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No. 1 #1

• Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Archive_128#.23.2Fnumber

In U.S. newspapers, "No. 3" (or whatever number) is standard, per the AP stylebook. Maurreen (talk) 23:52, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Archive_106

• Consensus = Use No. 1, do not use #1. (use " ")

Capitalization of "Congress", "Parliament", etc.

The words Congress and Parliament should be capitalized when referring to national law-making bodies, even though the full name of the institution ("United States Congress", "Parliament of Canada") is not mentioned. Examples:

• "Headquartered in Washington, D.C., AVC was able to frequently testify before Congress, file briefs in major court cases, and provide legal aid to minority veterans in the South." (American Veterans Committee)
• "The scandal pitted Congress against the Bush White House, generating a series of constitutional issues." (Dismissal of U.S. attorneys controversy)
• "Holt spent 32 years in Parliament, including many years as a senior Cabinet Minister, but was Prime Minister for only 22 months." (Henry Holt)
• "Bonar initially became frustrated with the slow speed of Parliament compared to the rapid pace of the Glasgow iron market" (Bonar Law)
• "The committee found the Government to be in contempt of Parliament" (Canadian federal election, 2011)

Another editor believes that the MOS requires "parliament" to be written with a lower-case p in the last example [1] on the basis that it is not a proper noun and the MOS provides that "generic words for types of government bodies do not take capitals". Therefore the MOS should be clarified to provide that a short form referring to a specific, unique institution such as Congress or Parliament does take a capital letter. In addition, the terms "Government" should be capitalized when referring to the political apparatus of a party in power, but lower-cased when referring in a general way to the offices and agencies that carry out the functions of governing[2]. Similarly, the term "Opposition" should be capitalized when referring to the parties (or individuals) constituting the Opposition in the House of Commons (or other law-making institution). Mathew5000 (talk) 19:48, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

I can agree with "Congress" and "Parliament", but I don't fully support "Government". I think "the terms "Government" should be capitalized when referring to the political apparatus of a party in power" would just create confusion, both for readers and for editors.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 20:27, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

(after edit conflict) Although I agree with much (probably most) of this, I'm hesitating to expand the Manual of Style to include every small point of usage about which editors may disagree. (I just reverted someone's removal, citing WP:MOS-DASH, of a hyphen from a sentence I'd written about a "regularly-scheduled election" because the hyphen made comprehension quicker in that particular sentence.) We really need to find ways to reduce the Manual to a size that ordinary editors feel they can read in one sitting and absorb after one or two more. We often talk about ways of doing so. But the natural process works the other way: for every possible difference of opinion, style or usage, another phrase, sentence, section or page is added (sometimes peremptorily and sometimes after long discussion) to the MoS or one of its multifarious offshoots. But it's very rare, once such an item is added, for it ever to be removed.

¶ On the particular point, Congress and Parliament, especially when they carry no article, should be treated as capitalized proper names when they're referring to a particular congress or parliament. British and Irish usage does the same thing for British and Irish political party conferences and Trades Union Congresses, as in "By a unanimous vote, Conference decided..." [I'm not sure what the most common usage is for the Liberal Assembly or Sinn Féin's Ard Fheis.] American usage keeps the article for U.S. political party conventions, usually not capitalizing "the convention" alone, but often "the Democratic Convention". Where I have difficulty (and I don't think the MoS should necessarily decide this) is with presidents, prime ministers, etc. I'm also unsure about Government (although definitely for H.M. Government and H.M. Opposition), although I think it usefully distinguishes the cabinet and governing parties in Parliament from the administrative apparatus operated by the civil service; usually it's "the Government" or "Her Majesty's Government" or "H.M. Government" and not "Government" without an article. I'm even less sure about capitalizing Opposition except as an adjective ("the Opposition benches" and "the Government benches"); I'd probably prefer capitalizing Opposition, but don't greatly mind if it's uncapitalized.

(There, I've added my little bit to the 120+ pages of MoS archives. I really wish there were a non-prescriptive forum where such nice and interesting points of usage and practice could be intelligently discussed without setting rules for anyone else.) —— Shakescene (talk) 21:01, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

This is going slightly off topic, but... I just wanted to bring up the point that the "culture" of Wikipedia has been changing slightly, over the last year or two. We're collectively shifting from "build the web" mode to a more "fix what we have" mode. Witness the BLP brouhaha, the (ongoing?) MOS-DASH dust up, and a raft of similar but lower level battles over relative minutiae. Granted, individually most of this stuff really is minutiae (the blp issues aren't, but... I personally thing that was way overblown), but collectively these issues represent fairly large scale improvements to the content on Wikipedia. That's my take, at least.
— V = IR (Talk • Contribs) 22:02, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

According to the MoS' rule and the illustration thereof, "congress" and "parliament" should not be capitalised unless they're part of the full, proper titles of specific institutions. Hence, "the Parliament of Canada consists of three parts" and "the parliament consists of three parts" are both correct, "the Parliament consists of three parts" is not. If the MoS is incorrect, then it should be amended. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:19, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

(after slight edit conflict) But it's certainly not idiomatic (and you'd have little luck in persuading all the potential editors of thousands of articles on U.S. history, politics and law that it is) to say "following this debate, congress passed a bill". Even writing "nevertheless, the congress overrode the president's veto" isn't very good American English because readers are so used to recognizing this particular Congress in its capitalized form (even after "the") that the reader will think it's the congress of some other organization or nation. (It's a little different if you're comparing different congresses, like that of 1974 with that of 1946; similarly, though not identically, for presidents.) The original post suggested adjusting or amending the Manual's current language to account for these nuances. —— Shakescene (talk) 04:38, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

The MoS absolutely should be altered if it's giving misleading instructions. And, according to some input here, it is. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:52, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes it should; if somebody would care to formulate an {{editprotected}}? Septentrionalis PMAnderson 17:04, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

• For decades, the trend has been towards less initial capitalisation in all varieties of English. Many public and in-house style guides say to use lower case for "government" and "parliament" and "cabinet" (even "Thatcher's last cabinet", "prime minister Gillard", and "the Obama administration". I haven't looked at the MoS on this, but by the way, could we have an audit of WP:Manual of Style (capitalization) and how it shapes up with the related section(s) here? Tony (talk) 09:57, 27 April 2011 (UTC)
  • No, competent style guides will distinguish between "the prime ministers of the Commonwealth", a common noun, and "Prime Minister Gillard", a proper noun. The loss of this semantic differentiation in the name of recentism is harmful to the encyclopedia. References to a specific Congress, whether in Vienna or Washington, should be capitalized; to do otherwise is to ignore English usage: the endemic disease of the Manual of Style (or should I say the manual of style?). Septentrionalis PMAnderson 06:54, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Is the MoS not trying to talk about specific designators? If so, can it perhaps be clearer? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 12:59, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Given the introductory subheading ("Political or geographical units such as cities, towns, and countries follow the same rules:"), I think this bullet item is intended to apply to political units, not organizational bodies like Parliament. However, as currently written, the previous item on institutions seems to apply. I think there is a good case to be made for allowing for capitalized specific designators. isaacl (talk) 23:01, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Then why doesn't the MoS make that case? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 02:17, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what occurred historically; it seems the existing text was considering bodies such as universities and hospitals, and the consensus at the time was to not capitalize these examples. I think the editors above are making the case now, though. isaacl (talk) 13:45, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

To generalize: why doesn't the MOS make a case for most of its recommendations? (All too often: because there isn't one to be made.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:01, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

Character names in bold type

Hi

Is it standard to put the character names in bold as in 'Allo_'Allo!#Characters

The MoS says that bold should not really be used too often 'Allo_'Allo!#Characters. If it is standard then I need to change some things in some articles I have edited, as well as someone changing the MoS!

thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 18:51, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

This was an issue with the film Project as well. Basically, they shouldn't be bolded per WP:MOSBOLD. There is only a limited number of reasons to bold in an article and just identifying character names isn't one of them.  BIGNOLE  (Contact me) 19:03, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Bignole is correct about this. Be aware that as WikiP is now ten years old you and you will come across numerous articles that where bolding was used and at least some of these will have been written before there was any MoS guidance about its use. Please feel free to remove it and if another editor has any questions you can direct them to the link that Bignole has provided. MarnetteD | Talk 19:07, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Cheers guys - I was a bit worried as I had deboldened half of an article in the GOCE drive and thought I had better check - I went to the 'Allo 'Allo page and imagine my surprise when I discovered they were in bold as well lol!

Thanks for your help :¬) Chaosdruid (talk) 20:33, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Page format edits - The Execution of Gary Glitter

Hi

Can you explain why your bot has changed the lvl 4 header for a lvl 3?

The summary claims this is to "fix section headings". There was nothing to fix, I chose the lvl 4 header as a concious decision - Is there something in the style guides which suggests this practice should be avoided?

How long has the bot been doing this? How many pages has it done it to? Chaosdruid (talk) 20:25, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Chaosdruid, per WP:MOSHEAD, heading sections should be a == heading, followed by a === heading, then ==== and so forth. The more important reason is WP:ACCESSIBILITY#Headings. Those using a screen reader need to have it in descending order. It is also in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Bgwhite (talk) 20:35, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

MOSHEAD does not say "should be ... followed by a "; nor does it say "You must not use a lvl 4 without a lvl 3 present".

"==Title== for a primary section; ===Title=== for the next level (a subsection); and so on to the lowest-level subsection, with =====Title====="

Indeed, the Acessibility MoS merely says that they must be uniform, and that going from lvl2 to 4 to 3 is wrong.

Missing out lvl3 is commonplace, and is indeed an accepted practice, as lvl 3 appear more bold/larger/stand out more, and so ppl opt to go lvl2 -> lvl4 as the lvl 4 header is more graphically correct.

My main issue is that the Main MoS does not specificy this, and individual Mos' are applied to articles within that topic, not ALL articles.

THe WCA talks about h1, h2 headings - are you saying that these are exactly equal?

I would suggest that you go about getting the main MoS changed, rather than try to apply the Accessibility MoS to all articles. Chaosdruid (talk) 20:49, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

A level h1 heading is a = Level h2 heading is ==

Main MOS does say 2, followed by 3, "so forth" to 5. It clearly states things go in numerical order. Nowhere does it even imply you can skip.

It is not commonplace nor accepted practice to skip headings around here. It is not found in any articles on Wikipedia.

WP:ACCESSIBILITY#Headings gives an example that clearly states skipping a section is wrong... 3rd example labeled "Skipping levels".

WP:ACCESSIBILITY is a MOS guideline. WP:MOSHEAD does have a link to WP:ACCESSIBILITY#Headings. WP:ACCESSIBILITY is one of the few that does apply to ALL articles. It is one of the few were you CAN'T go against what is written. By messing with headings, you are making a person using a screen reader miss sections... If headings go 2 then 4, when a blind person is done reading heading 2, the screen reader goes to the first level 3 header it finds. Bgwhite (talk) 21:11, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

That last comment cannot possibly be right. IF the headings go 2,2,4,2,2 you say it will skip to lvl 3. That would mean that if it went 2,3,4,2,3 it would also miss sections.

Nowhere does it say you cannot skip.

There are plenty of examples, or there were - unless your bot has "fixed" them all.

I think there has been some confusion here with how the reader works and how it deals with headers. Is it possible that it would read 2,4,2,4,2,3 correctly? Chaosdruid (talk) 21:33, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

Bot has been running almost 3 years. I was not the only bot doing this. There are no examples unless the detection routine is not picking it up or if they have been created the past few days.

WP:ACCESSIBILITY#Headings states, "should be nested sequentially". It gives two clear examples where you cannot skip. WP:ACCESSIBILITY trumps all as it applies to all articles and you cannot go against what is written. It does not say you cannot skip because it clearly states it has to be sequentially and gives examples. If you still stay with "nowhere does it say" routine, you are only wikilawyering.

WCAG clearly states, "To facilitate navigation and understanding of overall document structure, authors should use headings that are properly nested (e.g., h1 followed by h2, h2 followed by h2 or h3, h3 followed by h3 or h4, etc.)"

2,4,2,4,2,3... No. A screen reader cannot "see", so it has to interrupt by set rules. For example, you cannot put blank lines between each item on a bulletined list. Screen reader will think each bullet is a separate list. Bgwhite (talk) 22:10, 3 October 2013 (UTC)