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::Which bit of the guide exactly is at issue here? I can't see a problem. I generally avoid the jostling of parentheses and unspaced em dashes, but sometimes it can be a little difficult. Is there any need to be explicit? [[User:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">'''Tony'''</font >]] [[User talk:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">(talk)</font >]] 00:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
::Which bit of the guide exactly is at issue here? I can't see a problem. I generally avoid the jostling of parentheses and unspaced em dashes, but sometimes it can be a little difficult. Is there any need to be explicit? [[User:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">'''Tony'''</font >]] [[User talk:Tony1|<font color="darkgreen">(talk)</font >]] 00:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
:::I agree the answer is to separate them when possible. When it's not easy to separate them, though, I think MoS currently says contradictory things. It says em dashes are unspaced, and it says a space should follow a closing bracket, specifically including dashes in the scope of that statement. When would you actually leave a space between a closing bracket and a punctuation mark? Off hand I can't think of a case. [[User:Mike Christie|Mike Christie]] [[User_talk:Mike Christie|(talk)]] 00:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)
:::I agree the answer is to separate them when possible. When it's not easy to separate them, though, I think MoS currently says contradictory things. It says em dashes are unspaced, and it says a space should follow a closing bracket, specifically including dashes in the scope of that statement. When would you actually leave a space between a closing bracket and a punctuation mark? Off hand I can't think of a case. [[User:Mike Christie|Mike Christie]] [[User_talk:Mike Christie|(talk)]] 00:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

== "Parent–child" link discussion ==

Please see [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (linking)#Parent–child links]] for a discussion on discouraging a parent link when a child link is nearby. [[User:Dabomb87|Dabomb87]] ([[User talk:Dabomb87|talk]]) 05:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

Revision as of 05:06, 27 November 2010

Template:MOS/R

WikiProject iconManual of Style
WikiProject iconThis page falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style articles
Note icon
This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are subjects of debate.
Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing.
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For information on Wikipedia's approach to the establishment of new policies and guidelines, refer to WP:PROPOSAL. Additionally, guidance on how to contribute to the development and revision of Wikipedia policies of Wikipedia's policy and guideline documents is available, offering valuable insights and recommendations.

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See also
Wikipedia talk:Writing better articles
Wikipedia talk:Article titles
Wikipedia talk:Quotations
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/quotation and punctuation

RfC on Consensus

Given WP:CONLIMITED, to what extent and under what circumstances can individual WikiProjects and users customize article appearance with individual styles that deviate from site-wide style guidelines? Interested contributors are invited to participate there. --Moonriddengirl (talk)

Question on WP:PAIC

Resolved
 – Thanks for the information. Saebvn (talk) 23:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Unresolved
 – New question below; have crossref'd to Art's talk page. Saebvn (talk) 23:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Resolved
 – Moved here. Saebvn (talk) 01:52, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

One of my favorite MOS guidelines is WP:PAIC. Need some help in its uniform application. What if the ending puncutation mark isn't a comma or a period, but a parenthesis? Should the ref tag go after the closing paren or before? Saebvn (talk) 22:49, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

After. Click WP:PAIC's evil twin WP:REFPUNC, and within that click reference 5. Art LaPella (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
WP:REFPUNC. That did it. Thanks much!  Marking resolved. Saebvn (talk) 23:59, 3 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Now, it's  unresolved. Could someone take a look at Kim Jong Un, the first sentence? I moved the reference to after the parenthetical expression, and now it looks strange. The reference (note 2) is clearly intended to accompany the hanja characters. What do you think? Saebvn (talk) 23:00, 7 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You're right, it does look strange, now that I see an example. Ordinarily, parentheses surround a thought that can be omitted and still understand the main idea, and I can't explain why the Chicago Manual would recommend putting the footnote outside. My contribution here is automating the rules not making them, so what do the rest of you think? Art LaPella (talk) 01:09, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Didn't the guideline say that the ref goes before the ) if it only applies to the text between the ( and the ), and after the ) if it also applies to the text before the (? A. di M. (talk) 01:25, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe it should, but reference 5 mentioned above says: "The Chicago Manual of Style, 14th ed. 1993, Clause 15.8, p. 494 - 'The superior numerals used for note reference numbers in the text should follow any punctuation marks except the dash, which they precede. The numbers should also be placed outside closing parentheses.'" Art LaPella (talk) 01:36, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My suspicion has always been that this has more to do with visibility, readability and aesthetics than with strict logic (the reason in reverse that American unlike British typographers and editors put periods and commas within quotation-marks regardless of the logical or grammatical relationships.)[1] Wikipedia's footnotes enclosed in those little square brackets[2] look much cleaner and more visible outside parentheses. —— Shakescene (talk) 10:11, 8 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Question, A.diM. - does the guideline say that? I don't see it... Saebvn (talk) 20:46, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It doesn't now, but I seem to remember it used to (but I might be mistaken). A. di M. (talk) 22:43, 14 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Arbitrary Break: New Proposal Specifically for Kim Jong Un

As to the Kim Jong Un article, how would you all feel if I moved the note back inside the parenthesis, as it specifically relates to the hanja characters therein, and then started a thread at MOS:REFPUNC about an exception to the general "after the punctuation" rule, similar to the exception that currently exists for dashes? Perhaps an exception for notes relating to parenthetical expressions containing translations, or something to that effect? Saebvn (talk) 18:35, 15 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As of this timestamp, I've moved reference mark 2 within Kim Jong Un to inside the parentheses. Saebvn (talk) 01:33, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
As of this timestamp, I've moved this discussion to the MOS talkpage at the link below. Thanks to all who helped with this -- I think we've gotten over the immediate hump, but it's clear that there's a ton left to be resolved generally regarding REFPUNC. So, I'm closing this out as "resolved," but please see the link below. Saebvn (talk) 01:48, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

 Marking resolved. Moving here. (Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this discrete discussion. I found this very helpful. Although there's clearly more discussion to be had, this one was great. Thanks again!) Saebvn (talk) 01:52, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Images

I think, it would be appropriate to boldly warn against thoughtless JPEG usage for images. Most people are apparently ignorant of the image formats (though they can be good specialists in their areas) and by uploading drawings and other "clean" images in JPEG format waste their own work. Adding a link to WP:PIFU might help to improve the quality of illustrations. — Mikhail Ryazanov (talk) 04:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the spirit of the proposal, but I'm not sure what we could do to significantly improve things. We already have a section at Wikipedia:Image use policy#Format explaining which file formats are appropriate for various situations, and another explanation at Wikipedia:Preparing images for upload#Do not save diagrams as JPEG with an example image. I would guess that most people who upload images have already created and saved the image before they visit the image upload page, so even a big flashing warning on the upload form would probably come too late. (What's worse than saving a "clean" image as a JPEG? Converting that JPEG back to a PNG because of a box that says JPEG is inappropriate.) —Bkell (talk) 05:28, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Maybe some templates could help educate? Image page:
And something for the uploader's talk page too. — Wrapped in Grey (talk) 12:38, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Talk pages by size

Please see the new page Wikipedia:Database reports/Talk pages by size (to be updated weekly).

Perhaps this will be a motivation for greater efficiency in the use of kilobytes.
—Wavelength (talk) 21:08, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Are spaced em dashes OK in a list?

[1] [2] Art LaPella (talk) 21:19, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:ENDASH, item 2 is pretty clear: "In lists, to separate distinct information within points—for example, in articles about music albums, en dashes are used between track titles and durations, and between musicians and their instruments. In this role, en dashes are always spaced." Dabomb87 (talk) 23:06, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
No, they aren't. Use spaced en dashes, or unspaced em dashes, although the space en dashes look much better IMO. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 23:21, 24 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Agree 100%; they're big enough to be disruptive. Tony (talk) 02:00, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I also agree. Ozob (talk) 02:48, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's pretty clear they should be okay if using a list. --Monterey Bay (talk) 06:13, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
They are serving the same function that they normally serve, namely to set off some text from other text. Therefore the same rules apply, and they should be unspaced (or replaced by spaced en dashes). Ozob (talk) 16:11, 25 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Em dashes and parentheses

I just deleted the space after the closing parenthesis from this sentence:

Spent shale may contain char (some authors use the terms coke residue or semi-coke instead of char) —a carbonaceous residue formed from kerogen.

(The article is Oil shale extraction, a current FA candidate.) I deleted it on the basis of the rule that an em dash is unspaced; but now reading about the rules for brackets I wonder if it should be left as it was. (In fact, I think it should be recast to eliminate the issue, but for the sake of illustration let's let it stand.) MOS says: "An opening bracket should be preceded by a space, except in unusual cases; for example, when it is preceded by an opening quotation mark, another opening bracket, or a portion of a word" and "There should be a space after a closing bracket, except perhaps where a punctuation mark other than an apostrophe or a dash follows, and in unusual cases similar to those listed for opening brackets". The latter is a remarkably confusing formulation, but I think I would interpret it to mean that if a closing parenthesis is followed by an em dash there should be a space before the em dash. Is that the case? If so, can the wording be made clearer? Mike Christie (talk) 19:05, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Em dash is punctuation, so it should be unspaced, just liked "... instead of char), a carbonaceous ..." would. Headbomb {talk / contribs / physics / books} 19:50, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
If that's the consensus, then I think the note on closing brackets should be changed to make that explicit. The exception given for a dash seems to be in conflict with your (and my) interpretation. Mike Christie (talk) 20:19, 26 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Which bit of the guide exactly is at issue here? I can't see a problem. I generally avoid the jostling of parentheses and unspaced em dashes, but sometimes it can be a little difficult. Is there any need to be explicit? Tony (talk) 00:11, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I agree the answer is to separate them when possible. When it's not easy to separate them, though, I think MoS currently says contradictory things. It says em dashes are unspaced, and it says a space should follow a closing bracket, specifically including dashes in the scope of that statement. When would you actually leave a space between a closing bracket and a punctuation mark? Off hand I can't think of a case. Mike Christie (talk) 00:41, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (linking)#Parent–child links for a discussion on discouraging a parent link when a child link is nearby. Dabomb87 (talk) 05:06, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ This footnote is for demonstration purposes only and is not to be used in commmercial applications.
  2. ^ random footnote no. 2
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