Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

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

Coconfused

all of Pma's edits are incoherent ("coconfused"), infelicitous ("despite this deprecation"; "can do best"), or badly styled ("emdash"); this IS the MoS

The edits in question are;

To remove wrongly from:

Hyphens are often wrongly used for disjunction in Wikipedia; this is especially common in sports scores.

This condemnation is neither justified nor likely to convince editors to go along.

To insert

Many editors prefer that a dash between spaces be a short endash; spaced emdashes are long. Conversely, a dash between spaces should be an endash so as not to be coconfused with a hyphen.

There is no consensus on the wording here; at least one editor believes there is no consensus to oppose.

And to simplify the instructions on captions to

Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely nominal groups (sentence fragments) that need not end with a period; short and unpunctuated groups can do best with no period.

If a complete sentence occurs in a caption, it and also any sentence fragments in that caption should end with a period.

These are at least as coherent, and as clear, as the edit summary above. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

No, not if you're fluent in English they're not. I'll take each bullet point in turn:

• Hyphens are often wrongly used for disjunction in Wikipedia. (MoS)

This sentence is correct in every regard, and its meaning is clear and unambiguous: It is incorrect to use hyphens for disjunction. They are often used in this incorrect fashion in Wikipedia. They should not be.

• Hyphens are often used for disjunction in Wikipedia despite this deprecation. (Pma)

This is a badly written sentence. It refers to a "deprecation" that apparently precedes the sentence ("this deprecation"), yet no such deprecation does. In addition, "despite this deprecation"—even if it were used correctly, which it is not—is an ungainly locution, especially in comparison to the concision and clarity of the word "wrongly" for which you wish to substitute it.

• Em dashes should not be spaced at Wikipedia. (MoS)

This sentence is correct in every regard. It accurately reflects the consensus recently established on this page. Its meaning is clear and unambiguous. It is phrased as plainly and concisely as possible.

• Many editors prefer that a dash between spaces be a short endash; spaced emdashes are long. Conversely, a dash between spaces should be an endash so as not to be coconfused with a hyphen. (Pma)

Where to begin? "Endash" is very bad style—for consistency with the rest of the MoS, the compound should be open ("en dash"). The hyphenated style is also acceptable ("en-dash"); "endash" is simply not a word. "Emdash" is, again, very bad style. "Coconfused" is not a word. The phrase "short endash" is confusing—the reader is invited to wonder if there are such things as long endashes. The clause "spaced emdashes are long" is entirely incoherent. Yes, I know what you mean to say—"many editors feel that spaced em dashes take up more space than is necessary or helpful"; no, that doesn't need to be said. "Conversely" is used both incorrectly and superfluously. Even if we eliminate that word and replace the nonword "coconfused" with "confused," the meaning of the sentence is less than clear; in any event, it serves no purpose, given the discussion of spaced en dashes just two paragraphs below.

• Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely nominal groups (sentence fragments) that should not end with a period. If a complete sentence occurs in a caption, that sentence and any sentence fragments in that caption should end with a period. (MoS)

These two sentences are correct in every regard. Their meaning is clear and unambiguous. Any editor who reads them will know exactly when and where periods should appear in a caption, and when and where they should not.

• Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely nominal groups (sentence fragments) that need not end with a period; short and unpunctuated groups can do best with no period. (Pma)

This is bad writing. It offers not guidance, but confusion. What is an editor to make of the observation that sentence fragments "need not end with a period"? That it doesn't matter whether they end in a period or not? And what is an editor to make of a Manual of Style that purports to guide with a phrase such as "can do best"? That clear, idiomatic English can be dispensed with in Wikipedia? That if awkward, unclear writing is acceptable on our leading style page, it must be acceptable—nay, even preferred—everywhere in the encyclopedia?

Yes, my friend, cocofused indeed are you.—DCGeist (talk) 06:07, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Pma, unless you—or someone else—shortly contests my analysis above, I'll remove the dispute tags you added to the Dashes section later today. Best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 10:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

With no party contesting the analysis of the Dashes section above, I'm removing the recently added dispute tags. At the same time, I'm going to draw back a bit from my statement concerning caption punctuation. They are certainly many respectable reference works that follow yet another style: placing a period at the end of all captions, even if they consist of nothing more than a sentence fragment. And there are still others (like, historically, the Encyclopedia Britannica) that never end a caption with a period—even in the case of multisentence captions where a period appears part of the way along. In fact our United States article, which I help maintain, follows a version of this style: most, but not nearly all, of the captions are sentence fragments; for a consistent look, no captions end in periods; to avoid what strikes at least these eyes as the oddity of a period in the middle of a caption, but not at the end, all captions are kept to no more than a single sentence. I'll hang fire for a bit and see if the MoS stabilizes with the currently phrased directive.—DCGeist (talk) 04:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Now the text reverted to:

• Captions always start with a capital letter.
• Most captions are not complete sentences, but merely nominal groups (sentence fragments) that should not end with a period. If a complete sentence occurs in a caption, that sentence and any sentence fragments in that caption should end with a period.
• Captions should not be italicized, except for words that would otherwise be italicized.
• Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text.

is both convoluted and incoherent.

The italics (added) mark portions which have nothing to do with format; they could readily be combined into a simpler sentence under usage.

There is no reason to say not italicized. Roman would be clearer.

The bullet point about fragments should be balanced with another bullet point about complete sentences.

Long sentence fragments, especially those which contain other punctuation, should probably have periods. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:33, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Sept, I did some poking around at the time of the discussion about Romanization above, and non-italic isn't the usual meaning for "roman"; it usually means "in the roman alphabet, no matter what the font". - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, on this rare occasion I agree with Anderson—roman is the term for non-italic text. My only concern is that most folk won't be familiar with the term. Maybe it needs a link if used? TONY (talk) 00:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Two different senses of roman are involved.

• OED 5. Of letters; Belonging to the modern type which most directly represents that used in ancient Roman inscriptions and manuscripts, esp. in contrast to Gothic (or black letter) and Italic.
• 6. Of the alphabet or its characters: Employed by the Romans, and (with various modifications) by all the modern nations of Western Europe and their (former) colonies.

I agree with Tony here, that roman letters is now mostly lowercase, Roman alphabet mostly capped. Perhaps roman font. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:36, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Right, I'm aware that OED gives that definition for romanize(-ise) and romanization(-sation). The problem is that in the first 3 screens of Google and Alltheweb results, there are no other dictionaries or sources that use it in that sense; they all use it in the sense of transliteration to the roman (latin) alphabet. Maybe the word roman has a different sense, but isn't there a general principle lurking around here that, since we can pick any word we want, we shouldn't pick one that is 95% likely to be misunderstood unless we force the meaning from the context? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. If I had known that it was this easy to get Sept and Tony to agree, I would have been giving lexicographic opinions all along! - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:22, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Those are the definitions of "Roman", adj¹; please try that. That romanize and italicize are asymmetrical is curious, but unimportant; the reasons are not beyond conjecture. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes I agree Sept, I was just checking in to say that I've poked around more and I'm basically fine with "roman" ... maybe it could be confused, but if the context is clear, the meaning of non-italic is fine. Romanize is another story; it looks like we're agreed on that. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

FWIW at this late date, I agree with DCGeist's analysis completely - the suggested revisions were ungainly and lost too much information - other than that we should keep "non-italic"; no one but people who are very familiar with typography know that "roman" means "non-italic", and as someone else pointed out, the word is operator-overloaded in other ways, e.g. to mean "in the Latinized alphabet as opposed to Cyrillic, etc." regardless of slant, and non-native English speakers are likely to think that it refers to the writing of ancient Rome, which was all upper-case and had no "U". — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 23:23, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Frenzy of unilateral alterations today

MOS relies on consensus for changes. I request that the user who has been making numerous changes to the page desist and raise the matters at talk first. TONY (talk) 05:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Are there any substantial changes editors need to know about at FAC? And what became of the long thread about italics in headers? I've never understood correct usage on that. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:37, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

What's at issue? Seems simple to me: Do it for titles or other things that must be italicized, do not do it for emphasis, as headings are already self-emphasizing. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Default thumb size of images

Is it fair for someone to go around removing a custom size of any image they find? They keep claiming this page states they are right, but as far as I can tell, the standard thumb size is simply the default preference, and is not a rule to be rigidly followed. Thoughts? Timeshift (talk) 00:31, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

It's a guideline and not a policy for a reason. The "don't force thumb size" rule can be ignored if there is a compelling reason. VanTucky 00:44, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I note the term "not recommended" was recently changed to "not necessary" the reasoning being that a number of FA's already have set pixel size. That’s like not making seat belts in cars mandatory because many cars don’t have them.--Merbabu (talk) 00:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

So it's not cast in stone despite some editors beliefs that it is? Excellent :-) Timeshift (talk) 00:57, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Correct - "if there is a compelling reason" it can be ignored. But, remember the guideline is there for a number of good reasons. --Merbabu (talk) 01:09, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Indeed! But thanks for shifting the goalposts, at least now you won't just be blindly removing custom image sizes without discussion first :-) Timeshift (talk) 01:16, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Incorrect - I don't "blindly remove image sizes" and I see no need to change the way I approach it. If anything the onus is on those going against the MOS to establish "compelling" grounds to do so, especially when this leads to images making certain articles look awkward for readers with smaller screens and/or higher font sizes. If you want higher image sizes for your own reading, change your preferences (which of course one can't do if pixel size is specified). --Merbabu (talk) 01:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Not at all - MOS is a guideline not a policy, and if someone (note the minority, you) has a problem with it, it is up to them to gain concensus. Thankyou :-) Timeshift (talk) 01:30, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

This is getting off the topic but if I'm the "minority" who is the "majority" - you perhaps? Again, you don't seem to understand *why* there is a preference for these image guidelines, nor specifically why your insistence on going against the guideline (without compelling reason i might add) is a problem on the Brendan Nelson page. --Merbabu (talk) 01:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

You are the only one that wants to change it. I want it kept at a larger size, and nobody has disagreed with me, and kept the status quo. Nobody agreed with you on the BL talk page. Thus, as the images are at the non-default and only you want to change it, yes, you are the minority, and by default I am the majority. I've already given my reasons for a larger size on the BL talk page. Let's get this clear - to change something from the status quo that is disputed, you need consensus. You do not have consensus. Is that clear enough for you? Have a good day :-) Timeshift (talk) 01:42, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

No, Merbabu is not the only one who thinks the wording should be changed. I happen to think that the wording should go back to "not necessary" rather than "not recommended." The reason for this is due to the infinite variety of imaging needs. It is more common, in my experience, to have varying sizes than standard ones. The variations depend on the type of image and the way the text is placed on the page. As one experienced professional editor once put it: "you have to relieve the wilderness of text." I also think that when editors have taken the time to adjust the sizes for a better visual appeal, someone should not arbitrarily change them, quoting this guideline, as happened here. Sunray (talk) 06:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree, on exactly the grounds that you state. I hereby propose that the relevant clause be changed from "specifying the size of a thumbnail image is not recommended" to "specifying the size of a thumbnail image is not necessary." This will allow the default style to remain default sizing, while cutting down on disruptive changes to articles where, as Sunray suggests, editors have thoughtfully specified image sizes to maximize aesthetic quality and thus readability and informational value.—DCGeist (talk) 06:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I support this wording. - JasonAQuest (talk) 11:54, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(deindent) I think the status quo ante is fine and should not be changed without good reason, which I do not see. Otherwise we will have articles which are tailored for one particular screen size/resolution combination by a well-meaning editor with (say) a laptop running on 800x600, which then look like ass on a larger monitor. Hardcoding thumb sizes should only be done where there is agreed to be a good reason for it. Otherwise they can safely be removed. --John (talk) 16:09, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Often our MoS drives Wikipedia best practices. Sometimes it must recognize and reflect them. John raises the concern that there are "well-meaning editors" out there making articles "look like ass" by tailoring image sizes for their own aesthetic satisfaction to the detriment of other readers. He sees no good reason to change the status quo. But there is a good reason, and there is evidence for it.

The editors who are creating our very best work here at Wikipedia, our featured articles, tend quite a bit more often than not to specify image sizes in those superior articles. I took an essentially random sample to ascertain whether this perception was supported. I looked at two rather different categories of featured articles, History and Media. I ignored lead images (for which we have a specific sizing recommendation) and articles whose main text uses only one image or none at all. I proceeded alphabetically, from the beginning of the respective lists, looking at the first ten articles in each category with multiple main text images and whether they specified sizes for them or not. Here are the results:

History

• 1981 Irish hunger strike: unsized
• Mumia Abu-Jamal: sized & unsized
• Act of Independence of Lithuania: sized
• Samuel Adams: sized
• Alcibiades: unsized
• Ike Altgens: sized
• Ancient Egypt: mostly unsized
• Anschluss: sized
• Harriet Arbuthnot: sized & unsized
• Arrest and assassination of Ngo Dinh Diem: sized & unsized

4 sized

3 mixed

3 unsized

Media

• 300 (film): sized
• Alien vs. Predator (film): sized
• Padmé Amidala: sized & unsized gallery
• Animaniacs: sized & unsized
• Aquaman (TV program): unsized
• Arrested Development (TV series): sized
• James T. Aubrey, Jr.: unsized
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: sized
• B movie: sized
• Battlefield Earth (film): sized

6 sized

2 mixed

2 unsized

I suggest that though this sample represents only a very small percentage of our featured articles, it accurately reflects the truth: the editors who do our best work here know very well how to specify image sizes in order to maximize article readability and informational value, as confirmed by some of our most demanding readers, those who pass judgment on FA candidacies. Far from making articles look like ass, specific image sizing seems to be regarded as a vital tool at Wikipedia's highest level of accomplishment.

I suggest, in conclusion, the current wording of our MoS is outdated and out of touch. Insofar as it deters some editors committed to excellence from specifying image sizes it is doing our encyclopedia a disservice. Insofar as it encourages other editors to interfere with the thoughtful sizing of images in articles undergoing development, again it does our encyclopedia a disservice. When our Manual of Style repeatedly fails to reflect the nature of our very best work, it is time to adjust the status quo here.—DCGeist (talk) 01:00, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. This issue keeps popping up, the present policy is flawed and poorly thought through. You might wish to see an earlier discussion on this issue, where I put forward some proposals. G-Man ^? 03:32, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you ever tried viewing articles with hardcoded image sizes on a very small or very large monitor? There is good reason behind the current consensus not to hardcode image sizes, and neither the existence of articles labelled as FA which are currently noncompliant with this, nor the supposed fact that "it deters some editors committed to excellence from specifying image sizes" (do you have evidence of this?) can really gainsay the fact that on anything other than the particular monitor size you are fine-tuning the image layout on, it will indeed end up looking like ass. Hence the preference for not hardcoding the image sizes, but letting signed-in users specify their own. --John (talk) 04:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Furthermore, you stated above that the images in 1981 Irish hunger strike are sized. They are not. You can maybe check the rest of your examples rather than have me do it. Obviously it hardly strengthens the appeal of the sample you have presented us with if you have made other errors. --John (talk) 04:44, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Quite right. My apologies. That leaves 15 out of the sample of 20 that employ specified sizing to some degree (10 exclusively specify image size). Only 5 do not employ specified sizing (and, in fact, one of those--Ancient Egypt--does have a couple sized images after the lede, versus about two dozen that are unsized). I regret the error, but it hardly undermines the point of the exercise. You find it convenient to dismiss the FAC process when it suits you, but the fact is that it is our well-established system for determining what qualifies as our best work. And a large percentage, perhaps most, of our best work, relies in part on specified image sizing.

John, what is your evidence for the claim that "on anything other than the particular monitor size you are fine-tuning the image layout on, it will indeed end up looking like ass"? I have provided evidence that belies that claim. If those 15 FAs cited above actually looked like ass to even a modest proportion of readers, it is difficult to imagine how they would have won FA status. I look forward to seeing what evidence you can provide. If you are unable to provide evidence to support your claims, perhaps you should consider the possibility that it is your unique viewing method, whatever it entails, that is making so many articles look like ass.—DCGeist (talk) 05:46, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Have you ever tried viewing articles with hardcoded image sizes on a very small or very large monitor? --John (talk) 06:16, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

If by "very small monitor" you mean something like an iPhone or other handheld device, no I have not. I can well imagine the issues specifically sized images would pose for such users; however, given all the other webpage issues they put up with in order to enjoy handheld surfing, I can't agree that this is a significant problem. Navigating over an outsized image on such a device strikes me as no more off-putting (and perhaps less so) than navigating over the outsized ads or blank spaces or simply unwanted content that one learns to deal with in that viewing context.

I have viewed articles with hardcoded image sizes on at least one very large monitor (browsing with Safari); those articles looked just as good to my eye as they do on my own laptop and on the other laptops and standard desktop monitors I usually work on.—DCGeist (talk) 06:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, so this subject has come up here again. So let's pick this apart:

1: The current default thumbnail size is 180 pixels width. The current default doesn't seem to limit image height, so an image can be much higher than 180 pixels. But an image which is wide but not high still only becomes 180 pixels wide and thus much lower than 180 pixels.

2: Many editors think the current default thumbnail size is too small, so they set larger sizes. I myself am one of them. Even though that I use 800×600 in screen resolution I think the current default is way too small. Back when I started reading and editing Wikipedia most images had their size manually set and I enjoyed reading articles with large enough images to actually be seen. But then some years ago some editors started using bots to remove the image width from most images. Since then I consider most images too small to actually be useful, instead I have to manually click the images to view them in a separate window. But loading the images separately is often too much trouble. Instead Wikipedia has for me more or less become a text only media with some small decorative images on the side that doesn't really serve as encyclopaedic content. That's right, if the image is so small that you can't see the thing you are supposed to see, then the image is not encyclopaedic any longer, then it is only decorative. Why should we even put effort into making nice images when they can not even be properly understood in the articles? I for one stopped doing diagrams for exactly that reason. And I know other editors who gave up on doing images too. And that is a loss for Wikipedia.

3: Those that argue for not specifying image sizes always says: "The reason you should not specify image size is so users can them self set the image size they need in their user settings." Well, let's see, from what I remember of the stats we have about 32000 page loads per edit and the average reader views about 1-4 pages per visit here. I guess that means the wast majority of readers of Wikipedia are not logged in editors but rather normal not logged in readers. Most users probably have no idea that they can log in and set their image size preference. And I bet that the wast majority of readers surf Wikipedia from normal computers, not from hand held units with mini screens. So by having too small images we destroy the experience for the wast majority of readers.

4: Now, all this might seem like an issue "set versus not set image size". But as I see it the real problem is that the default image size is too small. If the default image size were large enough then I think we might be able to reach an agreement that most images should not have the image size set. But as long as the default is way too small, then many of us will never agree to use the default. So what we really should be discussing is what default size the images should have.

5: I think the default size should be set to something that is proper for the majority of readers. That is people that surf the Wikipedia with screen resolutions between 800×600 and 1280×1024. (Actually, even 800×600 is very rare nowadays, at least based on the stats I see on other web sites where they collect such stats.) The minority of users that use hand helds are the ones who should have to learn to log in and set their default thumbnail size. At 800×600 in screen resolution the reading area of the articles are about 600 pixels wide so more than 300 pixels wide images as default would be more than half the article width. And at 1280×1024 in screen resolution then I think that most diagrams aren't readable and other images aren't enjoyable below 250 pixels in width. So I suggest the default should be somewhere between 250-300 pixels wide. And to pick a precise value: I suggest 280 pixels width as the default.

--David Göthberg (talk) 08:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I've removed "Image size is a matter of preference" for now while we discuss this; obviously it is true but it is not a good thing to put in a manual of style. We should be concerned here with adopting norms that benefit the readers; if we are unable to do so then a free-for-all emerges. We should be trying to avoid the free-for-all, not codify it. I believe this section has been stable as it is now for a while and it would be great if we could leave it that way while we discuss the matter and arrive at a consensus. I don't think I feel all that strongly about this, but I would be rather concerned if poorer users (who are probably more likely to be using a low resolution like 800x600) were to be disadvantaged in their use of this site. I remain to be convinced that letting editors hardcode images will be to our benefit. It's worth remembering that this project is intended for the readers, not the editors. --John (talk) 04:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

There seems to be consensus for something like this, John. The reason is that a small number of people were using the wording to go round removing image sizes. Unfortunately, the MoS is often misused in that way, so it's safest to stress in contentious areas that it boils down to preference. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 04:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Then I'm confused, Slim. We currently start the MoS with "The Manual of Style, often abbreviated MoS, is a style guide for users that aims to make the encyclopedia easier to read in English. One way of presenting information is often just as good as another, but consistency promotes professionalism, simplicity and greater cohesion in Wikipedia articles." How can we have consistency to promote professionalism if we have, as the very first clause, "Image size is a matter of preference"? --John (talk) 04:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Because it's one of the issues on which there are no rules. Some people prefer to use thumbs, others (I would say most) prefer to choose a size, so we should really leave it up to individual editors. This page can't list rules for everything anyway. The more it tries to, the more unpopular it becomes, which has the effect of people wanting to ignore it entirely. So it has to steer a steady course. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 04:57, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

John, perhaps a compromise would be to add something like: "If an image size is specified, editors should bear in mind that readers using smaller monitors may have difficulty reading the page if images are too large." SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 05:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I would answer that, unlike much of what is covered in the MoS, promoting consistency between articles in terms of main text image sizing does not in fact promote the conduct, aims, or qualities that characterize or mark a profession or a professional person (that's Webster's defining professionalism). Regional variations duly noted, we all speak fundamentally the same verbal language here on the English Wikipedia—that language, of course, is English. Maintaining consistency in verbal style to the degree reasonably possible does promote professionalism and other good things. But the visual language of images is so multifarious, their form and content so diverse, that consistency is a chimera, its enforcement (that "misuse" of which SlimVirgin speaks) a shackle.

I suggest again that the evidence I've adduced above shows that many of our most dedicated editors, those most committed to excellence, do serve our readers by specifying images sizes in a way that suits the particular articles and the particular images they are dealing with. As SV hints at, our MoS serves as more than a guideline to writers and editors; it serves as a raison d'être for our gnomes. Many of them do very fine work indeed. But some take the letter of our suggestions here as law, enforce it insensibly, disrupting articles and wasting the valuable time of contributors who would rather be contributing. It is my experience—and I'm guessing SV's—that this matter of image sizing is one of the main (and, as I've argued, evidently dispensable) sources of such disruption.—DCGeist (talk) 05:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, DC, you needn't explain any more what you are trying to do or why you are trying to do it. I understand it, just disagree with it. Think of the guy in rural Uganda on 800x600 for a moment here. As an editor here myself, of course I see the value in allowing editors their choice. But think of the readers and their experience; that ought to come first. Try changing your screen res down and browsing some of the example articles you mentioned earlier and I think you will see what I mean.

Slim, I do likewise understand politically the reason why you propose what you do, I'm afraid I just disagree with that too. If there are user conduct issues, there are avenues for these to be addressed. Putting what amounts to an "anything goes" clause into our MoS seems retrograde as I had understood there were good and valid reasons to allow signed-in users to set their own image sizes, and seems to devalue the whole notion of having a MoS at all. I appreciate your suggested compromise and I suppose it may be that we end up specifying numbers there. However at the moment, my issue as a user with pages formatted like that is that on my large monitor the little 125 and 200 that people choose look ridiculously small.

On procedural grounds, I disagree with you that there has been enough of a consensus here to change the long-standing status quo. Something like this, that affects many articles, especially if as you suggest there are user conduct issues as well, deserves a much wider discussion than we have had, in my opinion. I'm disappointed that you have reverted even as this discussion was ongoing. --John (talk) 05:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

John, it's inappropriate for you to suggest that I needn't explain my position any further. You, I, and SlimVirgin may be the active participants at the moment, but we are not the only people involved here. You may understand my every thought, anticipate my every argument, but this debate is open to all. It's the community as a whole we address on these project talk pages, however many people are weighing in at a given moment. It would be nice indeed if those who disagreed with us would appreciate the greater virtues of silence. A talk page, however, ill lends itself to such bliss.—DCGeist (talk) 05:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The point made by Slim is crucial, IMO. As the discussion, above, demonstrates, we have editors with very different points of view on this subject. Each has a point. However, the MoS is a guideline, not a directive. It is not something that should be enforced by editors in such a way as to overrule other editors. Does anyone disagree with this? Sunray (talk) 07:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Almost no one who ever participates in the discussion here would disagree. However, we must recognize the fact that there are certain number of editors—a number greater than trivial—who do misuse the MoS, enforcing its recommendations as law on articles that they have no other interest in or knowledge of. It is thus incumbent upon us to recognize the distinction between those stylistic matters where Wikipedia quality is best served by cross-article consistency and those where quality is better served by deferring to editorial judgment. In practice (in this less-than-ideal world), the MoS does a better job when it devotes its energies to the former matters and is humble or entirely silent on the latter.—DCGeist (talk) 08:26, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Concur with DCGeist on virtually everything. Also this "issue" of big images on tiny devices is a red herring: They already forcibly resize images that are too large; this has been true since WebTV. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:31, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

A technical question, I presume

Firstly, why, how, or where is the default size "in the overwhelming majority of browsers" set at 180px? Can it be changed? Or is this a browser, rather than a wikipedia change? Surely that would be the key. Personally, I think specifying image sizes is a solution worse than the problem of the pic sizes being a bit too small. This partly based on me being a minimalist with markup, and partly because of the flexibility of no image size specified. It would be nice if the unspecified default could be say 200 or 220px. 250 and 300 (or worse) starts to look silly.

Secondly, in the meantime, rather than say "matter of preference" with no limit, can't we find a compromise and put a limit on any specific pixel count (if we must have one). Say 220px (or less favourably 250 since it is so common). --Merbabu (talk) 14:44, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Ages ago I put forward this suggestion so I'll table it again; It seems to me that rather than setting pixels, the best solution would be to allow editors to set the proportion of the width of the article space that an image would take up (say 5% 10% 20% and so on) which would be uniform regardless of the monitor size. That would allow editors to set a page layout that would be constant regardless of the viewing device, thus solving the 'images looking different on different monitors' problem. I asked about this on the village pump and was told that it was feesible to do this, but nothing ever happened. Seem as this issue has come up again it might be time to investigate this further. Any comments? G-Man ^? 20:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This absolutely should be set as a percentage. Aside from the brain-dead date formatting, this the highest-priority fix to the MediaWiki software that I would make. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Percentages are not the solution. Just because someone has a wider screen or keeps their browser window wide, doesn't mean they want it taken up by the images. If I drag the right side of my browser to double the width on my screen, the images would quadruple in size; I'd actually see less text. Percentage-scaled images would also kill caching, since every page load would require a custom-scaled image. Even just resizing one's browser would require an image reload. All over a false assumption. Because most of the time when an editor sets a size for an image, it's to enlarge it to the appropriate threshold for readability, not because they feel it should fill more/less of the screen. That is, they're making their judgments based on absolute size, not screen percentage. - JasonAQuest (talk) 12:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

You say Just because someone has a wider screen or keeps their browser window wide, doesn't mean they want it taken up by the images. Well then, anyone who wants to set their own size for images should have that option on the user preferences, as an opt-in feature. Secondly it should IMO be a job for the editor to set image sizes and proportions, that is after all one of the major functions of an editor of any publication whether online or in print. I am not a technical person so I have no answers to your other points. However it surely cannot be beyond the collective wit of the many programmers et-al who work on the wikipedia sofware, to come up with an image formatting system which is better than the deeply flawed one we have at the moment. G-Man ^? 19:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Percentages are good for some things, but images are not one. I can think of numerous articles whose layouts could easily be wrecked by images arbitrarily resizing depending on the size of the window (infoboxes, for a start, would be broken, as would any page that has an image somewhere above another image; if both increased, they'd push each other around and cause even bigger bunching issues). I would also assume there would be some tie-in with our Fair Use policy, about how FU images can't be displayed over a certain size (I could be mistaken about that, though). Really, I don't see any actual benefit to this other than changing something for the sake of changing it... EVula // talk // ☯ // 02:05, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Having embedded images rescale themselves in response to window size changes would be a huge departure from how nearly every site on the web currently operates. Images are GIFs or JPGs or PNGs, which are fed to the browser as rectangles with fixed dimensions. If you make the window bigger, they shift around, but they don't grow. It's how the technology works, and it's what people expect. Eventually web sites will evolve to the point where scalable graphics formats are commonplace and bandwidth and local processing will be cheap enough to do it on the fly at the client, but let's let some simpler web sites with more modest processing and bandwidth requirements and a more disciplined editorial approach go there first to pave the way. - JasonAQuest (talk) 02:45, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Er, actually, it's very, very easy to scale GIFs, JPGs, and PNGs in the browser; you just use a percentage in the IMG tag's height and width values. (I'm a web developer by trade, I kinda know what I'm saying). I know for a fact I saw the effect in at least Netscape 2.0, so it's not a new feature, and wouldn't impact bandwidth or local processing.
However, you are certainly right that such an effect is very rarely seen, primarily because it looks very, very bad. EVula // talk // ☯ // 03:44, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

You say I don't see any actual benefit to this other than changing something for the sake of changing it. in fact there is a very good reason for changing it. As noted above, and in the many discussions about this issue. It is very clear that the present system of using pixels to size images is deeply flawed and utterly unsatisfactory. Hardcoding image sizes leads to the problem of images taking up different proportions of the page depending on which monitor you're viewing it on. And the surposed 'solution' to this - not hardcoding image sizes. Leads to the problems described above, that the present image size default is too small to be legible on many monitors; that the vast majority of viewers are not signed in and do not have the facillity to change their viewing preferences, and even if they did do, images are different shapes, meaning that the 'one size fits all' image size, leads to wildly different sizes. In short, I fail to see how any image sizing system could be any more flawed or worse then the one we have at the moment. I am not a technical person, but surely with the programming brains we have at our disposal, it cannot be impossible to find solutions to the problems with the proportion based system that you note above, and come up with something better then we have at the moment. G-Man ^? 19:54, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:Good Article Usage

The conflict between Sept and Tony has moved to WP:ANI; I think it would be a good idea for all of us to own up to the fact it's not just the people who are being loudest about the MoS disagreements who are the problem; we're all complicit, if we aren't dealing with the problems. I'd like to begin with two quotes from Albert Einstein: "Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler", and: "The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." This is not going to be easy; it's going to require good faith, intelligence and hard work.

It's obvious that some style practices on Wikipedia are unwritten, but commonly followed. Let's call this usage. Even though usage sometimes means rules, it has more of a flavor of the way things are actually done in a language community. But there's a trap: if we start a page where we attempt to describe a wider range of common usage than is mentioned in WP:MoS, people will change their usage to bias the outcome, and you don't need a lot of experience with Wikipedia to know that, in about two seconds, you'll have people writing articles on "bastard Slobovians" in an attempt to make "bastard Slobovians" the standard usage when referring to Slobovians. Even when attempting to describe common practices, there has to be some level, some bar, below which we're not interested in the data. When WP:Flagged Revisions comes in, we'll have new data mining tools that might conceivably be useful, but until then, the only candidate I can see for a waypoint between stubs and Featured Articles is Good Articles; anything less than a Good Article just has no mechanism to avoid manipulation by people trying to bias usage rules. As a bonus, if someone is really intent on bringing "bastard Slobovians" into common usage, so intent that they're willing to write something that might pass a WP:GAN on the subject, we can always delete the "bastard" and keep the benefit of another Good Article.

So. We have style guidelines, and we have unwritten folk wisdom, and unfortunately, these unwritten ideas vary tremendously depending on the background of the editor, the perceived level of maturity of an article, and the standards of the various wikiprojects. Put another way: there are changes that WP:Wikignomes are willing to make to articles even when the editors haven't invited comment, because they're pretty sure that they're doing the editors and the readers a favor and that the changes will be welcome, and there are changes that they won't usually make, even though WP:MoS has a particular recommendation. The first few changes I made to Robot were suggestions I read about in WP:MoS, and that turned out to be a mistake. It was immediately assumed by several of the editors that I was being officious (even though the changes weren't particularly intrusive or idiosyncratic) and that I didn't know what I was talking about; it took a lot of work to overcome that perception. I think we will do everyone a favor, and especially ourselves, if we make an attempt to describe the difference between style rules that are "best practice" and style rules that are "good enough" for the Wikipedia community. The scientific method underlies everything in Wikipedia ... hypothesis, data collection, summary, building on that ... and there's no exemption for style usage. The fact that trying to describe the whole world's usage of the English language, as reflected on Wikipedia, is impossibly hard, is no justification for the kind of behavior described in WP:BIKE.

I apologize for mentioning specific people, especially if I've got this wrong, but I think it might be helpful. In my view, Sandy has a perfectly reasonable and consistent view of Wikipedia. She knows that Wikipedia is judged, in part, according to how closely the best articles conform to some set of style guidelines. This is a shame, but anyone who reads a lot of newspapers, magazines, blogs, and books knows that we live in a sea of well-written trash. The "well-written" part is not optional, even if it is very hard to nail down. Even poorly written blogs have a hard time surviving as public discourse; a poorly written encyclopedia is a disaster.

Geometry Guy also has a perfectly reasonable and consistent view of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has been written largely by the masses. Well-paid writers (academics, journalists, politicians, etc) have, until recently, been absolutely sure that the unwashed masses would never be able to produce anything that mounted any serious challenge to their dominance of the public sphere. Well, the unwashes masses kicked their asses, on the web in general, but especially in Wikipedia. If we want to keep kicking their asses, it is essential that Wikipedia remain Wikipedia: it must accept articles which are "good enough", and rely on the mob to slowly improve them. Any style guidelines which serve as a barrier to participation should be ignored to whatever extent is necessary to get the job done.

I don't see any way to keep the marriage between these two points of view alive, and since both viewpoints are absolutely valid and correct, what's needed is a divorce. I suggest that WP:MoS be retained, maintained and improved as a tool and an expression of the former viewpoint, and a new page called WP:Good Article Usage be created in order to express, in a way "as simple as possible, but not simpler", the conclusions of people who follow the latter viewpoint. The double meaning is intentional; as I said, I think the focus on what's good enough for a Good Article is necessary, and I also mean "good" as in "not perfect". As Voltaire wrote, "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien": the best is the enemy of the good. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

(copied from my talk page: note that I'm injecting this, not G-Guy:) That's an interesting thread you started at MoS. As in any good marriage, Sandy and I have frequent rows, but rumours of a divorce have been greatly exaggerated. Unless there is something that Sandy is not telling me... :-) Good luck with the thread: you may need it! All the best, Geometry guy 18:22, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I thought of so many caveats and "what-ifs", until I gave up and decided to just field the questions as they come. I specifically picked you and Sandy because you both respect each other and are both widely respected; I am definitely not talking about a divorce between you and Sandy. I am saying that there is enormous tension these days between the two viewpoints, on talk pages and in wikiprojects. In a sense, I "feel" for Tony and Sept; they may be the loudest proponents of their views, but to some extent, they are expressing the conflict that we're all participating in. (Please note: I am not saying that either Tony or Sept, or anyone else, is either "loud" or "crazy"; if that sentence didn't make sense, please ignore it.) The bottom line is: even if it's difficult, it can't be a bad thing to try to be honest about actual Wikipedia practices, and it might bring clarity, reduce tensions, and increase the number of active editors. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:38, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes I know what you meant: my comment was light-hearted, which is why I posted it on your talk page. I highlighted the same tension myself in the thread above on dashes (and killed off the entire thread with the depth of my insight!) It is true that I lean towards a more permissive approach to MoS issues, but I see the benefits of both viewpoints. Geometry guy 18:58, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Noted. It was your comments that gave me the chutzpah to post this. Yes, I'm blaming you. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:28, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Featured Article Usage. The contention that every tittle of this page is compulsory at FA is the root of the problem. GA can approximate FA standards. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:25, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

1. How can GG and Sandy get divorced if she's married to me?
2. Anderson's crazy—either that or seriously unhinged; I am not.
3. I disagree with the bifurcation put forward by Dank55. TONY (talk) 00:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
   • No, Tony, I simply disagree with you. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:42, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, goodness, what is happening here to my marital status (I don't believe in divorce by the way). I guess I'm going to have to come back to read this jolly thread after I get through my morning watchlist. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:58, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Coming back to this now. Goodness, Dank, you start off with "Make everything as simple as possible", and then write an essay that fills up the page; keeping up with MoS becomes difficult because of the verbosity of several of the participants. I stopped by here for my twice-a-week (more or less) attempt to keep up with MoS changes, after the busy mainpage day yesterday, and find I'm being discussed and engaging in polygamy to boot. I respect all editors who work with consensus for the good of the Project and to make participation easier for editors, and that includes both of my recent new husbands, who both work well with others. As far as I can tell from a year or so of following this page, Tony1 is committed to improving the MoS and article pages, while PMA enjoys needling Tony and making pointy posts about MoS, and makes unilateral changes to MoS that result in unproductive, hard-to-follow discussions. If we are all complicit, it's because we haven't done enough to put an end to this. As far as your proposal here, to the extent I can sort out what you seem to be proposing, I don't agree. We need a coherent, stable, briefer (in terms of not repeating guidelines across many pages) Manual of Style, we need a monthly log of changes so editors can stay current, and Wiki is a large enough website that our work should conform to a Manual of Style for a professional appearance (which doesn't mean we need non-breaking hard spaces on page numbers in citations, for example, or that MoS is a law never to be broken.) G guy, what happened to the WikiProject as a vehicle for beginning to sort some of this out? Looks like it stalled and the long, unproductive discussions are still happening here? So, I've spent my MoS time allotment for the day not being apprised of any recent changes at MoS, and will probably read about something new on some FAC page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Understood, I value your time, Sandy. I will bet you 2 barnstars that you and Tony will be thanking me in a couple of months; this plan to encourage people to think about what usage is good enough for GA is going to deal with about 90% of the sentiment behind recent MoS "revolts" (really deal with it, not push it aside), and it's going to create more and better GAs and eventually more FAs. Wait, you might not thank me for increasing your work load :) Most of what I have in mind is giving myself a ton of work to do, doing the language part of as many GAs as I can, and slowly recording observations at WP:GAU. It will be a while before that page has helpful content; but it's possible that it will be immediately helpful in reducing tensions. Bear with me, please. Interested parties, see me at WT:GAU. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:23, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

You're always quick to open new pages, Dan... Perhaps a little more discussion would be better? For one thing, I don't agree with the split as well. (I shall explain the rationale after a good night's morning's sleep.)

On a more important note, I should like to ask Sandy if she wants to divorce her other two husbands and marry me. I have a huge fortune and no heir to inherit it; in exchange, Sandy, you could spend away a large part of it without any complaints from my side. What do you think? Waltham, The Duke of 05:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Dank, I'm not sure I've figured out just yet what your proposal is: can you tell me in one sentence what you're proposing? Duke, you've lost count of my husbands; one more, and I'm going to jail for life. I don't want for money; only chocolate. If I divorce them and marry you, do I get a title, like Queen for Life or something? Seriously, can't we all just get along here? If I could understand why PMA hates the MOS so much, and takes it out on Tony, maybe I'd know how to stop all the silliness. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The official title would be Duchess of Waltham, but unofficially we could use whatever you wish. And as far as chocolate is concerned, how does buying out Cadbury Schweppes sound? (I'm a chocolate lover myself, although I can't stand chocolate-flavoured ice-cream for some reason.)

Then, united, we could unlock the mysteries of the Style Curse.

PS: Waltham Hall features a huge library full of rare books. Surely that would help with some referencing work? Waltham, The Duke of 06:35, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

But I don't hate MOS; I agree entirely with SV's post about grandmothers in this section, and GGuy's examples in reply. I also agree with Sandy's post that MOS is not a law, never to be broken. The recurrent demand that MOS be binding is incompatible with this.

I wish the two (three? four?) of you all happiness together. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Dan, there have been frequent MoS revolts for years. The way to avoid them is to stress throughout that this page offers guidance, but does not mandate anything. The more detailed it is, and the more forcefully people try to apply it, the more unpopular it becomes. People get especially ruffled about being challenged on style issues, in part because they're seen as peripheral, and in part because editors get used to a certain way of doing things (punctuating, or whatever), and feel their comfort zones are being attacked if they're asked to change. For all these reasons, the key to better MoS compliance is not to force it on people. This guideline should be like a much-loved grandparent who always gives great advice, but who never offers it unless asked. :) SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 05:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I completely agree with SlimVirgin. From what I see, however, most people view the Manual of Style as the evil mother-in-law... Waltham, The Duke of 06:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree with that. Since making my post on dashes I have become more sensitive to whether they are spaced or not in articles I visit. I find that many editors prefer to space them. A much-loved grandparent might say "Unspaced em-dashes are more compact and are less likely to result in bad line breaks". The evil mother-in-law says "Em-dashes should not be spaced on Wikipedia".

Concerning Dank's proposal, I also disagree with any idea to split MoS. However, I think his proposal to examine actual style usage could be an extremely valuable contribution to consensus. For one thing, entire MoS compliance is not a good article requirement, so it would be good to know how much of the MoS is, in practice, required for good articles. For another, it would be useful to know how much of the MoS does have widespread acceptance. This could feed back useful information into the debate about how prescriptive the MoS should be, so that we can steer the guidelines towards the grandparent model. Geometry guy 09:26, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I hear the discomfort with "splitting MoS", and I obey. WP:GAU should be nothing more than a slow collection of observations about where Good Article usage differs from MoS, not a replacement for MoS. Duke, off the top of my head, I can't think of any other page I've created in the WP space, other than shortcuts and WP:STYLE1.0, which was only created after a long discussion at WP:VPP. And this is exactly the point: I participate in discussions all over the place, but before now, I have never been so sure that something is so important. I respect your judgment, as you know, and if you feel strongly that WT:GAU is a non-starter, feel free to nominate it for deletion. The more discussion this gets, the more lenses this problem is viewed through, the happier I'll be.

Sandy, I can answer your question with a very short sentence: the plan is to record unspoken truths about usage in Good Articles on Wikipedia. After a lot of data is collected, we may be able to tease important things out of the data. (If forced to make a prediction, it would be that there is usage which doesn't follow MoS and never will, because the people writing the articles are writing for the benefit of their peers and not for us; and before we simply throw all their preferences in the trash, we should attempt to see what those preferences are and what purposes they supposedly serve. If forced to make a prediction for why you're going to love me in two months, it would be that people stop expecting the FAR people to fill this need.) This will be a huge amount of work, and I will be giving WP:GAN and this project something close to 14 hours a day for quite a while. Which is sad, because I really love the conversations at for instance WT:V, but this is more important.

SlimVirgin, I like your take on it, and I've said similar things myself.

G-guy, by George, I think you've got it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:25, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, so you're proposing we look at what WP:GAs do, and base our guidelines around that ?? I can't come up with one good reason why we should look at what good articles do in any area, assuming you're referring to WP:GA? They're passed by one editor, too often a friend who returns a favor, and GA status means ... often ... nothing in terms of quality, sourcing, standards, prose, anything. Imagine if we looked at what good articles do in terms of reliable sources and did away with WP:V based on the practices set by our standards at GA? (Note: now that Ealdgyth is checking them all, we're finding how many John Smith's personal websites and blogs are showing up at FAC in articles that passed GAN.) I didn't understand what you were proposing, but this is worse than what I suspected :-)) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:56, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, Sandy, either you believe me or you don't, I'll say it again: I like MoS, I think you guys have a very good ear for how encyclopedia articles should sound, and I think FAs are essential for maintaining Wikipedia's reputation. Why would I want to change the guidelines all around when I like them just fine like they are? And if you don't like the quality of GAs, I don't see how I could do better than working on GANs. As a bonus, you'll get to blame me for a lot of them now :) (And I hope you guys will be quick to tell me anything you think I'm doing wrong.) But the other side of the coin is in my last comment under #Prescriptive versus descriptive below. Despite the fact that I support MoS, despite the fact that I will conform a lot of GANs to MoS in many ways, I am going to be very careful about changing the tone of articles, and the distinction is going to be very hard to learn. The idea is to maintain a quality standard suitable for GA, while at the same time not losing a single editor from Wikipedia by creating a perception that I'm not letting them speak in their own voice, or from demanding that they learn things that they have no intention of learning. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 05:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

(de-indent) I am sorry if I was over-generalising here, Dan, but the impression I got was that you created two new discussion forums in a single month—this tends to make one think that this is part of a general trend. After all, I've read all sorts of scientific studies on how humans are prone to see patterns everywhere, especially where none exist—List of cognitive biases makes for an extremely interesting read, by the way.

For the record, I like the new orientation of the GAU page, and it could be useful in the long run. Even though it is in the project namespace, however, it will be, at least in the beginning, a personal project, so make sure to work hard, Dan, or it simply won't go far. (You probably know that already, but I thought I'd mention it; my, erm, position gives me this privilege, after all.)

I only have one grievance with its creation: more bloody acronyms...

On the other issue, that of the Manual of Style's granparentification (more bloody terminology...), I think I also agree with Geometry Guy. I have read many, many manuals (not style manuals, but still), and adequately justifying why something is suggested is a guaranteed recipe for success, both in terms of the Manual's acceptance and in terms of how well the individual guidelines will be remembered. Hell, if it works for video games, why wouldn't it work here? (We shouldn't forget the background of half our editors, after all.)

And yes, for those who are thinking about it, I do use parentheses a lot. (Get used to it. :-p) Waltham, The Duke of 01:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the support, and your brickbats and bouquets are welcome over there at any time. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 05:00, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the WP:GAU idea is quite interesting. I just hope it does not really lead to a major conflict along the lines of "well, I'm a MOS editor, and you're a GAU editor so..." About the personal conflicts: Shite happens. We are so used to Tony and Sept/PMA gnashing at each other that no one even bothers brings up civility issues any more when they call each other names. I personally tend to agree most of the time with Tony on MOS issues. I have from time to time agreed with PMA on a few things, but I disagree with his editing style here (i.e. WP:BRD taken to its extreme) but I do not find him crazy or unintelligent. He was one of the saner and more cogent voices in the WP:ATT debates. It is easy to fly off the handle, especially in here (for whatever reason). Noetica and I really got into it a while back, up to the point of flaming the living crap out of each other in User talk. The surprising thing was that my criticisms of Noetica and Noetica's criticisms of me were nearly identical. We both just left each other alone for about a month, I think we both gave some hard thought to both the criticisms in their details and the fact that they mirrored each other, renewed conversation after this period of omphaloskepsis, and now we get along quite well. Something like that may work well for Tony and PMA. I've also felt it very, very refreshing to go into "MOS rehab" for a couple of months. As many of you will have noticed, I simply disappeared in mid-thread from all of the MOS pages a couple of months ago. I woke up one day and, still in my bathrobe, I did my usual sitting down at the keyboard to see what MOS crap I just had to deal with immediately, and then had a semi-enlightenment that this was no longer fun or even interesting, and a major source of frustration and anxiety in my life. So I just closed the browser windows and went and did something else. And kept doing other things. I now think that with some perspective and rest I can re-enter these discussions a lot more productively. Hope this idea will work for others. PS: Sandy should marry me. All the rest of you are nuts. >;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 00:47, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Reminder to put a polygamy tally on my userpage. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm perfectly happy being Third Husband, BTW. >;-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I was disappointed not to see you around here, I generally found myself agreeing with your contributions ... I've done a lot of reading since you saw me last. Welcome back! I'm delighted to hear you like the WP:GAU project. It's mainly an exercise in data gathering and civility. It is in no way intended to compete with MOS ... one MOS is enough. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:09, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Keen. Just been busy. Finishing my degree after 15 years. University is pretty hard after being away that long – I'm not attuned, as it were, to doing homework. Like, WTF? I could actually effectively teach a few of the classes I'm taking to fulfill the core curriculum graduation requirements. "Reason and Critical Thinking" (PHIL 156) anyone? Aiiieee... I've been arguing circles around the instructor. Granted, she's a virtue ethics pundit, so that is like shooting fish in a barrel if you have an anthropological background and understand that values as seemingly "core" and "simple" as "courage" or "honesty" or (gods forbid) "justice" are radically culturally variant. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Question

Resolved

 – Question answered.

Please excuse my ignorance. I am pretty sure that the answer to this question is "no", but I'll ask anyway:

Can the Manual of Style get Featured Article status?

Feel free to respond at your own accord. I really don't care, but I said it anyway. So there. Kodster (Willis) (Look what I can do) 01:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

It's not an article. (Whether it even is in sight of FA standards is what we're debating elsewhere.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:39, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to seize the opportunity to mention a historical paradox, however: Wikipedia:List of shortcuts was once a Featured List candidate.

There's not much more to say (the candidacy failed, of course), but with a little spicing-up it could make for a lovely bed-time story for Wikipe-tan. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 03:49, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

See WP:FFA; there was a brief period long ago when Wiki pages could be featured. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

A nice little corner there. I must admit that the featured content pages are very presentable; I'd like to visit them more often, but my line of work doesn't bring me very close. Waltham, The Duke of 02:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Captions

I'd like to remove that captions ought to be succinct. I personally like reading and writing longish captions that become part of the story rather than a thing removed from it, and I don't think it's the kind of thing the MoS should specify, because it's very much a matter of editorial judgment. Does anyone mind if I remove it? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 10:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I certainly don't mind, SlimVirgin. I wholeheartedly support removing the directive that captions ought to be succinct. It is certainly not grounded in an appreciation of the best available published reference literature—much of which features longish, substantive, interesting captions. Nor does it reflect much of the best work here at Wikipedia, our featured articles. I can think of several FAs right off the top of my head where editorial judgment led to the use of information-filled captions, judgment whose soundness was confirmed by our FAC vetters: Mutual Broadcasting System, Kinetoscope, Film Booking Offices of America, B movie, sound film. And, as I say, that's just off the top of my head. Go for it, SV. Best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 10:33, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think agree, captions doesn't need to be that short. So you could change the wording to perhaps: "Captions should not be overly long". But then that sentence probably becomes unnecessary and thus it is better to simply remove it. Since manuals of style should not be overly long themselves. So weak support, remove it.

--David Göthberg (talk) 10:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Hang on there; it says "succinct", not "short". I'm uneasy about removing this:

Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text.

Has this become an issue in articles? My concern is that long captions look ungainly, are harder to read than the main text, and often involve repetition of information in the main text (hence "succinct"). After all, if the image is smoothly integrated into the main text, there should be reference to it. Should there not also be a controlled balance between the amount of info in the caption and in the main text? TONY (talk) 11:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I support Tony's desire, when possible, to use one little word which perfectly captures the spirit of what we want ... that's the way to keep MoS as succinct as possible. I think what I'm hearing here is that there's no one magic word that conveys what we want to convey. I looked at the FA's in question, and I agree that someone might say, "You can't do that, it's not succinct", after reading MoS. Therefore, I support "spelling it out". - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:50, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

That is my worry about the wording, that someone will use it to make an objection. Tony, can you link to a caption that you feel is unacceptably long or repetitive so I have an idea of your concern? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 15:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm strongly opposed to changing this (in fact, the captions that DCGeist writes come to mind). Captions should remain succint, and the article shouldn't be written in the captions, creating a distraction to the reader. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:54, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The point is that it's a matter of editorial judgment, not really an issue for a style manual. Sandy, can you give an example of a caption you feel is too long, or not succinct enough? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 16:09, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I can help here. One article where Sandy specifically raised a concern about the length of the captions (that I wrote) is Mutual Broadcasting System. What is instructive here is that Sandy raised that concern in FAC. Aside from myself as nominator, 10 people engaged in the FAC—with only one participant opposed, the article was promoted, retaining narrative captions. This is just one piece of evidence from the community vetting of articles with substantive, "storytelling" captions that reveals general agreement with your position that caption design for any given article is a matter of editorial judgment.—DCGeist (talk) 17:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that these kinds of captions can be very interesting and helpful. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 17:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm fairly certain this came up in several other places (B movie comes to mind), but I'm out the door for the afternoon. And 1) yes, it is an issue for the Manual of Style and 2) giving examples where excessive captions squeaked through FAC only tells half the story, look at those that didn't as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Back quickly with one, the version of B movie that passes, and IIRC, captions were subsequently reduced at FAR. I am strongly opposed to these full paragraphs in image captions, and do not support this proposal. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:34, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I can't see how Mutual Broadcasting System squeaked through; it seemed to have a lot of support, and the version of B movie that passed also had long ones. But again, I am wondering why this would be an issue for the MoS. I think we should definitely leave this up to editors, and I would hate to think of someone failing an FA just because they thought the image captions were too long. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 17:38, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

If not MoS, where? Repeating the mantra, AFAIK, an article has never failed FAC because of MoS issues; they're guidelines, not law, hence MoS is a perfect place for this to be included. (Really out the door now.) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:41, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

How about nowhere? What is the problem that requires this to be addressed in the first place? Having "guidelines" for caption length at all strikes me as something to satisfy the obsessions of people with "control issues", not to improve the encyclopedia. - JasonAQuest (talk) 18:17, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

When Sandy returns, we can ask her, Which is it? Have articles failed FAC because of captions that transgressed MoS ("look at those that didn't as well") or not ("an article has never failed FAC because of MoS issues")? The contradiction is revealing. The fact is, if a directive appears in the MoS, it will be used against articles that don't comply, just as Sandy used it against Mutual Broadcasting System. The fact that the article won a broad consensus for promotion nonetheless ("squeaked through"—aw, Sandy, I know you meant to type "sailed through") indicates that the MoS as currently worded is out of touch. The community appears to recognize that caption length is a matter of editorial judgment specific to each article where editors strive for excellence. In many cases, the judgment will be that captions should be short; in some, that they should be longer and substantive. Our work here—in article development, maintenance, and improvement—will be made easier if the MoS reflects that fact.—DCGeist (talk) 17:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I have never seen anyone object to the length of a caption in the three and a half years I've been editing, and I've seen them in all shapes and sizes. The policies and guidelines have to be both descriptive and prescriptive, so I think it's a mistake to highlight an opinion on an issue that good editors seem to be widely ignoring, including at FA level. If anything, I'd say that longer captions tend to be an indicator of a higher quality article, simply because they're a sign that the editors care about their work.

We can easily tweak the writing here to include some reference to "succinct," but also to make clear that it's a matter of editorial judgment. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 18:01, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Happy to explain, DCGeist. Perhaps you're familiar with the Wiki concepts of consensus, guidelines and IAR? MoS is a guideline. When consensus on a particular FAC is that there are good reasons to ignore a specific guideline (for example, WP:SIZE often comes up) for a specific article, and if a good case is made for why the guideline should be overlooked for a specific case, the guideline can be ignored in interpreting whether there is consensus that the article meets WP:WIAFA. That doesn't argue that the guideline should be eliminated, or that it is globally unnecessary, or that it should be ignored in every case. I think your captions are too long and impede readability on your articles. That others disagree and that your articles pass FAC is completely consistent with the way FAC should and does work. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• Sandy's claim depends on a careful piece of phrasing; she does not classify [[1]] as having failed because of MOS issues. The nominator abandoned it; but he abandoned it when the article was strongly opposed solely on MOS issues, and no one would listen to him. I'm sure there are other cases. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

• You've brought back this one example multiple times in your rally against MoS, ignoring (again) that it also failed a second time on multiple other issues, that also went unaddressed by the nominator. Also, if you can only come up with one example every time this conversation comes up (and that example doesn't show what you say it shows anyway), it seems there's not much of a problem, considering FAC is reviewing about 120 articles per month. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:21, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Without the MOScruft, we should have gotten to substantive criticism on the first FAC, and we might not have lost the nominator. That would have been a benefit to Wikipedia, at least in efficiency. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem here might be that people are getting mixed up between captions and cutlines, perhaps because the terms are often used interchangeably. But there is a difference, and what we are talking about here are cutlines. In newspapers, a caption is a short headline, usually above the image, and the cutline is a longer description of the image or its context underneath it. For example, a cutline might be: "Prime Minister Smith said he was furious yesterday after demonstrators entered the House of Commons for the third day running, hurling bags of flour at ministers in protest at the increase in bread prices." The caption above that image might be: "White-hot debate!"

Cutlines are the next most-read item in an article (in newspapers) after the headlines, so they are important, and they need to be well-written and evocative. They should not describe what the reader can see already ("this is an example of a red house"), but should give more details (e.g. the names of people) and the backstory, if there is one. That can't be done if the cutline is expected to be as short as a caption.

They do need to be carefully worded, and crisp, because there are only a few words to make an impact. In that sense, "succinct" is correct. But "succinct" also suggests "short," which is the problem here — what is a reasonable length will depend on the image, the context, and what the editor wants to draw to the readers' attention. Therefore, saying it is a matter of editorial judgment is the best way to leave it. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 20:52, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think that's where I'm getting mixed up at least; I dislike DCG's paragraphs added under images, as they cause the reader to bounce around too much. If that much text is worth including in the article, it should be in the main body. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, well, good points, SlimVirgin, but there is a perceptible difference between the two media in question, in terms of how the attention of the readers is directed. In newspapers, readers indeed read the headlines and the cutlines the most, but this is simply because that's the first thing a reader will notice in a page, and it will help them decide whether they wish to read the article for further information. The situation with Wikipedia articles is arguably quite different—instead of scrolling up and down to see the images and read the captions, readers are rather expected to go through the lead section first (and perhaps the infobox, if one exists); for an overview of the rest of the article, there is also the table of contents. This is actually one of the foundations upon which the layout of our articles is based: the order lead section → sections → subsections → specialised articles. Captions simply don't have the same function. As I see it, our captions ought to be something between the captions and cutlines of your example; anything more is rarely necessary, as it is explained in the text, while too short a caption could be unclear, depending on the occasion. It certainly is, to an extent, a matter of editorial judgement, but we shouldn't leave it too open. Waltham, The Duke of 18:10, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggested compromise

I've posted a suggestion here and reverted myself until we discuss it.

I mention the caption/cutline confusion, but say we use "caption" here to refer to below-image text.

I've used "crisp" instead of "succinct," because the former doesn't have the connotation of "short" that the latter does. So instead of:

• "Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text."

the suggestion is:

• "When a longer description of an image is included in a caption, the writing should be crisp, because only a few words are available to make an impression. More information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text."

Thoughts? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 21:13, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Overall I prefer your version. Placing information about images (e.g. diagrams or graphs) in the main text is often confusing because (1) images get moved around by editors, (2) images are in different places depending on your screen size, etc; captions should be as long as needed to contain all the important information that is specifically relevant to the image. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:31, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

I think "in the main text" in this context means that whatever information is contained in a long caption can just as easily go into the main text, rather than "see right," referring to the image (if that's what you meant when you mentioned images being moved). It's certainly true of most information that it need not be highlighted in a caption, but I think it significantly improves an article if captions are interesting and well-written, given how closely they tend to be read. There are awards available in print journalism for good caption/cutline writing, which is a measure of their importance within a text. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 22:55, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

The point is that if the information belongs with the image, not with the main text, then it should go in the caption, even if this makes the caption lengthy. Different information fits best in different places and that should generally be the deciding factor, and keeping the caption to a good length is probably a bad reason to move information from the caption to the image page or to the main text. Christopher Parham (talk) 01:52, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

This is from an editing guide on the web [2], "Cutlines (includes image captions) should be as concise as possible, but they should not sound like telegrams or machine guns," "Be concise; be precise; don't be trite," and "Shorter is better." I don't have a problem with changing the wording, but I think the same message should be conveyed, that image captions should be as concise as possible while still presenting adequate information about the picture. Cla68 (talk) 23:27, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

"Crisp" for me is a word that is too judgmental, subject to opinion, and I think some words could be chosen from the text Cla68 provided if a change is needed. Also, in the ongoing interest of trying to trim down the MoS, I hesitate to introduce new/more terminology about cutlines and captions. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like "crisp" either; what is wrong with "succinct"? There's room for longer captions that are succinct, surely; a whole paragraph can be succinct (or verbose, the antonym given in my dictionary). Dan's examples are OK, although I'd prefer them to be shorter; what we don't want is an undisciplined approach to blowing out the length of captions for the sake of it. SV's proposed wording lacks the simplicity of the current wording, and implies by accident that shorter captions do not need to be succinct. I don't understand the phrase "because only a few words are available to make an impression". Parham's comment about the subsequent relocation of images in an article merely underlines the need to attend to the linguistic embedding of images in WP articles whether inserting them initially or relocating them. TONY (talk) 01:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Further to this, I think Dan's caption in Mutual is too discursive for a caption:

"At first, Orson Welles played the part of the Shadow
anonymously. But, as one chronicler puts it, "nothing to do
with Welles could remain a secret for very long."[20] A
predecessor in the role delivered the show's intro, with its
famous catchphrase, "Who knows what evil lurks in the
hearts of men? The Shadow knows...." According to historian
Frank Brady, Welles's "voice as the 'invisible' Shadow was
perfect." The intro, however, also called for a sinister
chuckle; Welles's effort "seemed more an adolescent giggle
than a terrifying threat."[21]"

But the way the main text around it has been written does not easily admit this information, and no one wants a disjointed parastub. What sways me that this is acceptable—although not ideal—is that he's such a good writer, and it is succinct, damn it. There's not a word wasted. So it's on the boundary of the MOS guideline, I'd say, and provides no reason to get upset. At the hands of lesser writers, however, I quail at the effect of long, undisciplined captions. I presume that is why the current wording is in MOS; I see nothing wrong with it. Slim, can you bring to our attention an example that you think might be ruled out by the current MOS guideline? TONY (talk) 01:14, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Nothing would be ruled out by reasonable people who understand what the word "succinct" means. But it does suggest "short," which gives people who want to object to long cutlines an excuse. Perhaps all that is needed is to clarify that we do not mean cutlines must be short. I also think we do need to say something about cutlines/captions, because it's at the heart of this confusion. Captions should be short, but cutlines not necessarily.

If we want to cut down on the number of words in that section, I suggest we get rid of the advice to place periods after sentences — if something is a sentence, it's obviously going to have a period at the end — and that they start with capital letters. We should also remove that most captions (meaning cutlines) are not complete sentences, because we can't know that, and ideally, cutlines should be complete sentences, except when we're just giving a name. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 01:48, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I just (in the last hour, can't remember which article though :-) put a period on a full sentence in a caption on an article at FAC or FAR; surprising how often I have to do that. Also, I don't mean to pick on this section in terms of cutting words down; we need to do it everywhere (and we can probably do it by better consolidating and rationalizing all the pages, because there is repetition all over the place). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I was just thinking how much tighter the writing is since I last looked at it carefully, though of course things can always do with tightening some more. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 02:09, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, Tony. They're appreciated. The captions in Mutual Broadcasting System are of an exceptional length—driven, as you observed, by the structure of the main text, which would not comfortably admit such content. I'd be interested to see if the captions in an article I've been working on—tone cluster—strike anyone as long; I'm thinking particularly of the captions accompanying the four images of composers. While they don't bear comparison to the more expansive MBS captions, they are longer than most captions in most articles here. (They are specifically longer than the captions in the classical music FAs I surveyed, except for Olivier Messiaen, which has several long captions accompanying score excerpts). In this case, without literally duplicating the accompanying main text, the captions summarize and, in a couple instances, amplify it a bit. Sandy, Do you look at those captions and think, "It would be better if they had nothing but the name of the composer. If there is an amplifying datum, it should be brought into the main text"? Or do captions of this size not raise a concern for you?—DCGeist (talk) 05:37, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

• Sandy's absent periods are in part a (predictable) side effect of the present phrasing: seeing periods on captions often opposed at FA, editors omit them, even where they shouldn't be. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:05, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

It seems odd to recommend simply crisp. Is there some place where articles should not be crisp? (The same may apply to succinct; is there somewhere we should loosen the belts on our prose and let it hang out?) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:07, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Largely for this reason, I support the position originally articulated by SlimVirgin, supported by David Göthberg and JasonAQuest, and supported per argumentum if not directly by Christopher Parham: the entire bullet point ("Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text") should be struck.

• All of our writing should be succinct. There is no logical reason that caption writing in Wikipedia should be particularly succinct. The clause is thus redundant.
• Tony raises the concern that "long captions look ungainly." This may be true when they accompany default-sized images. However, as SlimVirgin suggests, long captions are usually "a sign that the editors care about their work." Editors that care about their work also tend to specify image sizing, in part so that long captions do not look ungainly.
• Tony raises the concern that captions are "harder to read than the main text." I think that this is a matter entirely of personal perception. I find them easier to read than the main text because they stand out from it and accompany an eye-catching image. Though its formatting directives apply specifically to journalistic publications, the style guide referenced by Cla68 suggests that my response as a reader is more common: "Photo captions and cutlines are the most read body type in a publication. Of all the news content, only the titles of stories or headlines have higher readership than captions."
• It is possible that eliminating the clause will free a few editors to write unproductively long and undisciplined captions that they may currently feel restrained from writing. On the other hand, it is just as likely to cut down on gnomish interference with and disruption of the work of our better contributors and their exercise of sound editorial judgment. On balance, the effect should be positive—poorly conceived captions can always be improved down the line.
• Eliminating the clause may well have an additional positive effect—facilitating the assessment and improvement of caption text on the basis of clarity, felicity, and focus. Though it serves a different purpose in general, caption text of any length should be held to the same standards of writing quality as other article text. Restricting our Formatting directives to particularly relevant matters of orthography, punctuation, and type style should help us concentrate on that.

—DCGeist (talk) 18:28, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

In case it's helpful, this is from the Canadian Press style guide (their needs differ from ours, but the same principles apply):

“ [Captions] tell the reader, briefly and clearly, the basic details of the picture and tie it to the story it illustrates. Remember that photos attract even the most casual reader, so captions are probably the best-read words in the paper, after headlines. Like headlines, caption must be crisp. Like stories, they must be readable and informative, interesting and lively ... Use at least two short, snappy sentences. One long, involved sentence is boring. Stick primarily to explaining the action in the picture, but don't speculate. Watch attribution and don't let libel creep in. ”

SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 19:30, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

In place of the clause, it certainly could be helpful to direct editors to a professional quality link (or, failing that, textbook) with analogous suggestions, if one exists that addresses caption writing in reference works, rather than journalistic ones. But I'm not sure one does exist. And while some of the same principles apply in very similar ways, others do not.

In the context of a reference work like Wikipedia for instance, I believe pictures are used much more often not to illustrate an "action" or event detailed in the main text, but as vehicles for summary and/or amplification. For instance, consider the images from two sections in United States (neither of which I added to the article): United_States#Environment and United_States#Transportation (please, let's no one get into a tizzy about the lack of periods; the entire article currently uses the no-periods-at-end-of-captions style). Neither illustrates something detailed in the main text, but rather serve as amplifying content for the accompanying section—a common function here, much less so in a journalistic context.—DCGeist (talk) 20:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Those two captions look just fine; I'm unsure of their relevance to this debate, nor of why captions that summarise or amplify need to be voluminous (i.e., are ruled out by the current requirement to be "succinct"—the antonym of which is "verbose").

The argument that captions are the most-read text in WP doesn't appear relevant; I'm keen not to cater to fly-by readers to do not want to engage with the main text of our articles and who would treat them as comics; looking only at images is fine, if let's not assume that WP's key goals of NPOV and accuracy can be achieved just in images. Little children who look only at the images? Good training for their impending engagement with the text as they acquire the skills and habit of reading longer chunks of integrated text. So let's not treat images in isolation to cater for image-and-caption-only readers; smoothly integrating images into the text (and the appearance of the page) is our prime responsibility.

As I implied before, I'm greatly concerned by long, vertical slabs of caption under images; they look bad, can act as an undesirably involved diversion from the main text (and thus an integrated reading experience), and when not handled well can duplicate information in the main text.

Perhaps those who are concerned that the current wording might be an issue for the well-written, succinct, longer-than-normal caption (e.g., Dan's examples) might consider a caveat in the wording WRT to the need to consider the disadvantages of long captions under small images. But I still think the current wording covers this, is neat, and is simple. TONY (talk) 02:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't like repeating myself, so I shall refer you to my message just before this sub-section's heading: who says that images and captions function in Wikipedia as they do (or, at least, exactly as they do) in newspapers and magazines? I disagree with this view, and in my opinion all these parallels between practice in the printed media and Wikipedia are not necessarily very accurate.

Mind you, I am not referring to the journalism – reference work difference, but to the way the readers' attention is drawn by the images.

About the wording, now... Mr Geist's argument that the succinct reference is redundant makes little sense to me, considering that most editors do not seem to be especially aware that succinct writing is the most desirable thing as far as prose is concerned. One should pause and reflect; perhaps some things are considered self-evident without really being so. And, in any case, I don't think that it is to our benefit to exchange the regulation of captions with some minor "tightening" of the Manual of Style.

One thing that has not been mentioned (in this thread) is the reduced space that large captions leave for text, in the sense that, as analysed lower in this page, it is not desirable to "sandwich" text between images. Captions function like images in this respect, and are actually part of the same box; having large captions greatly increases the chance that text will end up "sandwiched". It is a matter of layout, in addition to everything else. Waltham, The Duke of 05:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

SV's version works for me. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Related Issue: Infoboxes

We need to say somewhere in MOS* that infoboxes are not independent mini-articles: Any fact mentioned in an infobox needs to also be in the main body-text of the article, and sourced there. (This also means by implication that source citations should not appear in infoboxes; footnotes appearing in them defeat their purpose of being a quick-and-easy summary.) Far, far too often, especially in sports bio and film articles, all sorts of details appear in the infobox that are no where to be found in the article's main text. This is especially problematic in that people seem loath to flag a suspicious item in an infobox with {{dubious}} or {{fact}} for fear of messing up the infobox layout. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Use of mdash

I'm confused with this. Please explain. --Efe (talk) 06:36, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

That edit replaced an html emdash with a "real" emdash; I believe it's easier on the servers, not sure. End result is the same. See WP:DASH. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 06:41, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

It is easier to understand in the edit screen, and therefore easier to edit thereafter. That should be enough to justify, not require, the change. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Calm down, Mr Anderson, it is not required by any one. :-) Waltham, The Duke of 07:59, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

(deleted first half of message to avoid repetition)

It happens all the time, although the Manual of Styles has no special preference. Waltham, The Duke of 06:44, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Ok. No worries. --Efe (talk) 05:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

WP:DASH is full of it if it is still recommending the actual dash-family characters instead of the HTML entity codes. I've already been over this before, but will rehash it again: In many fonts, the characters are completely indistinguishable to the human eye, and thus the entity codes should be used; it is the only way for any/all editors to be certain that the correct dash-family character is being used. I convert Unicode en and em dashes to the &-entity version on sight for this reason, and revert their unconversion when I catch it. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:44, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

PS: The MediaWiki developers have repeatedly stated at WP:VP/P, WP:RFC and elsewhere that "this will make it easier/harder on the servers" should never be a WP concern, because any server drain issue is a background matter that will be promptly dealt with by the paid development staff. Such an argument is generally considered utterly invalid on WP. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

No, Mr McCandlish, the Manual of Style is not recommending anything of the sort. However, I believe I should say that I disagree with you on which option is better, and that I actually do the opposite of what you do: I often change HTML dashes to their Unicode counterparts. The em dashes are readily distinguishable in most browsers, and for all the cases that dashes are not easily told apart there is this little magic button called Preview. The HTML dashes are too intrusive and make it hard to read in the edit window—this is exactly the reason why the double-comma hard-space proposal has come to be. Waltham, The Duke of 17:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Prescriptive versus descriptive

I wonder if a big part of the problem here (the cause of the various disputes) is that we need to emphasize that policies and guidelines are descriptive, not only prescriptive. That is, we should be describing here the best practices of good editors, in order to prescribe those practices to others. We should never have a situation where the page advises against things that lots of good editors do.

I wonder whether it would be worth making that explicit somewhere on the page. The guideline is being increasingly used, as others have pointed out, by wikignomes who go around undoing people's work and inserting their own preferences, using something in here to justify it, which is having the effect of bringing this page into disrepute. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 22:51, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

What an odd way of looking at it. A Manual of Style surely has to be prescriptive by its very nature. We agree best practice for things, then people refer to the agreed best practice when editing or when disputes arise. If a section comes to be seen as unhelpful, or if best practice is agreed by a decent consensus to have changed, then we change the MoS. If editors are going around changing articles to comply with best practice, surely they are to be commended for that. If editors are acting disruptively, we have AN/I, RfC etc to deal with them. If anything is likely to bring this page into disrepute it is adding caveats pointing out that adherence to the recommendations here is optional. Imagine if we brought this approach to spelling; "Proper spelling is preferred, but uf cors ol speling rools ar opshinul". Professional? I don't think so. --John (talk) 23:02, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

You appear to have misread SlimVirgin, John. She does not suggest that a manual of style, our Manual of Style, is not prescriptive by nature. She argues the need to make clear that its guidelines are also "descriptive, not only prescriptive" (emphasis added). The immediate crux of the matter is the source of those prescriptions. Some here seem to believe that the source should be solely ideals (i.e., "best practices") conceived externally and thence applied here (i.e., a priori prescriptions). But it is no less valid to examine and describe the work of our best editors here (i.e, "best practices") and use those practical observations as the source of our directives here as well (i.e, a posteriori prescriptions).—DCGeist (talk) 23:17, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree with John, disagree with a change, and wonder how we define "best editors". SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:19, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

John, it does have to be prescriptive, but it must be descriptive too. What we shouldn't have is a situation where de facto best practice is being described here as though it's not allowed. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 23:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

The prescriptions we adopt, I think, should emerge in describing best practices that are already widespread on the wiki. Prescriptions that are developed from proposals on a talk page tend to be less successful. Writing guidelines is about codifying the best practices of the wider community, not developing rules to impose on that community. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:24, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Obviously, but as Sandy said, who gets to define best practice? --John (talk) 23:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

To quote your answer above, "we" (i.e. the community) define best practice. Christopher Parham (talk) 23:31, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's so hard. We can all judge when articles are well-written and researched. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 23:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Well sure, we all do that as individuals all the time. A manual of style is how we collectively agree on standards. If we make our guidance over-prescriptive, we have problems, but there are problems too with a laissez-faire approach. I think there are more potential problems in saying (here of all places) that anything goes than with adopting an approach that standardises best practice, which is what we are supposed to be about here. --John (talk) 23:40, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that it's a question of balance. We need to make sure the guideline doesn't go too far in either direction. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 23:47, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

We could decide to describe, and prescribe, best practices. However, the manual of style for a particular publication has the option of arbitrarily select one practice from several equally good practices, just for the sake of consistency. I don't think there is much hope of making that stick on Wikipedia, but it is an option that some readers of a manual of style might expect. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 00:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Where we don't have a hope of making things stick (among good editors), we shouldn't try. Most organizations that have a stylebook have paid employees who are told that this is how things are done, or else, but that doesn't apply here. What we do here is look to see what good editors are actually doing, which means that guidelines are subject to (slow) change, as best practice changes. We need to preserve that dynamic, or the guidelines make themselves irrelevant. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 00:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

SV, I see little difference between the motivation for a degree of stylistic cohesion in what could easily turn into a jungle of a project, and the motivation of paid writers to abide by their organisation's style guidelines. Both types of writer strive for professional standards; the goal of professional standards is ensconced in our FA criteria and elsewhere.

Saying that we should just give up if we believe that things won't "stick" among editors would have stymied much of our effort to improve the standards of writing and formatting on WP since the beginning. It's hard to make the habit of crisp prose "stick" among users, but that doesn't stop us trying; it's hard to stop people writing "obviously" and "note that ...", but that's no reason to exclude the guideline from MOS. TONY (talk) 02:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Please phrase this carefully; this comes close to saying that we should enforce MOS on the mass of editors when they actively disagree, which would be contrary to policy.

• Editor: "So, you don't care what Wikipedians think?"
• Mos: No.

Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• I did phrase it carefully. This is more AndersonCruft (your turn of phrase, I'm afraid) as part of your agenda to downgrade the status and function of style guides on WP. TONY (talk) 02:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
  • On the contrary, it is policy that the consensus of editors should prevail. If we don't have a hope of persuading them to accept some change, however passively, there is consensus against that change, and this page should not prescribe it. Comments from third parties are welcome. Septentrionalis PMAnderson
    • That sounds like circular logic and a rather dangerous and confused point of view, if you don't mind me saying so. --John (talk) 03:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
      • Of course I mind your saying so, but not very much. Other editors have said worse, but anything you feel it necessary to apologize for in advance is probably contrary to WP:CIVIL. However, it may be worth it to get straight answers to a couple of questions.
      • Dangerous? To what? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
      • Circular logic requires a circle. Rereading my post I see a straight line. Where's the circle? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:59, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

1. Let G be a style decision that we have no hope of persuading the bulk of good editors to comply with. (This is SV's hypothesis).
2. If most of that bulk were truly neutral towards G, we would have a hope; we could call a discussion and persuade the editors who showed up, and they would persuade others.
3. Therefore, as the contrapositive, since we have no hope of persuading the bulk to comply with G, most of them are at least passively opposed to G, and will remain so (digging in their heels, if necessary).
4. By WP:CONSENSUS, which is policy, Wikipedia should not do G if a large number of good editors are opposed to it.
5. MOS, which is a guideline, should not issue guidance opposed to policy.
6. MOS should not demand G.

That's my argument. Whatever its flaws, it's a line from 1 to 6. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:10, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Sept. Forgive my lack of faith, but I wasn't entirely sure where you were really coming from in some of your arguments; this is clear and reasonable. You know that the FA people will respond, "You don't have a case, because even if MoS demands something, we are demanding nothing. If people don't want to try for FA, that's their business." But of course, John's hypothetical roaming wikignomes could conceivably cause this problem that you're talking about, that a minority has been allowed to dictate to the masses, which is not the Wiki way, regardless of the perceived benefits. Your argument lacks just one thing: carefully collected data, to show that people actually are being offended, that articles are actually being forced to comply with MoS in opposition to the will of the masses. What do you have along those lines? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

This is the minor premise: if, hypothetically, there were a style point about which we had no hope of persuading most editors , MOS is obligated not to require it. You want the major premise: X, Y and Z are such style points. We need both, one at a time. Until the minor premise is granted, there is no basis for the conclusion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I must say: the discussions on this page would be a gold mine for any psychology student. The transparent hubris, the desperate neediness to control others through the perceived authority of this page, the petty interpersonal bickering over trivialities... It's utterly unwiki in its haughty contempt for the wisdom of the crowds and baffling in its disregard for civility. It'd be funny if it weren't so pathetic. -66.93.200.101 (talk) 04:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I hope the things I've been talking about aren't seen as support for this kind of drive-by psychoanalysis; I think we're past this. It's unfortunate, but the better the writing in Featured Articles in particular, the more seriously Wikipedia will be taken. And, like it or not, Tony and all the FA people have a very good ear for what an encyclopedia is supposed to sound like. On the other hand, I'm hazy on exactly what John and Tony are saying here, could I get a clarification? Are we agreed that we're in deep trouble if the only editors left on Wikipedia are the ones who already write in the style of Featured Articles, or don't mind at all if people drop by at any time and change their writing so that it doesn't sound at all like them, and instead sounds like the FA people? We won't even keep up with the vandals if those are the only people left on Wikipedia, much less get anything new written. Most editors want their writing to sound like it came from them, and I am pretty sure that the majority of writers on Wikipedia are not trying to conform to our guidelines, they're trying to put up with our guidelines, while they write things that impress their colleagues, family and friends. So, John, when you say it's a good thing whenever a wikignome conforms an article to WP:MoS, you're talking about things that are relatively inoffensive, and wouldn't tend to put off editors ... punctuation, wikification ... not changes in the tone of the article, right? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Dan, that's correct. I am talking about things like image policy, date formatting, flag use, capitalisation; I've seen far more wars break out over silly minor formatting issues when MoS was vague. For the sort of people who care about this kind of thing, it helps if things are nailed down; it certainly helps to have a stable and well-written MoS to refer people to if arguments break out. Like all guidelines and policy though, it destabilises them and reduces their credibility if they are changing from week to week. I am emphatically not talking about article content or writing style though, more the formatting issues. --John (talk) 04:38, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

(to PMAnderson, got edit-conflicted) Thanks, that is a very clear outline of your argument. Here are the points that I think your argument fails on.

As a few people have asked, who gets to define who the "good" editors are in line 1? "Good" as in good-faith, non-vandalistic editors? Or some other meaning?

• It's Slim Virgin's word; I would say good-faith, non-vandalistic, experienced editors. The opinion of trolls, newbies and vandals will be discounted, so it's the same consensus. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

In line 3, it is only your contention that we have "no hope of persuading the bulk to comply". I find this defeatist and potentially dangerous. Imagine if we took this approach to civility, or to spelling, or to copyright. We don't though, because as a community we care about the quality and professionalism of our end product. We know there is no deadline, but we advance in small increments towards perfection, knowing that we will probably never reach it. Knowing this, we nevertheless draft, write and discuss policies, guidelines and so on. We do it knowing that enforcement can be lax; in many ways we are a very tolerant community. What we don't do is retreat from consensual ideas because they seem unattainable.

• No, that's the hypothesis, from line 1.

In line 4, it is only your contention that there is a consensus to do what you are proposing. If I saw an actual demonstrable consensus obviously my view would change on this one.

• No, line three shows that there is a large body of editors who oppose G; therefore there is no consensus to do it. None of my argument asserts a consensus to do anything. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

In line 5, there is no question that MOS could ever issue guidance opposed to policy. It doesn't, it hasn't, and it couldn't. Policies trump guidelines.

This is a very curious verbal distinction. It is manifestly physically possible for this page to say almost anything; some things it could say would not be valid. But if you prefer that sense of cannot, read lines 5 and 6 as "MOS cannot do..." and the argument still flows and gets to the same place. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

So, as I say, poor logic in that it is based on many untested or unproven assertions. Perhaps "circular logic" was not the right term. Perhaps "subjective and seemingly flawed" or "unsupported by any evidence" was what I was looking for. If you care about the quality and professionalism of the encyclopedia I urge you to reconsider further watering down the advice we give here. --John (talk) 04:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I trust these notes will clarify. This is a purely hypothetical argument: I made one hypothesis, and asserted nothing. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

And I'm sorry to blether on even more, but I have to say I am not as absolutist as reading the above may make me sound. Of course I recognise that on many things, the MoS trails usage rather than trailblazes it. That, of course, is as it should be. I just think that we need to have firm and stable guidelines and that this will circumvent more problems than it will create.

Problematic editor behaviour and disputes can be dealt with in well-established ways, and all guidelines should always be applied with a sense of humour and an eye for the possible exception. IAR exists, most editors are aware of it and know how to use it, and we should not remind them of it unnecessarily as the wise know that guidelines are there for a reason, and IAR is to be used with extreme caution. --John (talk) 04:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Professionalism?

For Wikipedia, professionalism is clarity, accuracy, neutrality, verifiability. MoS has nothing to do with three of these; it is one of many factors which could contribute to clarity.

But does it? What has this page been arguing about?

• Whether we should use ten or 10 (unless any of a dozen other factors intervene).
• Whether to have spaces on either end of emdashes.
• Whether to have periods at the end of certain complex captions.
• How and whether to use the large quotes in {{cquote}}.

and so on ad nauseam. All these have one thing in common: they have nothing to do with clarity, or anything else actually of value to the encyclopedia. Many of them will never be noticed. These are the "firm, stable guidelines" which will bring us to "professionalism"; these are the things we grade articles on. May Jimbo forgive us. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Clarity is pretty important in an informational text though, don't you think? Obviously many of the things folks argue about here will seem trivial, even lame, to many who are otherwise good editors.

And where this contributes to clarity, it is useful. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

But you're also missing a major point here. We are here first and foremost to do this big writing job, but we are also a community. We have to be able to get along with each other and to agree on things we might otherwise waste energy fighting over. Three examples of historical compromise on related issues off the top of my head: WP:IMOS specifies that the city in Northern Ireland with the disputed name is referred to as Derry, while the county it lies in is called County Londonderry. Aluminium and sulfur are so spelled in chemistry (and all science-related) articles, following the lead of IUPAC. And airplane and aeroplane are both redirects to fixed-wing aircraft. Now, these sort of (highly prescriptive) compromises were adopted with the consent of the community, to end edit-warring over styles and to give greater consistency and stability in articles. If you think they are lame, or even nauseating, you may have a point. I think it would be even more lame and even more nauseating if these guidelines did not exist or were unusably vague and we had to deal with even more edit-warring, RfCs, Arbcom etc. --John (talk) 05:54, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

And we avoid edit wars over style by leaving things alone, as with WP:ENGVAR and the Date Wars; by agreeing to differ. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 05:58, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

As George Orwell once said: "Most people who bother with the matter at all would admit that the English language is in a bad way, but it is generally assumed that we cannot by conscious action do anything about it. Our civilization is decadent and our language -- so the argument runs -- must inevitably share in the general collapse. It follows that any struggle against the abuse of language is a sentimental archaism, like preferring candles to electric light or hansom cabs to aeroplanes. Underneath this lies the half-conscious belief that language is a natural growth and not an instrument which we shape for our own purposes." Oh, the Manual of Style is our most useful instrument for such shaping. --Laser brain (talk) 06:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree with everything here, except the last sentence. Which of the matters discussed in Politics and the English Language come under any Manual of Style? Which of them are even approached in this MOS?

And yet Laserbrain has expressed himself clearly and succinctly — while using double dashes, which this MOS would prohibit. I applaud him for doing so, and wish only that we would encourage article writers to do the same. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

ENGVAR does not say we agree to differ though; on the contrary it specifies exactly where and when different styles should be used. It is very clear and highly prescriptive, and therein lies its effectiveness. If we didn't have it, or if it was rewritten to be less clear, there would be far more unproductive conflict. Thank goodness it is not so. --John (talk) 06:08, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Speaking only for myself, of course, regarding whether em-dashes tend to be spaced in encyclopedia-quality writing: if I spend the evening going for a walk, or looking up punctuation usage in style guides and reading material, rather than fixing some earth-shattering problem on Wikipedia, how does that give you the right to complain about how I use my time, Sept? I'm not violating WP:BIKE; I'm tackling hard problems, I'm just not doing it 100% of the time. And if you really think participation in such a conversation is a waste of time and an insult to Jimbo, then why did you participate in it as much as anyone else? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 06:22, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Sept, let me add exactly what it is that bugs me, since I'm obviously bugged, about "What has this page been arguing about? ... Whether to have spaces on either end of emdashes." Politics is an old game, and everyone here knows how it's played. One trick is populism, the framing of a debate as "the people" against "the elites". Ineffective populist politicans may actually believe what they're saying, but the really effective ones know that it's all a game for personal political power, and they will carefully shift their message depending on what works best. Based on my past statements and my project at WT:GAU, it's reasonable to at least entertain the worry that I'm being a populist, that I am trying to shift power from someone else to myself by championing "the little people". As I've said before, this is completely inappropriate on Wikipedia, because we don't need representative democracy here, and there are no "little people". One should invite everyone to the debate, and if they don't show up, they don't get a voice ... no one speaks for anyone else here, although large, careful, random surveys can be useful. My position is that, even if it wasn't your intention, Sept, your statement uses what I (among others) do in my spare time, like working on easy problems such as punctuation, as evidence that I am out of touch with what the people need and totally on the wrong track. This is both factually wrong and also populist ... "look at the pointy-headed, out-of-touch geeks; follow me instead". The worst part is that it throws suspicion on me and other people like me who are trying to do something positive; when a debate is polarized, it tends to cast even centrist positions in a negative light, and make people suspect that all the combatants are secretly trying to pull in one direction or the other. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:23, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• I was responding, quite narrowly, to one claim above, that we need large, hard guidelines on such matters as the three above, in order to be professional; that is hyperbole, and I object to it. I am not advocating any political theory of Wikipedia, doing so would, again, be contrary to this policy.
• Out of touch with what people need and totally on the wrong track? Not what I think, nor what I said. I encourage data on punctuation choices; I support what SV calls "grandmotherly" approach: the provision of reasons for editors to make one or another of these. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I accept that you didn't mean to demean my contributions, but it certainly sounded like you did; I don't know how else to read: "they have nothing to do with clarity, or anything else actually of value to the encyclopedia." I can't speak for anyone else, but for me, it's really very simple: I don't know everything there is to know about what looks professional these days, so for those times when I need to answer a question for someone or make a contribution to WP:MoS, I subscribe to TCMOS and the AP Style Manual and pick up my copy of NYTM and look it up, and I try to remember what I've seen in EB and online opinion magazines and blogs to confirm that online usage doesn't significantly differ. Yes, part of the charm and potency of Wikipedia is the wide range of styles and backgrounds of the editors, and if you'd like to help me promote some form of appropriate diversity and tolerance at the GA level, I could sure use some help. For FA and WP:MoS issues, yes, the 3 style manuals I use are not perfect, and some people don't consider them entirely appropriate to Web 2.0. But I'm not smarter than the consensus of large numbers of professional copyeditors; I'll just have to take their word for it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Alright, what do we gain by establishing cross-article uniformity on the use of ten (as opposed to 10)? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't make a contribution to that one, and I'd like to stay busy at WP:GAN and WP:GAU and avoid putting too much time into MoS, when possible. But if those three style manuals say "use ten", then my reply would be just what I said: I'm not smarter than the consensus of large numbers of professional copyeditors; I'll just have to take their word for it. I do believe that Featured Articles will be judged by language criteria that I find distastefully picky ... but judged they will be, by journalists, academics, professionals, and policymakers who are used to reading articles that are professionally copyedited, and I'm glad there are people who are willing to look it up, and use judgment when the answers are cloudy. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 01:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Ho hum, Anderson goes on and on and on. He talks of clarity, yet have a look at Dan Geist's critique of one of Anderson's recent unilateral attempts to get his own way at MOS (without bothering with the concept of consensus). It beggars belief that Anderson should lecture people here about clarity. TONY (talk) 09:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Best practices

It has been wondered above just how we might define our "best editors." Wonder no more—our best editors are those who do our best work. And how do we define our best work? By vetting it and according it Featured Article status.

Having cracked that conundrum, what can we learn? Here's a couple things for starters:

• Many—the evidence adduced a few threads above suggests most—of our best editors specify image sizes in Wikipedia's best articles. As SlimVirgin suggests, it brings the Manual of Style into disrepute when it advises against our best practices as defined by the work of our best editors as defined by our...yes...Featured Articles. There is a case to be made that our less-than-best editors do better leaving images at default sizing, so it is reasonable to argue that the MoS should not prescribe specified image sizing. But given our real-life-here-at-Wikipedia best practices, as evidenced by our Featured Articles, the MoS should certainly not recommend against specified image sizing.

• Many of our best editors write image captions that many wikignomes would not call "short." Our MoS should not suggest—via the connotation of the redundant use of the word "succinct"—that text length is an acceptable reason for a gnome with no particular knowledge or interest in a given article to tamper with the size and thus content of its captions. Gnomes aside, the MoS should not be written so as to encourage an editor who favors shorter captions to claim to be "right" on the basis of MoS compliance. Our best editors are "right" in our best articles—some of those articles have incontrovertibly short captions, some have longish ones, some have even longer ones, some even have long ones. When our best work demonstrates such a diversity on a matter that (a) affects not just article style but also substance and (b) it is impossible to ever achieve pan-Wikipedia consistency on, given the subjective meaning of "succinct" (and of the connoted "short"), our MoS serves us best when it remains silent, prescribing nothing beyond the general virtue: all our writing in the main namespace—the encyclopedia proper—should be succinct.—DCGeist (talk) 07:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

We can almost guarantee that our best editors are able to understand and follow community norms. As you have previously expressed your contempt for these norms by your conduct at punk rock, I don't know why you would think your opinion is of any particular consequence to this discussion. If articles which don't follow our norms are being awarded FA status, maybe it is the FA process which is broken. I don't know either as all this is based on your flawed survey above which relies on articles selected by you and contains at least one error. Please bring something other than your opinion (eg a consensus, a proper survey) if you decide to continue here. Thanks. --John (talk) 14:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Your J-ness, what is this magical power you bring other than your opinion? In our colloquy concerning punk rock, you did demonstrate a special talent for fantasizing "norms" that are in fact...enjoy the moment...just your own opinion. And you are especially adept at informing people that their views don't count; that they should be silent; that they should go away. Is that the sort of thing you'd like me to start bringing? Sorry, Johnny Bear, you're just going to have to keep putting up with people who fail to recognize that you are always right and they are always wrong when they happen not to share your...wait for it, it's gonna be special...opinion. I have supplied evidence—citing many Featured Articles whose content belies your claim that your opinion reflects a "norm" that is actually practiced in our best work. Anyone can check the evidence, expand the survey, argue its logic—I've given our fellow contributors something tangible to grapple with. You have supplied nothing but your individual opinion and a royally pronounced "almost guarantee" based, it would seem, on intense examination of your cute widdle belly button.

Now that you have initiated another of our enjoyable tête-à-têtes by commenting on the contributor rather than responding to the substance of my observations, and I have duly responded, try doing something useful. Here's a menu of choices: (a) realizing your opinion is of no particular consequence to this discussion; (b) deciding not to continue here (Is this how you like it, baby? Am I bringing it?); (c) retreating to the dictionary and learning the meaning of the words "we", "guarantee", "norm", and "if", all of which you used improperly in the span of three sentences; (d) thanking me for giving you so many options to choose from. Yours lastingly, D. —DCGeist (talk) 19:13, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

DCG, I think I agree with your overall take on this issue, but that level of sarcasm toward another editor isn't particularly helpful to anyone. My horse is not very high on this one, as I've taken that tone here myself before, I'm just saying it's really, really dripping in this case, enough to splash all over the debate. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:29, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

MOS is prescriptive, by its very nature

Like so much else on this page right now, this too has already been hashed over many times before. WP:MOS and its subpages are necessarily prescriptive, because their purpose is to offer guidance on how to write articles. The MOS is not an exercise in linguistics, it is a help page for WP editors. Furthermore, the MOS is not in any way bound to agree with the Chicago Manual of Style, the Guardian style guide, or any other published work, because they are all intended for different media and audiences than WP's MOS is. WP's MOS is not even just about Web style, but WP style in particular: the style that best serves our readers, which includes users of Commonwealth and North American English alike, doctorates and mentally handicapped alike (the existence of the Simple English Wikipedia notwithstanding). No one is (or should) be pretending that WP:MOS is written as a general style guide for the general public for general purposes. It is none of the above. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

PS: I generally agree with SlimVirgin's original thesis, other than I think it goes a little too far. She says "We should never have a situation where the page advises against things that lots of good editors do", yet we actually do do this from time to time and for good reason. It was once common practice to include "In popular culture" a.ka. "Trivia" sections in articles, especially film and television ones, and also common practice to put spoiler-warning templates on "Plot" or "Synopsis" sections in articles about films, novels and other works of fiction, but these practices have been deprecated by broad consensus over the last year or two, and many "good" editors have not yet caught up. MOS in particular is in a special position to make unusually prescriptive recommendations. Left to their own devices, many excellent editors would fill articles with contractions like "didn't", etc., and make other things that any MOS editor would regard as stylistic mistakes because their personal usage patterns do not match what consensus has determined to be encyclopedic usage. As as side point, I would like everyone who questions this to consider that what even constitutes encyclopedic usage is a moving target, and has been drifting more toward formal than informal. A great way to see this for yourself is to look at articles based on the 1911 Britannica articles on the same topic. Of those that are entirely or almost entirely copy-paste jobs, a great number of them are flagged for tone cleanup, because the old encyclo. was written in a tone – very user-direct and chatty, with lots of "one must observe..." and "as the reader can see..." types of asides – that WP no longer considers appropriate at all. PS: WP:MOSFLAG's entire existence is one of "advis[ing] against things that lots of good editors do", but it actually survived the full-on guideline proposal process, with virtually no controversy, despite the fact that lots of otherwise-great editors were sticking flagicons all over the place. Just because X number of people do it doesn't make it a good practice. Or I could say, in the dialect of the locals where I live, "I done reckon just cuz lots o' them-there folks be doing stuff ain't makin' it right." — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 09:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm really glad you're back, Stanton, you were missed. It's probably not a stretch that you're directing those comments at me and other MoS editors who are relatively new to the process, especially given that I said, earlier in that thread, "I subscribe to TCMOS and the AP Style Manual and pick up my copy of NYTM and look it up, and I try to remember what I've seen in EB and online opinion magazines and blogs to confirm that online usage doesn't significantly differ." Whether that's the right answer depends on the question. My take on "prescription" is that it will probably work best to go in both directions at the same time. I am relatively new to WP:GAN, but I'm struck by how enthusiastic so many editors are for the style advice they get, prescriptive or otherwise; it's the opposite of what I was expecting from reading all the drive-by "you people suck" comments on WP:MoS. Most editors there really do want to "dress up nice"; in fact, almost every person to respond to the GAU survey so far says they want additional advice. (I know that many FAC reviewers are not happy with the quality of GAN style advice, I'm just saying that people are generally happy.) They know that academics, journalists and professionals are used to reading professionally copyedited work. When this is the goal, then I think for many questions, it would be arrogant for me to say "this looks right", without any further explanation, when I've got at my fingertips WP style guidelines, plus archives, plus the consensus wisdom of large numbers of highly paid copyeditors who have exactly the job of making things look right in the relevant publications (TCMOS etc). Of course, opinions can differ on which manuals and publications are relevant; personally, the online EB, the NYT Magazine, the New Yorker, Wired, and Scientific American probably reflect what I think of as good professional style.

At the same time, it's absolutely correct that Web 2.0 in general and Wikipedia in particular is something different. And even if it weren't, if the only editors we had were the ones who either write in this style or are perfectly happy to have their articles conformed to this style at any time, then we'd be in deep trouble, so we have to have a big tent. And that doesn't mean that we approve some articles and sniff at the others or treat them with benign neglect; it means we survey to get a sense of different styles and different goals, and we engage people to see where a meeting of the minds is possible and where it isn't. The initial results at WP:GAU suggest that just listening to people makes all the difference in how "huffy" they are about the divergence of styles on Wikipedia, but it's early days. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Query

I was wondering what the purpose of this is: "Avoid sandwiching text between two images facing each other." SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 23:20, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

What I take from "sandwiching" is, don't let multiple images create narrow text columns; maybe it could use simpler language. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 23:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

It's just that it's sometimes okay; it depends how narrow the text column becomes. Obviously too narrow is bad, but often it's fine to have two images facing each other. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 23:34, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Not in my opinion. It makes the text much harder to read, and serves no possible purpose, unlike the occasional exception to the image stacking rule. VanTucky 00:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

There are no occasional exceptions to the image-stacking rule, because there is no image-stacking rule. Images are routinely placed next to each other, unless I've misunderstood what's meant by stacking. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 00:37, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I mean what is described in the linked passage currently in the text here: it's not just simple near placement, it's literally stacking the images (in the edit window), which can create problems for text. How close you want to place images otherwise is just aesthetics. VanTucky 00:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear we're talking about the same thing, I'm asking what the problem is with this. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 00:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Like I say above: harder to read, ugly, has no discernible benefit. There's a reason you never see this kind of placement in publications. VanTucky 00:44, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

You see it all the time in publications. :-) Which part of the text is hard to read? SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 00:48, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Um, no you don't. The part that is sandwiched between the two images. It's visually distracting, and the text is floating without connection to either the right or left side, which disrupts the flow of reading. There's no benefit that this type of placement has, and it's easily solved by moving one up or down when staggering images l-r. VanTucky 00:51, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Depending on your monitor, it's awful when editors sandwich text between right- and left-aligned images (worse when they force the image size), because you can end up with a sliver of text with one or two words on each line in between the images. That item is an important one; SV, are you saying it's not clearly phrased so that readers don't understand what it refers to? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:01, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

And, depending on the sizes involved, the text can break after a few words, leaving a white hole between the two images. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:40, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I do agree with Anderson entirely. TONY (talk) 02:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Much obliged. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:11, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

• Has anybody noticed that the first and fifth general guidelines under Images are redundant: both say to start with a right-aligned image?
• TOCs and right aligned images can have sandwiching problems too; that's one "compelling reason" not to do it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:19, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Observation: the usage of dashes in Marshalsea is absolutely infuriating. SlimVirgin hates me, or she would have used another link.

Question: All right, plain text between images does not lend itself for comfortable reading (I hope I've used the expression correctly here). What about other forms of text, however? Tables? Pull quotes? Anything? I don't think flanking images are unsuitable for everything. Waltham, The Duke of 05:05, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Too many dashes? I can remove some if you think it's overdone. It's a feature of liking long sentences. When I find myself getting entangled, out pops the em dash.

The point about images facing each other and big quotation marks is that we ought to leave them to editorial/aesthetic judgment. There's too much of a desire for uniformity here. We have to leave editors room to express themselves, because we're not robots, and we surely don't want every article to look the same. That's not to say I'm advocating anarchy, and I appreciate the need for a good MoS, but this one is wandering into areas most stylebooks leave to the judgment of the writers and page editors. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 06:16, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Not too many—too carelessly used. I saw hyphens and em dashes for date ranges, scores of spaced em dashes, and Unicorn knows what else.

I would have expressed myself more delicately had I known it were your creation, though.

...Or not. (evil grin)

In any case, I volunteer to copy-edit the article, either today or tomorrow (call it penitence if you like). You shall see what I mean after that. Do we have an agreement? Waltham, The Duke of 07:32, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It's in the process of being tightened, copy edited, and possibly reorganized, so now would not be a good time, but once that's done, I'll given you a shout if you're still willing. (I do use spaced em dashes on purpose though. They look too cramped to me without spaces.) SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 07:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

SV, use space en dashes, not em dashes. MOS got consensus on that one (which is also echoed in CMoS, etc.) over a year ago (with me being in favor of space em dashes but outvoted, I would add: I sympathize with your preference, but accepted my defeat and went with the majority on that one. It actually takes very little practice to get used to either using unspaced em dashes – which, with you, I detest – or using spaced en dashes, which have the readability effect you and I both like, but are a tiny bit shorter). At this point, I'm not even sure I can think of a valid use of em dashes at all in WP, other than as a hideous, unspaced alternative to spaced en dashes. They don't seem to have any other function at all. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Except in people's signatures? ;-) Phaunt (talk) 08:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with that. Although I should warn you that spaced em dashes have some quirky habits when it comes to line-breaking; they are actually discouraged by the MoS now for that very reason (well, amongst others—their taking up too much space is another one). You might want to consider spaced en dashes if you really like the "airy" feel of the spaces. Waltham, The Duke of 07:53, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Slim, sounds like you're a spaced-en-dash kinda gal. Tell me, why not? The article looks to be shaping up nicely. TONY (talk) 08:36, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you. Actually, I think I'd prefer to wean myself onto em dashes without spaces than en dashes with them. The latter look too hesitant, almost apologetic. I need something bold when I'm trying to batten down a long sentence. :-) SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 22:20, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I've been an unspaced-em-dash guy, but Noetica has partially sold me the virtues of spaced en dashes. Mind you, they do look different according to font, and the one you and I use on our talk pages is not ideal (I think the en dash is almost indistinguishable from a hyphen—pity). TONY (talk) 01:52, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I am also an unspaced-em-dash user. Apart from the visual effect thereof, which I prefer, I also like distinguishing the roles of en dashes and em dashes, using the former for disjunction and lists and the latter for interruption. And there is also, of course, the matter of the edit window to consider. Waltham, The Duke of 10:32, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Block quotes vrs Pull quotes

I strongly disagree with the change to the block quotations section of MOSQUOTE. Block quotations and pull quotes, the latter of which {{cquote}} is explicitly designed to be per the template instructions, are two very different styles of quotations. Basic grammar dictates that block quotes don't ever have quotes around them, that's how you define a block quote: a long indented quotation without quotation marks. To say that it's good practice to place the large colorful quotation marks of cquote around a style of quotation that by definition has no such marks, doesn't make much sense. VanTucky 00:24, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I've always thought the large clunky quote marks were the height of ugliness. TONY (talk) 02:04, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, Tony. VanTucky, I'm wondering whether pull quotes are being defined as a kind of block quote in WP:MoS. If they aren't, then I can't make sense out of this sentence (assuming some pull-quotes don't have quotation marks): "For quotations, use only quotation marks (for short quotations) or block quoting (for long ones), not italics." - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:47, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

What's wrong with italics? For some short phrases, that is; I'm not talking about any long quotations. Waltham, The Duke of 04:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Wrong form of markup. It's really that simple. We don't put TV episodes in italics or TV series titles in quotes because that's simply not how it is done, by general English language style guide conventions. I don't know of any style guide on the planet that recommends putting quotations in italics. Thusly (and in accordance with MOS) I delete the italicization of quotations on sight and will continue to do so. :-) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I think the argument is that they make text harder to read, and I suppose also that they're superfluous if you use quotation marks. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 06:18, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm... I suppose it's better to just delegate quotations to quotation marks (they have the name, after all) and simple words and phrases to italics. It makes more sense.

Actually, the distinction already exists in the MoS, it's just too fuzzy and scattered across various pages. (By the way, am I the only one who thinks Titles and Text formatting should be merged? They're almost duplicates of each other.) Waltham, The Duke of 07:45, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Merge, merge, merge! And with regard to the original topic, #$%& pull quotes. They are news style, and WP:NOT a magazine or newspaper. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree with Slim: italics best reserved for short bits of text (words as words, highlighting, marking items as titles, etc) because it's harder to read than roman face. MOS rightly says don't italicise a quotation just because it's a quotation. TONY (talk) 08:30, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Italicization vs. quoting of words-as-words

I've raised this issue before, but apparently need to do so again. MOS itself, along with various language, rhetoric and linguistics articles (cf. pleonasm as one example), are hard to read and understand largely because of the use of italics instead of quotations marks for "words as words", against common practice (but in accordance with some - yet not all - style guides), while also "operator overloading" italics for many other purposes such as emphasis, titles, and foreign words/phrases. In the course of normal editing, it seems to me, if I may guesstimate based on experience and memory, that only maybe 20% of articles that need to make use of words-as-words italicize rather than quote them. I suggest that we move to a recommendation to quote instead of italicize them, unless doing so would make the article hard to read or understand, in which case use italics, but definitely use one or the other, favoring quotation marks (and double ones at that, for consistency). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I need help sorting this one out. I agree with Stanton, but on the other hand, if you look at WT:V, you'll see one conversation after another that would be more difficult to follow if the distinction between "words as words" and things that need quotations were not followed. When people get the distinction, it just makes the writing so much snappier. On the other hand, the argumentation in talk-space is different material, and done by a set of people that doesn't at all represent a survey of WP readers. It's wierd how often today the answer seems to me to be "We need an archive summary box for people who want to know more." I would kind of like to point out this distinction in styles to regular MoS readers since it's so pervasive, and so important, in talk-space. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:02, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've done more reading. I can't say that I agree with Stanton or with WP:MoS; I can only say that I need to spend some time gathering examples and opinions. - Dan (talk) 15:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

MoS for Maps

There has been an ongoing discussion about what map should be used for Talk:Scotland. I was wondering is there a MoS for maps? I noted that out of the 193 countries in the world there are only 2 styles of maps used for major subdivisions of countries. Does that mean that there is a MoS for them or is this just by accident? Any reply would be appreciated. Thanks -- UKPhoenix79 (talk) 11:14, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

There is indeed a submanual, not yet approved as part of MOS, though; however, it is almost totally inadequate. Given the appalling standard of many of our maps, it should be a high priority to fix it up. TONY (talk) 12:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Where would that be located? Also check my research at Talk:Scotland/Archive_17#Major_Subdivisions_list I don't know if it is helpful or not. -- UKPhoenix79 (talk) 19:02, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It's listed in the template top-right of MOS. I've several ideas on how to improve it, but not the expertise or experience to formulate them in detail. Perhaps it needs an audit along the lines proposed at MOSCO. Here's the map subpage: Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(diagrams). TONY (talk) 09:00, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Break out image usage?

I am noticing that as this page has developed, the material about image usage... has not. Clearly the denizens of Wt:MoS have a passion for prose, and most of the guideline consists of tightly-worded directions for how to write articles. But #Images is just a hodgepodge of frankly half-baked and inconsistent bullet points. My recent effort to improve and clarify some of the contradictory material received little input (and just got archived again without resolution). The issues of how to layout a page are distinct from how to write an article. It's also difficult to talk about images meaningfully without visuals, which this article clearly does not have room for. Wikipedia:Picture tutorial fills some of that gap, but as a introductory tutorial what it describes isn't necessarily recommended, and it doesn't provide guidance for when editors are in doubt. There isn't a huge amount to say about image usage, but it does need to be consistent and clear. I'm suggesting that it might be advantageous to create a separate page where this information could be addressed better than it can be in this one. - JasonAQuest (talk) 13:33, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Would you like to propose new/additional wording for discussion? TONY (talk) 14:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I already did. Twice. The fact that most of y'all didn't have a strong opinion about it – and most visual arts people aren't interested in tiptoeing around heated discussions about BC vs BCE or the use of the serial comma – is one reason I figured it might be helpful to separate the topic. - JasonAQuest (talk) 16:09, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Or write a draft, and let us know; if it expresses consensus, it can eventually become WP:MOSIMAGES. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:17, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Jason, I have no strong opinion on whether image usage should be broken out or not—I would lean (a) to keeping it here and also (b) to bringing in the style points concerning audio sample usage from Wikipedia:Music samples and improving those. For that to be viable, you do—as you say—need other people to participate. I went into the archives here to find the proposals you made that weren't picked up on.

• I fully support the position you state in the following: "The suggestion to move the TOC just to accommodate a face pointing the wong way is (IMHO) bad UI design, and should be removed in favor of statement that precedes it." Specifically, per Jason's proposal, the following sentence should be cut: "Where this is the lead image, it may be appropriate to move the Table of Contents to the right by using {{TOCright}}." The paragraph containing it should (a) have the lead term Exception deleted and (b) be recast as an advisory on positioning of portraits, while affirming that right alignment is always preferred for lead images, whichever way the eyes face. (Mind you, I say this having knowingly moved the TOC away from the left in one particular circumstance: RKO Pictures. But that's an exceptional design case and a couple reviewers did oppose my choice there.)

I couldn't find (or, perhaps, recognize) the other proposal you made. Could you restate it here? Best, Dan.—DCGeist (talk) 19:39, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It was one proposal (in response to the same subject being brought up by others a couple times), which has twice been archived with minimal comment. If guidelines are needed for audio samples, perhaps that means that a broader guide for media usage in general would be beneficial. I just don't see it dovetailing well with a writing style guide. - JasonAQuest (talk) 02:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

You may well be right. The overriding concern is to improve the style guidance for media usage. If you're inspired to take the lead on that and feel it would be better accomplished on a separate project page, I would support you and assist as able.—DCGeist (talk) 02:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that articles with a right-facing lead image on the right look kind of strange. See Ludwig Wittgenstein. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 22:41, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes they do, but the greater problem is that left-aligning a lead image 1) displaces the lead paragraph from beginning in the upper-left corner, 2) displaces the TOC from the left margin, and 3) precludes the use of a standard infobox. Taken altogether, that looks even stranger. - JasonAQuest (talk) 02:22, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. We can certainly add to the language of the section that a left-facing image, where available and not markedly inferior to any available right-facing image, is preferred for the lead.—DCGeist (talk) 02:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. If only a right-facing image is available, though, then JasonAQuest's proposal to cut the TOCright option goes further than I'd like. I'd suggest letting article editors choose between TOCright or no lead image in those circumstances, which is what the current wording says (it says "may be appropriate"). Mike Christie (talk) 03:31, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This is surprising, but that's part of what makes these conversations valuable. To be clear, Do you find a right-facing image on the right so distracting that you think some articles are actually better served by having no lead image at all?—DCGeist (talk) 03:54, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really sure what the problem is with a left-aligned image and a left-aligned TOC - see Joseph Priestley, for example. That was the consensus we came to there (I also like letting editors choose - let's avoid instruction creep as much as possible). Squashing the lead between the image and TOC does not look particularly good, by the way. I also don't see a problem with moving the lead text over to better place the image. The text is already not left-aligned, since there is the menu bar - moving it over a few more inches doesn't matter much. Finally, precluding the use of an infobox does not seem like a big loss to me - they are not required, most are grotesque, and most repeat information found in the article. Those that are truly useful, such as those for a chemical element, are not going to be affected by portraiture issues. Awadewit (talk) 04:50, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the example you provide looks just fine, because the lead text is long enough that the left alignment of the image does not force the TOC out of position. (By the way, I must disagree with your observation that "The text is already not left-aligned, since there is the menu bar." As a reader, I certainly register the specific content of the name article field as left-aligned, discounting the automated content of the menu bar.) However, in other articles, the same sort of placement would cause a substantial problem. Let's take another featured article where the figure in the lead portrait is positioned essentially the same as that in Joseph Priestley: Harriet Arbuthnot. The body aims right, as does the head—though less so—and the eyes aim straight out. She looks great too, if you move her to the left side of the lead—but because the lead text in this case is considerably shorter, such a move displaces the TOC to a centered position. That's a particularly egregious (and, obviously, hypothetical) example, but we really should guide against that sort of thing in general.

I'd like to quote Jason at length from the earlier thread where he initiated the proposal I've reintroduced here. As Jason observed, our MoS currently suggests

that the TOC – a navigation element. – be shoved out of the way to make room for a left-aligned image. Now, I don't claim to the world's foremost expert on user interface design, but I have taken classes in the subject, in which I was told that it is a Bad Thing for user interface elements to move around the screen, because that can be disorienting and it requires the user to spend more time looking for them. My professional experience supports this. It's less-than-ideal that the TOC moves up and down to accommodate the length of the intro, but that's tolerable because readers quickly come to expect it within WP. However, having seemingly-random articles substitute left-placement of the TOC with right-placement is confusing to many readers. After all, the rule about which way portraits should face is not generally known, nor is it self-evident. But the rules that UI elements should stay in place, and that articles should be formatted consistently unless there is "a compelling reason to do otherwise" (WP:MOS#Images, line 1), are intuitively understood. The suggestion to move the TOC just to accommodate a face pointing the wong way is (IMHO) bad UI design, and should be removed in favor of statement that precedes it.

That's very well stated and demonstrates an admirable understanding of good design. While I'm sensitive to avoiding instruction creep, this is a case where the design imperative is clear: making placement of user interface elements consistent, to the degree practical, is a Very Good Thing.—DCGeist (talk) 05:25, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree that it shows admirable understanding of good design, because it contains this: After all, the rule about which way portraits should face is not generally known, nor is it self-evident. If it is not well known (it should be), it is certainly self evident. Look at any painting or illustration and you will see that the outer elements of the design face inwards (unless they are clearly subordinate). Look through a good art book (where the principle is understood) on pages where text and illustrations are combined and you will usually see the principle of inward-looking figures (or elements: the face of buildings, for example) applied. When a portrait figure looks off a Wikipedia page, it creates an exit for the eye where there shouldn't be one, and therefore makes the look of the composition—and a page is a composition—uneasy. All non-forward-looking portraits have the effect of leading the eye off the image in the direction of the subject's gaze, and so an inward-looking portrait will lead the eye to the text, which, at the start of an article, should be the dominant place. An inward-facing portrait on the left will therefore lead the readers to the text better than the same portrait facing outward on the right. To quote Henry Poore, Composition in Art, "the eye travels the line of least resistance".

However, I agree that editors should look for a left-looking first portrait, if they can find one. Though I can see no problem with inward-looking portraits on the left for articles with full introductions, I can see that there's a problem with such a portrait pushing a small introduction and TOC around. The issue of the infobox is to me irrelevant, because those wretched things are not mandatory. qp10qp (talk) 13:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

It appears to be a good thing, but it is not universal, so I don't see how it can be self-evident. Consider the arms of Scotland; the lilies of the tressure face alternately in and out; it is even possible to have principal charges facing out of both sides of the shield. Charges in orle are all faced the same way. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

But the lilies are subordinate elements. The outer elements will incline inwards (or forwards) if they are major elements. I believe it is self evident. Even a child will draw this way; most family snaps are taken on this principle. qp10qp (talk) 14:27, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The principle that figures should be inward-facing may be self-evident to you (and it became evident to me as soon as it was pointed out to me as a freshman in art school), but the fact that it is so widely ignored demonstrates that it isn't self-evident to everyone. It's my experience that most people simply aren't conscious of such things. (I don't know what family snapshots you've been looking at, but most of those I've seen are paragons of poor composition, taken too far from the subject, which is centered bullseye in the frame... and if they're at a sightseeing attraction they're looking away from it!) Of course you'll find the principle applied properly in books and magazines; those are laid out by design professionals who are conscious of that principle. Wikipedia editors don't generally have that background (nor should they be expected to) and it shows. It's certainly more subtle than aspects of page layout that tend to be obvious to the casual observer, such as the placement of lead photos in the upper-right corner and the placement of the lead paragraph in the upper-left, left-aligned within the margins of the content area. People notice when that's violated, and as the edit history on Jane Austen demonstrates, they'll try to fix it, even if it means having the subject gaze off the screen. And IMprofessionalO rightly so, because it is a more serious error of article layout. (I doubt you'll find examples of professionally-published books or magazines where the opening paragraph of an individual article or chapter is indented to make room for a left-aligned photo; it done, it it's a deliberate stylistic quirk of the publication and done consistently throughout.) There are issues of user-interface design here as well, which may not be evident to many people, but which are nonetheless important. In UI design the principles of page layout apply, but there's the added layer that certain items on the page are also controls, and should not be moved around arbitrarily unless there is no other solution; the TOC is one of them. (It's bad enough that it moves up and down on the page; moving it to the right margin contributes to Wikipedia resembling a game of Whac-A-Mole.) - JasonAQuest (talk) 14:46, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that it is widely ignored here doesn't mean that it should be. It's a form of visual grammar, and, as with written grammar, ignorance does not invalidate it.

(I doubt you'll find examples of professionally-published books or magazines where the opening paragraph of an individual article or chapter is indented to make room for a left-aligned photo. But have you noticed that chapters nearly always begin on the right page of a double page? And that often the page on the left will contain a portrait, and that the portrait will be aligned inward, to the right? A Wikipedia page is not, so long as we have this tendency to put a picture at the top, equivalent to the beginning of a chapter.

In short, my main point here is just to oppose any potential banning of images on the top left of an article, though I believe such a disposition will remain rare. Part of the problem is our set-up for leads (with wandering TOCs), which is intrinsically unsatisfactory. I would like to see a top template containing just the page title, the TOC, and an optional image (as on Encarta), with the article starting below in a separated area. But perhaps it is believed that that would delay the reader too much. qp10qp (talk) 15:23, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The problem is that JasonAQuest places the needs of page design above those of aesthetics and I place the needs of aesthetics above page design - that is why I think editors should be allowed to choose. We haven't been able to find a principle on which to base the MOS rule, so we shouldn't establish one yet. Also, I am unconvinced that readers have as much trouble as Jason is arguing - that is a bit of an insult to the readers, in my opinion. They navigate successfully for one website to another, with totally different designs. I'm sure small changes in our pages will not bother them. Finally, I'm not sure why we must always sacrifice beauty and elegance for utility. Awadewit (talk) 15:36, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Page design and aesthetics are not separate issues. And it should be obvious from the inability to reach a stable consensus on the Jane Austen page (before the discovery that the image was facing the wrong way in the first place) that making that page different from others on Wikipedia did bother people. - JasonAQuest (talk) 16:42, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, please let's not get confused. Page design is an aesthetic issue. Thus, we have two aesthetic ideals: (1) predictably left-aligning the TOC—the primary article-specific user interface/navigation element, and (2) positioning portraits so they face inward—most relevantly here, portraits accompanying the article lead. Given (a) the universal stricture imposed by the layout of the content area and (b) the occasional stricture imposed by our image resources, we can usually, but not always achieve ideal 1 and ideal 2 in the same article. So: Are the two aesthetic ideals equally important, or is the imperative toward achieving one greater than that toward achieving the other? I believe relevant evidence from many different sources supports the view that ideal 1 is more important to achieve than ideal 2.

Take a look at the New York Times main page—right now, if you can. The user interface elements are exactly where they were yesterday, and where they will be tomorrow. Now notice the images on the edge of the page that happen to face outward. Look at that in-house ad for "The Kitchen Incubator" on the far right. The primary figure, in the middle, aims out to the right. And the figure farthest to the right? He faces out to the right. Scroll down to the Inside NYTimes.com gallery—the image on the far left, of Dean Wareham, faces left, out. Fine, not a perfect example (good luck finding a perfect example)—these images are not set against body text, though the in-house ad is set against headline-and-summary text. The point is still clear: maintaining predictable placement of user interface elements is a top priority; keeping figures facing inward much less so. [A particularly imperfect example—the images have already changed. Ah well...]

A very different example, also imperfect. I picked up a volume of my treasured 1971 Encyclopedia Britannica. Beautiful books. Some of the articles are long enough to have a TOC. The design of the TOC (roman numerals for sections; arabic for subsections) and its placement (after a lead paragraph and a single, indented lead-in line) is always the same. There's a lot of pictures in this book. And of the figures placed in the outside columns (the design is two columns per page), yes, it would appear that most do face inward, but many face outward (when I say "many," I mean roughly a third).

File:Wittgenstein1930-mirror.jpg

Ludwig Wittgenstein image mirrored to be "inward looking"

The point is this: When we turn for guidance on these aesthetic issues to media or publications that deal with (a) user interface/navigation elements and (b) pictures of people, we find that predictable design and placement of user interface/navigation elements is a top priority and orienting portraits so they face inward, away from the edge of the page, is a secondary one—and by some distance.—DCGeist (talk) 17:57, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

The NYT page is not very luminous, with so many columns; and I can't check your encyclopedia (we are talking about gaze, I hope, and not stance). I've just checked your userpage, since I've never met you before; and I must say, you have laid it out very well. If you placed your photo on the right, it would not look so well, in my opinion.

By the way, I agree that aesthetics and page design partake of each other. Correct placing of images contributes to good page design by leading the reader's eyes to the central text and the TOC rather than off the page.qp10qp (talk) 19:14, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I do mean "gaze." Thanks for your comment on my userpage—I agree, I don't think it would look as good if that image was positioned on the right. But there's no imperative for uniformity in our personal user pages, where individual expression is the very point. Again, positioning figures so they gaze inward toward article text is a virtue, but predictably positioning the TOC is a greater virtue—and I warrant that virtually all evidence that can be adduced from other media and publications that share comparable design concerns supports that.—DCGeist (talk) 19:24, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

If this image accompanied a magazine story they would simply flip it over. I've mirrored the Ludwig Wittgenstein image and added it to this thread as an example. I have no idea if there are requirements to use images in their original format on the Wikipedia. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry - I see that mirroring is already discussed at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Images. Marc Kupper (talk) (contribs) 07:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Aesthetics and page design can be linked, but the above discussion of page design seemed to revolve around utility. Jason has made a good argument for utility. However, I do not feel that utility is the principle that should necessarily underlie this decision. Sacrificing aesthetics for the sake of utility (which is really standardization) is not convincing to me - I do not yet understand why utility should trump aesthetics. To me, the argument reduces to something like this: "we should have standardization, not beauty". Moreover, I agree with Qp that the NYTimes example is a poor one - that page represents poor page design AND poor aesthetics, in my opinion. (Flipping photographs and paintings is generally not considered a good idea - it misrepresents and alters the original art work. We don't do that to poetry!) Awadewit (talk) 08:17, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Mr. Awadewit, could you point us to a respectable website that you do consider an example of good design which consistently points faces inwards but may or may not consistently locate standardized elements like TOCs or navigation bars? DocKino (talk) 09:52, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I have to respectfully disagree with this denigration of the aesthetic standards of page layout as mere "utility". The proper location of a left-aligned TOC along the left margin is an aesthetic issue. So is the placement of the lead paragraph in the upper left corner; putting an image there instead looks... amateurish. Visual consistency is an aesthetic matter as well; coming to an encyclopedia page which looks substantially different from its peers is visually jarring. Why do you think people hated that layout so much? It was aesthetically upsetting. Please trust me on this. I hate appeals to authority like this, but... I have a BFA with honors in the visual arts, from a multidisciplinary program that encompassed everything from ancient art history to new media design. Has it occurred to you that a literature student might not have as complete an understanding of visual aesthetics as someone who deals with it every day for a living? - JasonAQuest (talk) 22:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

By chance, I have just read this page. I read it every day, and its design does change [this page has now changed]. Here you have an inward-facing image (direction of kick) on the left, then text, then an equivalent of TOC. Only one face on the page doesn't point to the text: I'm not against exceptions, which is what I am arguing for here in the first place (that occasionally an image may sit better to the left of the lead); this seems to me to be more in the spirit of Wikipedia than inflexible and insensitive rules. I agree that TOCs are a problem for us, but as a design issue, that should be approached separately from the issue of image orientation.

I cannot repeat Awadewit's point about flipping strongly enough. For works of art and photographs by professional photographers, it is inappropriate to flip images (Ludwig will have to wear his carnation in his right lapel), even though we are legally free to do so if the images are free. (Cropping needs caution, too, but I presume it is justifiable for our purposes, since one often sees a "detail" in publications.) You never see orientation flipped in professional publications, so that's a bridge too far. qp10qp (talk) 14:11, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

If you're speaking of works of art in their own right, that's true. If you're speaking of photos for use as illustrative portraits, they are sometimes mirrored in "professional publications" when it suits the editor to do so. It should certainly be discouraged, but it shouldn't be categorically prohibited. - JasonAQuest (talk) 22:28, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

You're quite right that mirroring is sometimes done in professional publications. In the context of an encyclopedia, however, I believe the practice should be categorically prohibited. It's simply and always improper for us to represent the left side of someone's face as the right side of his face—that's a plain violation of fact that we can't ever countenance here, right?—DCGeist (talk) 04:50, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

By that logic, we need to ban the use of photos that represent a person's skin tone or hair color incorrectly (e.g. anything taken under unbalanced artificial lighting), and especially those that show a person as if she appeared only in shades of gray. Paintings and drawings of subjects should be prohibited, because those never get the person's features 100% correct, and for all we know the artist may have deliberately made the subject look better than she really looks, a blatant violation of WP:NPOV and WP:V! And we need an immediate upgrade of MediaWiki to support 3D, because flat images don't truthfully represents a person's features. Or we could keep this in perspective, and let editors use their collective best judgment in individual cases, guided by the understanding that flipping an image produces a less accurate representation of the subject and is therefore strongly discouraged. - JasonAQuest (talk) 13:03, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

My belated input: A) No, do not break out image usage into a new page; there are already way, way too many MOS subpages - so many that we cannot really keep track of them and keep them in synch any longer, even as a collective effort (if anything we need to collapse several of them back into MOS-proper). B) Flipping images around like that is a form of blatant falsification. Human faces are not really very symmetrical at all, and in many cases we would be directly misleading the reader, especially if the article subject has a scar, mole, off-center parting of the hair, or other noticeable difference between the left and right sides of his or her head. While I personally am arguably not quite notable enough for my own article here (thank goodness! It would suck to not be able to edit an article about me due to WP:COI but have one floating around that misrepresented me!), a left-right inversion of an image of me would directly misrepresent my appearance, due to the right-side part in my hair, and my left eye being slightly lower than my right one. This is not an insignificant issue at all - someone may well do a research paper on whether philosophers or whatever have a larger left or right nostril, and cite WP-published photos as evidence. DO NOT FALSIFY ANYTHING ON WP. Duh. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

PS to SlimVirgin and Marc Kupper: I don't think the Wittgenstein article looks weird at all; some pics have people looking this way and some have people looking that way, and some straight ahead, or down, or up. It's just what we have to work with. I understand that some designers might find the L.W. article weird looking, but everyday encyclopedia readers do not think about such layout issues or notice them. WP is not supposed to be "perfect" according to any discipline like page layout psychology, simply eminently useful to the end readership, and accurate. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

PPS to DCGeist: "Predictably positioning the TOC is a greater virtue" - Absolutely, even the other issues aside. I routinely nuke non-standard ToCs when I find them in articles; non-article pages, I don't care - it is not a general reader problem to have a WikiProject that wants a right-justified ToC. People seem to forget that just because a template or other feature exists somewhere on WP does not mean that it makes sense to use it in an actual article. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 08:06, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

PD

I reverted the addition of quotations marks not being necessary when we use works in the public domain, because this is a contentious issue, and there's no consensus that I'm aware of. For my own part, I don't understand why we would ever want to quote anyone, PD or not, without quotation marks. If an entire article is lifted from a PD source, then it might be enough to attribute it at the top or bottom of the text without quotation marks, but where the PD material is being incorporated into an article with other writing in it, then it strikes me as plagiarism to lift it without quotation marks and clear attribution. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 22:15, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

One problem is the intermediate case, where the article used to be the 1911 Britannica, but large parts of it aren't anymore. Do we want to put the rest of it in quotation marks, which will tend to freeze the Britannica's dated information in place?

This works the other way around too. Almost all US geographical articles have a paragraph of bot-added demographic information, with a prose attribution to the 2000 Census. Does this need quotation marks, and if so, who wants to check that it hasn't been modified in the last five years?

I suppose the answer may be to define these as not quotations; but if so we should say so. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 22:34, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't understand and don't tend to agree with the assertion that putting material from 1911eb in quotation marks will "tend to freeze the Britannica's dated information in place". Putting the original 1911eb passages into quotes would clarify which are the dated passages and explain to potential editors why there is an unusual wording in place (it is just a legacy from a big paste-in originally, it is not the consensus product of some big discussion). Editors could then be more confident on the need to question those passages and reword / revise them as necessary to improve the article, removing the quotes in the process. If a study of a random set of articles revised to show the 1911eb passages by quotes did in fact show that editors tended not to edit those passages, relative to a control sample of articles where the passages were not indicated, then this could be addressed by other means (perhaps by adding a friendly tag inviting editors to change the 1911eb passages). But anyhow, there is no proposal on the table to require use of quotes for PD material. The proposal of SEWilco is to prohibit use of quotes with PD material. doncram (talk) 16:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Doncram claims putting PD text in quotation marks will not freeze the information, yet he removes alterations in order to freeze PD text within quotations. (diff) If it's a quotation, it must not be altered. If it's public domain text which is being reused, it is not a quotation and does not need to use quotation style. -- SEWilco (talk) 17:20, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't want to start it all again, but that comment is deliberately obtuse and misleading. I can't talk with this guy. doncram (talk) 22:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

About the geo-demographic-census information, perhaps it would have been better to add the material originally with quotes, and a tag-box inviting users to edit the material (and remove the quotes). If a whole lot of geo-demographic-census articles were to be edited to add quotes now, though, it sure would help editors if a tool were created that would run a proper "diff" between an original version and the current version, or perhaps between any given external webpage and the current page. The current proposal again is to prevent anyone from taking on such an effort, however, not to require such an effort. doncram (talk) 16:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't mind SV's removal because I thought the text was unclear (it seemed to forbid quotation marks rather than just not requiring them, but it was hard to be sure). But it's complete nonsense to say that the reuse and modification of PD text is "plagiarism". Plagiarism is a matter of not giving credit, and it's about the ideas, not the wording. We need to give credit for the ideas, whether the publication is PD or not; this is necessary and sufficient to avoid plagiarism. --Trovatore (talk) 22:46, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

It's about both ideas and wording. PD is no different from non-PD in this respect. TONY (talk) 02:04, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

As long as you give credit, it isn't plagiarism, period. Credit doesn't prevent something from being copyvio, but it always prevents it from being plagiarism. --Trovatore (talk) 09:03, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, then, reviving it from the linked to archive[3]... Please do fix the wording. I did prefer the second suggestion, but there was more support for the first phrasing so that's what I put in the MOS. -- SEWilco (talk) 15:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I concur with SlimVirgin, in general, but also with Sept./PMA in that certain usage of PD material have to be defined as "not-quotations" or they'll end up either frozen or mangled. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

PD quotation suggestion

• Suggestion: Add something like the following to the Quotation section. -- SEWilco (talk) 13:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Public domain

Quotation shall not be used with reused public domain text except for short sections where the article has to preserve the original style and spelling of the text.

Support. That nicely satisfies the specific concerns I have in this area. I think this statement is needed to control the level of conflict caused by strongly held philosophical differences in this area, differences not adequately addressed in existing Wikipedia policy or guideline. Quotes effectively lock text from the wikification and copyediting otherwise compelled by MoS. Quotes also imply specific importance in the unaltered state of the quoted text, an implication that overshadows the refinement gained in source attribution. Quotes imply notable importance in preserving the source text in an unaltered state, and will mislead the reader into conferring more significance onto the source text than is constructive. --Paleorthid (talk) 18:16, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Support. This is spot-on. Quotes (or a quote-box) should only be used when the text should not be changed because it is being attributed to the author. For example, a direct quote from an old PD source where copyright has expired, which is used to provide historical context, etymology, etc., should not be changed (e.g. see: clapotis). But large chunks of PD text manually transcluded to WP should not be quoted, because it should be changed as needed to update or expand the coverage of the subject. For example, material from the 1911 Britanica should be updated, not quoted, as it is typically out of date. Also U.S. Government sources are valuable, but may need to be revised to reflect a worldview. Dhaluza (talk) 23:51, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Oppose. Generally, no other publication considers it acceptable to incorporate chunks of text written by others without specific attribution; we shouldn't be the first. The legal status has nothing to do with the issue because the concept of plagiarism vs. proper attribution isn't founded on any legal obligation. Thus, framing this as a PD issue is misleading. Christopher Parham (talk) 21:56, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The issue here is forcing text into a quotation style; want to propose a phrasing which repeats that attribution is still needed? That little policy Wikipedia:Verifiability kind of likes things to be attributed to their source. -- SEWilco (talk) 16:32, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Quotation marks are the standard method for attributing words to another author in English writing. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

There are differences between a quotation of what someone said and text which is reused. A book version of Treasure Island (1950 film) or Catholic Encyclopedia does not wrap all the reused text in quotation marks. Nor is it Wikipedia custom to freeze EB 1911 text in quotation marks. -- SEWilco (talk) 04:37, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• Suggested rewording: -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:42, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Public domain

Quotation should not be used with public domain text added to articles except for short excerpts where it is useful to the reader to have text shown as it was in the original source.

Support. Sounds better than "used with reused" and focuses on reader rather than whatever an "article has to". -- SEWilco (talk) 19:18, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Support reworded version: This version fixes the two problems I had with the original. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

This is not the forum for that sort of proposal. The MOS is about how to format things. The issue is whether these are quotes at all, or simply incorporated material. If they are quotes, of course they should have quotation marks. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:04, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Then please define the difference between a quotation and incorporated material so WP:MOSQUOTE can be more specific than requiring block quotation for "four lines". -- SEWilco (talk) 14:32, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Disagree with Carl/CBM. This is the forum (the only one) for matters of this sort, unless the scope of WP:V and/or WP:RS changes radically from what is a valid source to how to cite a valid source. One could possibly argue that WP:CITE is a good target for this, but an actual read of that document suggests otherwise; it is a how-to page on the usage of the <ref...>...</ref> & <references /> system and its alternatives (and frankly belongs in the Help: not Wikipedia: namespace to begin with.) — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Monthly update of substantive styleguide and policy changes

Sandy and others have requested regular updates of substantive changes to MOS (not just copy-editing). I've now broadened the scope to embrace changes at the main styleguides and policy pages. Here's the whole-month diff I based it on for the MOS main page.

JANUARY 2008

Manual of style, main page

• Non-breaking spaces. Added: "In compound items in which numerical and non-numerical elements are separated by a space, a non-breaking space (or hard space) is recommended to avoid the displacement of those elements at the end of a line." A caveat was inserted concerning disadvantages of using the {{nowrap}} template.
• Captions. Added: If a caption contains a complete sentence, any other sentence fragments in the caption should themselves end with a period.

FAC instructions

• Added: "If a nominator feels that an Oppose has been addressed, they should say so after the reviewer's signature rather than striking out or splitting up the reviewer's text.... nominators should not alter, strike, break up, or add graphics to comments from other editors; replies are added below the signature on the reviewer's commentary."

Non-free content policy

• Criterion 3. Removed: "If your image is greater than 500–600px add {{non-free reduce}} to the Image: namespace and someone from Wikipedia will shrink the image to comply with this guideline."

FEBRUARY 2008

Manual of style, main page

• Numbers as figures or words. In the body of an article, whole numbers from zero to ten (rather than the previous zero to nine) are spelled out in words. [Now inconsistent with MOSNUM] The previous insistence that ordinals for centuries be expressed in figures (the 5th century) has been made optional (the 5th century or the fifth century).
• Avoid first-person pronouns. It is now acceptable to use we in historical articles to mean the modern world as a whole (The text of De re publica has come down to us with substantial sections missing).
• Foreign terms. "Unitalicized" was added to this point: "A rule of thumb is: do not italicize words that appear unitalicized in an English language dictionary."
• Spelling and transliteration. [Additions underlined, removals struck through] For terms in common usage, use anglicized spellings; native spellings are an optional alternative if they use the Latin English alphabet. The choice between anglicized and native spellings should follow English usage (e.g., Besançon, Edvard Beneš and Göttingen, but Nuremburg, role, and Florence). Article titles follow our naming conventions. Diacritics are optional, except where they are required for disambiguation English overwhelmingly uses them, whether for disambiguation or for accurate pronunciation (résumé, café). Where native spellings in non-Latin scripts (such as Greek and Cyrillic) are given, they normally appear in parentheses (except where the sense requires otherwise), and are not italicized, even where this is technically feasible.

WP:Layout

• "See also" sections. Slight rewording: Links already included in the body of the text are generally not repeated in "See also"; however whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense.
• End sections. Greater flexibility is now permitted in the order of these sections: although the preferred order [of the sections is "See also", "Notes" (or "Footnotes"), "References" (or a combined Notes and references), "Bibliography" (or Books or Further reading), and "External links", it is permissible to change the sequence of these ending sections if there is good reason to do so. However, if an article has both "Notes" and "References" sections, "Notes" should immediately precede "References".

WP:Footnotes

• Op. cit. was added to Ibid as an abbreviation that should not be used in footnotes.
• Addition (underlined): "Unsourced or poorly sourced material may be removed from any article, and if it is, the burden of proof is on the editor who wishes to restore it."

FAC instructions

• Phrase added (underlined): Before nominating an article, nominators may wish to receive feedback by listing it at Wikipedia:Peer review or the League of Copyeditors.
• Phrase added (underlined): Nominators are expected to respond positively to constructive criticism and to make an effort to address objections promptly.
• Minor changes to the mechanics of adding a nomination.
• Addition: "[Stating at the top of the page] a reason for nominating, and a declaration of "Support" are not necessary."

MARCH 2008

Manual of style, main page

• Multiplication symbols. Inserted: Do not use an asterisk to represent multiplication between numbers in non-technical articles. The multiplication sign in exponential notation (2.1 × 10⁸) may now be unspaced, depending on circumstances (2.1×10⁸); previously, spacing was always required in exponential notation.
• Images. There were minor changes to the advice concerning the direction of the face or eyes in images, and concerning the size of images.
• Punctuation in quotations. "Punctuation" was added to the requirement that "Wherever reasonable, preserve the original style, spelling and punctuation".
• Em dashes. "Em dashes are normally unspaced" was strengthened to "should not be spaced".
• Instructional and presumptuous language. "Clearly" and "actually" were added to the list of words that are usually avoided in an encyclopedic register.
• '"Pull" and block quotes. Removed: Pull quotes are generally not appropriate in Wikipedia articles. Added: Block quotes can be enclosed using {{quotation}} or {{quote}} (as well as the existing specification, i.e., between a pair of <blockquote>...</blockquote> HTML tags).

WP:Layout

• "See also" sections. It was clarified that links should be presented in a bulleted list, and that rather than grouping them by subject area, it is helpful to alphabetize them.
• As an alternative to striking out their "objection", reviewers may "cap off their resolved comments; the cap should include the reviewer's signature, and editors [not nominators] should cap only their own commentary.

FAC instructions

• Added: "Nominators must be sufficiently familiar with the subject matter and sources to deal with objections during the FAC process. Nominators who are not significant contributors to the article should consult regular editors of the article prior to nomination."

WP:Non-free content policy

• Criterion 8. The second clause was removed: "Non-free content is used only if its presence would significantly increase readers' understanding of the topic, and its omission would be detrimental to that understanding."
• Enforcement. Inserted: An image with a valid non-free-use rationale for some (but not all) articles it is used in will not be deleted. Instead, the image will be removed from the articles for which it lacks a non-free-use rationale.

Update of the past three months now pasted over the previous March update; important to give people the bigger picture. TONY (talk) 09:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Fantastic, Tony. This makes all the difference in how user-friendly MoS is. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:07, 5 April 2008 (UTC) P.S. the See also link addition is mine. If links are not deemed to be a "substantive" change, feel free to revert, but I think we absolutely need to keep track of what the linked material says. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:30, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Dan. OK for the added link point, but let's try to ration the update to a list of changes that directly affect usage "out there". TONY (talk) 03:41, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

This is wonderful - could this be posted to the Signpost where more people will see it? I had no idea this was here - I just stumbled across it. Awadewit (talk) 04:51, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Enormous sigh of relief, I've been clamoring for this for so long :-) But we don't need the See also link; we need to know what changes in article editing. Will discuss at WP:FCDW how to work this in to the Dispatches. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:55, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm ... to try to see the bigger picture, don't you all think that these monthly updates might be a magnet for the reportage of changes in other styleguides and policy pages? When the crunch comes, I don't think the changes worth mentioning (the significant ones) would come to a large number each month. I'm happy to include other changes if people report them to me (perhaps under the heading "Other pages"; this is a necessary service for the whole project. TONY (talk) 09:29, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Could that be solved by doing a quarterly update in the Dispatches, rather than monthly, so you can focus on the truly substantive changes? And then just put the monthly changes here and at FAC, so we can keep up? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

←I thought maybe pages linked directly from MoS would enter the picture more; however, if we're really going to start keeping track of changes to all style guidelines, and clearly that's desirable, then what links to what is unimportant, so I'll revert. Whee, another project. If we'll all volunteer to keep an eye on a few pages apiece, it shouldn't be that hard. Hey Duke, we need another WP-space page to hold the summaries, and another acronym! Just to demonstrate self-control, I won't create it. The place to keep people up on what changes have happened recently to style pages is probably in a box at the top of the relevant talk pages; then possibly, WT:MoS could have a box at the top with links to all those individual boxes. For auto-archived pages, can we configure so that it doesn't archive the summaries?

While I'm talking (which is different, um, how?), I have figured out that WP:GAU is a complete no-brainer, and I'm sorry I represented it as potentially divisive. I've been reading pages such as Linguistic prescription (the first See also link from TCMOS), and I'm getting the sense that prescription requires description, and I don't see descriptive studies that meet even minimal standards for usefulness anywhere on Wikipedia; we need at least one. Studies have to be, at a minimum, large, random, and careful; working with the reviewers and editors of every GAN that passes should reasonably large and random, and I'll try to be careful, but of course people looking over my shoulder would help to educate me and spot my biases, and more people actually conducting the survey would be fantastic. As a bonus, GAN is, for many editors, the first time they run up against a wall of "you can't do that, you must do this, MoS says so", and that's the perfect time to conduct a language-description survey; it gives them the impression that we are listening and we care. Of course, this impression will be dashed on further exposure to Wikipedia :) But it at least gets us off on the right foot, and may over time increase respect for the place of MoS in Wikipedia. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:33, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Subjective impression: this is exactly the right time for Tony's idea of summaries. A month ago, we had a novel-length argument at WP:LAYOUT on what to do about an obvious contradiction among style guidelines, and got nowhere ... but we got nowhere for a legitimate reason: everyone had leftover things from previous arguments that never got resolved that they felt like they had to say. For whatever reason, the air has cleared a bit on most style talk pages, and there's been no resistance in the last 24 hours now that the issue has resurfaced. I think, I hope, this is a great time to finally get rid of the contradictions among style pages. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

• Tony does not note that he disputes the exponential change. Does this mean he is withdrawing his objection? If not, it should be noted. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:53, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

• A page has been established for users to notify substantive changes to styleguides and policy pages here. Monthly update summaries will be stored on a dedicated page here in chronological sequence, as a service to the community. The summaries will not rely on the notifications alone, but will involve a survey of the whole-month diffs for each of the major pages. TONY (talk) 06:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

You're giving yourself a lot of work Tony, but this is one case where I have no problem with one person (Tony) being assigned to the job; the job of summarizing is benign and useful and there's a need for consistency. There's still a question of whether it would also be useful to have boxes at the top of style talk pages which Tony then filters for his report. I can see that having a box at the top of a style talk page could potentially mean that, after we've hashed everything out, we then have to rehash the whole discussion as we write the summary. As with everything else, it just depends on the quality and goodwill of the discussion, whether that would be enlightening, or just create more work. My inclination would be to trust the mob until that's not working, as a win-win: either it works, or we can point to the reason we don't do it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 12:38, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment, Dan; I guess it's a lot of work, but I've asked users to notify on the talk page, so I'm covered if I neglect something and there are complaints. I intend to do MOS main page thoroughly, and cover a few other important pages. Funny thing is, when you skip over the copy-editing and reversions, there's not all that much in other pages—MOS central trumps all in terms of dynamic change. The others are often as not just a single change or none at all. I think it's best if a single person does it (cohesive). I will have difficulty in doing it when my real-life workload is huge; but the next few months should be OK. TONY (talk) 12:43, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, that's twice you've said you're willing to do it all ... and I am more than happy not to do it! - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:09, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd be willing to do it myself, if it's such a lot of work....Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:18, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

As a first step: everyone seems to have an idea of which style guidelines they want to keep up with and which ones they don't. Isn't there another name for a style guideline that we don't really have to keep up with, namely, "not a style guideline"? Other than style guidelines that are maintained by specific projects (and possibly even including those), couldn't we suggest demotion for one or more of the 70 style guidelines in Category:Wikipedia style guidelines to essays or how-to guides? Even if we don't demote them, can we somehow reduce (below 70) the list that we're keeping up with? As a second step, after we have a list of guidelines we're interested in, I would be very much in favor of posting a notice at WP:COUNCIL#Current notices and WP:VPM advertising a push to iron out any issues that anyone has with style guidelines, and we can just be honest with people that it's a pain for everyone to have to keep re-learning guidelines, so we're hoping everyone will have their say now and the guidelines will then stay stable for a good long while. After looking around all the style pages, I'm just not seeing a lot of fussing and fighting, so I think this would be a good time to do it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:46, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

• I did a quick survey of some of what I understand to be the more important styleguides and MOS subpages, finding little to include for March. That is, I suspect, the norm; by asking users to notify important changes on the talk page I've established, contributors can't then complain if their pet change wasn't included. MOS main page seems to have the most to record by far. Thanks to Anderson for his offer; I may take that up in the future. TONY (talk) 01:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay, as promised, I made a post at WP:COUNCIL#Current notices: "Regular WP:MoS editors would like to invite all the WikiProjects to give input on the talk pages of any and all style guidelines pages (See category:style guideline). The more consensus we can get on style guidelines, the more stable the style guidelines will be, and that will make less work for everyone." I think I'll also add an invitation to the WikiProjects for input at WP:GAU; the clearer it is that there is a channel for input (at least at the level of GANs) that genuinely reflects their concerns, the less (I hope, I guess) individuals will feel the need to heed Churchill: "Whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender". (Sept, I hope it's clear this is not a dig at you; I'm talking about discontent that doesn't make it to WT:MoS, but that people in the WikiProjects are aware of.)

Also please see my edit today at WP:LAYOUT#Standard appendices and descriptions, Notes 1 and 2, regarding the order of end sections, if you're into that kind of thing. It was a very long argument at WP:LAYOUT, but things have quieted down for the moment, let's see if we can get some momentum going. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Guys, Sandy reverted me at WP:Layout, and we talked about it here. I actually agree with all 4 of her points; but if you look at the month-long battle we had on that issue (with simultaneous battles on the same talk page), it will be clear why I want to be "well-behaved" (or at least act like it!), so I want to do just one thing at a time. I explained the reasons for why See also is almost always first and External links is almost always last (but I didn't mention that specific wikiprojects disagree); Sandy pointed out, reasonably enough, that this violates WP:CREEP; I agree, but I don't want my reasoning to entirely disappear, it needs to be "within reach" for when people feel like challenging it. How about if we put my reasons in a footnote at WP:LAYOUT? If that seems like a good idea, then I'll wait a couple of days to make sure I'm not getting static from the wikiprojects, and then address the other problems Sandy pointed out. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:18, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Keeping up with this page really makes me crazy. Dank55, what does the layout page have to do with Tony's monthly update? Anyway, I don't disagree with the principle of the change at WP:GTL, but the language needed help. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:29, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Sandy, if what we're doing now works, hopefully you won't have to! Btw ... not a peep of protest from any of the wikiprojects so far, and I've been contacting them on a number of levels and in a number of places. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Might be worth banning carrots for expontentation in the same breath as asterisks for multiplication (they sit next to no hyphens for subtraction). JЇѦρ 05:41, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

• Please raise substantive issues about previous changes to styleguide and policy pages separately; this section concerns only the process of reportage. TONY (talk) 07:34, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

PC language #1. Chairman vs. Chairperson vs. Chair

Hi all, couldn't find anything on a cursory search - has anyone discussed whether we should opt for a preferred term? I always found chairperson ungainly and was much pleased with an expert on gender's use of the succinct and monosyllabic chair. Any thoughts (apart from the usual moan on instruction creep which I will preemptively acknowledge) :) Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:45, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

"Chair" is widely adopted by professionals and journalists in the U.S. TCMOS, Sections 5.202 and 8.31 (online, by subscription) - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:05, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree: "Chair" is the best way. BTW, it doesn't matter that the "man" in "chairman" didn't refer to the male gender in the original French; what is important is the likelihood that it will be perceived as gender-specific by modern English-language readers. TONY (talk) 04:09, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, is it significant enough to have written down somewhere as a guide? Do we have a gender neutral language section yet? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:37, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent. sound of ruffling through wiki-pages...) ....hey looky what I found - Wikipedia:Gender-neutral language...should something be appended here? Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:39, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

OK - I'll move this over to the talk page....Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 05:43, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

If someone will confirm for me that "Chair" is also widely adopted by academics, professionals and journalists outside the U.S., I'll put it in a new Examples section on that page. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:38, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

(indent) certainly 'Chair' is used in Australia, alongside 'Chairman' and the ungainly 'chairperson'.Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:36, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'll confirm for you that it is PC claptrap. The word is Chairman, regardless of the gender of the Chairman. Remember that the Womens Institute has Chairmen. Mayalld (talk) 21:04, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

What's your source? I mean, either formally, like a style guide, or informally, where do you see "chairman"? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:37, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

If the title is set by law, I would follow the governing law, and leave political correctness up to the legislature. I would only start thinking about replacing "chairman" with "chair" if it was an informal title not established by law. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 15:15, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

It is highly regrettable that middle-aged men are still riling against what has become common courtesy, and a practicality with respect to writing inclusive text. TONY (talk) 15:21, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know if Tony1's comment was directed at my post, but I intend no discourtesy towards women. I only seek to make law-making bodies bear the responsibility for their choice of titles. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 15:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

To rephrase: this is very much a generational thing, and I suppose that which generations we're talking about can vary from country to country, which is why I asked if anyone can tell me what's going on outside the U.S. Gerry, I agree that we can't start censoring the word Chairman when it's part of a proper noun (and I'm thinking Tony agrees); but in the U.S., it's very hard to find, with the obvious exception of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So, the military is behind the times on language usage; I'm shocked, shocked. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC) P.S. Update: the article Chairman (official) is completely wrong, giving a very narrow meaning to chair. I'll put it on my to-do list, but I'm going to be tied down with style guidelines, WT:V, GAU and GAN for a while, if someone wants to fix it. I gave the TCMOS cite above; I would be surprised if every language and professional manual of AmEng doesn't say the same thing. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:16, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I arbitrarily chose one big state to check: New York. A search on their law site gets 1,301 hits in 256 documents. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:22, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Law and lawyers are slow to change because of the reliance on precedent. It's an occupational hazard. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I don't know about native speakers, but many non-native speakers might find the usage of an article of furniture as a name for a title at best amusing, and at worst confusing. I don't like chairperson much, but it is much clearer; personally, I prefer good old chairman. Waltham, The Duke of 05:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Beware WP:NOR/WP:NPOV issues on this one. I was at EFF when Esther Dyson was the board chairman. She insisted on that title, rejecting what she saw as excessive P.C.-ism and even latent sexism in the title "chairwoman", and when I suggested "chair", she said "I am not a piece of furniture". Different people feel strongly about this issue - in different, sometimes surprising, directions. I would suggest that "chairperson" is an okay default, but also that using "chairman"/"chairwoman" is also okay when the article subject's gender is known and provided that the article is written in a balanced manner and no "oooh, she's a chick" slant is evident in the text; "chair" by itself should not be used except as a verb ("she chaired the committee") - if for no other reason than it won't make sense to non-native English speakers - and always go with a) the official title if it is known, or b) the preference of the article subject when that preference is known, in that order. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'll be a piece of furniture any day. English is supremely flexible in nouning and verbing and morphing semantics (part of being a "borrowing" language). If you can chair a meeting, you can easily be the Chair. Someone ask the reference desk about this (no, not a piece of wood—a person). PS I hate "chairperson" too, with a vengeance. And "chairman", as I said above, is too likely to be associated with a former sexist ways. "Chair" is nice and neat, too: "The silliest things were said by the Chair" (squeak ... creak ... squish ... kaplonk) TONY (talk) 09:04, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

If we're going to deprecate terms that have only been coined or reappropriated in modern usage, we've got a lot of articles to go through and rewrite in compliance with the 1950 edition of Webster's dictionary. Chair is a perfectly standard term in contemporary English for the person in charge of a committee (e.g. "The Chair recognizes Mister Smith."); non-native speakers will just have to learn it along with the rest of this quirky language. - JasonAQuest (talk) 13:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but that hasn't stopped me before. Stanton, IMO it's not irrelevant that Esther is a woman. Even when I think I have a good feel for what words to avoid when talking about women, blacks, gays or other groups who have gone through similar struggles, I will always allow members of the group very wide latitude to break the rules in any way they see fit. It's our/their battle. I still think it's true that there are quite a few academics, journalists and professionals who regard the unknowing use of the word chairman as embarrassing, and that a large majority of editors at WP:GAN very much want to know information on what is potentially embarrassing, and the details of how and why, even if they are free to disagree with it. That doesn't mean it needs to be in MoS; maybe this is another use of summary boxes for style guidelines archives. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that your example is not exactly on-target, Jason... In "The Chair recognizes Mister Smith", emphasis is given not so much on the person acting as chair as on the fact that there is someone heading the proceedings, and that Mister Smith has been recognised by this authority, in this case a Chair. I hope you understand what I am trying to say here.

In any case, to state my opinion on the greater issue, I feel that we ought to be rather reserved in any suggestions in the MoS regarding gender-neutral language, including this rather controversial, as has transpired, example. This is one of the few areas where truly everyone seems to have an opinion, and prescriptiveness is therefore the least acceptable by the editors. Waltham, The Duke of 04:41, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Nicely put, Duke. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Translations in first sentence

I have searched extensively on many occasions for a policy on this, and have failed to find one. I am referring to the practice of putting the name of something in its original language in parentheses after the English translation, like, "Some French Guy (French: Un gars français)". Sometimes the {{Lang}} template appears. There are numerous references to this practice, but no guideline as to how it should be done.

If the other language does not use the Latin alphabet, it is common practice to write the name as it would be written by a user of that language, and then give a Romanized version. Usually there is only one language, the original, but sometimes two are appropriate, especially for a person. Sometimes, the different versions of the name are a notable topic, addressed in that article (e.g. Christopher Columbus), as part of a separate list (Vienna), or even in an article devoted wholly to the names of that thing (Istanbul).

As I understand it, the purpose is to give the name in the language of origin. But I have also seen mention of the name in other languages, ones in which the thing is often named. For example, someone recently added the Turkish name of Lesbos, Midilli, while the English name is derived from the Greek. I assume the Turkish name is also used frequently, given the isle's proximity to Turkey. Is this appropriate?

If I am correct in believing that there is no policy page, I suggest that we create one.

MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 21:04, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

If we do write a page, perhaps that awful Lang template can be discouraged, since there's no need to WP:OVERLINK a common word/term like French language. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:48, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The purpose of the Lang template is a common format for all languages. At what point is the name of a language uncommon enough that it should be linked? Should the continuum of commonality be encoded in the Lang template so only the uncommon languages are linked? -- SEWilco (talk) 17:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

The template itself isn't the issue; it's a question of when to use it. I came across it being used for English, which resulted in a link to the English language on the English wiki (!!), and italicizing of the English phrase that followed (WP:ITALICS is for foreign phrases). Some people automatically apply the template where it's not needed on any translation. My suggestion was that we discourage the use of the template when it's not needed and results in WP:OVERLINKing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 20:07, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

• Actually, the name Midilli is not particularly common; I've never heard it before, and Google Scholar suggests it is far less common than Lesbos as a name for the island. (Tenedos, on the other side of the frontier, is another question.)
• WP:NCGN suggests that such names be included if they are used in English more than 10% of the time.
• Not linking should be troublesome for advocates of uniformity. It is not impossible for, say, Russian, Armenian, and Abkhazi names to be in the first line of the same article. We may not need to link to Russian language, but we should certainly link to Abkhaz language, if only to be sure it's spelt correctly; do we really want to have one or two black and the rest blue? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:30, 6 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I have no problem with inconsistency on that level. Apart from the utility of rationing links to the useful ones, it signals when we know and the reader should know that an item is obscure/less well-known. As for black and blue, any linking is going to cause that in the text. TONY (talk) 10:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I feel another general principle lurking around here: when there's a question of whether a suggestion is NPOV or not, that's above our pay grade on this page. All we can deal with here is style and language: what works well, what's accepted, what looks nice. We can't right any wrongs. That begs the question, what do we do about it when someone suggests that we're dealing with something that even has a flavor of POV? I don't have the answer ... obviously, I got it wrong in the discussion about Arabic foods. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:03, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Once there is an at least semi-concrete consensus on something, can we go ahead and create a guideline page, as I suggested, or put it under WP:Lead section? Now, as for specific issues...

The Lang template is not just for the names of languages in the opening sentence; it has applications to any kind of foreign-language text. That said, I could care less if it was deleted.

I strongly agree with the point Septentrionalis brought up - that not linking major languages would be fraught with inconsistency and difficulty. (Though I'm not sure if you yourself agree, given your position on uniformity.) Not only would it be inconsistent, the decision on the significance or commonness of a language is unavoidably POV. For an encyclopedia trying to rid itself of its U.S./U.K./Australian bias, dividing the languages of the world into - effectively - "nobody wants to read about this language" and "nobody's heard of this language" would be an unseemly judgment call. Also, while linking to the French language article in the body of an article would usually be gratuitous, I don't think the clean, well established format of "([[Language]]: Name)", once, in the first sentence, is a problem at all. Let the reader decide to use or not use the link. What about Latin? It's extremely well known, but also a topic of interest.

The addition of the Turkish name Midilli has been reverted. I was tempted to do that myself. I know it's not a common name in English. The reason I brought it up was to ask if the inclusion of a relevant non-English name was felicitous, and to illustrate the need for a guideline with the very question. The answer, as we have been graciously informed, is found in WP:Naming conventions (geographic names). I still support the creation of a new guideline (see above).

MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 04:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, but as you know, I'm a minimalist when it comes to linking. There are good reasons to ration it to the important stuff you really want readers to access. Linking English on en.WP seems absurd, but it's done all too often. Linking United States same deal: why? Let's not splash bright blue around the text for no reason ... TONY (talk) 15:26, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Lesbos does, and should, link to Greece; readers may want to go there, although almost all English-speakers know what it is. (For example, to compare the demographics of Lesbos to the whole country.) Kentucky should link to United States for the same reasons. Lesbos should also link to Mytilene.... Septentrionalis PMAnderson 20:59, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I might be a little late here, as usual, but here it goes... I don't know about Lesbians, or residents of other, nearby islands, but Greeks in general have no idea about the Turkish name of Lesbos, or of any other island of the Archipelago for that matter. How often are names of neighbouring countries' languages used in Wikipedia for localities, especially when there are no major historical connections? Really, this doesn't sound very serious. Waltham, The Duke of 05:27, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

If it is felt that this really needs to be addressed by the guidelines, I would strongly suggest that it is better to amend WP:LEAD to include something on it than to create yet another guidelines that hardly anyone will read or obey. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:58, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem with it being part of WP:LEAD; I am not really partial to either of my suggestions. My concern is having the information somewhere. As for no one reading or obeying it, no one will read or obey it if it doesn't exist. Its existence will give editors who find themselves in my position the opportunity to look up the policy. MagnesianPhoenix (talk) 10:02, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Acronyms

Two of the Stephan Leeds edits seemed fine; I reverted the two on acronyms, but note that I added that the word acronym often means both acronym (original sense) and initialism, which is exactly the reason that the language seemed a bit confused, to Stephan and probably others. So, after adding the explanation, I like the fact that acronym wanders between the two meanings, because I've noticed that it wanders in just the same way all over Wikipedia; might as well get people used to it. The dictionaries solidly support both meanings. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Image icons and flags in infobox headers

revived from archive. it was archived too soon.

Ella Fitzgerald
Born	example

Ella Fitzgerald
Born	example

I don't know if i've done this according to protocol, but the ongoing discussion pasted below from Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Infoboxes#Nobel prize image, most probably should have been opened here.

This may be related to the flag issue raised two sections above. I noticed some back-and-forth reverting on the Al Gore page as to whether the Nobel Prize image belonged there. Is there a policy or consensus regarding this? OhNoitsJamie ^Talk 17:46, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure where it goes but I think it's nice to have on there. I've been trying to ensure that all prize image placement is at least consistent within the prize field, and for Nobel Peace Prizes, which Al Gore was awarded, it appears to be next to the name in the infobox. --Eustress (talk) 18:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

as merely decoration, i don't believe the nobel tokens should be displayed in the infoboxes header. much like the flagicons, once permitted, editors tend to go wild and place any- and every-manner of decalcomania to highlight the slightest identifying characteristic. the practice has been deprecated in {{infobox musical artist}} for a plethora of reasons, and i think this one should be nipped before the genie is out of pandora's box. (how's that for a mixed metaphor trifecta!) --emerson7 01:38, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think placing an Nobel Prize image (not just any decorative icon) will underestimate one's other characteristics or overemphasize the value of prize. The Nobel Prize is one of the most recognized awards throughout the world and worth a space in the infobox. If we can have a collection of icons for other awards, we might need to consider a special section in the infobox. eDenE 02:13, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

then where does it end? if this is allowed to proliferate, i won't be long before little pics of medals of honour pop up, and olympic medals, and on and on in the same manner of the flagicons. --emerson7 02:13, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I think the image is not helpful and thus it shouldn't be there (what is the reason for having it?). I don't know what a Nobel prize looks like, and I certainly can't recognize it from such a small picture (unlike some flags). I think that this is true for most people. I asked for opinions at Template talk:Infobox Scientist#Image:Nobel.svg but did not get any reactions. -- Jitse Niesen (talk) 13:59, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it is a hasty generalization, although I don't know how many people can recognize the Nobel Prize medal. If you really don't know you might want to look it up. Notable awards are very helpful to know about a person fast. However, many infoboxes lack such section and it is not a small job to edit all those infoboxes. So, the question is how helpful placing the icon would be for readers. I don't know, but it will be helpful for me at least. eDenE 20:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't have an opinion on keeping the graphic, but if you keep it, I think the addition of a "Nobel" or "Nobel Prize" caption would be preferable, since most people won't recognize the icon. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:30, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I am in favor of keeping the Nobel image, as it is, and where it is. However, as is the case with actor boxes, a section on "awards received" that gives further information would be useful. I think a caption at the top would be unwieldy. However, I am fervently opposed to the removal of said images whilst this discussion is still ongoing, as has happened at the Seán McBride article. ---RepublicanJacobite_{The'FortyFive'} 15:22, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think the image adds anything at all to the article, and is simply a distraction. The average reader will just think "what's up with this little 'golden man' picture?". Disclaimer: I'm the principal author of WP:MOSFLAG, so I am rather skeptical of the value of decorative icons. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:52, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Spacing on units of measurement

Resolved

 – Wrong venue. See WT:MOSNUM.

It must be there somewhere, but I can't find it. Do we care if an article uses 5g or 5 g for grams? Is it OK for there to be no space between the 5 and the g ? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Non-breaking spaces? Fvasconcellos (t·c) 00:17, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

No, Fv; that says we have to add nbsps when we have a space, but doesn't address whether it's OK to have no space. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

See Bugzilla:13619 for a proposal to add non-breaking spaces automatically. — Omegatron 02:40, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#SI symbols and unit abbreviations point 10.

Values and unit symbols are spaced (“25 kg”, not “25kg”). The exceptions are the non-alphabetic symbols for degrees, minutes and seconds for angles (the coordinate is 5° 24′ 21.12″ N, the pathways are at a 180° angle, but the average temperature is 18 °C).

JЇѦρ 03:56, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

That's it, Jimp; thanks ! That section is so dense that I just didn't see it in there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:02, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

SI symbols and unit abbreviations

Resolved

 – Wrong venue. See WT:MOSNUM.

• Temperatures doesn't explain why one uses °C and °F for Celsius and Fahrenheit, but just K (not °K) for Kelvin; it's because, unlike the other two, the Kelvin scale is absolute and thus not measured in degrees.
• This section ought to include the rule that, to avoid ambiguity, millionths of a metre (μg) are known as microns, not as "micrometres" or, worse, "micrometers", because a micrometer is a measuring instrument.
• Squared and cubic metric-symbols: what is the Wikipedia standard for the inverses of such units? For instance, in stationery shops I've seen good-quality paper as having a weight of "80g/m²" or of 80gm^-2, both meaning "80 grams per square metre". Does Wikipedia have any preference for one or the other? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.171.129.75 (talk) 17:29, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

My comments:

• Temperatures I've never seen an authoritative statement about why "degree" was dropped from Kelvin. The change was made by the General Conference on Weights and Measures. If you want to claim this is why, please supply an authoritative citation.

• Microns are obsolete (See http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf page 155). Micrometre and, in the USA, micrometer are correct. If you don't like the possible confusion between micrometer the instrument and micrometer the unit, write to your congressman. If you don't have a congressman, you're out of luck. --Gerry Ashton (talk) 17:54, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to take your word for that, Gerry, rather than pulling up a PDF with at least 155 pages, but this is a complete surprise to me. American Heritage does say "no longer in use". Micrometre and Merriam-Webster say that micron is fine. Scientists and engineers still use the word frequently. I'm fairly sure that a MoS rule that says to avoid micron will be widely and forcefully ignored by scientists and engineers, at least in 2008. I agree that micrometre/er is completely fine. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 20:36, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

This is the wrong venue for this discussion. The section in question is simply a summary of what is at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), so any issues with its advice should be raised at WT:MOSNUM (other than MOS corrections to the accurate summarization of what is actually said at MOSNUM). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

MOS thoughts

What are the community's thought's on the recent changes to the lead and infobox on Wales (the previous version being here)? I'm sure this is against MOS, but would like to be sure, and if this is so, take specific MOS pages back to the talk page if possible. :) --Jza84 |  Talk  22:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

We've just been discussing that, actually; that article could be the poster boy for the evils of sandwiching text between images on the left and right (including the ToC). Search for "sandwich" above. However, the old edit was also evil, although less so ... that's a huge rectangle of white space. People hate that. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 23:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Ahhh. I see. I agree that it could be the poster boy for a clearer MOS on sandwiching. There are some interesting suggestions too however at Talk:Wales about the use of colours around the infobox which are also causing me concern. --Jza84 |  Talk  01:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, hopefully we'll write something up when the current discussions are finished. In a nutshell, the main problem with sandwiching text between images is that not everyone is using the full width of the screen, or using a high resolution, or even necessarily reading Wikipedia on a computer, so you can get some very tightly squeezed text on some screens if you put pictures on both sides. Anyway, I tried to find more information for you on colors or borders, but other than the text and links in WP:MOS#Images, I'm not finding anything on principles of page layout and design, in WP:PICTURE, or the how-to table articles, or in the HELP space, or in WP:LAYOUT, or WP:IMAGE. Can anyone tell me where to find more advice ? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

This is the sort of thing I was hoping would be covered in a separate MOS page dealing with images, as I suggested recently. The general subject of layout could use some better and more consistent guidance than is available currently. - JasonAQuest (talk) 03:12, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The example in question (Wales) is rather strange, in that the same image (the mountain) is repeated later in the article. That looks stupid to me, and should probably be one of the things discouraged, not to say disallowed, by a potential new MoS page for images. Waltham, The Duke of 05:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Btw, I asked over at the Reference Desk/Misc, and the best they have so far is, "look at magazines". Jason, FWIW, the Duke is quite gentle and respectful of editors, generally. I've noticed that saying things like "looks stupid" is an occupational hazard of MoS editors; I find myself turning into a priggish schoolmarm at times. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 12:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Well guys (and girls?), I would recommend that a clearer MOS be written (I'm surprised this isn't already explicit). I also invite you to comment at Talk:Wales, where there are several neon infoboxes in the pipeline. --Jza84 |  Talk  12:55, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Ack. Jza, ignore my "white space" comment, I've been trying a new add-on for Firefox and it suxxors, it was blanking some elements. Nevermind! - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

←Did a search on "DTP" and "image+layout" at Ref Desk/Computing, 100 links, no luck. But Julia at WP:REFDESK gave this answer:

Eureka. The best site[4] gives you heaps. Ignore the (ironically) clunky layout, and that it's meant for a wide screen, the content (range and all on topic) is good. This example "Getting Started with Page Layout"[5] supports your answer, from "Less is more" onwards. Googling "graphic design principles" gives you others to explore; but this is the best for starters. Julia Rossi (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

- Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:01, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Scriptural style

Some while back we finally got consensus on the idea that "the Bible" should be capitalized, even though it customarily is not among some Christians for reasons that aren't particularly explicable. Now, I wonder, can we get consensus on italicization of titles of religious works just like any other. It seems really, really weird to me that this exception would be made, especially given the highly subjective nature of the definition of "religious work" or "scripture". In offline style, I often see Koran (or Q'ran or whatever transliteration is preferred) italicized, and same goes for the Talmud. If we stick with non-italicization, what is the dividing line to be? Oahspe? the Iliad? Bagavad Gita? Tao Te Ching? At what exact point do we say "this is a religious work, and this one is not"? I say, just avoid the problem (which raises WP:POV and WP:NOR issues, in spades) entirely, and go with consistent italicization. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 06:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I like the flavor of not using MoS to push a POV. On the other hand, the answer to so many WP:NPOV, WP:V and WP:NOR questions is, "Let the religions tell their own story in their own words." If the Baptists want one thing, but the Methodists want another and most Presbyterians don't care, I've got no problem at all with italicization. But is the opposition more organized, more consistent than that? Does the Vatican take a strong position? Btw, for anyone reading, no matter what we think, don't blame us on this one; if there winds up being a consensus not to italicize, it would be because of policy (WP:NPOV etc) issues, which are out of our jurisdiction. Go next door. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 12:11, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The Iliad a religious text? Surely a line should be drawn for more border-line examples, but this one is completely counter-intuitive. Waltham, The Duke of 17:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it was. As Herodotus said, the Greeks knew the names and actions of their gods from Homer and Hesiod. The real point, however, is that Iliad is the title of the Iliad, or at least can be; but "Bible" is not a title, it's a proper name.

As usual, we should follow usage, not make up our own. I believe this to be that Bible is roman, and the individual books are italicized in some circumstances but not others: ("The Book of Job", and "In Job, Job himself says..." but "Job 3:14" and "to quote Job " (even when the words quoted are God's or Satan's)). Evidence would be more helpful than declamation. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:14, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The Ancient Greeks may have used the Iliad in this way, but it was not a religious text in itself, because it was not written as such; it was an epic poem (and one centred on the adventures of mortal Achilles, for that matter).

• Ah, the debate on the original function of epic poetry; the answer may not be beyond conjecture, but there is a lamentable shortage of evidence - complicated by the argument whether Greek and Sanskrit epics do in fact have an common IE ancestor. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

In any case, I do prefer current practice as it is. Mr Anderson is right: Bible is a proper name (something also evident from the word's use in snowclones). Waltham, The Duke of 03:49, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see now, Sept and Duke, it's not as simple as I thought. One clue is the "the" in front of Bible, Talmud, etc. I still think that this has to be an NPOV discussion first before style even enters into it; perhaps it already has been. I keep up at WP:V but I don't keep up at WP:NPOV; can anyone point to relevant talk pages or archives? - Dan (talk) 15:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Did anyone in this conversation express a distaste for evidence? Is there anyone in this conversation who doesn't regularly produce evidence, and lots of it? I don't have a good feel for this one. Like I said, "Let the religions tell their own story in their own words." They sometimes have strong feelings about which words, which language, and even which fonts. If this is the nature of the issue, then we can't decide that here, that's WP:NPOV and other policy. This is the third time this general idea has come up in a week; I put a motion on the table that as soon as something is, or might be, a matter of policy instead of guidelines, we stop debate and send it next door, and let those guys (which includes some of us, of course) think about it. That seems like the best use of wiki-people-resources to me, but I can see the other side if anyone wants to disagree. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:49, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

WP Signpost on FAC and FAR/C reviewing

Dear colleagues—Reviewing at these sites is where a knowledge of MOS and its subpages can be of significance. This week, the article is all about how reviewing is critical to maintaining WP's high standards, and the other advantages of being a reviewer. Here's the link:

Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-04-07/Dispatches

We're happy for the word to be spread, since we need more reviewers; if you have a mind to review, please drop in at WP:FAC or WP:FAR. TONY (talk) 08:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Who wrote the article? Nice work! - Dan Dank55 (talk) 12:30, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, now I see ... Karanacs, Tony and Sandy. WTG. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Yea, but. My favorite contribution got taken out, because it was an insider joke from Yomangani, that "non-regulars" wouldn't get! SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Kudos to the writers; it is an enlightening article. Pity about the quote (it includes most of the well-established FA producers), but I consider the reason for its removal quite valid. Waltham, The Duke of 04:01, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Exponential notation circumstances

Exponential notation can be spaced or unspaced, depending on circumstances;

What do we mean "circumstances"? JЇѦρ 12:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I did ask the same question and was howled down. I think the last three words should be removed as redundant. TONY (talk) 13:43, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

The long but still not satisfactory answer is at WT:Manual of Style/Archive 97#Exponential notation. The short answer is: EB and most popular scientific magazines will always space them, but then, they've got lots of space. The typical science or engineering journal article will start to unspace them as soon as a line gets crowded with numbers and variables. So, what you do will depend a lot on whether the number is surrounded by text, or is part of a crowded mathematical expression. We don't have a lot of crowded mathematical expressions on WP yet that include numbers in scientific notation, as opposed to variables (or that's the sense I get from the wikiprojects ... I could be wrong); and we might never, since "textbook" material is often pushed off to Wikibooks and linked there. Individual editors will probably be highly influenced by their background and their intended audience. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:48, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Might I suggest trying to figure out some decent guidance, and possibly putting it in MOSNUM? That part of MOS can point to it (more than it does already). SamBC(talk) 13:59, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, just a phrase or two about avoiding a crowded appearance in long strings would do it? "Depending on circumstances" is just what we tell editors not to put in their article text. We should set an example here. TONY (talk) 14:00, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, Tony. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 15:21, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

For those of us who have a feel for how to interpret the MOS those three words are redundant. However, I can picture new comers getting all worried as to whether they've got the right circumstances and even searching in vain for details which aren't spelt out anywhere. Remove the three words, don't make it sound as if there's any consensus on what constitutes a circumstance in which to do what, add some advice on the pros and cons either way and let people rely on common sense to determine what to do. JЇѦρ 15:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm perfectly happy to see the three words removed; this is one of things, like within-article consistency, on which we should have a general note. . Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:05, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

←This might be one of those cases where a summary box that shows up at the top of the relevant archived page comes to the rescue, if some people want WP:MoS to give only the prescription that applies (theoretically) to all articles, and does it succinctly, while other people want to know more about what we think (incredible, but true). We could even use an RfC-like bot to have one page that people could watchlist that adds links to new summary boxes as they show up. My sense is that people have agreed with my proposal at WT:V#Monthly summaries for me to do that at WT:V. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Dashes again (groan)

I'm very happy to see Stanton saying things like "In many fonts, the characters are completely indistinguishable to the human eye". I hated to bring up dashes again for two reasons: there was a lot of disagreement, and my position makes me a complete hypocrite, after saying how much I like to rely on style guides. For this issue, I think information from 1999 and 2003 is just too old to be useful. I think the distinction between en-dashes and em-dashes has died; the length of both of them varies from magazine to magazine and browser to browser, no one keeps track of the distinction any more, and worrying about them comes across to most people as overly fussy. (Pot. Kettle. Black.) Look at the title bar at the top of your browser, and you'll see that both Wikipedia and your browser think that a hyphen is the proper "dash" to use, even in the most prominent places. The fact that persuasive writers are doing much of their own copyediting these days is becoming the death of typesetters' characters of all kinds. Bottom line: I would love to see MediaWiki simply eliminate the em-dash and tweak the en-dash, so that no one ever cares or knows about the distinction any more. I think just about everyone would think that a slightly longer (or not, depending on browser and font) en-dash looks best with spaces on either side when used as a dash, and that people would naturally use hyphens where en-dashes are now used without spaces (as in "2002-3"...I can't bring myself to use an en-dash there). - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:40, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I left out the best part; 90% of people who see "2002–3" (with an en-dash) and then search for it later won't find it, because they'll search for it with a hyphen. This sinks that use of the en-dash in my mind. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 17:45, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't en-dash mean the width of the letter n and em-dash mean the width of the letter m? Isn't a hyphen the same as an en-dash? Don't answer that. It's more than I ever want to know. 199.125.109.96 (talk) 21:19, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Grin. That's what they were supposed to mean, but they range anywhere from that to twice as long as that, depending on what magazine you pick up or what browser and font you use. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:25, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Hyphens are (often but not always) slightly higher and shorter than endashes; they also have a different unicode character. I agree that we should not be rule-making with such enthusiasm. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Sept. And I have more support: APStylebook.com says about minuses: "Use a hyphen, not a dash". In fact, "en-dash" and "em-dash" don't even appear in APStylebook.com these days, they talk only about dashes, and say that they should almost always be spaced. As I said. This is probably because APStylebook.com is constantly updated. If we could just get MediaWiki to use a shorter em-dash, instead of that big 2-m-long thing that's going to hurt someone if it gets loose, then em-dashes wouldn't look so bad with spaces around them. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 00:51, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Dan, I shall be blunt with you... There is a Greek saying about this sort of treatment: "if hand hurts, we cut hand". It is used negatively, to indicate over-simple solutions trying to deal with a problem by simply removing the problematic element. And that will simply not do.

Both em dashes and en dashes have their uses, one cannot know about people's attitude towards them, and the inconsistencies of some publishing houses are not a cause for concern. Besides, some magazines may use slightly longer en dashes, but their em dashes will be correspondingly longer as well. Not to mention that there is nothing to worry about as far as em dashes are concerned; there is the issue of their spacing (which has been resolved), and that's it. People mistakenly use hyphens all the time, but em dashes are very rarely used in place of en dashes or hyphens. Not only would removing em dashes not have but the very slightest of benefits, but it would also remove a useful and popular formatting tool. Waltham, The Duke of 01:50, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

One cannot know about people's attitude towards them. I thank Your Grace for putting the case for leaving things alone in a sentence. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I am slightly confused as to the purpose of this thread. If "leaving things alone" means retaining the current distinctions between hyphens, en dashes, and em dashes, as these are currently stipulated in the Dashes section of the Manual of Style, then I suppose I agree with this statement. In any case, I do not agree with Dan's gloomy predictions, and I intend to stay around for at least another year, if only to have Dan pay me a monthly tribute after he is proven wrong. I intend to use the money in order to install central heating in Waltham Hall; fireplaces simply won't do any more. Waltham, The Duke of 03:11, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

No, it means reducing them to the point where they are actually the consensus of Wikipedians; perhaps attributing those claims which can be attributed to the style guides from which they are derived, and mentioning the styleguides which disagree. If this were article text, WP:NPOV would require this; I don't see what grounds we have for a different standard. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 03:19, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, well, I cannot agree with that. First of all, half the editors of Wikipedia (very conservative estimate) are about mediocre, or worse, when it comes to writing skills, this including both native and non-native speakers; I should not trust the consensus of these people to produce a good writing manual. This is not about policies, where good judgement and common sense are skills not uncommon; this is about a specific set of skills, knowledge, and expertise, which are not widespread on their own, and are rather rare to find combined. And no, this is not an article either, so there is no matter of point of view. Individual guidelines are weighed on their virtues, not on a basis of "represent all existing styles" (I am not referring to dialects here, so don't even think of using it as an argument). Not everyone can be right, Mr Anderson, not even here. Waltham, The Duke of 04:15, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. I see I have confounded two separate points: we should give due weight to the AP style guide as a reliable source, whatever the literary skills of Wikipedians. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 04:25, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

All you have managed to confound, Mr Anderson, is the clarity of your own position. You always say that you want the MoS to be less prescriptive, and in this case you say that you prefer to leave dashes in the discretion of Wikipedians, yet you now come and say that we should give weight to another style guide as a reliable source. If we are to use a standard, why not use a higher-level one? "Whatever the literary skills of Wikipedians"? Who is supposed to educate whom, Wikipedia its readers or vice versa? The standards ought to be above mediocrity, not below it. Waltham, The Duke of 05:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

A useful, descriptive, Manual of Style would include reasons for doing A and not doing B, which literate editors would consider (for another example, the reasons on image-facing above may be novel to many). When professional manuals disagree, we should admit it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

You use useful and descriptive as if they were synonymous. I agree that it would be better if some kind of explanation would be provided for a number of guidelines, but this should certainly not be construed as an excuse for making the Manual of Style any less prescriptive. By saying "which literate editors would consider" makes it sound as though editors would have to ask themselves "do I want to do this or do I want to do the opposite"? Which is, of course, ridiculous; editors either follow the Manual's recommendations or ignore them (except in FAs). Waltham, The Duke of 17:52, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

• Anderson will take any opportunity to push his anti-MOS agenda, hummmm. He's not helped in forming his view by his insistence on using one of these shonk fonts that makes little distinction between hyphens and en dashes—the designers need to be horsewhipped for that, because they are (or were, at the time) ignorant of a basic aspect of the punctuation required in good writing. And while a few of the distinctions may be a little tricky, the basics are dead easy. The proof of the pudding is that, by and large, the use of these three basic characters has improved markedly among FACs over the past six or nine months. It's not so usual, nowadays, to have to raise dash issues, as much as Anderson would have us see this as a putsch by "a small band of" anally retentive word-nerds who've "taken over MOS". It's just good writing, sorry. Anderson, please change your font. TONY (talk) 02:03, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
  • A provincial view; the distinction between length of dashes is modern and artificial. I do not support eliminating emdashes (I do not read Dank55 as doing so either); I support not worrying about editors' choice between legitimate stylistic alternatives. If Tony thinks something squashy, he doesn't have to use it; he should accord corresponding liberties to others. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I concede that with so many en-dashes and em-dashes sprinkled around Wikipedia, it may be a few more years before the en-dashes die and wither into hyphens. And as I say, I'm hypocritical to assert some style issue based only on my WP:OR and one style manual; one of these days I may look for sources. But if the second dash hasn't disappeared from "persuasive" online writing by 2009, you guys are going to owe me another barnstar (that's three). - Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I see, you oppose endashes; are you prepared to let those benighted enough to prefer them to hyphens to continue using them until they wither away? Wikipedia is not a crystal ball. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:46, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not picky about which one to kill off and how to do the deed, I'm just making a prediction that the way it will eventually happen is, unspaced en-dashes will be replaced by hyphens, as preferred by APStylebook.com. We'll see. - <- hyphen Dan Dank55 (talk) 02:53, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

←Based on the above conversation, it looks like I should have been clearer from the start.

• I won't, in general, try to identify trends in style, for as long as the WP:GAU survey is going, because it might bias the results.
• I'll make an exception for dashes, because the trend appears clear to me. EB (online) only uses one dash now, for instance, and EB is on the "formal" end of some style issues.
• However, MoS in general and FAs in particular have no obligation to follow online as opposed to publisher-house usage, nor to favor the trends of the moment over common usage 5 years ago. The trends of the moment could change. So all I'm doing is adding an asterisk to the conversation: please keep an eye open for evidence that dash usage is changing, because some day, we may need to change. (And hopefully, when that happens, our bots will be smart enough that it won't make any work for anyone.)
• As a separate point, there is a real problem that most people won't be able to find "2002–3" in a search because they'll be searching with a hyphen. Can anyone come up with a clever solution for this problem? - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:57, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I suppose we are talking about en dashes in text, right? Because there should always exist alternative versions with hyphens as redirects, so we are covered as far as article titles are concerned. Waltham, The Duke of 16:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, although if MediaWiki can give us some magic answer, it might also get rid of the need for the redirects you're talking about. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:32, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

• And in any case, Dan, searching for year ranges has always been problematic: 2001–3 (which I dislike)? or 2001–03? or 2001–2003? or hyphens? So many choices, so redirects will help, and so will an intelligent searcher, who'll persist with the possibilities. As for dreams that en dashes might dissolve into nothingness, on WP or anywhere else, they're just not going to, I'm afraid, gentlemen. TONY (talk) 16:42, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Gentlemen? I am perfectly willing to tolerate endashes, if only they would return the compliment, dash it all. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:02, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Okay. Same time, next year. There's still one pending dash issue; we did make progress in the previous discussion with spaced em-dashes. We agreed that there was pretty wide support in style manuals and elsewhere for not spacing very long dashes, but on the other hand, lots of Wikipedians like spaced em-dashes, including Stanton and G-Guy. I'm not sure how long the em-dashes look on their screens; mine are as wide as 2 m's. I'm wondering if we could get everyone rowing in the same direction if we could get MediaWiki not to have em-dashes be quite that long in the default font; they are, after all, em dashes, not 2-em-dashes. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:59, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

An em dash in my browser look like about an m and a half. But, as has been mentioned, it's not just the size we should be concerned about; spaced dashes mean that line-breaking will be odd; although non-breaking spaces can be used for spaced en dashes (which will be more convenient if the double-comma proposal is adopted), the gap will be too large for such a tactic to be used with regards to em dashes.

In any case, 10 April 2009 is a Friday, which suits me just fine. See you then. Waltham, The Duke of 03:27, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm strongly opposed to messing around with em dashes and the like. The default font is just fine for all three symbols. Just don't space em dashes; if you want to use a spaced dash as an interrupter, use a spaced en dash: it's simple. TONY (talk) 04:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm comfortable with that. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 12:40, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

No-break spaces discussion continues at bugzilla

For people who missed Omegatron's announcement above, the link is https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13619. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:47, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Omegatron responded affirmatively in the bugzilla thread to, "Would anyone like me to survey among article reviewers and MoS editors to see if they see potential problems from a broad rule such as "number space letter never wraps"? He is not proposing a character of any kind; he's asking the developers to simply keep lines from wrapping at certain characters when they're displayed. We could either go with a long complicated list such as User:Bobblewik/monobook.js/unitformatter.js, or we could try something more clever, such as "always prevent a wrap at (number)(space)(letter), with the following exceptions". So, this is the survey, do we have a preference? (Also asking at WP:WGA). - Dan Dank55 (talk) 03:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

---

Reply to your comment at bugzilla (because we really don't need to be arguing over MOSNUM at bugzilla): How is "9999 bottles" a "compound item" like 19 kg? Can you point me to something in the archives that supports that? It's not at MOSNUM. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:32, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Ah. I don't know what "compound item" means, then. The wording should be clarified. — Omegatron (talk) 16:03, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you're right, it should be. Certainly it doesn't mean that "2008 we" is a compound term, as in "In 2008 we had a great year." Most numbers followed by letters in WP will not be compound terms by any definition. Hopefully, the WT:MOSNUM folks will help us out, I showed them that link to the .js list of symbols you mentioned and asked for input. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:08, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I guess that should be wrapped, but it would normally be "In 2008, we". I think "900 bottles" probably shouldn't be wrapped, though, for the same reason that "900 kg" shouldn't be. — Omegatron (talk) 16:11, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Fine, make the example "The weather of 2008 remained". The same point applies; we should break after 2008 if that is where line end comes; and not doing so may well produce inferior layout. I presume this is especially likely if we are dealing with a large integer and a long word: "1274770137409 factorizes". This is a question of balance, of course. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:13, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Changing the renderer in this way will fix most of the situations where nbsp is needed. While it will produce some layout quicks as a side effect, it should substantially reduce the need to add nbsp everywhere. You said before the "minor collateral damage" may be worth it.[6] Gimmetrow 18:30, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

That proposal would in many cases make breaks in improper places more likely rather than less likely.

But mostly, why does the MoS call for an nbsp in "ninety-nine&nbsp;bottles"? It didn't in the old rules, before the wording was changed with no consensus. There's no reason whatsoever to prevent a line break there.

Second, for those "compound items", why is it only the space between "numerical and non-numerical elements" that is addressed in the MoS? In most such "compound items", it is far more important to prevent a break within the numerical elemente (e.g., in "0.453&nbsp;592&nbsp;37 kg" or in "6&nbsp;3/8 inches" than it is to prevent a break between the numerical and non-numerical elements. It is also far more important to prevent a space within the non-numerical elements such as "3.7 J&nbsp;mol⁻¹ or in "85 sq&nbsp;ft" than it is to prevent a break between the numerical and non-numerical elements.

But, like I said, the Bugzilla proposal will make it more likely to result in a break between "sq" and "ft" if it puts a nonbreaking space after the number "85". And anything that would deal with both of them is something far more complex than what has been proposed at Bugzilla.

The other problem is those short-sighted editors who think the most complex measurements we will be dealing with are the "19 km" discussed above. Nobody's going to complain much if we put a non-breaking space in it, even those who don't think one is necessary there. But why in the world should the MoS call for a non-breaking space in "150,000,000 kilometres" (which is used on Wikipedia)? Why would we want to prevent a break between the numerical and non-numerical elements there? If we are going to do that, why don't we also prevent a break between any noun, and any adjectives which precede it? For example, "green&nbsp;jacket" when we talk about the Masters. How are those "compound items" any different? That would make just as much sense (0&nbsp:= 0). Gene Nygaard (talk) 21:02, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

And for this discussion, I just want to reiterate that false matches (or missing matches) are not a big deal. The worst thing that can happen is a line wraps or doesn't wrap when it's not supposed to or supposed to. We should try to come up with a good system for recognizing the right circumstances, but please don't block this from being implemented altogether just because of a few corner cases. We can always override the automatic behavior with explicit nbsp entities and nowiki tags:

« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word »« word » — Omegatron (talk) 16:42, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

To get this exactly right, whatever that is, would take some work. I propose the following as a good-enough solution: the MediaWiki software should only insert a no-break space when it renders the html if one of 20 to 30 abbreviations (such as "ft" or "sq") is preceded either by a number, or by one of those abbreviations, or by special characters (such as the multiplication dot that's recommended in the SI spec at http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/). There seems to be a difference of opinion currently on whether "200,000 millimetres" should break or not; we shouldn't let that torpedo this proposal. It's easy enough to add "millimetres" to the mix if that's desired. I don't have an answer for how to handle "200 000" (i.e. 200,000 in the U.S.). We have been instructed not to think about server performance, but if for some reason that's an issue, then only apply this rule to articles that are rated B or higher. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 22:06, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

• I'm most concerned to see the increasing use of non-breaking spaces between such items as 25 cities. As Anderson points out, the downside is the risk of inferior layout—a stretching of interword spacing if your screen size catches it. So while I support non-breaking spaces between values and unit abbreviations (i.e., "symbols") I think the current wording in MOS needs revision to prevent overkill. TONY (talk) 06:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • I agree. We should go back to a rule applicable to unit symbols, before Tony1 changed it last July. I'd come to accept that, even though I don't think it's always necessary in that case either. Gene Nygaard (talk) 11:52, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The following information may or may not be helpful. Use at your own risk. I have only considered units of 1 or 2 roman letters, since there are few common units that are longer, and the ones that are longer will not look so cryptic by themselves at the beginning of a line; this excludes the SI units "rad" (radians), "mol" (moles) and "kat" (katal), and a few U.S. units. We may want to include all the greek letters, especially omega, and the degree symbol.

• Derived from http://www.bipm.org/en/si/si_brochure/chapter2/2-2/table3.html: A, Bq, F, g, m, cd, C, Gy, H, Hz, J, lm, lx, M, N, Pa, S, s, sr, Sv, T, V, W, Wb.
• Possible prefixes in front of any of these: da, h, k, M, G, T, d, c, m, µ, n, p. Others are less common.
• Derived from http://www.onlineconversion.com/article_US_units.htm: bu, dr, ft, gr, in, lb, mi, oz, pk, pt, qt, rd, t, yd.
• Others I can think of, including units from Bobbiewik's page: ac, B, cc, cu, dB, dy, fl, hp, hr, kn, kt, sq, yr.

The sheer number of these, and the fact that it would be a real plus if most editors can easily memorize when a rule will apply and when it won't, suggests that we might perhaps want to simplify. We might use only a set of more commonly used units; or we might say that the rule would apply to all 1- and 2-letter words, or all 1- and 2-letter words with the exception of certain common English words. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 18:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Whatever you decide, please don't debate this to death and prevent it from being implemented altogether. — Omegatron (talk) 15:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

It makes you hate physics, all this, doesn't it? The entire alphabet is used in five different ways just to cover all these units, their multiples, their sub-multiples, their variants, their variants' multiples...

In any case, I definitely agree to using hard spaces between numerical values and abbreviations, and between the elements of abbreviations of more words than one. I am not that knowledgeable in scientific notation, but this makes sense, so I am supporting. I also think that if numbers are written with spaces instead of commas (which looks weird to me), then these numbers oughtn't to break in any way, so hard spaces should be used as well. I am not sure about the full names of units, but I think I lean slightly towards using hard spaces—it is better for the reader, and it creates consistency, as in many cases the elements are joined by hyphens (e.g. 24-foot ladder). I don't know about what's going on with dates; I believe dates should remain whole, and that autoformatting should include hard spaces. Other than that... I'm afraid that a lot of discussion will go into this. Waltham, The Duke of 23:41, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I understand, Duke, but it seems to me that the no-break space debate gets its legitimacy from the Principle of least astonishment, which says that user interfaces are good when people find things in the places they expect to find them, and bad when something in the interface makes the person stop and go, "Huh, what's that?" When a person's eye is running down a page, if the first word on a line is "mm" or "Hz", that's an example of a bad interface, because the apparent typo catches the person's eye, and may make them waste time looking at the end of the previous sentence to see what's going on, before they go back to skimming the article for whatever they were looking for. So this is an issue for all Wikipedians, not just us science geeks.

It will be hard to write rules if we try to cover every unit, there are so many. But I don't even think we should, because the same principle that makes "mm" odd at the start of a line also makes "IA" (Iowa, in the U.S.) odd at the beginning of a line. We should instead make a list of all the one- and two-letter words that do not look odd enough at the beginning of a line to catch someone's eye, and try to get the bugzilla folks to implement html rendering which does allow those to wrap. We probably need more data before we can figure out which 3-letter words don't look strange at the beginning of a line; I suggest we postpone that discussion until we've deployed and tested a solution for one- and two-letter words. - Dan (talk) 17:25, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Captions again

SlimVirgin's recent suggestions for revising the last clause of our Captions—Formatting guideline, which I backed, did not attract sufficient support. I'd like to have a new go at it. I propose revised wording that would raise the standard for caption writing. The second part of the clause, which no one specifically defended, would be dropped—it is ancillary at best to the core directive, in either form.

Here is the current language:

• "Captions should be succinct; more information about the image can be included on its description page, or in the main text."

Here is my suggestion:

• "Caption text should meet the same standards of concision, clarity, accuracy, and verifiability that apply to other article text."

In sum, this would shift the emphasis of the clause away from the connotation of "short"—though that would still be there, conveyed by the lead use of "concision"—and toward the connotation of "well written". It is clear to me that many editors, concerned with the quality of expression elsewhere in articles, ignore it in captions. I believe the proposed rewording would help address that issue.—DCGeist (talk) 23:09, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• Support, but on the other hand, I support several of the alternatives to the current wording. Btw, "Conciseness" gets 100K more Google hits than "Concision"; not a big deal, but I kind of prefer the former. Slim posted this above, which I think is beautiful (too long for MoS, but possibly useful for this discussion, although note that this was meant for newspaper photos:) "[Captions] tell the reader, briefly and clearly, the basic details of the picture and tie it to the story it illustrates. Remember that photos attract even the most casual reader, so captions are probably the best-read words in the paper, after headlines. Like headlines, caption must be crisp. Like stories, they must be readable and informative, interesting and lively ... Use at least two short, snappy sentences. One long, involved sentence is boring. Stick primarily to explaining the action in the picture, but don't speculate. Watch attribution and don't let libel creep in." - Dan Dank55 (talk) 23:15, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

On first look, DCG, this appears to be an acceptable solution. I'll wait to see what other people think, though. TONY (talk) 02:07, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I would prefer

"Caption text should be as concise, clear, accurate and verifiable as other article text."

Why use abstractions when we don't have to? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:11, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

• Oppose; it doesn't say anything (of course text in captions should be sourced, reliable, encyclopedic like the rest of the article; that's instruction creep). Captions should be succinct. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:18, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
  • It says pretty much what we say now, therefore not creep; the difference between concise and succinct is that concise is less likely to be misunderstood as a word limit. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 02:22, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

• Query Sandy, when you assert that it "doesn't say anything," you imply that you find that captions are already in practice held to the same standards of concision, clarity, accuracy, and verifiability as that applied to other article text. I don't find that to be true at all. But we might be spending our time with different articles. Is that, in fact, what you find?—DCGeist (talk) 02:28, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

• I oppose any change that removes the focus from saying captions should be concise. Clear, accurate, and verifiable are great. Well-written should be implied (har har), and if you say anything about being informative, interesting, etc. you are going to start getting short stories instead of captions. Principles of visual literacy indicate that if a caption needs to be more than a short sentence, the visual is crap anyway. P.S. Please don't use the term "concision"; this is a reference document, not a Charlotte Brontë novel. --Laser brain (talk) 20:31, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

  Er, you do realize that it's the proposed text that says concise, and the present text that says succinct? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:17, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

  DCGeist's suggestion above reads, "Caption text should meet the same standards of concision, clarity, accuracy, and verifiability that apply to other article text." I was stating my preference that the word not be used in the event that someone prefers DCGeist's version. --Laser brain (talk) 21:43, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

  Thank you; consider my rephrasing, not far above. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:54, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

• Anderson's and Dan Geist's proposals are hardly worth saying. Who ever thought that the same standards didn't apply to caption text? And meeting the same standards implies that if the main text is not quite concise/succinct/whatever, the captions can be like that, too. TONY (talk) 06:43, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

  What does the present text say that is worth saying? That captions should be "succinct"? If this is being abused to mean short, we should say short, as Tony argues below. If not, who ever suggested that captions should not be succinct propriâ sensu? Let us either make this say something, or take it out. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:43, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

PS I'd rather say that "Caption text should be short unless there is a good reason for a longer caption." That allows longer captions, with the burden on the writer/nominator to justify a longish caption: in Dan's case, I'm sure that would not be a problem. TONY (talk) 06:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

• I support DCGeist's suggestion. I'd rather not see any wording that implies captions should be short, because we see too many good articles with longish captions, so people are voting with their fingers. SlimVirgin ^talk|edits 07:32, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
  • Whether captions are short or long should depend on the caption and the article. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:43, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
    • I agree, but many editors need reminding that it's especially important to remove fluff from captions. So often, an attempt to shorten a caption improves it. This one I did this morning. TONY (talk) 01:48, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The impression I get from reading the previous discussion about captions and this one is that we have a lot of examples of good and bad captions, and it's too much for WP:MoS. I just rewrote the lead on WP:Captions; it was too flowery. The article could use a lot of the points that have been made in these two discussions. I'm not very good at judging captions, but I'll put it on my todo list in case no one else gets to it. I am adding a link from WP:MoS#Captions to WP:Captions. - Dan - Dan (talk) 02:35, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Arbitrary section breaks

Some of the stuff in style talk pages and archives is dense with useful information and some of it is eloquent or pithy, and right on point for questions that come up routinely. Does anyone mind if I stick arbitrary subheading section breaks in older discussions on talk pages? How about archived talk pages? It would make it easier to refer someone to an old argument if I think the question they're asking has been answered eloquently by someone else. It also seems to me that's a lot better than just telling them what I think was most important ... it lets them see whatever everyone was saying, if they want to, and doesn't strip the context away. The downside is the potential for a whole new kind of edit warring, but I really think we're above that. What brought this to mind was Stanton's comment here. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 14:34, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

For archives <span id="Section title">, which is not visible in talk space, but enables a link of the form [[Archive N#Section title]], may be preferable. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:15, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Thank you! Unobtrusive, noninflammatory. Perfect. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 19:55, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

National varieties of English - Consistency within articles

If you have external links that are in conflict should you leave them in conflict? Basically should external links be left to describe what the destination says or should the links title here on the wiki article be converted to the appropriate English or American wording to match the rest of the article? SunCreator (talk) 15:23, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

If you are quoting the title, quote it accurately. WP:ENGVAR is intended to avoid disconcerting changes of variety with no good reason, because they leave the reader wondering why. This is a good reason, and there are others; look for the press-up issue which is on this page or the last archive .Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

• Should we add a general point?

  Be consistent within articles. If an article makes a stylistic choice at one point, don't change it at another point unless there is a good reason to vary; it confuses the reader without helping the encyclopedia.

We now repeat essentially this at many points; we could do so at many more. Instead, let's say it once, as a separate point, and refer to it where absolutely needed. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:43, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Maybe, but please drop the last clause—finish with "vary". TONY (talk) 01:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Why not give a reason? It will increase the authority of this page if its edicts are not seen as arbitrary. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:08, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I finally have an answer to this kind of question IMO. See my archiving proposal below. - Dan - Dan (talk) 00:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Useful, but would a link to our miscellaneous discussions really be more helpful than just saying that we want within-article consistency so as not to be confusing? Does anyone have another reason for it? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

More eyeballs at protected style page, please

WP:Words to avoid is protected because of some edit-warring (not by me) over a proposed section on the word "phenomenon". There have also been discussions about giving advice on "controversy" and "the" (when used to falsely imply importance or definiteness). I wrote some proposed language here, but there's no discussion yet. Discussion would be helpful so that the page can be un-protected. Thanks. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:53, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Please, a few yay or nay comments would be appreciated at that link so that page protection can be removed. There have been no edits at all to the talk page. - Dan (talk) 16:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Order of references and External links should be reversed

The MOS currently says that the references section should come before the external links section. Why? It seems that people would be more interested in EL then refs. -Icewedge (talk) 20:29, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Some of the reasoning is explained at Wikipedia:Layout, under "Notes". I would also dispute the idea that more people are interested in external links; "Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links". Paul Erik ^{(talk)(contribs)} 20:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say that shouldn't be a main Manual of Style page question in the first place. This should be in the province of Wikipedia:Layout, a separate guideline page. Gene Nygaard (talk) 20:51, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

You know this Gene, but I'll say it for the readers: WP:MoS is intended to be written in WP:Summary style, like pretty much everything else on Wikipedia, meaning that whenever there's a lot to say, it should give a summary and then link to the "main" page on the subject. So, you're saying that the summary should be shorter before it hands off to WP:Layout? Icewedge, here are the reasons for the order from WP:Layout (written by yours truly, and feel free to suggest clearer language): "Any section which concerns material outside Wikipedia (including References, Bibliography, and External links) should come after any section that concerns Wikipedia material (including See also) to help keep the distinction clear." Also, "So many articles have the External links section at the end that many people expect that. Some External links and References sections are very long, and when the name of the section is not visible on the screen, it could cause problems if someone meant to delete an external link, and deleted a reference instead. Keeping the External links last may also be helpful for editors who patrol external links." - Dan Dank55 (talk) 21:23, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I think that having the EL section at the bottom is bad because most people would see the refernces and then not continue on, but, oh well. -Icewedge (talk) 03:55, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, Dan, thanks for expanding on my point. I don't really care if the summary on the page here is shorter or not; what we need are more editors here who recognize that when something is brought of that is really in the province of the subpages, that should be recognized as soon as possible and the discussion transferred to the appropriate subpage. Gene Nygaard (talk) 12:49, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you guys brought this up, I'm going to change "may also be" to "is". We were having a big discussion at the time I first made the argument, so I was timid, but there's really no "may" about it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 13:45, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

A "scope" section in the style infobox?

I don't know if anyone else had this reaction, but when I first started editing on WP, I looked at the "style infobox" on the right on all style guidelines pages and thought, "70 style guidelines pages, ranging from Anime to US highways? That's a lot of work, I'll just learn as I go." Wouldn't it help a bit if we at least moved the guidelines pages that don't have all of WP as the scope down lower in the infobox in their own section, to help make "Layout" and other widely applicable pages stand out more? I have asked over on the Anime page how they feel about that, since they're up top, and they might have feelings about moving it down. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 16:09, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Style guidelines for etymology

I've seen Greek words used in etymology shown in Greek alphabet, and also in transliteration (for example in clepsydra). Which is right? Should both be used (for the benefit of those who don't read the other script)? Paul Koning (talk) 17:31, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (Greek). - Dan (talk) 17:57, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to index

I'm interested in taking on a tedious and difficult task, because it feels important: invisibly indexing useful information in all the style guidelines talk archives in some hopefully uncontroversial and useful way. (I've got lots of time until May 1.) I've noticed when doing indexing for legal projects in the past that prefixing a semicolon to index terms seems to work well as a "poor man's database". Putting an invisible <span id="1" /> [changed per Daniel Friesen below] in an archive page would let people wikilink to a line, if they like, that gives useful information on any desired keyword. (What's useful and uncontroversial will be determined through feedback on this page.) I can then maintain a page with all these links, in my userspace or elsewhere, and/or we can put the invisible links on each archive page listed (visibly!) at the top of that archive page.

It would be particularly useful to know which issues have already been argued by a wide community, with or without an RfC, so I'll make sure to put invisible links there. I'll include that information on the summary page, which I'll put in my userspace for the time being.

Archive pages say that they shouldn't be edited, so anyone who makes an edit has a pretty steep presumption working against them, but we could use this to our advantage. Anyone is welcome to help, of course, but it's not a trivial project; I don't see how someone could do it at all without having some kind of broad knowledge of what subjects keep recurring, which pieces of information in the talk archives are new, where it's been discussed before ... this is kind of a headache, so we can use the presumption against editing archives to insist that people either get broad permission or discuss potential additions or subtractions on the (current) talk page if they don't want to get reverted immediately. So, that's what I'm doing: I'm asking for broad permission to start indexing. Anyone who has a search term they'd like included, please list it here. Anyone who thinks I'll screw it up, please let me know now :) - Dan (talk) 17:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. This proposal has already had one good effect ... on me. I'm realizing that a few things I said might get linked, but they aren't as tight and hard to miscontrue as I'd like, so I'm going back to fix them before they get archived. If people are more careful with what they write here, that can only be good. - Dan (talk) 20:06, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

This is in reply to Sept's question above, about why we don't follow guidelines with explanations and justifications. It seems to me that if there's a particular "Why?" that comes up a lot, and there's a quick answer, an occasional footnote (as at WP:Layout) might be helpful. But in general, it's hard to predict the questions, and even harder to get a short answer that represents all sides, so it would be great to have a page that matches keywords with all the relevant invisible links in the archives. For people who really want to know more (on all sides of the issue), it's ideal, and it's also a good way to deflect any criticism that we didn't think it through. - Dan (talk) 00:39, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Answered above in particular. In general, a habit of giving reasons, if any, seems preferable to expecting the readers to quarry them out of our discussions. But we could <wait for it> do both. 00:45, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

It's something I'm willing to keep an open mind on, Sept. Maybe another random survey? Do you want me to add a question to the GAU survey giving a few examples with more and less explanation and asking which works better? If so, can you give me some examples? - Dan (talk) 03:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

(copied from my talk page) However I would suggest you don't use the Keyword and just stick with hunting down anchors. <span id="anchor id" />. Dantman (talk) 02:43, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

That was from Daniel Friesen, a css guru who hangs out at Wikia and also gave a response at bugzilla to the bugzilla thread above. So, let's do it that way; there are other places to put keywords. - Dan (talk) 03:07, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

←Clarification. There's a general principle that things on WP pages shouldn't be invisible, in order to make sure we're getting the full benefit of multiple eyeballs. So I think I would recommend that we not insert <span id="1" /> on a talk page before it's archived, when we could just as easily, and in full view, insert a subsection heading that accomplishes the same thing. It's when a page is archived that inserting a new subsection heading isn't appropriate any more. Also, I really would recommend that the id's are 1, 2, 3, etc, on the principle that nothing invisible should be allowed to build up randomly even in talk archives. Having the id's be as simple as possible will make it easier to list and keep track of them. - Dan (talk) 20:34, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

A thought about editing style guides

(I have eliminated this comment because I have just realized that you all discussed this subject at length above. Great minds think alike, I guess. My apologies!) ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 10:52, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Future discussion on reverting edits to style guidelines

There's an active discussion on when to revert edits going on in various places, from time to time, including WT:V. I'm just creating this topic now so that I can give people a link if they want to come here to discuss the relevance to style guidelines. But please, people, don't get sidetracked ... let's work on some of the open issues above first. - Dan (talk) 21:56, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Blockquote for emphasis

There are times where I will put one or two quoted sentences (with reference) inside of a <blockquote>...</blockquote> because it serves to emphasize the quote when formated without the (in my opinion) added visual clutter of the {{cquote}} template, although I only do it if there are no additional quotes from the same source in the section. Not sure if it's important enough to add to the MOS section but I thought I'd bring it up for discussion.Awotter (talk) 03:39, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you asked. I've seen plenty of three- and four-line block quotes. I'm sure some editors won't like a two-full-line block quote, but TCMOS gives examples of block quotes of just one line (11.26) and two lines (11.28). It does appear that WP:MoS suggests that four-line one-paragraph quotations should not be in block quotes, but anything longer should be; I don't know who decided this, and maybe they'll share. (But apparently, the example defines one line plus a name to be "two paragraphs", requiring a block quote.)

I can't find any discussion on the subject from a Google search of these archives, not under "block quote" or "blockquote", so I guess I'm free to tell you what I think. I often block quote with two full lines or more, although I'm not sure if I would get away with it at WP:FAC. I've heard that many Wikipedians don't like too much white space, so pay attention to how much white space you have in the vicinity. I lean towards block quotes for two full lines if I want to call special attention to the quote, or if the quote has several quotation marks that I don't want to demote to single quotation marks. - Dan (talk) 04:52, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

P.S. I need to be a little careful, so let me clarify "I've seen plenty of three- and four-line block quotes." This is not a statement that everyone should accept my original research, nor a statement that everything that you see inside or outside Wikipedia is good or relevant. I'm not a full-time professional copyeditor. I'm saying that when someone asks a question, and I can't find evidence that the question has been widely discussed on Wikipedia before, and there's no clear consensus among the commonly-consulted style guidelines such as TCMOS, a good first step is to report on what I have seen that seems relevant to me. That way, if I'm heading in the wrong direction, someone can tell me, and the conversation can evolve. - Dan (talk) 15:04, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply, it does seem like more of a personal preference. I like to be able to read articles without having to wade through large blocks of unbroken text because it just seems easier on the eyes whereas with a printed page it's not as bad. Awotter (talk) 04:58, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

An alternative option might be the use of pull quotes and epigraphs. Block quotes are really for practical reasons, and if you want quotes for aesthetic reasons, those two are really better options. VanTucky 18:01, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I know this qualifies as WP:WEASEL, but pull quotes are widely held to be unencyclopaedic. At least this is what I hear. Waltham, The Duke of 21:16, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to merge two MOS-related pages

The proposal is to merge Wikipedia:Manual of Style (abbreviations) into Wikipedia:Naming conventions (abbreviations), and why not? It's been tagged for months and more input is needed HERE. Comments welcome. TONY (talk) 14:44, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

American

Looking at WP:AN#Politically-motivated systematic edits, it seems there's at least one user concerned by the use of the word "American" to describe people from the United States (as they point out, American and American people are both disambig pages). This does seem to be a common practice, but I'm not able to find mention of it in the MOS. Is it mentioned, one way or another? If not, should it be? – Luna Santin (talk) 22:40, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

There is no other adjective used to describe people from the United States, and it is internationally recognized to mean "people from the United States", not "people from the New World". If you want to see an interesting reaction, walk up to an average Canadian or Mexican and call them American, and see how they react. At the very least, they will politely correct you, and are extremely unlikely to agree with the logic that they are American because they are on the same land mass. Walk into one of the Protestant sections of Belfast and call the locals "Irish", for an extension of that type of logic (and I use the term "logic" loosely). The editor in question here needs to be told in no uncertain terms that he needs to stop his disruptive edits or risk getting blocked. USian (one of his preferred neologisms) is a grammatic abortion that should never appear anywhere in Wikipedia. Horologium (talk) 23:27, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Agree, American universally means from the US. If you wanted to include Canadians and Mexicans, you would pick another term, like "North American". Other languages use phrases along the line of "United Statesian", but that term is nearly non-existent in English. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 23:39, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

How many times does this dead horse have to be beaten? Corvus cornix_talk 23:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Isn't there some place in official policy that we can just point to next time? --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 00:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes: any dictionary or thesaurus; the lack of an alternative makes it a non-issue. Correct me if I'm wrong, someone, but in Spain, I was told by several people to say that I was "Norte Americano", not "American" or "Americano", because that was considered a little obnoxious; they felt a lot of kinship with "America" (North and South America), and weren't happy that we had appropriated the word for ourselves. Nevertheless, there aren't any alternatives to "American" that have any traction at all. - Dan (talk) 00:23, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. "American" is the English word for people from the United States. The Spanish word is estadounidense, I believe, if you're being the most exact you can be, norteamericano if you're kind of including Canadians--but we don't have an equivalent term in English at all. Darkspots (talk) 00:32, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

"Yankee doodle dandies" is the preferred term.--Father Goose (talk) 06:42, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The issue was not that a new term need be used to relate to citizens or things from the United States of America. It was instead to propose the reduction in usage of American for things from the United States of America. To completely remove the ambiguous nature of American, it would be best to simply relate things from the United States of America, as "from the United States of America" or "formed in the United States of America".

Arctic.gnome's point of American relating universally to the United States of America is simply incorrect. Of course Canadians are North Americans, but they are also part of the greater America. Just as Belgians are Western Europeans, they are also part of the greater Europe.

As Horologium points out, Canadians, Mexicans, Bolivians, etc. will no doubt be offended if you call them American. This is yet another effect of the ambiguous nature of "American". They do not want to be thought of as being from the United States of America, so they reject the label American, when really it simply means they are from America (continent(s)).

I would love to use an alternative for American (US), such as Usonian. Unfortunately this is not in common usage so it will not be used here on Wikipedia. However, I am not proposing the usage of a new or pre-existing term for American (US). I am simply suggesting we state people, things and places as being from the United States of America, and not the ambiguous title American. Dale-DCX (talk) 07:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

If the term "American" already refers to denizens of the United States, who are we to try and change that? North American and South American work perfectly fine as more general terms. American, by definition, may be ambiguous, but it's very unambiguous in common use. --clpo13_(talk) 07:52, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

In any cases where there might be confusion, I agree that we should say "from the United States". However, unless an article is specifically talking about the Western Hemisphere as a whole, the phrase American without context is very unlikely to be assumed to mean anything other than from the US. Indecently, I recommend that we all go around using "Unitedstatesian" in real life until it's popular enough to be added to reviewed dictionaries. --Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 19:29, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

(prepares to make controversial statement) It is fitting that the people of the United States should be called by the ambiguous American—they are rather ambiguous as a people anyway... Waltham, The Duke of 00:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Stereotype much? Horologium (talk) 01:38, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's just say that I find stereotypes enjoyable to discuss. :-D

PS: I really like your username. Should I translate it as clock or as sundial? Waltham, The Duke of 09:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

From United States comes this sourced statement:

“ The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an American. Though United States is the formal adjective, American and U.S. are the most common adjectives used to refer to the country ("American values," "U.S. forces"). American is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the United States. ”

The reference for the above: Wilson, Kenneth G. (1993). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. New York: Columbia University Press, pp. 27–28. ISBN 0231069898. Can we all agree that changing articles to eliminate use of "American" as a demonym for people from the United States is disruptive? Horologium (talk) 03:19, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, it meets the standard in WP:POINT, since there is no other word WPians have accepted for it. - Dan Dank55 (talk) 04:15, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I have nothing to add, and there is nothing to disagree with. Waltham, The Duke of 09:48, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

Currencies

Do the three-letter ISO currency codes go before or after the value? That is, do we write CZK 55,555 or 55,555 CZK? Shouldn't this be stated in the MOS?--Kotniski (talk) 08:41, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Better to ask at MOSNUM (which is in a state of tumult at the moment). TONY (talk) 09:15, 18 April 2008 (UTC)