Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 1

message: At present there are many articles in the Wikipedia namespace that seek to give guidance on how to write better articles. I propose consolidating these into a much smaller number. On User:Jongarrettuk/Better writing guide I propose how these could be consolidated. The proposal is not to change advice, just to consolidate it. If I have inadvertently moved what you consider to be good advice that is currently in the Wikipedia namespace, please re-add it. I'm hope that the proposal to merge all these articles, in principle, will be welcomed. Of course, it may be preferred to have 2, 3 or 4 inter-connected articles than just one and would welcome advice on how this could be done. (In particular, perhaps all the guidance on layout should be spun off into one consolidated article on layout.) I'm also aware that putting lots of different bits of advice together may throw up anomalies or bits that people now disagree with (including bits that I myself disagree with:) ). I ask for support for the consolidation. Once the consolidation has happened, the advice can be changed in the normal way. Please feel free to improve on the current draft consolidation, but don't remove or add advice that is not currently on the Wikipedia namespace. If all goes well, I'll add a new Wikipedia:Guide to writing better articles page on the 19th, though maybe some bits of the new article will need to be phased in over a longer period. I'll also take care to preserve all the archived discussion in one place. jguk 19:47, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposal to consolidate advice on writing better articles

message: I have redirected the Wikipedia:Introductions article here. The information is almost identical. In case I missed anything, I'm copying the text here - please cherry-pick any crucial points into the main article. Stevage 01:25, 28 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: "Introductions" guideline

message: EVERY section should be present in the table of contents (that's technical writing 101), and in order for that to happen, the first section MUST have a section header. I generally call this first section "Overview". Please change the Wikipedia policy to reflect proper technical writing practice: if there is more than one section, and if any of those sections have headings, then every section, including the first one, should have a heading. -- BBlackmoor (talk),  2006-02-1 T 16:40 Z
:Adding a section heading like "Overview" at the very start looks awful as it means the article starts with a double header (the title being the first header). When writing a book you would have a section header for the introduction, because a book is very long, in a format such as this it is totally unnecessary, unless you think readers really need to be pointed to the start of the article. Things like this are house style, certainly not "technical writing 101". Martin 20:17, 1 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with Bluemoose about requiring every article to title its first section, "Overview".  That sucks.  But it is important that editors understand the need for sections and subsections and how a table of contents depends on the first section using == section title == Terryeo 05:48, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Lead heading

message: Why isn't this talk there? Hyacinth 19:59, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Wikipedia talk: Lead section

message: The 3 para max guideline came from the rule of thumb that every 10KB of prose needed to have a paragraph in the lead that summarized the article's most vital points. But when I first wrote the size guideline for this page the strict 30KB max size of articles guideline was still in force. Thus the 3 para max rule. The idea all along was that lead sections should be able to stand on their own as concise encyclopedia articles. Absent the strict technical limit on page size, we have come to the realization that it is sometimes acceptable, and even preferable, that some topics are expansive enough to need more space (up to 50KB of prose and almost never more than that ; see Wikipedia:Summary style). 
So I'd like to change the criteria back to the original rule of thumb it is based on ; one paragraph for every 10KB of readable prose, but  making sure the article itself is in Summary style. Thus, practically speaking, making a maximum range of 3 to 5 paragraphs with possible exceptions for the very few articles that need to go above 50KB of prose (cites/refs, lists, tables, and markup excluded). Let's face it; a lead section on World War II would be a sucky concise encyclopedia article if it were limited to 3 paragraphs. What say you? --mav 13:49, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I would like to avoid pushing the TOC too far to the bottom; that would be very bad both from a layout and usability point of view. I think the "Lead section as concise article" model really breaks down for complex subjects like WW II. I would prefer to have separate, structured articles with something like 5000-10000 characters length as maximum for such topics. Perhaps this could be accomplished by combining the leads of multiple articles into one.--Eloquence* 20:50, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Simple - just add a jump link to the TOC from the top left of the lead. Problem solved. Technical things like that should not prevent us from serving those who only need a concise article. The 5000 to 10000 word length idea is already covered by Wikipedia:Summary style. --mav 22:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I'm not very fond of such special layouts, but as long as we keep the overall number of articles exceeding 30K in size low, it doesn't bother me too much.--Eloquence* 00:35, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

text: I was just going to use the WWII article as an example of why you're right.  Obviously, I'm not in favor of alot of long lead sections, but it seems rather unnecessary to require that extremely long articles be limited to 3 paragraphs. —Spangineer[es] (háblame) 05:31, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changing max size of lead sections 

message: This project page says that the first sentence in the lead section should be "a concise definition of the topic...." To increase the distinction between Wikipedia and Wikipedia, should this page instead recommend that the first sentence in the lead section be "a concise definition description of the topic..."? The Rod (☎ Smith) 20:19, 27 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Do you mean between Wiktionary and Wikipedia? Just because something has a definition doesn't make it a dictionary entry and, as many people will tell you, a description is not necessarily a definition. Hyacinth 10:04, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definition vs. description 

message: There is a limit on the maximum length of lead sections. Is there a minimum? Hyacinth 10:05, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I think not a minimum length per se, but accomplishing everything the section is supposed to accomplish will impose a minimum in practice. --Trovatore 15:30, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Length