Wikipedia:Update/1/General style changes during January 2009

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  • Wikipedia:Accessibility
    • In WP:ACCESS#Links, changed "Screen readers [will stop reading the heading title when they encounter a link ...]" to "Some screen readers ..."
    • New proposal, WP:ACCESS#Resolution: "Wikipedia articles should be accessible to readers using devices with small screens, or to readers using monitors with a low resolution. The lowest resolution that it is considered possible to support without adversely affecting other users is 800x600; all articles should look acceptable at this resolution without excessive horizontal scrolling. This is sometimes an issue in articles with multiple images on both sides of the screen; although lower resolutions will tend to stretch paragraphs vertically, moving images apart in that direction, be careful not to add images or other floating content on both sides of the screen simultaneously. Large tables and images can also create problems; sometimes horizontal scrolling is unavoidable, but consider restructuring wide tables to extend vertically rather than horizontally."
    • New heading: WP:ACCESS#Block elements
    • New proposal, WP:ACCESS#Scrolling and collapsible sections: "Scrolling and collapsible sections in tables or other block elements can be useful to save space and conceal at first-sight potentially superfluous information. However, such techniques must be used with caution, as this content can become inaccessible in a number of situations. Printers and screen-readers will both output only the content that is immediately visible on the page, and these structures are more likely to exhibit undesirable behavior on certain browsers. As such, these methods should not be used in the article body. This includes reference lists, image galleries, and image captions; they especially should not be used to conceal 'spoiler' information (see Wikipedia:Spoiler). Collapsible sections are useful in navboxes and infoboxes and are widely used outside the article namespace; in these instances, care should be taken to ensure that the content will still be acessible on devices which do not support JavaScript and/or CSS."
    • New subsection, WP:ACCESS#Infoboxes, containing only a pointer to HTML breaks problem
    • WP:ACCESS#Styles and markup options was changed substantially.



  • Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words
    • Removed from lead section: "The "who?" link is used ..."
    • Added to WP:WEASEL#Examples: "It is rumored that...", "There are rumors that...", "Presumably...", "It turns out that..."
    • Removed from WP:WEASEL#Other problems: "Convoluted syntax. Weasel words require some convoluted syntax to get a point across. "A square has four sides" is a simple sentence; "Squares are widely regarded as having an even number of sides, a number that has been conjectured by experts in the field to be precisely four" wraps the key point in layers of syntactic obfuscation, leaving it to be harvested with difficulty by the reader."
    • Added Avoid speculation to See also links


  • Wikipedia:Citing sources
    • Added to WP:CITE#When to cite sources: "Since per WP:V each fact presented by an article must be concretely verifiable, at the editor's discretion it is possible and appropriate to include as many proper and correct citations as desired to affirm the statements made. However citation is only required as specified in the following list of circumstances. And whether a citation is added in a required context or at an editor's discretion it must be accurate and should comply with the rules set forth in this guideline."
    • Added to WP:CITE#Citation templates and tools: "For a comparison of footnote references using citation templates with references written freehand, see Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods."
    • Removed: "There are (at least) two families of citation templates. The {{Citation}} template is intended to provide citations for many types of sources. The other family has names of the form {{Cite xxx}} (for example, {{Cite book}} and {{Cite web}}). These two families produce different citation styles. For example, the {{Cite xxx}} family separates elements with a full stop (period), while the {{Citation}} template separates elements with a comma. Thus, these two families should not be mixed in the same article."
    • The bullet points in WP:CITE#How to present citations were changed substantially.
    • Added to WP:CITE#Footnote system: "Optionally, one may add the name attribute by using <ref name=name>details of the citation</ref>. Thereafter, the same reference may be used multiple times by adding <ref name=name/>."
    • Added to WP:CITE#Shortened footnotes: "For more detailed examples using shortened notes, including the use of links from the short notes to the full references, see Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods."



  • Wikipedia:External links
    • Added to lead section: "[Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia,] but must conform to certain formatting restrictions."
    • In WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided, changed "Affiliate or tracking links" to "Affiliate, tracking or referral links"
    • In WP:EL#Advertising and conflicts of interest, shortened "If the link is to a relevant and informative site that should otherwise be included, please consider mentioning it on the talk page and let neutral and independent Wikipedia editors decide whether to add it." to "When in doubt, you may go to the talk page and let another editor decide."
    • Removed "Note that since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links may not alter search engine rankings."



  • Wikipedia:Lead section
    • Added to lead section: "and the notability of the article's subject should be established in the first sentence of the lead"
    • The entire page was substantially edited, with material pulled in from previously transcluded pages.



  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)
    • In WP:MOSCAPS#Mixed or non-capitalization, added link to WP:MSM
    • Added: "Wikipedia does not capitalize the first letter, when, as in these cases, not doing so has become normal English usage. (Beginning article titles lower case requires the {{lowercase}} template or equivalent code.)"
    • Changed "If multiple styles have regular and established use in reliable sources, use the orthography preferred by the individual." to "Editors disagree on how often this should be done; some editors would never do it; some would always follow the personal preference of the subject."







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