Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section

Links in boldface

WP:BOLDTITLE kindly provides guidance what not to do:

Links should not be placed in the boldface reiteration of the title in the opening sentence of a lead:[10]

The Babe Ruth Award is given annually to the Major League Baseball (MLB) player with the best performance in the postseason. (Babe Ruth Award)

with the rationale that

some readers will miss the visual cue which is the purpose of using bold face in the first place.

which is all cool, but it does not offer a suggestion what to do instead. I stumbled upon Banana leaf and saw the just awful tautology "Banana leaves are the leaves of banana". Well, duh! So I changed it to something meaningful [1]. However, there is no easy way to conform to WP:BOLDTITLE and provide a separate wikilink to banana anywhere near the first sentence. Sure, the lead could be completely rephrased to do that, but the above limitation sounds just too rigid in the first place. I could agree with such recommendation or guideline, but it should be phrased in softer terms, like adding a "however, when there is no simple workaround..." clause, to allow the practice in certain situations. Losing the "visual cue" is certainly a lesser evil than reading prose convoluted to satisfy artificial limitations. Thoughts? No such user (talk) 12:52, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

I am not seeing that WP:BOLDTITLE requires that banana should be linked at all, let alone in the first sentence, and there are plenty more occurences in the first paragraph. It could even be argued that linking it is a case of WP:OVERLINK. If it is not overlinking the argument that "banana leaves are leaves of the banana plant" is a tautology starts to lose its force. SpinningSpark 15:44, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

Well, it could be argued, but in this case Banana is clearly the main (summary-style) article for Banana leaves; we ought to link it somehow from the lead or a hatnote. Just now I stumbled upon Geography of Quebec, which violates the guideline in the same manner, and has done so since its inception in 2003 [2].
My opinion (and I'm open to be convinced otherwise) is that violating this guideline is sometimes a lesser evil than the alternatives. Similar problem is often exhibited in articles with obvious, descriptive titles, where the definition is unnecessary (Banana leaf, Geography of France), but there is a strong inclination to link back to the main article. No such user (talk) 16:05, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

In the case of Geography of Quebec and Geography of France the solution is simple, per MOS:BOLDTITLE:

In general, if the article's exact title is absent from the first sentence, do not apply the bold style to related text that does appear:

The article's exact title (in particular the word "geography") does not appear in the lead sentence so do not bold Quebec or France, in which case the link is fine.

Perhaps the better solution for Banana leaves and the like in general is to include the link, but not the bold:

Banana leaves have a wide range of applications ...

on the grounds that the link is more useful than the bold. Actually I just noticed that this particular article is the singular Banana leaf, but the lead sentence is the plural - which means that removing the bold is the MOS-compliant solution (if the article's exact title is absent ... do not apply the bold style). Mitch Ames (talk) 12:47, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

I don't think the MOS ever intended that to apply to plurals. It is simply a grammatical necessity that the plural has a different spelling. This is the same kind of thing as captialisation. The first word of the title is capitalised, but in running text it may not be unless the title term happens to occur at the beginning of the sentence. Even though it's plural, it is still effectively the same as the title term. SpinningSpark 20:21, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

You might be correct about the intent of not applying to plurals, but the guideline does use the word "exact", not "effectively the same", and by any reasonable definition of the word exact, "banana leaf" is not exactly the same as "banana leaves". The exclusion of capitalisation can be deduced from the first two examples ("The electron ...", "The inaugural games of the Flavian Amphitheatre ...") but the same cannot be said for plurals because there is no corresponding example. If the guideline is intended to include bolding of plurals, then it should probably say so explicitly, and not use the word "exact. You may care to raise a change proposal RFC to that end, and see what the general opinion is.

Of course one might also just reword the first sentence of Banana leaf. Per WP:LEADSENTENCE we don't have to use the article title (or its plural) in the lead so: "The leaves of the banana plant have a wide range of applications because ..." (link "banana", no bold). Mitch Ames (talk) 13:40, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I think I'll just be bold and change the MoS to exclude pluralization and capitalization from "exact". This is a long-standing practice anyway, I haven't even noticed the "exact" phrasing. No such user (talk) 15:52, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

I think a better solution is to simply remove the word exact (which I have now done as editing of the page has commenced before ending the discussion). The problem here is people trying to treat the guidelines as legal regulations. The guidelines are just that, guidelines written by other editors. They all have a template at the top saying use common sense, but no one seems to read that bit. SpinningSpark 19:21, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree on all points. Nonetheless, I'd like if we can document the original issue I raised a bit better. Many people think that the lead sentence must repeat the title in boldface no matter what, and stretch and twist its wording to fit it in. We should clarify what we consider good practice. I have my own doubts about it, too (otherwise I wouldn't raise the issue). No such user (talk) 08:22, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

The 1st and 5th bullet points of WP:LEADSENTENCE say "the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text" and "the title of the article need not appear verbatim in the lead". MOS:BOLDTITLE says "If the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the opening sentence, the wording should not be distorted in an effort to include it." How much clearer do we need to make it? Mitch Ames (talk) 12:41, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I considered the option of renaming the Banana leaf article to be in the plural, to match its lead sentence, so I checked Wikipedia:Article titles which says generally the article title should be singular. Just to mess with my head, "Wikipedia:Article titles" is itself plural and starts with the singular, bolded "An article title is ..."! Mitch Ames (talk) 13:46, 29 January 2014 (UTC)

Standard lead paragraph length

With this edit (which I reverted) by Spinningspark, Spinningspark changed the longstanding part of the guideline that states "[the lead] should ideally contain no more than four paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate." Spinningspark changed it to "length should be commensurate with the size of the article and be carefully sourced as appropriate." And below on the same page, Spinningspark changed "As a general guideline—but not absolute rule—the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs." to "For a long article the lead might typically be four paragraphs—but this is not an absolute rule." Spinningspark cited Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 17#Four-paragraph lead for the changes.

Like I stated in the edit summary for my revert of Spinningspark's edit, I see no WP:Consensus that the page should have been changed in such a way. And I consider the changes problematic because this is a longstanding part of the guideline that most very experienced Wikipedians are familiar with, especially experienced WP:Good article and experienced WP:Featured article reviewers. Like Spinningspark stated in the above linked discussion, this portion of the guideline is practically set in stone. This to me means, because of its mass reach and the fact that most of the people familiar with it will not be aware of such changes made to it until much later, these changes should be something that the WP:Manual of Style editors in general decide on; in other words, a lot more people. I feel that the general WP:Manual of Style editors should be invited to this discussion. I also don't agree with the changes because I believe that we should have a standard length; the "ideally no more than four paragraphs" rule has remained strong because it usually does not take more than four paragraphs to summarize an article and we generally should not have articles that have leads exceeding that length; the last thing we need are people thinking that five or more paragraphs for the lead is generally a good thing. This portion of the guideline is not about "[f]or a long article the lead might typically be four paragraphs—but this is not an absolute rule"; it's about the lead likely being too big if it exceeds four paragraphs. Flyer22 (talk) 18:20, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed explanation Flyer22. Just because something has been established for a long time does not mean that it cannot be improved. Why do you think that more than four paragraphs is intrinsically bad? Would it be wrong to have five pargraphs in an article that was twice the length (60kB) of the largest entry in the table? Or five very short paragraphs? In the particular case that provoked this discussion an FA submission with five paragraphs was challenged in which the fifth paragraph expanded upon what was not in the article scope. This seemed to me a legitimate reason for lengthening the lead but was being prevented by an overly prescriptive guideline. As I indicated on your talk page, the original discussion was trailed at the Village Pump. Why do you think that that was inadequate? SpinningSpark 18:59, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

This is the discussion on my talk page that Spinningspark is referring to, where it is further indicated that there was no WP:Consensus for the aforementioned changes. I agree that "Just because something has been established for a long time does not mean that it cannot be improved." As for "Why do [I] think that more than four paragraphs is intrinsically bad?", I addressed that above: "it usually does not take more than four paragraphs to summarize an article," as I'm certain that the vast majority of WP:Good article and WP:Featured article reviewers would attest to. WP:Too long, didn't read (people not reading what they deem to be overly long text on Wikipedia) is a real issue, and we need to make sure that our Wikipedia leads are sufficient in length without potentially driving readers away because they are overly long. Why don't you consider why the "ideally no more than four paragraphs" rule was implemented in the first place -- that it has lasted as long as it has because it generally works for Wikipedia articles and should not be changed simply because of an encounter you had with a reviewer who interpreted the guideline too strictly? As was explained to you in the discussion I linked to in my first comment in this section, this guideline did not prevent you from the lead you desired; a reviewer who perhaps wrongly applied the guideline did. I don't believe that exceeding four paragraphs is always bad; for example, it's often needed for president articles, such as Barack Obama, and sometimes for other political articles, but even the Barack Obama WP:Featured article is currently four paragraphs. So an actual better political example exceeding four paragraphs is the WP:Good article Hillary Rodham Clinton, which is currently at five paragraphs (one could argue that five paragraphs are not needed there). But for Wikipedia articles to generally exceed four paragraphs? No, I'm not seeing it as needed. Nothing wrong with indicating in our guideline that more than four paragraphs generally is not needed.

Also, in my opinion, it generally is not good to make changes to guidelines like you did in this case and now here simply because of one bad experience you had and because you posted a complaint on the guideline's talk page and either didn't get any responses or got a few responses. You should always keep in mind that these guidelines affect the Wikipedia community as a whole and generally should have solid WP:Consensus before such significant changes are made to them. While no response can mean WP:Consensus, it often does not mean WP:Consensus; anyone who spends time at enough contentious Wikipedia articles knows that. If you wouldn't be making such changes to Wikipedia policies, I don't think you should be making them to Wikipedia guidelines either. Flyer22 (talk) 19:33, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

Well WP:BRD applies to policy and guideline pages just as much as it does to any other page. It is ridiculous to expect me to assume that there will not be a consensus because of those that did not participate in the discussion. I am not a mind reader. Your fundamental argument seems to be that a lead more than four paragraphs will make it too long. I disagree with this: firstly, splitting into more paragraphs often makes text more readable without changing the length, and secondly and consequently, number of paragraphs does not directly relate to text length. Insisting on four paragraphs could have the wholly undesirable effect of encouraging the combination of text into overly long and less digestible paragraphs; much more of a TLD case. You are wrong that I am merely "complaining" about one example. I have seen this problem before, but this time it directly affected me and I decided to do something about it.

Anyway, we clearly disagree. How do you propose we go about finding community consensus on the issue? SpinningSpark 22:56, 27 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think that "[i]t is ridiculous to expect [you] to assume that there [is not a] consensus because of those that did not participate in the discussion" (it's not like you had good, as in sufficient, participation); it is not any more ridiculous than expecting that there is WP:Consensus simply because editors, such as myself, ignored your complaints. Per WP:Consensus, WP:Consensus versions should be adhered to until new WP:Consensus is achieved. And I don't see how it was at all adequate for you to assume that new WP:Consensus had been achieved in either of the instances above, especially the "ideally no more than four paragraphs" matter; I don't see how you felt that it was a great idea to change such a longstanding guideline -- the "ideally no more than four paragraphs" aspect, except because you like the idea of an article's lead exceeding four paragraphs. If it is applying WP:BRD (testing the waters), okay then, but I still don't believe that significant changes should be made to a guideline or policy without clear-cut WP:Consensus. The guideline is not insisting on four paragraphs; it's insisting on not exceeding four paragraphs, and for very good reasons. Reasons I've already noted above. I agree that a Wikipedia lead of five short paragraphs can be fine and look nice, but I have seen Wikipedia leads with five or more short paragraphs that look a mess, and Wikipedia leads of those lengths (especially surpassing five paragraphs) generally looking like messes...very much WP:Too long, didn't read messes. I don't see anything wrong with having a length standard for leads (a general cut-off point)...especially one that has been followed for years generally without any problems; just like MOS:PARAGRAPHS makes clear that paragraphs that are too big can inhibit flow, it makes clear that paragraphs that are too small can as well.

As for proceeding, your post to the WP:Village pump about this did not work out well. So like I suggested above, I will alert the editors of WP:Manual of Style to this discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 00:43, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

I have not said I like more than four paragraphs. Actually, I think four is a helpful guide. I just don't think that that should be a fixed as a maximum. You just said yourself that you think five can sometimes work. SpinningSpark 01:03, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

The lead being no more than four paragraphs is set as a helpful guide. As has already been stated, it is not mandatory; it's a part of a guideline, after all, not a policy. And I'd essentially already expressed that five paragraphs can work when I stated, "I don't believe that exceeding four paragraphs is always bad; for example, it's often needed for president articles, such as Barack Obama, and sometimes for other political articles, but even the Barack Obama WP:Featured article is currently four paragraphs. So an actual better political example exceeding four paragraphs is the WP:Good article Hillary Rodham Clinton, which is currently at five paragraphs (one could argue that five paragraphs are not needed there). But for Wikipedia articles to generally exceed four paragraphs? No, I'm not seeing it as needed." In other words, and as I've made clear more than once now, I generally don't think that a Wikipedia lead should exceed four paragraphs. I feel that we should stay with our (general) cut-off point of four paragraphs; I don't see that guideline as broke, and therefore I don't see it as needing fixing. Flyer22 (talk) 01:19, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

Ok, if we start from "up to four paragraphs", how do we define "a paragraph"? I mean, what should be the maximum length of such a paragraph? Please, let's remember that the lead section should always be as concise as possible – that's what people read first, and decide whether to go deeper into the article or not. Also, things (including lead sections) can be messy regardles of their length. :) — Dsimic (talk | contribs) 01:09, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

• I am less concerned with the MOS change, which essentially says the same thing using different prose, than I am with the notion of restricting the lead to four paragraphs; and then, I presume, dis-favoring long paragraphs that can easily be split. What matters is that the lead adequately summarizes the body and therefor that it be commensurate in size.—John Cline (talk) 01:14, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

John Cline, and it's often been that editors have not easily judged what is adequate lead size without applying the "ideally no more than four paragraphs" standard; that standard has consistently helped leads adequately summarize articles without the lead being too small or too big; never have I seen it present itself as a problem. I've seen it help in countless WP:Good and Featured article processes, and don't think it should be changed because Spinningspark had a bad experience with a reviewer who applied it. In fact, I'll go ahead and invite editors at WP:Good article, WP:Featured article and WP:Featured article candidates to weigh in on this discussion as well. Flyer22 (talk) 01:38, 28 February 2014 (UTC)

The subset of the reviewers at Good and Featured articles who blindly apply rules without considering how well they apply to individual cases are what causes this text to be problematic. I hope the ones you bring in to this discussion are the more thoughtful ones. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:44, 28 February 2014 (UTC)