Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 62

message: Jguk,
I think your new first para is an improvement. I suggest you may want to continue. 
There are still 2 questions that pop up in my mind:
1. When the 1st para says "there is very little prescription here" and some section midway down says "[do not] do such-and-such", then (a) is the "do" an exception to the "very little prescription", or (b) does the "very little prescription" mean that we aren't 100 percent insisting on the "do"? 
2. A writer who really wants guidance can follow the suggestions in WP:MoS if anybody ever got around to saying anything about the style issue they want guidance on. But if nobody ever got around to saying anything about the issue, then we abandon that writer who really wants guidance -- because we don't ever have the courage (editorial, not moral) to say "hey, if you really want guidance, and we don't answer your question herein, then may we suggest [some guideline]". 
TH 18:22, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  good, please keep going 

message: The examples on this page are not precisely clear:  What should be done in the following case:
:George writes that it "gives the impression that it is actively speciating to fill the many ecological niches through its range".
Or,
:George writes that it "gives the impression that it is actively speciating to fill the many ecological niches through its range."
Is this a "fragment" or a "full sentence" that carries the meaning of the full stop?  Either way, could an example such as this be added to clarify this problem? --Spangineerws (háblame) 06:05, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I doubt we will ever get agreement on this. Nor is it really important: either should be acceptable, it's a borderline case.  - Jmabel | Talk 00:01, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Quotations 

message: When bold should be used in the articles, apart in the article title?--Panarjedde 13:37, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Almost never. Please refer to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting) for more information. --Rob Kennedy 18:53, 13 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I see that there are many discrepancies between MoS and MoS(tf). Do we want to have two articles with so much overlap and such a burden of synchronization? TH 06:27, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Yeah, that’s a problem. It’s inevitable that MOS pages will brush into each other, but they shouldn’t overlap that much. It makes it hard to resolve style questions, and it fragments discussion about policy changes. Someday, I hope to do some work toward reducing the overlap, but not now. Maybe after the semester is over. --Rob Kennedy 03:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Use of bold 

message: Thanks.100110100 02:05, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an awfully vague question. - Jmabel | Talk 00:05, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

text: What I think is meant is "when is it appropriate to use this template, and when is it not appropriate?".  I don't know of any policy myself regarding this.  FranksValli 05:45, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  What Is The Policy On {{tl|see also}}, If Any? 

message: Please read my essay on pop culture in Wikipedia and comment.  Be nice, please!  I welcome all constructive criticism. Mr Spunky Toffee 16:01, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Link: User:Mr Spunky Toffee/Popular culture in Wikipedia --Milo H Minderbinder 16:59, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Which was deleted as a "rant by indef blocked user". - Jmabel | Talk 00:07, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Essay on pop culture

message: Folks,
1. Someone made a change here, and the Edit Summary says “never start quotes on ‘is’”. 
I have never heard a rule against starting a quote with “is”. Please provide a citation. Without a citation to the contrary, I believe the writer is free to quote as much or as little as he or she wants, as long as he or she does not misrepresent the original. 
All other things being equal, a longer quote has more force, and provides more benefit to the reader, than a shorter quote. 
Suppose Arthur actually said this:
“Even they admit that the fix they’ve gotten themselves into is untenable. In my estimation it is deplorable”. 
Then it would be perfectly legitimate to write: Arthur said the situation “is deplorable”. 
And that would be better than this: Arthur said the situation is “deplorable”. Because this second example has exactly the same words but provides less information to the reader.  
2. A word is a fragment of a sentence. So it’s redundant to say “a word or sentence fragment”. 
TH 16:05, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I restored changes near "is deplorable" ... 

message: 1. The last edit summary says "better to give only one choice". No citation given for this opinion. So we need to go with the citation-supported format I just restored.
2. Also, the version I just overwrote says,
:If ... you want to stress that the emphasis is the source's and not yours, you can [etc.].
But whether the contributor wants to stress anything about the emphasis is irrelevant. The contributor is obligated to leave no misunderstanding in the reader's mind about who provided the emphasis.
3. Also, the version I just overwrote tells contributors to put [emphasis added] inside the quotes but [emphasis in original] after the quote. That would be inconsistent with no compelling reason for being so. Also, no citation given for this either. 
TH 16:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I've changed this back to the previous version. The writing should be as simple as possible, and it doesn't recommend one inside, one outside, quotes. SlimVirgin (talk) 23:21, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  I restored changes re italics in quotes 

message: I am concerned that the advice at the recently promoted to guideline page, Wikipedia:Naming conventions (acronyms) is that articles should be disambiguated as "blah (US)".  This breaks conformity of the MoS in quite a big way.  I should have brought the discussion here but foolishly I put it at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (abbreviations). (Mea culpa.) Please pop over and contribute to the discussion. Rich Farmbrough, 10:52 19  November 2006 (GMT).
: (Comment moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (abbreviations)) – flamurai (t) 11:09, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: U.S.

message: I haven't been able to find anything in the MoS on hatnotes. A year-old proposal at WP:HATNOTE might be suitable for integration into the MoS. What do people think? Is there something in the MoS already on hatnotes that I've missed? Carcharoth 15:39, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hatnotes section needed? 

message: *Use  to link to more images on Commons, wherever possible.
*Use captions to explain the relevance of the image to the article.
*In most cases the size of images should not be hardcoded.
The current image markup language is more or less this:
 
In this context, what does hardcoding mean? Thanks. - BillCJ 18:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Hardcoded probably isn’t the best way of saying it. What you’re really being told is that you shouldn’t specify the image size at all. When you do, then the image will always be presented at that size. Default image size is a reader preference (on the “Files” tab at Special:Preferences), but specifying a size as above ignores the reader’s preference. Instead, omit the image size and let the software display the image at the reader’s preferred size. --Rob Kennedy 19:16, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification requested