Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 81

message: I like the section on when foreign terms are italicized and when they are not, but I think an exception needs to be made for situations when an article has a foreign term as its title. For example, the articles on kitsune (Japanese fox spirits) and tengu (Japanese goblins) both use non-English terms for their titles. However, it is tiresome to have to read the terms kitsune and tengu in italics throughout. I therefore propose that we allow foreign terms to go non-italicized when such terms are the subject of the article. — Brian (talk) 04:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyone? Does my question not make sense? — Brian (talk) 22:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's a perfectly fine idea. I'm not sure that I'd extend it to section headers, though. Askari Mark (Talk) 23:01, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds good to me.  Hate to be pedantic though not "allow foreign terms to go non-italicized when such terms are the subject of the article" but "allow foreign terms to go non-italicized when that to which the term refers is the subject of the article".  Of course, we all know that this is what you mean but it seems to me that we should be precise when writing the MOS. Jɪmp 05:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Foreign terms 

message: I am quite keen on expanding the section around BrE vs AmE to encourage the use of 'uncontested' words in the articles wherever possible.  An example would be 'organization' (AmE) vs 'organisation' (BrE).  In this case the words 'business', 'company' or 'charity' could be used dependant on the subject matter (obviously there are others where a different word could be used, but this is an example).  
I strongly believe that this should be a fundamental element of the MOS, as it leads to generally less wars of attrition between editors, and if everyone did this so far as possible, then you wouldn't need to distinguish between types of English. Personally, i would like to apply this policy, even on country specific articles, as it creates consistency and readability for all users, regardless of origin.
It especially applies to scientific terms, especially those where BrE uses 'ae' or 'æ', as opposed to the AmE use of just the 'e'. For example 'haemorrhage' (BrE) versus 'hemorrhage' (AmE) where 'bleeding' would be an appropriate term, Paediatric vs Pediatric (childrens) etc.
Does anyone have any objections?  If not, i'm going to think up a few good examples, and add them in the appropriate section.
Thanks for your input Owain.davies 14:41, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Don't like it one bit.  We have those words in the English language for a reason, and to pretend they don't exist simply because there are spelling variations is ridiculous.  When we write, we hopefully pick the appropriate word, regardless of whether or not it has spelling variations.  Your suggestion that "scientific words" should be changed in this way removes the "scientificness" of the words!  Should the article pediatrics be renamed to children's medicine?  I don't think so.  Lexicon (talk) 15:06, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with Lexicon. Tony 15:21, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not suggesting wholesale removal of every example, but good editing makes the prose accessible to as many readers as possible.  As for replacing pediatrics with childrens medicine.  Not really necessary (even with the apostrophe in the right place), but in the article, you can make more references to 'child' and 'children' than 'pediatric'.  It's not supposed to be blanket, but to use alternatives where possible. Owain.davies 15:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Just a quick addition - whilst i still maintain this is an overall good policy, I think this should at least apply to those words which are uncommon in either BrE or AmE (even if common in the other).  One example which appears quite frequently on Wikipedia is 'Etiology' (AmE).  The BrE equivalent aetiology is very infrequently used (to the extent that it is virtually unused), and would therefore be better substituted out.  Others are on quite comprehensive lists on Wikipedia. Owain.davies 17:30, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm with tony and Lex.  There is absolutely no reason to go pandering to the few people who can't deal with a few spelling differences and sacrifice the integrity of articles because of it (which is exactly what this will do).  If everyone just maintains the current standards on the issue and that is enforced there won't be any problems.--Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 17:44, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Count me against this idea too.  Choose your words according to normal common sense not according to whether or not somebody else spells them differently to how you do. Jɪmp 02:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  British English v American English Compromise words 

message: I;ve just added the new upright parameter for portrait-format thumbnails, to the section on images. Andy Mabbett 15:24, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What does the new parameter do? —METS501 (talk) 03:28, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It appears to reduce the dimensions of a portrait-format thumbnail such that its width matches the default height for landscape-format thumbnails, ie 180 pixels. As I've long considered this size to be too small, I'm not as enamoured by this as I might have been! We were fairly close to a consensus regarding the raising the default size to something sensible like 220 pixels, when the discussion seemed to go missing.. the original debate is here (scroll down a para or two) but a spinoff at WP:VPR with a good summary of the issue has vanished somehow. This new markup is undoubtedly a good facility, I'm just unlikely to use it so long as it further reduces an already-too-small thumb default. mikaultalk 10:48, 21 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Portrait-format thumbnail images 

message: When this major change was made ( Revision as of 16:14, 30 March 2007 ("quotation marks, see Talk; words-as-words rule is not consistently applied, neither is the order of punctuation and quotation marks") to the article the commenting out of the paragraph seems to have gone largly uncommented. See Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_36#Words_as_Words and Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Archive_36#Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations (please show the link in the archived talk page if  I am wrong):
:When abbreviating United States, “U.S.” is the more common style in that country. When referring to the United States in a long abbreviation (USA, USN, USAF), periods should not be used. When including the United States in a list of countries, do not abbreviate the "United States" (for example, “France and the United States”, not “France and the US”).
Does no one object to it because in the past editors have been willing to argue strongly for its inclusion. --Philip Baird Shearer 14:42, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unsure what you mean; what does "it" refer to? Tony 15:30, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Well it if is not going to be included here there is a case for removing it from WP:NC#Prefer spelled-out phrases to abbreviations and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms) --Philip Baird Shearer 17:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That might be your recommendation, but to legislate it will cut across significant usage by both Americans and other English-speakers. If it went the other way, you wouldn't like the usage that you recommend to be proscribed by the MOS. Tony 03:31, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: PS And you say you link "American" ... Why? Is it an uncommon term, or are you just spattering the page with trivial blue links? Tony 23:19, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Some of those journalistic rules I like, others I don't. But my, and your personal preferences are not the issue. What matters is that many people, Americans and others, don't now use the dots, and will object to adoption of the preferences of a few US sources for all English speakers here. Tony 06:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You'd prefer a bunch of exceptions then?  Because that seems to be the way you want to lean on a lot of things ... "Do it this way except for when it's like this, or this, or this or this ...."  I just think the simpler, the better, and the less exceptions there are, the easier it is for people to figure out the style without having to actually study the guide. Nolefan32 06:59, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  U.S.