Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 69

message: Currently Harold Wilson has the correct titling for the main description of his name (i.e., basically none). However, the caption of the picture describes him as "The Rt Hon Harold Wilson Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, PC" Am I correct to presume that the MOS rules apply to the picture description as well and so this should be reduced to simply "Harold Wilson"? JoshuaZ 20:02, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's actually the infobox title, not the caption; but, generally, no: rules applying to article titles do not necessarily apply to text within articles.  In this case, I believe it's actually common practice to use the full form initially in the article, even if the title is a considerably shortened version. Kirill Lokshin 21:28, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Titles in picture descriptions 

message: So what was the consensus?  It has been discussed several times on this talk and the template was put up for TFD and was voted keep.  So what does MOS have to say about these templates... nothing?  Shouldn't we have something in there?  Even if there is no consensus on the use of the templates, we could at least put that in there.  Discuss the quotation templates and what ones are approved and what ones have disagreement among editors.  I've replaced them in the past for blockquotes but I'm seeing them more and more.  Heck - even Jimbo's article has one on it.  Morphh  (talk) 20:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I support the use, have used it myself, and feel that when used properly, it adds "attractiveness" to the article. I use it for longer quotes which, if used in a book, would be indented, or to highlight an important shorter quote. Yes, something should be in the MOS, though. Akradecki 23:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I have read previous discussion on this and I thought the consensus was that cquote should only be used for pullout quotes. Currently the MoS already says that quotations should be formatted with , so no change is necessary. Also, I have been off-wiki for a while, but I vaguely remember that the cquote template should be rewritten to use a subclassed . Or has this already been done? Part of the reason discussions are not always followed through until a discussion is reached, is that overactive "archivers" remove discussions prematurely, making it hard to find out who said what when and why. Although perhaps that's not what happened in this case. As I said, I have been relatively off-wiki for a while, a situation that may still continue for a while. Shinobu 19:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: cquote tag

message: I see in the archives this has come up before but I can't find anywhere which shows the consensus as to whether these are a good or bad thing - two examples of where this is an issue are the silly edit warring on Nicole Kidman regarding her nationality; and the confusing situation on Emma Watson (Union Flag and Flag of France next to her place of birth - clearly she was not born in two different countries). I'm confident that I'm not alone in thinking that a guideline or policy on this should be set out clearly somewhere to improve consistency across articles. An essay exists at WP:FLAG, but as far as I can see there is no existing policy or guideline either at the WP:MOS or the Biography WikiProject. QmunkE 15:34, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I would also appreciate some guidance wrt flags used in info boxes.  The Michael J. Fox page has a slightly different problem than the one described by Qmunke above: There is no stability as it changes from canada's old flag, to their new flag, to no flag and back again (and sometimes there are also province flags, once I think there were three displayed at once). R. Baley 04:11, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Just ran across this discussion: Wikipedia talk:Manual of style/Archive 66 R. Baley 04:40, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

text: See new draft of Wikipedia:Don't overuse flags, a to-be-proposed guideline (probably as part of MOS).  If you see a short page there that contradicts itself, that means it's been reverted to an older version.  The latest version of the comprehensive redraft (as of this writing) is available in the history. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont]   ‹(-¿-)› 02:13, 24 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Flag icons in infoboxes 

message: Why, oh why, is there no manual of style guideline on alphabetization?   I can't begin to tell you how many times one comes across completely incorrect alphabetization.  For instance, in Template:India states, there is a list of states which puts "Uttarakhand" before "Uttar Pradesh".  This is just wrong (it is also unfixable by me, since the current order of the list corresponds to numbering on a map, which I'm not in a position to fix).  It is not how alphabetization is done, and every time we do this kind of thing it makes us look stupid and unprofessional.  Can we please have a guidelines with respect to correct alphabetization?  (I believe that correct alphabetization also counts  "Mc" as though it is "Mac", and "St." as though it is "Saint," but I'm willing to discuss those).  It certainly does not follow a "Uttarakhand" comes before "Uttar Pradesh" policy, and we ought to be clear about this. john k 18:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I've fixed it. =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:01, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Agree with John Kenney Typesetter 14:44, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

text: There are different, equally valid standards for collation. Wikipedia should select one to be used throughout, though. Christoph Päper 12:56, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Alphabetization 

message: There's a bit of a disconnect in the manual when comparing the capitaliztion styles recommended for "president" and  "prime minister". In both cases, the manual says you should use lowercase when the office is meant "generically", but that word seems to be used differently, given that "the British Prime Minister" is suggested (whereas we would certainly write "the American president").
This comes up because of a dispute over how the article on the prime minister of Italy should be titled. I think it looks better at prime minister of Italy, but a couple of people have moved it to Prime Minister of Italy on the grounds that articles on other countries' prime ministers use the capital M. It could be that it's a slightly different case, given that "prime minister" (or primo ministro) is not the formal name of the office in Italian, but rather an informal description (legally, he's presidente del consiglio dei ministri). --Trovatore 16:01, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Intuitively, that makes all the difference for me. "Official title" status is the reason things become capitalised, surely? If it's not actually the title, but just the rôle, then it should be lower case, in the same way that one wouldn't describe the driver of a bus as the "Bus Driver" — it's a job, not a title. – Kieran T (talk) 16:05, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

text: ...and I think it's even weirder, if there's no particular individual being referred to. That is, surely we want to say "the functions of the prime minister include..." and not "the functions of the Prime Minister include..."; that's pretty much an on-point application of the principle that generic uses take the lower case, but contradicts the rule about "the". --Trovatore 07:42, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

text: OK, that sounds plausible, but it's not a very good reason to capitalize "minister" in the title of the article. The article is about the office, not a specific individual addressed by a title, so it's more a "generic" usage. --Trovatore 04:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalization of "prime minister"