Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 4

message: Regarding the suggestion to briefly describe notable controversies; there seems to be a spectrum of interpretations on controversial topics; The Passion of the Christ doesn't note the controversy, The O'Reilly Factor notes that it is controversial, but not what the controversy is, and there is currently a dispute over what should be included in Sicko, which is debating if specific points should be included in the lead & how to do so. This is not a RFC for content disputes on those pages but rather a request for consensus on the guideline since it is apparently still open to interpretation or dispute, and I've selected those so that we could have a concrete discussion. Is the presence of multiple/many smaller controversies (such that each alone would be insufficient to warrant inclusion in the lead) around a topic sufficient to warrant inclusion? e.g. multiple commentators each have their own criticisms of Sicko, but it seems like they each make different points. If so, how should the general cloud of controversy be described? Also we might consider the vagueness of notability.
Here's a previous discussion on controversies in the lead: Wikipedia_talk:Lead_section/archive2#Notable_controversies Ripe 20:34, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I added "'Notable controversies' are prolonged public disputes between parties engaged with each other, the details of which are reported on by several notable 3rd party sources. Critical reviews, critiques, and criticisms that do not result in both iterated responses between principal parties and 3rd party news coverage of the dispute do not qualify as notable controversies sufficient for inclusion in the lead." to the relative emphasis section. Comments? Ripe 23:32, 6 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I can think of numerous notable controversies that are not included in your definition of notable controversy, including the three cases you cite, whose articles, IMO, all flunk the current version of WP:LEAD.  Indeed, it's hard to imagine what would be a "notable controversy" under your proposed restrictive definition, other than perhaps the Alger Hiss trial. THF 18:54, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that if, within a particular topic area, there are no prominent resources that think that a particular controversy between parties is sufficiently noteworthy to include a description of it anywhere in any 3rd party article on the topic, then the controversy is probably not sufficiently noteworthy to be described in the lead of Wikipedia's 3rd party article on the topic. Also I think a distinction needs to be drawn between notably controversial topics and notable controversies. Ripe 20:25, 8 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a particularly badly-written part of the guideline. If you look at the archives, where the original wording is reproduced, I fancy you will see that it might help solve the problem. When I next have the time to engage in long discussions with irritable editors, I will return the wording to the stable, clear version. Hornplease 23:10, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

text: On your specific point about notability, it seems clear that unless most representative reviews of the article's subject mention a controversy, it is not notable enough for the lead. Hornplease 23:13, 15 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Describing notable controversies 

message: The guideline says that links should not be bolded. Is the solution to not bold anything, like on Interstate 15 in Arizona? --NE2 00:16, 10 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It actually says to avoid links, it doesn't say it should not be done.  Quite a big difference.  --Holderca1 03:10, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: What's the difference?  --NE2 03:19, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Holderca1 means that the guideline says that the title should be bolded and not linked. I think the problem is that a bolded title of two words with one linked looks somewhat unbalanced, with too much emphasis on the linked word. If both words are linked there would be less of a problem (so perhaps the rule could be relaxed). Also, in some cases splitting up the title to fit better in the sentence while avoiding duplication seems acceptable. See .--Patrick 10:08, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

text: The difference is, if it is something that should not be done, it shouldn't be done under any circumstances.  If is something that should be avoided, then you should do anything to not do it, but there are circumstances where it is avoidable, and you have to.  For example, you should avoid hitting another car while driving, but if you are left with the options of either hitting the car or hitting a pedestrian, you would opt for hitting the car.  --Holderca1 21:19, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

text: If the topic of an article has no name, and the title is simply descriptive—like Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does, it is not in boldface:
I'm going to edit this guideline to clarify that. --NE2 10:55, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Is bolding necessary? 

message: I have a detailed question regarding the bold formatting of articles that are referred to their name and initialism, for example, which is more correct/recommended:
#Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is a ...
#Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is a ...
#Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) is a ...
note that the difference is that the parenthesis is included in the bold formatting in the second example, while the third does not format the common (but not exclusive) initialism. +mt 02:04, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would go with 1 if the initialism redirects to the page: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Arguably, it should be three if it does not redirect but I suspect editors usually bold in that case as well. In neither case would I bold the bracket. Marskell 07:34, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with your reasoning, but typographical conventions (at least as I was taught back at my university's graphic design department) dictate that 2 is preferred.  Punctuation appears in the same style and weight as the adjacent text so as not to distract the reader.  The reason is best illustrated with the oblique or italic slant causing a collision:  "all" looks worse than "all" because at least on my screen, the L overlaps with the quotation mark.  For bold weight, it just looks better. ←BenB4 08:50, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks; I'll agree with the typographical conventions of #2. Furthermore it is simpler to type, and is 6 wiki characters less than #1. I'll consider adding it to the front page in a few days with an example, unless there is any reasonable objection (i.e., formatting rational provided by BenB4, or this is not relevant enough to be a guideline). +mt 01:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nitpicky question about bold initialisms 

message: I have altered the direction of this
this para; could interested editors tell me what they think. It seems to me that an article should begin with the name of the article where possible - if this is a short form so be it - if it is thought that the long form should start the article, then this should be the name of the article. Abtract 20:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with your change. Although most articles are able to satisfy your idea, many other articles, like United Kingdom, the example, are better served by clearly indicating the full title of the location, rather than the common title, though Wikipedia may be equally well served by maintaining an article at the common title, as in United Kingdom. Further, it appears this change is being made relative to other edits you've made which were reverted to consensus versions as determined by the policiy as it was, and you may hve decided to avoid this by changing the policy to suit your edits. ThuranX 20:30, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur with Thuranx. What's the point of repeating the Article title at the opening of the article? Seems a wast of time, to me. GoodDay 21:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Also agree.  The article name is the "common name", in general, but the actual text should refer to the proper name.  --Haemo 23:29, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

text: The title need not be, verbatim, the bolded text of the opening sentence, it is the subject that's more important.  As this is an encyclopaedia, the most accurate and/or technical information should come first, and then any common or colloquial forms, not the other way around. Further, given User:Abtract's edit warring at United States, I don't think other editor's opinions really matter all that much to him. --G2bambino 21:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've tried to help him (to no avail). It's up to him now. GoodDay 21:40, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Oppose - you get consensus to change the policy then edit pages to conform, not the other way around. Proper titles first ("Alecia Moore"), then colloquial names or psuedonyms ("known professionally as Pink") is fine to me. We are an encyclopedia should at least try to look formal, then give other terms - however, we can (and often do) use the most common names for the title (e.g. Madeline Fitzpatrick: "Madeline Margaret Genevieve Miranda Catherine Fitzpatrick more commonly known as Maddie). I know the dispute is away from my examples, but my point still stands, I think. Will (talk) 23:35, 11 September 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your point reads quite clearly to me, and, I think all others. This is common sense stuff, and trying to shoehorn the prose into some convoluted phrasing isn't going to help anyone. ThuranX 02:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title equals opening words of lead 

message: Would anyone care to comment about Disappearance of Madeleine McCann where the lack of any bold in the lead is being justified by saying that the title is descriptive as per the Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker example from this page. Jooler 08:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bold title 

message: I've noticed that some articles' intro sentences use constructions like "X is one name for ..." and "X refers to ...", essentially describing the name rather than the entity itself.  That would make sense in cases where the article actually is about the term (e.g. Moonies), but in other cases I find it makes a rather weak intro.  In particular, it seems to come up in cases where there's some naming dispute (West Germany).  It seems to me that this distracts attention away from the subject of the article itself, and focuses attention on naming issues.  These are of major importance to some editors, but probably not for many readers.  I suggest that this page should say that the intro sentence should be worded so as to introduce the entity that the article is about, rather than the term used to describe it.  --Reuben 22:06, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Introducing the subject vs. introducing a name 

message: Can someone help our lead and cites on Warhawk? Contact me.--Playstationdude 21:48, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Warhawk]] 

message: A proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Lead Paragraph Cleanups seems to have attracted enough interested participants to justify a WikiProject; if you're interested, please add your name.
More to the point, the originator of the proposal seems to have gone on an extended wikibreak. If someone (previously signed up?) wants to be bold, now would be a good time to actually start up the WikiProject, per Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Guide/WikiProject.  -- John Broughton   (♫♫) 18:17, 17 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject 

message: I don't like very much the section on "Leads for poor articles" which was added this spring and doesn't seem to have been much discussed. The main thing I don't like about it is that it describes how to go about improving an article, which is not the purpose of the manual of style. And I disagree with the main piece of advice it gives, namely "Get the lead right first". How can you do that, when you don't know what the content is going to be? This is contrary to the practise of many good editors at Wikipedia and does not reflect any sort of consensus.
"Get the lead right first" sends out the wrong message. There is already a disproportionate amount of editor time spent fiddling with leads. Many times I have seen warring over fine details of the lead, when the real problem was that the body of the article was inadequate. And many times, an editor has come along and substantially improved such an article, so that the lead needs to be completely rewritten and all the previous arguments evaporate into irrelevance. The point is, it is very difficult to write a good lead when the article is poor, and it will almost certainly need a complete rewrite when the article is improved. In contrast, if the article is good, writing the lead becomes an easy joy and disagreements are rare. So while I agree that it is a good idea to produce a provisional lead once an article becomes longer than a stub (e.g., it actually has sections) and while I also agree that such a lead need not be constrained to summarize the article, in many cases there is simply no point in trying "to get it right", and it is not the place of this guideline to give such advice. Geometry guy 14:44, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Epbr123 15:08, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I weakened it. The immediate reason it was added was Slim pointing out that if we ask for the lead to reflect the body, then we need to account for poor articles. Marskell 15:34, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, that is certainly better. Geometry guy 17:06, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed, the new version is better.  Wikidemo 17:20, 3 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Get the lead right first? 

message: I've removed a picture of a motorcycle cop with a caption. It seems somewhat obscure to me (possibly because I'm English and possibly because I don't associate that phrase with policemen, who in my experience tend to somewhat more courteous than that).  I don't object if it seems obvious to everybody else--it might be just me--but I've a feeling that it's probably presuming too much shared background, and if it confuses me it seems likely to confuse others. --Tony Sidaway 05:06, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Just the facts ma'am" is a catch-phrase whose whose origins come from the US radio/TV police series Dragnet.  The phrase is understood (here in Australia at least) as a request for people to be succinct and relevent when giving out information.  Just as how lead sections should be.  Could you reinsert the image and see if others have any issue with it? Kransky (talk) 05:22, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  As I said on my talk page, you may reinsert the image with my blessing while we discuss it.  My point (and perhaps I'm alone in this regard) is that to me the picture and the caption merely appeared incongruous.  --Tony Sidaway 05:44, 24 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think most Americans over 30 will get "Just the facts"; Tony was probably just confused by the added picture of a motorcycle cop, which really makes no sense,as Sgt Joe Friday and his many partners were detectives, not CHPs. I found it interesting to note (as I learned from Dragnet), that the phrase was actually never uttered by Friday; it comes from the parody St. George and the Dragonet. I'd say the phrase is a good choice, but only if there's a more appropriate picture, and a pic of Webb from Dragnet would not, I don't think, be fair use in this instance, so I think it should be left out. Eaglizard (talk) 07:41, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  Looking again, I think I only gathered that this motorbike guy was supposed to be a policeman from the caption.  His overalls don't look like police uniform to me, and his helmet doesn't suggest anything.  You could have captioned it "pizza delivery guy" and I would have been none the wiser. We have different cultural expectations in different countries. --Tony Sidaway 07:48, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

text:  It was the best photo I could find on Flickr or Wikicommons that was suitably (un)licenced.  He is a Japanese motorcycle cop.  I'll keep looking...Kransky (talk) 09:34, 25 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Tony may have a good, if implicit, point: if the phrase only makes sense to Americans above a certain age, then it's probably not appropriate for the encyclopedia in general. In particular, guidelines and policies should be as free from potentially confusing issues as possible. So before spending any more time looking for a better pic, you might ask yourself if this text really needs to be in the article in the first place. I don't think it really adds anything in particular, what would be lost by just leaving it out? Eaglizard (talk) 02:00, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

text: The catch-phrase is known outside the US, and it is better known than the TV program.   Kransky (talk) 04:43, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Motorcycle cop 

message: There is an RfC on a dispute about content and structure for the lead section of an article on a movie, please join the ongoing discussion here: "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" - Lead discussion.  Dreadstar † 21:12, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Lead discussion