Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-10-18/Dispatches

Dispatches

Common issues seen in Peer review

Lead

While the lead is the first section our readers see, it is usually the last section in an article to be written (or at least finalized). This is because the lead should be a summary of the whole article. A good rule of thumb is to mention every section in the lead in some way, even if only through a word or phrase.

Because it is a summary, the lead should contain no material that does not appear elsewhere in the article. For the same reason, the lead should be brief — not more than four paragraphs.

While the lead can have references, most articles do not include them there (again since it is a summary, all information in the lead should be mentioned and referenced elsewhere in the article). The main exceptions to this are direct quotations and contentious claims, which should be referenced no matter where they occur.

A good way to write the lead is to wait a few days, then reread the whole article except for the lead, then try to summarize it as a lead section. Another way is to imagine that a reader is restricted to reading only the lead: what points are essential and what can be omitted in that situation?

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Wikipedia:Lead section

References

Citing reliable sources is critical to verifying an article's claims. A good rule of thumb is to provide at least one source for each paragraph as well as sources for all quotations, all statistics, and any claim that is challenged or likely to be challenged. Each source should clearly support the text it is used for. Blogs, personal websites, and other self-published materials are not usually reliable sources.

Wikipedia articles use what are called "inline citations", each of which is added to the main text. One option is to use parenthetical references, and another is to use clickable footnotes. For the latter, the citation details go between a pair of <ref></ref> tags. These should be placed inline directly after the end punctuation of the text that is being supported. Editors can format citations in a variety of ways, by hand or by using templates such as those of the "cite" family. A good rule of thumb for Internet sources is to include, if available, the author, title, publisher, date of publication, URL, and access date. WP:CIT includes lists of desirable data, such as ISBN numbers, for other kinds of sources.

A "References" or "Notes" section must be added to the article to make the citations fully functional. This section must contain either the <references/> tag or a small template such as {{reflist}}, which will automatically display the citation details, what is inside the <ref></ref> tags, in the "References" or "Notes" section.

Editors who use citation templates should take care not to mix the "cite" family with the "citation" family or other families. Dates in the citations of any particular article should be formatted in the same way; i.e, m-d-y or yyyy-mm-dd for US-centric articles and d-m-y or yyyy-mm-dd for most non-US-centric articles. Page ranges in the citations and elsewhere take en dashes rather than hyphens.

In addition to making Wikipedia's text verifiable, an article's citations provide readers and researchers, including other Wikipedia editors, quick access to sources that may be useful in other ways, such as when doing academic research. References add greatly to the encyclopedia's value.

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Images

Common image problems that are easily fixed involve size and spacing. "Thumb" is the preferred size for most images, though the lead image, maps, galleries, and panoramas are notable exceptions. It is possible to make images too small or too large, and it is possible to have too few images or too many. Judgment is required to decide how best to present an image in the larger context of the whole article. To avoid blankness on the one hand and clutter on the other, a good rule of thumb is to aim for one image per main text section and to place each image entirely within the section it illustrates. Generally, directional images such as eyes looking one way, or horses running left or right, should be placed so that "following" an image goes into the text of the page rather than away from it.

Images need captions, and it is good practice (although not explicitly required) to add alt text for readers who cannot see the images. WP:CAPTIONS has more on captions, and WP:ALT explains alt text.

Images must be properly licensed either as free-use or fair-use, and the image description and license page should include the "who, what, when, where" of the image itself, the license, the categories, and the author, original source, date, and any other information needed to verify that the license is legal and appropriate. Licensing is fairly straightforward with self-made photos but can be quite complicated in the case of images scanned from books, or obtained via Flickr, government web sites, or other sources. In these cases, great care must be taken to avoid violating copyright law.

Images used under the Fair use clause of United States copyright law must follow Wikipedia's policy on non-free content, which stipulates (in part) that fair use images must have no free equivalent, be used minimally, and must have contextual significance in the article in which they appear. So, for example, fair use images of living persons or existing buildings are almost never allowed, as they could conceivably be replaced with free images. Fair use media must be mentioned in the article in which they appear, and must add significantly to the reader's understanding of the topic.

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Prose

Although good prose styles can vary considerably, it is helpful to keep in mind the encyclopedia's diverse audience. A good rule of thumb is to imagine a readership of ordinary adults fluent in English but unfamiliar with the material being presented. Jargon needs to be explained or linked. Abbreviations generally need to be spelled out on first use. Slang, which can be bewildering to readers living in various places around the world, should be avoided. To the extent possible, technical material should be written in plain English and technical terms either explained or linked.

Paragraphs should be neither too long nor too short. Giant paragraphs put readers to sleep, while a succession of tiny ones clutters the page and turns prose articles into lists. Do not use lists if a passage reads easily using plain paragraphs. If an article's essence is a list, it should have a title such as "List of rivers in Asia".

Good sentence structure can vary widely, but most sentences in an article should be neither extremely long nor extremely short. Exceptions can be delicious if clear; readers do enjoy variety.

Embrace the active voice. For example, instead of "Cat was chased by Mouse," write "Mouse chased Cat". Three words beats five.

Editors are often very familiar with the subjects they write about. If the article omits useful background information, this can cause problems for general readers who are less familiar with the topic. Be sure to provide context for the reader in all articles, and to write from a real-world perspective in articles about works of fiction. WP:MOSFICT has more on writing about fiction.

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Manual of Style

While Wikipedia's Manual of Style (MOS) covers many topics, there are some MOS issues that are frequently seen at peer review.

Section and subsection headings should be uniquely named within an article, and should not contain links. These headings should avoid repeating the name of the article if at all possible (so in an article on Chicago, the section would not be "Chicago parks", but just "Parks"—the reader already knows the article is about Chicago). Only the first letter of the first word and proper nouns are capitalized. Avoid very short sections or subsections.

Measurements are generally given first in International System of Units (SI) units, except for articles on the US, where United States customary units may be given first, and with a partial exception for the UK. Except for some scientific articles, units should be converted so that they are given in both systems; the {{convert}} template is useful for doing this for almost any conversion.

Use a non-breaking space ( ) between numbers and units or symbols such as $3 million or State Route 43, or between dates and months to avoid awkward line breaks. The convert template does this automatically, and the {{nowrap}} template has the same effect.

Quotations should be within double quotes ("like this"). Single quotes ('like this') are used only for a quotation within a quotation: "John asked Mary 'Are you going too?', but she was not interested." Wikipedia uses logical quotation, so unless it is a complete sentence or thought, the punctuation goes outside the quotation marks. Block quotes are generally three or more lines long, and should use the {{quote}} or related templates. The {{cquote}} template is used only for pull quotes.

Do not use italics to show that something is being quoted. Italics are used for names of genera, court cases, vehicles, works of art, foreign words, and to show words as words as in "the word bumblebee ". Italics can be used for emphasis, though this is rare; bold face is never used in this way on Wikipedia.

One of the most useful features of Wikipedia is the ability to use internal links or wikilinks to direct readers to other articles in the encyclopedia. The usefulness of such links is reduced if there are too many links in the article. Only link to articles which would help increase the reader's understanding of the topic. Avoid links to common terms and generally avoid repeating the same link in an article, unless the second one is much further down and it seems important to link it.

Spell out abbreviations on first use; for example, "the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR)", rather than just "the DCNR", unless it is so well-known that this seems unnecessary ("BBC").

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The peer review process

There are almost always more peer review (PR) requests than reviewers, which has led to limits and restrictions. Editors are limited to one peer review request per day, and no more than four open peer reviews at one time. Peer review is for more developed articles, which must be free of any major cleanup banners, including, but not limited to {{cleanup}}, {{wikify}}, {{NPOV}}, {{unreferenced}}, or large numbers of {{fact}}, {{clarifyme}}, and {{huh}}. An article that has had a peer review, or gone through the substantial review process at FAC unsuccessfully, cannot be listed at PR until at least two weeks after the archive of its previous review, to allow time for the comments from the previous PR or FAC to be addressed.

Peer reviews that have received little or no feedback after four days are placed on the PR backlog, where they will still receive a review. As this can take time, editors who submitted articles are encouraged to look at the links in the Toolbox on the peer review page for their article, and then fix any problems found using the various tools. These toolbox links include automated tips, as well as checks for disambiguation links and external links in the article.

Be aware that peer review is a place to identify problems, but not necessarily to receive fixes for them. The reviewers at PR generally do not have time to do copyedits or other large scale fixes. Peer review is a good place to help out; even a single comment can be very useful. More reviewers are always needed and welcome!

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In this issue

18 October 2010 (all comments)

Dispatches

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This needs to be fixed:

Wikipedia articles use what are called "inline citations", each of which is added to the main text. Editors can format citations in a variety of ways, by hand or by using templates such as those of the "cite" family. No matter the format, the citation details go between a pair of <ref></ref> tags. These should be placed inline directly after the end punctuation of the text that is being supported.

Parenthetical citations are acceptable, and they don't use ref tags. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 23:27, 18 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I think they should be standard to tell you the truth. Can you point me to an article using "true" parenthetical citations...? ResMar 00:39, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I have changed the article - thanks Sandy (and please feel free to tweak my changes). Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 00:51, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Battle of Red Cliffs. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:02, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, they may be uncommon, but they're definitely still around. Remember that it's the policies that matter, not what your personal feelings on the issue are. Ed ^{[talk] [majestic titan]} 01:57, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Policies are are based on editor consensus; any less and they are no more then dead weight. No, they do matter. ResMar 21:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a policy-- it's a guideline. Another sample: Taiwanese aborigines. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:20, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And I repeat: consensus changes. ResMar 21:04, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The MOS is descriptive, not proscriptive (it generally tells us what we can do, not what we cannot or must). There are many academic disciplines where parenthetical footnotes are the standard and I think it makes perfect sense to allow them here. They do not need to be popular to be allowed. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 21:12, 21 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I didn't say that they shouldn't be allowed, only that template citations should be preferred. It's bothering me that people are taking the MoS as an unbreakable code of law: something is changed nearly every other day. ResMar 00:36, 22 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In journalism we have a saying: "Follow the stylebook out the window." Yours, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:51, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

All styleguides—all—no matter how they might spin it, are both descriptive and prescriptive. Tony (talk) 07:10, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Lead

Note: Section headers which represent arbitrary time frames do not each need to (in fact, should not) be represented in the lede (using the traditional spelling). This is especially true of biographical articles which often have such section headings to avoid excessively long sections. Im my opinion, of course. Collect (talk) 00:56, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My thought is that the content of each section should be in the lead, even if the arbitrary dates in the header are not. I have changed it to "A good rule of thumb is to mention every section in the lead in some way, even if only through a word or phrase." (dropped the word header). Thanks, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:24, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Admirable inconcept - unworkable in practice. Vide an article like [1] (not the only article with this many sections, to be sure). I consider that having the lede cover only the most major points in a BLP is quite sufficient, and in line with newspaper practice. Recall that immediately following the lede is a list of section titles - having each referred to in the lede is effectively redundant. Collect (talk) 10:30, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well I think of it as just another way to say what WP:LEAD's Provide an accessible overview section says (in part "The lead section should briefly summarize the most important points covered in an article in such a way that it can stand on its own as a concise version of the article.") I also note that the example you give is from 2008 and does not follow WP:HEAD. I also note that the Joseph Widney article has a much more reasonable structure and Table of Contents now, which would be much simpler to summarize in the article lede or lead. Thanks for you comments, Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 14:27, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You might note who did the pruning :). Alas - a lot of BLPs still contain kitchen sinks. Collect (talk) 14:50, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much - I had not noticed. Agreed that the work is great and the workers are few. Still, we perservere. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 15:04, 19 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking of which, the Signpost is short on manpower. You may notice we had to drop ITN this week... ResMar 21:29, 20 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what this means . . .

"Fair use media must be mentioned in the article in which they appear." Sincerely, GeorgeLouis (talk) 05:47, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Good point. Sorry to be so slow to respond, but I've been traveling and often off-wiki of late. "Fair use media must be mentioned in the article in which they appear, and must add significantly to the reader's understanding of the topic." - The fair-use media must be mentioned in the text of the article and not added as a disconnected aside or decoration. Would it be more clear to say "Fair use media must be mentioned in the main text of the article in which they appear and must add significantly to the reader's understanding of the topic"? Finetooth (talk) 21:49, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Media is plural for medium, which I assume means media of communication -- like radio, television, motion pictures, newspapers, magazines, etc. Well, anyway, no; I don't understand. Sincerely, your friend, GeorgeLouis (talk) 00:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ahh, light bulb clicks on. Image files are one possible form of media, but so are videos or animations or sound files. Basically it is saying you can't just grab a copyrighted picture (or whatever) and put it in an article for decoration. The article has to discuss the picture (or sound file or ...) and it has to add to add to the reader's understanding. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 00:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Avoidance of list elements should not be carried to the extreme of being a fetish

Numbered and bulleted lists, including nested ones, have usefulness in organizing information for easy parsing. The trouble with most writing advice is that pedants latch onto it and turn it into a fetish. I'm just putting in a plug for common sense. The aphorism goes that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." As Arthur Plotnik riffed on that, "A little Strunk and White is a dangerous thing." Don't give writing advice without acknowledging some exceptions. For every 5 readers who don't need to be told that there are limits to the generalization, there are 5 who do. The advice that, in paraphrase, "you shouldn't use lists unless you're making a "List of [...]" article" is misguided/misguiding. Quercus solaris (talk) 23:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see that advice in the dispatch above. Can you point out the exact sentence and suggest an alternate wording? Finetooth (talk) 22:00, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry—you're right. The advice given in the piece is sound: "Do not use lists if a passage reads easily using plain paragraphs. If an article's essence is a list, it should have a title such as 'List of rivers in Asia'." The problem is not the advice as worded; it's the distorted caricature of it that pedants may come away with. I fight this all the time at work regarding the principle of "A little Strunk & White is a dangerous thing." Pedants would remember the takeaway lesson as being "never use lists for anything that could conceivably be forced to be prose" and "Using lists is the wrong way to write that only people who don't know any better engage in." This pedantic distortion happens over and over with just about any point that writing-advice authors ever take up. There is no action to take in this case; I was too tired when I wrote that comment last night, and I wasn't being careful enough in my reading. However, I will say, as someone who deals with the problem professionally, that you're better off writing a rule or guideline that's phrased to seem obviously, painstakingly self-aware of its limitations (i.e., "use your brain, and don't follow this rule off a cliff") than to write any rule that's straightforward but can easily be twisted by a pedant—because it inevitably will be. Half my job is un-mis-educating 2 generations of Americans who were taught in their formative years that writing and editing are about enforcing pedantry (as opposed to being about communication and damn the trivialities, which is what it's really about for the people of the world who get things done, e.g., physicians, surgeons, firefighters, EMTs, military personnel). Anyway, this is a mere musing, and not a direct reflection on the piece, which is very good and which I shouldn't have commented on. Regards, Quercus solaris (talk) 00:50, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It is a good point - thanks for making it. At peer review we tend to see articles where the opposite problem applies - things which should be prose are instead forced to be lists. Ruhrfisch _><>°^° 01:51, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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