Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 36

message: I'm not sure I agree that italics is proper for words as words.  I think it is better to state this way:
:"Deuce" means "two"
Unless of course one of the words is a true foreign word:
:zwei means "two"
:Anyone else care to comment?
- Marshman 04:24, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: But what about quotes? F'er instance, "ZWEI Was Eine Initially"? --Maru  (talk) Contribs 04:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Also a proper use of quotes is quoting something (as is indenting a paragraph w/o quote marks). Usually, something in italics is rendered as an underline, or vice versa.  So while one can use quotes for a word as a word, I've not seen this underlined (therefore italics may not be a proper substitute - Marshman 04:27, 6 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: When I was in elementary school, I was taught that underlining is appropriate for words as words. Of course, now I realize that most of the rules I learned are not set in stone but are typically just vague conventions. Recently, I've found that many people, especially Wikipedians (perhaps because many are not Americans), like to use quotation marks to indicate words as words. This might be a case of #National varieties of English. --TantalumTelluride 05:28, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure does, because I learned (US) quotes for such and that underline was a form of italics where italic print not available - Marshman 23:23, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Words as Words 

message: I wondered if anyone has any thoughts on a suggestion I've made in the Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (spelling)#Tagging_pages section. --Splidje 13:02, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dialects 

message: It occurred to me that in order to avoid accidental changes garbling up an article, any change should be subject to, say, two other people agreeing that it is a good change. There could be a section with articles "waiting to be approved" be peers.
Just a thought. —the preceding unsigned comment is by 142.179.174.176 (talk • contribs) 22:21, 7 December 2005 
:Thanks for the idea. Peer review would require a complete change in the software that operates Wikipedia and would violate the underlying principles of the wiki. If an article is vandalized or otherwise changed incorrectly, it can be reverted to its previous revision. (It is true that the history pages of some articles are cluttered with hardly nothing but vandalism and respective reverts. A policy of semi-protection is being discussed to address this issue.) --TantalumTelluride 23:30, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I think TantalumTelluride is exactly right.  Most articles are watched carefully by multiple editors which is why the problem you envision is not a problem at all.  The only real question is whether an open community effort like Wikipedia can produce a product as good as an encyclopedia based on the writings of "experts" in all subjects.  My experience here tells me that it can be done, is being done, and only suffers from the fact that many articles may lag behind that quality curve, but will be brought up to a high standard eventually. It seems like this is pretty much the difference between printed (and therefore peer-reviewed and edited) material and the internet as sources of information.   - Marshman 04:56, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, and speak with some experience!  Namely:  I proceeded to edit a long-standing guideline erroneously ... not out of malice, but out of disagreement and a firm belief that the guideline should not be unequivocal.  Substantial Wp discussion (mostly fruitful) regarding this has ensued: most oppose the change, and I'm in a minority.  I'm OK with whatever results, and I'm glad that the manual (and perhaps user behaviour ... particularly mine!) might be enhanced because of it. :) E Pluribus Anthony 05:54, 8 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requiring approval for changes