Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Two bolded entries

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

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

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

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

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

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

Foreign language pronunciations

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bolding synonym on first appearance in paragraph 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bold text for organisms

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

It does allow for that flexiblity. The rubric is:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

well, I see that you said:

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

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

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

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

subsection break 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Redirect to subsection

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

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

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

Translations of topic

MOS currently reads:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elements of the lead section

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

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

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

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

Alerted. Flyer22 (talk) 13:20, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Read on at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Images#Size - that also says "Lead images should usually be no wider than "upright=1.35" (displays at 300px based on the default thumbnail width of 220px, but may appear larger or smaller based on settings in preferences)." This is very commonly done, and rightly so. Plenty of FAs have this, and so on. We should make this page compatible with that one. They have had the discussion there, and really we do not need to repeat it, or alert them. Johnbod (talk) 13:30, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I know what else the guideline states; it was recently worked out on the talk page. But that doesn't take away from the fact that it relays "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default (users can adjust this in their preferences)." before going on to add "If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding." I don't see that the lead image should necessarily be bigger than the other images, and I don't think we should give the impression that it should be bigger. It's more of a case-by-case matter. Flyer22 (talk) 16:54, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

We should reflect what has been done for many years in a high proportion of articles (with no infobox especially). The images page implicitly recognizes this, and that should be made more explicit, and echoed here. No one is suggesting it should be made compulsory. Johnbod (talk) 03:34, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

The guideline at Wikipedia:Extended_image_syntax#Size says that the upright parameter must be used with the frameless or thumb parameter. By far the greater majority of infobox images do not employ these parameters, so we should not present the upright parameter as a common or standard image option. Binksternet (talk) 14:30, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

We absolutely should be encouraging the upright parameter. That way the image size is proportional to the user's chosen default thumbnail size rather than being set to some specific number of pixels that may be far out of proportion to the default thumbnail. If this parameter is unavailable in some image-displaying templates, fix those templates. —David Eppstein (talk) 15:48, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

It's too late to push the upright parameter, which I believe is shortly being phased out in the software (see the images page). It never caught on, and can produce grotesque results for those (like me) who use the maximum default thumbnail size (tall, thin images especially). The number of users who set a default, or even know they can, is pretty tiny anyway - you have to be logged in for one thing. Johnbod (talk) 03:34, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

At WP:EIS#Size, where it says 'the "upright" option must be used along with the "thumb" or "frameless" parameter', that's not a guideline - it's a software limitation. The upright option is ignored unless either one of thumb or frameless is also present. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:23, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

It seems to me that this is an accessibility thing; if people in general can't see the images well then they would set the default size bigger; but then the px overrides it, which is bad. If that problem can be sensibly defeated in infoboxes using frameless then we should be encouraging that in MOS.

The other issue is about style, should the lead image in an article usually be slightly bigger than normal?? It looks like that is the strong convention in fact.GliderMaven (talk) 20:40, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

It's possibly also worth noting that the Wikipedia Android app grabs the first image on a page and uses it as a banner at full screen width across the top of the article. Often this works well but sometimes it leads to dubious choices; for instance in Austria-Hungary the first image is the flag (civil ensign) in the infobox, probably not the best choice of an image representative of the whole article. So we might some explicit guidance, more than just the "relevant and technically well-photographed" wording that we already have, that the first image in an article should be chosen to be representative of the whole article. (This should apply regardless of whether it is actually in the first section of the article.) —David Eppstein (talk) 21:10, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

Indeed it is. Johnbod (talk) 03:34, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

"representative and technically well-photographed" might work perhaps.GliderMaven (talk) 21:13, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

That seems like an improvement to me. Of course, it doesn't have to be a photograph, so well-produced might be a better phrasing than well-photographed. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:20, 23 September 2015 (UTC)

I had removed "representative" because of the reason stated in my edit summary, but, as that link shows, I also re-added it in a way that is not authoritative-sounding (typo fixes here). Flyer22 (talk) 00:21, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

I'm not entirely convinced by your edit. Also, do you actually mean authoritative; or authoritarian, because there is a difference. Most people don't normally have a problem with authoritative; but I wouldn't have said the previous text was especially authoritarian either, or no more than WP:MOS normally is anyway, whereas we're probably aiming for authoritative. ;) GliderMaven (talk) 00:52, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

When I reverted you, I stated, "Revert 'representative'; editors get into disputes about that all the time regarding images because they can't decide on what is representative." Have you not seen that be the case? I have. Time and time again I've seen editors argue over what is or not representative for an image. And since I work on anatomy articles, I'll go ahead and cite the Human penis and Human penis size articles as examples. Goodness knows many men have debated what penis should be the lead image there. Often, it is difficult to have an image that is representative of the entire topic or is generally representative. This is why WP:IMAGE LEAD states, "Image selection for other topics may be more difficult and several possible choices could be made." I changed your language because, unlike WP:IMAGE LEAD, it used the word should when WP:IMAGE LEAD is clear that selecting a representative image is not always possible. Yes, the word should is authoritative-sounding; I've assisted with enough Wikipedia guidelines and policies to know that. And I've been on Wikipedia long enough to know that many editors treat guidelines as policies even when the guidelines are explicitly clear that they are making suggestions. We avoid the word should for guidelines unless we think it's best to use that wording. Given what WP:PERTINENCE states, what WP:IMAGE LEAD states, and what I have seen regarding editors argue over what is or isn't a representative image, I can't agree with using should in this case. Flyer22 (talk) 22:44, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

And while we're on the definition of authoritative, which is indeed the word I meant, let's look at some online dictionary definitions for it, as seen here, here, and here. As should be clear, I meant it in the sense of "having due authority; having the sanction or weight of authority." I meant that per what I stated in my "22:44, 24 September 2015 (UTC)" post above. And what are synonyms for authoritative? Official, dogmatic and authoritarian (to name a few). Flyer22 (talk) 23:05, 24 September 2015 (UTC)

Sorry, no, you're really using it wrongly. Just because they're synonymous, doesn't mean they mean precisely the same thing. If they meant the same thing, then there wouldn't be two different words. Authoratitive nearly always comes from the 3rd definition of authority, which is about being a reliable source of knowledge of something. I'm not saying you're necessarily technically wrong, there may be some rare usage in that style, but you will not be as well understood, since that's a rare usage.GliderMaven (talk) 01:40, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I disagree that I'm using it wrongly, and dictionary sources do not prove your case that I am using it wrongly. Neither do scholarly sources. I invite you to cite sources stating or implying that I'm wrong, even though this discussion should not be about defining "authoratitive." Dictionary sources define "authoritative" as "commanding and self-confident; likely to be respected and obeyed," "having due authority; having the sanction or weight of authority," "having an air of authority; accustomed to exercising authority; positive; peremptory; dictatorial," "having the confident quality of someone who is respected or obeyed by other people," "having or proceeding from authority : official," and similar. It does not only, or even mostly, mean "reliable" or similar. I know that from reading a variety of scholarly sources in my lifetime. In fact, there was recently a similar discussion about this at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Film. Flyer22 (talk) 03:21, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Also, stating "If they meant the same thing, then there wouldn't be two different words." is not a solid argument, since there are a lot of things that have more than one name. In other words, there are many terms that mean the same exact thing. This is why WP:Alternative name exists. Either way, I did not state that authoritative and authoritarian are exactly the same thing. I was being clear that authoritarian is cited as a synonym for authoratitive, whether you consider that wrong or not. Flyer22 (talk) 03:32, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

They are given different meanings in the Oxford English Dictionary: authoritarian and authoritative (n.b. there is no entry for authoratitive). Maybe it's one of those British/American things; in which case we should avoid using the word altogether, to prevent such confusion. --Redrose64 (talk) 09:18, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

The OED is not the same thing as Oxford Dictionaries. But that oxforddictionaries.com source also states the following for the word authoratitive: "Commanding and self-confident; likely to be respected and obeyed: 'his voice was calm and authoritative' [...] Proceeding from an official source and requiring compliance or obedience: 'authoritative directives'." So, again, a dictionary gives more than just the "reliable" or "trustworthy" definition for the word authoratitive. And like GoneIn60 stated in the aforementioned film discussion, "WP:RS uses 'authoritative' in the context of being 'a widely accepted viewpoint' and mentions that being authoritative isn't a requirement of a reliable source. It states, 'If the statement is not authoritative, attribute the opinion to the author in the text of the article...', so there's a stipulation involved when the author's statement isn't an authoritative one." Either way, the word authoratitive is not what is at dispute with regard to text being added to the lead guideline; the way we use the word representative, and inclusion of the word should, is what I disputed, per what I stated above. Flyer22 (talk) 11:38, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

I do see that the public.oed.com source I noted above states, though, "The dictionary content in Oxford Dictionaries focuses on current English and includes modern meanings and uses of words. Where words have more than one meaning, the most important and common meanings in modern English are given first, and less common and more specialist or technical uses are listed below." Since the "reliable" definition of authoratitive is commonly listed first in dictionaries, there is something to that. Flyer22 (talk) 11:49, 25 September 2015 (UTC)

Allow fifth paragraph of lede?

Lately, articles like Napoleon and World War II have five paragraphs in intros. They are historical events. On the other hand, War in Afghanistan (2001–14) has five paragraphs, but the topic is at least a dozen years old and may have historical potential but probably nothing compared to other topics. Magna Carta is centuries old, but its article has four paragraphs in the intro and wouldn't allow the fifth. In other words, five-paragraph intros are seen in articles about complex topics, current or historical, but they might/may have also poorly sourced statements How do we deal with fifth paragraphs whether allowed or discouraged? Can we update the guideline to reflect this matter? --George Ho (talk) 06:05, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

George Ho, see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 17#Four-paragraph lead and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 17#RFC on four paragraph lead; the latter was a big, heavily advertised WP:RfC about this just last year. I don't see that we another WP:RfC, especially one that is not as well-advertised. The four paragraphs standard is just that -- the usual standard. This is for reasons made clear in that aforementioned WP:RfC. The WP:Lead guideline in no way prohibits five paragraphs for the lead. When five paragraphs are justified, then five paragraphs for the lead is fine. Furthermore, WP:Lead is a guideline, not a policy. As was made clear in that WP:RfC, specifically noting five paragraphs will eventually lead an editor to want to mention six paragraphs, and perhaps more than six, in the guideline. We usually stop at four in our Wikipedia articles because it has been consistently found to be all that is needed for the vast majority of these articles, and because it has worked well for years. There was also this slight adjustment to the guideline. If we are having yet another big discussion about the length of the lead, I will heavily advertise it just like I did regarding the previous WP:RfC. Flyer22 (talk) 06:29, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

The latter RfC was just a proposal of wording changes. As for spread of word, I'll go for individual users first. As for former, if it was the RfC, I saw just one response. --George Ho (talk) 06:34, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

When you have over 4 million articles, the four paragraph guideline is very useful for 99 percent of them. However when you're dealing with major complex historical events that have produced thousands of serious books then clarity often requires more info than can be condensed into four paragraphs. Of course WP:LEAD it's only a general guideline, and the rule clearly says that exceptions are to be expected. ( Use common sense in applying it; it will have occasional exceptions.) Rjensen (talk) 06:51, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

...Umm, okay. Common sense would apply to mostly complex historical topics, but it is used for also English writing. I had to eliminate unsource and/or undiscussed statements not in body context, like Euromaiden. Well, others before me eliminated bad writing from the lede. George Ho (talk) 07:06, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

[ WP:Edit conflict ]: George Ho, I mentioned one previous WP:RfC (not two). And that previous WP:RfC was about whether or not we should have the four-paragraph lead standard. Your WP:RfC is about allowing five paragraphs; your topic is already addressed in the previous WP:RfC. If you take the time to read it, you should see that. I don't understand how you are distinguishing the topics of these two WP:RfCs; the only difference is that you have specifically stated "Allow fifth paragraph of lede?" in the title of your WP:RfC and have made the WP:RfC more so about historical topics. That historical aspect makes your WP:RfC confusing. I mean, are you suggesting that we allow five paragraphs for the lead for historical topics, or for all topics? Whatever you mean, I've already been clear with you above that five paragraphs are allowed. As for "I'll go for individual users first.", if you mean contacting all the editors who participated in the previous WP:RfC so that we can all rehash this matter, that's not good enough. Since the WP:Lead guideline affects Wikipedia on a large scale, it's best that as many Wikipedia editors as possible participate in the discussion; that's why, for the previous WP:RfC, I contacted all of the WikiProjects listed at the end of Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 17#Standard lead paragraph length. I would hope you don't mean contacting editors in a way that violates WP:Canvass. But judging by this alert, perhaps that alert is the type of alert you mean? Either way, it seems I might need to heavily advertise this WP:RfC in the same way I did the other one. Flyer22 (talk) 06:56, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I made an addition in the OP. --George Ho (talk) 07:02, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

I see that. But seeing your latest edits, for example, this, this, this and this, it seems that you are selectively notifying editors. Are those editors particularly relevant to the historical topics? Flyer22 (talk) 07:07, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Not just historical topics, but current topics too. However, I didn't want to mention current/recent topics in the OP unless you demand me to. I would be in favor of allowing one (or more) extra paragraph for historical topics if consensus agrees to it. George Ho (talk) 07:12, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

No need for this RfC at all, per above. At Magna Carta, you did not respond when asked what para 5 was supposed to cover, and now say "Okay, I am not pushing for extra paragraph". Johnbod (talk) 10:01, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

• This is the relevant text: "As a general guideline—but not absolute rule—the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs. The length of the lead should conform to readers' expectations of a short, but useful and complete, summary of the topic." I see no particular reason to change it, because it does allow some leeway in cases where readers would expect a longer lead. Calidum 23:15, 9 October 2015 (UTC)

Add See also heading to WP:MOS/lead project page

 Done
Can we add a See also heading to the bottom of this project page to include this essay created two years by editor BullRangifer? WP:CREATELEAD Cheers! ...Checkingfax ( Talk ) 02:38, 15 October 2015 (UTC)

Support. One of the best essays on any topic. Hugh (talk) 04:53, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Foreign language

As far as the use of foreign language is concerned, I think it should be mentioned that for "technical terms" originated in another language, the equivalent can be included in the lead section. The examples are: Thrownness, Infinite qualitative distinction and World disclosure. --Ali Pirhayati (talk) 18:20, 16 December 2015 (UTC)

Why is the example already given not sufficient? The average reader of this page has no idea what "Thrownness", or the other examples, even mean, much less that they might be examples of this guideline. Sławomir
Biały 21:45, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I'm not at all convinced that those examples should have the foreign equivalent in the lead sentence, as they do now. The etymology is far from the most important aspect of those articles and shouldn't be made so prominent. So putting them forward as examples of best practice seems misguided. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:58, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

I provided those examples to specify when (not how) we should give the foreign equivalent. For example, should we give the German equivalent for Free association and Unconscious mind or not? How are they different from Infinite qualitative distinction? --‍Ali Pirhayati (talk) 00:16, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I have no idea how they're different. Why would knowing how free association is different from infinite qualitative distinction be relevant for a manual of style? Sławomir
Biały 01:08, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

In what conditions should we add the foreign equivalent? The "manual of style" does not give any hint about this question. --Ali Pirhayati (talk) 01:35, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

That really seems beyond the scope of a simple MOS. Editors need to use their own judgement and, if it is unclear what to do, then discussion. In the examples you gave, it's arguable that the foreign language translation really doesn't belong in the first sentence ("Do not include foreign equivalents in the lead sentence just to show etymology.") It does not seem worthwhile codifying it as a best practice. Sławomir
Biały 01:47, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I thought the role of Wikipedia guidlines is to prevent users from using "their own [ad hoc] judgement" and to ensure uniformity and lawfulness! --Ali Pirhayati (talk) 02:48, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

It's not really possible to eliminate all thought from Wikipedia editing. —David Eppstein (talk) 03:42, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

The guideline already says that etymology should not be included. There can be exceptions to this under WP:IAR, where editors familiar with a subject believe that it is important. But examples like "thrownnes" etc., are not typical. Sławomir
Biały 14:07, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

I agree. The guidelines already say that foreign equivalents should not be included just to show etymology. Making an exception for technical terms would just cause confusion. Kaldari (talk) 17:16, 22 December 2015 (UTC)

Image size discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images

Opinions are needed on the following matter: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#Fixing images below the default size. A WP:Permalink for it is here. The discussion concerns whether or not we should keep the following wording: "As a general rule, images should not be set to a larger fixed size than the 220px default (users can adjust this in their preferences). If an exception to the general rule is warranted, forcing an image size to be either larger or smaller than the 220px default is done by placing a parameter in the image coding." The latest aspect of the discussion is the 1.4 Amended proposal (2A) subsection. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:20, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

This discussion has progressed to a WP:RfC: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Images#RfC: Should the guideline maintain the "As a general rule" wording or something similar?. A WP:Permalink is here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:53, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

Is defining the topic the only job of an opening paragraph or can there be other details once it has finished defining the topic... Firebrace (talk) 20:43, 14 February 2016 (UTC)

@Firebrace: Did you read the guideline? From MOS:LEAD's own lead: "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents. ... The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. ... The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic .... Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article." Tiny stubs that don't have enough content to create sections yet can diverge from that latter instruction, since the entire article may be one paragraph, i.e. "all lead" or "no lead", depending on how you want to look at it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:00, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

MOS:BOLDTITLE and WP:ACRO for incoming redirects

See current discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Somewhat related discussion. Please comment there, not here. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:24, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Let's require citations in the lead section

All of this has been said before and I have nothing to add to the conversation except repetition.

I wish to express my opinion that Wikipedia should require citations in the lead section. I do not wish to debate this right now, and probably do not want to discuss this further at this time because I anticipate that this perspective is controversial. I have another controversial opinion - I do not like the part of WP:Verifiability at Responsibility for providing citations which suggests that only "challenged" contributions to Wikipedia must have citations. Contrary to that, I would prefer to demand that everything in Wikipedia be matched with citations, excepting Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue. I would prefer to presume that all substantive claims are "challenged", or otherwise just that challenges are not a prerequisite of requiring for citations. Following my interest in having citations for all substantive statements, I am here expressing a wish for citations in the leads of articles. I feel that substantive statements in the leads of articles without citations are especially problematic because of the protection they enjoy by virtue of being in the article lead. Here are the previous discussions on this topic from the archive here:

• Archive_17#Citations_in_lede_for_medicine - my own objection from September 2014
• Archive_16#Citations_in_lead - May 2013
• Archive_13#Citations_in_the_lead - June 2010
• Archive_4#Citations_in_the_Lead - September 2007
• Archive_3#Citations_in_the_lead_-_drafts - July 2007
• Archive_2#.22Lead_section.22_article_should_be_clear_on_citations_in_lead_sections - August 2006

I want this because I would like for Wikipedia to be a summary of other existing published sources, and for Wikipedia to match its content with a citation to the source from which it came. I regret when I see content in the lead which is not matched with citations anywhere in the article. I dispute that the current system is effective enough because leads often do not match the bodies of articles, and problematic information with no backing citations in the bodies of articles often persists in the lead in ways that would detected and not allowed if the same content were in the body of an article.

I do not think it would be a significant extra burden to require citations in the lead, and I further feel that doing so would raise the quality and public profile of Wikipedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:44, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• I agree that leads usually need citations. I'm not sure about requiring them, because if you're summarizing a large amount of material, there may not be a source that says precisely that thing. If you require a source for everything, it only takes one editor to force you to find a source for your summary, even when it's obvious that the summary is correct. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:03, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Oppose – as being redundantly redundant. Cheers! {{u|Checkingfax}} {Talk} 03:19, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: Recommend the approach in the CREATELEAD essay, which structures the lead as a summary of every section of the article. Then readers reading the lead can easily find the section containing the detail and citations they need. If the lead isn't summarising what follows, then the answer is to amend the lead, body, or both. A string of footnote markers after every sentence in the lead would be of little use; most citations belong in the main text, where it should be clear which citation is supporting which statement. Imposing a "requirement" that (with 5M articles) plainly isn't going to happen only devalues those requirements that really are required: Noyster (talk), 10:27, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: I usually include citations in the lead for topics that are contentious or can certainly be contentious, such as the Sexual orientation or Clitoris article. But when it comes to an article like Titanic (1997 film), I don't see a need to add citations in the lead (though I once did). This is because not only is the content that is stated in the lead of the Titanic (1997 film) article well-known, but it is easy to find lower in the article. I think it was Betty Logan (a WP:Film editor) who removed the citations from that article's lead. If not her, it was someone else. That stated, WP:Med, which is a WikiProject Bluerasberry and I are commonly involved in (I'm a WP:Film and WP:Med editor), are generally for having citations in the lead of medical articles, and they have made valid points on that; see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles/Archive 9#References in the lead. The discussion was advertised, and those who opposed were mostly non-WP:Med editors. As for the WP:BURDEN policy that Bluerasberry takes issue with, that policy is covering WP:Blue ("You don't need to cite that the sky is blue") matters by making it clear that we should be concerning ourselves more so with content that is likely to be challenged or has been challenged when it comes to sourcing text. But any significantly experienced Wikipedia editor knows that it's usually the case that almost everything in Wikipedia articles require a citation, since people (usually other Wikipedia editors) so commonly challenge what is in a Wikipedia article and since so many things are not WP:Blue matters. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:26, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

WP:Burden also states, "Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source." And it cites the WP:Preserve policy, a policy that is too often ignored. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:36, 25 November 2015 (UTC)

• Comment: If it fails, this proposal shall be put into WP:perennial proposals. George Ho (talk) 16:59, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Parts of an article's text that summarize what's in reliable sources should cite those sources, of course. Parts of an article's text that summarize what's in other parts of the article should not cite those other parts of the article, because we should not pretend that Wikipedia is itself a reliable source; therefore they should not have citations. Parts of an article's text that neither summarize reliable sources nor summarize other parts of the article should not exist. Well-written leads should consist primarily of summaries of other parts of the article, and should therefore not have sources. Exceptions should be made, of course, for material in the lead that is presented only in the lead, for whatever reason. —David Eppstein (talk) 17:08, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - typically, citations should not be needed in the lead (assuming the lead is actually a summary of the article body). Kaldari (talk) 17:18, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose, agree with David Eppstein's analysis. Also I prefer for the lead to remain readable as text. If citations were required in it, it would be even more uglily peppered with superscribed digits than the article text, which apparently the nominator would also like to pepper further. On that issue, please note that we can't base policy compliance, or anything much, on Wikipedia:You don't need to cite that the sky is blue, which is an essay. Bishonen | talk 17:27, 22 December 2015 (UTC).
• Oppose. If substantive content in the lead does not exist in the body, then adding more rules won't solve the problem. That content should not be there and should be, per WP:Preserve, moved to the body, and there it should have a source. I do favor citations in the lead in some situations, but not because it should be "required", but to avoid continual conflicts. Controversial statements in the lead will be the target of continual attacks, and then it's practical to simply add at least one strong ref, using one of the refs already used in the body. I often add a hidden editorial note telling editors that the sources are in the body. Sometimes I'll even have refs within that hidden note. That usually stops attempts to demand sourcing. You can read my other thoughts about this in my essay. Another option which is not obtrusive is to use lead "section references", which are not the same thing as what we're talking about here. Check it out. -- BullRangifer (talk) 18:30, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - As others have said, lead should summarize body, body should be cited as appropriate, and there is nothing gained by redundant citation. In my opinion there is already too much redundant citation in the lead, and making it a requirement would be a step in the wrong direction. The solution to the stated problem already exists in p&g. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. ―Mandruss ☎ 19:01, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose per "I do not wish to debate this right now". If someone wants to propose a change they should be prepared to debate it. Making a controversial change without being prepared to discuss why it is controversial is anathema to a healthy self governing community. ϢereSpielChequers 19:07, 22 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. Sometimes references are appropriate for the lead, particularly for statements that are likely to be challenged, but they should not be required. The purpose of citations is to allow readers to verify the content of an article. If each and every "substantive statement" were to have a citation, that might have the unintended effect of making an article harder to verify instead of easier. For instance, general statements in a scientific article can often be attributed to one or two standard reference textbooks. There is not generally a need to supply specific citations in those cases. See WP:SCICITE#Uncontroversial knowledge. Sławomir
  Biały 14:41, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
• oppose I think the problems described by the op can be solved without having to require citations in the lead. ~Awilley (talk) 16:23, 23 December 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose – There is no advantage or gain in requiring citations in the lead. All the information there should already have proper citations in the article's body, where it is repeated and expanded upon. Keeping citations out of the lead for uncontroversial statements makes for an easier-to-read summary. If your concern deals with poorly written leads (as I read in your comments at the 1st link), then simply write a better lead. If a statement is potentially controversial, feel free to cite it in the lead. Making it the de facto approach for all statements, however, is not the way to go. --GoneIn60 (talk) 22:20, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
• Support/Comment Everything has to be referenced in Wikipedia, and virtually every sentence or every other sentence has to be tagged with a reference or it probably won't make it through an FA review, so de facto that's how it is anyway, really. I mean you don't have to, if you don't want the article to go FA'd.GliderMaven (talk) 00:28, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you've looked at many FAs, but clearly that's not the case in quite a few. Here are a few I plucked at random with no citations in the lead: 1, 2, 3. It is clear from the FA criteria guideline that it respects other guidelines concerning when to provide citations in the lead. De facto for every statement is not a policy it enforces. --GoneIn60 (talk) 15:06, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Not every article that goes FA is really FA quality. But in general, the reader needs to be able to find the references that every statement depends on.GliderMaven (talk) 15:30, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

"Not every article that goes FA is really FA quality". That's quite an accusation, but I'm not going to join in on the opening of that can of worms. Regarding this RfC, it's about the lead section, not the body of an article. If the statements in the body are properly sourced, then a summary of those statements in the lead should not require redundant sourcing, except for those that are highly controversial. You're welcome to that opinion of course, but the reason I interjected was your assumption that meeting FA standards required it. You have provided no evidence to support that notion. --GoneIn60 (talk) 16:20, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Not every FA is FA-quality, but FAC does not require citations in the lead. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:57, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose and clarify Bluerasberry's "I do not like the part ... which suggests that only "challenged" contributions to Wikipedia must have citations"—It really can't get any clearer than the opening lines of WP:BURDEN: "All content must be verifiable. The burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material, and is satisfied by providing a citation to a reliable source that directly supports the contribution." Meaning, with certain exceptions such as plot summaries, everything must be cited. The lead functions as a summary of the body, and the body requires citations throughout. Obligating their inclusion in the lead is redundant and hinders the lead's readability—it also gives editors the idea that if it's in the lead, it doesn't need to be in the body, which results in unbalanced, bloated leads that don't reflect the content of the article. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 22:53, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • But read WP:V more closely. Content has to verifiable not verified, unless challenged or likely to be controversial (i.e., when proof is demanded and the burden of it kicks in). Otherwise WP would never have grown much, and we'd have to delete a very substantial percentage of it right now. The main reason we have the WP:GA and WP:FA processes is they essentially challenge every fact in the article to see that it's all verified. That's what makes them good articles (and eventually featured, after further refinement), instead of just articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:18, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose as redundant. Once something's verified in the article it need not be cited repeatedly to sources at each place it is mentioned again on the same page, nor is there any rule as to exactly where this citation must happen (e.g. at first mention vs. at most in-depth and contextually meaningful mention). Thus, we need no citations in the lead for facts already cited properly elsewhere in the article. Cites are only needed in the lead where it contains something controversial or likely to be challenged, i.e. where a mental rebellion by the reader is fairly probable before they ever get to the part where the citation is; it's a "principle of astonishment" issue, basically; ft the reader is not likely to have a "WTF?!" reaction, cite outside the lead. One of the most tedious and obnoxious pastimes on Wikipedia is editwarring with or needling people to provide redundant citations in the lead for information that is not controversial, just to be a pain in the a[ss|rse].  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:18, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Redundant comma-separated disambiguator repeats caused by bolding

I'd wish the guideline would be somewhat clearer that comma-separated disambiguators are not generally bolded in the opening sentence, especially when they are preferably linked on first occurence, e.g.:

Albany, Texas is a city in Shackelford County, Texas, ... (Albany, Texas)

Albany is a city in Shackelford County, Texas, ... (Albany, Texas)

How many "Texas"ses are needed for the reader to realise they're reading an article about something in Texas? --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:00, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Sorry I have to disagree, hoping you won't hold it against me. "Albany" is not simply a city in Texas, but it is also a city in New York and in California. We have to tell which Albany, and that is very easy to do by simply writing Albany, Texas. We never have to repeat "Texas" again. And, yes, London is not only a city in England but also in Ontario. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 01:42, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I used to live in Ontario, and can confirm that when someone lives there says "I just got back from London", people assume they mean the nearby city. They say "London, England", "London, UK", or use an idiosyncratic cute term like "the Queen's London", or "the Big London", or "the Other London", or "the Original London", or "London Across the Water", or "London London", or will gesture in a flying-over-the-ocean way when they say it, if they mean London in Great Britain. Yet I see people assert all the time "we never need to link 'London''". They're wrong. I think even some MoS page, probably MOS:LINK, says not to link cities like London and Paris. And it is wrong, and widely ignored, even actively defied, because it is wrong.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:07, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

No one is arguing disambuguation, but look at the linking, that's part of the point I think Francis Schonken is making, and if it is, I agree. [[Shackelford County, Texas|Shackelford County]], [[Texas]] is absurd when [[Shackelford County, Texas]] does just as well or if [[Albany, Texas]] is used (and I see SMcCandlish's point), then [[Albany, Texas]] is a city in [[Shackelford County, Texas|Shackelford County]] is the way to go. Montanabw^(talk) 06:20, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Yes (and it relates to various other threads on other pages, including WP:VPP, about cleaning up messy leads one way or another, some ways more user-friendly than others). We do not need to be slavishly formulaic about this. I see this bad-writing error very frequently, especially on disambiguation pages ("* Foobarbazians (novel), a novel by ..."), but often in articles, e.g. things like "Foobarbazian Threatre Company is a theatre company based in ...". It's just bletcherous.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:00, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

"London, Ontario, is a city in Ontario" is laughably worthy of contempt. We don't say "Jimmy Page, the footballer, is a Scottish former footballer" just because there happens to be a guitar god with the same name. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 07:10, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

Agreed. Write leads that make sense. "London, Ontario, is the Xth largest city in Canada ...", whatever. (Bios are generally instantly disambiguated with birth/death right after the name, so the issue doesn't arise). This is actually one of the few places an encyclopedia can learn something about how to write from journalism (especially popular engineering and science monthlies, more so than news dailies), without losing its encyclopedic register. Presently, we are borrowing too much from dictionary style, expecting virtually every first sentence to structured identically. It's actually boring, and may have a little to do with declining readership. They need to be formatted consistently (especially if the sentence structure becomes more flexible). Making such a change would need to be carefully thought out as to secondary effects. We'd need to generate a lot of cases and also try to generate shite results, as devil's advocates, from any proposed rule rewrite, to detect gameable loopholes (can you tell I've done a lot of sysadmin work?).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:00, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

So many things can be remedied by simply rewriting with better style. [1]. Montanabw^(talk) 00:01, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Lead sentences for aircraft incidents (crashes, hijackings, etc.)

This isn't a major issue that has caused major problems, but it is something which I think ought to be mentioned in this page. The guideline for page names for aviation accidents/incidents is to use 1) a common name (eg. Tenerife airport disaster)(mainly for older accidents before Wikipedia was created, as more recent articles are usually created shortly after the crash using one of the other name conventions) or 2) if the aircraft had a flight number, the article is named "[airline] Flight [number]" (eg. EgyptAir Flight 181) or 3) if the aircraft had no flight number or involved multiple aircraft, it uses a different format ("[year] [location] [airline/operator] [aircraft type] [crash/collision/etc.]").

The lead sentence in articles which use the the "[airline] Flight [number]" format account for about half of these articles...see, eg., Template:Aviation accidents and incidents in 2015. The problem with lead sentences in these articles is that the flight number is used for a particular route and time (an airline may operate multiple flights per day between two airports, each with a different flight number), so aviation accident articles often have lead sentences that simply state that "Madeup Airway Flight 123 was a regularly scheduled passenger flight from Somewhere to Somewhere Else", followed by a sentence actually describing the accident. This is contrary to the lead sentence guidelines of using the lead sentence to roughly define the subject. Airlines usually retire flight numbers involved in crashes/hijackings and the flight number ("[airline] Flight [number]") becomes synonymous with the incident itself. When Air France Flight 447 is mentioned, it is almost always used in reference the flight that crashed on 1 June 2009, not the regularly scheduled flight that once operated between Rio de Janeiro and Paris.

Another issue relevant to the lead sentence is the common practice of using the IATA designator and ICAO airline designator as part of the flight number. Media and sometimes the airlines themselves will often include the IATA designator when giving the flight number, eg. "Egyptair Flight MS181" (Google News search results, EgyptAir tweet), so the IATA & ICAO flight numbers should be included as alternate names in the lead sentence.

To address these issues, I am suggesting the following addition of a subsection within this policy page between the "Contextual links" and "Biographies" subsections:

AHeneen (talk) 06:10, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

As this is already covered by Wikipedia:WikiProject Aviation/Style guide I am not sure what adding it again to a more general guide would help. MilborneOne (talk) 07:57, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Because it doesn't nicely fit within the existing lead sentence guidelines & the aviation style guide never garnered significant discussion. AHeneen (talk) 22:30, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

We don't need something this specific here. A general entry on notable events with no proper names is the way to go, using one such airline incident as an example. There's nothing about this that is intrinsic to airline/airplane/airport cases in particular.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  07:08, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Disputing a major BOLDSYN change

I don't believe that this major change [2] represents a consensus in the discussion it cites (which is still ongoing and has not even preliminarily concluded in favor of the new rule this edit inserted) about a classical music article. More importantly, it does not represent a consensus on what this guideline should advise broadly, nor what is usually done on Wikipedia.

• The intro text to the addition doesn't make much sense, in multiple ways: "Exceptions include less used variant spellings, translations less frequently used in English, and abbreviations not in parentheses"; all variants are less used, that's why they're variants. All alt. titles, especially translations, are less used that the title we chose, or we would not have chosen it, per WP:COMMONNAME. This addition would seem to have us never boldface any alternative name, except in the rare case of two names with equal usage, where we picked one via another of the WP:CRITERIA. Whether abbreviations are in parentheses is out-of-band; if anything, we'd be more likely to boldface something not in parentheses, than some parenthetically provided technical designation.
• The first of the examples might be valid, but only because it's a very minor variation on the bolded name. However, there are other ways to approach such cases without awkwardly splitting the boldfaced title apart in the lead, e.g. "Antonia Fahberg (born 19 May 1928) is ... She is sometimes also referred to as Antonie Fahberg"; or "Antonia Fahberg (French: Antonie Fahberg, born 19 May 1928) is ..."; etc.).
• The second example is problematic because it implies that no non-English titles should ever be boldfaced in the lead unless they are the COMMONNAME, but this is not actual consensus (it's being non-boldfaced at The Good, the Bad and the Ugly because the Italian name of the film is thought to be uncommon in English usage and sources, but this is often not the case, and many if not most would boldface this one because it is not a foreign translation of the English title, but the original Italian version of the title of an Italian film – cf. Léon: The Professional, The Big Blue, and many other articles).
• In the third example, whether to treat the "Hob. XVI/15" catalogue number as an alternative name, or as just something like the serial number on modern album, is the very topic of the still-open VP discussion (sources seem to indicate that these cat. numbers are used as shorthand names for the works, and at WP they are redirects to the articles).
• It removed a cross-reference to MOS:LEADALT for no reason.
• It's a back-door revert of the clarification I put in yesterday to close up a bogus loophole that can be WP:LAWYERed / WP:GAMEed.

Due to frequent conflict with the editor who made this change, I have not personally reverted it at present, but believe that it should be reverted. [I waited a day or so, and the request to self-revert the disputed change was ignore, so I've reverted it pending actual consensus for a change this major.]

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:36, 6 March 2016 (UTC) Updated.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:44, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

Alternative

I do think it is possible we could conclude to add a provision suggesting something like the following:

It is not necessary to boldface an alternative name if it is any of the following:

• Just a slight variation of one boldfaced already.
• One of a long string of alternative names (e.g. all of dozen or more regional vernacular names of certain plants), which should be moved to the end of the lead or out of the lead.
• Rare, in which case it should not appear in the lead.
• A designation, such as serial number, catalogue number, etc., if it is not used as part of the name or as an alternative name in normal prose in reliable sources; in such a case it should be given parenthetically or (if not part of the article title) not appear in the lead.
• A non-English name that is uncommon in English-language sources, or a translation of the English name. However, the original title of a non-English-language work should always be boldfaced unless in a non-Latin=based writing system; this also applies to English-language works released with non-English titles in their home markets.

However, MOS:BOLDTITLE and MOS:BOLDSYN, and MOS:LEADALT, are increasingly diverging into a WP:POVFORK despite my recent efforts to thwart this. If we do something like this, the sections need to be rearranged to work together, instead of being a breeding ground for WP:LAWYERING / WP:GAMING.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:36, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

I like your proposed list. It seems more specific and also to better reflect existing practices. Kaldari (talk) 22:27, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose bullet 4, doesn't account for the opening of the Goldberg Variations article: "The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a ..." which imho is a very normal, standard, opening.
• Oppose bullet 5, doesn't account for the opening of the An Alpine Symphony article: "An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie), Op. 64, is ..." nor of the opening of the Symphonia Domestica article: "Symphonia Domestica (Domestic Symphony), Op. 53, is ...", which imho seem both very normal, standard, openings.
• Another example, the opening of the Der Herr ist mit mir (Buxtehude) article: "Der Herr ist mit mir (The Lord is on my side), BuxWV 15, is...", which would be "wrong" both according to bullet 4 and 5, seems a normal, standard opening to me.
• imho, this is a micromanaging proposal for things that are much better handled in WikiProject guidance, for the examples above: Wikipedia:WikiProject Classical music/Guidelines. --Francis Schonken (talk) 22:48, 6 March 2016 (UTC)

The material at WP:CLASSICAL does not constitute "Guidelines" (an WP:RM needs to happen there). The actual guideline here was fine before you inserted unnecessary changes into it without consensus, when the very matter was and still is under discussion at WP:VPPOL. I'm trying to work with you in addressing what you were trying to address with that change, in a way that others can support, and which is general, and doesn't do any violence to other parts of the encyclopedia just to erect special nit-picks for one wikiproject. Slightly tweaking these example opening sentences to agree with the bullets above would not do any harm of any kind. If people actually use BWV numbers as alternative names (which we know they do), use "The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, is a ...". If (let's pretend) they don't, use "The Goldberg Variations (BWV 988), is a ...". If, as is sometimes the case, the actual article title is something like "The Goldberg Variations, BWV 988", then definitely give it all in bold, without parentheses. This is not rocket science, nor anything new, but standard operating procedure. The non-bolding of "Eine Alpensinfonie" in "An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie), Op. 64" already is against MOS:LEAD's recommendations to begin with, regardless of your proposed change or mine, so opposition to what I've proposed on the basis that it doesn't agree with your non-compliant style is not a logical objection of any kind. Whether an existing article you are shepherding is accounted for by the bullet points outlined above is irrelevant, anyway, even if it weren't already non-compliant with the existing guideline. The entire point of a style guideline line-item is to normalize inconsistent usage that people fight over so they stop fighting over it; that necessarily entails changing some cases to match others. Just inserting "oppose" comments isn't very constructive. Instead, how about identifying what you think the actual problem is and explaining why it's a real problem, then suggesting alternative wording? It's up to consensus, not one editor, how the leads at these articles should be put together.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  02:44, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

• I certainly don't like splitting Antonia Fahberg, and I don't think I have ever seen that used here. I deal with multiple spellings of older north European artist's names all the time, and normally just put them all in parentheses after the one or two most common. The name should never be split. Johnbod (talk) 04:25, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I don't split, either, and we don't seem to do this generally, except for nicknames, and only when used with the surname, as in 'John Ellis "Jeb" Bush'.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:23, 8 March 2016 (UTC)
• Comment: talking about style, I think it would be good style to (self-)revert the changes and place them here for discussion. It's annoying to go to a diff and reply here to something we don't see. I wrote the Fahberg article, and would not even have mentioned the little difference in first name, which very few sources have (see Francis' collection on the talk). IF mentioned, I would rather not place the alternative between common first name and common last name, like Johnbod, and I would not have thought of bolding it. Possible for me:

1. Antonia Fahberg (born ...)
2. Antonia Fahberg (also: Antonie, born ...)

In articles with translated titles, I would like to see the original title also bold, like SMcCandlish:

An Alpine Symphony (Eine Alpensinfonie), Op. 64. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 20:09, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

• Comment: The important consideration is why we would want to put titles in boldface. The answer is surely that it draws attention to those words and confirms to anyone arriving at the the article from a redirect or search term that they have indeed arrived at the right article. Caisson disease is a redirect to Decompression sickness and it is properly in boldface in the opening sentence. If Eine Alpensinfonie is a redirect to An Alpine Symphony (which it is), then we ought to make sure that "Eine Alpensinfonie" is in boldface, as it's both a redirect and a plausible search term. If BWV 988 is a redirect to Goldberg Variations (which it is), then it should appear in boldface for exactly the same reasons. And when we get to Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam, BWV 7 where BWV 7 is not only a redirect and a plausible search term, but is part of the article title, then there really cannot be any sensible reason to exclude it from our convention to place it in boldface (three times over). This is where Francis has has now decided to change the MOS to fit his idiosyncratic view in order to "win" a disagreement. For completeness, he wants to wikilink the BWV part, but that would be forbidden by our MOS (MOS:BOLDTITLE) if it were bold: hence all this fuss. Of course it's a simple job to add a footnote quickly explaining what BWV is, but Francis would rather change the MOS to something nonsensical than deviate from his preferred formatting. --RexxS (talk) 00:03, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

"it draws attention to those words and confirms to anyone arriving at the the article from a redirect or search term that they have indeed arrived at the right article" – Right. This is why we should continue to bold them on first occurrence if that is outside the lead (though that would be covered at MOS:BOLD); in a large number of cases, these redirs go to sections, and the term in question is not in the lead (or will not be seen there by many users, who got directly to the section by a redirect).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:20, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

• At root here, we have a BRD situation. The change should not have been made without discussion. Also, the "guidelines" for one project should not be used to dictate to the rest of wiki. Montanabw^(talk) 10:06, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
• Procedural – for completeness, the current talk page section is somewhat of a WP:FORUMSHOP of the active discussion at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Somewhat related discussion (see also previous section inviting to keep the discussion in one place). Just tought it best to mention this. --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:35, 9 March 2016 (UTC)
  • It was your own changing of the guideline in mid-discussion (see WP:FAITACCOMPLI) that generated this thread in the first place. It's probably most constructive to just let the discussions play out; the VPPOL one is buried in the middle of an unrelated discussion and is unlikely to result in anything, while the present locus is a more relevant venue.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:20, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Proposal

I'd fold the current BOLDSYN section (for its obvious contradiction with things said elsewhere in the guideline); Instead, I'd replace the following (higher up in the guideline):

---

Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article) are placed in bold:

Mumbai, also known as Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. (Mumbai)

---

by:

---

Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article) are placed in bold:

Mumbai, also known as Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. (Mumbai)

Common abbreviations (in parentheses) are considered significant alternative names in this sense:

Sodium hydroxide (NaOH), also known as lye and caustic soda, is ...

---

Which works away the incompatibility of bolding all synonyms (as it is in the current BOLDSYN), or only the significant ones as it is in fact in the guideline and widely practiced (PS: existing anchors and shortcuts are kept operational in the proposal). --Francis Schonken (talk) 11:35, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

That seems workable on its face, but would be not-boldfaced after this change that would have been before?  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:08, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Re. "[What] would be not-boldfaced after this change that would have been before?" Example:

• Currently the intro of the Carbon monoxide article reads thus:

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a

• According to current guidance that should be changed to:

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a

• with the "should usually be a redirect" made applicable (which CO is not), the following would be equally acceptable:

Carbon monoxide (CO) is a

IMHO the last one is more helpful to the reader. --Francis Schonken (talk) 06:47, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

No problem to proceed with this one then? --Francis Schonken (talk) 10:03, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Implemented: [3] --Francis Schonken (talk) 18:52, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

Common abbreviation example

I find the "common abbreviation" example somewhat inadequate:

• NaOH is not the "abbreviation" of Sodium hydroxide, it is its chemical formula. So, the example is not illustrating the rule.
• H2O redirects to Properties of water, which starts as follows:

  Water (H
  ₂O) is ...

(using the {{chem}} template to produce the chemical formula); In fact, the start of the Sodium hydroxide article would maybe be better like this:

Sodium hydroxide (NaOH), also known as lye and caustic soda, is ...

• Maybe the example in the guideline could be replaced by (start of the International Music Score Library Project article):

The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a ...

--Francis Schonken (talk) 17:04, 9 March 2016 (UTC)

That also seems reasonable, except that the chemical formulas should also be boldfaced; while they are not strictly "abbreviations" they are significant alternative names (from a chemistry perspective, they're the real names).  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:12, 10 March 2016 (UTC)

Chemical formulas are not necessarily "synonyms", e.g. C
₂O
₄ (which is a disambiguation page) may refer to Oxalate, 1,2-Dioxetanedione and 1,3-Dioxetanedione. If you'd look at these three articles I think that for none of them C
₂O
₄ is a "significant" alternative name. So I'd leave the discrimination of what are "significant" alternative names to those more experienced in chemistry (which I'm not).

Again, I'd avoid to micromanage several specialized fields from a guideline that is applicable to all articles in Wikipedia (over five million opening sentences fall under this guideline, so the guideline should rather state general principles than micromanage opening sentences of articles on chemical compounds, which necessarily are only a small fraction of all articles on Wikipedia).

FYI there are applicable guidelines in several fields, e.g. MOS:BIO. The opening sentence of the J. R. R. Tolkien article (giving full given names instead of initials as recommended in that guideline) reads currently:

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL (/ˈtɒlkiːn/; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was...

We should avoid pedantics from the over-arching guidance on opening sentences that would imply the opening sentence would "necessarily" need to be:

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE FRSL (J. R. R. Tolkien; also Tolkien; /ˈtɒlkiːn/; 3 January 1892 – 2 September 1973) was...

References

--Francis Schonken (talk) 07:09, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

If those alt names appeared in the lead they should definitely be boldfaced, or the lead just turns to mush. The bare "Tolkien" should move to end of lead with not like "...sometimes referred to mononymically as simply Tolkien." The J. R. R. Tolkien should be preserved in the first sentence (after birth/death, and prefaced with "best known as"). It's a fallacy that we can depend on the article title always being present, visible, and – above all – unmodified, in any re-uses of our content. The content, under the title, has to stand alone or we are failing. This is also the #1 problem with infoboxes.

A side point for later: We should actually have a content policy, not a guideline, that any information, aside from images and infographics, included in an infobox must either a) already appear in the main article content, or b) be supplementary information that we would not normally include, en toto and as such, in the main body [using the full taxonomic hierarchy of a species in {{Taxobox}}, and the long litany of medical database codes in {{Infobox disease}}, as examples of the latter]. That would resolve a mother shipload of problems on Wikipedia, ranging from internecine strife (which which you're plenty familiar >;-), to reader-confusing articles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:16, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

1. You can't resist the temptations of micromanagement, that much is clear. If you have a problem with the J. R. R. Tolkien opening sentence, voice your concerns at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies (or on the article's talk page). I just wanted to give an example why micromanagement from the top level guidance on lead sections down to the dedicated topic-specific MOS guidance is unwanted and counterproductive. So let's drop this here and try to get your concerns in that respect addressed at the appropriate level of guidance. (FYI, you might find support for your position in the E. T. A. Hoffmann opening sentence, which I think perfectly horrid & overdone – but I don't see a point in discussing that here, nothing of the kind will end up in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section afaics).
2. Re. "The content, under the title, has to stand alone or we are failing" – finally I understand why you put "major ... change" in the title of this section: here you're proposing one for this guideline, and one to which I disagree fundamentally.
3. But no problem to change the "abbreviation" example to the IMSLP example as far as I can see; The rest is discussion not related to that proposal to update the example to something that actually contains an abbreviation. --Francis Schonken (talk) 09:46, 1 April 2016 (UTC)

Divi Blasii, Mühlhausen

A challenging example regarding bolding in an intro may be provided by Divi Blasii, Mühlhausen, the first paragraph of which currently reads:

---

Divi Blasii Church in Mühlhausen, Germany, is a medieval church founded by the Teutonic Knights. With the Marienkirche, it is one of the two principal churches of the city. Originally it was a Roman Catholic church dedicated to Saint Blaise, but as a result of the Lutheran Reformation the dedication was amended to reflect the changed status of the saint. Thus the church is now known as Divi-Blasii-Kirche (Latin divi Blasii means "of Blaise the Divine").

---

Other name variants for this article's topic include (see [4], [5], [6],[7], [8], [9] and a related discussion at Talk:Johann Sebastian Bach#Still further on questions not yet answered):

• St. Blasius
• St Blasius
• Blasiuskirche
• Blasius Church
• St. Blasius's
• Divi-Blasii church

and a few others. Which alternatives should be mentioned in the intro of the article, and which ones of these should be bolded? --Francis Schonken (talk) 13:33, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Request for comment: Identification of train or railway stations in the lead

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

In what way should the WP:Lead sentence of articles dealing with railway stations or train stations be fashioned? Choose one or both of the paragraphs below, or fashion one of your own and post it in an appropriate place). Tell why you prefer your choice and work for a WP:Consensus if at all possible. (Note: The word station or its equivalent is normally already included in the WP:Title of the article.)

1. Name of station followed by word station in the lead

• The Abada railway station in the Indian state of West Bengal, serves Abada, India, in Howrah district. It is on the Howrah-Kharagpur line. It is 18 km (11 mi) from Howrah Station.

• Aosta railway station (Italian: Stazione di Aosta; French: Gare d'Aoste) is the main station serving the city and comune of Aosta, in the autonomous region of Aosta Valley, northwestern Italy.

• Culver City station of the Los Angeles County Metro Rail system is on the northeast edge of Culver City, California.

2. Name of station only in the lead

• Abada is a railway station in the Indian state of West Bengal, serving Abada, India, in Howrah district. It is on the Howrah-Kharagpur line. It is 18 km (11 mi) from Howrah Station.

• Aosta is the main station serving the city and comune of Aosta, in the autonomous region of Aosta Valley, northwestern Italy.

• Culver City is an elevated light rail station in the Los Angeles Metro system located at the northeast edge of Culver City, California.

BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 20:56, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

Comments, opinions and suggestions

• The problem with Number 2, above, is that Abada, Aosta and Culver City are not really train stations at all: They are villages or cities. Therefore, we should use the word train station or railway station in the first paragraph to distinguish the station from the city (the first choice, above). This also follows the normal style of repeating the title of the article in the lead if at all possible. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 22:04, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
• Definitely go with number 1. I would prefer the use of "the" as well (i.e. "The Aosta railway station" and "The Culver City station"). Eman235/talk 23:22, 22 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Many of them are not actually named with "the" at all, though. Depends on the system and even the specific station. Forcibly adding "the" to all of them would be like adding it to all band names or all organization names.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• #1. The overwhelming majority of stations are named after something -- a square, town, geographical feature, whatever -- usually right nearby. Adding "station" clarifies. Herostratus (talk) 00:51, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• No. 1, obviously (with or without the bolding, depending on if it's part of the proper name or is a disambigator. The stations' names are "Foo Station" (or some other word than "Station", depending on the system and the language), or sometimes "Foo [disambiguated by lowercase] station"; the "Foo" part of the name is some other placename, of something (city, town, village, neighborhood, street, intersection, stadium, convention center, etc., etc., etc.) for which the station is named. Direct analogues: If I write a book called The Badass Guide to Oakland, the name of my book is "The Badass Guide to Oakland", not just "Oakland". If a neo-pagan group builds the Temple of Ovinnik, devoted to the Polish cat god Ovinnik, its name is the "Temple of Ovinnik" [or, more likely, the Polish-language equivalent], not just "Ovinnik". This isn't even just basic English usage, it's basic reasoning about proper names generally. A lead beginning "Culver City is an elevated light rail station" is factually incorrect in any register and context of usage other than a light-rail specialist publication, and even there it would be questionable; using it here is willfully confusing readers for no reason other than insider jargon-wankery. WP does not use confusing, jargonistic shorthand lingo or other stylization just so specialists/aficionados can wink and grin to each other. See WP:Specialized style fallacy for a detailed explanation why this is a terrible idea on Wikipedia.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

  PS: As Dicklyon points out below, cases where the lead would be redundant can be rewritten to avoid this, and we should not add "Station" capitalized where it does not belong that way (there are some cases where a station is given a name that is not ambiguous with anything nearby, e.g. "Metro Center"). Lowercase "station" can be used as as disambiguator when it's not part of the formal name.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:08, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

  Clarified.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:31, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

I don't understand what the word disambiguator means in this parrticular context. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 01:28, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

@BeenAroundAWhile:: "That which disambiguates", i.e. the part of the title that is present to disambiguate between one name and another. It's the "(singer}" in Pink (singer) (parenthetical disambiguation), the "cat" in Siamese cat (natural disambiguation), etc.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  01:37, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

• No. 1 otherwise its too difficult in unfamiliar areas to tell them from the name of towns, DGG ( talk ) 04:10, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• No. 1 would seem the obvious answer, but where's the counter-argument? - why are we being asked? Did this RfC come out of the blue, or does it refer back to some discussion elsewhere?: Noyster (talk), 10:27, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
  • Yes, check these links: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palms_station&type=revision&diff=705527904&oldid=705517756 / https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Culver_City_station&type=revision&diff=705393708&oldid=705390404 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Palms_station#Palms_station BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 15:17, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Among many others. This has been a perennial WP:SSF issue with train stations, bus stops, etc. It's similar to the long-running one with animal breeds, e.g. "The Himalayan is a breed of...", being used when "Himalayan" can refer to breeds of more than one species or even to human populations, and the sensible approach is "The Himalayan rabbit is...", "The Himalayan cat is...", etc. Specialists, i.e. breeders and aficionados, demand the short usage because rabbit, or cat, or cavy/guinea pig, or whatever pet magazines use it, since their context is already limited to a particular species (just as "19th St" on list of stops on the transit map is already clear, in context, that it's a name for a stop). The fans of the short form mistake it for a formal proper name instead of a jargonistic shorthand, and seem unable or unwilling to see that it's problematic in an all-topics, all-audiences encyclopedia. Exact same issue with train station names, and various other cases.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:03, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

• No. 1 per all the above. Use or omission of "the" should not be mandated, but the proper name of the station should be used. (I think most stations don't have "The" in their name, but we don't need to exclude any that do, if there are any.) --Stfg (talk) 10:32, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• No. 1 per all the above. I agree entirely with Stfg regarding "The". Thryduulf (talk) 12:24, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• #1 Google Maps is the world's best funded project in this space and it uses option #2. I hesitate to oppose Google, because it makes thoughtful decisions. However, I think that Google Maps and other maps use #2 because it is the real name for the place, and because there is no need to do disambiguation about all sorts of places and concepts that would not appear on a map. On Wikipedia railway stations often share a name with lots of other concepts, and since this is an encyclopedia, we have to list them all. Saying "railway station" as part of the name is preferable to a third option, using parentheses like "Abada (railway station)" because it is more comprehensible and helpful for our audience. I acknowledge that #2 is the correct name, but for Wikipedia's audience, we ought to use #1. Blue Rasberry (talk) 14:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

  True, but Google Maps places the station name right next to the station symbol, so there is no ambiguity there. Often, the name of the town and the name of the station are both present, in different typefaces. Maps have different requirements from us regarding the use of space. --Stfg (talk) 22:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

  Actually, Google Maps regularly disambiguates with "Station" [10].  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:04, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

  Right you are. But in fact it's even more complicated. The pinpoint on this one shows London's Waterloo Station (with the "Station" capitalized, anyone who says it's not part of the proper name please note). Just to the left of it is the attached Waterloo underground station. At one magnification, this is just shown as "Waterloo" printed next to the underground station symbol (the red circle with the blue line through it). Zoom in on it enough, though, and it becomes Waterloo Station as well. Off to the right, London Waterloo East never seems to get "Station" at any zoom, and so on. Explore around this area and you'll find a variety of approaches. I think we have to conclude that Google Maps isn't applying a fixed standard at all, but is pragmatically managing screen space, and that it should not be used as a source for a naming standard. --Stfg (talk) 10:02, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

  Sure. I am not implying that "Station" always is or never is part of the proper name of a station; that much is a definitely case-by-case, which is why some will have "Station" and some will have "station" in their titles. The same thing applies, e.g., to animal breeds; in a few cases the species name is a formal part of the breed name (when it is intolerably ambiguous, even to specialists, without it, e.g. the American Quarter Horse and the Norwegian Forest Cat; in about 98% of cases, it is not, thus Argentine Criollo cattle and the Siamese cat. So, no new ground is being covered here.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:43, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

• #1 seems less ambiguous, yeah, but the first sentence about the Culver city station provides more info in style #2 than in #1. I guess you could say it's easier to convey more information in one opening sentence the #2 way, but I'm not sure if that's enough merit to use it, especially seeing as everybody seems to agree on this one. Themidget17 (talk) 15:22, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• #1 In my opinion this one is the most informative and proper. I would go with this. Sainsf <^>_{Talk all words} 15:46, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• Yeah, #1 should be standard practice, though I can't dismiss the possibility that #2 might actually be correct in a few rare cases. Note also that, in almost all cases, the word "station" should have a lowercase "s" (I bring this up because this has been an issue – lowercase "s" vs. capital "S" – for the naming of station articles...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 15:50, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• Both are OK, depending on things. I don't know if it's coincidental, or if my edits yesterday (like this one) provoked this, but I've been taking the "station" out in some cases, essentially moving #1 to #2, where the station name does not include station, and the infobox uses the bare station name as title. I agree that station usually needs to be in the article title, but maybe not in the bolded part of the lead. You can say "Culver City is a station on the ..." rather than "Culver City station is a station on the ...", with no loss of clarity (that's not the best example, but that repeated "station" form is what I was fixing, choosing #2 in some cases). There are other ways to form the lead, not necessarily bolding the title, as in Hinton, Alberta, railway station: "The Hinton railway station is on the Canadian National Railway mainline in Hinton, Alberta." Dicklyon (talk) 16:05, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

But "Culver City" isn't a "station" – it's a neighborhood, and the article isn't talking about the neighborhood but about the station. Stating "Culver City station is..." (or "Culver City station is...") is the clearest way to get that point across. (Also, many of us feel that there is value in consistency...) --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:11, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Also, you don't have to phrase it ""Culver City station is a station on the Expo Line of the Los Angeles County Metro Rail system". Instead, you can do something similar to what BAAW did here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Palms_station&type=revision&diff=705527904&oldid=705517756 . --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:15, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Like I said, maybe not the best example. See if Oakridge–41st Avenue station is acceptable to you as a good example of #2 being OK. Many US stations are done this way, e.g. Greenbelt station. Dicklyon (talk) 16:35, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

My $0.02? – I'd rephrase both those ledes to open with "Oakridge–41st Avenue station is..." and "Greenbelt station is..." --IJBall (contribs • talk) 16:47, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

@Dicklyon: You should be aware that one editor changed many of them to read that way, and is now the main objecting voice. Check the article edits. Secondarywaltz (talk) 22:38, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

• 1. There are some cases where it may really be more common to leave out station, but in the vast majority of cases "xxx station" makes it much clearer what the article is about. It comes off as very odd to say things like "Culver City is a station..."--Cúchullain ^t/c 17:18, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• Number 1. It makes more sense as surely the name of Aosta Railway Station is that and not Aosta, as that is the name of the location? Number one has the best wording and makes more sense, logically. --Ches (talk) 17:44, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• Number 1. It just reads better, and matches the article title. oknazevad (talk) 17:48, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• Number 1, but let's ban the phrase "train station" from Wikipedia. We are supposed to be an encyclopedia, not a depository for yoofspeak. Mjroots (talk) 18:39, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

@Mjroots: FYI "train station" is normal American usage, even though it's not what you and I say. Secondarywaltz (talk) 19:21, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

@Secondarywaltz: it's UK yoofspeak too. Mjroots (talk) 19:26, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't get how "train station" is slang. It's not an idiom where you can't get the meaning from the dictionary definition of the individual words. It just means "train" + "station"... Herostratus (talk) 16:02, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

• No. 1 - reads better and distinguishes from the city/town/village. Tom29739 ^[talk] 18:40, 23 February 2016 (UTC).
• Number 1. Agree with the comments above supporting inherent clarity by using Foo station in lede sentance. Specific to the example article, Culver City is an incorporated city, and quite distinct from Culver City station, a small unenclosed transportation structure located within it. The current edit (6:22) appears aborted, or simplistically lifted from an Expo Line transit map, that can retain clarity while only using placenames because only stations are indicated. — Look2See1 t a l k → 19:37, 23 February 2016 (UTC)
• Number 2. I apologize to be going against consensus on this, but the recent WP:USSTATION moves are creating unnecessary redundancy in the leads, because editors are thus changing the lead "per the article title." For instance, when the article Culver City station was located at the title Culver City (Los Angeles Metro station), the article did not start with "'Culver City station is a station...". The recent changes to these stations should not affect the already-correct leads, but unfortunately, they do. We don't say "The One World Trade Center building is a building" or "Broadway street is a street", either, unless "building" is part of the proper name; the same goes with stations.
  For example, look at the Amtrak map. Amtrak definitely doesn't suffix its stations with "station," yet the recent USSTATION edits are appending "station" to the article lead and the infobox (!). Metrolink, LIRR, and SEPTA, to name a few US railway agencies, do not suffix the vast majority of their stations with "station," because "station" is just a disambiguator. Though I agree it can be confusing sometimes, in most cases it is clear what's being referred to. epicgenius (talk) 21:06, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

  Clear what's being referred to when it's beside a dot on a railway map. Not so clear when it's in an encyclopedia. Apples and oranges. --Stfg (talk) 22:23, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

The Amtrak map shows destinations, not station names. When a railroad is talking about their stations, it would be redundant to say "station" every time. Articles here must make it clear whether it is the destination community or the station that is the subject. Secondarywaltz (talk) 22:25, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Doesn't having "station" in the title and in the lead sentence make that clear enough, without styling it to look like "station" is part of the actual name of the station? Dicklyon (talk) 22:28, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

Lower-casing the station part would probably fix that, and avoiding silly repetition like "Foobar station is a station", as you suggested. I think what we're trying to get at here is the misleading cases like "Culver City is a station ..." when Culver City is actually a place name for which the station is named.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:12, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

And I have no problem with that for Culver City station. I don't think it's important to have a general rule such that we'd have to do the same for Oakridge–41st Avenue station. Dicklyon (talk) 01:07, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I had thought of that, and at first leaned in that direction, but it looks like an intersection name, and many such station names are of intersections (i.e. places which could be or become notable). My present theory is that this sort of name is a disambiguate-because-it's-naturally-ambiguous case, like the British White one; we need not have an actual article on an intersection, at Oakridge–41st Avenue, in order to use natural/descriptive disambiguation to clarify with a title like Oakridge–41st Avenue station. I would agree that it can be approached on a case-by-case basis as we did with animal breed names, as at Talk:Algerian Arab sheep#Requested move 11 August 2015, etc. SmokeyJoe's comment at that RM sums it up well; to paraphrase it for this sort of case: The short form has recognizability problems unless already firmly in the context of rail transit (true for the sources but not true for a WP article title), so it is ambiguous and imprecise. The title should describe the topic, and the most important thing about this topic is that it is a station, which the short title doesn't imply.

This relates a bit to the userspacing last year of a pair of "concision is the master of all title discussions" essays: We actually don't seek the shortest possible title at the expense of the other criteria. One of them is consistency, so I would expect that Metro Center would be at Metro Center station eventually on that basis, anyway, even if it's not likely to be mistaken for something other than the station. D'oh; I wrote too soon; I checked and Metro Center goes to a disambiguation page, with a bunch of shopping malls and convention centers and multiple stations. There's probably an example somewhere of a station not named for anything but something intrinsic to the rail system.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:40, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

The lowercase "station" is a disambiguator. Only use it in the article when you need it, if at all. Otherwise don't use it. It's simple. epicgenius (talk) 21:37, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

"[Foo] station is a station..." is just bad lede writing. That is really a separate issue from this proposal. Once it's agreed that train station articles should begin with "[Foo] station is..." we can "fix" the articles with the "[Foo] station is a station..." nonsense intro by rewording the first one or two sentences of the ledes of those station articles. But I don't find this a compelling reason not to adopt Proposal #1 as consensus... --IJBall (contribs • talk) 23:40, 23 February 2016 (UTC)

If we're going to add "station" twice, at least say "the Foobar station is a station..." But that is still redundant. epicgenius (talk) 03:17, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

I understand the points above, but removing "station" makes the intros even more awkward than including the word "station" twice. Most readers likely find it odd to hear that "Culver City is a station". While this is primarily a problem with stations named after the location they're in, it also applies to things like "Central is a station...", let alone "Wilkie D. Ferguson, Jr. is a station". FWIW, there are other ways to fix the wording, for instance, "Culver City station" is an Amtrak train station in..." isn't nearly so awkward.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:00, 25 February 2016 (UTC)

If the station's name is not a proper noun, "station" is not part of the name, so it is fine to call X station "X is a station..." epicgenius (talk) 04:54, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

That is not preferable. Again, the "Foo station is a station..." nonsense can be handled with better lede writing (my preference for handling it is to generally go with "Foo station is located... It is a station on..." format). But "Foo station is..." at the very beginning of the lede is a vastly preferable (and clearer) way to handle this than "Foo is a station..." – the latter in many cases is somewhere between not preferable to downright confusing. --IJBall (contribs • talk) 13:21, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Just use common sense and write like we know how to. "Foobar station is a stop on the Bazquuz City municipal railway line. The station was built in 2016, and ...". This is not hard.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:40, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, except the name of the station is not "Foobar station," it's "Foobar." Last time I checked, I did not see "station" being applied to the proper name of the article. Hey, let's uppercase the "street" in the names of streets because it's part of a proper noun! Oh, it already is a proper noun? Never mind, I guess common and proper nouns are different. (Do you see the point I am trying to make?) epicgenius (talk) 21:33, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

It seems to be the same one I am. If the name of the street is Jackson Street, it would be capitalized, and our lead might begin Jackson Street is a residential and business thoroughfare in ..."; it would not begin "Jackson is a street", "Jackson Street is", "Jackson street is", "Jackson street is", or Jackson Street is a street". If it were "Jackson Road" we still might identify it as a street, without capitalizing that word: "Jackson Road is a street in ...".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  19:57, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

SMcC's comment above makes so much sense that I can add nothing more to it. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 01:28, 22 March 2016 (UTC)

• No. 2. because we typically don't bold or include disambiguators in the lead paragraph. Per the convention, that's what this is: a disambiguator word, 'station' is not part of the name unless it is capitalized. Per the WP guide it is only a Wikipedia convention and used only as a disambiguator in the title of Wikipedia articles about US train stations. Whether or where the disambiguator appears within the article is wholly irrelevant. Prior to this change would you insist a disambiguator such as (Los Angeles Metro) appear in the lead or be bolded? I have never seen disambiguators in leads, if in the article at all. Required inclusion would be redundant and should be left to the style of editor. Lexlex (talk) 01:01, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
  • But it would really only be bolded when part of the name; the RfC question isn't clear on this (i.e. some #1 examples are wrong, a bit): Foobar Staton is a MetroTrans stop in ..." vs. Bazquux station is a TransMetro stop and transfer hub located ...", or whatever.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  09:31, 22 March 2016 (UTC)
• Number 1 for certain. Number 2 is far too vague in my opinion. Joel.Miles925 (talk) 15:11, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
• No. 1 It's best to make certain that the reader knows that those are train stations and not cities. -The Great iShuffle (talk) 17:56, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
• Comment XYZ railway station is a station in ABC town/city/village of the Indian state of YYY (state name). This is for Indian railways and for other countries the state or counties may be added.--Vin09 (talk) 05:30, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
• No. 1 - identified as a train station to avoid confusion. Atsme^📞📧 04:31, 6 March 2016 (UTC)
• No. 2 per the arguments provided by Lexlex. "Station" as part of a title (except in cases where the station's name includes the word station) is pure disambiguation. Lost on  Belmont ^3200N_1000W  (talk) 22:25, 21 March 2016 (UTC)

No. 3. Compromise: No rule

Why not no-rule-at-all? Let's reach a WP:Consensus that each lead should be treated on its own. When confusion might arouse, then we use the word depot or station in bold-face type. If no confusion would arise, then we use just the shorthand version, like "East Weirdness Junction is on the Doofus Short Line"? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 15:55, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

• Support. I agree with this, if it is agreed that it's irrelevant whether "station" or "depot" is boldfaced. You know what, let the individual countries' trains' wikiprojects deal with it. I refuse to impose my preference on others, so they should similarly refuse to enforce their own personal rules on me. epicgenius (talk) 16:15, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
• No rule. Let's remember that rules like this are supposed to enhance clarity. I am rather underwhelmed at the examples provided thus far. For example, the above "Abada is a railway station in the Indian state of West Bengal, serving Abada, India, in the Howrah district. It is on the Howrah-Kharagpur line. It is 18 km (11 mi) from Howrah Station." reads better than than the current article text, which reads "The Abada railway station in the Indian state of West Bengal, serves Abada, India in Howrah district." When we make rules like this, there is a tendency to change from a more natural phrasing to a less natural one, just for the sake of adherence to the rules. That is completely backwards, and if we find ourselves doing that out of a slavish deference to rules, it's time to abandon those rules. Sławomir
  Biały 16:31, 24 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose. There doesn't have to be a hard-and-fast rule for there to be a consensus on what to do.--Cúchullain ^t/c 18:00, 25 February 2016 (UTC)
  • @Cuchullain: This section is for "no rule," which you seem to agree with. Without a rule, consensus could still be reached. epicgenius (talk) 04:53, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

My comment may have been confusing. I'd rather "station" generally be bolded. I don't think it's a matter of laying down a hard and fast rule but so far there's clear consensus for it.--Cúchullain ^t/c 12:00, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

So you want a rule? now I'm confused. epicgenius (talk) 15:13, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

I don't care if there's a hardline rule or not, but we should follow the consensus that's emerging here.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:15, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

• Oppose: "No rule" will really amount to "no compromise, keep doing stylistically poor things just because I like it and I insist on using specialized style even if it's confusing to our audience". This is a recurrent, disruptive dispute, and needs to resolve with a clear answer, not with "we refuse to decide".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  20:16, 26 February 2016 (UTC)
• Oppose - if there's a consensus, we should record it. --Stfg (talk) 22:06, 26 February 2016 (UTC)

Request for action

Does anybody feel like making some changes to the lead now in a couple of articles I have had my eye on? They are Palms station and Culver City station. Have we had enough discussion here? Sincerely, BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 23:04, 27 February 2016 (UTC)

Personally, I think this should be on an agency-to-agency basis, because the article title should be the same OFFICIAL name that the issuing agency has given it, as in this case, the LACMTA.--TJH2018 (talk) 01:16, 28 February 2016 (UTC)

Well, the policy should differ as per the country's respective policy for railway stations, such as WP:USSTATION for the US and WP:UKSTATION for the UK. epicgenius (talk) 15:29, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

It should be on an agency-to-agency basis, no matter what country it is. --TJH2018 (talk) 17:21, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

What about with two or more different agencies with different names for the same station? Pomona station (California) comes to mind. epicgenius (talk) 19:07, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Oh, you mean Pomona (Amtrak station) which is an Amtrak station also serving Metrolink, and Pomona North (Metrolink station) which exclusively serves Metrolink? ---------User:DanTD (talk) 06:55, 2 March 2016 (UTC)

I've started using it on stations I'm working on.--Cúchullain ^t/c 22:16, 3 March 2016 (UTC)

Our current Pomona-named rail station articles are listed at Pomona#Train stations. None of them are named Pomona (Amtrak station) and Pomona North (Metrolink station) (which would be misnomers, since both systems use both stations). If people want to go make more such excessively parenthetical, and misleading, names, then the answer to "Have we had enough discussion here?" is clearly "no".  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  23:18, 8 March 2016 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Lead length

Why does Wikipedia specify recommended lead length in paragraphs, rather than wordcount? This has created some slightly strange edits, such as the current Michael Jackson lead, which now contains two very long, dense paragraphs in order to stay within the WP:LEADLENGTH recommendation. Splitting these into smaller paragraphs would keep the lead the same length but improve readability. (I know it’s a guideline rather than a hard rule, but still.) Popcornduff (talk) 15:13, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

This strikes me too as odd. If summarising an article like "History of ...", essentially a continuous narrative through time, it seems pretty arbitrary where you place the paragraph breaks or how many there are. I'd go for a rough proportionality of lead size with the entire article, say approx 10% of the article word count. This relies on articles being split when they become too long, as recommended in SIZESPLIT: Noyster (talk), 23:22, 23 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I think a percentage of the overall article length would be a more useful guideline. Popcornduff (talk) 02:00, 24 April 2016 (UTC)

Any other comments on this? I'd like to change the recommendation if we can get a consensus. Popcornduff (talk) 01:18, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

• I suspect many editors don't know how to work out the word count for subsections of the article. It would be nice if this were made easy. Curly Turkey 🍁 ¡gobble! 03:40, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Popcornduff, see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 17#Four-paragraph lead, and especially Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 17#RFC on four paragraph lead for the most recent big discussion on this matter. Per what I and others stated then, I prefer the four-paragraph standard. Tweaks were made to the guideline since then, such as the introduction stating "well-composed paragraphs" instead of "paragraphs"; this was meant to combat people stuffing a lot into a paragraph to comply with the four-paragraph standard. "As a general rule of thumb" was also added to the introduction, which matches the lower part of the guideline making it clear that the lead does not always have to stop at four paragraphs. Also see Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 18#Allow fifth paragraph of lede?; it's not a big discussion, but it was the most recent on the paragraph number aspect. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 06:32, 26 April 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for those links. Looks like this has already been much chewed over, and regardless of my own thoughts, I'm not going to be the one to stir the soup again soon. Popcornduff (talk) 13:35, 28 April 2016 (UTC)

Discussion of BLP leads

In case anyone missed it, there is much discussion about the lead sections of BLPs taking place at WT:MOSBIO#RfC: Allow inclusion of former names in lead section of biographies covering transgender and non-binary people. It may affect more bios than the title would lead one to believe. —67.14.236.50 (talk) 23:02, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Bold text for major sub-subjects also covered by the article?

Should independently-notable sub-subjects also covered in the article be named in bold face in the lead? I'd always assumed so, but can't see anything on it in MOS.

The issue has come up at Cullinan Diamond: the original uncut diamond was split up into a number of cut diamonds, some of which are independently notable - Cullinan I is the largest cut diamond in the world, and Cullinan II the fourth-largest - but still are connected enough for it to not really make sense for them to have their own articles; their names redirect to this article. They've appeared in bold text in the lead for about 10 years, but this has recently been removed by an editor new to the article. I was hoping that the MOS might have some guidance on this, but I can't see anything.

Another example might be groupings like David and Frederick Barclay or Gilbert and George, where the names of the members and their collective title are all bolded in the lead, even though they aren't synonyms. TSP (talk) 13:05, 8 July 2016 (UTC)

Bolding of "title" text in redirected sections of articles

Participants here may want to comment on this discussion of when it reasonable to use bolded "title" text in subsections of articles. Dragons flight (talk) 10:52, 26 July 2016 (UTC)

Question regarding the (birth – death) parenthetical

I am most accustomed at seeing the (birth – death) parenthetical displayed as with this featured example:

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016),

I came upon Lawrence Bruner where the parenthetical displays as:

Lawrence Bruner (2 March 1856 in Catasauqua, Pennsylvania – 30 January 1937 in Berkeley, California)

I am curious as to the thoughts of others regarding the (birth – death) parenthetical and whether or not it is adequately prescribed in our MOS? Thank you.--John Cline (talk) 20:14, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I haven't looked at the MOS for this, but I think it should depend on whether U.S. or British style is being used in the article. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 21:48, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

I wasn't aware of a British custom to extend the dates of birth and death to also show the places of birth and death; I am interested in learning more. Interestingly, the David Bowie example, given above, is said to be written in British English and it precludes any such further extenuation. Again, however, I am interested in learning more.--John Cline (talk) 04:20, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Biographies#Birth date and place specifically says Birth and death places ... should not be mentioned in the opening brackets of the lead sentence alongside the birth and death dates. I'm not aware of any such British style and I think place names would unnecessarily lengthen the opening bracket: Noyster (talk), 09:07, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

Thank you Noyster; it certainly seems adequately prescribed and I agree with the guideline.--John Cline (talk) 11:22, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

No, I can confirm that it has nothing to do with British style. It's just a personal thing that some editors like. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:10, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

The back-history of the proscription against putting the places of birth and death in parenthesis is this. An editor just inserted it. A number of editors grumbled about it, but -- crucially -- no one used WP:BRD to roll it back, as they should have. There was some discussion about it, and it wasn't a very popular rule, but the editor defended it doggedly, and since no one rolled it back, it remains to this day. Since its now the current stable version, a formal RfC would be needed to remove it, and of course you'd need a supermajority, which is hard to get. Especially with several people probably voting "I don't personally do it that way, and so I think you should be prohibited from doing it that way".

It's just nonsense so I ignore it. For very short bios, I sometimes put the birth and death place in parens. There are just some silly rules that weren't really built by any consensus and that you should ignore. The lesson here is, always roll back any significant changes to rules and make the person make his case and get consensus first. Herostratus (talk) 18:03, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Non use of the title at the beginning of the lead section.

I have been involved in editing several articles recently (2016 attack in Nice and 2016_Orlando_nightclub_shooting) where there has been a strong inclination by editors to avoid using the title of the article at the beginning of the lead section. My interpretation of the MoS is that the title of the article should be used as early as possible in the lead section, unless it is grammatically cumbersome to do so. I think this is important as it establishes a consistent style across Wikipedia. Other editors take the view that since these titles are not official titles, there is no need to use them in the lead section. Instead, there is a tendency to use a narrative format On <date>, description of the events format:

'On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American security guard, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others in a terrorist attack—also considered a hate crime—inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States.'

This feels inconsistent with the style of Wikipedia to me. I think that the MoS should more explicitly state that the preference is to use the title, unless it is not possible to do so without being cumbersome (e.g. for descriptive titles Electrical characteristics of dynamic loudspeakers or The Beatles in the United States). The title should also be used in a modified form if it is convenient (e.g. 2011 Mississippi floods --> The Mississippi floods of April-May 2011). Lastly, narrative of events should be avoided in the lead section. Thanks in advance for your opinions. Mozzie (talk) 05:52, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

My opinion is that even though there is nothing wrong with their grammar, sentences like "The 2016 attack in Nice was a terrorist attack that took place in 2016 in Nice" are best avoided. Repeating the title in this way provides no useful information, falsely implies that there is a standardized name for the subject, and gets in the way of making the sentence actually say something. So, if you want reassurance that we should be writing that way, you're not going to get it from me. —David Eppstein (talk) 06:32, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Mozzie, a few years ago, when working on the 2011 Tucson shooting article (getting it ready for WP:GA status), I felt that such titles should be bolded. But these days, I agree with editors who think like David Eppstein on this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:50, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

@Mozzie: I agree with David and Flyer, there is no reason to force the title into the lead sentence if the title is descriptive rather than a proper noun. This is also what the MoS currently states. Kaldari (talk) 22:01, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Ambiguous

"The lead is the first part of the article that most people will read." Tony (talk) 00:44, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

On its own this would be ambiguous: does "that most people will read" define the article (from which the part is taken) or the ordering of sections (for which the lead is first)? But in context it is not ambiguous, because the article is already defined in the previous paragraph. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:09, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Interpretation of MOS:BOLDAVOID and implementation in international relations articles

The MOS, under MOS:BOLDAVOID, notes some examples where awkward language should not be used just to accommodate MOS:BOLDTITLE. However, many articles on Wikipedia continue to do so, and such awkward formatting has become regarded as standard practice in some areas, including bilateral country relations articles, which often go "X–Y relations refers to the bilateral relations between X and Y." Does this practice violate the guideline? And should a generic sentence format such as "Bilateral relations between X and Y began in such-and-such year..." or something else be preferred instead? I've asked at the International relations WikiProject and the editors there suggested seeking broader input here. --Paul_012 (talk) 04:34, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Definitely yes to both: this is an instance where the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the opening sentence, and we shouldn't be using the "refers to" form (WP:REFERS refers): Noyster (talk), 08:39, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

I agree; the "generic sentence format" is much better. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:12, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

I tend to remove or reword "refers to" mentions unless the article is a word article (WP:WORDISSUBJECT). I've occasionally encountered resistance, though, because WP:REFERS is an essay instead of a policy or guideline. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:24, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

See this and this discussion. In that first case, I messed up on the wording; so I understood Tony1's dissatisfaction. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:32, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Agree with David and Flyer22. The current practice in bilateral relations articles violates MOS:BOLDAVOID and those sentences should be rewritten as natural sentences. Kaldari (talk) 06:06, 15 November 2016 (UTC)

Detailed list articles in professional boxing BLP leads

Are links to detailed lists appropriate for leads? In this revision of Jack Dempsey, "world heavyweight champion" has instead been linked to a long list of lineal champions instead. I've also seen the format of "world heavyweight champion" (which points to a similarly massive list) being used in other articles. Whilst I adore those lists on their own, and have nothing against them being mentioned in (to use an unrelated boxer as an example) See also sections, or even better—record tables and succession boxes—I question the practice of linking to such lists right off the bat in a lead. I just don't think it's the best way to present an accomplishment for uninformed readers.

Therefore would it not be better, for simplicity, to ease the reader into a subject by linking to broader articles instead?; e.g., "lineal heavyweight champion" or "world heavyweight champion". Admittedly, a while ago I did use this format: "... is a former IBF super middleweight champion", until I was advised by a user (I forget who, but they knew a bit more about MOS'es than me) that it would be better for new readers as "IBF super middleweight champion". I'd just like clarification. Mac Dreamstate (talk) 15:09, 16 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi Mac Dreamstate, I'd say that a good lead will set the context for the subject of the article, and any links will be to articles on the general topics for readers to find out more if they wish. Thus, for Jack Dempsey the link to professional boxing is good, while I'd agree with linking heavyweight independently. The list of champs could be suitable under See also, and I see it's already there: Noyster (talk), 09:51, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Shouldn't have too much jammed into a lead, so if there is a dispute about whether a particular phrase should be linked, I would simply unlink it. Let the internal link be placed later, in a more logical place. BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 16:12, 18 November 2016 (UTC)

Quotes

In the end of the lead we have sometimes a quote. It is a bad idea, because one person's opinion renders his/her personal point of view rather than the objective essence of the topic. As an irrelevant anecdote which obscures more than summarizes, it should be outside the lead. Propositum (talk) 14:40, 11 January 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Do you have suggested wording? BeenAroundAWhile (talk) 03:43, 12 January 2017 (UTC)

If more than one foreign equivalent is needed

If more than one foreign equivalent is needed, put them in a separate sentence in the lead or in a Name section rather than in the opening sentence.

I have not seen this guideline specifically adhered to in a lot of articles (i.e., articles where more than one foreign equivalent is needed and they are not included in the opening sentence), nor have I seen it cited anywhere.

Conversely, a huge number of articles with a lot of watchers and high edit-rates violate it. I can't find any other part of the MOS that explicitly contradicts it, but look at Moses (whose opening sentence includes between 4 and 6 foreign spellings, depending on how one counts) or David (between 3 and 5). If we had an MOS:BIBLE (and I honestly don't know why we don't) and it accurately reflected how such articles have always been written, then it would definitely contradict this sentence.

I'm removing it in the interim, since WP:CREEP is on the side of leaving it out, and since removing it does not actually change a normative guideline (as I said above, it is rarely followed). Let's discuss the merits and demerits and perhaps reinsert a nuanced form of the sentence.

Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 11:17, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

This seems to have been introduced by Kaldari [11] following this discussion, even though the discussion itself was inconclusive. For myself I do encourage lead writers to limit the length and complexity of parentheses that obstruct the highway between Title and "is a ...": Noyster (talk), 13:15, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

I tried to distill the pieces of the discussion that there seemed to be the most support for (which was basically keeping the lead sentence short, but not banning foreign equivalents entirely). I disagree that this guideline is rarely followed. Christopher Columbus is a good example of an article that implements it well. I've actually seen a fair number of editors improving the lead sentences in this way since the guideline was introduced. I support discussing it further but I don't see why we need to remove it in the meantime. Kaldari (talk) 00:18, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

This guideline is followed by many experienced Wikipedians. Newbies or otherwise less experienced editors? Not so much. But that's the case for all of our rules. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:43, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

I've been here for more than a decade and have more than 10,000 edits. I consider myself to be an experienced editor. And while I am personally inclined towards Noyster's view, I find it hard to believe that no experienced editor aware of this guideline considered amending the leads of virtually all of our articles on Hebrew Bible topics. And we've also got the problem that the guideline as worded is clearly meant to refer to European topics, but doesn't specify this. Every article on a topic associated with a culture whose language doesn't use the Roman alphabet can be expected to give the native name in both its native script and in some romanized form: does the guideline as worded mean that these need to be kept out of the first sentence, or does "more than one foreign equivalent" refer to "equivalents in more than one foreign language" and not include cases where only one foreign equivalent is given but it is given in two forms? Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:11, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

True story: I tried to find examples and went to WT:KOREA's list of FA-class articles (since at least one experienced editor can be expected to have read each of those) and found this. Including Korean text without any romanization so that only a tiny portion of our readership can read it is definitely one solution to the problem, but it hardly seems ideal. Hijiri 88 (聖やや) 05:17, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@Hijiri88: I think maybe you misunderstand the guideline. Please refer to the example sentence which shows a non-European, non-Latin topic. A single foreign equivalent is given in both the native script and Latinization: "Ukrainian: Чернівецька область, Chernivets’ka oblast’". The guideline is not meant to restrict Latinization, it's meant to prevent lead sentences like this or this. Is there a way that we could improve the wording to make that more clear? Kaldari (talk) 20:06, 24 January 2017 (UTC)

This is covered by the Article Titles Policy in detail in one of its naming conventions (guidelines) the Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English) see this link WP:UEIA:

The body of each article, preferably in its first paragraph, should list all frequently used names by which its subject is widely known. When the native name is written in a non-Latin script, this representation should be included along with a Latin alphabet transliteration. For example, the Beijing article should mention that the city is also known as Peking, and that both names derive from the Chinese name 北京. It is also useful to have multiple redirects to the main article, for example Sverige is a redirect to Sweden. If there is a significant number of alternative names or forms it may be helpful to keep only the most common two or three in the first paragraph and a list of them in a separate section or footnote to avoid cluttering the lead; see Freyr for an example of this.

The sentence in the quote containing Freyr had been in the guidance since before I changed the example from Baklava to Freyr on 16 December 2005 (for more than 11 years). -- PBS (talk) 09:06, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

RfC on first sentence of bilateral relations articles

There is an RfC on the formatting of the first sentence of bilateral relations articles at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: First sentence of bilateral relations articles. As previously raised, the "X–Y relations refers to bilateral relations between X and Y..." construct is not in compliance with the Manual of Style. Please consider voicing your opinions there. Thank you. --Paul_012 (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

RfC on language in lead Talk:Kara-Khanid_Khanate#RfC_about_the_languages_in_the_lead

More input would be helpful at Talk:Kara-Khanid_Khanate#RfC_about_the_languages_in_the_lead Siuenti (talk) 01:34, 29 March 2017 (UTC)

Bolding of sponsored names in lead section

There seems to be inconsistency in the way that sponsored names are handled in the lead section of articles. On some articles (including Dean Court and Queen's Club Championships) the sponsored name is written in bold. On some other articles (including London Eye and The Boat Race) the sponsored name is not in bold.

Should a consistent policy be adopted across English Wikipedia, either making the sponsored name bold on all articles or requiring that the sponsored name is not written in bold?

Personally, I think the sponsored name should be in bold as it is a significant alternative title for the subject of the article. pasta3049 (talk) 15:36, 30 March 2017 (UTC)

Relative emphasis

The point of the lead is to summarise the content of an article. Yet there is a practice that I find mistaken. This is the removal of date of birth (DOB) and date of death (DOD) from the body of the text of biographies because they appear in the lead. The logic of this practice would suggest that any inclusion of facts in the lead can be expunged from the body of the text.

Removing dates from the body of the text means, that for completion, the DOD and DOB are facts that need a refernce from a reliable source, and as such facts clearly are within the remit of WP:PROVIT, they need an inline-citation.

Usually body of the text of biographies contain in their first sentence a mention of the birth and in most cases the source that mentions the birth will include a DOB. So the inline-citation that covers that sentence will usually cover the DOB. So articles that include the DOB in the body of the text do not usually need an inline-citation in the lead to cover the DOB because it is met by the inline-citation in the body of the article (WP:CITELEAD).

The same argument covers the DOD. Further if the article is a large biography then having to scroll up many screens to see on what date a person died in such and such a place seem to me to be less than useful when the cost of placing in at the end of the article next to the place or circumstances of death is negligible.

I understand that when encyclopaedias were paper based, then there was a substantial cost saving in only supplying information once and so in paper based encyclopaedias there is a rational reason (cost) for not including DOB-DOD twice, but on Wikipeia there is an equally good rational reasons for including them twice (less clutter in the lead) and ease of use.

Some editors remove dates from the body of the text. This can be seen in the text that originates as copies from the DNB which usually includes the DOB and DOD in the body of the text in their more substantial articles. See (searching alphabetically for the first clear example): Alexander Abercromby (British Army officer) and the original text s:Abercromby, Alexander (1784-1853) (DNB00) (removal of DOB from body of the text) -- it has since been restored.

I think this happens because some editors are used to reading text based reference books that do not include the DOB-DOD in the text to save space (like using year dates and page number ranges without the full number eg 1784–5), and possibly also because of the advise given in the section Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section#Relative emphasis it states "Exceptions include specific facts such as ... birth dates ... . This admonition should not be taken as a reason to exclude information from the lead, but rather to harmonize coverage in the lead with material in the body of the article."

It does not mention DOD (odd miss-alignment), and I suggest removing mention of "birth dates" from the sentence for the reasons I have given above.

-- PBS (talk) 10:43, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure about removing that. I'm in agreement with those who remove the date of birth from the Early life section (or similar) because it's already mentioned in the lead and infobox. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:05, 1 April 2017 (UTC)

Heads up on RfC concerning a section of THIS page, but placed elsewhere

There is an RfC at the BIO talk page which actually is about changing a section of THIS page (specifically WP:QUOTENAME, the "Usage in first sentence" subsection of the "Alternative names" section of this page). I put the RfC at the Bio page; it is here:

Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biographies#RfC: Clarification and/or change in how common hypocorisms (diminutives) are handled on first use of name

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Herostratus (talk • contribs) 17:55, 3 November 2016 (UTC)

Content dispute about lead length

Hello everyone; could I request some third-party eyes on an ongoing dispute at Talk:Inside No. 9#Lead section? Josh Milburn (talk) 11:30, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Discussion about requiring the full legal name of companies in the bolded part of the lede

Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (companies)#Official title in lede czar 23:12, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

"Basic facts"?

Re this bold addition and my revert: Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article – Lawrencekhoo asked for clarification on my talk page, so I'm bringing it here to a larger audience. I'm not sure I can readily come up with common examples, but they may include:

• The very definition of the term,
• Alternative names and pronunciations,
• Place and date of a persons birth and death,
• Some kind of location or classification (country, administrative unit, taxon, branch)
• ...?

Can we (or do we need at all, per WP:CREEP) come up with some illustrative examples? No such user (talk) 10:21, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

It's just that "basic facts" is open to such wide interpretation. I believe I added "e.g. pronunciation and alternative names", but I am open to anything. I just would like some clarification of what it means. Perhaps we should come to consensus on what the term means before we decide on examples? LK (talk) 12:47, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Seems like WP:CREEP to me. Personally, I like the ambiguity of "basic facts" :) Kaldari (talk) 00:08, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Is it really a good idea to leave something in the lead of a policy page ambiguous? LK (talk) 08:13, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Honestly, sometimes there is – per WP:CREEP not every rule has to be set in stone, and some things are best left for editors' common sense and editorial consensus. As Kaldari said, ambiguity here might be desirable, as it leaves the definition of "basic facts" to be decided on case-by-case basis (as the scope of our topics is so wide that it is very difficult to prescribe). No such user (talk) 09:12, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

First for clarification, this is a guideline, not a policy. As with any suggestions in the MOS, editors should apply common sense and discuss potential conflicts on the article's respective talk page. While guidelines here should be concise, they should remain somewhat generalized and not overly precise in their recommendations. Here, I would agree the phrase "basic facts" is a good fit for now. It could possibly be enhanced further, but listing examples to me would seem like overdoing it. --GoneIn60 (talk) 12:18, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Section First sentence has a bad example

Section #First sentence has a bad example concerning a comprehensive dictionary.

In talking about minimizing redundancy in the first sentence, Note 6 currently says (emphasis added):

Both contain some redundancy, but the second is better because it tells us that the OED is the world's most respected dictionary of English. Again, someone who knows what the word dictionary means will probably assume that any dictionary is comprehensive, so they do not need to be told that.

On the contrary, the vast majority of dictionaries are not comprehensive. Many people who "know what the word dictionary means" will never have seen a comprehensive dictionary in their life, and the rest won't necessarily assume that "any dictionary is comprehensive." This should be changed. Mathglot (talk) 06:27, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

The word "some" is redundant! And ... I have a dictionary of scientific terms, which is certainly not "comprehensive" in terms of the meaning intended. Tony (talk) 06:55, 23 May 2017 (UTC)