Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 37

message: This article Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad#2005_.22World_Without_Zionism.22_speech caught my attention (...adding that "Westerners are free...), should there be (or is there) an policy on whether to provide wikilinks in a quote? In the example mentioned I suppose the wikilink point to a relevant article, but perhaps usage of wikilinks in quotes might be misleading (intentionally or unintentionally) especially when dealing with political statements that might be controversional and open for interpretation. Non-controversial quotes that refer to objects and the like such as "a bottle may contain liquids" might be another issue. Comments? Scoo 15:25, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: (Commenting here because Scoo asked me to) We should not treat quotes any differently than we treat other text - specific topics should be linked where relavant. Raul654 17:05, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I think that links should not be added to quotes, because they can (whether intended to or not) color the quote. Generally, there should be enough context that links inside quotes aren't necessary anyway. —Slicing (talk) 17:47, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

text: In my opinion, links from direct quotes are poor style. The source didn't have a link; the source should be tampered with as little as possible. Links introduce visual emphasis to the linked terms, and have the potential to point to ambiguous destinations. Plus, they just look wrong to my eye. —Bunchofgrapes  (talk) 05:13, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would agree with that. Lines in quotes should not be fiddled with (or then would require an "emphasis added" caveat). So links would be very inappropriate in such places in the text. - Marshman 05:18, 15 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Sometimes— keeping the reader always in mind— links within quotes discreetly identify and clarify an obscure reference, without resorting to clumsy footnotes. The tasteless linking of words irrelevant to the immediate context, simply to make Jesus et al. jump out at you from the text, are a vulgarism, I agree. The hyperlink within a text however does not make any change to the text, and its use is too familiar a convention to require an owlish emphasis added, the visual equivalent of a stage whisper from the wings. --Wetman 06:08, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm inclined to agree with Wetman.  Wiki lets us avoid the replacing "As I explained to Jones, Be sucks" with "As I explained to [Time reporter Winston] Jones, [the operating system] Be sucks". Instead we can just do "As I explained to Jones, Be sucks".  Of course that can be abused, but for that kind of situation it's very succinct, and less ugly than the alternatives. Stevage 23:43, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I suggest a guideline to avoid linking within quotes unless the object of the link is not referenced in the vicinity, within the article (vicinity being maybe 20 or so lines, or one paragraph). SailorfromNH 02:18, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there already is a guideline that the same link appear but once in an article. It should generally not be a problem to find a place to put a link that is not within a quote and avoid that altogether - Marshman 02:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Examples in the poem "To Anacreon in Heaven" demonstrate the kind of linking within quoted text that aids the reader without intruding the presence of the Wikipedian.  --Wetman 08:32, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikilinks when quoting 

message: I think we should start making "external links" sections subsections of "see also" sections, agreed? (unsigned comment from anon)
:There was a good suggestion somewhere to change "References" to "Sources" and "External links" to "Further reading".  At the moment, no one really seems to know what to put in External Links, and they often end up being used for advertising etc. I don't see a big problem with putting URLs directly in see also sections, or as separate subsections as you suggest. Stevage 23:38, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I like the initial suggestion: "Sources" and "Further Reading", but "External Links" could be a sub under the latter. I disagree these are usually commercial ads; they are more often great sources of further reading. - Marshman 02:53, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Should we try to adopt section headers (in addition to suggestions above) that hark of those in scholarly journals, like Endnotes?  If not, a catch-all like "Sources" is my preference (though can swing either way), but "External links" for clarity (anything outside of Wp, not limited to mere reading like audio and video).  And note that only the initial word in the second instance is capitalised (e.g., not "External Links"); as per Wp guidelines, we should only do so for proper nouns (e.g., "Alcoholic consumption in Canada")  (hiccough) :) E Pluribus Anthony 09:01, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  See also sections 

message: Hello!  I recently reverted a change that I thought was major:
... Also, try not to include other bold phrases in the first sentence.
only to realise (if I'm (re)reading it correctly) that this does not include words other than the bolded title (which is ubiquitous in Wp).  I support the general notion.  But if I misunderstood, others might too; I've massaged it for clarity, but I'm neither here nor there with it.  In any event, it should be discussed to ensure clarity.  Thanks!  E Pluribus Anthony 09:23, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The current edition works for me! :) E Pluribus Anthony 18:08, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

text: He he; yes: embolden is a word and means "to make bold" ... much as we should be when editing pages! :) E Pluribus Anthony 11:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Nah (i.e., "to instill with boldness..."), but others may disagree; I'm really neither here nor there regarding it.  I misunderstood the prior phrasing (perhaps the result of faulty attention), so I thought the mild rework would do in this respect.  Whatever works.  E Pluribus Anthony 23:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Emboldening other phrases in 1st sentence 

message: Is there a guideline for the displayed text of A#B links? I've seen "A#B", and "A (B section)", and could imagine others such as "A:B". Thx, "alyosha" 04:02, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Good question, none that I'm aware of, except of course that in the middle of a paragraph (of prose), it should be piped so that the paragraph is readable.  Though of course you'd be referring to links in a list or something like that.  Maybe it's worth discussing?  Correct me if I'm wrong.  Neonumbers 05:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Format for displayed text of A#B links 

message: Another newbie question: i've found lots of discussion of pronouns, but not of other gendered/sexist language, such as "chairman" for a chair/chairperson of unknown gender. If i correct language like that, will it be accepted as a valid correction appropriate to an encyclopedia, or will it waste energy (re-)starting a debate that won't be helpful or come to consensus? I know that'll vary with the readers of the page, but i'm looking for the current sense of wikipedia. (And btw, i've found a little about racism, but is there no guideline about avoiding even more extreme forms of sexism, and similar offensive language?) Thx, "alyosha" 04:18, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: If you ask me, realistically, you've probably already started a debate by posting this question here! :-P jokes, jokes... you're right though, it'll probably just waste energy in another debate — though feel free to try and see if you get reverted.  Nothing wrong with trying once or twice!  (Just be prepared for some potential comments on your talk page, lol.)  Hope this helps, Neonumbers 05:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I proposed a policy on nonsexist language a few months ago. It didn't go over well, as most other people seemed to think it was not needed. -- Mwalcoff 05:43, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Gendered/sexist language -- but *not* pronouns! 

message: I've noticed that nearly every article refers to females as an actress, although for an encyclopedia "actor" would probably be more appropriate for use.--Fallout boy 06:50, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Is "actress" appropriate?

message: I propose that it is acceptable and preferred, as mandated by the Hawaiian English standard (solely co-official with Hawaiian in the State of Hawaii), to use full proper Hawaiian language spellings (including okina and kahakō) in every instance of a word of Hawaiian origin in Wikipedia articles, except specifically in situations where a proper name (e.g. Hawaii Five-O) omits the detail.  This includes the State of Hawaii's official names for itself and its political terms and units (which differ from the United States national records—a note of this can be made where relevant).  Article titles should also be appropriately rendered this way, with the flexible exception that (until Wikipedia either uses -style Unicode character resolution for the display of article titles in HTML, or until the okina becomes displayable for most computer users) article names can use a simple apostrophe (') for okina, with existing redirects for (`) and the absence of the okina altogether (where there is no confusion among minimal pairs), and additional redirects (also without confusion of minimal pairs) for article names without okina nor kahakō.  The  template can be used for each instance of the okina—this template also internally uses the , which forces even obselete browsers such as Internet Explorer to scour each system's installed fonts for any font that includes the okina character.  Browsers such as Firefox do not have this problem, but the user must still have a font such as Arial Unicode MS or Code2000 that contains this character.  In practice, Hawaii-related articles and Hawaiian names and terms in other articles are already steadily integrating these conventions into article texts, as per Hawaiian English.  For those who may dispute the appropriateness of using Hawaiian English and not American English in these contexts, it should be noted that:
#The United States has no federal official language, and American English is a standard adopted individually by states.
#Hawaiian English together with Hawaiian is the official language of the State of Hawaii.
#Though Hawaiian English is partially reliant on American English, plain American English itself is not an official language of Hawaii.
- Gilgamesh 07:04, 15 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I copied the above from Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (use English) as I think it is something which needs to be discussed here and not specifically on the "Naming conventions (use English)" page. --Philip Baird Shearer 20:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Follow exisitng guidelines in cases of conflict between varieties of English? Rich   Farmbrough. 18:24, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Hawaiian English in Hawai{{okina}}i articles

message: Wikipedia badly needs a standard for personal name formats. In particular, name order. Outside of Western Europe and its offshoots, most cultures use surname-first order. Most Wikipedia articles in which Chinese names appear follow this practice. Many articles also follow this practice in naming Japanese, but many others don't.
There are pitfalls, no matter what you do. I know from experience that Japanese and Chinese can feel resentful if names of their countrymen are presented in the "wrong" order. Yet what do you do about a person of Japanese or Chinese origin who lives in a western nation and has adopted the name order prevailing there? For that matter, what about westerners who have gone the other way? And what about Hungarians, who use surname-first too, except when they don't? How can we be sure that readers will always know which is the surname?
It seems to me that the only truly practical solution in a one-size-fits-all source such as Wikipedia is to use the same name order for everyone, except where there is some compelling reason not to -- and to flag any such cases very clearly. In any event, a standard is needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Will O'Neil (talk • contribs) 04:24, 19 December 2005
:I do not think a standard is needed other than "use common name". Zedong Mao is not common, nor will it ever be. It would be quite artificial to prefer this over Mao Zedong. On the other hand, the article Shiing-shen Chern is not at Chen Xingshen, since it is standard practice in mathematics to always use Personal name-Surname order in all languages. Consistency among all names, languages and fields of usage will most likely decrease readability quite a bit. I don't think consistency is worth that. Actually noting the name order somewhere on each article about a Chinese person might be a good thing, though -- I've fixed enough category links with wrong alphabetization. Kusma (討論) 05:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, perhaps, but what about the majority of users who will not know what is common. No one ever speaks of Zedong Mao, of course, but you might be surprised at the number of Americans who imagine that Zedong was his surname. Actually, Chinese are the easy issue -- aside from special cases like Wellington Koo and Eugene Chen, the western media have most usually used the correct (surname-first) order all along. But Japanese are another matter. Look at the entries for Yosuke Matsuoka and Tanaka Giichi, for instance. Nor can we say that the order used for Matsuoka is clearly wrong -- for significant portions of his life he referred to himself as Yosuke Matsuoka (or even Frank Matsuoka) rather than Matsuoka Yosuke. Often, Japanese publications with romanji renderings of Japanese names will set the surname in all caps, to avoid confusion among westerners. Perhaps we should do that for our readers. --Will O'Neil 16:16, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Any time that happens you should probably consider setting up a redirect to save the next person the same pain! Incidentally, France has a good system for all this in daily life: The surname is always written in capitals. Stevage 21:05, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Didn't realize it wasn't the most common name (atleast on google) deeptrivia (talk) 05:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I recommend you use Google search, which will save you frustration in finding stuff. This doesn't address the concern for a standard name format, however. Gflores Talk 05:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I just made Hiuen Tsang a redirect (Hiun Tsang already existed and even had some links). Kusma (討論) 05:30, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Format for personal names 

message: Since we have already reached a consensus that "as a general rule" implies "there are reasonable exceptions", and that we should not list all such exceptions for clarity and maintenance purposes, I zapped the following.
"An exception may be allowed if a link to the second bolded phrase redirects to this article, and if the second bolded phrase is not a spelling, grammatical, or abbreviated variation of the article name. (Example: Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), better known by his pen name Mark Twain. . . )"
PizzaMargherita 08:37, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Article titles bold stuff exceptions (again)

message: I don't like split infinitives, but I see them all over the place. Is there a policy yet?
:If there is it should be removed, because the question is debatable. I don't think the MoS should have guidelines at this level of detail. PizzaMargherita 08:15, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: A policy against split infinitives would be absurd, so I suppose you'll have to live with them. - furrykef (Talk at me) 01:48, 1 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Split Infinitives

message: I'm having trouble finding the section of the style guide or other reference that says when or when not to link dates in articles.  Dates such as November, November 22, or November 22, 1999.  In some articles, I have had someone come and remove all or most of the wikilinks that refer to dates as described above and in their edit note say "as per the style guide." And then in other articles I have and someone come and ADD links to most or all the dates and say "as per the style guide." Soo.... what gives? :) Someone please point me in the right direction, I want to know when to properly link dates and when to not. Thanks! --Naha|(talk) 19:56, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You can find the information at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Date formatting; the link to this supplementary manual is available at the top right of the main Manual of Style page, under the title "Dates and numbers." In brief, full date/month/year dates as well as month/dates should be linked (such as November 22, 1999 or November 22), because this allows logged-in users to set their preferences for how they would like their date displayed. Linking individual months, dates, or years is generally frowned upon unless there is a special reason (for the same reason that most words aren't linked). Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:52, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You should check this permanent link.  There is a revert war at that supplementary manual that is basically the repeated removal and addition of that very section.  Hope that helps.  Neonumbers 23:58, 28 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thank you both for the information!  Its a lot to take in, but now I have a clue and a place to reference :) --Naha|(talk) 01:12, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks, Neonumbers; I wasn't aware of the controversy. In any case, Naha, you should definitely link month/date/year and month/date combinations; the rest is obviously controversial—don't let it get too stressful. Link it if you want; don't link it if you don't want. If it's wrong, someone else will change it. — Knowledge Seeker দ 01:23, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thanks again :) --Naha|(talk) 20:11, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Dates - Days, Months, Years

message: Wow, the style guide is really offensive—to everyone— in implying Muhammad is a deity. It's sort of appalling it's survived in this form for a month, and it really needs to be fixed. At present, it reads Deities begin with a capital letter: God, Allah, Freya, the Lord, the Supreme Being, the Messiah. The same is true when referring to Muhammad as the Prophet. . The justification for capitalizing Prophet is not that Muhammad is a diety. No one believes that Muhammad is a deity! I'm going to be bold and rephrase. - Nunh-huh 03:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The cited text doesn't claim that Messiah is a deity. To the contrary, it seems to be saying "Do this for deities, and also do it for the Prophet (who is not a diety)". It's rather specific though - maybe it should say something more like "and capitalize nouns when they are being used as a conventional name of a specific being or thing, such as the Prophet or the Sword in the Stone." Deco 03:54, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Of course it implies the deity of Muhammad, and it has been changed. - Nunh-huh 04:42, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Yes, that is not so. - Nunh-huh 09:56, 29 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Umm?  In standard Christianity, Jesus is definitely considered a deity.  However, the Messiah is not necessarily a deity.  For instance, rabinnical Judaism doesn't think that is the case.--Samuel J. Howard 10:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  Are there any other major religious non-deity figures like Mohammed who need this special capitalisation treatment? Rich   Farmbrough. 18:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Arwchive reveals "the Buddha, John the Baptist" as candidates. Rich   Farmbrough. 19:02, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Implication that Muhammad is a deity.