Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 12

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Manual of Style. 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 5

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Archive 10

A proposal to simplify all of this

A number of points spring to mind:

Although this discussion is long, I think we are making progress - one final push may see us through to a good, workable solution.
It is advantageous to have one official style - that's the whole purpose of a style guide. It also gives a useful point of reference to all WPians who care about style. I therefore suggest (post-amendments - see below) to refer to this page as "official style". The term would give this page proper authority, whilst at the same time not using the term "policy", which some people think would mean the ArbCom would get involved if people broke it.
On the issue of usage, we need to be permissive - allow any standard form of English. Exceptions to this rule are damaging to this page (see above).
"Official style" should be as short as possible - people do not like lots of complicated rules!
This Manual of Style can and should be supplemented by a non-official page offering guidance on how to interpret it.

To this end, I have made a working draft proposal on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/proposal (the first edit to this page was the current policy, so going to history and looking at the diffs will show what changes are proposed). Please feel free either to edit this page, or to offer comments either here on on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/proposal. I have also made a draft additional guidance page on Wikipedia:Guidance on applying the Manual of Style and Wikipedia talk:Guidance on applying the Manual of Style. All comments would be welcome, jguk 22:00, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Style guides, national differences, etc.

I'd like to suggest the following:

Anyone making a complaint or a suggestion about the style guide should do so with the reader in mind, and not the editors.
Making a complaint or a suggestion based on national differences can be divisive, especially if it is not handled carefully.
If people are terribly offended by something they consider foreign, they might be wise to reconsider working on an international project.

Some points from above are worth repeating:

Few people know their own language as well as they think they do.
Various publications have their own style. A lot ot things vary and it's seldom a problem to readers.

Some points about style guides and writing for publication:

Probably few, if any, people agree 100 percent with any style guide.
Writers for probably any publication have their work changed. They don't always agree. They often don't know until after the fact.
Mature people accept these things and don't make a conflagration out of small matters.
A major reason for a style guide is consistency. Certain things are long-established in Wikipedia style. That should not be taken lightly.

People who want changes for anything, especialy to things that are long-established, would be wise to consider their approach. Maurreen 02:41, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I haven't looked at Jguk's links yet, so have no idea whether I'll agree or not, but I just want to respond briefly to Maurreen and say that I do agree with her point about writers and style guides. Writers learn a new style with each publication they go to. It's no big deal and professional writers don't fuss about it. I also agree that pointing out differences based on nationality is extremely unpopular at Wikipedia, and if the MoS continues to pursue that, people are going to vote with their fingers, so to speak. If the MoS is to be respected, it has to respect the prevailing culture and try to work with it, not against it. SlimVirgin 02:48, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

It is for some of the reasons outlined above that I favour a permissive, rather than prescriptive approach: a MoS that allows any standard form of English, supplemented by non-binding guidance on how it is interpreted in practice. And having a permissive approach should, I hope, allow us to give MoS back some official status.

On the issue of different national differences - it is really a question of give and take. We should take the largely accepted approach that most Wikipedians are able to accept as a compromise - and go with that. It's not a perfect approach, by any means, but it seems the best way to reduce needless edit wars and conflict. After all, is there really any benefit in me edit-warring to force the article on 2005 in NASCAR, to which I am the major contributor, back to British English when someone converts it to American English? Similarly, is there any problem with me continuing to write my major contributions to it in British English, since, whilst I am aware of many linguistic differences that we have, I am not fluent in the niceties of American English? IMO, the answer is no, but I shan't try to revert to BE if another editor converts to AmE. SV, I also hope the approach I am suggesting, which allows for a longer description of what "closely-related" means and which allows for differing opinions to be expressed in non-binding guidance, helps reduce our differences on this.

I hope you look at both discussion drafts (on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/proposal and Wikipedia:Guidance on applying the Manual of Style and offer constructive comments thereon. As noted above, I hope, after all these discussions, we are nearly there. If we can get there by actually reducing the instruction creep for once, so much the better. Kind regards, jguk 08:45, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about this. It takes us further away from having a style guide per se, and closer towards having a set of Yalta Conference rules on which national style to use when. (Assuming it's even clear which style each actually is.) But since this is already the case with spelling, perhaps doing the same thing with punctuation is merely "going with the flow": the same bun-fight will determine both, rather than having to have one over spelling, and then still not being sure one can copy-edit to MoS punctuation without someone complaining. Alai 03:41, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In the drafts what does standard English mean? Philip Baird Shearer 14:20, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I mean English as written in at least a semi-formal or formal context - eg as you'd write a business letter or exam, or as a broadsheet newspaper would write - as opposed to slang or dialectal, jguk 16:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a note at the bottom explaining this would be useful, or perhaps change "standard" to "formal". Philip Baird Shearer 10:12, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Would it be helpful if an author could include some metadata in an article indicating the variant of English she is using? This might help prevent inadvertent conflict and acrimony, where the style of English being used wasn't obvious to a contributor. This could be easily accomplished by placing a comment at the top of the page.

 <!-- this article is written in Canadian English -->

I write in Canadian English, and I'm sure that many British and U.S. editors would take a look and decide that it's full of spelling errors, if they weren't familiar with it. —Michael Z. 2005-03-15 15:02 Z

I don't think it would be helpful - labelling articles as being in one form of English is really the sort of thing we're trying to get away from. Make hidden comments if a change really irks you, but otherwise I'd recommend just going with the flow, 16:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Michael, have a look at the "Proposal: Introduction of Style Tags"-discussion above.

I agree with you that articles started in Canadian English will probably be changed to British or American E. in the course of editing. If you're the first major contributor, I think you're free to add comments to your article and state what kind of English you're using. Flo 02:41, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the discussion I missed. I notice someone else just added  at the top of Canada.

Canadian English was just an example.

What I think will happen more often is that an article's regional English may be non-obvious. An editor will miss the single occurence of "gray" in section seven, and write "tyre" in a minor edit of section two. After a while you have a mix, and it's a waste of time to try to track down who used the first Britishism or US-ism, but it may be considered rude to arbitrarily pick a language. Tagging the article early on would avoid this.

Also, this may have useful applications down the road. Perhaps Wikipedia could use the info to add standard metadata like <html lang="en-US"> to the page, or a future spelling-checker feature could flag inconsistencies. —Michael Z. 2005-03-17 19:59 Z

This has been proposed and discussed before, but I don't think anyone's ever spoken about a "future spelling-checker" feature in this context. That, I feel, makes the proposal even more compelling. –Hajor 14:54, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pure speculation on my part. But I could see something along the lines of the automatically-generated lists which catalogue wiki code errors, etc. —Michael Z. 2005-03-18 15:38 Z

In the first discussion, I was the one who initially proposed to use such tags. I've realised however that it's quite a sensitive issue... Nationalities don't "own" articles, but for some editors, tags might suggest they do. I agree with Michael - if the first major contributor clearly states what style/spelling he or she used, it will simply save time later. Flo 15:49, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Somebody mentioned the spelling comment in the Canada article (which has been removed by User: Jguk. I added the comment to provide spelling information for editors. Jguk objected, saying "everyone is welcome to edit articles", which is of course true. My spelling comments are not intended to deter editors, but rather to help copy-editors. Suggestion:

 SpNeo 03:05, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you think that such spelling comments are not necessary, have a close look at: [1] and count how many times the spelling has been changed and reverted. I consider this a waste of time. SpNeo 03:14, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Spelling comments may be really helpfull for many of us who are non-native English speakers, and have learned a specific dialect of English (e.g. British or American) so we are unaware wether a particular spelling is correct in a less "common" (for us) dialect (say Canadian, or Australian). Most Europeans learn British English, so may think other spellings are odd or even incorrect, just because we are unaware of it. --Xavier 06:30, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

Can't wikipedia replace British spellings with US spellings (and vice versa) on the fly based on a user preference?--Will2k 14:17, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Removal of guidelines

I'm not wild about removal of parts of the guidelines ("quotes", vs "quotes,") simply due to their being under discussion. Perhaps there should simply be an "under discussion" notice on the section. And in any case, it ought to apply equally to the whole punctuation section, not just punctuation-in-quotes -- the serial comma rule and double quotes marks would equally be removed under the proposed revision. Alai 05:06, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The removeal is not customary or needed. Maurreen 06:19, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Separate page for national differences?

Maybe people who want to fight about national differences should just take that to a separate page. I'm not sure any of this has been productive. Maurreen 06:14, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Have you seen my proposals referred to above? Inter alia they achieve this, jguk 06:44, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We are apparently looking at this from two very different perspectives. I'm not sure the gap can be bridged. Maurreen 06:51, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My perspective is to have a formally expressed official style that is short, to the point, permissive and is already in line with what WPians do - and supplement it by comments on how that official style is interpreted (which is where the national differences discussions will belong). One advantage is that the non-binding supplement could represent more than one view - which should minimise many of these arguments. What's your perspective? jguk 06:59, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Jguk's proposal

Wow, it's good to be back! Having the database read-only is like peering in from behind the Iron Curtain. Not that I'm addicted or anything ... Anyway, I've left comments about Jguk's proposal at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/proposal, but feel free to move or copy it here as preferred. SlimVirgin 07:51, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

If the style guide is going to be revised, I urge at least keeping the style concerning first major contributors. Maurreen 08:18, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I like the first-major-contributer rule myself, but there are others who don't, so I was thinking instead it might make sense to add that any changes to articles must be done sensitively, and should be respectful of the work of previous editors who may have put a lot of time and work into them. Phrasing it that way won't sort out an edit war, but it will point people in the right direction. By the way, I just made a chronological archive of this discussion as the page was over 200 kb; feel free to sort it out as you see fit. I made a note at the top of this page which archive I put it into. SlimVirgin 08:37, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

If the first major contributor uses completely different rules for spelling, punctuation and grammar than the readers and other editors of the topic, there's absolutely no reason at all to keep the style incorrect just for the sake of keeping it the same. That's almost as bad as saying that an article needs to keep all the spelling errors of the original editor because the first editor is more important than all the others who follow. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," or so it's been said. In most cases the rules that should be used should be fairly obvious = version of English language taught there. That way if it's foregin language but uses British English (like much of Europe) or American English (Mexico, say) you go with what the English speakers there use. That way the largest number of readers will see what they expect, and most likely the same can be said for editors too, which would make everything more consistent and less likely to lead to fights with people trying to impose rules that make no sense for the article in question. Of course the wild card is those people who don't seem to understand any rules in the first place, but then that'll happen no matter what rules are adopted. DreamGuy 16:41, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I have publicized the proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), and WP:RFC. Maurreen 16:44, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In case it's not clear, I oppose the proposal. For one thing, Jguk has included material which is extraneous to any differences between national varieties of English. But I have several other reasons. Maurreen 07:39, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What I like about Jguk's proposal is that it's shorter. The MoS should be as long as necessary and as short as possible. But what about the Usage section? In the proposal, it's extremely short. The four sentences are really good, but what about keeping spellings in proper names, avoiding e.g. ... It seems a bit too short to me. Flo 16:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your support. The idea is to keep the MoS short, but allow for other non-binding guidance on Wikipedia:Guidance on applying the Manual of Style page (which I admit, needs developing further - please feel free to amend it), jguk 17:25, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I do like that the new proposal allows us to use i.e. and e.g. (though I've gotten into virtual edit wars over whether it's "e.g." or "eg."), since calling those "scholarly abbreviations" always struck me as a bit silly. I suppose I can live without n.b. and viz. --Angr 17:58, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But so often it's just silly

I just do want to remark: I am constantly amazed at the people who seem to have nothing better to do than to go through perfectly good, perfectly comprehensible articles, changing "-ise" to "-ize" or vice versa, or changing the forms of the dates back and forth. I've started just ignoring them. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:05, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I've just added the following to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/proposal, basically saying we may need to address the point you make:

"I wonder whether it might be worth adding a paragraph stressing the importance of being sensitive to other editors' work. I've seen the MoS being used as almost a weapon by some editors (a very small number). It would be good to say explicitly that style issues and issues of national preference should never take precedence over substantive content issues or good writing; and should not be used to start edit wars. I'm not sure how to phrase this, and would need to think about it some more. I feel that if the MoS is to be respected, it must work with editors, not against them, and we should perhaps make that explicit somewhere in the text." SlimVirgin 09:17, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Why can you not just drop attacks on the "national preference"? Articles which are perceived to be linked to a particular English speaking nation, will over time end up using that nation's English because many contributers tend to move articles that way. That the MoS recognize this tends to reduce conflict, all your suggestions which try get the Mos negate the use of specific national styles of English on articles perceived to be linked to a nation, will if adopted, encourage more edit wars not less and may well reduced the influence of the MoS. Philip Baird Shearer 13:36, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What about hyphens?

Just to add to the confusion, I would like to point out that right now the MoS says nothing at all about hyphens after prefixes like "non" and "anti" and the like. At "non-" OED says, "In the majority of the compounds of non-, the hyphen is usually retained; but it is commonly omitted in the case of a few, such as nonconformist, nonentity, nonsense, in which the etymology has to some extent been lost sight of." But Collins English Dictionary, which is also British, only hyphenates after non- if the next word starts with a capital letter (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) or an N (non-negotiable). The American dictionaries I've checked only hyphenate between non- and a capital letter, but leave nonnegotiable without a hyphen. Anti- is even worse: OED gives anti-convulsant but anticonvulsive, Collins usually hyphenates anti- before a vowel (except antioxidant) but not before a consonant (unless capitalized, of course), and the American dictionaries hyphenate anti- only before capital letters and I. At the risk of being perceived as an American capitalist imperialist pig-dog, I suggest following the American dictionaries because the rules are easier to follow: don't hyphenate after prefixes unless what they're prefixed to is capitalized, or to prevent the jarring look of two lower-case I's next to each other. --Angr 18:55, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we need a rule about this, jguk 20:36, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If it comes to that, we don't need rules for any of the things covered in the MoS. But we have them anyway. --Angr 17:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We need some rules about structure and Wiki-syntax, or the encyclopaedia really would look like a hotchpotch of articles. But we could certainly do with some simplification, especially on the divisive issues. Have you seen Wikipedia:Manual of Style/proposal? It's time we got rid of the unnecessary rules! jguk 19:14, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Angr , I don't feel strongly either way. Can you draft something and put it here? Maurreen 04:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oops, you did that already: "Don't hyphenate after prefixes unless what they're prefixed to is capitalized, or to prevent the jarring look of two lower-case I's next to each other."

If we do add hyphenation to the style guide, I would suggesting including something along the lines of favoring "re-election" to "reelection", although I can't think of good wording right now. Maurreen 07:07, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would actually prefer "reelection", and it's the one preferred by American dictionaries. British dictionaries prefer "re-election". The more I look into this, it seems there is a de facto preference for hyphens on Wikipedia and in the world at large ("re-election" gets way more Google hits than "reelection", for example). Which is why I shouldn't be the one to draft a proposal, because the proposal I would draft will be contrary to what most people are already doing. --Angr 07:39, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personally I'd go with the Oxford definitions, but like so many other things, spelling checkers use a set of rules which may or may not conform to perceived national standards. So I think the best to go with any style, but if there is change or an addition to the text which leads to a dispute then go with primary usage. Philip Baird Shearer 10:23, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In the case of "reedit" and "reelect", it would prefer "re-edit" and "re-elect" for better readablity. "Reedit" and "reelect" suggest "REEDit" and "REElect". Flo 04:49, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

See also previous discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (punctuation)#Hyphens. The rule I was taught is that a prefixed word should be hyphenated if the addition of the prefix creates a vowel combination that usually represents a single phoneme. Thus, "re-election" is hyphenated because "ee" often appears as representing a single long "e", but "reopen" doesn't need the hyphen because "eo" has no such role. The rationale is that a reader seeing "ee" will tend to read it as a single vowel, and will need a fraction of a second to realize, from the rest of the word, that it was two separate sounds. The reader will have no such problem with "eo". Some people might make an exception to this rule for words that are very familiar in their prefixed form, like "cooperate", on which I could go either way. JamesMLane 17:35, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It wasn't that long ago that "co-operate" was spelled with a hyphen too (or a dieresis). Would you spell "re-operate" without a hyphen? Really the distinction is whether the combination is really its own word or whether it's perceived as a neologism or coinage. Do you spell "email" with a hyphen? Depends how long you've been using it. But there's no way to make a policy about that. Our policy should be: look it up in the dictionary. If different dictionaries have different spellings, we allow them all.—Wahoofive (talk) 17:49, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you that neologisms are often given hyphens at first, and lose them as they become more familiar ("goodbye" used to be "good-bye"). I also agree that making a policy for such gradual shifts would be difficult. "Goodbye" is now a clear case, but "e-mail"/"email" is still in transition. Use of hyphens for a neologism, however, is different from its other uses. The correct way to write out the number 123 is "one hundred twenty-three". Hyphens sometimes clarify the meaning, as in "new age-discrimination rules" versus "new-age discrimination rules". (These examples are from Hyphen.) I think that breaking up vowel combinations so as to improve the readability is another use that's different from the use in neologisms. JamesMLane 19:49, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Incidentally, the correct way to write out the number 123 is "one hundred and twenty-three" not "one hundred twenty-three" :) jguk 20:45, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Actually, in school (at least every school I went to) we were taught to omit the 'and'. Another difference across the pond? —Sean κ. + 20:52, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't know - either that or a case of "don't believe everything you were taught at school", jguk 22:14, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The rule I follow on this is that and is the verbal equvalent of the decimal point' that is One hundred twenty-three but One hundred twenty-three and five-sisxteenths I don't use and in the middle of the name of an integer. DES 5 July 2005 19:52 (UTC)

Quotation marks, splitting the difference

My understanding is that no one objected when Hajor stated an intention to reinsert into the style guide the material on splitting the difference for style on quotation marks. My understanding is also that there was no discussion to remove that material, either originally or recently.

Hajor's reinsertion was reverted. I am going to restore it. If anyone disagrees, I ask that you discuss it here and get consensus first. Maurreen 04:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I agree with it, and with the "compromise style" it rationalises. Indeed, one might make a similar comment about the entire punctuation issue. However right at the moment, re-introducing it might be seen as advocacy against Jguk's "vive la difference" proposal, so I'd personally be cautious about doing so unless there was some evidence of a consensus to do so. Alai 23:54, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the current phrasing. As a foreigner I read "we split the difference between American and British usage" and had no clue what it meant. I had to read the discussion to understand. First, the fact: "Wikipedia uses the American quotation symbol (") and the British punctuation rules." Second, the rationale: "These are the best choices for reasons of symbol visibility and sentence logic." So finally the "split the difference" comment is not the fact, not the rationale, just a happy consequence. If you want it, then it should come third after the fact and rationale which are more important.--67.124.149.4 21:51, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just found out about the reinsertion of that crazy "splitting the difference" rule because I first read the Manual of Style in February and had no idea it had changed until right now (because a BE contributor reverted changes I had made to the Supreme Court of the United States) page to bring it into proper AE style. Just for the record, I preferred the previous rule (which I understood as where contributors simply keyed in their additions in their native dialect and generally refrained from editing each other's dialect peculiarities). The current compromise rule is simply insane, because as some people have pointed out in the archived talk pages, the result looks equally ridiculous to English writers everywhere. --Coolcaesar 00:10, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, the actual rule was at no point deleted, at no point reinserted. What I was keen to see reinstated was the description of that rule as "splitting the difference" (which was deleted). Why? Basically, to head off further threads of the The manual recommends British-style punctuation on US topics??!?! kind. –Hajor 01:53, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This manual of style requires some British English usage on pages which are dominated by American English, and some American English usage on pages which are dominated by British English. This is but one example of this. This does give a ridiculous result, as Coolcaesar notes - and the Manual regularly gets ignored (for obvious reasons) by many WPians.

Unfortunately all attempts to permit articles to be fully consistent with one standard form of English have met with rebuffs by those unwilling to give up their pet likes. It's a shame, and it means this Manual does not reflect WP practice - but until those users decide to stop dictate their individual preferred styles to others, it's not going to change, jguk 07:22, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Personal titles

What personal titles are allowed? Someone just went through and added "Chef" to some articles including Bobby Flay. To me, this opens up a can of worms, as these are not official titles. For example, one could go through every article on a conductor and prefix their names with Maestro. – flamurai (t) 09:23, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that it's a question of what's allowed, but of what's correct. Neither 'chef' nor 'maestro' are normally used as titles in English-speaking countries, so it's incongruous to use them as such in Wikipedia.

On a related point, I've noticed one editor styling himself 'Dr John Smith, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D.'; it's worth pointing out that, first, one uses either the prefix 'Dr' or the suffix Ph.D., and secondly, that one would normally only use the 'M.Sc.', as the 'B.Sc.' is implied. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:57, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

one would normally only use the 'M.Sc.', as the 'B.Sc.' is implied Only if one attended a university with a tradition of considering that the difference between a B.Sc and an M.Sc is a fiver (or has it gone up in recent years?). At "normal" universities there is a difference. For example one might do a B.A. and then an M.Sc. or some other combination. -- Perhapse I am showing my ignorance here is it only MAs which can be purchased? Philip Baird Shearer 19:28, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Howver, at any university I know of it is rare indeed for soemone to have an 'M.Sc.' without having some sort of bachelor's degree, and many feel that the master's implies the baclelors, unless they were in rather different fields. DES 5 July 2005 19:56 (UTC)

I agree, and it seems to be overkill to specify every level. It would be like if I used 'A.A., B.Sc.' because I received an associate degree following my first two years in college. Does it really make my bachelor's degree any more valuable? I doubt it. —Mike July 5, 2005 21:16 (UTC)

gender neutrality

I'm just noting there doesn't appear to be any discussion of gender neutrality in the Manual of Style. Shouldn't there be?

There was discussion, no consensus. Maurreen 03:37, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (gender-neutral pronouns). The issue was also raised (though undiscussed) at Talk:Non-sexist_language#Poll_on_Wikipedia.27s_adopted_gender-neutral_pronoun. Hyacinth 01:25, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Lead section conventions for films

I'm a newbie testing the potential of Wikipedia, and a problem has come up concerning stylistic conventions. I find it difficult to locate clear guidelines about this sort of stuff in the Manual of Style, so maybe you guys can help me out.

Background: See the history page of Spartacus (movie) for an exchange of reverts.

Then follow the brief conversation at User talk:Cburnett under "Spartacus (movie) title row".

I mean, this is so very petty... Considering that Casablanca is the only film page that has reached featured article status, I think that a discussion of the stylistic conventions could very well get underway. 62.148.218.217 21:14, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As mentioned at Cburnett's Talk page, the discussion has moved on to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Movies ("Intro format"). 62.148.218.217 21:22, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Italics

Hi! I have a question about the use of italics. Namely, in the article Pope John Paul I, I used them, then another editor came by and removed them. See comparison of both versions. What approach would be stilistically correct? Thanks for your answer. --Eleassar777 16:19, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not quite clear what most of the italics were meant to signify; if you could explain your reasons for using then, it would be easier to give an opinion. Without knowing, my first reaction is that they shouldn't be there.

I've noticed that many editors use italics for quotations, which is both non-standard and odd. Any idea why this is done? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:17, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I just thought that all quotations should be in italics, as it is more readable then (at least for me). I got the similar answer at the article's talk page. This should be explained in the Manual. --Eleassar777 17:49, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Italics are used for several different things, including indicating foreign terms, for emphasis, to refer to words (instead of to what they represent), and for short quotations. None of these are non-standard or odd, but they are a matter of editorial style. —Michael Z. 2005-04-1 19:10 Z

Brief quotations, a sentence or two, should be embedded in the paragraph and set off with quotation marks, as if they were conversation. Longer quotations, however, often read more clearly if they are separated in "blockquoted" indented paragraphs. Setting the quote in italics may help differentiate the blockquote from the rest of the text. Partly an esthetic decision. --Wetman 22:28, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Below is the explanation I wrote on Talk:Pope John Paul I when I edited the quotation and italicisation in the main article. Eleassar777 requested there that I add it to this article under italicisation. I think most of what I stated is already scattered throughout the italicisation & quotes sections, but I thought there might be a place for the last sentence, with the caveat that it applies to quotations short enough to be embedded in the text, not to long quotations offset in their own paragraph.

For some reason, every quotation in the article had been italicised. I've fixed this, removing either the italicisation or quotation where appropriate. Quotation marks should be used when directly quoting, even if the attribution for the quote has to be inferred rather than being stated directly—Mark Antony knew that his "friends, Romans [and] countrymen" would demand vengeance for Julius Caesar's death—or to indicate that this specific use of the word might carry a meaning slightly different from its dictionary defition—With "friends" like these, who needs enemies?; The Italians were worried they would "lose" the papal throne. Use italics when discussing the word itself—He preferred use to the more pretentious utilise. If we italicise a word inside quotation marks, it should be for the same reason we italicise it outside quotation marks; words should never be italicised just because they're inside quotes.

Binabik80 04:35, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I just encountered this issue about italics/quoting with The Cantos. And while my changes may have been accepted, I have to admit that it is possibile that using italics for quotations is considered good practice in some English-speaking countries who copy the practice from (IIRC) French. In the novels of James Joyce (an Irish writer) & Alan Paton (a South African), dialogue is presented as follows. When the quotation begins a paragraph:

--Good morning, said the teacher to the class.

And when the quotation is embedded in a paragraph:

The teacher said, Good morning, class. Has everyone done their homework?

Obviously, if this standard practice in these two countries, Wikipedia should acknowledge it & accept it. However, I know Joyce was an experimental writer & he may not be a suitable example for acceptible use (e.g., would you trust a spell-checker based on Finnegans Wake?) And I can't remember if the other South African writer I've read (Nadine Gordimer) follows this same style.

I mention all of this not to stir up trouble, but to be sure our consensus is as inclusive as possible. -- llywrch 17:28, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Standard style guides state that italics are not used in quotations. Short quotes are embedded in the text and separated using quotation marks. Long quotes are given in block form. Each line is indented and quotation marks are not used. The reference goes outside the final full stop (period). Even when the original quote contained italics, these italics are replaced by an underline when quoting. The only time italics are used is when the author wants to emphasise something in her/his own text. Exploding Boy 17:44, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Writers should use italics when their use would help the reader to understand or follow the text. The same is true for punctuation. Also, different fora look different to a reader, and style to adapt to the particular forum being used: or to put it another way, newspapers are different from typed letters, which are different from books, magazines and websites.

So the real question here is whether using italics for quotations will help a reader of Wikipedia to follow the text. The answer is, in some articles, yes; in other articles, no. In some circumstances, usage of italics for quotations helps a reader understand that it is a quotation - and on other occasions it's not necessary. And it's for this reason that we should not be prescriptive about the matter, jguk 19:28, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

jguk's point is not often enough explicitly made: that these guidelines (not rules) for points of usage, whether for italics or anything else, and even consistency of usage itself, merely serve a more essential purpose: to guide the reader. Well said. --Wetman 21:05, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Use of quotation marks surely is sufficient that a reader can understand whether he is reading a quotation. So in my opinion, inside quotation marks, italics should be used in the same manner as outside them. Another important thing for the reader is to be able to differentiate if they were used in the original or were only subsequently added. In general this means that when they appear in the quotation, it should be explicitly stated whether they were added by the editor or were already used by the source. --Eleassar777 21:27, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

...which is exactly why style guides call for underlining words that were originally in italics when quoting. We all know that Wikipedia is not paper, but it is supposed to be academic. We should be following widely recognized and used academic styles for the exact reasons those styles are used in other academic writings. Exploding Boy 21:37, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Not all readers know these rules, so it is probably better to explicitly state than to underline. Another thing is the style guide of Wikipedia does not state that italics can also be used to emphasize (at least not in the section "italics"). --Eleassar777 21:54, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but people can learn. The fact that some people may not be familiar with academic citation styles does not mean that we shouldn't use them. Exploding Boy 22:09, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

The reason this guide is falling into increasing disrepute is the insistence of some readers on trying to impose their views on style on others. If the style you adopt can easily be understood by readers - that's great - keep using it! But if others adopt a slightly different style that is equally understood by readers - that's great too! Readers want content. Content has to be presented in a suitable style if it's to make the greatest impact - but which suitable style is used is largely irrelevant. To return to this specific point: We certainly should not be dogmatic on the usage of italics, jguk 22:22, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

All this would be alleviated by stating that Wikipedia uses recognized styles: MLA for humanities topics, APA for psychology, Chicago for sociology, and so on. We could even simplify further by requiring MLA style for all articles. Exploding Boy 22:53, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Superscripted Ordinals

Is there a definitive guide that Wiki's using to define whether or not superscripted ordinals are to be used?

Far as I can see we never use them. We write 4077th, not 4077^th. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:05, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

- My opinion is that they shouldn't be used, but if you look at the pages on How to name numbers in English and superscript, they talk about how ordinals are "often" superscripted, yet those pages use both superscripted and non-superscripted. On most of the pages for U.S. states, superscripts are used very often.

I have been returning superscripted ordinals to non-superscripted on several pages, when I received this rather haughty and annonymous message:

I believe you may be confusing style guidelines for typewritten manuscripts with typography rules. Because many typewriters and word processing programs did not support the proper display of ordinals, many schools developed guidelines requiring that none be used. In typography, superscripted ordinals are not only common, they are standard. Since html does not yet have standard character codes for displaying ordinals (as it does for some fractions; i.e. ¼, ½, ¾) the most common method is the <sup> tag. Please consider fixing those you removed. Thank you. - 12.74.169.35 15:24, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have over 1,000 books, which, I assume have been set by typographers, and only one uses superscripted ordinals (it's a rather old book, at that). Although many of the books use the fancy numbers that drop below the bottom like, which could make ordinal tags look superscripted, I don't get the feeling that superscripted ordinals are "standard," at all. Madmaxmarchhare 17:34, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But, instead of being a punk, I would rather find out for sure.

Articles in encyclopedia space merely document common English-language practice, not Wikipedia's own style. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:03, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

That's "interesting," but I'm not sure if it gets us any closer to a solution here :-) Madmaxmarchhare 17:26, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Headings and Sub-Headings: Capitalization of Major Words

At the moment the Manual of Style section on headings talks about, "Headings begin with a capital letter just like any other normal text. So, capitalise the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns in headings, but leave the rest lower case."

This part of the Manual of Style is WRONG. Normal English usage is to capitalise the major words of headings and sub-headings. For example, to quote section 3.39 of The United States Government Print Office Style Manual 2000:

"3.39. All principal words are capitalized in titles of addresses, articles, books, captions, chapter and part headings, editorials, essays, headings, headlines, motion pictures and plays (including television and radio programs), papers, short poems, reports, songs, subheadings, subjects, and themes. The foregoing are also quoted." [bolding of relevant words is mine]

So, we have Related Links NOT Related links being correct usage. We have other similar incorrect styles used on the Wikipedia for a long time. For article titles we have to capitalise in certain ways for disambiguation. However, for headings and sub-headings within an article normal English language rules for capitalisation of titles should be followed.

Back in March I asked on the talk page of that particular part of the Manual of Style for a reference to a style manual which applies the 'rule' which seems to have been put in place for the Wikipedia. I have not seen anyone put a reference in place. However, after a short search I have found a manual of style from a major American organisation (thus torpedoing the argument that capitalization of major words is a British usage only) which is directly the opposite of what is said with the Wikipedia's guidance.

So, we have an American manual of style, my education and the application of capitalization rules for headings that I have seen in the media to say that the person who put that 'rule' in the Wikipedia Manual of Style was wrong. I would therefore strongly urge that this be changed asap. David Newton 17:16, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Further, to quote the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition:

"In regular title capitalization, also known as headline style, the first and last words and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that, etc.) are capitalized. Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor), and prepositions, regardless of length, are lowercased unless they are the first or last word of the title..."

That is certainly contrary to the 'rule' for Wikipedia. David Newton 17:41, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Again, there is no "academy" for English, Wikipedia is quite entitled to adopt any style we want. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:11, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, our weird capitalisation for section headings has always irked me, too. You have my support for changing it. Binabik80 18:30, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Wikipedia is not weird, it's following the latest trends. Most places using style guides that were not simply copied over from the 1920s do not randomly capitalize words just because they are in a heading. Capitalizing words for no reason in headings is an archaic holdover from the 19th century. You only capitalize words that would be capitalized normally. It's simple, common sense, and if there are places doing it the other way I'd argue that they are the ones doing it wrong. DreamGuy 09:05, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't support the idea of changing one prescriptive method (which is, in the main, followed) with another one. But would support removing any prescription. Some people like what the MoS says, others (myself included) would prefer your method - but why not allow either? The important thing is to present things nicely so a reader can absorb the info easily - not to prescribe, jguk 19:01, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This last remark appears to be part of jguk's ongoing campaign against establishing style standards. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:07, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

My views are consistent throughout - readers welcome a well-written, well-presented article, and that, rather than any diktats imposed by self-appointed style gurus, is what is important. Also, my remark is based on the MoS's statement that where practice diverges from what the MoS says, the MoS will change, which is presumably a point you agree with? jguk 23:29, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your views do seem perfectly consistent, but also, opposed to consistency. Header caps. seems to me to be one area WP is pretty consistent already, so why would there be any motivation to change the MoS on the basis of practice? Clearly the MoS can't (and shouldn't) attempt to be consistent with all existing practice (otherwise it'd include things like "arbitrarily change articles from British English to American English as seems good to you"); rather it should attempt to reflect usages that there's explicit (in terms of support expressed for the guidelines themselves) and implicit (in terms of said practice) consensus for. That's hardly a matter of "diktat" by self-appointed anyone. The "Manual of Style" should be, in my opinion, a manual of style, not an "editor's bill of rights". What purpose does the latter serve, other than maintaining inconsistencies for their own sakes, or for the sakes of validating unfortunate notions of ownership of article text. Alai 05:51, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Wikipedia is not WRONG, it is simply different. Headings look random when they are randomly capitalised, and they are thus harder to read. Note that the Chicago MoS does not indicate capitalization of only "major" words. Hyacinth 23:17, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have to disagree with David for the following reasons: 1) The headings in a Wikipedia article are only meant to loosely structure a page. They are not a formal division like chapters in publications, so I don't see why they should have headline capitaliziation. 2) Most headings in Wikipedia do not have any special capitalization, so it's too late to add this rule now. It would just create an inconsistancy. Also, I don't agree with jguk that we should remove the current wording, because I don't think it prescribes anything. Perhaps it can be rephrased to say "In a heading, there is no need to capitalize the rest of the words" instead of "...do not capitalize the rest of the words." --Sean Kelly 02:24, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If all else were equal, I'd prefer capitalizing the main words in both headings and titles. But if David is suggesting changing the capitalization style for section headings and keeping the current style for article titles, I'm not sure about that, because it would be inconsistent between the two.

The only advantage I see for our current downcasing style for article titles is that it doesn't require piping. (A hypothetical example: If I want to link to ~~"British botantists"~~ British botanists", I can do that directly, instead of ~~"British Botantists|British botantists"~~ British Botanists|British botanists".) Maurreen 04:08, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Like every other literary institution, Wikipedia has appropriately evolved its own "house style". And I concur that the trend is away from capitalization in titles. Keep the wording of the section as it is now for the sake of a consistent user experience. Fawcett5 13:08, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Some publishing houses, such as the long-established Brookers in New Zealand, have been pioneering what is now the WP style for years, if not decades. And it certainly has that distinct advantage for editors pointed out by Maurreen above. So let's use it if we feel like it and leave it alone if we don't like it! Robin Patterson 03:23, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

IMHO Wikipedia housestyle is embarrassingly awful. It is frequently semi-literate and makes a laughing stock of us sometimes. I had an academic colleague recently roar with laughter when we called an article Letter of credence. He, and everyone else knew, that it should be Letter of Credence. But everytime I capitalised correctly some neanderthal who didn't know what the article was about would lowercase it, making the article look like it was the work of someone who didn't know that a Letter of Credence is a 'formal diplomatic term', not just a loose collection of generic words. Capitalisation exists for a reason, to distinguish between formal names and descriptive words. So one can talk generically about a president but specifically about the President of Ireland, generically about popes but specifically when talking about Pope as a title, generically when taking about someone getting advice (non-obligatory recommendation or guidance) but specifically when talking about a head of state receiving Advice (ie, binding constitutional instruction). But all these specific rules, and the guidance that should come from capitalisation, gets lost here with the make everything lowercase brigade. FearÉIREANN 23:29, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, Jtdirl, not everyone (not even every 64-year-old English-speaking university graduate) knew before today that "Letter of Credence" was a specific technical term. Your solution there, I suggest, (AFTER you have "corrected" it throughout the article!) is to add a note to the article's Talk page so as to reduce the likelihood that someone will ignorantly revert the capital. Robin Patterson 03:23, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I would have capitalized ~~(n)~~Neanderthal. But I don't necessarily think Jtdirl's failure to do so makes him a laughingstock. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:47, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Being an American, I always prefer to capitalize of all major words in a title; titles in sentence case strike me as being extremely odd and unprofessional, although I know it is the norm elsewhere. We should be allowed to use either style for titles according to our preference, much as we are not required to write all articles in British English. --M412k 14:08, 27 May 2005 (UTC)