Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 83

message: I've been working on the List of popes article and I have been adding images of all of the popes to their respective spots on the list. Doing this makes the page much more interesting and enjoyable to look at, however I am confronted with the problem of the size of the article itself. With all of the images that I plan to add to the article, It will surely be a burden for those with 56k processors to read. I wanted to ask if anyone had any advice on splitting the article up into smaller segments so that it could be easily loaded and read by everyone. Thanks. Wikidudeman (talk) 04:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Requesting some advice... 

message: Certainly one thing to consider is the printable version of the page, or the page when printed without using the special printable version. If it is not going to be shown when the page is printed, it should not be included in articles.
Also, this will not affect download times. The dial-up user's browser will still download the entire contents of the collapsible box when the page is loaded, without clicking on the Show link. —Centrx→talk • 01:59, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Discussion

message: At the top, it's currently:
If this page does not specify which usage is preferred:
* use other reliable resources, such as the style guides listed below; 
* discuss your problems or propose style guidance on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style; 
* simply look around—research the edit-history pages of worthy articles to see how editors have put them together.
Examples of authoritative style guides are: The Chicago Manual of Style and Fowler’s Modern English Usage. Chicago provides an online guide, the Chicago Manual of Style Online. Style guides available at no cost are the Mayfield Electronic Handbook of Technical & Scientific Writing and the CMS Crib Sheet.
The third bullet sticks out, to my mind, and could be removed to improve the section (the links are bold because here they refer to this very page):
If this page does not specify which usage is preferred, use other reliable guides, such as those listed below, or discuss your issues or propose style guidance on the  talk page of this manual.
The Chicago Manual of Style and Fowler’s Modern English Usage are examples of well-known style guides. Chicago provides an online guide, The Chicago Manual of Style Online. The Mayfield Electronic Handbook of Technical & Scientific Writing and the CMS Crib Sheet are among online style guides that are accessible gratis.
Tony 10:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've always assumed Chicago is the best manual of style out there. Then again, I've only been a wordnerd for a year or two. I like it. — Deckiller 19:43, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed revision of "Which style to use" 

message: The unicode in the section "Avoid second-person pronouns" does not work in my browser (IE).  I can't be the only one (or am I?).  Any chance of changing it to something we can all see?  -Joelmills 02:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've replaced these (but there are others).  For full editing pleasure, you're going to the editor will need to install a unicode font.  Please see Help:Multilingual support. -- Rick Block (talk) 03:29, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unicode 

message: Quick question: Are there any specific tags to mark an article that is in second-person, as opposed to just using the standard ? --Dreaded Walrus  t c 19:33, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind, I found one.  --Dreaded Walrus  t c 00:54, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Second-person perspective 

message: Is there any section of this style guide concerning the proper transliteration of the Greek alphabet? BassoProfundo 21:21, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration of Greek characters 

message: The manual says:
----
*Generic words for institutions (university, college, hospital, high school) require no capitalization: 
*Incorrect: (generic): The University offers programs in arts and sciences.
*Correct: (generic): The university offers …
*Correct: (title): The University of Ottawa offers …
----
When the word university is used as a common noun, it should not be capitalized.  E.g. "Another university is also located in that city."  But sometimes it's used as an abbreviation of the name of a particular university. Michael Hardy 21:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In every grammar and style guide I've seen, when a generic term is used, it's lowercased, even when its used in reference to something specific, i.e., "the university".  The rule of thumb is whether or not the term can be used to describe other institutions, etc., like it.  In the case of "university," it can be used to describe any university out there, so it gets lowercased even when it refers to "the" university and not just "a" university.  On the contrary, however, there's only one, for example, Stanford University, and thus "Stanford" is always capitalized whether the word "university" appears with it or not.  The same logic applies to any noun used in a generic fashion - "the airport" (in place of "Los Angeles International Airport"), "the park" (instead of "Yosemite National Park"), etc. Nolefan32 00:36, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You're right; why don't you substitute your "Another university" example? Tony 02:40, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand your query, or even who it's directed to.  Nolefan32 03:26, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Another reason that just dawned on me as to why the rule is as it is, is for consistency.  Many universities don't have "university" as part of their name, but they can be just as readily described as "the university".  Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example.  We wouldn't use "university" lowercased for MIT just because it's not part of the name, but then "University" uppercased for Harvard, just down the street.  For the sake of consistency, we lowercase both. Nolefan32 03:32, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

text: But the first example appears to be not generic (i.e., refers to a particular university in the context); isn't it confusing? Tony 05:23, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm still not understanding your query.  "University" is a generic term anytime it appears by itself.  Doesn't matter the context; unless it's part of the formal name of a specific university (i.e., Harvard University), it's lowercased.  Just as you would lowercase "airport" or "park" or "building" except when they appear as part of the name of a specific airport, park or building. Like I said, you wouldn't uppercase "university" if you were talking about MIT; it's not part of the school's name.  Harvard doesn't rate different treatment than MIT, do they? Nolefan32 05:51, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not sure about MIT, but at Caltech we called it "the Institute". I'm sure that would be capitalized. I imagine MIT does the same. (Of course, whether there's really any good reason to use this construction in an article is a separate question, and if such a reason did come up, I'd be inclined to treat it as an exceptional case and IAR.) --Trovatore 09:03, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  This seems context-dependent 

message: Please can someone explain why I cannot write a subheading such as The Prayer Books of Edward VI. There were two of them; they were not any old prayer books. I can understand why articles do not need to be cluttered up with definite or indefinite articles, to the confusion of indexers, and I realise that that correction of this breach of the style code can give endless amusement to some editors, but it seems to have no rationale. The book of 1662 is known as 'The 1662 Prayer Book', why call it '1662 Prayer Book'. In English English it sounds very strange, even bad grammar. Roger Arguile 13:46, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No one says you can't, and the examples you give are instances where, at least in my opinion, you should. The guideline was meant to avoid flabby headings like The history, An example, or A critical analysis. The related guideline to avoid pronouns has the same purpose: In a biography, the headings Her early life and Her family each have one pronoun too many. On the other hand, it would be incorrect to drop the pronoun from the heading Her Majesty's Secret Service. Finell (Talk) 05:21, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ''The'' definite article

message: Is there any guideline on forcing a font display in the article namespace?  I found an article where they are trying to describe an illustration with a serif I, but it is being done with a ponderous footnote stating that the letter may appear in an ambigious font like Arial and thus be incorrect.  Is there any MOS prohibition against using  in the article to force a sarif enabled font?--Isotope23 18:29, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Question

message: Separate style guidelines have been developed for particular topics, and some are listed in the "Special Article Style" box in this article. I wondered whether this article could clarify how these relate to this main manual and to Wikipedia principles.
For example, while they seem very useful, it seems that they could potentially go against WP:NPOV. I'm not thinking so much of the country/language ones (don't know about them) but of when a style manual outlines the approach and terminology of a particular scientific/professional field. It might then be applied to any articles related to it, shaping their headings and terminology (and coverage) in accordance with that manual of style. In some areas this might be fine but of course for many topics there are differing scientific/professional fields and views. Normally each article would develop on its own merits, balancing different points of view and terminologies - but specific style guidelines potentially distort this, especially if some fields have them but others don't. I can be more specific if necessary.
In other words, while this main manual is about encyclopedic style, other manuals might be about the style of a particular point of view. Can potential issues with this be addressed here? EverSince 11:58, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I wonder whether you can provide two or three examples of how things can go wrong—even hypothetical examples if actual ones are not at hand. Tony 13:06, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well the example that prompted me (I'm wary of getting caught up in it too much here) is the medical Manual of Style for articles related to medicine, because such articles may also be related to other fields - for example in the area I'm most familiar with of mental disorder. Similar issues could hypothetically occur, I guess, whenever natural sciences, social sciences and humanities (and their applied/clinical offshoots) overlap. I don't think this needs to be a problem as long as it's clear that the existence of a specific MOS doesn't mean an article must be formatted only in its terms, or that it should be formatted like a textbook (Wikipedia is clear it's more than just a textbook, of course, let alone one from a particular field). Could this main MOS say something about how specific manuals should and shouldn't be used? EverSince 11:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that it is already self-evident that specific manuals should consulted for the topics that they cover. All of them are bound by the foundational policy of WP:NPOV, and any violations of that policy should be edited out. Finell (Talk) 05:30, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: People tend to just shape articles in line with the specific manual that exists, though, especially if they share its assumptions. Yes things could be re-edited for neutrality but other approaches may not have a similar style manual supporting them, so people might not be confident enough - unless something explicitly clarifies the context in the way you mention. I agree that this should be self-evident but I don't feel it always is for everyone - would it hurt for it to be clarified? I'd like to unless anyone feels strongly against. EverSince 14:43, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Specific manuals of style