Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section

Foreign language pronunciations

First it was foreign spellings, now it's foreign pronunciations. The lead sentence has turned into an unreadable dumping ground for meta-information about the title. Lead sentences like Belgium and Tunisia make me cringe. Wikipedia is supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a translation dictionary. I'd like to propose adding the following sentence to the Pronunciation section: Do not include foreign language pronunciations. Kaldari (talk) 00:16, 20 May 2015 (UTC)

• Strongest possible oppose: This is exactly the kind of information I very frequently find myself visiting an article for. If it is getting out of hand for individual articles, then fix the problem so it's not out of hand—don't break the article by pulling out this basic go-to information. Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 00:44, 20 May 2015 (UTC)
  • IPA pronunciations in foreign languages are certainly not "basic go-to information" for 99.9% of Wikipedia readers. Do you really think even 1% of readers can read IPA? Kaldari (talk) 00:01, 22 May 2015 (UTC)
    • Outside the native English speaking world? Yup! Over 800 million people speak English as a second language (who make up a very large percentage of Wikipedia readers), and a large percentage of them are familiar with IPA—they often learn IPA in school to cope with dictionaries and English class. And here I am, a native speaker, and as I said I rely on this information myself. There's a whole wide world outside of California, you know ... Curly Turkey ¡gobble! 00:32, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree. The first para of Tunisia's lead is a mess. There's all sorts of translation in foreign language scripts and pronunciation help. More than 50% of that para contains these information. Something has to be done (like a small box under the article title for these things). 117.216.147.43 (talk) 15:39, 6 June 2015 (UTC)

• Agree. Four lines of junk in Tunisia between the subject and the verb of the sentence make the actual text very difficult to read. This information should be in the article somewhere, but the first sentence is the wrong place. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:04, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
• Agree - If we, as a project, believe that the IPA pronunciation information is useful to our readers, why would we present in the way that we do? This should be moved from the lead sentence to the article's infobox, a subtitle, or to some similar graphic device on the page. Making the lead sentence unreadable is simply not a sensible presentation of this information. Frankly, it would also be sensible if we had a more traditional pronunciation guide in English in addition to IPA, so that the majority of native English-speaking readers could receive pronunciation assistance, too. But that's another issue. Dirtlawyer1 (talk) 17:48, 6 June 2015 (UTC)
• Concur with Curly Turkey: If a particular article has a messy lead, then fix that article, as I just did at Tunisia (BTW, Belgium is not problematic. If anyone can't read this, they're going to have a lot of trouble with most of Wikipedia's content.) Be bold and just get it done, don't create a bunch of drama about it. Odd, outlying cases are why WP:IAR exists. The fact that we occasionally have an instance that doesn't work too well with a general rule does not mean we throw the rule-baby out with the bathwater.

  I'd support the idea of clarifying the guideline to say something to the effect that if terminological information becomes unwieldy, it should be moved to the end of the lead paragraph, a separate paragraph in the lead, or even (for less basic, English-language information) a terminology section. We're already regularly doing this, so it would simply codify existing best practice.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:57, 13 June 2015 (UTC)

• Support. Too much clutter and difficult to understand. I would remove IPA for English too; I think most people would work out what bɛlʒik sounds like by reading Belgique. Better to offer audio in the infobox. Sarah (SV) ^(talk) 00:59, 14 June 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per Curly Turkey. -sche (talk) 03:01, 14 June 2015 (UTC)

  Btw, take a look at Old Church Slavonic, where the clutter in the lead isn't coming from foreign-language pronunciations but from IPA guides to how to pronounce the common English words "old" and "church". -sche (talk) 18:16, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

"Apart from trivial basic facts, significant information should not appear..."

"Trivial" is generally defined (in part) as "insignificant", so the above-quoted wording is a bit confusing, since it seems to say that including insignificant information is an exception to the rule that "significant information should not appear...", when logically it's simply not covered by the rule in the first place. How could the sentence be reworded? "Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although trivial basic facts [such as a subject's birth year] are acceptable." (Switching out the word "trivial" for another word would also work, like "apart from very basic facts".) -sche (talk) 18:46, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

That sentence was briefly discussed before: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 17#The wording "trivial basic facts" and "significant information". Flyer22 (talk) 18:52, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

The two other users who commented on that thread, Mitch Ames and Binksternet, suggested simply dropping "trivial". I'll do that. That solves the weirdness of the wording which I and the aforementioned commenters took issue with. It doesn't get into the issue of whether Pass-a-Method's information (mentioned in the previous thread) was "basic" or not, but that issue is hopefully moot since PAM has been blocked. (Over on Wiktionary we also blocked him, for the same reasons as Wikipedia did.) -sche (talk) 20:31, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, the deletion log for that revert shows that Moonriddengirl is the one who wiped away public verification of that WP:Diff while taking care of unrelated WP:Copyvio issues. As for Pass a Method, I am well aware of how much of a pain that editor is. He could resume using his English Wikipedia account if he wanted to, since he still is not indefinitely blocked here (new account name, but still a troublesome history associated with it). As seen here and here, my attempts to make that indefinite block happen have not yet succeeded.

And just in case Mitch Ames and Binksternet are no longer watching this page, I've gone ahead and WP:Pinged them to this section. Flyer22 (talk) 21:17, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

My stance is the same as before: the word trivial should be removed. Binksternet (talk) 21:55, 7 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with deleting trivial, but I think my original idea of replacing "apart from" with "other than", and replacing the negatives with positives, is an improvement:

Other than basic facts, significant information should only appear in the lead if it is covered in the remainder of the article.

Mitch Ames (talk) 12:00, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Two bolded entries

I take it from the instruction However, if an article is about an event involving a subject about which there is no main article, especially if the article is the target of a redirect, the subject should be in bold that in the case of WP:BIO1E, in the case where a person and an event are treated in one article, it is proper to embolden both the name of the event and the person. Unfortunately, the example presented, Death of Azaria Chamberlain, is not very illustrative, since the person and the name of the event are nearly the same (and the redirect Dingos ate my baby is almost completely irrelevant).

That is, the instruction is not clear. Does it mean "the subject should be in bold" instead of the event or does it mean in addition to the event, with the obvious proviso that if the two are almost the same text, embolden just the person.

This double bolding is commonly done in superhero articles, for the name of the hero and his alter ego.

The article I'm interested in is Kelayres massacre. The biography of Joseph James Bruno is so intertwined with the story of the crime that the only sensible option is to have one article, named for the event and with the main perpetrator a redirect. (It's possible that Bruno's subsequent escape from prison qualifies him as BIO2E, but it doesn't make a practical difference.)

At the moment only Kelayres massacre is in bold. I originally put Joseph James Bruno in bold also, but a different editor took that out.

A similar question comes up with categories. But in this case, there is an easy solution: put person-only-relevant categories on the redirect. When it comes to bolding the lede, we're stuck with just the one article. Choor monster (talk) 12:18, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Bold text for organisms

Hi, all. The section Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Organisms suggests that if an article on an organism is titled at its scientific name, both terms are bolded. However, if the article is titled at the vernacular name, only that term is bolded. This seems odd. If the terms are synonymous, why isn't the alternative title (the scientific name) also always bolded? I think what happened here is that this guideline was written to reflect common practice on animal articles; plant article usually bold both terms regardless of the title. I think it would be best if the guideline allowed for the kind of flexibility that reflects the many different kinds of lead sentences -- some articles begin with pronunciation guides in parentheses and others have a longer list of many vernacular names. In the plant articles I create, I usually write more conversationally: "Genus species, the Fooian bar, is ..." Thoughts? The least optimal outcome from my point of view would be the application of the typical animal article style onto all organism articles. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 22:46, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

It does allow for that flexiblity. The rubric is:

• Always bold the title, per normal.
• If the common name isn't the title, bold that too, since most readers are looking for that, and ignore scientific names as Graeco-Latin blather. There's nothing more complex about it.

Your example would have both terms bolded, which is what you want to do anyway. The only thing we're not doing is, at Cat: The '''domestic cat''' ('''''Felis catus''''' or '''''Felis silvestris catus''''') .... There's no need to boldface the binomials here.

That said, it would be simpler to just boldface them. No special rule to remember. I'd be in favor of such a simplification, I think, for the same reason we'd boldface purrbeast and fuzzmonster if those were genuine English alternative words for "cat". It's conventional to bold all the alt. names, within reason. But I've not cared enough about the matter to propose a change. There are probably prior consensus discussions to read at WT:MOS and WT:MOSTEXT (while it is about the lead, I'm skeptical it's been brought up here before).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:03, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• In cases where the article title is a common name, I think bolding the binomial simply adds visual clutter. Purely subjective and aesthetic, sorry I can't cite policy or MOS guidelines, but looks do matter. Similarly, I think the fewer bold elements in the lead, the better- in some articles it seems every common name ever used is shoehorned into the first sentence and bolded, something which I've never seen in printed encyclopedias. --Animalparty! (talk) 22:20, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

• I always bold the taxonomic name, as it is almost always the most unambiguous name. There is no real reason to not bold a single binomial or other taxonomic name.--Kevmin § 15:21, 23 July 2015 (UTC)

• Well, other than the clutter one just mentioned. Heh. Should address it. I'm familiar enough with binomials, I don't see them as clutter. It does seem to be the main argument (in previous discussions, not just right now) for not bolding them if they follow the common name. I don't really buy it because even if it were cluttery to a few people, users are not complaining about it, yet the botany project's been doing it since day one, consistently [though not always for the common names, which is an issue]; it's a confusing pain to have an arbitrary rule like this most editors don't know about, aren't likely to see as justified but just WP:CREEP, and often not even remember right or at all; and it's inconsistent with the practice and rationale, that was boldface all the alternative names in the lead. This can be way more names some might expect, for common species with a wide range. I.e., in many cases bolding one more name won't really have any effect on the clutter level. Our typographic boldfacing is not <strong> emphasis; it's not semantic, but simply a convention that allows readers (familiar with it, which is probably most people online at this point) to instantly pick out all the alt. names in the lead and determine if they're at the article they really want.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:36, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: Points for using the terms "purrbeast" and "fuzzmonster" in a MoS discussion! I'll go look at the links suggested to see if I can find archived discussions. I would disagree with you regarding the need to boldface the scientific name at cat, though. I'm more of the mind of Kevmin's comment above. The article cat stands as our article on both the thing plotting to kill you in your sleep domesticated animal commonly known as the cat (or "you're a kitty!") and the taxon. Ocassionally we split these articles, which is much easier with plants, into product and taxon content forks, e.g. grape and Vitis vinifera. If our advice is to bold the first mention of the article title and, if done at all, the next most commonly used name in reliable sources, that is most often the scientific name. Most plant articles I come across titled at the vernacular name bold both items, e.g. rose, tomato, strawberry, coconut, oak, pea, okra, pine, etc. It's applied inconsistently, though, probably because of this guideline. I would also disagree with Animalparty regarding aesthetics. Perhaps I'm just used to it, but I find it visually jarring when the scientific name isn't in boldface. I can't argue with the latter point that often too many terms are bolded, but the scientific name is usually the second most common term for species with a very common vernacular name (if not second, among the highest ranking). Why shouldn't such a high profile alternative name be boldface in the lead? Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 12:52, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Those are my real cats' nicknames (among others). Heh. That's a good point about the taxon vs. the organism-as-social-concept both being in the same article. I would agree that even if we didn't end up with a general rule to stop futzing over word order as an indicator of style and just boldface them all, that we should in fact boldface in this kind of combined article. But, that will basically just mean boldface them all anyway, because a) MOS says always bold common name, b) MOS says always bold the sci. name if first (which is most botany articles), c) the botany project has boldfaced all the botnany binomials even when they come second for some reason, and d) almost all articles on animals are also the taxon article. Basically the only article I can think of that wouldn't have both bolded would be Chicken, since the taxon article is separate. So, I guess that logic-traps me into being 100% in favor of just boldfacing all of them.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  13:36, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Bolding synonym on first appearance in paragraph 3

If a common synonym for a topic first appears in later paragraphs of the lead is it appropriate to bold it? Is it preferable to re-write the lead to move the synonyms higher? SPACKlick (talk) 10:10, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

SPACKlick, I take it that you are asking this per what I stated about the WP:Alternative name policy at the Domestic violence against men talk page. Flyer22 (talk) 10:31, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes, I was interested in the general principle. In the specific case I agree that there are alternate titles worth bolding but it looks very odd to have them so far down the lead. I was expecting to find something in the MOS:BOLDTITLE, MOS:LEAD or MOS:LEADALT indicating what the preferred approach was (re-wording the lead to move them to the top or bolding them further down). However I couldn't find any examples in policies, essays or guidelines outside the first sentence or first paragraph. I didn't want to Boldly attempt a solution given the current level of dispute on the page.

I didn't want to point to the specific case if avoidable because there are other arguments specific to the topic, which that would likely bring in, that don't affect the general principle.SPACKlick (talk) 13:34, 22 July 2015 (UTC)

I'd like to know as well, since two articles I've written have the same "problem": Paraceratherium, Réunion ibis FunkMonk (talk) 08:40, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I'd suggest no bold in body sections, unless that term is the title of a redirect (see WP:R#PLA). And if it is the title of a redirect, it usually should either have a dedicated section, or be moved to the lead section. Ibadibam (talk) 18:12, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I should add that the guideline I linked above also outlines specific cases where redirect titles should not be bolded, such as when the redirect title is not a synonym of the article title, and is only a minor subtopic. Ibadibam (talk) 18:19, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Ibadibam, I'm a little confused with what you mean by "body sections," unless you mean subsections. SPACKlick isn't talking about an article section; he's talking about the lead. I agree that terms shouldn't be bolded in subsections, except for in cases made clear by the Other uses section of MOS:BOLD. Flyer22 (talk) 03:44, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Advising editors to create an "Overview," "Introduction" or "Background" section

With this edit, I reverted Sm8900's creation of a passage about not creating an overly detailed lead and to instead create an "Overview," "Introduction" or "Background" section for more detailed aspects. With this edit, Ibadibam removed Sm8900's "In addition to the other considerations mentioned here, please note that the lead section should not be excessive in length. Ideally it should be one to three brief paragraphs." text, and moved Sm8900's other text lower.

I agree with Ibadibam cutting that piece and moving the other content lower. For one, the introduction of the WP:Lead guideline is clear that "[t]he lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview" and that "the lead should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view; it should ideally contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate." And the lower part of the guideline is clear that lead length depends. We don't need to be encouraging editors to create a lead that does not adequately summarize the article. I'm not sure that we should be advising editors to create an "Overview", "Introduction" or "Background" section; yes, these sections sometimes work, such as in the case of the Big Bang article (which still maintains its WP:Featured status), but the lead should be the introduction or overview, and I've seen editors create an "Overview", "Introduction" or "Background" section to make up for an inadequate lead. Even in the case of the Big Bang article, I recently questioned its lead length, and editors added on to that lead. Flyer22 (talk) 04:01, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Note: I see that Sm8900 also added an "overview" addition to the Wikipedia:How to create and manage a good lead section essay that BullRangifer created. I'm not entirely against such sections; I just think that we need to proceed with this advice with caution, per what I stated above in this section. Flyer22 (talk) 04:19, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

hm, I appreciate your input on this. I will give this some thought, and then I may write again later with some other ideas on this. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:56, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

well, I see that you said:

We don't need to be encouraging editors to create a lead that does not adequately summarize the article.

actually, once an editor takes the time to edit an article, they usually try to be complete. Most articles that I have seen can have the danger to have a lead which is too long, not one which is too short. --Sm8900 (talk) 18:59, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

That's odd. I see far more articles where the lead is much too short, sometimes even at FAC. I think it is best to work on the assumption that most readers will actually only read the lead, and probably not all of it. Johnbod (talk) 14:04, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

If you want an example of the benefits of a good overview section, then here is one good example, in my opinion. and here is another one. --Sm8900 (talk) 19:02, 28 July 2015 (UTC)

subsection break 1

Hi. I do appreciate all of your valuable input on this. Based on my last comment, I am going to restore the above-referenced text which I had added before regarding an "Overview" section. I will wait before doing so, in order to permit others to comment if anyone wishes to do so. I appreciate your help. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 13:42, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

created sub-section; feel free to reset your indents on your comments below.--Sm8900 (talk) 14:58, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I still object to you re-adding the section. This is a guideline page, and WP:Consensus should be achieved for disputed content before that content is added as part of the guideline. Flyer22 (talk) 13:46, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

We should not start pushing a 3 para limit at all, anywhere. This may work fine for smaller subjects, but is too short for others. We have a long-standing 4 para recommendation & should not start confusing the issue. Overviews can be useful, but the language used was much too emphatic. Johnbod (talk) 14:04, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

hm, ok, fair enough. well, are there any guidelines which you would feel comfortable with? what if we made it more general, and simply said that the lead should not be of inordinate length; and that if it is, then an "overview" section should be set up? would that be more acceptable? thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:58, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

I don't mind saying they "may" be a useful tactic in some cases, but talk of "should" goes too far, imo. "Context" or "background" are useful just as often. Really the lead should always be the "overview". Johnbod (talk) 17:36, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

• These sections are rarely needed, just in the most complex articles. It's often a sign that WP:SUMMARY isn't being followed. I agree with Johnbod that insufficient rather than excessive leads are far more common. This is inevitably so, because people add material to articles constantly, but very, very few of them adjust the lead to compensate if the addition was significant enough that it needs compressed mention in the summary that is the lead.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  17:28, 6 August 2015 (UTC)

hm, thanks for your ideas. I will give this some thought, and then I may post some proposals for that section. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:41, 14 August 2015 (UTC)

Redirect to subsection

Could it be that something is wrong with the redirects to specific sections of the article? WP:SEAOFBLUE, WP:FIRSTSENTENCE, redirect to the lead of the article. Only after placing the cursor behind the URL display of my browser, i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Linking#Sea_of_blue and hit enter it redirects to the section. Maybe it a local problem, so apologies if my feedback wasn't helpful. Rfassbind -talk 02:33, 7 August 2015 (UTC)

I occasionally have this issue when using Chrome. Can't reproduce with Firefox. At any rate, the redirects all appear to be configured properly so it may be a client-side issue. Ibadibam (talk) 19:04, 17 August 2015 (UTC)

Yeah, it's a Chrome/Chromium bug. I get it, too, under the same circumstances.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:32, 19 August 2015 (UTC)

Translations of topic

MOS currently reads:

If the subject of the article is closely associated with a non-English language, a single foreign language equivalent name can be included in the lead sentence, usually in parentheses.

I don't think this gives enough guidance. French history, Geography of France, French cuisine, Languages of France, and French conjugation are "closely associated" with the French language, but they are descriptive terms, not names of particular entities (like, say, the French Revolution or the Court of Cassation (France)). The MOS should clearly say that we do not translate these parenthetically in the lead as "French history (Histoire de France)", "The geography of France (Géographie de France)", "French cuisine (Cuisine de France)", "Languages of France (Langues parlées en France)", "French conjugation (Conjugaison en français)", etc.

I believe that is our established usage, but an editor has recently started translating the subjects of cuisine articles (French cuisine, Greek cuisine, etc.), so it would be good to document this in the MOS. --Macrakis (talk) 11:03, 31 August 2015 (UTC)

I agree that there should be some clarification. I've removed plenty of pointless "X of Y" translations over the years. In my view, even terms "French Revolution" can be irrelevant for translation if the foreign and English terms are exact equivalents. I believe it's only interesting to translate if the term in the "original language" is somehow completely different. This might be difficult to explain as a guideline, though.

But I believe it ought to be quite easty to establish that articles about "X history" or "Y cuisine" shouldn't be translated.

Peter ^Isotalo 13:56, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

Elements of the lead section

With this edit, GliderMaven made an addition to the Elements of the lead section. Binksternet partly reverted GliderMaven, as seen here. And so did I. The rest of GliderMaven's text is still there. I've started this discussion section in case anyone wants to discuss these aspects. Flyer22 (talk) 08:02, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

We should say that the lead image is often larger than other ones. Binksternet seems to assume that the image will always be in an infobox, which of course not always the case. Johnbod (talk) 12:34, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I think so. And "upright=" works in infoboxes, see Actions_along_the_Matanikau.GliderMaven (talk) 13:03, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

How is it that the lead image is often larger, given what is stated at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Size about the default size and generally sticking to that unless there is a good reason to increase the size? Or do we mean that people often make the lead images larger? I'll leave a note at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images about this, pointing editors to this discussion. Flyer22 (talk) 13:14, 23 September 2015 (UTC)