatLum) to reach a talk consensus here that some amount of the interim work can be returned to WP space without insisting on the entire MMA world being resolved first. JJB 21:51, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Dennis, most of your misstatements in the above have already been rebutted. I have no love lost for the MMA articles: what I do care about is that the stream of contentious AFDs, which has no reason whatsoever to end at any time because of constant new-event creation, be given such a reason to end. RFC/U doesn't do it. Maybe I need to try another alternative resolution just to show my bona fidae (I guess starting my own MMA AFD now would be pointy though). I also care about this situation ending in a number of other areas where it clearly exists, and you are thwarting that with a subtext that reads to me like a desire to use tools. You believe yourself uninvolved and neutral, but you also believe my edits are all about MMA. Frankly, that's a problem.
Your claim that I have a COI with any editing to this page until MMA is "concluded" and your hint, by calling it categorically disruptive, that you might use tools, is unjust to an editor whom you were thanking for his kindness last week.
JJB 22:37, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
on it and someone will eventually come along and stick it in. For the record the latest version I'm fully happy with is
[4].
Dmcq (
talk) 12:47, 29 May 2012 (UTC)This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Per the reasons in the previous section, the unargued minor and stylistic improvements made by John J. Bulten, Dmcq, and HueSatLum should be restored, as the instance of cold reversion removed these changes that all parties have agreed to be improvements. The preferred version to revert to is Dmcq's, although if Dennis Brown believes there is inappropriateness in that version we could save the improvements without restoring the earlier questioned text I inserted by restoring this version instead.
Since reversion by Dennis Brown demonstrably removed agreed improvements to the article, please restore one of the two versions linked above.
JJB 16:30, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Done I haven't read the ANI discussion, but there seems to be agreement here that the 494546510 version is appropriate, so I have reverted to this one. — Martin ( MSGJ · talk) 17:13, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
The next discussion during page-protection should focus on the question of insertion of the two sentences from WP:N as either here or here (ignoring edit conflict between these two). I favor insertion, Dmcq sees synthesis. Dennis Brown does not object to any version. Jclemens says, "I do have a general agreement that WP:NNC should be added to WP:SS, because split/merge discussions should not degenerate into deletion, but rather un-splitting, merging, would be the preferred remedy." To me this implies inserting the 2 sentences and more. Dmcq favors an RFC here advertised on 3 other pages, which I don't object to but have not coded it right now. That's just to give everyone the current status. JJB 11:45, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Dmcq, yes, it was off-point at VPP (20:07, 27 May 2012 (UTC)). My next sentence there was "Feel free to handle your preferred insertion as you see fit": I don't have a problem with discussion on additional text that you and Jclemens see fit, as it's not off-point here (though it will temporarily require an edit request). I also thought it would be appropriate to mention Dennis as well because he did edit in relation to the 2 sentences. Please do not charge me with synthesis in my own statements simply because you disagree with conclusions you infer from my statements because you haven't asked me to reconcile them: it makes it harder for you to demonstrate that you can spot synthesis in WP guidelines. What I am looking for is a linkage between how the 2 sentences anywhere in this page, taken with other statements in AVOIDSPLIT, can logically be combined to infer any of the synthetic conclusions you have alleged that I made. This demonstration would ideally have a syllogistic structure so that editors can judge whether it is a logical implication of the content and positioning of the sentences, or not. Thank you. JJB 12:13, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
As I've now said at VPP, I kinda thought you'd want the ordinary BRD cycle to resume, where we two discuss why you think there's synthesis, and we agree on an edit that will enfold your concerns. I have been reading your charges of synthesis as they come, and (except for one occasion where I said so and made a responsive edit) I've never seen the connect between what the words say and the idea of inherent nonnotability or whatever the syn is. If you're still unwilling to discuss (here) why the two sentences should not be in, then it would seem that consensus favors including them. Those are the basic BRD paths. Jumping to lots of other pages is not demonstration of syn, sorry. Looking forward to productive protected discussion, thanks. JJB 17:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Should this guideline contain the quote from WP:N " Notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list". If so in which of these contexts is it okay?
The main discussion was at WP:VPP# Splitting articles arbitrarily. There is section below for discussion, please put only a short summary of your feelings about which are acceptable in the decisions section. Dmcq ( talk) 18:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I have put in a new option D below for people who want to remove all notability requirements when splitting articles. This is even stronger than options A and B. Dmcq ( talk) 11:56, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
A
B
C
D
E
Please note: the quote is technically from WP:N lead rather than WP:NNC, which it summarizes; italics are unimportant; the "explicitly imply" has been disputed as undemonstrated, as no such implication appears prima facie; and Dmcq going to all this work to simply say that there needs to be another sentence about deletion is IMHO a bit misguided.
That said, I did invite discussion about deletion, and I don't mind a moderating statement about deletion being added for balance. I think a new heading "Subarticle deletion" would be a bit much, in part because it would be creating a new guidance topic (as I have been accused of doing), and in part because it would tend to overencourage subarticle deletion. Second, when placed in proposal C it is not a summary of N, as it says quite a bit more than N says (failing to summarize is another accusation I've faced). As to the sentence itself, "fails notability in an AfD" is a dramatic misconception of the nuances of AFD discussion, and "may be possible to merge" really contradicts the assumption of this page, that the article was already split due to size, which leaves the reader guessing as to whether size can now be ignored, WP:PRESERVE can be ignored, or what the tenor of the sentence may be.
I haven't begun working on alternatives to C yet, as I see nothing significant in other guidance to work from, so I don't have an alternate proposal, and it may take some discussion to figure out exactly what Dmcq means by C. The closest thing is in WP:N as "If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger article or relevant list.", which would need to be prefaced as "However, if" when placed after the other two WP:N sentences. But this doesn't address the other problems mentioned. JJB 19:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't see how explicitly implying notability is inapplicable is consistent with this and I would have though this would have to be very much altered before sticking in something which implies the exact opposite. Thus I think options A and B are incompatible with the current content. Dmcq ( talk) 19:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
In the light of the request below and the lack of recent activity and the unprotection tomorrow and the past history of dispute I have requested that an admin closes this RfC at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Requests_for_closure#Wikipedia_talk:Summary_style.23RfC:_Should_the_summary_style_guideline_quote_WP:Notability_and_if_so_in_what_place
Not done: {{
edit protected}}
is not required for edits to unprotected pages, or pending changes protected pages.
Please insert the subsection shown in version C, repeated below. Dmcq proposed it; I do not disagree with its text, though it is not the best or best-formatted solution; and we are the only two commenting in detail here. I have also posted my belief at #Another proposal that Dmcq is WP:Status quo stonewalling or WP:FILIBUSTERing. Given my belief, it would be better to work from C as a baseline than to wait a month for edits as Dmcq seems to propose.
For completeness: Jayron32 and Shooterwalker prefer status quo but do not address the concerns stated on this talk; Victor Yus favors change generically; Jclemens supports the change that C was intended to address, though would not stop at C; Uzma Gamal and ThemFromSpace did not clearly support or oppose a version but do support GNG, so might support version E, which was built from C. If there's consensus on anything, it's that the RFC was confusingly presented. However, none of these editors have stuck with the conversation (feel free to chime back in), so this is primarily a two-editor discussion where one is willing to take the other's baseline to enhance further discussion.
It is not necessary to make a judgment on the stonewalling evidence, merely to comment on whether consensus between Dmcq and myself is sufficient to make the change to version C. The brown text is to be added below:
Thank you. JJB 00:51, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
I do agree that version C is an accurate statement; I don't agree that it is a summary of WP:N or that it is the best version. You have refused to explain why C summarizes N and I am attempting to get you to do so, or to do anything other than continue arguing for status quo without substantives. Agreeing on temporary baselines is consensus-building. Please do not charge me with being "disriuptive" when I am agreeing with your version. JJB 01:26, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Template:List of Arcade Video Games Navbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes ( talk) 17:40, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
This seems to be a perennially controversial issue, so I've started a RfC at Template talk:Main#RfC. Someone not using his real name ( talk) 00:50, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
I've just removed a new section that was added yesterday. It read in full:
I believe this is controversial and should be discussed before it is included in the guideline. For example, it seems to contradict the usage defined for Template:Main in its documentation. My major concern is that this may become a recipe for summary-style content forks. -- Stfg ( talk) 09:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
When a section is written in summary style, should it's name closely reflect the title of the article? This was the subject of a dispute ( here) over a summary-style section in the article Embassy of the United States, Mogadishu about its evacuation, for which the main article is Operation Eastern Exit, and whether the section title should be the operation name or a descriptive term such as "Closure and evacuation". There isn't explicit guidance for the section name of a summary-style section on this page, MOS:LAYOUT#Section templates and summary style, or WP:HAT and I think something should be added to this page about that. But before proposing any specific phrase, what should be the position on this issue? How close should the section name be to the name of the main article? AHeneen ( talk) 21:23, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Take the case when I want to summarise an article A in my article B. A is very well sourced but I do not have access to its sources; do I have to right to summarise it and/or use its inline cites? WP:CWW comes to mind but I doubt it applies here, and I remember WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. Shouldn't this be mentioned in this page too? Ugog Nizdast ( talk) 17:32, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
A portion of this guideline is in direct conflict with Wikipedia:Article size. The following text currently appears in the "Rationale" section of this (Summary style) guideline:
This style of organizing articles is somewhat related to news style except that it focuses on topics instead of articles. The idea is to summarize and distribute information across related articles in a way that can serve readers who want varying amounts of details, thus giving readers the ability to zoom to the level of details they need and not exhausting those who need a primer on a whole topic. Breakout methods should anticipate the various details levels that typical readers will look for.
This is more helpful to the reader than a very long article that just keeps growing, eventually reaching book length. Summary style is accomplished by not overwhelming the reader with too much text up front, by summarizing main points and going into more details on particular points (subtopics) in separate articles. What constitutes "too long" is largely based on the topic, but generally 30 kilobytes of readable prose is the starting point at which articles may be considered too long. Articles that go above this have a burden of proof that extra text is needed to efficiently cover their topics and that the extra reading time is justified.— Wikipedia:Summary style#Rationale (emphasis added)
However, the "Size" subsection of WP:Article size says (emphasis added;I can't place the table in the quote template...it should be obvious the quoted content is between the dashed lines):
Some useful rules of thumb for splitting articles, and combining small pages:
Readable prose size | What to do |
> 100 kB | Almost certainly should be divided |
> 60 kB | Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material) |
> 50 kB | May need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size) |
< 40 kB | Length alone does not justify division |
< 1 kB | If an article or list has remained this size for over a couple of months, consider combining it with a related page. Alternatively, the article could be expanded, see Wikipedia:Stub. |
The 30kB rule on WP:Summary style apparently goes back to 2006 and at that time it was consistent with WP:Article size, based on two discussions in the archives for this page ( Wikipedia talk:Summary style/Archive 1#How to determine size for summary style and the adjacent section Wikipedia talk:Summary style/Archive 1#30kb of prose):
See Wikipedia:Summary style#Size, which links to Wikipedia:Article size. On that page there is, among other things: ">30KB - May eventually need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size; this is less critical for lists)".
Whatever the improvement you propose, I think consistency with Wikipedia:Article size would best be persued. If you feel that that page might benefit from updating, best to discuss at Wikipedia talk:Article size. --Francis Schonken 13:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
It appears the change on WP:Article size was first proposed in this 2008 discussion. At the time articles over 30kB readable prose size "[p]robably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)".
Almost a year later, Wikipedia talk:Article size/Archive 4#Rule of thumb again brought up the issue of increasing the size from 30 to 40. There was no clear consensus explicitly agreeing to the increase, but it was changed changed by one of the editors to the discussion with the edit summary: "restoring split recommend number to previously used 40; range consistent with number below. Greater than or equal to sign. See talk". Note that the change was made on 21 April 2009 (mid-point in discussion), but the discussion continued until 23 April.
There was a tangential discussion about article length at Wikipedia talk:Article size/Archive 5#Discussion about split of large articles at an arbitrary point, which discusses a couple points but mainly points to a then-ongoing discussion at the village pump Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 96#Splitting articles arbitrarily (this discussion is long...skimming through it, it mainly relates to whether articles should be forced to be "arbitrarily" split and whether the split article needs independent notability).
Both WP:Summary style and WP:Article size are editing guidelines and the relevant part of both guidelines has been unchanged for 7 years.
My thoughts (divided and numbered to ease discussion):
AHeneen ( talk) 09:17, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
Hello, there's an ongoing discussion at #Possible problem spanning multiple vehicle articles which may be of interest to followers of this page. It raises questions as to whether the creation of a series of new summary articles necessitates the removal of content from eight preexisting articles which address what might retroactively be considered as 'child' topics of the series of freshly created 'parents'. The Wikipedia:Summary style guidelines have been explicitly brought up in the discussion. -- Kevjonesin ( talk) 10:02, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
I went ahead and boldly added a subsection on how to implement selective transclusion of a sub-article lead to a parent article for automated content synchronization. If there's any objection to covering how to implement this on this page, feel free to revert my addition and discuss it here.
Assuming that there are no objections to my addition, since implementing a selective transclusion is rather technical, I was wondering if others thought that it would be useful to include a list of example articles where a sub-article's lead is selectively transcluded into a section of its parent article.
Some examples include:
Seppi333 ( Insert 2¢) 18:50, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
{{No selflink|SUB-ARTICLE_PAGENAME}}
vs [[SUB-ARTICLE_PAGENAME]]
@
Pppery:
WP:AWB will remove a selflink in an article (i.e., the latter markup in this section heading), which is why the the following markup – <noinclude>'''</noinclude>{{No selflink|SUB-ARTICLE_PAGENAME}}<noinclude>'''</noinclude>
– is necessary to circumvent this automated removal. I'm going to restore this for that reason.
Seppi333 (
Insert 2¢) 05:46, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lists#Overly long list items
Gist: Add brief advice about what to do about excessively large items in lists, to either WP:Manual of Style/Lists or WP:Summary style. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:25, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
I have an unusual situation and can't figure out where to ask.
I asked what to do about World oil market chronology from 2003 getting too long. It appears the recommended action is to take most of the details out and put them in smaller articles covering shorter time periods. Each smaller article would have to refer back to the parent article, which would seem to be a use for the main template. At the same time, the brief summaries of each group of years would seem to need a link to the longer detailed information, which seems also to be a use for the main template. — Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:15, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
The terminology used throughout the guideline changes in the Synchronization section, making it confusing and open to misinterpretation. I'd like to modify it to continue the parent/child article pattern of the rest of the guideline, as follows (bold for additions, strikethrough for removal):
Sometimes editors will add details to a
summary sectionparent article without adding those facts to the more detailed child article. To keep articles synchronized, editors should first add any new material to the appropriate places in thedetailedchild article, and, if appropriate, summarize the material in thesummary sectionparent article. If thedetailedchild article changes considerably without updating the parent article, the summarysectionof the child article in the parent article will need to be rewritten to do it justice.
Below, I've collapsed the relevant "story" from the lead to the sync section, to show the language used up to that point, then how it changes in SYNC.
Lengthy quotes from the guideline page
|
---|
(from lead) (from Levels of detail) (from Technique) (from Synchronization)
|
Thoughts? Disagreements? Schazjmd (talk) 00:51, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
Ok, so this is confusing. WP:SUMMARY redirects to this page. wp:summary (lowercase) redirects to a disambiguation page at Wikipedia:Summary. And the disambiguation page has like 12 things on it.
What should we do with wp:summary? Should we redirect it to here? Also, should we delete the disambiguation page at Wikipedia:Summary? Should we do both? – Novem Linguae ( talk) 05:17, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
In agreement with earlier discussion , I changed the obsolete 40 kB recommendation to 100 kB. DGG ( talk ) 15:39, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
In my opinion, the choice of when to choose 'Main' vs. 'Further' links in the top-of-section link depends on the "relatedness" of the child article topic to the parent topic. More specifically, if there is a meronymic connection, it should be {{ Main}}, and if it's a more diffuse relationship it should be {{ Further}} (or {{ See also}}).
There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Transgender history that relates to this question, and your feedback would be appreciated. Mathglot ( talk) 02:27, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm having a discussion with other editors about, basically: does a blurb in a table row in a list-article, which summarizes a linked article, have to include one, some, or all of the inline references in the linked article? I have turned to wp:SUMMARY, seeking a flat statement giving guidance and some great examples. However, the leading example, on how the World War II article uses summary style, maybe doesn't work as it should, in that it doesn't convey that it is really okay to summarize (perhaps a la Executive summary), rather than "restate separate assertions from within". And it does not clearly show that sometimes/often no citations at all are needed, which is what I would prefer to see.
The first example gives, for the summary of Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), under Pre-war events, with "main"-type link to Spanish Civil War, the following text:
Germany and Italy lent support to the Nationalist insurrection led by general Francisco Franco in Spain ....
Call that the instructive example text. That reads great to me, and shows no citation, as far as it goes. But the actual text in current World War II article is quite different:
When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to the Nationalist rebels, led by General Francisco Franco. Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis did: altogether Mussolini sent to Spain more than 70,000 ground troops and 6,000 aviation personnel, as well as about 720 aircraft. [1] The Soviet Union supported the existing government of the Spanish Republic. More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, remained officially neutral during World War II but generally favoured the Axis. [2] His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending of volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front. [3]
References
Here, each sentence is followed by an inline citation, it feels like. Or at least it is apparent that each sentence is supported by the next one coming of the passage's multiple (three) inline citations. Frankly, I do not like this "actual text": it seems choppy, as a general reader I am irritated by the inline citations (only some specialist would want to see them, and the material for them is in the subarticle instead); and it appears to be just a selection of several facts from several of the article's sources, rather than a proper synthesis of what's known on the topic. (And as if none of the article's sources is a history book general enough to cover these several statements!) It would surely be better to cite one or a few general treatments of the SCW in one cluster at the end of the actual summary, which I think would suggest that each of them more or less supports all of the statements.
And, it would be better still to include no citations, rather than selecting (and somewhat promoting) just a few, suggesting that the text is supported by the full weight of SCW's many many sources. And to suggest that Wikipedia as author has properly summarized/synthesized what's relevant, without being artificially restricted by exactly what's covered in a certain few.
In contrast, the "instructive example text" is easy to read so far, and I am on board believing that the Spanish Civil War article will be nicely summarized for its purpose in the WWII article.
I really believe the summary in the WWII article should be like the lead of the Spanish Civil War article, which, by WP:LEDE, "should be written in a clear, accessible style", standing "on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic". WP:LEDE states that "significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article", which I believe basically means that, if an assertion in the intro requires an inline citation there, then it shouldn't be there. Either the assertion should be dropped from the lead, or the assertion should be stated with inline citation somewhere in the body of the article and only summarized in the lead, without citation. Likewise, I honestly believe there should be no inline citations at all in the actual summary, because Wikipedia's article on the Spanish Civil War must surely include adequately support for the big takeaways relevant for the WWII article's summary (and in fact the SCW article includes 473 inline citations to something like 100 sources). And IMHO it would probably be inappropriate in the WWII article to be making any unusual, likely-to-be-doubted assertion about the SCW that would in fact require a citation.
Is the current WP:SUMMARY adequate in conveying that a summary can really be a summary, rather than a selection of a few assertions? I think not. By my reading, WP:SUMMARY does suggest that an article summary might simply be a transclusion of the lead of a sub-article ("it can be convenient to use the subarticle's lead as the content in the summary section"). And by my reading, WP:LEDE suggests that a lead should usually not include citations. And no examples that I see in WP:SUMMARY include citations. BUT, there is no explicit statement that a summary need not include citations, and there are no examples given making this point (i.e. no pointer to any Featured or other real article with good summaries not encumbered by citations).
About citations, this wp:SUMMARY states the following:
Each article on Wikipedia must be able to stand alone as a self-contained unit (exceptions noted herein). For example, every article must follow the verifiability policy, which requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable, published source in the form of an inline citation. This applies whether in a parent article or in a summary-style subarticle.
I personally read that to mean that it is okay for a summary to include no citations (as long as it does not include a quotation or a likely-to-be-challenged assertion). However, I think that the overwhelming suggestion for many readers, though, will be the following, instead: that, with scant exceptions, every Wikipedia article must be able to stand alone. Which means that all passages (although perhaps not the lead), including summary sections, must be supported by references to reliable sources. I further think that is a view widely held among editors, and it is perhaps why the editors at WWII have made it into a poorly written article, IMHO.
And it has been a problem for me previously and again now, that I can't find explicit statement that a list-article in which items are summaries of linked articles, does not need to have a hedgehog of citations. In practice, I think that in list-articles where one source has been inserted for each table row, say, that no one is checking whether everything in each table row is exactly supported by the one source appearing. Rather, I think that an editor has dutifully pasted in one corresponding source for each, to fend off dogmatic others who insist upon it. And it would be more honest to show no source, thereby implying all of the subarticles' sources.
THEREFORE, I suggest:
1) adding an explicit statement that a summary in an article does not necessarily require any of the inline citations of the linked sub-article,
2) stating that even if one or a few citations representative of the sources in the subarticle are included, that the summary need not be limited to only what is treated in those few (i.e., editors revising a summary do not need to be unduly concerned about repeatedly returning to a hypothetical single editor who holds copies of all the sources in the subarticle, to get approval of statements that are well-established in the subarticle),
3) that pointers to good examples of such summaries in mainspace Wikipedia articles be provided, and
4) that someone (not me) be deputized to go improve use of summary style in the WWII article!
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Summary style page. |
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Archives: 1, 2 |
Manual of Style | ||||||||||
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This editing guide was renamed as a MoS guide last year on an understanding that an agreement had been made during a discussion on this page. As this has always been an editing guide, and the advice here is still about making an editing decision rather than a style or formatting one, I feel it should be returned to an editing guide, and the previous name of WP:Summary style restored. The discussion linked above referenced this guideline in order to make editing decisions during the MoS consolidation drive, but there was no discussion regarding bringing the guideline itself into the MoS. I have informed the editor who made the move. Views are encouraged. SilkTork * YES! 12:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)
A problem I note with a lot of articles (for example, Milton Keynes Dons F.C.) is that when articles are split, people just cut-and-paste sections into new articles and leave the parent articles devoid of information. Obviously, this fails the spirit of WP:SUMMARY, as "summary style" means that a main article should give a summary and give links to "main articles" if it makes an article too unwieldy to combine all the information, but it seems not to be an important part of the policy. Should this be rectified or not? Sceptre ( talk) 23:44, 22 October 2011 (UTC)
Notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list. As a longtime fan of the summary guideline, I have read this N quote as affirming that a breakout is "part of" its main article for N purposes. That is, we recognize that List of minor planets: 200001-201000, Later life of Isaac Newton, and List of centenarians (educators, school administrators, social scientists and linguists) are not notable in themselves, and yet they are clearly not deletable at AFD for N reasons, since their main topics ( List of minor planets, Isaac Newton, Lists of centenarians) are notable. This N exception seems to be a natural corollary of the COMMONNAMES exception that breakouts enjoy.
In a content dispute, it has been raised by some that this might count as a backdoor to inherent notability, because it does "the same thing" as inherence. It makes all consensus breakouts "inherently article-worthy" (which sounds a lot like "inherently notable"). Clearly someone who did not understand the summary structure might easily raise a good-faith AFD, rightly arguing the topic is nonnotable but is being treated as if it were inherently notable solely because its notable main topic is sufficiently long. This happens particularly with lists. It would seem there would be a standardized method of communicating the structure to notability checkers. (Incidentally, I guarantee that if you look up the particular content dispute in my history, you will face a topic maelstrom largely irrelevant to these present sitewide questions; but feel free.)
Q1: Since WP:LISTs are articles, does this guideline apply equally to lists as it does to other articles, though lists are not mentioned herein? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q2: What is the best way to handle the tension between the rightness of breakout articles vs. the objection, frequently met, that the breakout's title is nonnotable as a topic? (I see that N failures are not "encouraged" per AVOIDSPLIT, but this is accommodating language because the above demonstrates that sometimes there is no notable split and yet split is still indicated due to size.) JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q3: In particular, in a comprehensive list combining notable and nonnotable topics, I have observed the tendency for the notable ones to be broken out with short summaries and the nonnotable ones to accumulate long entries (especially if primary sources are involved), which seems to lean against guidance here for main-page balance. Is this guideline leaning more toward balanced breakouts, or is it toward imbalance (so as to indicate varying notability), or is this a local question? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q4: Since breakout method itself should be decided locally, should choice of breakout method include consideration of whether individual breakout candidates "look notable" or "look nonnotable" if they are considered without reference to being broken out? (My answer is it doesn't seem that this should be a consideration.) JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q5: Should local method determination rely primarily on anticipation of the detail levels that various user cases would typically look for? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q6: Since the guideline affirms breakouts must be able to stand alone, but only contextualizes this for V purposes, should we conclude that breakouts must stand alone for N (which would fail many articles like the above), or that they need not (which would indicate a clarification to the guideline)? JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
Q7: What are the best style methods of communicating in-article that an article is a breakout, to transcend argumentation over N? (Obviously I start with the "Main article:" link at top, the navtemplate(s) indicating a place in a series, and sufficient sourcing and weighting; "Previous article:" and "Next article:" come to mind; anything else?)
JJB 21:15, 19 May 2012 (UTC)
I think the main template is better for linking to detail articles. The point about te summary is to be a summary, not details. Saying more details is just wrong and it also encourages unnecessary details in the summary. Dmcq ( talk) 23:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Links to world war 2 were stuck in where the context was as a title of an article or section. This is one of the problem when people do large trivial edits, they just stick in errors without helping. They should be confined to articles. It would also be better if one is really desperate to mess around to be very careful and separate the substantive edits out. Dmcq ( talk) 23:57, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I didn't understand WP:SS#Lead section
The links didn't help me at all. Dmcq ( talk) 00:35, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Dmcq has referred to this edit as warring and "absolutely definitely wrong". The significant parts of this edit were taken from other policy and guidelines:
The remainder of this edit enfolded or copyedited Dmcq's text. Warring does not refer to new insertion or new enfolding of noncontroversial content, but to reversion. Accordingly, Dmcq is free to express concerns with the extant quotes here or in the respective talk pages of the quoted pages. JJB 16:58, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
This is not about "bits" split out, this is about what editors have always done when splitting is necessary due to very long article size and when there is no clear subdivision. JJB 17:10, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Four examples are above. Many more are findable. JJB 17:23, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
We can disagree about our views of the examples, but your view does not seem to object to the policies and guidelines I imported into this article. If you have a specific text objection, please propose a change with a substantive reason. JJB 17:29, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
In re your charge that I am committing an "end run around WP:Notability", I found this interesting discussion in WT:N archives, with reference to this community RFC. At WT:N Dmcq seems to have said that objecting to List of Shakespearean characters (A–K) because it has no independent notability is not useful. That's almost exactly the point I'm trying to make: objecting that such a list does have independent notability is also not useful. These splits are arbitrary.
Since you object to the wording from WP:SIZE, you might take the objection there. Your second objection seems to relate to the wording from WP:LSC, but does not give a reason for deleting the parenthesis; the stated case is a significant case of disregarding notability for subsections. I have taken out "also", which was intended to mean "beyond subtopically", not "as a nonprimary source". JJB 18:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
Here's another one I neglected, which might need to be worked in:
I have raised this general question at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive 96#Splitting_articles_arbitrarily Dmcq ( talk) 23:14, 23 May 2012 (UTC)
I believe Jclemens didn't see the syn either. Please respond to my logic above that there is no syn. JJB 01:45, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Well, Dennis saw fit to step into the consensus matrix here by cold-reverting backwards prior to a bunch of other agreed improvements to the article. Dennis's rationale at ANI continues the misstatements that my "central point is based upon a policy", that I'm "arguing how WP:SS is why [my] proposal is 'right'", that MMA is "a conflict that is based on it", that it is "central to dispute resolution". In fact, I said this is no central point but only one vague resolution possibility; I'm not arguing that SS favors the possibility but that practice (which I was trying to document) favors it; the MMA conflict is not based on SS (although my suggesting it to Agent00f has led him both to a basis in SS and a greater basis in policy interest generally); and resolution can proceed without SS changes.
Because it's a cold revert, Dennis has also committed the metaphorical throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Dennis has thrown out a useful edit by uninvolved HueSatLum and also inappropriately reverted contrary to Jclemens's decision to step in. He has thrown out a very large number of grammar and style improvements that Dmcq and I agreed on. Dennis believes himself to be unbiased and sufficiently uninvolved to make this determination. And this is all to keep only two sentences out of this page that already appear in another guideline because an alleged, never-proven synthesis has been tendentiously held. Dmcq was not involved in MMA when this SS discussion began, and yet Dennis reverted from Dmcq's version, which contained all the interim improvements agreed to except for the last discussion about the 2 sentences. This is a bit punitive to me because Dmcq has no COI by Dennis's definition, and yet Dennis is removing Dmcq's version of a lot of work Dmcq and I agreed on.
I do appeal to Dennis, Dmcq, and Jclemens (and HueSatLum) to reach a talk consensus here that some amount of the interim work can be returned to WP space without insisting on the entire MMA world being resolved first. JJB 21:51, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
Dennis, most of your misstatements in the above have already been rebutted. I have no love lost for the MMA articles: what I do care about is that the stream of contentious AFDs, which has no reason whatsoever to end at any time because of constant new-event creation, be given such a reason to end. RFC/U doesn't do it. Maybe I need to try another alternative resolution just to show my bona fidae (I guess starting my own MMA AFD now would be pointy though). I also care about this situation ending in a number of other areas where it clearly exists, and you are thwarting that with a subtext that reads to me like a desire to use tools. You believe yourself uninvolved and neutral, but you also believe my edits are all about MMA. Frankly, that's a problem.
Your claim that I have a COI with any editing to this page until MMA is "concluded" and your hint, by calling it categorically disruptive, that you might use tools, is unjust to an editor whom you were thanking for his kindness last week.
JJB 22:37, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
{{
editprotected}}
on it and someone will eventually come along and stick it in. For the record the latest version I'm fully happy with is
[4].
Dmcq (
talk) 12:47, 29 May 2012 (UTC)This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
Per the reasons in the previous section, the unargued minor and stylistic improvements made by John J. Bulten, Dmcq, and HueSatLum should be restored, as the instance of cold reversion removed these changes that all parties have agreed to be improvements. The preferred version to revert to is Dmcq's, although if Dennis Brown believes there is inappropriateness in that version we could save the improvements without restoring the earlier questioned text I inserted by restoring this version instead.
Since reversion by Dennis Brown demonstrably removed agreed improvements to the article, please restore one of the two versions linked above.
JJB 16:30, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
Done I haven't read the ANI discussion, but there seems to be agreement here that the 494546510 version is appropriate, so I have reverted to this one. — Martin ( MSGJ · talk) 17:13, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
The next discussion during page-protection should focus on the question of insertion of the two sentences from WP:N as either here or here (ignoring edit conflict between these two). I favor insertion, Dmcq sees synthesis. Dennis Brown does not object to any version. Jclemens says, "I do have a general agreement that WP:NNC should be added to WP:SS, because split/merge discussions should not degenerate into deletion, but rather un-splitting, merging, would be the preferred remedy." To me this implies inserting the 2 sentences and more. Dmcq favors an RFC here advertised on 3 other pages, which I don't object to but have not coded it right now. That's just to give everyone the current status. JJB 11:45, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
Dmcq, yes, it was off-point at VPP (20:07, 27 May 2012 (UTC)). My next sentence there was "Feel free to handle your preferred insertion as you see fit": I don't have a problem with discussion on additional text that you and Jclemens see fit, as it's not off-point here (though it will temporarily require an edit request). I also thought it would be appropriate to mention Dennis as well because he did edit in relation to the 2 sentences. Please do not charge me with synthesis in my own statements simply because you disagree with conclusions you infer from my statements because you haven't asked me to reconcile them: it makes it harder for you to demonstrate that you can spot synthesis in WP guidelines. What I am looking for is a linkage between how the 2 sentences anywhere in this page, taken with other statements in AVOIDSPLIT, can logically be combined to infer any of the synthetic conclusions you have alleged that I made. This demonstration would ideally have a syllogistic structure so that editors can judge whether it is a logical implication of the content and positioning of the sentences, or not. Thank you. JJB 12:13, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
As I've now said at VPP, I kinda thought you'd want the ordinary BRD cycle to resume, where we two discuss why you think there's synthesis, and we agree on an edit that will enfold your concerns. I have been reading your charges of synthesis as they come, and (except for one occasion where I said so and made a responsive edit) I've never seen the connect between what the words say and the idea of inherent nonnotability or whatever the syn is. If you're still unwilling to discuss (here) why the two sentences should not be in, then it would seem that consensus favors including them. Those are the basic BRD paths. Jumping to lots of other pages is not demonstration of syn, sorry. Looking forward to productive protected discussion, thanks. JJB 17:34, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Should this guideline contain the quote from WP:N " Notability guidelines only outline how suitable a topic is for its own article or list. They do not limit the content of an article or list". If so in which of these contexts is it okay?
The main discussion was at WP:VPP# Splitting articles arbitrarily. There is section below for discussion, please put only a short summary of your feelings about which are acceptable in the decisions section. Dmcq ( talk) 18:43, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I have put in a new option D below for people who want to remove all notability requirements when splitting articles. This is even stronger than options A and B. Dmcq ( talk) 11:56, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
A
B
C
D
E
Please note: the quote is technically from WP:N lead rather than WP:NNC, which it summarizes; italics are unimportant; the "explicitly imply" has been disputed as undemonstrated, as no such implication appears prima facie; and Dmcq going to all this work to simply say that there needs to be another sentence about deletion is IMHO a bit misguided.
That said, I did invite discussion about deletion, and I don't mind a moderating statement about deletion being added for balance. I think a new heading "Subarticle deletion" would be a bit much, in part because it would be creating a new guidance topic (as I have been accused of doing), and in part because it would tend to overencourage subarticle deletion. Second, when placed in proposal C it is not a summary of N, as it says quite a bit more than N says (failing to summarize is another accusation I've faced). As to the sentence itself, "fails notability in an AfD" is a dramatic misconception of the nuances of AFD discussion, and "may be possible to merge" really contradicts the assumption of this page, that the article was already split due to size, which leaves the reader guessing as to whether size can now be ignored, WP:PRESERVE can be ignored, or what the tenor of the sentence may be.
I haven't begun working on alternatives to C yet, as I see nothing significant in other guidance to work from, so I don't have an alternate proposal, and it may take some discussion to figure out exactly what Dmcq means by C. The closest thing is in WP:N as "If only a few sentences could be written and supported by sources about the subject, that subject does not qualify for a separate page, but should instead be merged into an article about a larger article or relevant list.", which would need to be prefaced as "However, if" when placed after the other two WP:N sentences. But this doesn't address the other problems mentioned. JJB 19:19, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
I don't see how explicitly implying notability is inapplicable is consistent with this and I would have though this would have to be very much altered before sticking in something which implies the exact opposite. Thus I think options A and B are incompatible with the current content. Dmcq ( talk) 19:40, 1 June 2012 (UTC)
In the light of the request below and the lack of recent activity and the unprotection tomorrow and the past history of dispute I have requested that an admin closes this RfC at Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Requests_for_closure#Wikipedia_talk:Summary_style.23RfC:_Should_the_summary_style_guideline_quote_WP:Notability_and_if_so_in_what_place
Not done: {{
edit protected}}
is not required for edits to unprotected pages, or pending changes protected pages.
Please insert the subsection shown in version C, repeated below. Dmcq proposed it; I do not disagree with its text, though it is not the best or best-formatted solution; and we are the only two commenting in detail here. I have also posted my belief at #Another proposal that Dmcq is WP:Status quo stonewalling or WP:FILIBUSTERing. Given my belief, it would be better to work from C as a baseline than to wait a month for edits as Dmcq seems to propose.
For completeness: Jayron32 and Shooterwalker prefer status quo but do not address the concerns stated on this talk; Victor Yus favors change generically; Jclemens supports the change that C was intended to address, though would not stop at C; Uzma Gamal and ThemFromSpace did not clearly support or oppose a version but do support GNG, so might support version E, which was built from C. If there's consensus on anything, it's that the RFC was confusingly presented. However, none of these editors have stuck with the conversation (feel free to chime back in), so this is primarily a two-editor discussion where one is willing to take the other's baseline to enhance further discussion.
It is not necessary to make a judgment on the stonewalling evidence, merely to comment on whether consensus between Dmcq and myself is sufficient to make the change to version C. The brown text is to be added below:
Thank you. JJB 00:51, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
I do agree that version C is an accurate statement; I don't agree that it is a summary of WP:N or that it is the best version. You have refused to explain why C summarizes N and I am attempting to get you to do so, or to do anything other than continue arguing for status quo without substantives. Agreeing on temporary baselines is consensus-building. Please do not charge me with being "disriuptive" when I am agreeing with your version. JJB 01:26, 4 June 2012 (UTC)
Template:List of Arcade Video Games Navbox has been nominated for deletion. You are invited to comment on the discussion at the template's entry on the Templates for discussion page. Frietjes ( talk) 17:40, 13 October 2013 (UTC)
This seems to be a perennially controversial issue, so I've started a RfC at Template talk:Main#RfC. Someone not using his real name ( talk) 00:50, 26 December 2013 (UTC)
I've just removed a new section that was added yesterday. It read in full:
I believe this is controversial and should be discussed before it is included in the guideline. For example, it seems to contradict the usage defined for Template:Main in its documentation. My major concern is that this may become a recipe for summary-style content forks. -- Stfg ( talk) 09:27, 31 March 2014 (UTC)
When a section is written in summary style, should it's name closely reflect the title of the article? This was the subject of a dispute ( here) over a summary-style section in the article Embassy of the United States, Mogadishu about its evacuation, for which the main article is Operation Eastern Exit, and whether the section title should be the operation name or a descriptive term such as "Closure and evacuation". There isn't explicit guidance for the section name of a summary-style section on this page, MOS:LAYOUT#Section templates and summary style, or WP:HAT and I think something should be added to this page about that. But before proposing any specific phrase, what should be the position on this issue? How close should the section name be to the name of the main article? AHeneen ( talk) 21:23, 11 March 2015 (UTC)
Take the case when I want to summarise an article A in my article B. A is very well sourced but I do not have access to its sources; do I have to right to summarise it and/or use its inline cites? WP:CWW comes to mind but I doubt it applies here, and I remember WP:SAYWHEREYOUGOTIT. Shouldn't this be mentioned in this page too? Ugog Nizdast ( talk) 17:32, 27 April 2016 (UTC)
A portion of this guideline is in direct conflict with Wikipedia:Article size. The following text currently appears in the "Rationale" section of this (Summary style) guideline:
This style of organizing articles is somewhat related to news style except that it focuses on topics instead of articles. The idea is to summarize and distribute information across related articles in a way that can serve readers who want varying amounts of details, thus giving readers the ability to zoom to the level of details they need and not exhausting those who need a primer on a whole topic. Breakout methods should anticipate the various details levels that typical readers will look for.
This is more helpful to the reader than a very long article that just keeps growing, eventually reaching book length. Summary style is accomplished by not overwhelming the reader with too much text up front, by summarizing main points and going into more details on particular points (subtopics) in separate articles. What constitutes "too long" is largely based on the topic, but generally 30 kilobytes of readable prose is the starting point at which articles may be considered too long. Articles that go above this have a burden of proof that extra text is needed to efficiently cover their topics and that the extra reading time is justified.— Wikipedia:Summary style#Rationale (emphasis added)
However, the "Size" subsection of WP:Article size says (emphasis added;I can't place the table in the quote template...it should be obvious the quoted content is between the dashed lines):
Some useful rules of thumb for splitting articles, and combining small pages:
Readable prose size | What to do |
> 100 kB | Almost certainly should be divided |
> 60 kB | Probably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading material) |
> 50 kB | May need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size) |
< 40 kB | Length alone does not justify division |
< 1 kB | If an article or list has remained this size for over a couple of months, consider combining it with a related page. Alternatively, the article could be expanded, see Wikipedia:Stub. |
The 30kB rule on WP:Summary style apparently goes back to 2006 and at that time it was consistent with WP:Article size, based on two discussions in the archives for this page ( Wikipedia talk:Summary style/Archive 1#How to determine size for summary style and the adjacent section Wikipedia talk:Summary style/Archive 1#30kb of prose):
See Wikipedia:Summary style#Size, which links to Wikipedia:Article size. On that page there is, among other things: ">30KB - May eventually need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size; this is less critical for lists)".
Whatever the improvement you propose, I think consistency with Wikipedia:Article size would best be persued. If you feel that that page might benefit from updating, best to discuss at Wikipedia talk:Article size. --Francis Schonken 13:28, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
It appears the change on WP:Article size was first proposed in this 2008 discussion. At the time articles over 30kB readable prose size "[p]robably should be divided (although the scope of a topic can sometimes justify the added reading time)".
Almost a year later, Wikipedia talk:Article size/Archive 4#Rule of thumb again brought up the issue of increasing the size from 30 to 40. There was no clear consensus explicitly agreeing to the increase, but it was changed changed by one of the editors to the discussion with the edit summary: "restoring split recommend number to previously used 40; range consistent with number below. Greater than or equal to sign. See talk". Note that the change was made on 21 April 2009 (mid-point in discussion), but the discussion continued until 23 April.
There was a tangential discussion about article length at Wikipedia talk:Article size/Archive 5#Discussion about split of large articles at an arbitrary point, which discusses a couple points but mainly points to a then-ongoing discussion at the village pump Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 96#Splitting articles arbitrarily (this discussion is long...skimming through it, it mainly relates to whether articles should be forced to be "arbitrarily" split and whether the split article needs independent notability).
Both WP:Summary style and WP:Article size are editing guidelines and the relevant part of both guidelines has been unchanged for 7 years.
My thoughts (divided and numbered to ease discussion):
AHeneen ( talk) 09:17, 23 May 2016 (UTC)
Hello, there's an ongoing discussion at #Possible problem spanning multiple vehicle articles which may be of interest to followers of this page. It raises questions as to whether the creation of a series of new summary articles necessitates the removal of content from eight preexisting articles which address what might retroactively be considered as 'child' topics of the series of freshly created 'parents'. The Wikipedia:Summary style guidelines have been explicitly brought up in the discussion. -- Kevjonesin ( talk) 10:02, 14 February 2017 (UTC)
I went ahead and boldly added a subsection on how to implement selective transclusion of a sub-article lead to a parent article for automated content synchronization. If there's any objection to covering how to implement this on this page, feel free to revert my addition and discuss it here.
Assuming that there are no objections to my addition, since implementing a selective transclusion is rather technical, I was wondering if others thought that it would be useful to include a list of example articles where a sub-article's lead is selectively transcluded into a section of its parent article.
Some examples include:
Seppi333 ( Insert 2¢) 18:50, 30 January 2018 (UTC)
{{No selflink|SUB-ARTICLE_PAGENAME}}
vs [[SUB-ARTICLE_PAGENAME]]
@
Pppery:
WP:AWB will remove a selflink in an article (i.e., the latter markup in this section heading), which is why the the following markup – <noinclude>'''</noinclude>{{No selflink|SUB-ARTICLE_PAGENAME}}<noinclude>'''</noinclude>
– is necessary to circumvent this automated removal. I'm going to restore this for that reason.
Seppi333 (
Insert 2¢) 05:46, 14 February 2018 (UTC)
Please see: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lists#Overly long list items
Gist: Add brief advice about what to do about excessively large items in lists, to either WP:Manual of Style/Lists or WP:Summary style. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:25, 20 November 2018 (UTC)
I have an unusual situation and can't figure out where to ask.
I asked what to do about World oil market chronology from 2003 getting too long. It appears the recommended action is to take most of the details out and put them in smaller articles covering shorter time periods. Each smaller article would have to refer back to the parent article, which would seem to be a use for the main template. At the same time, the brief summaries of each group of years would seem to need a link to the longer detailed information, which seems also to be a use for the main template. — Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:15, 27 August 2019 (UTC)
The terminology used throughout the guideline changes in the Synchronization section, making it confusing and open to misinterpretation. I'd like to modify it to continue the parent/child article pattern of the rest of the guideline, as follows (bold for additions, strikethrough for removal):
Sometimes editors will add details to a
summary sectionparent article without adding those facts to the more detailed child article. To keep articles synchronized, editors should first add any new material to the appropriate places in thedetailedchild article, and, if appropriate, summarize the material in thesummary sectionparent article. If thedetailedchild article changes considerably without updating the parent article, the summarysectionof the child article in the parent article will need to be rewritten to do it justice.
Below, I've collapsed the relevant "story" from the lead to the sync section, to show the language used up to that point, then how it changes in SYNC.
Lengthy quotes from the guideline page
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(from lead) (from Levels of detail) (from Technique) (from Synchronization)
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Thoughts? Disagreements? Schazjmd (talk) 00:51, 15 November 2020 (UTC)
Ok, so this is confusing. WP:SUMMARY redirects to this page. wp:summary (lowercase) redirects to a disambiguation page at Wikipedia:Summary. And the disambiguation page has like 12 things on it.
What should we do with wp:summary? Should we redirect it to here? Also, should we delete the disambiguation page at Wikipedia:Summary? Should we do both? – Novem Linguae ( talk) 05:17, 2 January 2021 (UTC)
In agreement with earlier discussion , I changed the obsolete 40 kB recommendation to 100 kB. DGG ( talk ) 15:39, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
In my opinion, the choice of when to choose 'Main' vs. 'Further' links in the top-of-section link depends on the "relatedness" of the child article topic to the parent topic. More specifically, if there is a meronymic connection, it should be {{ Main}}, and if it's a more diffuse relationship it should be {{ Further}} (or {{ See also}}).
There is an ongoing discussion at Talk:Transgender history that relates to this question, and your feedback would be appreciated. Mathglot ( talk) 02:27, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
I'm having a discussion with other editors about, basically: does a blurb in a table row in a list-article, which summarizes a linked article, have to include one, some, or all of the inline references in the linked article? I have turned to wp:SUMMARY, seeking a flat statement giving guidance and some great examples. However, the leading example, on how the World War II article uses summary style, maybe doesn't work as it should, in that it doesn't convey that it is really okay to summarize (perhaps a la Executive summary), rather than "restate separate assertions from within". And it does not clearly show that sometimes/often no citations at all are needed, which is what I would prefer to see.
The first example gives, for the summary of Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), under Pre-war events, with "main"-type link to Spanish Civil War, the following text:
Germany and Italy lent support to the Nationalist insurrection led by general Francisco Franco in Spain ....
Call that the instructive example text. That reads great to me, and shows no citation, as far as it goes. But the actual text in current World War II article is quite different:
When civil war broke out in Spain, Hitler and Mussolini lent military support to the Nationalist rebels, led by General Francisco Franco. Italy supported the Nationalists to a greater extent than the Nazis did: altogether Mussolini sent to Spain more than 70,000 ground troops and 6,000 aviation personnel, as well as about 720 aircraft. [1] The Soviet Union supported the existing government of the Spanish Republic. More than 30,000 foreign volunteers, known as the International Brigades, also fought against the Nationalists. Both Germany and the Soviet Union used this proxy war as an opportunity to test in combat their most advanced weapons and tactics. The Nationalists won the civil war in April 1939; Franco, now dictator, remained officially neutral during World War II but generally favoured the Axis. [2] His greatest collaboration with Germany was the sending of volunteers to fight on the Eastern Front. [3]
References
Here, each sentence is followed by an inline citation, it feels like. Or at least it is apparent that each sentence is supported by the next one coming of the passage's multiple (three) inline citations. Frankly, I do not like this "actual text": it seems choppy, as a general reader I am irritated by the inline citations (only some specialist would want to see them, and the material for them is in the subarticle instead); and it appears to be just a selection of several facts from several of the article's sources, rather than a proper synthesis of what's known on the topic. (And as if none of the article's sources is a history book general enough to cover these several statements!) It would surely be better to cite one or a few general treatments of the SCW in one cluster at the end of the actual summary, which I think would suggest that each of them more or less supports all of the statements.
And, it would be better still to include no citations, rather than selecting (and somewhat promoting) just a few, suggesting that the text is supported by the full weight of SCW's many many sources. And to suggest that Wikipedia as author has properly summarized/synthesized what's relevant, without being artificially restricted by exactly what's covered in a certain few.
In contrast, the "instructive example text" is easy to read so far, and I am on board believing that the Spanish Civil War article will be nicely summarized for its purpose in the WWII article.
I really believe the summary in the WWII article should be like the lead of the Spanish Civil War article, which, by WP:LEDE, "should be written in a clear, accessible style", standing "on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic". WP:LEDE states that "significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article", which I believe basically means that, if an assertion in the intro requires an inline citation there, then it shouldn't be there. Either the assertion should be dropped from the lead, or the assertion should be stated with inline citation somewhere in the body of the article and only summarized in the lead, without citation. Likewise, I honestly believe there should be no inline citations at all in the actual summary, because Wikipedia's article on the Spanish Civil War must surely include adequately support for the big takeaways relevant for the WWII article's summary (and in fact the SCW article includes 473 inline citations to something like 100 sources). And IMHO it would probably be inappropriate in the WWII article to be making any unusual, likely-to-be-doubted assertion about the SCW that would in fact require a citation.
Is the current WP:SUMMARY adequate in conveying that a summary can really be a summary, rather than a selection of a few assertions? I think not. By my reading, WP:SUMMARY does suggest that an article summary might simply be a transclusion of the lead of a sub-article ("it can be convenient to use the subarticle's lead as the content in the summary section"). And by my reading, WP:LEDE suggests that a lead should usually not include citations. And no examples that I see in WP:SUMMARY include citations. BUT, there is no explicit statement that a summary need not include citations, and there are no examples given making this point (i.e. no pointer to any Featured or other real article with good summaries not encumbered by citations).
About citations, this wp:SUMMARY states the following:
Each article on Wikipedia must be able to stand alone as a self-contained unit (exceptions noted herein). For example, every article must follow the verifiability policy, which requires that all quotations and any material challenged or likely to be challenged be attributed to a reliable, published source in the form of an inline citation. This applies whether in a parent article or in a summary-style subarticle.
I personally read that to mean that it is okay for a summary to include no citations (as long as it does not include a quotation or a likely-to-be-challenged assertion). However, I think that the overwhelming suggestion for many readers, though, will be the following, instead: that, with scant exceptions, every Wikipedia article must be able to stand alone. Which means that all passages (although perhaps not the lead), including summary sections, must be supported by references to reliable sources. I further think that is a view widely held among editors, and it is perhaps why the editors at WWII have made it into a poorly written article, IMHO.
And it has been a problem for me previously and again now, that I can't find explicit statement that a list-article in which items are summaries of linked articles, does not need to have a hedgehog of citations. In practice, I think that in list-articles where one source has been inserted for each table row, say, that no one is checking whether everything in each table row is exactly supported by the one source appearing. Rather, I think that an editor has dutifully pasted in one corresponding source for each, to fend off dogmatic others who insist upon it. And it would be more honest to show no source, thereby implying all of the subarticles' sources.
THEREFORE, I suggest:
1) adding an explicit statement that a summary in an article does not necessarily require any of the inline citations of the linked sub-article,
2) stating that even if one or a few citations representative of the sources in the subarticle are included, that the summary need not be limited to only what is treated in those few (i.e., editors revising a summary do not need to be unduly concerned about repeatedly returning to a hypothetical single editor who holds copies of all the sources in the subarticle, to get approval of statements that are well-established in the subarticle),
3) that pointers to good examples of such summaries in mainspace Wikipedia articles be provided, and
4) that someone (not me) be deputized to go improve use of summary style in the WWII article!