Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 55

message: I've read articles, but I don't remeber which ones, which refered to Galicia, but didn't state Iberian Galicia or East European Galicia.  Just to let you guys know.  Hhhmmmm, maybe it would have been more appropriate to list this in a section, like which that I proposed...............................100110100 11:35, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: If there is not already a sentence, paragraph or section about it, I think it would be better to have something simple saying "Use clear non-ambiguous terms that will not be confused", rather than having a never-ending list. When someone uses an ambiguous term, they likely don't know they are using it, and aren't going to check every word they use with the list. If you encounter this problem in articles, just change them, perhaps with a good edit summary pointing to the section, but I don't think a list would work well. —Centrx→talk • 15:12, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The thing is that people use WP:MOS for arguements; if we use this list then we could use it to standardize Wikipedia; this list would also be official documentation, for like when people use WP:MOS to cite for an arguement, this list would give legitimency for an arguement.100110100 02:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It could also just move the arguments here, expanding them, where before some article editors amicably reach a decision. More likely, people will just ignore it, if they know about it at all. Even where the styleguide is clear, people edit war over what they want. Imposing a multitude of minor things top-down doesn't work on a wiki. Big things like WP:NPOV work better because there are only a few such foundational issues and their principles are simple, and because it is so essential to Wikipedia as an encyclopedia that any editor in good standing recognizes it as binding. A long reference list of "proper" spellings is not at all similar. The styleguide is mostly just to help people, and the biggest problems with it arise when people try to impose their interpretation of it on various articles against the people who actually wrote and frequently edit the articles. The MOS needs to be used less for arguments, not more. —Centrx→talk • 02:46, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Heads Up 

message: Hi folks, other Filipino editors and I are trying to gauge consensus on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Philippine-related articles) so that we can make it into an official style guide. Could any of you give it a look-see and leave any constructive comments on the talk pages? We would really appreciate it. This was my first time writing a Manual of Style, so I'm sure it could use some work. Thanks. --Chris S. 04:51, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gauging consensus 

message: I have been going around wikipedia and I have seen many articles about middle aged weapons, bronze aged buildings and modern systems reference games, saying it is featured in games like Civilization. I think these references is cruft and the game's own article should reference these weapons, buildings and systems instead. I propose we remove game references that are not highly relevant to an article. This will stop game developers plugging games all over wikipedia, which is spam, and help cut down on article size keeping the most notable parts, thus raising the quality of articles. --OrbitOne  [Talk|Babel] 15:44, 19 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The question of whether "X in popular culture" sections should be kept is one of constant debate.  There appears to be no consensus on it. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 03:39, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that for historical things, most of the modern cultural references are largely irrelevant and should be purged.  However, with regard to present concepts, there are some borderline issues like 187 (murder), though.  Clearly the 187 meme has become a significant cultural phenomenon in itself, considering its frequent use in rap music, TV, and movies.  --Coolcaesar 04:21, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

text:  Some small number of things genuinely feature prominently enough in popular culture to merit mention; and some small number of fictional references (though rarely popular culture references) actually do help illuminate their topic (e.g. I can see mentioning Gore Vidal's novel Burr in at Aaron Burr or Dickens's Tale of Two Cities at Reign of Terror). But mostly? Cruft. I'd be glad to see it gone. - Jmabel | Talk 22:42, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pulling the Plugs 

message: "See Article for more information" seems to be the convention at the moment for referring to another article: initial letter of the title capitalized, no other markings except the link.  A few points:
# Should it be in quotation marks?  This is the usual convention for referring to articles generally, but most reference works refer to their own articles differently in cross-references, for instance using small caps or full caps.
# Should the first letter be capitalized, in general?  What about for articles like eBay?
# What about when referring to a section?  Article#Section is the techy way to do it, but is confusing to those who don't know what a fragment identifier is; Article (section) is probably not a good idea since many of our actual articles do have parentheses after them; likewise Article section can be confusing.  Any other ideas?
—Simetrical (talk • contribs) 18:10, 20 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Formatting of referrals to other articles 

message: There needs to be a consistent style for where stub tags are to be placed, as there appears to be none at the moment and as a result I've seen them all over the place - top, middle, and at varying places at the end. A bot (I'm sorry I don't know which one) is currently placing stub tags AFTER categories which, while it doesn't affect the page layout, is extremely awkward for editing especially when (and I've had to fix this a number of times) the stub tage is mistaken for a category and ends up in the middle of the category list or language tags. Same bot (and others) have also been placing stub tags below template lists which looks rather awkward, too. In my opinion, stub tags both on the edit page and in the final layout need to be between "External links" -- or, rather, the last major piece of text in an article -- and either the template(s) or categories, whichever is present first. Thoughts? 23skidoo 21:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: (23Skidoo mentioned this to me on my talk page, so I'll post my thoughts here as well) Putting stubs at the very end has a number of advantages; It means the stub category is listed last (least important categories should go last), it means the stub tag is less likely to become adjoined to the preceding text (as stubs need a double space before them, not sure why), it is a good idea to put maintenance tags either at the very beginning or very end of an article (i.e. out of the permanent text/meta data), and stub tags are meant to be unobtrusive, after all, they are on over half of all articles, I think they are most unobtrusive at the very end of an article. Martin 21:51, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Location of stub tags

message: The subsection heading, "Use of punctuation in presence of brackets/parentheses" repeats the word "punctuation", which is the section heading. I propose changing this subsection heading to "Presentation with brackets and parentheses". --Charles Gaudette 18:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You don't need to ask to make a change that minor.  I've changed the section heading; if you prefer yours, change it, I don't mind. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:30, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Headings in popular documents can be references in other documents. I like your wording, but slashes are ambiguous — so I did that edit. And, yes, I didn't have to ask, I wanted to. ;-) --Charles Gaudette 23:49, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Subsection heading contradicts WP:MOS 

message: I am not familiar with editting the Manual Of Style and how it should be done, thus I am putting this on the discussion page for a person more familiar with wikipedia to comment on. 
Recently, a discussion and poll regarding usage of the word "Allah" vs. "God" in Islam-related articles took place. The results are to be found here: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles)/God vs Allah. Since the poll has evidently passed, how does one go about implementing this in the Manual of Style itself? Thanks in advance for your help.Starwarp2k2 03:49, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It doesn't strictly have to be written anywhere to be binding.  Since Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Islam-related articles) isn't yet marked as generally accepted, you could add it to Wikipedia:Words to avoid for now, or just add it to MOS-Islam and note that that part has a stronger status than the rest of the page (compare to Wikipedia:Fair use, with a policy section embedded in a guideline). —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:05, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Terminology Implementation Question

message: Can anyone point me to a specific Wikipedia policy about how to reference specific people within articles? Journalism style is to use the full name "John Smith" in the first reference but then to use just the last name "Smith" in all other references. (This has some flexibility if there are two people with the last name of Smith in the article.) 
I'm also interested in finding out if there is any specific policy about the use of "social titles" within articles, such as referring to someone as "Mr. Smith" throughout an article instead of just "Smith". 
Thanks! --Sue Anne 20:05, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Here: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (biographies)#Subsequent uses of names. In general, it’s the same journalism style you’re probably familiar with. It wouldn’t be Wikipedia if it didn’t note a couple of exceptions, of course. Drop the social titles — it’s so much easier that way, rather than have to figure out what someone’s title should be. --Rob Kennedy 00:01, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  People's names within articles