Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout/Archive 6

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Headings and sections: proposed rewording

Many editors will have noted the large appearing weight (at least in the main skin) of ===h3===relative to ===h2===. For that reason I'm proposing a minor rewording to the Headings and sections section to make it more flexible, and more in line with MOS:HEAD). Here is the text with changes in red:

Any comments? --Klein zach 02:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

We threw out covering header level a while ago, I believe, to keep it simple; but I think it's a good idea to inform the reader how the header system works. I added an example of when sections jump from h2 to h4 with WP:RPP. For articles, cases where this is needed seems non-existent—it's more often an editorial mistake. This is what I have:

Headers follow the standards set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Wikipedia uses XHTML 1.0 Transitional after the Wikicode is parsed. Here is the verification: the intro doc [1] and the technical doc [2] to the specification. The technical doc is a little old (HTML 4), but it's still useful. WhatamIdoing, you're usually better at prose than I am; what do you think? ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:01, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

There may be a confusion here between 'sections' (organizational) and 'headings' (typographical).

There are many cases where jumping from h2 to h4 is preferred by editors for the aesthetic/typographical reason that h3 is too large, especially in complex lists. Of course it might be better to use bold rather than a heading, but editors don't know that. The background to this is is obviously the poor typographical quality of the main skin. Other skins may look better, but it seems better to stick with what the majority are seeing, and arrange things accordingly.

Anyway how about this reworking of your text as a compromise?:

--Klein zach 07:45, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

If you disagree with the font-weight of H3 compared to H2 then why not ask for that to be changed directly? What am I missing here? Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:29, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Changed by who? The great typographer in the sky? A perfectly formed, perfectly regular, all-purpose set of headings may never exist - hence my suggestion that we should be flexible rather than bureaucratic in our guideline. --Klein zach 01:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Changing the typographical weight only occurs in circumstances that justify, this is how you do it on an individual scale <h2 style="font-size:1.4em; font-weight:bolder; border:none">header</h2>[3], on a global one you're looking at a proposal through the technical village page pump to modify MediaWiki:Common.css; but I think you're straying from what the guideline is defined as: a "advisory" "documentation" of "actual good practices"(WP:PG). It's a meeting ground to define what the average article should use. Special circumstances are solved individually. Using a h4 instead of h3 for typographical reasons doesn't bother me, the document tree was designed to be flexible anyway. About the prose, (1) "typographical considerations..." is redundant in my opinion, if the the typographical consideration wasn't for a special need, then it's probably overstepping the guideline; (2) "usage" to "use", it's not that important to me, but it's something we could do to make it sound less pretentious. ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:17, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately these 'guidelines' are increasingly being applied to all articles (not just average articles) as WP becomes more bureaucratic, and increasingly subject to automated processes. This guideline in particular has been used to justify bot runs changing all non-consecutive headline pages (see here).

For that reason it should be made clear that reasons for non-consecutive headers can relate to layout, as well as technical things like WP:RPP as indicated by the operative word 'needs'. Here is a new 'compromise' version which I hope everyone can agree to:

Regarding <h2 style="font-size:1.4em; font-weight:bolder; border:none">header</h2>: that's fine but realistically very few people will know about it, or be able to use this kind of hitech solution. --Klein zach 04:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

This proposal is an WP:ACCESS problem. Those readers and editors who use screen readers have specifically requested that Wikipedia never skip header levels. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:38, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Screen readers! Screen readers? Are you suggesting that a change from h2 to h4 causes the voiceover to stutter or say "Gee, I'm lost" or something? Hilarious! You'll have to give us the when/why/where of your information. --Klein zach 05:57, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

I recommend that you find a somewhat less insulting tone for your communications here.

See WP:ACCESS#Headings for the standards. Note that it's because of how people use their screen readers instead of inherent limitations in the technology. A reader that finds no level 3 headings has no incentive to search for levels 4, 5, and 6 on the off chance that someone might have decided to skip a few levels. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:05, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

For what it's worth, it'd be a good idea to add a note to this effect to WP:ACCESS to nip threads like this in the bud in future. I quote often get users asking me why I cited WP:ACCESS for a given change; it'd be good for it to be as informative as possible for editors who aren't Useit / W3C junkies. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 15:41, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) We've hit this issue before. WP:CITE. Layout, for layout's sake, has little reason to encumber the reader. Typography would win out. However. WP:ACCESS, on the other, does have a reason. WhatamIdoing is right. Therefore, I believe we should defer the issue to WP:ACCESS, just as the more exact methods on how to arrange headings for verification was deferred to WP:CITE. This is what I have:

WhatamIdoing, usually you're the one doing the prose. Do you want to give it a spin? ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:41, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree with the following: "a second level section should not immediately be followed by a fourth level section". It's unnecessarily prescriptive. --Klein zach 23:27, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

You're right, I think. This is a lot of versions, but at least we can take satisfaction that there won't be misinterpretation when the prose is quoted.

Changed it to "the exact methodology" echoing what was done in the "Notes or Reference" section with WP:CITE. The assertion is qualified to "should" and much more general than the previous version. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

C&C, I think we should consider using actual explanatory notes for some of this content (e.g., the "deferred to WP:ACCESS" bit), because most editors won't care about why this is important enough to mention. I don't actually see any problems with the existing text beyong than the need for an addition along these lines: <ref>Skipping heading levels, such as following ==Two== with ====Four==== instead of the correct level ===Three===, violates WP:Accessibility and reduces Wikipedia's access to users of screen readers and other people who use heading levels to navigate pages.</ref>

Kleinzach, the point is to be necessarily prescriptive, by strongly encouraging people to not break the page functionality for those readers that depend on it. Since your complaint is really about the imperfect choice of font for ===Three===, please work on solving the real problem directly instead of trying to get your workaround approved. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:39, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

This is the Manual of Style and this section is about Layout, so I don't agree with an additional clause as recommended above. I also doubt whether deferring sideways to another document is a good idea, it just makes the whole thing more and more of merrygoround rather than what it should be - the online Wiki equivalent of Chicago or Hart's Rules. But maybe it's better to go with ChyranandChloe's version. I guess we all have something better to do than continue this indefinitely. Basta/ciao. --Klein zach 09:34, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Joining in late, having seen this simmering on my Watchlist for a while: if people know the reason for a rule, they are more likely to stick to it. So I'd support a proposal to include an explanation as suggested by WhatamIdoing above - though I'd rather see it in the body of the text than as a ref, as more people will see it. PamD (talk) 10:06, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

In accordance to what WhatamIdoing and Klein said. The text is good, what the issue is, is the level of specificity. For example, Klien, to my understanding, wants a more general statement in the body. WhatamIdoing wants some examples. Is it too much to ask for both? I mean, it can briefly mention that it should be consecutive in the prose with an explanatory note providing clarifications, examples and reasons behind it.

And in the Footnotes... For example, skipping header levels, such as jumping from ==Header 2== to ====Header 4==== without ===Header 3=== in the middle, violates Wikipedia:Accessibility—as it reduces usability for readers on screen readers who use heading levels to navigate pages.

I've reworded the explanatory notes. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

I was impressed with the clarity and brevity at Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Headings, and I've tried to emulate that without modifying the meaning. I realize that I'm coming late into a long-standing discussion and I don't mean to be rude -- although I made the changes directly to the article, I mean them as suggestions. Agradman ^{appreciates civility}/_{makes occasional mistakes} 05:50, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

proposed stylistic changes

I would like to a propose some clarifications the "Standard Appendices" section (they're here.) These revisions are purely stylistic: information has been moved, but not removed (except occasionally when information was more appropriately presented at a wikilink). I invite you to modify my version above before implementing all or some of the proposals. Thanks. Agradman (talk) 21:22, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

I am asking that this proposal be delayed, if that's okay with you. In the discussion section above titled "Confusing", its covering a proposal for a potentially new section, differentiating between the '"Notes" section' (in exposition) and the '"References" section' (in verification). If this proposal passes, it may then make more sense then to hollistically look at the standard appendices. It looks good. I'm sorry that I asking you to hold this back. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't think these changes would interfere with your discussion -- they're purely stylistic. I'll postpone implementing the changes until I get some more feedback, and I especially won't adjust anything related to "Notes" or "References" until the Confusing discussion is done. Agradman (talk) 06:10, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I disagree with the changing of "Websites and online publications are normally listed in the "External links" section instead of in this section," to "It is usually preferable to present websites and online publications in the "External links" section," I actually disagree with the former, but the latter is even worse as it is expressing a POV that not all agree with.--PBS (talk) 10:45, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Fair point. I will revert that sentence if anyone else agrees with PBS. --Agradman (talk) 13:26, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree with PBS: it is less presumptuous to say that this is common than to say that it is preferable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

OK. Rather than revert to precisely the original text, I made a further change -- but I think this change incorporates the spirit of your concerns (i.e. does not favor a POV). It's here. Of course, I know you guys have more experience with this policy, so I'll defer to your preferences. Agradman (talk) 19:28, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The diffs page from my recent edit makes my changes seem much more drastic than they really were. I implemented only a portion of what I proposed above -- i.e. only the changes that I thought would be least controversial, and the ones which would interfere least with your ongoing discussion at "Notes and References." In addition, this is my first time editing a style guideline -- I know that edits must "generally reflect consensus" but I'm not sure how that works in practice -- please let me know if I've handled this incorrectly. Agradman (talk) 03:22, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Me again. I've intentionally made some of the more-impactful edits in a second round (diffs here), so that you can revert them more easily if it comes to that. These most recent changes consist of 1) removing the information on the order/location of appendices from within each individual section (but clarifying it up top), and 2) moving all information on the content of sections underneath the respective section. I'm making it sound more drastic than it really is -- please take a look. Agradman (talk) 03:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Me again. I made my last change -- renaming the Notes or References section to "Notes"/"Footnotes"/"References"/"Works Cited" . I don't think this will interfere with your discussion at Confusing, but if it really upsets you, here are the diffs. Agradman (talk) 03:50, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Forward slashes in sections are not a good idea, as URLS use "/" to mean new file. Although that is not the case on wikipedia articles it is for wikipedia talk pages. --PBS (talk) 16:45, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

hmm, good point. Wikipedia does permit slashes in article names when necessary, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's wise. We could replace them with serial commas -- your choice. Agradman (talk) 21:56, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Additionally, we removed "Footnotes" and "Works cited" for cause (namely that they're not commonly used), and I don't support their reintroduction to the section heading. (Note also that MOS prescribes sentence case, so it would be "Works cited", with the lower case letter.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:00, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This page is getting out of control, creepy, and basics are being lost in a lot of excess markup. I was going to revert a few days back, but there seem to be a few good changes in there. Let's get back to basics, and keep it simple: I don't support these recent changes. Some sort of revert is needed, not sure how far. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 00:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Obviously we want people to criticize our work, but since we've invested a lot of time in it, it's only fair in return that you try to be specific about what you dislike. Agradman (talk) 00:51, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Slashes are too easily confused for a folders in URLs, a comma or simply the word "or" would have probably been a better choice; but it looks okay. I've read through it, most of the edits aren't that invasive, they're as Agradam said. Stylistic. There are several points of concern as Agradman took the prose out of its original wording, but this would probably be fixed in the thread "Confusing" above. So far only two other threads are active, "Confusing" and "Headings and sections: proposed rewording". The latter, from my understanding, is concluding. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:48, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Header prose rewrite

Current

“

Sections and subsections are introduced by headers. Very short or very long sections and subsections in an article look cluttered and inhibits the flow of the prose. These headings clarify articles by breaking up text, organizing content, and populating the table of contents that users can choose to view (the default) or not to view (by changing their Preferences).

Headings follow a six level hierarchy, starting at 1 and ending at 6. The level of the header is defined by the number of equal signs on either side of the title. Header 1 (=Header 1=) is automatically generated as the title of the document, and is rarely used within the body. Sections start at the second level (==Header 2==), with subsequent subsections at the third level (===Header 3===), and sub-subsection at the fourth level (====Header 4====)—until six. Sections should be consecutive such that it does not skip levels from sections to sub-subsections, the exact methodology is deferred to WP:ACCESS.^[2] Between sections, there should be a single blank line; multiple blank lines in the edit window create too much white space in the article.

If the order in which sections should appear in a longer article is unclear, alphabetical or chronological order can be helpful. Alphabetical order is especially useful when sections are divided on the basis of criteria such as country or state.

”

Proposed

“

Headers break an article into coherent sections. They are ranked hierarchically: headers of increasing rank appear with diminishing font size in the body text and with increasing indentation in the table of contents.

Usage: A header of a given rank is generated by surrounding text with a corresponding number of equals signs (i.e. =level 1 header= ==level 2 header==, etc., ending at level six). The top of the hierarchy is generally reserved for "level 2 headers," since the "level 1 header" uses the same font size as the article's title. Precede headers with a single blank line. When adding sub-headers, rank them consecutively with the header they appear under, per WP:ACCESS.^[3]

”

Agradman, I understand what you're doing is clarifying the prose, but you're removing the prose from its original wording. Brevity is certainly an appreciable quality. However you are changing the original intent. I chose the specific wording in my proposal for a reason. Your changes are no longer stylistic. Under WP:CON I am challenging your edit, reverting it to a stable version that has last achieved consensus.[4] See WP:MOSBETTER is emulating us when they write their guideline, we can't choose a reduction in reasons or description because of this. I expect more from you if you're getting into this. The proposal from the last change is copied to above to make it easier to see what we're moving to. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

As explained above, I don't agree with including the reference to WP:ACCESS, but I definitely prefer the more concise version by Agradman. Any consensus here is shaky at best, and I think ChyranandChloe should have challenged Agradman's version rather than reverted it. ChyranandChloe, please self-revert.--Klein zach 08:37, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

My apologies, C&C -- it was unfair of me to put the edit directly into the article text, especially considering how long the prior version has been discussed here. I'm happy to discuss my version here first. Agradman ^{appreciates civility}/_{makes occasional mistakes} 12:07, 19 June 2009 (UTC)
PS I'd also like to propose further revisions to the first paragraph:

Headers clarify an article by automatically populating the table of contents, breaking up lengthy text, and organizing it into a hierarchy of sections and subsections. They are available in six font sizes, which automatically indent consecutively in the table of contents.

(outdent) Let's break it down:

"breaking up text" should be ordered first, the reason goes back to when HTML (the language wikicode is parsed into) was developed for. Before HTML, when papers written by academic or scientific institution were transmitted through the internet, they used to be enormous blocks of text. Headers were originally introduced to make them readable. It's the reason behind whole section.
I like "organizing it into a hierarchy of sections and subsections", however the text already introduces hierarchy in paragraph two ("Headings follow a six level hierarchy[...]"). The remainder is the same as the current.
"automatically indent consecutively in the table of contents" isn't necessary, because the table of contents is automatically generated, the editor has little control over it. Just a statement that the headers automatically populate the table of contents is enough. The TOC is also mentioned twice.
"They are available in six font sizes", goes back to the previous discussion about typographical concerns. The statement feels shallow—almost as if it's telling the editor: just choose the font size that you like. It's also introduced in the second paragraph as "[...]follow a six level hierarchy, starting at 1 and ending at 6."

The prose has to be on the dot. The first two paragraphs, in my opinion, are well written. Anymore of a reduction and it would be loosing the reasons behind it. It's the third paragraph that seems ambiguous. It's describing a concept WP:SAL promotes, for articles such as List of additives in cigarettes usually used inconjunction with Template:CompactTOC8. If you want to work on that, research it out and annotate what each clause is suppose to convey. This isn't a mandate. I don't believe in telling you what you should do. But it helps. Frustration from a lack of articulation, destroys a proposal. There are over five archives of this. I think, Agradman, that you've got something going; but slow down. You won't be unappreciated if you do this. Not a lot people say this, but your analysis is worthwhile. I hope this helps. By the way, it's rude that it takes you nine edits to get your post right, it tells me you didn't think it all the way through the first time, and expecting us to make it work for you.

Kleinzach, consensus is founded on the reasons behind a proposal, judged objectively on its own merits, and talked about civilly. You've failed the last two, and after this post[5], I don't want to help you anymore. Getting your proposal through wasn't easy. WhatamIdoing, PBS, and I could have just said: no; proposed no further compromise and the discussion would have been halted as no consensus. The first question I always ask before I comment on a proposal: is consensus even possible? I didn't rewrite the proposal three times, three different versions, if your first post was as transgressed as your last. "Challenging" is a courtesy that says "I'll play the one asking for the change", it defers my opinion to you. The contrary would have been "done without consensus": you're the one asking for change, you are bringing down guideline stability, get in line and propose your changes like everyone else. ChyranandChloe (talk) 06:05, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

ChyranandChloe you have been civil, but inflexible and unwilling to see to see this from any other point of you than that your own group. You've fought this issue word by word. I haven't disagreed with most of your text, however you were certainly not 'helping' me. Regarding [6], as you know I regarded this as so implausible as to amount to a joke, nevertheless I did ask for more details. As for the rest of your criticism (which is difficult to understand but apparently implies that I was not sincere in suggesting changes to the wording, i.e. bad faith), remember that I have discussed the issue here, without touching the guideline text, without reverting, without edit warring, so I've shown more restraint than you have. --Klein zach 22:57, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, C&C, for clarifying. This is my first experience editing a Wikipedia:(policy) article, and I now know I should initiate non-minor proposals on the talk page. However, the consensus-reaching process for policies is turning out to be a bit remote from the things about editing Wikipedia that give me joy; I'll leave the fate of this latest proposal to others.

However, I need to respond to your statement, "it's rude that it takes you nine edits to get your post right ..." I'll assume you're saying this because I gave off an aura of rudeness by editing directly into the article; but if you really stand behind this comment, I need to disavow you of it. When my writing is strong, it is because of constant revision. I regularly review and revise my past contributions to Wikipedia (including those to discussion pages) hours or days after writing them, because I have discovered over the years that clarity and conciseness are rarely achieved in a first draft. In fact, I think it would be rude not to make these revisions, particularly (as in Wikipedia) where contributions are read by many people. Someone who avoids clarifying past contributions, out of concern for appearing "rude," is being unwittingly inconsiderate. Agradman ^{appreciates civility}/_{makes occasional mistakes} 15:42, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Does any other page describe the function of the header system? If there's a "Help:Headers" page, then we don't need to duplicate efforts. The descriptive details should be somewhere on Wikipedia, but I don't really care what page they're on. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Agradman, it's rude because this isn't an article, this is discussion—it's like taking back what you said over and over again. It undermines the integrity of your statement. I'm asking you to take the time and think it through, when you keep adding and changing what you've said, it tells me that you don't understand the topic and don't want to research it out first before telling the editors on the page to do it for you. There's Help:Section, WhatamIdoing, I added it to the {{further}}. The page goes into a lot of detail—all the way to PHP, the programming language used to convert Wikicode into XHTML. I think the text here keeps to the points relevant to layout, however, what do you want to change? ChyranandChloe (talk) 21:42, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

Here are some possible changes to consider for the existing text, which is clearly imperfect:

Rearrange the first (current) paragraph, so that first and last sentences (which address "why we have these things") are together.
Defer the bit about user prefs affecting the table of contents to Help:Section
Also defer the statement about how many levels exist to that more detailed page.
Remove (implied) claim that =Level 1= is ever acceptable in the main namespace (it is used on some talk pages, but should not be used in articles).
Change "Between sections, there should be a single blank line" to indicate that we're only requiring [for ease of editing, if anyone's curious] a blank line before the header. (Blank lines after the header are an issue of editor preference.)
Change suggested section order to recommend a "logical" order, and name alphabetical, chronological, and geographical as examples of potentially logical orders. (For an example of a geographic order, many lists group entries first by continent and then subsequently in alphabetical order (e.g., ==North America==, which has sub-subsections of Canada, Mexico, and the United States). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

Overall, I think that the second paragraph under 'proposed' is better than the current text, although there are a few details (e.g., the last sentence of current text) that will need to be added. It might also be worth adding an explanation of the {{-}} template, since that's what's usually driving the unnecessary blank lines. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:03, 21 June 2009 (UTC)

I don't agree that the text under proposed is better, most of it is wording. I'm looking to define the terms rather than being purely prescriptive. WP:MOS is basically a checklist of most of the goals listed here. Here, we're given greater discretion over how to document what it means to layout an article. Help:Sections gets into burdensome programming language, it looks like it was written for developers and administrators managing MediaWiki (the software running Wikipedia) rather than editors. WP:LAYOUT defines the terms, and in this case, what a header is; for example, why sections start at header 2 rather than header 1 (yeah, I know discussions such as Talk:Main Page uses header 1). Although its less common now, I've seen some confused editors use header 1 for their sections. In a less common case, it won't be unreasonable for an editor to attempt to use header seven.

I agree with your six points. However I can only tie point one and five to a direct edit to the prose. I mean the current prose seems to be compatible with most of your points. How do you want to re-assemble it? ChyranandChloe (talk) 01:37, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

In 2 and 3, for "defer", read "omit entirely on this page, perhaps with a pointer to another page".

In four, change "and is rarely used within the body" to "is never used in the body of articles".

In six, change "If the order in which sections should appear in a longer article is unclear, alphabetical or chronological order can be helpful" to "If the order in which sections should appear in a longer article is unclear, choose a logical system, such as ordering sections alphabetically, chronologically, or geographically."

WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:18, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Disagree with points two and three. I do not believe that to "omit entirely" is appropriate. The number of levels that exist and their purpose is important to the development of articles. For example, without the context that there are six levels and to tell the editor not to use the first, would be telling the editor not to do something without the context to comprehensively understand what it is. The definition is important, it defines the terms that the text is going to use.

In point four. When I wrote the text, I had to qualify the assertion. "never" would create the logical fallacy dicto simpliciter. Read literally, "never" implies that editors never make the mistake and the header level has never appeared in the body. However, I think I get what you're getting at, how does "should not be used in the body" sound?

I like point six, its an improvement. However, "is unclear" doesn't seem articulate. When is it "unclear"? Also, "logical system" seems ambiguous: it seems to imply that if an article were not using a logical arrangement (alphabetical, chrono, geo...), it would be illogical. To my understanding, when an article uses an alphabetical, chronological, or geographic arrangement—it's a list, or it's in some way a type of list. This allows us to defer a portion of the text to WP:LIST and WP:SAL. This my question: what are you trying to apply this to? For example, are you trying to apply this clause to something like List of sovereign states, the section "Geographical frequency" in Epidemiology of autism, or both? ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:55, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Four needs to be strong, although perhaps not absolute. "Never appropriate" might be an acceptable compromise between factual accuracy and leaving no doubt in the readers' minds about whether it is acceptable.

Six might be resolved by simply dumping the entire text. It doesn't have any significant bearing on the layout. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:31, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm good with six. I would have said it had little significance—its still a part of laying out article, but probably too specific and its scope to narrow to be in the GTL. Point four looks good. I agree it needs to be strong, but I don't like "never". "Never" is still and absolute, however appropriate seems to qualify it. This reminds me of when I was reading through the W3C's docs, they have a systematic way of writing recommendations. For example, it works on a gradient of something along the lines of: "never", "should", "must", and "always". It's done.[7] ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:08, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for following through on that. As usual, I'm open to ways of rephrasing this statement if a less absolute, but equally effective, way of discouraging the =Level 1= error can be identified. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:44, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) How does "not appropriate" sound? It's either appropriate or not appropriate, I don't think we need to qualify the assertion with "never" or "rarely" anymore than we have to. ChyranandChloe (talk) 02:50, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Requesting assistance

I've come here to ask if anyone overseeing this part of the WP:MOS could offer their expertise in a discussion going on at Talk:Canadian Forces casualties in Afghanistan#Reference list continued. It is regarding the exercise of those policies that guide the order of appendicies at the bottom of an article. Some extra input would be appreciated. Cheers. --Miesianiacal (talk) 03:57, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

I think you've got it covered, your proposal looks good. Its a new way of looking at things that isn't covered by WP:LAYOUT or WP:CITE (WP:CITE might be more appropriate now if you have any more questions), and I think WP:LAYOUT should to keep a tab on you guys. ChyranandChloe (talk) 20:17, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

I added a comment at the end of Talk:Canadian Forces casualties in Afghanistan#Proposal. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 00:23, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

In-paragraph see also?

Is there a guideline for formatting a "see also" link when it's not at the beginning of a section, like so:

Many railroads were built thereafter (see also: history of railroads in Chicago), and soon a hog could cross the country without changing trains in Chicago but a passenger couldn't.

--NE2 09:08, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

If there is a guideline on this, I've missed seeing it. I might consider a footnote as an alternative to an inline parenthetical remark. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 01:07, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: External links

“

Hyperlinks to other Wikimedia projects (except Wiktionary and Wikisource) should generally not appear outside this section (for details, see Wikipedia:External links).

”

Unfortunately, Wikipedia:External links does not currently say where Wiktionary and Wikisource links should go, so I am left wondering—what is the appropriate place for them? DocWatson42 (talk) 09:04, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

"Links to Wikimedia sister projects are best placed in the section of the article to which they relate, including the lead section, if necessary." WP:SIS is actually responsible for this issue now. Ironically "[i]f there is no directly relevant section in the page," then the issue is deferred to WP:LAYOUT. We're out of date, I believe, WP:EL got rid of their sister projects, here's the discussion[8]. Since WhatamIdoing was the one who proposed this, I'll ask. ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:14, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

We have a conflict between the guidelines because no one is interested in fighting over it, and one editor is determined to have his view enshrined in WP:SISTER despite uniform opposition. Here's the status as I understand it:

Everyone accepts inline Wiktionary links to words that may be unfamiliar to some readers. This widely accepted compromise allows younger/less-educated readers to understand the text without either dumbing down our writing style or promoting dictionary defintions all over Wikipedia. Minimum requirement: the Wiktionary page that you're linking has to define the word in the sense that you're using it.
Most editors accept judicious Wikisource links if you're discussing a historical document that has a copy on Wikisource. If it's mentioned in text, an inline link is usually best. Some (probably most) of these editors will accept a graphical template at the top of a section if that entire section (not the entire article) is about the document. Minimum requirement: the Wikisource document needs to be a good/complete copy, not a placeholder, a request for the document, or an incomplete copy.
Otherwise (for articles), all sister links belong under ==External links==. The specific page that is being linked must be reviewed and comply with all the usual guidelines (particularly WP:ELNO#EL1 for Wiktionary links, but "we're not trying to promote links to lousy pages just because they're sister projects" is the bigger issue overall). Even in this section, inline/non-graphical templates are generally preferred by a slim majority of editors involved in the discussions.
On disambiguation pages, graphical templates are generally preferred by most (not all) editors. Graphical templates are always placed at the top of these pages. Non-graphical links are generally placed either in a sensible place, or at the end of the page.

The thing about the dispute is that pretty much everyone agrees in practice, but the "sides" have different ideas about how to express those views. One person, who 'owns' SISTER, wants a "blank check" to include sister links anywhere, in any way, with a preference for links in the middle of the article (despite this not being the common use). In practice, he places (IMO, reasonable) Wikisource links in the text like I've described above, which most editors accept. I think he demands that everyone else accept all sister projects, anywhere, using any style, so that no one will ever complain about his inline and section-based Wikisource links. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:40, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you! The status "as you understand it" makes sense to me, and I support it. I am mostly just cleaning up the appendices as I run across them, rather than creating content, so knowing where existing links should go is what I needed. DocWatson42 (talk) 06:55, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The bullet points are a good summation. To the 2nd bullet, I would add that judicious Wikinews templates are accepted by many editors (eg). To the 3rd bullet I would add that many editors (but not a majority) believe the sister projects should be given extra leeway regarding guidelines, based purely on their Wikimedia-relation to us.

For reference, the relevant/recent discussion threads are at Wikipedia talk:Layout/Archive 5#Sister links, and Wikipedia talk:Wikimedia sister projects#Disputed, and Wikipedia talk:Wikimedia sister projects#Placement redux, and User:Raul654/archive19#Wikisource. HopeThatHelps. -- Quiddity (talk) 18:59, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Quiddity that some "extra leeway" is supported by many editors in these discussions, but it's not a free pass: pages that are actually "lousy" (or worse) get very little support. However, pages at a sister project that are just in the "okay, but not great" range might be accepted by some editors, when the same page at any other site would be rejected by that editor. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:07, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"Notes" and "References"

Rewritten the prose for greater brevity.[9] For example, if the list is in "in diminishing order of popularity" then the first listed should logically be "the most frequent choice". Don't need to reiterate it. "Several alternate titles ("Sources", "Citations", "Bibliography") may also be used, although each is problematic" seems cumbersome, used "depreciated but not prohibited". What do you guys think? ChyranandChloe (talk) 04:13, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I think that depreciated is a financial term, and that you probably meant wikt:deprecated instead.

I also think that the gap between the frequency for References and any other term is so great that it merits being labeled as the most frequent choice. I'm also concerned that this will be interpreted as a prohibition on using other titles. What do you think of this?

WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:16, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't see references as the most common choice, and not even the best one. The guidance is any of several choices is fine, and it should simply say that to prevent needless warring. Personally I find "notes" for inline-references and "references" for general-references used throught the whole article to be the clearest use there is, especially to greater highlight when spammers just drop a URL into a reference section. But since, for whatever reason, there is no consensus on this, there is no point to handicap favorites or current favorites. Editors should simple choose among the choices. 2005 (talk) 22:38, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

We ran the numbers on a randomly selected set of articles. References may not be "best", but it is far and away the most common. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:56, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I have reverted the recent recent changes, because although the wording is not elegant it is accurate, if there are citations then they are ~~never~~ in my experience never placed in a section called Notes without a References section also existing. --PBS (talk) 13:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Totally false. I reverted the confusing text you added recently that that to the clear, even newer text clarifying the status quo. Needless to say there are innumberable articles that use a Notes section for inline notes but have no general refernces section. The point of this guideline is there is no consensus on one way to do ref sections. Many ways are acceptable. 2005 (talk) 21:36, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Mine was a revert to the Revision as of 08:09, 7 July 2009 so it was not recently added by me. What is your evidence that many articles use a Notes section for inline citations with no References section, and that it is more common than a Notes and References section? --PBS (talk) 09:43, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Wrong and wrong. You recently added the text here. And, I didn't say more common. I said your statement of "if there are citations then they are never placed in a section called Notes without a References section also existing" is totally false, which it obviously is. Your text directly contradicts both the longstanding consensus, and common practices. Please do not add that again. It is perfectly fine and done all the time to have a Notes section without a references section. (And as for "evidence", I've worked on literally hundreds of articles, maybe thousands, where this is the case.) 2005 (talk) 10:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I suppose it depends on whether you think that edits over a couple of weeks old are new edits or not. Besides it is not that simple as those were edits to wording introduced only a day or so before those edits. If you look back though the history of this page, the two have for a long time been mentioned in combination. --PBS (talk)

Anecdotally this is definitely true, speaking from my experience as an editor with ~50,000 edits. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 10:46, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

19 apart Chris :) I am sure that in over a million pages there every combination under the sun, but of the pages I have seen, if there is a notes section there is usually a references section as well (as this was the recommendation on this page for a long time that is not surprising). --PBS (talk) 12:41, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

No, apparently as WhatamIdoing says below, you are confusing different concepts. What you think of as "notes" is not the same as what many other editors consider "notes". That is what the guideline has allowed, different styles. Until we state, "this is the only way to do it", people can do things any of many ways. 2005 (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I am confusing nothing. I have not stated what goes into Notes and References, just that if there is a Notes section there is usually a References section as well. The Notes section may have none citation footnotes and the cited footnotes can be in a References section, or there may be a list of short citations in the Notes section, and alphabetic bullet list of sources in the References section, or the two my be combined into a "Notes and references" section (or my preference if they are combined "References and notes"). --PBS (talk) 08:08, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Now you are even confused by what you wrote. You wrote "they are never placed in a section called Notes without a References section also existing". Never is different than usually! Let's move on. You added something counter to widespread practice. Having a Notes section without a references one is done all the time, and is perfectly fine according to this guideline. 2005 (talk) 08:22, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

You may think I am confused, but I do not think that I am. As I said above I am sure that in over a million pages there every combination under the sun -- which I thought qualified my previous statement. But to clarify what I meant, I have corrected my mistake by crossing out the word "never" and adding "in my experience never". --PBS (talk) 10:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Ha! just came across an article with Notes and no References section William Temple (logician) -- PBS (talk) 09:03, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Um, guys? When PBS says "citations", he means "short citations". I keep hoping that he'll start describing them as "short citations" to avoid this regular point of confusion, but he's right: if you have a section that contains "1. Smith, 2009. p. 15.", then there's always another section that contains "* Smith, John Q. 2009. Everyman's Life. Publisher, London." These two sections are frequently (although not always) titled "Notes" and References", respectively. These are not "general references" in the sense that WP:CITE uses that term. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:13, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Uniformity

My preference is for this guideline to specify the use of "Notes", "References" or "Notes followed by References" and drop the other alternatives. The reason is uniformity. It is important to me that readers are presented the same pattern in any article they encounter. One of the arguments above is that drawing a line will result in edit warring. In my opinion, uniformity ranks in importance somewhat above preventing hypothetical misbehavior. I would like to review previous discussions that defend the alternate naming schemes. Is there a summary someone can direct me to? ✤ JonHarder ^talk 13:05, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd certainly prefer uniformity. This random mishmash of anything certainly doesn't help users. I could see dumping everything into a references section, or using notes for inline and anything non-inline for references. It's impossible to justify the status quo other than with "no consensus has ever been reached", and while that is valid, it isn't user-friendly. Of course, if there is no consensus, then the longstanding concept of there are many reasnable ways to do it is not bad and should not be messed with. 2005 (talk) 22:07, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the idea to emphasize uniformity. Granted, there are many, many articles that currently use "non-standard" formatting in regards to notes/references, but that's largely an artifact of the lack of any consensus on the issue. I submit that if discussion were to be held specifically to reach a consensus on the issue, then one could be reached (and I actually have a proposal in mind, so I'll likely start an RfC about this soon). In regards to "potential misbehavior", I don't see this being a particularly contentious issue once we actually reach a consensus on whatever the standard is to be. The "relief valve" for that potential issue is to simply emphasize WP:IGNORE within the guideline though, so that if there is a consensus to "break the rules" on specific articles then that could be accomplished.

— Ω (talk) 22:34, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

There was a conformity in this section for may months. Eg last day of 2006 last day of 2007 middle December 2008. For well over 2 years this page recommended "See also" "Notes", "References" (or combined with Notes into Notes and references), "Further reading", "External links". Starting in the last couple of weeks of last year the "Standard appendices" started to be changed from guidance to summarising what is done. Personally although I did not agree with the old format, as I preferred to place Footnotes last on the page so that the References and Further reading could also be footnoted, I implemented the Layout recommendations for consistence sake. At it stands at the moment, I do not think this page gives as good guidance on "Standard appendices" as it used to. --PBS (talk) 07:59, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Regardless of the machinations of the terminology, when Wikiwonderland says "references" and really means "bibliography", there is still tremendous confusion. FWiW Bzuk (talk) 11:43, 13 July 2009 (UTC).

This sort of bickering entirely misses the point. You or I may not personally like specific choices (such as "Reference" vs. "Bibliography"), but if one is chosen at least there is some sort of standard. Not having a standard at all because people can't agree is no solution to anything, and actually creates more trouble then ignoring the issue solves. Pick something, tell people to swallow their pride, and get on with things.

— Ω (talk) 18:55, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd be happy with scaling back the list of 'suggested options' (to exclude "Works cited" [which is rarely used] and anything that is deprecated [e.g., "Sources", "Bibliography", etc]). I'm even happy to subtly encourage uniformity by informing editors what the most common choice is. However, telling editors that they must use this or that title, or even that they should use this or that title, is far too WP:CREEPy for me. Editors should use good judgment.

Additionally, as a practical matter, there are several perfectly appropriate styles, and the correct choice depends not only on the subject area, but on the contents of the article. Limiting editors to "Notes" and "References" is a disaster when the editor actually needs four sections (explanatory notes, short citations, full citations, and general references). WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

When would the ever be a need for different "short citations" and "full citations" sections in the same article? "footnotes" and "long citations" can be dealt with using two sections Notes and References. The simplest way to deal with "footnotes" and "short citations" if they are grouped differently (<ref>) is put them into a Notes section with bold introductory lines as in the Battle of Berlin article. --PBS (talk) 14:05, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Most editors use ==Notes==, ==Footnotes==, and ==References== to deal with the situation in Battle of Berlin.

The fact remains that some editors want four sections. Your rejection of the other editors' preference for splitting things up is simply irrelevant. No four-section system is in widespread use; we therefore can't recommend one as being what's "usually done". (We want this page to be descriptive, not prescriptive.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

About uniformity, as of late May 2009, blocking articles directly applicable to WP:LAYOUT, 80% (±8% 95%CI) follow the guideline.[10] About enforcement, both FA and GA use the guideline as part of their criteria of inclusion; if you're just applying this guideline to unreviewed articles, it's stability (precedent by arbitration) and reasonableness.[11] About raising standards, you have the data: "References", "Notes", "Bibliography", "Footnotes". "References" is twelve times more prevalent than the closest alternative. After "Footnotes" it drops off to a point where its difficult to measure statistically.[12] The lack of uniformity occurs when an article needs more than one section. I haven't seen an article that needed four sections; if there's full citations, general references are combined with it. Based on need and discounting subsections, an article only needs between one to three sections.

This goes back to the study back in May. There will be articles that do not follow standards, but understand that they are few in number; so few, they're really becoming outliers. That's why I'm sticking the the four listed above. So besides "Notes" and "Footnotes" ("Notes" is about seven times more prevalent than "Footnotes"). There are really only two major systems: (1) Notes/References, (2) References/Bibliography. This excludes explanatory notes, which can only reasonably regresses back to Notes/References/Bibliography if the article needs short/full citations, and Notes/References if the article uses only full citations. This contradicts one of "Bibliography"'s definition as "a list of printed works by the subject of a biography", but the numbers seem to suggest otherwise. Going through the data and possibilities: this is what I've got. Subjectively and politically, and asking the question: is consensus possible? I don't think so, doubt people will forfeit pride for numbers. I'm not going to ask what you guys think. Know the answer, read it before. My central question is: what is your objective analysis? ChyranandChloe (talk) 01:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the detailed analysis, having that available certainly helps. The last part of your analysis (not asking/pride/knowing the answer) is the one aspect of this community that I really don't understand. There's nothing to say that standards can't be broken... as a matter of fact, there's an explicit policy that states to break policy wherever and wherever you really need to! So, you set the "Wikipedia standard", but you leave an opening to adjust or abandon the standard as needed on an individual basis. Problems (real and theoretical) solved, nice and simple. It seems obvious to me what the standard should be in this respect: Notes/References with optional Bibliography if needed. That's pretty much what's going to happen regardless, since Cite.php uses <references>, so trying to change that seems sort of pointless. Anyway, if nothing happens here then nothing happens, but the sort of "do nothing" attitude that pervades some of these MOS pages/standards is irksome.

— Ω (talk) 13:26, 16 July 2009 (UTC)

It's possible, but it has three things I don't have: (1) articulation, communicating such a complex system is hard, you have to be really good (I'm not good, need a lot of words, please bear with me); (2) time, policy is like a side job, somehow good people don't get caught up in it; (3) determination, I don't think we're ready: assuming logistic relationship, glancing at the graph, article growth hit the point of inflection at around '07.[13] I don't know where when is, but when it's more hard pressed, there will be a greater push for uniformity.

Still brain storming. I believe that there's a better way than what the analysis provided. Seen a lot of new systems. Three examples, (1) in large list articles McGregor proposed a system to place references at the foot of a table, rationale's solid;[14] (2) since short and full references are strongly related, I actually proposed a system to have them subsectioned (archive 3, example); and (3) ask PBS, military history is way out there ;). Think long term and productivity. After a RFC-level consensus, a WP:BAG approval; bot everything.

There are a lot of methods, this prevents us from being prescriptive. "leave an opening" is ambiguous. I agree with WhatamIdoing's approach, be informative. In that, it's about rewriting the analysis for the guideline. Now, about the problems that have come up, probably will, and what needs kept in check. After POV, MOS is probably number two in arbitration cases.[15] [16] Consensus is hard, for articles this usually entails verifiability. Don't always have that. Without it, we usually end up like POV-pushers. There is opportunity, from which we answer whether consensus works. However, this usually entails politics. The word has come to have a negative connotation,[17] but when we put it in that context: it feels like, in my opinion, we're ignoring the issue. By its denotative definition, politics is the process we need to get there. Irksome? Yeah. Wrote a bit about it, WP:PROCESS. My central question, how do you want to rewrite the section "Notes" and "References" to reflect what is said above? ChyranandChloe (talk) 00:57, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Rough draft (this seems like a good spot to unindent, as well): This is just as a very rough outline of what I think that this guideline should say. It's fairly simple, really: Inline and general references should be in a "References" section until there are more than a handful of either. It would be nice to also see a prescription to sub-section the References section into third level areas for inline and general references, if more then a few of either are needed. "Note" style references (using the group= parameter of the ref tag) should always be placed in a separate section, titled "Notes". If more than one group= tag is used in a single article, then sub-sectioning the Notes section into third level areas would be prescribed as well.

That's basically all that I'd like to see. As with any guideline, if consensus from the involved editors is that the guideline should be broken in a specific article, then that's what can and should happen. Placing an injunction on bot driven mass edits without specific community approvals should avoid stepping on people's toes.

The thing is, we should generally avoid attempting to fight the tides through legislation, if for no other reason then that it won't work. I could make arguments for using "Footnotes" or some other word, for example, but... why bother? The wiki markup tag is <ref> and <references>, which prompted the creation of {{Reflist}}, so attempting to change what section they should be placed under is going to be fairly pointless and arbitrary if that recommendation is not to place them in the section labeled "References". using group="notes" is so ingrained at this point that it ends up facing the same issue, as well. I suspect that the vast majority of pages which differ in this usage pattern do so because of WP:POINTism, to some extent (and no, I have absolutely no one in particular in mind when saying this). I'm sure that there are a handful of instances where using different names makes sense, but generally I can't imagine those differences being widely applicable.

— Ω (talk) 03:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Ohm, I'm not sure what your "note-style references" are. Short citations, perhaps?

From your note above, "Bibliography" is deprecated. It's also a holy war on this page. Some editors love it; some hate it. The general rule is (1) edit warring is evil, followed by (2) it's kind of nice to avoid it for citing sources (it's widely accepted for listing the complete works of an author in the author's bio). WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:00, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

For the 'record', using "Bibliography" wasn't really my idea, it was simply suggested in ChyranandChloe comment immediately prior to mine. If I need to provide a firm suggestion for a third level 2 heading, then my recommendation would be to go with "Footnotes", but I don't see that as a large issue at all. "Further reading", which is what is currently on the guideline, is fine with me as well.

Regardless, what I was talking about above where I mentioned "note style references" is possibly what you would term "long references" (I've been slightly confused about the "long" and "short" references terminology myself, to date). For example: <ref>sentence or even a paragraph of descriptive text</ref>, which seems to be a common usage pattern. I've often seen "nb" used as well, but that amounts to being the same thing.

Again though, the "holy war" aspect of this must largely come from the fact that there is no real guidance here. Anywhere that is true you'll fairly naturally get people choosing a 'side' and then allowing their ego's to get in the way of rational debate. I'm certain that there are a handful of good examples of pages where 3 or 4 second level heading sections worth of appendices material is required, but I simply don't see a need for ambiguity when it comes to the vast majority of the 2.7 million+ pages currently in the English Wikipedia.
— Ω (talk) 05:41, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Handy cheat sheet:

Explanatory note: "Jane was a voracious reader, but she was always hungry when she read a book. This is generally given as the explanation for the enormous length of her magnum opus."
Short citation: Smith 2009:233.
Full (long) citation: Smith, J. Aubrey. 2009. Books that make me hungry. London:AGJ Publisher. ISBN 2096292093

To add to the complexity, anything enclosed in <ref> brackets is the WP:FOOTNOTE style (contrasted with the parenthetical, or Harvard, style.

The holy war predates the permissiveness of this guideline, but overall I agree with you: The majority of articles have zero explanatory notes, and have just a single section for citing sources (either the list is 100% full citations anyway, or the full and short citations are combined together in the same <ref>-based list, as seen in Nitrogen narcosis#References). In those simple cases, though, I think it's probably adequate to tell editors that ==References== is the most common choice, instead of the one that they must use.

I've been thinking about writing an essay to make recommendations in some of the more complex cases. This page could point to it, but it would be non-binding. Perhaps I should find some time for that later this month. WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:16, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

This is a guideline, it already is non-binding: "Our policies are considered standards that should be followed, whereas our guidelines are more advisory in nature" (WP:policies and guidelines) --PBS (talk) 20:52, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Vandalism

user:Pncpa has just rewritten the first part of this guide as an article. Mercurywoodrose (talk) 19:38, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that Mercurywoodrose. For some reason this page seems to be a target for advertising in addition to vandalism. ChyranandChloe (talk) 01:44, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

How to limit the size of Further reading for a general topic?

This subject has been discussed at Talk:Sustainability. As this is a fairly general topic for an article, the Further reading section has become overly long. Should some guidance be added to the FURTHER section in order to put limits on how long the list can become, or has this already been discussed (I couldn't find it in the archive though).—Teahot (talk) 18:52, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Reasonable and relevant. Taking precedent from WP:SEEALSO, "A reasonable number of relevant[...]". The article you've cited, Sustainability, has 23 items in its Further reading. From the articles I've worked on it doesn't seem excessive, for example, Global warming has 29, Jane Austen which combined its full citations and Further reading has 50. From related articles, Agroecology has 20, and Conservation biology has 17. So the number seems reasonable, whether individual items are relevant is based on the discussion on the article's talk. ChyranandChloe (talk) 01:37, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

After 213 references, having 23 further reading and 9 more external links is absurdly over the top. If the further reading was that critical it would have somehow made it into the 200+ references. An article with that many sources should very seldom need any further reading, but anything more than five is excessive. 2005 (talk) 03:33, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Does anyone object to the text becoming (red text is the change)?:

A bulleted list, usually alphabetized, of a reasonable number of recommended publications that do not appear elsewhere in the article.

Obviously some guidance as to what is reasonable may be needed, but this is true of the other WP help available.—Teahot (talk) 11:31, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Unlike User:2005, I can imagine circumstances in which ==Further reading== contains up to a dozen books (in an article that covers a very large topic). But much more than that, and I start to think that it's just basic bloat: I drive by and add my favorite book, and you drive by and add yours, and so does everyone else, and eventually we have dozens of books with no coherent reason for including a single one. Perhaps we need to create a {{Linkfarm}}-type template for this section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:18, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the less I like Further reading as a concept. I have looked at the example Global warming and the Further reading looks massive and indigestible, why have these particular publications been included without any justification or reference to the body of the text? Compare that to Gay bathhouse where there are 58 footnotes and 23 references (i.e. the footnotes cross-refer to the references, mostly books). In this case there has been no need for anyone to add Further reading as everything added has been directly justified for inclusion as they can support something in the body of the article. Even if we had a rule that there should be no more than 12 further reading items, this still seems like an excuse to add an unjustified car-boot sale box of books to our reference library.

As a simple test I have looked at the first item in the Global warming Further reading, this is "Association of British Insurers (2005-06) (PDF). Financial Risks of Climate Change". There is no rationale as to why this report was essential further reading and, worryingly, the PDF link does not work so I can't even guess as to why someone wanted to add it.

Perhaps the rule should be that if such a section is to be added to an article then at least the criteria for inclusion needs to be explained (this is how we handle lists and this is just another list)? —Ash (talk) 22:37, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Further reading is simply a way of saying offline content. "Further reading" should be guided by the same principles as external links, meaning we are not a "further reading directory". I can't imagine any logic that where an article would need more further reading than 200 references offer (except for adding an official site link). But in general anything more than 10 external links + books/articles is excessive. And, at the very minimum, further reading entries need to be held to a much higher criteria than external links since we all can see external links. Right now it is easy for someone to pass through to add some random crackpot book. Further reading doesn't have it's own guideine page, so criteria for it should either be defined clearly here, or here we should say discussion of that section it falls under the external links guideline. 2005 (talk) 23:41, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Template's done, see Template:Further reading cleanup. 2005 said five/ten would be a reasonable threshold, WhatamIdoing about twelve, Ash twelve—but for the guideline to say "no more than so and so" seems arbitrary—WP:CREEP. If the decision were reduce the number of items in the section, you would still need to know which items to remove, likewise which to keep. Ash said the "inclusion needs to be explained", 2005 "held to a much higher criteria", right now the guideline says "reasonable" and "recommended", I think it can be better. ChyranandChloe (talk) 00:00, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, C&C. I've created the category, repointed the template at the correct cat, and spammed the template into a couple of the articles named above in an effort to make sure that the cat is working.

The next step is to get it listed at places like Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup. Any volunteers for that? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Added to Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup.—Ash (talk) 15:43, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I support the text change and the creation of the template. In a well-researched article, all of the best sources will typically be used as references. Even if that isn't the case, I don't think we should ever have more than a dozen Further reading entries. More than that, and we're turning into some kind of book directory. Kaldari (talk) 02:35, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I think an additional change should be made--it should be Recommended reading, and list the dozen or so best recommended accessible works, whether mentioned in the article or not. How else will someone looking to go further in a general way be able to tell which of the possible hundred of references are worth a first look? As for specific works not in the references, it should always be possible to fit them in, if necessary adding a sentence or two for the purpose. The point of this section is to be useful. DGG (talk) 04:02, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

"Useful" is not a good criteria. Hundreds of books could be "useful". Likewise "reccomended" is not a good idea, as books have POV. We should never "reccomend" anything. And further, "best" of 200 references is nothing but a nightmare. "Further" is the point. If an article is well-referenced, they should rarely come into play, but when they do they should be meritable and directly relevant to the article. 2005 (talk) 06:46, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

At the moment there are no criteria in the WP guidance to ensure that Further reading sections are "meritorious" or "directly relevant". The current constraints are "recommended" and "reasonable" but there is no specific definition of these in order to ensure, say, that a recognized authority for the subject recommends this reading or that a reasonable number might be less than a quarter of the number of references. Currently I have no rationale to defend removing any obscure publication from Further reading that happens be related to the subject that a drive-by editor happens to dump on to an article page without justification. Perhaps we are at the stage where a community wide RFC on the subject of proposed criteria for Further reading inclusion could be a way forward?—Ash (talk) 07:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) Most of the RFC's I've been to were about resolving a dispute, well, it's part of the dispute resolution process. Added this discussion to the Signpost on Tuesday.[21] I'm assuming that's how you got here DDG? WP:VPP seems to be next. Agree with 2005, "Recommended reading" as an alternative title has PoV implications, "Further reading" is also a long standing title, recommending a new one seems counter to consistency. The section is also a target for publishers, we might want to contact WP:SPAM to see if they want a say. ChyranandChloe (talk) 23:57, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Proposal to refer reader to the principles in WP:External links The goals for further are very similar to (and, if the sections are merged, the same as) WP:EL, especially WP:ELYES and WP:ELMAYBE. Rather than writing a full, detailed document, perhaps we should simply add a sentence such as "The general principles outlined in WP:EL may be helpful to editors as they evaluate the overall size of the section and the choice of the most appropriate publications to include in this section."
This statement might be helpful to editors now, and it might result in questions and other feedback that could help us write something more specific at a later date (i.e., next year). WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:49, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Please explain. Application seems ambiguous, the two cited seems to be giving examples, not principals on a criteria of inclusion. ChyranandChloe (talk) 01:53, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

A current discussion on Further reading sections & templates over at the Lighthouses WikiProject has close relation to this one. As this thread looks at when and how to use Further reading sections, participation from those who've commented above would be welcome. Thank you. –Whitehorse1 14:20, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Good faith (probably) but inappropriate edits

This page seems very susceptible to new editors trying to create articles on totally irrelevant topics, so with WP:AGF let's assume that there is some easy wrong route whereby people end up here when trying to create a first article. Two questions: (a) can anyone see what that route is, and can it be amended? (b) would it be useful to (ask an admin to) create a WP:Editnotice (I only learned about them today) so that anyone starting to edit the page gets a helpful message on the lines of "This article is about how to set out a WP article. If you need help in creating a new WP article, please see Wikipedia:New contributors' help page", or something on those lines? No other pages I watchlist seem to get as many strange edits as this page - things like today's essay and the one mentioned above. PamD (talk) 14:36, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Even simpler is to use {{tmbox}} which you can add to the top of the page here without relying on an admin. This may be a good way of testing out some text first anyway. Here is an example with your suggested text:

Example tmbox template removed in accordance with wp:Prune after clarification below, in order to avoid confusion here.—Ash (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2009 (UTC)}}

Ah, sorry for ambiguity: when I said "This page" I meant the WP:Layout page, rather than this talk page! Thanks for your effort, but I don't think it hits the right target. PamD (talk) 06:51, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

I see it's just happened again - I'm intrigued as to how these newby editors are all falling onto WP:Layout rather than other project pages! Any theories? PamD (talk) 11:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Theories? I'm nothing but theories. At WP:MOS#See also it says that the Layout page "is an example of how to lay out an article." If it's just an example, I should erase it as I overlay my own article, right? Also, look at Wikipedia:Your first article. The warnings at the top of the page and in the edit window verge on the hysterical, so this page is not alone. --Milkbreath (talk) 12:22, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

We could request long-term semi-protection; it might reduce the number of errors along these lines, and I don't think that non-autoconfirmed editors do much (aside from accidental vandalism) at this page. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:40, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

My best guess is it's because when they want to lay out a page they think "layout" and think "Wikipedia:Layout" is the place to 'lay out' a 'Wikipedia' article. It's the title that's throwing off the newbies, they're thinking the page is a sort of existing blank slate or boilerplate for their article, although why they can't see that's it obviously not blank is still a mystery, If they ignore all that text they'd probably ignore any tmbox or editnotice text too. -- œ ^™ 19:53, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Your input will be appreciated

Your input will be appreciated in the discussion/proposal at Wikipedia_talk:Stub#Lines_before_stub_template. Debresser (talk) 22:05, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I second that request. The specific proposal is to change the policy at WP:Stub (and restated at WP:Footers which is on this page), which currently requires two line breaks before the stub metatext. You guys are precisely the experts we need. Andrew Gradman ^talk/_WP:Hornbook 18:08, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Image galleries

Should it be stated that image galleries at the end of an article should go before all other end material, i.e. "see also", refs, etc.? » Swpb^{τ • ¢} 09:48, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Have you encountered editors doing something different? If people are already getting it right, then we don't want to bother telling them. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:36, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Image galleries used to not recommended by some MoS page, but I'm unable to find it now ... I hope we haven't lost that recommendation to generally avoid galleries. They are sometimes useful for art articles, but other than that, rarely useful, and often run afoul of our image use policies. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:42, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

I did see one misuse; I figured that since there might be others out there, a line in the MoS couldn't hurt. » Swpb^{τ • ¢} 21:43, 6 September 2009 (UTC)

Relevant help pages: WP:GALLERY, and WP:IG. "Articles consisting entirely or primarily of galleries are discouraged", but galleries can be useful if used judiciously. Readers are generally not familiar with the {{commons}} use, and will not find the (often huge and unedited) collections there. Providing an edited gallery at the end of an article is highly informative (if the images can't be fit within the article in a better way). Eg 1750-1795 in fashion, or the one under discussion at Ponte Vecchio (which needs to be trimmed a bit, but not too much). HTH. -- Quiddity (talk) 19:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

We have indeed "lost that recommendation to generally avoid galleries", at last! WP:IG used to be generally discouraging, but was greatly improved some months ago - see the lengthy discussions at the talk page. Among other things, it now distinguishes between articles that are only galleries - once common, now extinct except for a few ones of flags and so on - and normal articles with galleries, which it never did before. The old text was essentially adressing a problem that no longer existed. Galleries are often essential in art, fashion and other articles on essentially visual topics, and can be useful in other types. They also can be a way of avoiding all the problems that different screen sizes & setting bring to pics in main text. On the original question, I think they should be treated as part of the article rather than the critical apparatus, & would not object to this page saying so. Johnbod (talk) 20:25, 14 September 2009 (UTC) before

Massive layout issue in Naked short selling

Resolved

– Topicbox moved below maintenance template. -- œ ^™ 23:30, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

When viewed in Internet Explorer there is a huge white space at the top of the page. Not visible in Firefox. Can someone fix? I'm helpless with stuff like this. Didn't notice it until a new editor pointed it out, and the page has been like this for weeks. Thanks. --JohnnyB256 (talk) 17:34, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

how

how hacker work as? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.97.210.114 (talk) 06:07, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Commons links

The page says: "InterWikimedia links to other projects (except Wiktionary and Wikisource) should generally not appear outside this section". In practice this seems widely ignored. Especially in short articles where there are no images, wikionary links or wikisource ones are often placed as a sort of lead picture, which I don't like. But in articles where text, images etc are very relevant - ones on literature, music or art - they are often placed at "See also", or "References", which seems sensible to me. In most visual arts articles the commons category is a great deal more relevant than most "see also"s and if there are many notes and references it is a pity to have it stranded right at the end. It often fits very neatly, both visually and logically, into "see also" in particular. Is it time to relax this wording, especially for articles where the link is centrally relevant? Johnbod (talk) 17:01, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

In some cases, e.g. an article about an artist or a specific document, I think a link at the top to Commons or Wikisource is quite useful. Take Article One of the United States Constitution; a link to Wikisource is at the top left of the article. This could perhaps be formatted better in relation to the navigation box, but this link belongs at the top not lost at the bottom. Readers of this article are extremely likely to be interested in looking at the text of the article, especially since this is the top google result for the term (so people looking for just the text will frequently arrive here). Christopher Parham (talk) 13:46, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Christopher, some readers won't understand that File:... automatically links to Commons, so we don't specifically mention links to Commons in this section, and I don't remember that we ever have; would it work for you to just specifically mention Wikisource and Wiktionary? - Dank (push to talk) 14:49, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I am more thinking a link to commons pages or categories, not directly to files; e.g. as produced by {{commonscat}}. Christopher Parham (talk) 15:46, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Johnbod, You may find this prior discussion to be helpful. Generally speaking, most editors oppose listing {{commonscat}} in See also for the simple reason that See also is always supposed to keep the reader within the English Wikipedia. Additionally, putting such links in the standard location (at the top of the last section) actually makes them easier for the Wikipedia-savvy reader (and there are many thousands of such readers) to find them: you hit the "end of page" button on your keyboard, and there's your link. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Footer titles and contents

I have gone in a circle in the project's manual of style looking for a good description of the various footer titles and optimal content for each choice of title. The section here that best describes the situation refers only to "popularity". I hope to be either directed to a more developed source of information on Wikipedia, or encourage the writing of one. I also hope that I have uncovered what could be considered to be a loop between Wikipedia:Layout#Notes_and_References and Wikipedia:Footnotes#How_to_use. Also WP:references seems to avoid the subtopic I seek to understand, "Footer titles and contents", and references the other two.

I could reverse engineer the Jane Austin article?CpiralCpiral 19:25, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I engineered the footnotes in Jane Austen,[22] so there's no need to dissect it, and besides, the method for that particular article is well documented. Answering the first part of your question: there are four relevant archived threads,[23][24][25][26] and two statistical studies.[27][28] The issue is not easy. The problem is verifiability. MLA and APA use parenthetical references, where Wikipedia stuffs references in the footnotes. This, along with a second section for full citations, and a third for explanatory notes—is not covered by the style guides. Without exacting verifiability, editors are PoV pushers, and the consensus document restricts itself only to what can be established with certainty: "popularity" and three caveats. An essay would be appropriate to solve this, IMO. The second part of your question, the loop, needs to be understood as separate from the first. WP:FOONOTE is talks about how to make footnotes. WP:LAYOUT talks about where the footnotes should be placed and what should be in them. I hope this answers you question. What do you have in mind? Could you please explain in a numbered list? ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Your "numbered list?" comment produced several. See below "ChyranandChloe and WhatamIdoing". CpiralCpiral 17:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

There is no "optimal content", since the optimal content necessarily depends on the style you're using.

To give you an idea of what this means in practice, here is a list of four formal style guides that heavily used in universities, and what each requires for the name above the list of sources that were used to support content in an academic paper:

Chicago: "Center the title 'Bibliography' about one inch from the top of the page"[29] (used by historians)
APA: "In APA style, the alphabetical list of works cited, which appears at the end of the paper, is titled 'References.'"[30] (used by sociologists and psychologists)
MLA: "Center the title 'Works Cited' about one inch from the top of the page."[31] (used in humanities)
CSE: "Center the title 'References' (or 'Cited References') and then list the works you have cited in the paper; do not include other works you may have read."[32] (used by scientists)

So the only possible response is to "What should go underneath title _______?" is "It depends. What style are you using?"

The most common answer to that, on Wikipedia, is "well, nothing in particular, really, you know, just whatever seems to make sense" -- in which case, we cannot tell people what the Right, True™, or optimal content is. At best, we can only tell them what most people usually do. This is why this guideline addresses the issue of popularity. WhatamIdoing (talk) 07:11, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

What, doesn't it seem reasonable, that at some time, Wiki points out that the use of an existing citation/bibliographical record style is preferable to making one up? FWiW Bzuk (talk) 12:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC).

Bzuk: My choice of which article to reverse engineer would make it a popularity contest. So says Wiki. Wiki says "WikiWiki". user talk:Cpiral (talk)] 05:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

"Optimal content" depends on the style structure? I cannot think of a single example. Granted there is no article, overall style for our end-section titles, but neither is there for the CSE style you mentioned, where the choice of section titles is offered. What I seek are article elements of citation. For example, "Items should be listed in chronological order of production, earliest first." (Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(lists_of_works)#Ordering) is an element of citation, just as section titles are elements of citation. We are missing something: "Items may also be listed in alphabetical order by author's last name?". Our citations style guide should titled "Citation style elements", and include a list of all popular elements and their historical context. CpiralCpiral 17:39, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

ChyranandChloe and WhatamIdoing: Let's see: ya'll said "see Cnote2", "popularity rules", "Its not an easy issue.", "Style is for experts, not Wikipedia." All golden information. Thanks. I get it.

Say I'm new. I'm editing for a few months, and I'm able to learn on the wiki about verifiability, and many other concepts on a basic level. It's great! I don't need much at this stage. I can contribute my good sense of words, and quickly hone the grammar and syntax. I never learned citation. What is a style guide., but I have a knack for terminology and concepts. I just need wp:CITE or Layout#notes to teach me enough basic terminology and concepts to enable me to 1) add a citation to an article that needs one, where I'll have to add a section and pick a name for it, or 2)rename a poorly titled section being used for a list of citations or 3) move a referent or note from one section to another, or 4)add another section for references within notes? I can't do any of that by looking at Layout#notes WP:CITE, or WP:CITET, any one place for beginners.

Layout#notes starts to list citation oriented sections, but it's missing some. Terminology and concepts alone will enable me.

"This article needs citations." (wp:RELY, WP:V, define "cite" for WP, basic markup or template, OK)

Now for a section title choice listing:

footnotes (OK. I learned that today from parenthetical referencing)
List of works (What is "works"?)
See also (Why?)
Notes (side-notes, love-notes, digressions, OK)
References (referents? References are actually references to references. Who knew?)
Bibliography (the books cited? the books recommended? (Just kidding.))
External links (URLs not on Wikipedia, and not on sister projects) (I had to guess.)
Works cited (Oh, so that what "works" are...)
Sources (obvious. I'd think "Use that for gov't works." I wouldn't write that.)
Citations (very clear. Use for policy articles. ;-) )
Works consulted (Used by a genius at work, just needed to verify she was right?)
A selected bibliography (a quick off-the-top of most popular favorites used to form the authorship?)

As a proud person, as a complex person, as a beginner, I want to 1) choose the easiest template or markup, 2) make a cite by hand and make a cite by template, and 3) choose from a fancy list of section titles from all the various styles ever conceived.

CpiralCpiral 05:54, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I've gone through the discussions C&C pointed out, and have recorded the salient remarks which support having a list of section titles, and for each title, enough editable, consensus-able remarks about it to offer the reader an informed choice. That might end the debates. Isn't that how it's always accomplished? CpiralCpiral 21:53, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I need to understand you. Clearly. And Completely. You've worked hard on this, let's check our mutual understanding. I will start with the preceding two comments you've posted above and work down towards your recorded list of salient remarks.

'"Optimal content" depends on the style structure? I cannot think of a single example[...]'
Same here. If you're not sure what you're looking for, I can only guess. There's a difference between List of works and References. WP:CITE discusses References and Bibliography (defined to hold full citations in the linked example). WP:WORKS discusses List of works.
In the first paragraph of your second comment:
1. Adding citations depends on the style you're using. Who determines the style depends on who gets there first and what makes sense (science, CSE; humanities, MLA; psychology/sociology, APA...). Here's the abstraction.[33] The easy way is templates (e.g. {{Cite web}}, {{Cite news}}, {{Cite book}}), but like other styles, it depends on the editor: since I like templates, most articles I work on use templates. Jane Austen is MLA by the way.
2. If there is only one section for verification, use "References". If there is only one section for explanatory notes and only one section for verification, use "Notes" for explanatory notes and "References" for verification. If you need more than on section or either, then this is the ambiguity I was talking about earlier. Jane Austen is a good model, there are others (ask WhatamIdoing or PBS), and those depend on the editor.
3. Moving references and notes is WikiCode. Cite.php, which uses <ref>...</ref> and are used for verification, just move the whole thing where you want it. Cnote2, which are often used for explanatory notes, move the "{{Cref2|...}}" where you want it; there are some other templates similar to the Cnote2/Cref2 system (e.g. {{Ref}}, {{Cref}}), but they follow the same pattern. Read the documentations, practice the examples (H:T, WP:CITE, Template:Cnote2/example, [34])
4. I think this is the ambiguity of needing more than one section. Here's a list of examples of several developed systems: Mary Shelley, Battle of Britain, and Ebola. I think you might be talking about something like this: Health effects of tobacco, Reston ebolavirus.

This is as far I want to get in this comment. Check for understanding and clarification. After that we can move on to the next portion, I'll ask you to repost your ideas and you questions, so please concentrate only what is provided in the numbered list in this comment. This is what I'm looking for: (1) do you understand what is said? (2) do you agree with what is said? and (3) did I answer your questions? If no, explain what, and ask exactly that. ChyranandChloe (talk) 09:02, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Cpiral, deciding what the title of these sections should be is not LAYOUT's job.

It happens that the community refuses to declare one style better than another, or even -- to Bzuk's despair -- to demand that editors use an officially published and sanctioned style instead of allowing any editor to make up a 'style' that happens to communicate the information to the reader, but even if there were a "right answer", LAYOUT wouldn't own it. (WP:CITE would.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:58, 17 October 2009 (UTC)

Discussions are golden. You have provided guidance and wealth, and pointed me the places to get more. Thank you both for your fine displays of style and example. Bye for now. CpiralCpiral 04:35, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

List of Schools in Karachi

The layout does not relate to the way schools are organized in karachi. There are too many categories. To those familiar with the topic, just a single long list will do nicely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Civilizationsschool (talk • contribs) 15:06, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

I've simplified the organization and removed vandalism about some "Royal City Public School". Public/Private and Boy/Girls/Co-educational categories are now the sentences introducing a list. Good job adding the "Civilizations Public Schools"; but please be careful, be humble, and do not go overboard. A table may be helpful to organize: name, address, website, and description—I can convert the list into a table if you want, just ask. Keep up the good work. ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:24, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Should infoboxes link to portals?

I just noticed the newly-created Template:Infobox_outlines. This infobox contains links to categories, portals, and article. (It previously also included a link to a Wikipedia essay, but I've removed that.) In my view, this violates WP:LAYOUT, which specifically indicates that portals should be place in the See Also section. I'm considering nominating this for deletion, but first wanted to see the opinions of those who more closely follow this guideline. Karanacs (talk) 14:51, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

I Agree; all of that (categories, portals, etc) belongs at the bottom of the article, per LAYOUT. Infoboxes, at the top of the article, are not the place for internal Wiki content. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:33, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

"{{Portal}} links are usually placed in this section [See also]."[35]

Sorry for not replying sooner, busy. The statement in the guideline is a qualified as "usually", and is not a prescription that "specifically indicates that portals should be placed in the See Also". There's a difference in both the language and the spirit. It's not a violation. Categories as linkable text (different from footers) are not uncommon in infoboxes concerning outlines, although they are often less conspicuous than the template being discussed (e.g. the "Part of a series on" in {{Islam}}, {{Smoking}}, {{Atmospheric sciences}}). Please explain "your view". ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:16, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Categories shouldn't be there either. The article is for our readers; information internal to Wiki or about Wiki workings (portals and categories) belongs at the bottom of the article, as self-references, unrelated to the article, or less helpful to our readers. Many infoboxes already pollute article leads with unnecessary, repeat info; adding internal Wiki info to them will further that problem to an extreme. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Karanacs stated that the template, as quoted, "violates WP:LAYOUT".[36] My replay was to such. What you believe beyond the guideline belongs to you, and you can stop omitting "I" when you say it. ChyranandChloe (talk) 21:59, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, this so-called infobox is actually a WP:NAVBOX, and therefore the infobox rules are irrelevant.

(It is now time for an urgent discussion in the kitchen about the chocolate supply...) WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:05, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Vanity press publications in further reading

We don't seem to have a more detailed guide on "Further reading" sections except for the brief section that is present here in this article. This says that "Further reading" sections are functional equivalents of "External links" sections, for which we have well-defined eligibility requirements (WP:ELNO).

Given the current rise in vanity presses such as Lulu.com (which I cannot link to, thanks to the spam filter, but here are publications from this press in google books) and BookSurge (google books), should we think about adding a note somewhere that self-published books/vanity press publications are not generally welcome additions to "Further reading" sections?

(This is what prompted my concern.) --JN 466 13:03, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

There was a discussion in July about tightening the "Further reading" inclusion criteria,[37] which lead to a slight change in WP:FURTHER. IMO, it may be helpful to read through the old discussion, so we're not starting all over again. In the post you've linked "My concern is that self-published materials are expressly disallowed as sources and external links in BLPs, except for materials by the subject themselves." just for clarification, some editors place materials by the subject themselves in a "List of works", "Publications", or sometimes "Bibliography".[38] Now to answer you question about vanity-press, what you've said makes sense, and I think we can take precedent from WP:COI and WP:ELNO #4. Let's wait for some feedback though, after that we can begin drafting a change to the guideline. Thanks. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:50, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. Also note Wikipedia_talk:Biographies_of_living_persons#Self_published_books_for_further_reading. --JN 466 11:53, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Wondering. The "External links" described in WP:LAYOUT doesn't go into what should or should not be linked, but instead defers to WP:EL. In May WP:LAYOUT did two studies,[39][40] using the old data set, External links is 25 times more prevalent than Further reading in all articles discounting stubs. There's a reason why WP:FURTHER seems to follow WP:EL in WP:SPAM and WP:LAYOUT, which leads me to believe that a possible proposal in WP:SPAM may be more appropriate. ChyranandChloe (talk) 00:29, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes. I agree that a section in WP:SPAM is more appropriate than adding material here. (If and when that has been done, a "See also" reference to that section can be added here.) --JN 466 01:36, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

BIG further reading sections

I am seeing allot of BIG Further reading sections such as this (over half the article). They are sometimes put in under "Reference" but seem to amount ot the same thing. The guidance reasonable number seems pretty common sense but should it be stated more clearly and maybe include "Reference" sections? Is there a cleanup tag for Further reading or Reference sections that have to be reduced? Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 16:50, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Technically that isn't a Further reading section if it is under References (subgrouped or not). That said, it would appear that specific case would call for spliting into References and Further reading. Generally, references should not be removed unless you can show without a doubt that the reference has not been used in the article. There is no reason we can't have 100s of references in articles (large articles often do) and this one one of many styles of references currently in use. If you feel a cleanup template is necessary, I would suggest {{More footnotes}} as this article is most certainly going to be using short citations as it is expanded and it is clear that this article will become much larger over time. --Tothwolf (talk) 17:15, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

There were very few references in that section, it was a general index or directory of publications citing no specific issues, it could have just as well said "References - see Library of Congress Card catalog re: Constellation". It looked more like a mistake you see in allot of articles where editors confuse "References" for a "Reference" section. I took a common sense WP:BRD at it since there were obvious non-encyclopedic reference sections such as the directory of magazines, list of mechanical Planispheres, and "how-to" references (Wikipedia would never contain how-to material).Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 19:44, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

{{Further reading cleanup}}. Also, you can weed the farm, or start a discussion on focusing the list to what's actually needed for this particular article. For example, some of the books might be more appropriately placed in more specific articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:09, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

You can also split it off to a bibliography article; see Harry S. Truman and Bibliography of Harry S. Truman. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 22:17, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

Succession boxes as footers: request for clarification/ proposed new wording

The WP:FOOTERS guideline currently states:

The following is also noted in Perennial Proposals:

Do all the appendices necessarily precede all the optional footers? It seems to me that the "logical progression from on-wiki to off-wiki information" is interrupted somewhat if succession boxes with wikilinks go after the External links. There is also another issue with this practice: at least one well-meaning editor has been moving succession boxes to the end of the article after the "external links" section, and in some cases this is a very confusing move. For example, in articles on pop songs, chart succession boxes have previously been included in the "charts" section, which makes sense. In cases where more than version of the song has been a hit, succession boxes have been included in the "charts" section belonging to the relevant cover version(s) where applicable. However, when this information is moved to the end of the article, it is no longer clear which succession table refers to which version. Example: Take on Me, which was assessed as a good article with the succession boxes in the relevant sections, as is the norm with this type of article. I imagine this situation was unanticipated when the Footers guideline was written.

Proposal

I propose that, in order to minimise the potential for confusion, the following wording should be added to WP:FOOTERS:

Does that sound OK? Contains Mild Peril (talk) 20:08, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Template issue not Layout issue. Succession boxes were designed and defined to be "[p]laced at the bottom of their respective articles".[41] (1) WP:SBS manages and determines the definition, not WP:LAYOUT. (2) Changing its position changes its definition, however, what you've said makes sense, and that's more important. When something like this happens, usually editors create a new template to fit the "unanticipated" new context. I can help. If you believe that the difference between a possible new template and the current would be too small, talk to WP:SBS, we'll get it fixed. And I can also help. ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:35, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll give it a mention there. I don't think there's anything in the template itself which makes it inherently more suitable for the end of the article rather than the end of the section: it's been normal practice to use these boxes at the end of sections as I described for some time and I'm not aware of any problems with this. Contains Mild Peril (talk) 22:13, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Wrong forum

The whole artcle is based on self publicity . Shame Sabria Jawher —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.120.41.24 (talk) 21:02, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

I have no idea what article you're talking about, but this is surely the wrong place for complaining about it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:57, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

Should a link to a commercial search engine be included in the template Refimprove

There is a an RFC at Template talk:Refimprove. It would be helpful to include a link to a commercial search engine in the template. But this means that there will be external links outside the "External links" section in hundreds of articles. Do the benefits outweigh the drawbacks? See Template talk:Refimprove#RFC: Should a link to a commercial search engine be included in the template Refimprove? -- PBS (talk) 17:42, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Small style edits

User:Belovedeagle,[42] User:Graham87,[43] User:Eagle4000,[44] User:Dank,[45] User:MrKIA11,[46] User:Finell,[47] and myself [48]—have all made minor stylistic changes to the article within the past week. The overall change[49] isn't major, although the last edit by Finell introduced errors into the code example in "Links". Please be careful. Death by a thousand small cuts is a concern. Leaving a short message so that changes can be traced would be greatly appreciated. Thanks. ChyranandChloe (talk) 07:27, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

What is a watcher? It can count to seven edits. History has a number of watchers. The History page has a Number of watchers process activation link. It is the third of four external tools shown in sequence. Sorry, I could not resist the flow of what I had experienced while satisfying my wondering, confirming what kind of post this was. — Cpiral Cpiral 02:03, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Sections: Further Reading

I propose a link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Section since going here, I did not find the information I was looking for (use of __NOTOC__). —Preceding unsigned comment added by MI6 (talk • contribs) 08:37, 8 December 2009

Why did you expect to find that information at WP:Layout#Further reading, instead of at something like WP:Layout#Headings_and_sections? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:40, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Good point. Added the link to WP:TOC, "[...]organizing content, and populating the table of contents that".[50] Made a small clarification about collapsing the TOC, there's a difference between: (1) viewing the TOC, (2) collapsing it, and (3) not having them show at all. Although I'm not sure if the last clause describing how to use the TOC is necessary here at WP:LAYOUT, it's probably something that can be deferred to WP:TOC. ChyranandChloe (talk) 22:38, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Notes and References

The discussion under this heading is unclear; having read the first paragraph, I was left wondering:

Is it obvious that the first explanation defines "references" and the second "notes"?
Why these two unrelated kinds of information were not treated separately?
Whether suggesting that they both appear in articles under just one of the various headings, e.g. "References", does not make it harder for a reader to find any explanatory footnotes? This would not be a problem if it were clear that an article may have both a "References" and a "Notes" section, which I believe to be the case.

Accordingly, I propose that the material under this heading be divided and discussed under two separate headings, viz. "References" and "Notes". Before acting on this proposal, I'd like any feedback you may have.

yoyo (talk) 12:59, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

When the section was last being revised, the title of the discussion was ironically "Confusing". Concur with dividing this section. This is the general idea:

"Notes" or "Footnotes" are possible titles for Explanatory notes. It's exposition that's too detailed to include in the body, but relevant enough to be mentioned. Jane Austen is a good example, here's three more Reston ebolavirus, Global warming, and Battle of Britain.
Often this is an easy pick: "References". However (1) in articles that cite from within a work and (2) since most articles don't use parenthetical references—there are essentially two types of references called:
1. Short citations are like this "Smith, p. 256"
  The containing section may be titled "Notes", "Footnotes", "References", or "Citations".
2. Full citations are like this "Smith, John. 2008. The Story of Everyman. One Publisher, Earth."
  The containing section may be titled "References", "Bibliography", "Sources" (very rare), and "Works cited" (very rare).
Some editors keep them the two types of references together slightly separated within the section (e.g. Virus), others keep them separate (e.g. Jane Austen).
Some editors subsection or merge the explanatory notes and references in two important ways: (1) separated in subsections or some sort, e.g. Battle of Britain, old-version of Reston ebolavirus; (2) or in the same list, e.g. old-version Global warming.

There have been statistical studies done, I do have numbers.[51] This is a lot and probably more than you asked for, I'm sorry. Realize that the more complex schemes are relatively rare, by a factor of twelve or more. However most longer articles need them. From this you can infer how we got here. This is comprehensive, (1) if you want to use the list above for the guideline or (2) if you have something else in mind that more directly separates "Notes" from "References"—feel free to post another draft here. What do you think? ChyranandChloe (talk) 03:23, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Yoyo, what seems like "unrelated" information isn't unrelated. They are sometimes listed commingled, in the fashion popular in nearly all scholarly books from the invention of moveable type until the last couple of decades. We don't separate them because editors have done all of the following:

Given more than a dozen different section names to sections exclusively used for proper bibliographic citations (like "1. Smith, John. (2009) Book Title, page 23."), including ==Notes==, ==References==, and ==Footnotes==.
Given several names to explanatory text ("1. The moon is not made of cheese"), including both ==Notes== and ==Footnotes==.
Listed both bibliographic citations and explanatory text in the same section ("1. Smith, John. (2009) Book Title, page 23; 2. The moon is not made of cheese."). This style is most commonly titled either ==Notes==, ==Footnotes==, or ==Notes and references==.

There is no single right answer, because different academic disciplines require the use of entirely different styles. If an editor's education taught him (or her) that "Notes" was supposed to be explanatory text, and "Footnotes" was supposed to be bibliographic citations (or the other way around) -- and this page listed the opposite -- then the editor would find this document unnecessarily confusing and (from his limited education) "wrong". So this page therefore does not tell editors what to do, and they leaves you free to do what you think is best and most appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:42, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

It might be a good idea to clarify this in the introductory paragraph of that section. Perhaps something like "Some articles divide these into two separate sections, other articles don't divide them and use just one section." Also, adding WP:FOOT as another {{main}} article might help readers seeking clarity. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 04:00, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Template for example

Template:for example says that we say to put for example templates at the head of a section. We don't. It should go at the end of a section. Yes? — Cpiral Cpiral 19:56, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Don't understand, the guideline doesn't use the template {{For example}}; it has examples typed into the prose though. ChyranandChloe (talk) 01:42, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Then I will remove references to WP:MOS in that statement at {{for example}}. But now I'm curious. Can just anyone write a template and make any usage statements? Must they then lobby for it's mention here? They look so official to me. — Cpiral Cpiral 09:54, 20 December 2009 (UTC)

Template {{style wide}} is like for example, but with a different documentation error that could have unintended consequences: "Place this template at the end of pages relevant to the Manual of Style." That's it. A command from whom, and for what purpose? Who regulates/polices Wikipedia templates? The Brits could be planning to change Norté American spellings! — Cpiral Cpiral 22:04, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Wikipedia editors are encouraged to be bold.

WP:MOSCO and other interested projects exist to help create some order out of the resulting chaos. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:59, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Oh! I thought you meant that the page WP:LAYOUT uses the {{For example}} template! WP:MOSCO is one, Wikiprojects such as Wikiproject templates and its children (e.g. WikiProject user warnings) bring order (especially to the potentially controversial ones) although they aren't a stifling institution. {{Style wide}} is really generic, if you look at the code, it's is a special case of {{Navbox}}, which has very well known standards (in fact WP:LAYOUT prescribes this one, see WP:FOOTERS). {{For example}} is also very generic. The scope of this template or type of template isn't very large, so it's controlled informally by well meaning editors. The guideline is also described, ironically, in WP:LAYOUT, see section "Section templates and summary style", {{For example}} is a similar to {{Details}} so we present through example (I told you about being concrete rather than abstract remember?).

There are a few more such as {{infobox}}, {{Portal}}, success boxes—but I think you'd be more interested in templates that don't follow a well known standard. I don't know if I should be saying this, but I have been a bit associated with a couple non-standard templates. "Part of a series" such as {{Islam}}, {{Smoking}}, {{Atmospheric sciences}}, and {{Style}} are infobox-like, but because of their very specific application an their relative rarity, editors innovate instead. I'll just tell you right now, I do have a preference towards collapsible sort: think fixed height, static part of the series templates are backward. There are more examples, each with its own story. If you want I can tell you the stories of {{Gallery}}, {{Cnote2}}, {{FAQ row}}, and {{Outline header}}.

There are some controversies, for example some editors disapprove of infoboxes, and their argument is that they're un-needed or controlled by a small group of editors (Jane Austen is a good example). Despite this, templates are usually much quieter since the number of editors who understand templates well enough to write, modify, and deploy them are very few in number than those who just know how to hit the edit button. There's also innovation in templates. The big thing in the infobox world is microformats, which is a type of meta-data, for example if you enter the population of a city into an infobox, the search engine will interpret it as, well, the population of the city rather than some number. I don't do infoboxes though, friend does, talk to Dudemanfellabra. Pretzels does the Signpost. My job, well, probably has an explanation of its own. ChyranandChloe (talk) 05:47, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

^ For example, skipping header levels, such as jumping from ==Header 2== to ====Header 4==== without ===Header 3=== in the middle, violates Wikipedia:Accessibility as it reduces usability for readers on screen readers who use heading levels to navigate pages.
^ For example, skipping header levels, such as jumping from ==Header 2== to ====Header 4==== without ===Header 3=== in the middle, violates Wikipedia:Accessibility as it reduces usability for readers on screen readers who use heading levels to navigate pages.
^ For example, skipping header levels, such as jumping from ==Header 2== to ====Header 4==== without ===Header 3=== in the middle, violates Wikipedia:Accessibility as it reduces usability for readers on screen readers who use heading levels to navigate pages.
^ This sequence has been in place since at least 2003 (when "See also" was called "Related topics"). See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Layout&oldid=2166480 See also Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Changes to standard appendices. The rationale is that, with the exception of Works, sections which contain material outside Wikipedia (including Further reading and External links) should come after sections that contain Wikipedia material (including See also) to help keep the distinction clear. The sections containing notes and references often contain both kinds of material and, consequently, appear after the See also section (if any) and before the Further reading section (if any).
^ There are several reasons why this section should appear last. So many articles have the External links section at the end that many people expect that. Some External links and references sections are very long, and when the name of the section is not visible on the screen, it could cause problems if someone meant to delete an external link, and deleted a reference instead. Keeping the External links last is also helpful to editors who patrol external links.

[1] For example, skipping header levels, such as jumping from ==Header 2== to ====Header 4==== without ===Header 3=== in the middle, violates Wikipedia:Accessibility as it reduces usability for readers on screen readers who use heading levels to navigate pages.

[2] For example, skipping header levels, such as jumping from ==Header 2== to ====Header 4==== without ===Header 3=== in the middle, violates Wikipedia:Accessibility as it reduces usability for readers on screen readers who use heading levels to navigate pages.

[3] For example, skipping header levels, such as jumping from ==Header 2== to ====Header 4==== without ===Header 3=== in the middle, violates Wikipedia:Accessibility as it reduces usability for readers on screen readers who use heading levels to navigate pages.

[sequence-4] This sequence has been in place since at least 2003 (when "See also" was called "Related topics"). See, e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Layout&oldid=2166480 See also Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Changes to standard appendices. The rationale is that, with the exception of Works, sections which contain material outside Wikipedia (including Further reading and External links) should come after sections that contain Wikipedia material (including See also) to help keep the distinction clear. The sections containing notes and references often contain both kinds of material and, consequently, appear after the See also section (if any) and before the Further reading section (if any).

[5] There are several reasons why this section should appear last. So many articles have the External links section at the end that many people expect that. Some External links and references sections are very long, and when the name of the section is not visible on the screen, it could cause problems if someone meant to delete an external link, and deleted a reference instead. Keeping the External links last is also helpful to editors who patrol external links.

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