Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 3

message: Possibly I miscounted. My tally is six people voted for No. 2, and the other choices got four votes (myself, Benc, JamesMLane, and Filiocht).
I'm not pushing for detail, just trying to find what's least objectionable to the most people.
How about these choices, in order by length:
#Generally avoid making wholesale changes to others users' preferences.
#Try to avoid using gender-specific pronouns if you can. When they are necessary, try to avoid an impression of exclusivity.
#Many people see gender-neutral pronouns as important, but possible solutions are controversial. We do have consensus on striving for clarity, avoiding wholesale changes of other users' preferences, and considering a broad range of alternatives. 
I'll take either No. 1 or No. 3. 
Both addresse the original problem, both are based on broad areas of agreement, and I think "he" is often OK, or at least no worse than the most commonly used alternatives. - Maurreen 04:33, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  New choices? -- Second vote 

message: True or false: there has been enough discussion about gender-neutral language so that we should have a poll on what pronouns to use. 66.245.118.119 01:11, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: True or false??

message: Possibly I miscounted. My tally is six people voted for No. 2, and the other choices got four votes (myself, Benc, JamesMLane, and Filiocht).
I'm not pushing for detail, just trying to find what's least objectionable to the most people.
How about these choices, in order by length:
#Generally avoid making wholesale changes to others users' preferences.
#Try to avoid using gender-specific pronouns if you can. When they are necessary, try to avoid an impression of exclusivity.
#Many people see gender-neutral pronouns as important, but possible solutions are controversial. We do have consensus on striving for clarity, avoiding wholesale changes of other users' preferences, and considering a broad range of alternatives. 
I'll take either No. 1 or No. 3. 
Both addresse the original problem, both are based on broad areas of agreement, and I think "he" is often OK, or at least no worse than the most commonly used alternatives. - Maurreen 04:33, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  New choices? -- Second vote 

message: True or false: there has been enough discussion about gender-neutral language so that we should have a poll on what pronouns to use. 66.245.118.119 01:11, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Not just yet.  I just arrived and ask:  Why can not the people who object to the generalized singular "he" consider that the females whom this usage purportedly disrespects might better consider themselves honored by having a pronoun all their own?Sfahey 23:10, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: True or false??

message: I want to comment on the formatting of lists of inline translations of words. Compare this, from the preceding topic:
:Three French words with related meanings are maison 'house', domaine 'estate, property', and château 'castle'.
with this from the following topic on this page:
:...englisch transcription for Bulgarian (Bulgarisch), Macedonian (Mazedonisch), Russian (Russisch), Serbian  (Serbisch), and Ukrainian (Ukrainisch).
The latter--parens instead of quotes without dividing punctuation--is much easier to scan, read, comprehend than the former, and that's the form I've been changing things to as I have found them.  For example, History of the Scots language was almost unreadable until parens were used.  Elf | Talk 15:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a good idea – should be policy, although I'm not sure how often it pops up. Derrick Coetzee 02:49, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think such a policy is needed. For one thing, I doubt it's a common problem. Maurreen 04:38, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Inline lists of translated words

message: I'm sure I saw a comment a while ago that several users who can just about read Cyrillic find the italicised forms difficult (as some of the italicised forms aren't immediately obviously the same character as their non-italicised forms). Naturally, now I want to re-read it, I can't find it, nor can I find anything in the Manual of Style.
I'd like to propose that we create a policy thus:
: When transliterating Cyrillic words, the Cyrillic should not be italicised, but the Roman alphabet transliteration should be. Ideally, a translation into English should follow.
A possible addition might include a guide on how to iotised and palatised characters, such as Ч (Che), Ш (Sha), Щ (Shcha), Я (Ya) and Ё (Yo). (Personally I'd suggest a háček on the core consonant(s) — so č, š, šč — and a letter Y before a vowel — ya, yo).
Opinions? :o) — OwenBlacker 21:46, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
:There are pretty complete tables on de.wikipedia at :de:Kyrillisches Alphabet, I assume you can make sense out of the tables even when not speaking German. They give a) scientific transliteration (with ISO variants where applicable) and b) german and c) englisch transcription for Bulgarian (Bulgarisch), Macedonian (Mazedonisch), Russian (Russisch), Serbian  (Serbisch), and Ukrainian (Ukrainisch). Pjacobi 23:06, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See also http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_ru.pdf -- Pjacobi 15:15, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Transliteration]] of [[Cyrillic]] 

message: I'd like to make the proposal, consistent with a number of style guides I've read, that all Latin acronyms but especially e.g. and i.e. be avoided in articles in favour of phrases like "for example/example:" and "that is/in other words". Derrick Coetzee 01:28, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree; I think that many people editing Wikipedia of course know what they mean, but my experience with the rest of the world says that most people don't.  English is better for an English-language encyclopedia. :-)  Elf | Talk 04:32, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Latin acronyms 

message: *With quotation marks, we have no rigid rule. Some users prefer using one style (punctuation goes outside the quotation marks when quoting only part of a sentence, but inside when quoting a compete sentence), while other prefer another style (punctuation always goes inside quotation marks).
::I prefer the "rigid rule" that is presently in place, not because it is a rigid rule, but because it gives guidance to editors, that is, if the punctuation is part of the quote, quote it, if not part of the quote, don't quote it. Keep in mind, that which is frequently forgotten in these discussions, the purpose of any manual of style is consistency. This proposal will result in inconsistency and gives no guidance to editors. Contributors in general don't pay much attention to the Manual of Style so far as I can tell. This is good, because a lot of the Manual of Style is intimidating to people not accustomed to editorial markup.  	
::If I am reading correctly, this "no rigid rule" paragraph is the only part of this proposed policy that is actually new, the rest is pretty much as it already is in the Manual of Style. Ortolan88 03:24, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Have to agree.  Seems like we should just pick one system and move on.  (Also, it seems like we already have, so lets.)  Chuck 04:17, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)

text: Except for the punctuation issue (addressed above) I'm fine except for the Hawaii example.  Why are we even addressing a rare character here.  My understanding of that character, also used for other Hawaiian words, is that the preference of character use is (i) the Unicode character (there is a specific unicode character defined), (ii) opening left apostrophe, (iii) grave accent, (iv) straight apostrophe.   Straight apostrophe might be the most cross-platform, but is the least accurate.   Anyway, is this really the right way to open up the rare character can-of-worms.  There are plenty of other characters and diacritic marks we would need to address as well.  We can start a section to address such characters, but it doesn't belong with quotes.  Chuck 04:17, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see what this change would improve. Maurreen 04:33, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: New policy proposal

message: Triskaideka, I'm not clear on what you mean by "terms in common usage." 
Is this better?
:Directions and regions: 
::Directions are not capitalized. Do capitalize regions that are proper nouns, include widely known expressions such as "Southern California," and their related forms. 
::But whether a region has attained proper-noun status can be a gray area. Use an appropriate reference if needed. Use lowercase when in doubt.
Maurreen 04:34, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Draft 2?

message: I want to comment on the formatting of lists of inline translations of words. Compare this, from the preceding topic:
:Three French words with related meanings are maison 'house', domaine 'estate, property', and château 'castle'.
with this from the following topic on this page:
:...englisch transcription for Bulgarian (Bulgarisch), Macedonian (Mazedonisch), Russian (Russisch), Serbian  (Serbisch), and Ukrainian (Ukrainisch).
The latter--parens instead of quotes without dividing punctuation--is much easier to scan, read, comprehend than the former, and that's the form I've been changing things to as I have found them.  For example, History of the Scots language was almost unreadable until parens were used.  Elf | Talk 15:52, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a good idea – should be policy, although I'm not sure how often it pops up. Derrick Coetzee 02:49, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't think such a policy is needed. For one thing, I doubt it's a common problem. Maurreen 04:38, 22 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Inline lists of translated words

message: I'm sure I saw a comment a while ago that several users who can just about read Cyrillic find the italicised forms difficult (as some of the italicised forms aren't immediately obviously the same character as their non-italicised forms). Naturally, now I want to re-read it, I can't find it, nor can I find anything in the Manual of Style.
I'd like to propose that we create a policy thus:
: When transliterating Cyrillic words, the Cyrillic should not be italicised, but the Roman alphabet transliteration should be. Ideally, a translation into English should follow.
A possible addition might include a guide on how to iotised and palatised characters, such as Ч (Che), Ш (Sha), Щ (Shcha), Я (Ya) and Ё (Yo). (Personally I'd suggest a háček on the core consonant(s) — so č, š, šč — and a letter Y before a vowel — ya, yo).
Opinions? :o) — OwenBlacker 21:46, Sep 20, 2004 (UTC)
:There are pretty complete tables on de.wikipedia at :de:Kyrillisches Alphabet, I assume you can make sense out of the tables even when not speaking German. They give a) scientific transliteration (with ISO variants where applicable) and b) german and c) englisch transcription for Bulgarian (Bulgarisch), Macedonian (Mazedonisch), Russian (Russisch), Serbian  (Serbisch), and Ukrainian (Ukrainisch). Pjacobi 23:06, 20 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: See also http://www.eki.ee/wgrs/rom1_ru.pdf -- Pjacobi 15:15, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Transliteration]] of [[Cyrillic]] 

message: Because the discussion on gender neutrality for pronouns has died out, I'm going to remove the link to the discussion from the style guide. Maurreen 14:04, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Pronouns