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Wikipedia:Update/2/General style guidelines, July 2009 to December 2009

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December 2009





  • Wikipedia:Layout
    • In WP:Layout#Standard appendices and footers, added: [In the rare cases when it is useful to sub-divide these sections (for example, to separate a list of magazine articles from a list of books), most editors prefer to use] "either definition list headings (;Books) or" [bold-faced text ("Books") instead of level 3 headings (===Books===).]


  • Wikipedia:Lead section
    • In the introduction, changed: [... the notability of the article's subject should] "be established in the first sentence of the lead, if possible." to: "usually be established in the first sentence."


  • Wikipedia:Linking
    • In WP:Linking#Repeated links, added: "where a link to a significant related topic occurs embedded in the text of an article it may be useful to have a duplicate link in a "see also" section to make it easier to find."


  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style
    • New subsection: WP:MOS#Clarity
    • In WP:MOS#Section headings, added: [These extra spaces will not affect the appearance of the heading, except in the edit window.] "Note, however, that some common bots are programmed to remove them."
    • In WP:MOS#Section management, removed: "When referring to a section without linking, italicize the section name (italicize the actual section name only if it otherwise requires italics, such as the title of a book); for example, === Section management === but the current section is called Section management."
    • New subsection: WP:MOS#Brackets and linking
    • In WP:MOS#Ellipses, changed: "exclamation points" to: "exclamation marks/points"
    • In WP:MOS#En dashes, added: "Exceptions are occasionally made where the item involves a spaced surname (Seifert–van Kampen theorem)."
    • In WP:MOS#Dates, added: [Dates in the format YYYY-MM-DD ... may be useful in long lists,] "references," [and tables for conciseness and ease of comparison.]
    • In WP:MOS#Gender-neutral language, added: "Gender-neutral third-person singular pronouns other than "he or she" should not be used in article text; this includes made up words like zie and hir or Spivak pronouns."
    • In WP:MOS#Color coding, changed: "In general, this means that shades of red and green should not both be used as color codes in the same image." to: "Any information conveyed via shades of red and green should also be conveyed in some other way."





  • Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid
    • In WP:SELF#Community and website feature references, changed: "However, there are exceptions. An article that is still in its initial development or under dispute often will include {{stub}}, {{npov}}, {{refimprove}} or other maintenance tags, to help editors further develop the article and the text in these templates include self-references." to: "The templates that render self-referencing graphics for the maintenance needs of developing articles, like {{stub}}, {{npov}}, and {{refimprove}} are unavoidable, but articles should normally avoid self-referencing templates such as {{shortcut}} and the others."



  • Wikipedia:Words to avoid
    • In WP:AVOID#Avoid editorial opinion, added:
      While music journalists and music critics refer to certain musicians as "legendary" and call certain albums "classic" or "seminal" in their published reviews and articles, Wikipedia editors should not independently add these adjectives unless their use is supported by a reputable source (e.g., "According to the Penguin Encyclopedia of music, John Smith was "a legendary guitarist whose classic 1980s albums are considered to be seminal roots rock records".
November 2009

  • Wikipedia:Avoid neologisms
    • In WP:NEO#Articles on neologisms, added: "On the other hand, in some cases a concept has sufficiently widespread coverage to be notable, and a fairly newly coined term may be the simplest and most natural way to refer to the concept. In this case it that newly coined term may to be the best title for the article, provided the use of the term is verifiable."





  • Wikipedia:Lead section
    • Added nutshell: "The lead should define the topic and summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight."
    • In WP:LEAD#First sentence, removed: [The article should begin with a] "short" [declarative sentence, ...]


  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style
    • New subsection, WP:MOS#Brackets and linking
    • In WP:MOS#En dashes, added: "... similarly, between 1939 and 1941, not between 1939–1941."
    • In WP:MOS#Decimal points, added: "... a raised dot" [is never used in this role]
    • In WP:MOS#Images, added: "An option such as "|300px|" resizes the image to the specified width in pixels ..." Added: "... a user's preferred width (180 pixels for those on the default setting, soon to increase to 220px)"
    • In WP:MOS#Color coding, changed: "In general, this means that shades of red and green should not both be used as color codes in the same image." to: "Any information conveyed via shades of red and green should also be conveyed in some other way."






  • Wikipedia:Profanity
    • Added: "Occasionally, the edit filter will block anonymous users and newly registered accounts from adding profanity to an article. This happens because such users add profanity as vandalism much more often than as a constructive change. An user affected by false positives should edit unrelated articles for about a week to establish himself as a serious contributor."


October 2009

  • Wikipedia:Accessibility
    • In WP:ACCESS#Links, removed:
      Avoid putting links in section headings, unless the link text is the only text in the title. Some screen readers, such as earlier versions of JAWS, will stop reading the heading title when they encounter a link, and if the link is the first part of the heading title, they will only read the link text. For example, a heading title of "The [[chimpanzee]]s invade the sewer system" may be read as "The", and a heading title of "[[Box]]es in popular culture" may be read as "Boxes".


  • Wikipedia:Avoid weasel words
    • In the nutshell, changed: [Avoid using phrases such as "some people say", or any variations of the sort,] "without providing sources." to: "except in direct quotation."
    • Some changes to the introduction, including changes to the definition of "weasel words"
    • Added just after the examples: "The main problem with weasel words is that they interfere with Wikipedia's neutral point of view; but they give rise to other problems too"
    • The "general examples" were moved down, with the addition of two more, "possibly" and "probably"



  • Wikipedia:External links
    • In the introduction, added: [No page should be linked from a Wikipedia article unless its inclusion is justifiable] "according to this guideline and common sense. The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link."
    • In WP:EL#Links to be considered, added: [For albums, movies, books, and other creative works, links to professional reviews] "that have not been used to verify information about the critical reception of the work or that contain information that cannot be integrated into the Wikipedia article."
    • In WP:EL#Links normally to be avoided, changed: "Any site that attempts to surreptitiously install malware onto a visitor's computer." to: "This item has been moved (i.e. a placeholder created so as not to not disturb numbering of the remaining items.)" Added: "Mirrors or forks of Wikipedia should not be linked." Added: "Links to websites of organizations mentioned in an article – unless they otherwise qualify as something that should be linked or considered."
    • In WP:EL#Linking to user-submitted video sites, added: [... all links to YouTube videos should,] "if applicable", [indicate that Flash video software] "or a web browser supporting H.264" [is necessary to see the content.]
    • In WP:EL#Official links, removed: "In contrast to official links, personal links contain content predominantly about the individual's personal life, family, and friends, and they are not included under this rule. For example, an official website for an artist will present information about the artist's work, not about the artist's grandchildren."


  • Wikipedia:Layout
    • In WP:LAY#Standard appendices and footers, added: "In the rare cases when it is useful to sub-divide these sections (for example, to separate a list of magazine articles from a list of books), most editors prefer to use bold-faced text ("Books") instead of level 3 headers (===Books===)."
    • In WP:LAY#Further reading, added: [... that do not appear elsewhere in the article] "and were not used to verify article content."










September 2009

  • Wikipedia:Accessibility
    • In WP:ACCESS#Images, removed: "Do not place left-aligned images directly below third-level (===) headings, as this can disconnect the heading from the text it precedes, when read with larger fonts. Instead, either right-align the image, remove it, or move it to another relevant location." Also removed an example.




  • Wikipedia:Citing sources, Previous selected version.
    • Removed from introduction: [sources should be cited ...] "when checking content added by others ..." Also removed: "Citations are usually presented within articles using one of the methods described in the How to present citations section of this guideline."
    • Added to WP:CITE#Footnote summary: "Follow the punctuation style established in the article. The most popular style is to place ref tags immediately following punctuation marks."
    • Added to WP:CITE#Citation styles: "Full citations for individually authored chapters in books additionally include: *the book's overall editor, *the title of the chapter, *the page numbers for the chapter". Added: [Citations for newspaper articles typically include: name of the newspaper in italics] "(required)", [date of publication] "(required) ...", "city of publication, if not included in name of newspaper", [the date you retrieved it if it is online], "invisible to the reader: <!--accessed: date-->". Also added: [Citations for World Wide Web articles typically include: ... the date you retrieved it] "(invisible to the reader if the article has a date of publication: <!--accessed: date-->)"
    • Added to WP:CITE#Inline citations: "An inline citation should appear next to material that it supports; if the same material occurs more than once the citation should be next to at least one of the occurrences."
    • Added to WP:CITE#Footnote system: "Some names require straight quotation marks, and it is never wrong to use them."
    • Added to WP:CITE#Embedded links: "Embedded links should not be used to place external links to websites in the body of an article. External links are those websites and other links that are not used to verify article content, but instead to direct readers to other websites. For example, do not spam links to companies' or organizations' websites in article text, like this: "Apple, Inc. announced their latest product..." Only links to pages that directly support claims made in the article should be embedded as links, and those embedded links should follow the formatting shown in the previous paragraph."
    • Added subsection: WP:CITE#Multimedia



  • Wikipedia:Layout
    • In WP:LAY#See also section, added: "Please refrain from adding links to pages that do not yet exist (red links)." [A brief annotation may be necessary when the link's relevance is not immediately apparent, when the meaning of the term may not be generally known,] "or when the term is ambiguous."
    • In WP:LAY#Images, changed "An image should not overwhelm the screen; 300px may be considered a limit, as this is approximately half Wikipedia's text space's width on a 800x600 screen. It is a good idea to try to maintain visual coherence by aligning the width ..." to "An image that would otherwise overwhelm the available text space on a 800×600 window should be shrunk, or formatted as a panorama. It is a good idea to try to maintain visual coherence by aligning the sizes ..."



  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
    • In WP:MOSNUM#Delimiting (grouping of digits), added: "such as by" [using commas every three digits ...]
    • In WP:MOSNUM#Decimal points, added: [The number of decimal places should be consistent within a list or context ...] "except if the quantities were measured with different precisions."
    • In WP:MOSNUM#Which units to use and how to present them, changed "for the UK Imperial units for some topics and metric units for others, and a mixture of units for others ..." to "for the UK, they usually are metric units for most measurements, but imperial units for some measurements such as road distances and draught beer ..."
    • In WP:MOSNUM#Formatting, changed "Fully identify a currency on its first appearance (AU$52);" to "Use the full name of a currency on its first appearance (52 Australian dollars);" Added: [The exception to this is in articles related entirely to US-,] "EU-" [or UK-related topics, in which the first occurrence may also be shortened ($34, €26, and £22, respectively), unless this would be unclear,] "and in places where space is limited such as tables, infoboxes, and parenthetical notes. When there are different currencies using the same symbol, use the full abbreviation (e.g. US$ for the United States dollar and AU$ for the Australian dollar, rather than just $) unless the currency which is meant is clear from the context." Added: [Conversions should be in parentheses after the original currency, rounding to] "avoid excess or false precision (one or two significant digits are usually enough, as the exchange rates can vary significantly) and noting the conversion as approximate," [with at least the year given as a rough point of conversion rate reference; e.g.,] "Since 2001 the grant has been 10,000,000 Swedish kronor (approx. US$1.4M, €1.0M, or £800k as of August 2009), not (US$1,390,570, €971,673 or £848,646)." Removed: "... some editors consider it unnecessary to link the symbols of well-known currencies, but doing so can often be helpful to readers, as many countries use dollars or pounds as their base currency, and not all readers are familiar with the euro."



  • Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid
    • In WP:SELFREF#Examples of self-references as defined by this guideline, changed: "The following is a list of self-references in Wikipedia's main namespace that are not encyclopedia-neutral. They should at least be acknowledged or marked as self-references, but not necessarily be deleted, as they serve their purpose here on Wikipedia." to: "Self-references in the main namespace are not encyclopedia-neutral. Please verify that any use of the templates in this list override the need for enclyclopedia-neutrality in the article. Also, please consider how rare it is that any of the categories in this list are ever needed in an encyclopedia-neutral article. Finally, please reword articles with the kinds of references to "Wikipedia" that are in this list."


August 2009




  • Wikipedia:Citing sources, selected version
    • In WP:CITE#Citation styles, removed "All citation techniques require detailed full citations to be provided for each source used. Full citations must contain enough information for other editors to identify the specific published work you used." "in italics" and "within quotation marks" were added in several places. For book citations, changed "The name of the publisher [... is] optional, although publisher is generally required for featured articles." to "name of the publisher". For newspaper articles, changed "a comment with the date you retrieved it if it is online (invisible to the reader)." to "date you retrieved it if you read it on the Web, unless it is on a stable website that maintains its archive over the long term", and changed "page number(s)" to "page number(s) are optional". For web articles, removed [the date you retrieved it] "(invisible to the reader if the article has a date of publication)", and removed "an optional short quote (used rarely, if the source is likely to be challenged)"
    • Moved WP:CITE#Metadata down, with minor tweaks
    • Renamed WP:CITE#Cite the place where you found the material to WP:CITE#Say where you found the material
    • Added to WP:CITE#Shortened footnotes: "Short citations can be written manually, or by using the {{harv}} template."
    • Removed subsection: WP:CITE#Collapsible tables (July 31 version)
    • Added to WP:CITE#Repairing dead links: [If a dead link cannot be repaired or replaced,] "one option to" [consider] "is" reworking the article section so that it no longer relies on the dead link,] "though this is not required."



  • Wikipedia:Layout
    • In WP:LAYOUT#See also section, removed "Still, if the subject fits to be integrated into somewhere in the article rather than into a list at the end of it, it is preferred." Added "{{Portal}} links are usually placed in this section."



Capitalize the first letter in the first and last words in the titles of English compositions (books and other print works, songs and other audio works, films and other visual media works, paintings and other artworks, etc.). The first letter in the other words is also capitalized, except for coordinating conjunctions, prepositions, and articles that are less than five letters long, as well as the word to in infinitives. More specifically:
  • Capitalize the first and last word.
  • Capitalize every noun, verb and adverb. This includes all forms of the verb to be (e.g., be, been, am, is, was, were).
  • Capitalize only those prepositions that are the first or last word of the title, are part of a phrasal verb (e.g., "Walk On" or "Give Up the Ghost"), or are the first word in a compound preposition (e.g., "Time Out of Mind", "Get Off of My Cloud").
  • With compound hyphenated terms, capitalize each word-part separately, according to the applicable rule.
  • Titles that include parentheses should be capitalized as though both the part inside and outside the parentheses are separate titles (e.g., "(Don't Fear) The Reaper")




  • [Words as words:] Deuce means two, "or "deuce" means "two", whichever will be clearer in context (consider an article with many quotations, or an article full of italicized foreign terms).
  • Legal case names are always italicized: Plessy v Ferguson.
    • Changed "list" to "glossary"
    • Removed: "Some other markups are available but risky. Examples are teletype (edited as <tt>teletype</tt>), underline (edited as <u>underline</u>), and italic (edited as <i>italic</i> or <cite>italic</cite>). But the teletype (monospace) tag does not usually produce text sufficiently different from the standard Wikipedia font to be useful; the underline tag can create confusion with links; and the HTML tags <i> and <cite> are not differentiated by most common browsers. The Wikipedia italic, described above and edited as ''italic'', is preferable to the HTML tags <i> and <cite>."
    • Changed "The markup "double-quoted" (edited as "double-quoted") is not risky ..." to "Wikipedia uses "double quotation marks" (and for quotations within quotations, 'single quotation marks'), regardless of English-language variant. “Curly quotes” are not used in articles."



  • Wikipedia:Words to avoid
    • In WP:AVOID#Avoid editorial opinion, added "... happy, sad, ..." Added: "Human-interest writing often uses adverbs such as happily and sadly when the reader is expected to empathize with the subject's successes or failures. These are better avoided in encyclopedic writing, where the purpose is to neutrally describe events rather than to entertain the reader's sympathies."
July 2009

  • Wikipedia:Accessibility
    • Added to lead section: "For assistance with accessibility, see: Help:Accessibility"
    • Expanded WP:ACCESS#Tables from the June 30 version
    • In WP:ACCESS#Data tables, moved some links to the footnotes. Also, added: "It can cause problems if cells that are not in the first row or column contain a colspan/rowspan. If the content of the joined cells does not actually apply to all of the corresponding cells in the first row or column, then the voice browser may incorrectly report the header that applies to those cells."



  • Wikipedia:Avoid peacock terms
    • In the lead section, changed "- In Wikipedia articles, try to avoid peacock terms which merely promote the subject of the article without imparting real information. Examples include describing people as "important", "main" or "among the greatest" in their field without explaining why. Peacock terms often reflect unqualified opinion, and usually do not help establish the significance of a topic. They should be especially avoided in the lead section." to "In Wikipedia articles, forgo unsourced or unexplained peacock terms that merely promote the subject of the article without imparting verifiable information. Examples include describing people as "important", "main" or "among the greatest" in their field without explaining why. When you use these terms, make sure you have sources to support them, and that the reader understands why the person or subject is so regarded."
    • Added to WP:PEACOCK#Words and phrases to watch for: "Their inclusion in this list does not mean they should be avoided, simply that they must be used appropriately." Words added to the list: "leading", "trusted".









  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
    • Added to WP:MOSNUM#Precise language: "For instance, one should not replace "since the start of 2005" by {{as of|2005}} because some information (the start of 2005) would be lost."
    • In WP:MOSNUM#Large numbers, removed "The prefix "giga-" and its symbol G should be limited to computing and scientific contexts."
    • In WP:MOSNUM#Which units to use, added "Generally," [use units consistently]. Also added: "Nominal and defined values should be given in the original units first, even if this makes the article inconsistent: for example, When the Republic of Ireland adopted the metric system, the road speed limit in built-up areas was changed from 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) to 50 kilometres per hour (31 mph). (The focus is on the change of units, not on the 3.6% increase.)"
    • Shortened WP:MOSNUM#Unit conversions from the June 30 version
    • Added to WP:MOSNUM#Conventions:
      • "(When they form a compound adjective, values and spelled out units should be separated by a hyphen.)"
      • "the percent sign [is] unspaced".
      • [When unit symbols are combined by division, use a slash ...] "Exceptions include "mph" for the mile per hour, "psi" for pounds per square inch, etc."
      • [When dimensions are given, values each number [sic] should be followed by a unit] "name or symbol"


  • Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)
    • In the lead section, changed "This is Wikipedia's style manual for text formatting. Use it for guidance on when to apply various formatting techniques, such as bold, italics and underlining." to "This page provides guidance on when to format text in articles."





Further information: Wikipedia:Move navigational lists to portal namespace




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