User:Wavelength/About Wikipedia/Manual of Style/Revisions by Noetica in January 2010

This is a chronologically ordered record of (31 + 30 + 38 + 1 + 7 + 1 + 2 + 22 = 132) revisions to Wikipedia:Manual of Style which were made by Noetica in January 2010, integrated with tallies of (40) revisions by other editors.

31 consecutive revisions by Noetica

• 09:44, 5 January 2010 (→Clarity: Changed "lexicon" to "vocabulary", in accord with the very point being made here, which is that plain terms are to be preferred; very many readers will not understand "lexicon")
• 09:49, 5 January 2010 (→Article titles: Serial comma before "or"; this is the dominant style on the page, and it is especially called for here because there is also an "or" in "or quote", which follows)
• 09:55, 5 January 2010 (→Main article link: Added "the topic of ... also", to make "If the topic of a section is also covered in a dedicated article, ..."; this is what is meant, but it was not clear)
• 10:00, 5 January 2010 (→Section management: Changed to: "When linking to a section of an article, go to that section ..."; if it were a mere courtesy, it would be supererogatory and have no place in MOS; & clarity fixes)
• 10:04, 5 January 2010 (→Section management: Fixed for clarity: "... when the text of a heading changes: insert an {{anchor}} with the old name, which will then still work as an alternative link to that section.")
• 10:10, 5 January 2010 (→Section management: Comma to clarify the scope of "may appear"; semicolons, preferred in a complex listing of this sort, especially with commas in the components; last section clarified)
• 10:14, 5 January 2010 (→Use of "The" mid-sentence: Removed the weaselly accretion "on a ... basis" (entirely unnecessary here))
• 10:20, 5 January 2010 (→Use of "The" mid-sentence: Consistency within MOS: such initials should be uspaced: "J.R.R.", as below in #Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents)
• 10:28, 5 January 2010 (→Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents: Accuracy and clarity: "regarded as forming a culture or a race"; moved "the Cherubim" to show it more clearly as a distinct item)
• 10:35, 5 January 2010 (→Calendar items: "US", not "U.S.": consistency in the page; MOS allows either form, but "U.S." is awkward adjacent to forms like "UK"; since this occurs, consistency calls for "US" here as well)
• 10:40, 5 January 2010 (→Animals, plants, and other organisms: "Detailed guidelines", since "specific" has a distracting technical sense when it occurs near "species"; and more clarity)
• 10:42, 5 January 2010 (→Animals, plants, and other organisms: "Vernacular name", since "common name" is distracting near "proper noun" (see my last edit))
• 10:50, 5 January 2010 (→Animals, plants, and other organisms: "title case for common names of species ... and lower case for names of groups higher than species"; a needed link; & compare my last edits re "specific")
• 10:59, 5 January 2010 (→Celestial bodies: Markup: sun, earth, and moon; bold is wrong, {xt} is inept here, and styling should not include the commas; fixed use–mention problem with "sun", etc.; {xt} fixes)
• 11:04, 5 January 2010 (→Celestial bodies: Improved punctuation for embedded sentence examples (this needs to be fixed throughout MOS); shortened and clarified the last sentence)
• 11:09, 5 January 2010 (→Directions and regions: Not to confuse names and the entities to which they are applied: "Proper nouns naming regions, including widely known expressions such as ..."; etc.)
• 11:12, 5 January 2010 (→Institutions: "The word the at the start ...": no {xt}, since this is a simple mention, not an example (and is was capped anyway!); "take", not "need" (it isn't optional))
• 11:19, 5 January 2010 (→Institutions: Fixed punctuation, including a serial comma to match the OTHER serial comma in the same sentence (and all over MOS); wording: "(type unspecified)"; "Political or geographical units")
• 11:24, 5 January 2010 (→Acronyms and abbreviations: Clarity and accuracy: "The letters in an acronym or an initialism are ...")
• 11:30, 5 January 2010 (→Acronyms and abbreviations: For internal logic in this sentence, and strict accuracy: "more accepted as the standard abbreviation", etc.; guides and usage differ in America: see the continuation!)
• 11:36, 5 January 2010 (→Acronyms and abbreviations: Serial commas (for clarity and for consistency on this page); MOS-approved italics for emphasis, not bold; other fixes for clarity)
• 11:45, 5 January 2010 (→Italics: Serial commas (consistency on this page; see earlier edits); grammar: "In the latter case, ..."; etc.)
• 11:52, 5 January 2010 (→Quotations: Fixes in markup, and for clarity: "replacing him, where the context explaining him is omitted in the quotation"; clarifying concerning a template: some editors don't know "{{")
• 11:57, 5 January 2010 (→Quotations: No hyphens in "em dash or spaced en dash" (see elsewhere in MOS); reworded to remove "edit space" (a technical term that some editors will not understand))
• 12:05, 5 January 2010 (→Quotations: Clarity: "attribution is unnecessary with quotations that are clearly from the person discussed in the article or section")
• 12:13, 5 January 2010 (→Quotation marks: "Try an acceptable alternative", to avoid use of "obviate" (a word some editors will not understand))
• 12:18, 5 January 2010 (→Quotation marks: Accuracy: "exactly as in the source (except for certain allowable typographical changes, also noted above)"; fixed the wording in what follows)
• 12:24, 5 January 2010 (→Quotation marks: Removed ugly "foo" (!); this is a convention from programming, and is foreign and alienating in contexts like a manual of style for general editing)
• 12:33, 5 January 2010 (→Brackets and parentheses: Shortened layout and wording for these relatively fussy details; etc.)
• 12:45, 5 January 2010 (→Sentences and brackets: Replaced a self-referential example that trades on the punctuation of "U.S.", since that punctuation is inconsistent with practice on this page; other small fixes)
• 12:54, 5 January 2010 (→Brackets and linking: "Square brackets" ("bracket" can mean any bracket or parenthesis outside US); clearer wording for a conditional ("if", not "should"); no "foo"; no “ ”; more is still needed!)

1 revision by Eubulides

• 18:01, 5 January 2010 (→Images: "May" already implies "In some circumstances", so omit the latter. No need for "In general" either. No size is "ideal", alas.)

30 consecutive revisions by Noetica

• 21:47, 5 January 2010 (→Commas: Commonality with "bracket or parenthesis", etc.)
• 21:58, 5 January 2010 (→Serial commas: Better juxtaposition: "includes", "omits"; deleted personalised POV inline remark; fixed punctuation, etc.; SECTION IS FAULTY, SHOULD BE SHORTER; BETTER COVERED AT Serial comma)
• 22:08, 5 January 2010 (→Colons: Fixed something too restrictive: "In most cases a colon works best with a complete grammatical sentence before it. ..." See the latest Q&A at CMOS (Chicago Manual) site for example; etc.)
• 22:22, 5 January 2010 (→Semicolons: Fixes for accuracy, logic, and clarity)
• 22:35, 5 January 2010 →Hyphens: Light copyediting; fixed uses of aberrant {xt}, including where italics for simple mention were needed; PARTS OF THIS SECTION NEED TO BE REVIEWED WHEN EN DASHES ARE FINALLY REVIEWED)]
• 22:43, 5 January 2010 →Slashes: Small fixes: markup with code tags as necessary; "Generally avoid joining ...", since there are isolated cases that are entrenched in standard use; a link for "vinculum")
• 22:45, 5 January 2010 (→And/or: "And/or" is not a term, but a construct)
• 22:52, 5 January 2010 (→Number signs: Serial comma for clarity and consistency on the page; removed incorrect redundant full stop after "No." (both "logical" and other systems mandating only one full stop in such cases))
• 22:55, 5 January 2010 (→Punctuation at the end of a sentence: Serial comma for consistency)
• 23:01, 5 January 2010 (→Geographical items: Removed piping from a link; it should be transparent that the link is to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names); fixes for consistency, clarity, and accuracy)
• 23:07, 5 January 2010 (→Times: Serial comma; direct imperative instead of longer passive construction)
• 23:12, 5 January 2010 (→Dates: Small fixes for accuracy and clarity)
• 23:23, 5 January 2010 (→Longer periods: Accuracy and clarity; markup fixes; scope of the provision not to capitalise names of seasons, which applies generally (with occasional exceptions in names for events, etc.))
• 23:29, 5 January 2010 (→Longer periods: Fixed punctuation, text styling, and markup to conform with practice on this page; removed the redundant specific prohibition on changing styles (covered at the head of the page))
• 23:37, 5 January 2010 (→Longer periods: Serial commas for consistency)
• 23:45, 5 January 2010 (→Possessives: THIS SECTION LACKS CONSENSUS, AND NEEDS DISCUSSION; I DO NOT ENDORSE THE CONTENT; em dashes for consistency; removed the inline note at the head, which has been completely ignored)
• 00:06, 6 January 2010 (→First-person pronouns: Corrected tag: {!xt} is proper here; a colon to introduce an example)
• 00:09, 6 January 2010 (→Second-person pronouns: Italics for a simple mention of "you"; punctuation; removed a specific prohibition on altering text in quotations, which is obvious here and is amply covered above)
• 00:13, 6 January 2010 (→Contested vocabulary: Fixed grammar for strict propriety (why not?), retaining clarity; piped an internal link, like the other one here)
• 00:15, 6 January 2010 (→Contractions: Removed the excessively obvious injunction not to change text in quotations, amply covered in its own section above)
• 00:18, 6 January 2010 (→Instructional and presumptuous language: Trimmed excess; added a serial comma for consistency)
• 00:22, 6 January 2010 (→Sentences and brackets: More plausible example, without a parenthetic complete sentence)
• 00:27, 6 January 2010 (→Plurals: Fixed the first sentence: clarity, italics for mention)
• 00:30, 6 January 2010 (→Ampersand: No italics when showing the ampersand symbol, in accord with similar cases on this page)
• 00:38, 6 January 2010 (→National varieties of English: Markup, etc.: {xt} and {!xt} for specific phrases as examples)
• 00:41, 6 January 2010 (→Foreign terms: Capped a section's name; "above" to show that the link is internal to this page)
• 00:51, 6 January 2010 (→Identity: With phrases globally endorsed or deprecated, not merely mentioned, use {xt} and {!xt}; some points here need further discussion (like deprecation of "the disabled"; cf. "the poor"))
• 00:57, 6 January 2010 (→Gender-neutral language: Use {!xt} for globally deprecated words (see preceding edit summary); no need to give Spivak pronouns special prominence; Corbett (in _Gender_) mentions 80 similar fixes!)
• 01:07, 6 January 2010 (→Gender-neutral language: Italics; logic and language; {xt} and {!xt}; removed explicit restriction to article text, which is what MOS is all about; careful neutrality re "they" (see discussion))
• 01:09, 6 January 2010 (→Gender-neutral language: More italics, for mentions of single words)

38 consecutive revisions by Noetica

• 04:42, 6 January 2010 (→Images: A full stop for an item in a list, to match the other items; rewording to make sense ("redundant" appeared to be misused); etc.)
• 04:45, 6 January 2010 (→Avoid entering textual information as images: Slight rewording and amplification for clarity)
• 04:50, 6 January 2010 (→Captions: Meaningful headings for subsections, as called for in MOS: === Use of captions ===, === Formatting of captions ===; (mere "Usage" and "Formatting" would be uninformative in links))
• 04:54, 6 January 2010 (→Bulleted and numbered lists: Needs need not always be present; readers make their own use of lists: so change wording to "may arise")
• 05:03, 6 January 2010 (→Formatting issues: Wording and punctuation fixes (remove excessive dashes); a link for "skin": skin)
• 05:05, 6 January 2010 (→Color coding: Small rewording)
• 05:08, 6 January 2010 (→Invisible comments: Slight rewording)
• 05:14, 6 January 2010 (→Pronunciation: Reworked reasons for preferring broad IPA; far too often transcriptions are absurdly complex and narrow, so that IPA-naive readers (most of us!) are left completely in the dark)
• 05:19, 6 January 2010 (→Blazon: Used {xt}; avoided wordy self-reference in the guideline)
• 05:29, 6 January 2010 (→See also: Punctuation fixes (including for consistency); reworded the "Version 1.0" item for clarity, with a handy link; fixed alphabetising)
• 05:33, 6 January 2010 (→Article titles: Fixed markup for mere mentions (which are not recommendations for use))
• 05:37, 6 January 2010 (→Titles of people: Fixed markup and punctuation for examples, to accord with practice in the rest of MOS; clarity)
• 05:42, 6 January 2010 (→Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents: Semicolons, as used elsewhere in MOS for clearly separating longer examples (sentences or similar))
• 05:45, 6 January 2010 (→Calendar items: Lower case beginnings of clauses as examples, for clarity and simplicity)
• 05:48, 6 January 2010 (→Longer periods: Capped season names in personifications; internal link)
• 05:51, 6 January 2010 (→Calendar items: Cross-linking (see preceding edit summary))
• 05:51, 6 January 2010 (→Calendar items: Fixed my punctuation)
• 05:53, 6 January 2010 (→Animals, plants, and other organisms: Made an example more plausible: "the Golden Eagle is a relatively large eagle")
• 05:55, 6 January 2010 (→Animals, plants, and other organisms: "See WP:BIRDS" (clearer))
• 05:56, 6 January 2010 (→Celestial bodies: Semicolons after examples (see others here))
• 05:59, 6 January 2010 (→Institutions: Rational markup and punctuation for examples (see preceding edit summaries))
• 06:10, 6 January 2010 (→Acronyms and abbreviations: Lowercase, punctuation, etc., in examples; incrementally improving readability and consistency)
• 06:12, 6 January 2010 (→Italics: More styling of examples)
• 06:15, 6 January 2010 (→Quotation marks: Remove redundant "e.g." x 2 (compare elsewhere))
• 06:19, 6 January 2010 (→Brackets and parentheses: Removed superfluous quote marks from examples; removed "e.g.")
• 06:22, 6 January 2010 (→Quotations: Removed "e.g.")
• 06:23, 6 January 2010 (→Ellipses: Removed "e.g.")
• 06:25, 6 January 2010 (→En dashes: Removed "e.g." (without endorsing the current version of this section))
• 06:27, 6 January 2010 (→Slashes: Removed "e.g." x 2; removed old invisible comment, whose content belongs more on the talkpage)
• 06:28, 6 January 2010 (→Longer periods: Removed "e.g.")
• 06:30, 6 January 2010 (→Numbers: Removed "e.g."; reworked slightly for clarity)
• 06:35, 6 January 2010 (→Which units to use and how to present them: Removed a few "e.g."; small other fixes in styling and punctuation)
• 06:38, 6 January 2010 (→Unit symbols and abbreviations: Removed "e.g." x 3; punctuation)
• 06:40, 6 January 2010 (→Currencies: Removed "e.g." x 2; etc.)
• 06:51, 6 January 2010 (→Section headings: Fixing uncontroversial AWB quibbles (see discussion, heading "AWB"))
• 06:53, 6 January 2010 (→Ellipses: Still fixing uncontroversial AWB quibbles (use of "/"))
• 06:57, 6 January 2010 (→Unit symbols and abbreviations: Still fixing uncontroversial AWB quibbles (use of "/"); semicolons)
• 07:00, 6 January 2010 (→Large numbers: More AWB-inspired fixing: a hard space)

1 revision by Noetica

• 08:02, 10 January 2010 (→Ampersand: Fixed wording, in response to an anonymous note on the talkpage)

7 consecutive revisions by Noetica

• 23:09, 10 January 2010 (→Numbers as figures or words: Fixed poorly phrased basic provisions; accuracy, clarity, brevity; see talkpage)
• 23:55, 10 January 2010 (→Numbers as figures or words: Copyedit: clarity, style, accuracy; re-ordered and merged some points for logic; substituted "-" for instances of "&amp#x2011;"; "figure" ("numeral" can be in words!))
• 00:24, 11 January 2010 (→Large numbers: Brevity, accuracy, clarity; restored a comma that serves a purpose (see the other "or", nearby: "... unlikely to be stable or accurate, or where the ...")
• 00:39, 11 January 2010 (→Decimal points: Accuracy and clarity)
• 00:49, 11 January 2010 (→Percentages: Separate points, for logic and simplity; correct mention of a symbol (in brackets as elsewhere on the page, not with {xt}); "many percentages" as a natural extension here; etc.)
• 00:50, 11 January 2010 (→Percentages: Fixed my slip: "in the body of an article")
• 00:52, 11 January 2010 (→Percentages: Further economy and simplicity: "Use one percentage symbol in a range, not two")

1 revision by Noetica

• 02:02, 11 January 2010 (→Numbers as figures or words: Bracketed examples, for consistency)

2 consecutive revisions by Noetica

• 00:07, 16 January 2010 (→Follow the sources: Copyedit: imperative; removed several redundancies)
• 00:27, 16 January 2010 (→Article titles: Copyedit; perspicuity and accuracy; more clarifying use of punctuation; added an extra "or" that might seem redundant, but which heads off a misreading; "too", not "over-"; etc.)

1 revision by Little Professor

• 00:36, 16 January 2010 (→Strong national ties to a topic: clarify bluelink (Irish-> Irish English))

22 consecutive revisions by Noetica

• 00:39, 16 January 2010 (→Section headings: Copyedit: standard layout for examples; clarity; etc.; say no to "note-bloat")
• 00:46, 16 January 2010 (→Titles of people: Changed punctuation around examples; THIS NEEDS TO BE EXAMINED and made regular throughout MOS; parentheses are a good idea, because they show grouping of examples pellucidly)
• 01:01, 16 January 2010 (→Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines, and their adherents: Standard and improved presentation of examples; changed some wording (some imperatives, etc.))
• 01:06, 16 January 2010 (→Longer periods: Simplifying by merging two guidelines for season names (see also my next edit))
• 01:12, 16 January 2010 (→Calendar items: See my last edit: rationalising treatment of season names)
• 01:19, 16 January 2010 (→Animals, plants, and other organisms: Example fixes, etc.)
• 01:23, 16 January 2010 (→Celestial bodies: Fixed examples; trimmed)
• 01:38, 16 January 2010 (→Directions and regions: Rationalised examples; etc.)
• 01:40, 16 January 2010 (→Directions and regions: Lowercase "the"; fixed my markup, etc.)
• 07:44, 16 January 2010 (→Acronyms and abbreviations: Copyedit: brevity where possible; accuracy; clarity; consistency for examples; rational use of {xt}; etc.)
• 08:03, 16 January 2010 (→Italics: One substantial change: "the editorial note [emphasis in original]"; because sources may use other devices for emphasis instead; copyediting: accuracy, consistency, brevity, etc.)
• 08:10, 16 January 2010 (→Italics: Caps for example sentences in these cases, since capped sentences occur also as parts of them; other fixes)
• 08:13, 16 January 2010 (→Non-breaking spaces: Presentation of examples)
• 08:28, 16 January 2010 (→Quotations: Copyedit; removed link for "horilka" within a quote (!))
• 11:18, 16 January 2010 (→Quotation marks: Copyedit; removed "a quotation is not italicized simply because it is a quotation" (appears at correct location above); moved other point (see next edit); searching points fixed)
• 11:22, 16 January 2010 (→Quotations: Completed the move of a point into this section (see my last edit))
• 11:53, 16 January 2010 (→Brackets and parentheses: Copyedit; rationalised points)
• 12:04, 16 January 2010 (→Sentences and brackets: Presentation of examples: indentation, because the sentences need to be displayed whole, with all their punctuation intact)
• 12:08, 16 January 2010 (→Brackets and linking: Imperative form, and trimmed; but this guideline as a whole remains obscure and poorly laid out; can some tech expert look over it?)
• 12:09, 16 January 2010 (→Brackets and linking: Added "square": "forbids square brackets in page titles"; in non-American, "bracket" is more inclusive)
• 12:11, 16 January 2010 (→Brackets and linking: Oops: one more "square")
• 12:14, 16 January 2010 (→Ellipses: Presentation of examples; and this section STILL needs discussion and work, when we are ready)