Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 14

message: I'm removing the pink box from the top of this page. It's obvious that the alternative proposal isn't going to generate a consensus for adoption, and since this is a page frequented by WP newbies, it seems particuarly irritating to have the most glaring thing on the page be non-content. Besides, talk pages, not project pages, are the place to call attention to proposed changes. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:20, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Makes sense, but why did you comment out the request that people take extra consideration before editing the MoS? TreyHarris 21:31, 17 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pink box 

message: I've noticed that a handful of pages use the diaeresis in certain words (e.g. 'coöperation' and 'reëstablished').  I'm inclined to believe that unless this form of these words are used exclusively across Wikipedia, that particular usage should be eliminated.  Wikipedia's own page on the subject states that particular usage has become rare.  Surprisingly, I have seen no mention of it on the style guide.  I'm inclined to be bold and remove them myself, but I don't want to get flamed for some obscure reason.  Opinions? --Bletch 02:45, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I've never personally seen those two in common use, but I do like seeing 'naïve', for some reason. —Sean κ. ⇔ 03:18, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually you are right; naïve (and names like Chloë) seem to be in regular use.  --Bletch 12:05, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diaeresis in English 

message: A proposal for a supplementary Manual of Style for disambiguation pages. Please register your votes and comments on that article's talk page. Wikipedia:Disambiguation/Style. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:16, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disambiguation page style survey 

message: I know it can be done because a long time ago I remember seeing it. Its actually for the Wikibooks site, I have a kid's book, http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Gramma's_Grammar , and I'd like to color the pages up a bit. Can anyone help me? Thanks!! --karlwick 01:57, May 21, 2005 (UTC)
:Response put onto user's talk page —Sean κ. ⇔ 03:31, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  How do I set the background color of a page to something other than white? 

message: Does the Manual of Style have any suggestion on capitalization of theories? I ask because the articles on relativity are inconsistently capitalized; for instance, using both "Special Relativity" and "special relativity". I think it would be better to have a consistent usage (at least within an article, although it's still silly if different articles use different capitalizations for the same theory). Chicago (8.157, 15th ed.) suggests: "Laws and theories. Names of laws, theories, and the like are lowercased, except for proper names attached to them." Examples given include "Avogadro's hypothesis", "the big bang theory", "Boyle's law", "(Einsten's) general theory of relativity", and "Newton's first law". Any suggestions? — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:02, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: University of Minnesota agrees. "Do not capitalize the names of laws, theorems, or principles except for proper nouns that are part of the names" Examples given are "theory of relativity", "Kepler’s laws", "Newton’s laws of motion". -Satori 00:35, 13 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Titles of scientific theories? 

message: I'd like the
:Scholarly abbreviations of Latin terms like i.e., e.g., or n.b. should be avoided and English terms such as that is, for example, or note used instead.
scratched from the MoS.  I've traced the addition to that by User:Ortolan88 at Sep 21, 2004 @ 21:36 with an edit summary of "prevent measles" (made it *that* much harder to find).  However, I find no discussion in the archives (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style--Archive Directory) pertaining to this addition.  So it would seem that this was unilaterally added 8 months ago (by an admin no less..if he was an admin 8 months ago...).
I see no benefit of having this in the MoS especially since it's not required to be followed.  I call bollucks on the entire list presented by Furrykef: they are perfectly acceptable and used and I'm sure I could find a list of complaints about...anything...really. And considering it was unilaterally added it doesn't belong here. Cburnett 03:42, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)
Oppose scratch. Even the Toronto Globe and Mail Style Book says to use i.e. only in direct quotes.  I think the Latin tags are stuffy and opaque. Somewhere in the Wiki help guides I've read that the model reader is supposedly a bright 12-year-old - certainly these dusty crusty relics would only confuse that model reader, especially if the reader's first language isn't English.  We'd be better off fixing spelling throughout Wikipedia. --Wtshymanski 13:55, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Did you say a bright twelve-year-old!   Why not add from an isolated bluecollar community in the Idaho panhandle! --Wetman 05:03, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: Oh scratch, bin, burn, do what ever you want with that ridiculous sentence but please keep it out of the MoS. We have got to presume that readers did more in their English class than sleep. What exactly is so difficult about ie and eg anyhow: how exactly is so difficult to understand the different meaning attached to two letters, depending on whether it is ie or eg? Most people on Wikipedia are well beyond an age where they should know exactly what they mean. If they don't by the time they leave high school, then they should sue their teachers for incompetence. FearÉIREANN(talk) 13:58, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "What exactly is so difficult about ie and eg anyhow:" Well apparently the fact that they are initals and should be i.e. and e.g. if they are used. Personaly i like them, and might use them, and wikipedia writing is supposed to be a bit formal, hence the sugestion not to use contrations. On the other hand, these add little, I'm not sure they are aver bettter than that is and for example. Still I think that thre should be discussion before this sentance is allowed to stay in the MOS. DES 5 July 2005 16:56 (UTC)
I oppose the scratch.
# We're writing Wikipedia for a large reader community and many members of that community can probably understand "for example" far better than they can understand "e.g.".
# One need only look at the writing community on Wikipedia to quickly conclude that even among people who claim to understand what i.e. and e.g. mean, they don't.
Atlant 17:59, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Scratch from MoS!

message: does wikipedia have a guideline for the BC versus BCE debate? -Lethe | Talk 00:46, May 27, 2005 (UTC)
*It has a running battle. Will that do? —Wahoofive (talk) 05:38, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I have created a compromise proposal. Please discuss the proposal on its talk page (not here). Kaldari 19:55, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  BC/BCE 

message: There is currently a dispute on Talk:Wikipedia#Italics, concerning the italicization of "Wikipedia" in the article namespace. The Manual of Style currently has no specifics regarding the italicization of encyclopedias (although they most likely fall under "books"), and whether media being in paper or online form matters for italics. --Poiuyt Man talk 09:14, 27 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Italics -- Wikipedia and encyclopedias in general