Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 50

message: I was wondering if anyone had any comment or ideas about the usage of a "long line" at the top of articles. More discussion can be seen at Talk:The_City_of_God#Long-Line_at_top_of_article, and an example can be seen Example (the long line separating the Lead Section from the Dab notice). Thanks for any thoughts or ideas. --Stbalbach 15:53, 14 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Long Line at top of article 

message: Ive only posted comments in the 'talk' of an article once before, but I've noticed that many articles will say 'such and such happenned 400 years ago' or '40 years ago', or 'of the last 50 years'.  all these phrases will date and need to be edited again later-  if this is already in the manual of style sorry, i couldnt find it and thought it would be worth mentioning.
: I agree, if it's not there already we should explicitly say that absolute time references should be preferred to relative ones. PizzaMargherita 21:38, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Reminds me of the museum attendant who informed a visitor that a vase was 3,507 years old.  "That's a very precise date" she excaimed.  "Well, when I arrived I was told that it was 3,500 years old, and I've been here seven years." --Mel Etitis  (Μελ Ετητης) 22:31, 25 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On the other hand, "Dinosaurs became extinct 65 million years ago." won't have to be editted for a while.  P'haps relative time reference could be allowed for with a minimum precision of say one thousand years. Jimp 16:03, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Saying that something happened in 1945 in an article is much better than saying it happened 61 years ago, as that would have to be changed every year. Helicoptor 17:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  About "years ago" and dates 

message: The MOS formerly recommended to bold a wikilink to form an "explicit cross-reference", moving a see-also link into the text. That recommendation seems to have been removed recently. Was that discussed deliberately or did it just happen as part of shortening the section about "See also"?  -- The Photon 04:20, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Explicit cross-references

message: There's a discussion on the  talk page about whether it's appropriate to link to an audio file from the bold reiteration of the title. --Muchness 22:22, 22 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Formatting audio template

message: Hi there. According to the MoS, "if the caption is a single sentence or a sentence fragment, it does not get a period at the end". However, if there is more than one image, like in vegetable, this means that we end up with an inconsistent style. Consistency on the other hand is enforced in case of bullet points. Any thoughts? Thanks. PizzaMargherita 10:40, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If I had my druthers, I would reword it thus: "If a caption consists of a sentence fragment, it does not require a closing period. If a caption consists of a complete sentence, or consists of a fragment followed by one or more complete sentences, then each element ends with a period. In an article in which most captions consist of complete sentences, even incomplete sentences may use periods for consistency." —Wayward Talk 11:36, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Full stops in captions and bulleted items 

message: Is there an official definition of the "See also" section? The closest I could find is here, where it says
"See also" is the standard heading for related Wikipedia articles not already linked elsewhere in the article.
Is that what everybody thinks the section is for? Many articles have links repeated in the see also section (e.g. mirror). There seem to be two conflicting interpretations of the purpose of see also sections. Some think that it's a collection of references to articles that are vaguely relevant (see Agriculture in futures contract) but were not relevant enough to have a reference in the body of the article. Others seem to think that it's a list of most relevant topics for further reading, and whether or not they have already appeared in the article is not important. What's your view? PizzaMargherita 17:49, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I use the section for two purposes, in this order - 1)articles that may be wikinlinked in the main article, but are important/relevant enough to single out 2)other articles not included and wikilinked in the main article, but which may well be of interest and relevant to someone reading the main article.Tyrenius 00:26, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also section 

message: Currently it says "avoid overuse of headers".  Anybody who is overusing headers would not interpret what they are doing as "overuse".  Can we make it more explicit?  For example, if a short or even stub article has two or three headers, it creates sections containing only one or two sentences, so in these cases the flow of the article is broken.  I would like to be able to fix some of these articles and confidently refer back to MoS in my edit summary.  Example of one of these articles is Elinor Fair (prior to this edit).   I also think something like Helen Ferguson is incorrect because it has a one sentence lead, and then the entire article is written under one header.  I think a very short article such as this would be better with no headers (except for the "external link").  Any opinions or suggestions?  Thanks Rossrs 22:33, 1 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Headers

message: There is a discussion ongoing at Talk:MMR vaccine about whether some of the MMR vaccine products such as Mumpsvax, etc. should have the ® symbol associated with it or not.   I argue that they should not, primarily for stylistic and aesthetic rasons.  For example, the pages for Coca-Cola and Pepsi or Tylenol do not include registered trademarks for these products.  Furthermore, when these drugs are referenced in the academic literature, these registered trademark symbols do not appear.  I was wondering if other editors had a feeling about this.  Andrew73 01:53, 4 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Registered names and trademarks 

message: In English writings originating from non-English cultures (e.g. English newspapers in China), the family name is often written with all capital letters to avoid being mistaken as a middle name, e.g. Laurence Yee-ming Kwong or using small capitals, as Laurence [[KWONG Yee-ming or with a comma, as AKUTAGAWA, Ryunosuke to make clear which name is the family name. Such practice is particularly common in mass-media reporting international events like the Olympic Games. The CIA World Factbook stated that "The Factbook capitalizes the surname or family name of individuals for the convenience of [their] users who are faced with a world of different cultures and naming conventions." For example, Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing might be mistaken as Mr. Wing by readers unaware of Chinese naming conventions.
I found this in the article Family name in Wikipedia itself, and it will be useful for most readers of Wikipedia, though I think hardly anyone do their edits after this fashion currently. What do you think about it, everyone? 
--219.107.178.22 23:25, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Capitalizing surnames of foreign people, or not? 

message: I would prefer that wikipedia had a slight preference one way or the other on this. An 'if you can't decide, use this' policy. KalevTait 00:05, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Serial comma 

message: In the cases where we need disambiguation of location names, which happens lots of times, for example, in Portuguese parish names (because they are named after the same Saint or something like that) which of the following rules shall we use?
# Parish, Municipality
# Parish (Municipality)
The Manual says nothing (I think) and I wanted to create a standard. The Portuguese wikipedia mainly uses the second — Parish (Municipality). Would you say something? Thanks! Afonso Silva 17:03, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You looking in the wrong place. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (places). Rmhermen 19:34, 6 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Place names disambiguation 

message: A proposal relating to this policy has been created at Wikipedia:Quotations should not contain wikilinks, please discuss on that proposal's discussion page. Hollow are the Ori 23:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  FYI: [[Wikipedia:Quotations should not contain wikilinks|Quotations should not contain wikilinks]] proposal 

message: Hi all.  I've seen some external links with a pdf icon next to them warning readers that the link takes them to a pdf file.  But I can't for the life of me find an example of this now when I need it.  Can someone point me in the right direction?  Thanks!  Monkeyman(talk) 00:04, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Maybe  is what you're looking for? —Veyklevar 01:28, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks.  That's what I was looking for.  Monkeyman(talk) 01:35, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  PDF icon in external links 

message: We've debated at great length at Roman Catholic Church whether the article should be called that or Catholic Church; concensus was for Roman Catholic Church as "Catholic Church" was considered ambiguous, but "Catholic Church" is still used widely used elsewhere in Wikipedia.  Is there any rule or guideline on whether the article name should always be used in other articles referring to the same subject?  Or is the only way to ensure consistency to propose a specific rule stating that that body should always be known by a particular name?  TSP 17:49, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Consistency 

message: In situations where there are national variations in spellings (tyically International (British) English vs. US English), the original spelling should be used. For example, "night" is the original spelling, "nite" is a new US variation. Before US citizens complain, note that it works both ways. "Realize" is the original spelling, even found in British dictionaries, although British school children learn to spell it with an "s".
: The "nite" variation is a stylized version of "night" and hasn't been adopted in mainstream American English.  Andrew73 22:26, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree with the notion that the English Wikipedia should become a hopeless jumble of dialects so that it is written in a dialect that exists nowhere and satisfies no one.  The current policy of dialect consistency on an article-by-article basis is awkward but works fine.  We have already debated this issue many, many times and the consensus is to maintain the policy of keeping articles in the dialect in which they were originally written, with the exception that geographically-related things should be written in the dialect appropriate for the area of the world to which they are related.  There is of course a separate related issue involving quotation marks, but I am currently biding my time before opening up the whole can of worms over that issue again.   --Coolcaesar 22:35, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Agreed. — Saxifrage ✎ 22:41, 14 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Original spellings should take precedent 

message: I just read the section on titles, and found it rather confusing. At first glance, king of france and french king have the same meaning, just different construction forms, so why would the capitalisation be different? I read the referencces adjacent, and noted that the Guardian recommends the King of and a king of, and further more recommends that only the first reference to King should use capitalisation, thereafter it should be lower case. The distinction they make is a generic job  (a...) does not get a capital, but a title of a specific holder (the...) does.  So furthermore it should be the French King, or possibly the french King?  How does the adjective french deserve a capital if the noun it is is describing, king, does not. I reckon the example Louis XVI was the French king should read Louis XVI was the french King (but only at first mention).  Perhaps  the issue is not that this form of words is explaining what his job title was, but that if it is capitalised in the way suggested in the style article, then the capitalisation implies the words are being used as job title. Whereas if used as I have suggested, then capitalisation is implying that this is his title. The meaning changes according to the capitalisation used, so the example here is actually confusing two different cases. Sandpiper 09:33, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may find some more discussion at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (names and titles) or it's Talk page. Although that page is more about the naming of the article, its editors may have spent more time thinking about the issue you raise here. Ewlyahoocom 10:21, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Titles 

message: There is no reference to the use of elipses such as ... or [...] within quotations from another work.  This would come up often, and I feel it would be appropriate to render a specific decision on how they are to be used.  For example.  To quote FDR's December 8 1941 pearl harbor speech as an example.  Int he following quote: "Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack. "  It might me more appropriate to simply to include the bolded items depending on the context, and in the interest of brevity.  But there are several ways it could be done.  It could be done "one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese ambassador to the United States and his colleagues delivered to the Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. [...] it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack."  However, elipses without brackets may be used depending on which writing style one subscribes to, or personal preference.  Also, whether or not to use elipses if something at either the very beginning or the very end of a sentence is omitted would also be of concern.  To avoid accusations attempting to bend facts it may be important to establish a guideline or policy on this to be included in the MOS.  Any thoughts?  --Oni Ookami AlfadorTalk|@ 20:38, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elipses 

message: The manual of style is clear that it doesn't want multiple currencies listed. However, I cannot see anything about how a single currency should be written. For example I have seen £xxx and xxx pounds. Sometimes "£" or "pounds" will link to the relevant article and sometimes there is no link. Is there a standard / should there be a standard?
:I think £3000 or $2000 is the best way.  Simply putting 2000 dollars or 2000 dollars could lead to confusion.. for instance, if we're talking about Australians trading with Americans, or even Canadians, what are we to assume?  A lot of times when that happens, people put $2000 (AUD).. drumguy8800 - speak 22:36, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking around I have also seen GBP or USD which does give the full information about the currency, but I am not sure that this method would be obvious for other countries currencies. I quite like the £ approach.--MarkS 12:39, 19 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have found that Wikipedia:Manual of style (dates and numbers) already covers this so I have added a link in. --MarkS 06:23, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Currency

message: As an attempt to improve consistency in the transliteration of words written in non-latin script, as described in Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Loan words, I propose a policy favouring one convention for each script.
In particular, I would like a specified style convention on the Romanization of Russian. I would not reccomend BGN/PCGN due to ambiguity between й and ы. I would rather propose the UN convention, as it is not ambiguous, and only uses simple, well-know diatrics. GOST is a good diatric-free alternative, while ISO/R 9:1968 may also be discouraged due to a Germanic transliteration of х with ch. --GSchjetne 08:08, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Romanization of Russian. Circeus 00:17, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Transliteration convention 

message: There used to be a style guide on ALL CAPS, that was easy to find. But then is was tagged as proposal, and subsequently all the links to it were removed.
Which is a shame, becuase it's a reasonable style guide, and it shouldn't sink into oblivion. So here's the link: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (ALL CAPS)
I would like to know what to do with this, what needs to be done before it will be "official enough", where in the MoS to put it when it is, etc. Shinobu 12:28, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: you have my vote for yes. this should go into the manual of style. It's basic sense, but you still see it violated all the time. Irritating, and this would help clear it up. -Monk of the highest order 04:56, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ALL CAPS 

message: There seems to be a rash of customized font-family settings cropping up, especially in some templates. In my opinion, this is a mistake that needs to be prevented. Anyone who uses a different stylesheet than the particular editor who set those fonts will find that the text so marked stands out like a sore thumb. For now, they probably match the default style pretty well, but anyone who has changed it via preferences or with a custom stylesheet sees awful-looking pages. And if Wikipedia as a whole should ever decide to change the default font family, suddenly they would stand out to nearly all visitors.
I'd like to propose a policy that the font-family should never be changed in articles or in templates, unless absolutely necessary, such as when certain characters only exist in a particular font. And even then, it would probably be better to use images. The only place that the font family should be changed is in stylesheets. --Yath 09:46, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Completely agree. Same for font colour and font size. PizzaMargherita 10:09, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree with this as well.  Perhaps list this at Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Policies? -- Rick Block (talk) 02:28, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If there ever is a "vote" or something on this, strike me up as "support". I hate it when various fonts are mixed. The only excuse could be when the default font won't render a certain character and the browser doesn't know what to do. Even then, it should be overridable. Shinobu 12:55, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overriding font-family 

message: This article says:
:If curved quotation marks or apostrophes appear in article titles, ensure that there is a redirect with straight glyphs.
What does that mean? How do I do it? --Mikeblas 13:47, 24 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See Wikipedia:Redirects.–RHolton≡– 02:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  redirect 

message: I am of the opinion that, for Royal Navy ship classes named after letters (For instance, Template:List of destroyer classes of the Royal Navy), quotation marks should be used around the identifying letter when referring to the particular class in the article. For instance in the article L and M class destroyer, I feel it should read "L" class destroyer, not L class destroyer, (or "L class" destroyer) likewise "M" not M later on in the text. My reasoning is;
*this is the way it is done in the relevant and authoratative literature.
*the reader instantly knows that a ship class is being referred to, my contributions frequently crossreference to many other classes of ship to highlight differences and similarities.
*it makes the article scan better. A lone letter in the copy looks out of place to my eye.
However, I have been informed by User:Gdr on talk page User_talk:Gdr#removing_italicisation_on_ship_classes that there is a convention that there is no need for quotation around the letter. Is this an official convention? Does the MoS have any policy on this (I couldn't find anything myself). Gdr's reasoning seems to be "that's the way it has been done up until now, so it must be correct". I would appreciate any official input on this as I feel my opinions are being ignored by User:Gdr. Emoscopes Talk 20:51, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You will probably have better luck asking at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships or Wikipedia:Naming conventions (ships). Rmhermen 02:03, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  ship classes named after letters 

message: Please consider this proposed addition to the Manual of Style: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction)--ragesoss 22:49, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: AGREED! This thing needs to be put into action, dagnabbit! Too often do I see pages like List of Neopets or Skein (comics) which have entire fahoolajin stories and backgrounds of a fictional character when it's entirely necessary and unencyclopedic. This is an encyclopedia! Not a gaming or comic book magazine. Just as wikipedia isn't the place for recipes (perhaps a cookbook on wikibooks might be the place for that), wikipedia isn't the place for indepth fictional story-telling, whether it is one's own or the creation of another.  Simple description of a work of fiction, perhaps some of its basic premises, and the work's relation to the real world (author, creation, publication, criticism, etc.) are acceptable. But going deeply into the story is somewhat innapropriate. Perhaps this information could be transferred to another wiki before removal here, but either way, articles which speak about a fictional universe from the inside are messy and problematic, and this article would clean them up. -Monk of the highest order 04:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Writing about fiction

message: I wonder if it is accepted or discouraged to make wikilinks to individual sections on a page like Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Wikilinking, see my edit of wikilink to spy hopping which does not have a page of its own, and maybe it should, but nevermind, is it acceptable to do wikilinking like that in articles? I do not think I have seen it in any other article and I would guess that it would be a bit controversial. Comments? Stefan 13:11, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: They're likely to break if someone changes the text of the section heading in the article being linked to, but I can't imagine why that would be any worse than simply a link to the entire article. Kirill Lokshin 13:28, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

text: If editors want to link to a section, they have to be aware that sooner or later that link is likely to break, and therefore the link's falling back to the article (as opposed to the section) should not be surprising for the editor, nor traumatic for the reader. PizzaMargherita 16:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: OK thanks, I can live with the trauma :-), I keep the link! Stefan 00:03, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

text: One thing you can do is make the link look better so it can be read as plain English and convert Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Wikilinking to  Manual of Style: Wikilinking  so that it appears inline as: Manual of Style: Wikilinking --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 18:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikilinks to sections allowed or discouraged ? 

message: I thought I'd read, but now can't find, an MoS line regarding sentences like "This article will show..." I know it's generally frowned upon, but I was wondering if we have a specific spot addressing it. Marskell 17:48, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Wikipedia:Avoid self-references addresses this to an extent. --Muchness 18:05, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

text: On second thought, WP:SELF is about referencing Wikipedia rather than the article in question. --Muchness 18:11, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I'd thought about that. If it's not here explicitly, should it be added? Marskell 18:14, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: There are cases when these sentences are necessary (e.g., disambiguation hatnotes: This article is about ... For ... see ...), so we should take that into account if we're adding a guideline. --Muchness 18:14, 2 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I would have thought that "This article will show..." would also fall foul of No Original Research.  Wikipedia should only report that which has already been shown. TSP 12:15, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Although no one can stop Wikipedia from showing again that wich has already been shown. For example a lot of articles on geometry and mathematics contain short proofs, and there's nothing wrong with that. Still, I think starting an article (that is, the main lead, as opposed to any hatnotes) with "This article..." is very bad style. Shinobu 16:23, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Articles referring to themselves 

message: ON 2006-02-01, Robert McClenon added the following: 
*The English texts of treaties that are signed by both the United Kingdom and the United States use British English usage and spelling out of respect for the seniority of the United Kingdom as the mother country of the English language. American editors should consider showing the same courtesy as their government does.
(which was then, thankfully, toned down a bit).
Out of curiosity, I looked into this, and can find no evidence that it's true. Indeed, it appears that there is no rule about which is better. So perhaps the UK and the US are wiser than Robert McClenon, and simply vary which dialectic they use when communicating with each other.... In any event, without evidence, this line should not be in the Style Guide. Hyperborean 08:09, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I concur.  McClenon is incorrect and therefore the line should go.  --Coolcaesar 08:14, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: McClenon is correct! International Treaties usually use British English usage and spelling. But I agree that this should not be part of the MoS. SpNeo 18:30, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  UK-US treaties 

message: JA: What should be routine copyediting of a large class of WP articles is now on hold due to insufficiently directiveWP:MOS guidelines on capitalization of phrases that are not proper nouns, not if you can read and comprehend a dictionary definition of "proper noun", but that happen to preserve through various and sundry twists of fate a place dear to the hearts of their devoted communities of worship.  No, that's not a neuter statement.  But it would help if some community attention could be drawn to the RFC placed here and being discussed here.  Gratia in futuro, Jon Awbrey 13:34, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: RFC on Capitalis/zation

message: I thought I read that quotation marks around a phrase such as "activity zones" should be eliminated if quotation marks are not quoting anything. Sometimes people use quotation marks for a figure of speech, or for emphasis -- acutally I don't know why they are using them.
I can't find any mention in  the Manual of Style or related sections on this issue.
Does anyone know if there is a policy regarding this?    KarenAnn 18:46, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you seen Manual of Style (Quotation marks)? I hope that this helps. -- Alias Flood 20:04, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. It only talks about actual quotations -- where to put punctuation, etc. It doesn't say anything about quotation marks around words that are not quotations. But I swear I read it somewhere, but where?  KarenAnn 22:33, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: "Scare quotes", they're usually called. There's something about them in the proposed Wikipedia:Manual of Style (emphasis); or use common sense: they're awful, and good writing uses them sparingly if at all. (Ironically, I just used some in one of my most recent edits. Hmm. Hypocrite!) —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 22:41, 17 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks! That's what I was looking for. I knew I saw that somewhere. I'm always removing them. I wanted to have some justification in case anyone complained.  KarenAnn 00:14, 18 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Even worse is the use of quotes for emphasis, as in "great new deal!" This is incorrect writing but is frequently encountered in phone books, classifieds, and other cheap advertising like that. I've argued before that the wiki markup for italics only encourages this error. Deco 03:30, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotation marks for no reason 

message: See this string of edits.
I think this person's trolling but before I start reverting (he/she has done this several time), I'd like to check with some knowledgeable native speakers of English. Do we say "The Eagles is a group" or 
"The Eagles are a group". The consensus among editors, which I agree with, is to say "is", but this anonymous user keeps fighting about it. Tony 15:01, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: plural with music bands