Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 52

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 45

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Archive 50

Boldface usage

I don't see any guidelines here. Where would I find them? Clarityfiend 19:10, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Bolding is normally reserved for the article title the first time it appears in the text; see Article_titles. —Wayward ^Talk 10:53, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes it is italics. There is a somewhat bizarre distinction between long and short poems. I questionned this weirdness at: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Why_do_some_articles_use_italics_in_the_title.3F. bobblewik 19:03, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Traditionally, in print typography, boldface is generally reserved for book titles and such. Anything that you would underline on a typewriter would get bolded when typeset. Whether or not Wikipedia follows this guideline, it should have a clear guideline for boldface and italic usage. -- MiguelMunoz 11:23, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

I think you’re mistaken. Underlined things get italicized. I’m not aware of anything that “traditionally” gets boldfaced. If text needed to be bold on a typewriter, the typist would simply back up and double-strike the letters. Book titles and other “large” works (I’m being intentionally vague) get italicized or underlined, and other titles, such as poems, chapter titles, and news articles, get quoted. --Rob Kennedy 17:37, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Quotation marks using Cquote tag

I noticed there is nothing in the Manual of Style in regard to the Cquote tag. Could someone add the Wikipedia recommendations on its use. I noticed it on the Thomas Jefferson article. Morphh 15:20, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

“

Here is an example of the use of the Cquote tag.

”

Personally I'm opposed to the {{Cquote}} tag. - FrancisTyers · 16:15, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

If we want this behaviour, it should be part of the normal Wikipedia blockquote formatting. I think the cquote template should be deleted. The template only introduces inconsistency. Shinobu 17:09, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Inconsistency has existed for a while. See category:Quotation templates: {{quotation}}, {{quotebox}} and {{quote box}} all lack quotation marks. Circeus 17:20, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

And they're all different. I think we should ditch all the formatting and turn them in bare blockquotes. I note some of the templates do something marginally useful (right align a name); we can leave that in. But the rest should be up to the skin. Shinobu 23:35, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Shinobu. As a rule, where we can avoid it, we should not be making style/presentation decisions, only content decisions. The blockquote is a semantic object that should be rendered according to the skin. Deco 23:54, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Umm Ok.. so is anyone going to add something to Look of quotation marks and apostrophes? Something should be included as it is used and people need to know that it is available and either desirable / not desirable to Wikipedia standards. Morphh 22:08, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Normal block quotations don't need any of this additional formatting—it's definitely overkill. A pull-quote or epigraph can be formatted to stand out a bit more (for example, at the beginning of some sections in T-34), but it still doesn't need big purple graphical quotation marks—Wikipedia articles should not be made to look like weblog discussions.

I have proposed a minor tweak of the default style sheet formatting for block quotations, following traditional typesetting conventions. Please see MediaWiki talk:Monobook.css#Block quotations. —Michael Z. 2006-08-04 14:51 Z

Okay. So what will we do with the templates? I think the solution to {{cquote}} is, to 1) replace content with normal blockquote 2) subst 3) delete. {{quotation}} can be changed to a normal blockquote, although I don't necessarily see it's use. A {{quotebox}} in the right margin can be okay, perhaps, but this one uses nonstandard colours (images, which also appear in the margin, use different colours for their box). Also, it's limited to quotes - I'd rather see e.g. {{floatbox}}. Maybe I'll make it myself, it would take care of the ad hoc formatting used in e.g. the Ozymandias article. And why, oh why, are {{quotebox}} and {{quote box}} different? Shinobu 12:26, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

As for the last question, I suspect that {{quotebox}} was created by someone unaware of the existence of {{quote box}}. The older one ({{quote box}}) is a bit better looking and more flexible, though as its creator I may be biased. Both are obviously based on the same concept; one should be killed and replaced with the other.

In this discussion, the distinction between a "pullout quote", which is a quote set off from the main text, and a "block quote", which is in the flow of the article as a part of the text, should be emphasized. Every discussion I've read about quotation templates conflates these two very different things.

The "quote box" templates are a way of formatting pullout quotes. They function like an image, setting off a quote from the surrounding text. Like other images, a pullout quote is there for the sake of visual variety or added emphasis. I think we should have this option, especially for articles that lack other images. It's not an unusual device; variations can often be found in magazines. If we use pullout quotes, we'd obviously want a visual style appropriate for Wikipedia.

A "block quote", on the other hand, is part of the text. It should never be set off in a box, contrary to what the the instructions for {{quotation}} suggest. It seems that the creator of that template originally started with a "quote box" variant, but along the way it was misinterpreted as something that should be used with a block quote. This needs to be fixed: putting a block quote inside a box is unusual, ugly, and amateurish. In the short run, the instructions for {{quotation}} need to be revised to make it clear that it should be used for pullout quotes and not block quotes. In the long run, the three pullout "quote box" templates ({{quotation}}, {{quotebox}}, and {{quote box}}) should be merged into one.

Finally, that leaves {{Cquote}}. Based on what I've seen, people seem to be using this template to decorate standard block quotes, rather than for a pullout quote. I've never used it, but it looks like a nice, subtle option. I don't think it's based on any standard publishing approach, however. My guess is that it, like {{quotation}}, began life as something inspired by pullout quotes (some magazines use a similar graphic), but was confused with block quote formatting. A variation, {{Rquote}}, is being used for pullout quotes. Without a border, however, this makes for some odd looking articles, as in this article. Yuck!

So I think there are two basic issues here that are sometimes conflated:

Should block quotes ever be decorated? If so, is {{Cquote}} the way to do it?
Should we have a template to create "pullout" quotes? If so, should it look like {{quotation}}, {{quotebox}}, {{quote box}}, {{Cquote}}, {{Rquote}}, or something else? Should there be one standard template, or a variety?

--Kevin Myers | (complaint dept.) 15:56, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree with all of that, except that template:cquote, which decorates a text block with oversized (larger than the full font height!), coloured quotation marks like a weblog comment, shouldn't be used for normal block quotations.

In standard typography, block quotations are usually simply indented, and possibly set in smaller or italic font to provide a subtle contrast with the body text. In Wikipedia, they are often indented using a colon, but semantically the best solution would be to enclose them in HTML <blockquote> elements. —Michael Z. 2006-08-07 17:59 Z

Okay, I believe that's a "no" for question one. What about question #2? --Kevin | (complaint dept.) 19:43, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Not for me. Simple indentation and italic font served perfectly well in T-34 (although I'm now thinking that both quotation marks and italics isn't even necessary). —Michael Z. 2006-08-07 20:14 Z

The cquote is currently only used in places where there should be a normal blockquote. As for pullout quotes, i.e. quotes that are not really part of the textflow, they shouldn't interrupt the textflow, but instead be handled like images.

I restate that the current plethora of quote templates is very bad for the visual consistency of Wikipedia. There is already a blockquote-tag, which should suffice for all inline quotes, and we won't need more than one pullout/box-quote template.

I would also like to take this opportunity to warn people against the overuse of pullout quotes; Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, not a magazine. Shinobu 23:00, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm seeing this used more and more. Without anything specified in the MOS, I don't feel correct telling people that it is not recommended. Something should be stated in this article that discusses these templates - good, bad, whatever - something should be included as it is being used and there is no direction for it. Morphh 19:57, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Most people here strongly dislike the quotes, but we aren't really representative. There are clearly a lot of people who like {{cquote}}. I suggest you post a notice on Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals) pointing to this discussion if you want a better chance of getting real consensus here. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Block quotations need additional formatting.
It should be part of the global stylesheet; not a template. The templates should be deleted unless, like {{quotation}}, they make it easier to format the blockquote.
{{cquote}} is ugly and amateurish, and should be changed to look more like {{quotation}}. — Omegatron 21:02, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
The two-image {{cquote}} style is not possible to add via CSS unless you add additional wrapper elements, as far as I can tell. Javascript would need to be used. (That's because you can only have one CSS background image per element, and they can't be combined or else it wouldn't stretch appropriately to fit different-sized quotes and screen sizes and so on.) Regardless, I agree with your principles, except that {{cquote}} should look like <blockquote>, not {{quotation}}. :) —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:21, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

The giant blue quotation mark style should just be deleted. And then cquote and blockquote should just look like {{quotation}}. — Omegatron 23:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

I really don't like the background or border on {{quotation}}. Or, for that matter, the right-aligned style of attribution. It's really more suitable for an opening quote for a chapter in a book, say, than a block quotation embedded in prose. As for deleting the giant blue quotation marks, I don't think such an absolutist attitude is necessarily useful in terms of achieving change, here. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 21:38, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I really don't like the giant blue quotation marks. I'm not the only one. Styles should not be used in an ad-hoc manner, with an ugly style in some articles and a different ugly style in another. We need to decide on a uniform style for blockquotes, define it with CSS, and delete these templates (unless, like {{quotation}}, they provide added functionality). — Omegatron 21:47, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

I have to speak up in defence of the cquote. It is very useful, when employed sparingly (i.e. usually only once in an article, but not in all articles) to single out a quote which has some special significance. The usage at the top of this thread demonstrates its value. It's also more fun to occasionally break up the black text in the encyclopedia.

I would like to see a style recommendation for block quotes to be in italics (no quote marks necessary) to distinguish them easily from the main text and also for visual effect. Sometimes when images are involved it can be hard to see indentation alone.

extensive passages in italics impair readability on computers screens, and most low resolution laser printers as well. DGG 08:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I recommend just using colons for indenting blockquotes, as the html BLOCKQUOTE introduces another technicality for less proficient users.

Tyrenius 22:02, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

If blockquotes are to be in italics, this should be done via stylesheets, not via apostrophes. This gives us more flexibility. If you would like them in italics, for instance, add blockquote { font-style: italic } to User:Tyrenius/monobook.css (or the appropriate equivalent if you don't use the default Monobook skin). If it's decided that this should be the default for everyone, that can be added to MediaWiki:Monobook.css, and then people who prefer blockquotes in roman text can add a similar line to deitalicize them.

As for typing <blockquote> as opposed to a colon, it may be longer, but surely it's not less intuitive. The key thing is that it allows things like the change I suggested in the previous paragraph to happen easily: we know what's a blockquote and what's just indented, so we can deal with them in an automated fasihon. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 17:31, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

In defense of cquote

Here are some points to consider in defense of cquote. I'm not interested in debating it, as I think just about any solution is poor for reasons that have nothing to do with print publications (e.g. usability and accesibility, behavior of cut-and-paste, etc.) That said, cquote does some things right.

Quotes that are the topic of discussion should be called out as clearly as a photo, table, graph or other injected material.
Quotes that do not fit that description "feel" wrong in cquotes because of the fact that they are so offset visually. This is a good thing, and keeps most unfortunate uses of cquote at bay.
As reader, I find cquote makes the scanning of articles much easier, speeding my comprehension.
The availability of fields for source and so on are a boon to future extraction such information from Wikipedia text for many purposes.

That said, cquote could be improvied on. Its use of images should be done in such a way that skins can easily target and modify them. Also, its fields should be named for more ease of extracting meta-information later on. It wouldn't hurt to have a cquote variant that auto-generates a <ref>...</ref> of the appropriate type. For example, something like:

{{cite quote |
  quote="cquote could be improved on." |
  type=web |
  author=[[User:Harmil|Harmil]]
  url="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style" |
  date=2006-09-18}}

should generate something like:

{{cquote |
  cquote could be improved on.|
  20px|20px|
  [[User:Harmil|Harmil]]}}<ref>{{cite web |
  author=[[User:Harmil|Harmil]]
  url="http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style" |
  date=2006-09-18}}</ref>

That's just my thoughts, and I'm sure others will disagree, especially since most of the people who would care don't know about this discussion.... -Harmil 05:05, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

If we want to visually distinguish important from unimportant quotes, that's a perfectly good idea, but it should be done with CSS classes, ideally, for maximum flexibility, or failing that JavaScript, but not hardcoded into templates in some way that can't be reversed with some custom stuff in personal JS at worst. A CSS class could be as follows:

    blockquote.significant {
      padding-left: 24px;
      background-image: no-repeat top left
      url("http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/6/6b/Cquote1.png/20px-Cquote1.png");
    }

That should have the first quote mark retained (with four pixels of padding to its right), although the second would have to be dropped, as I noted. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:20, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I think just about any solution is poor for reasons that have nothing to do with print publications (e.g. usability and accesibility, behavior of cut-and-paste, etc.)

What the hell does that mean? Print publications have nothing to do with this. HTML blockquote elements are the only right way to structure long quotations in web pages. Template:cquote is ass in terms of usability, accessibility and web standards.

To address the actual arguments:

Long quotations in any writing are not called out like "a photo, table, graph or other injected material"—they are part of the flow of text.
I don't know what that means.
Scanning is not reading. These are encyclopedia articles, not Powerpoint presentations.
Why not make it work for present extraction instead of making up new implementations: <blockquote cite="URL">long quotation. <cite>—Author</cite></blockquote>

—Michael Z. 2006-09-20 04:39 Z

Block quotations

I don't see what all the debate is about. The HTML <blockquote> element, intended for long quotations, is already formatted in the monobook style sheet. HTML is a bit problematic, because novices may forget to close the tag, and because contained block elements like paragraphs aren't handled properly (there is a patch for this, but it's not installed on Wikipedia yet; please add your vote for bug 6200 and bug 4827). So I created template:blockquote, and a redirect from template:long quotation (edit to see how it works here):

This is an example of a long quotation, entered in wikitext using {{blockquote}}, but it would look the same if it was enclosed in an HTML <blockquote> element. It is pulled out from running text by its margins, and by a subtle reduction in font size. This is all that is necessary to format a long quotation. In professional typography, long quotations are rarely italicized, never marked with quotation marks, and certainly not with the big cartoon ones that are used in some weblogs' comments.

Paragraph breaks within block quotations still have to be entered manually as <p> tags, but this will be resolved in a future update to the Wikimedia software.

There is no need for a special format for "important" quotations, just as there is no special format for important paragraphs; the solution to this [non-existent] problem is called "writing".

Some articles do have pull quotes or epigraphs, but these are not the same thing as long quotations, and they also do not need oversized cartoonish quotation marks—perhaps such formatting is appropriate in a light-hearted weblog, but sure as heck not in an encyclopedia. For examples, see T-34 and Nagorno-Karabakh War.

Template:cquote is... how to phrase this? Very inappropriate. And its technical implementation is, um... Very crappy. —Michael Z. 2006-09-20 04:02 Z

I don't like your condescending attitude, MZ. I agree that the pull-quote templates have been overly used and abused on Wikipedia, but they aren't entirely inappropiate nor unjustifiable. The more the more you pontificate on their proper use (which, technical and issues aside, isn't based on much more than your personal dislike of them), the more it seems that you place little value in typographical aesthetics.

I'm currently working on a whole new template for pull-quotes, built from scratch, that are entirely styled from the CSS, and reduce the actual HTML markup to <blockquote> and <cite> tags, without relying on JavaScript. You can view my progess at this page: User:Down10/Template:Pullquote.

In the mean time, I ask that you assume good faith with the other contributors here. —Down10 ^TACO 07:52, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I am assuming good faith, but I'm frustrated by how large novelty quotation marks have caught on to be widely used for marking block quotations, directly contradicting good sense and the Manual of Style, and I'm trying to get the point across to some editors before Wikipedia starts to look like a weblog.

I care a great deal about typography and technical values. The typography in an open encyclopedia has to reflect the same attention to detail and academic qualities which dictate the writing of articles. Ideally, all facts should refer to cited references, and both the writing and typography should should be functional and avoid flowery decoration, more so than for just about any other kind of web sites. Basic markup should likewise be accessible and readable by all types of browsers, and not rely on hacks like unnecessary table layout.

For these reasons, I'm quite certain that no paper or online encyclopedia uses oversized, coloured quotation marks, set in a contrasting extra-bold font, for pull-quotes or long quotations, or anything else. If one does, I'll probably pick up the Britannica instead.

The encyclopedia, especially an open encyclopedia which is daily assaulted in the media, must look and feel dependable and functional, somewhat conservative, but not stead, in typography. Not like a teenager's weblog on myspace or an ad for the Magic Kingdom.

Have you seen the link to a tutorial I posted at template talk:cquote? —Michael Z. 2006-09-27 16:43 Z

I understand. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia first, and it should look clean and consistant without contributors going wild with the layout. Tradtional rules have their place, and I agree that it belongs within page editing and wiki markup. Wikipedians ought to ratify a "Markup Act" that would aim to clear out "hacked" styles from the page markup and, if possible, roll them into separate pages, "cascading" from the main style sheet (whatever that may be — even no CSS at all!). At the same time, an effort should be made to urge contributors to spare the pages from formatting and style tricks and push those through the Villiage Pump first. (Don't Be Bold?)

Thanks for the link to that tutorial. I'm also following this one as well. —Down10 ^TACO 07:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally I dislike Template:cquote, but what I see as more important than what our individual preferences are is that we reach a decision and use one style on all our articles. Maybe we could do something like have a straw poll to try and decide which style we want to use? First we would need to clearly outline our options. Martin 16:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Ever since someone brought it to my attention, I have loathed Template:cquote. I know that's very POV, but my personal feeling is that it has no place in the typography of a serious encyclopaedia, except possibly as an example of how not to do things. WLD 16:12, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Agreed. It's inappropriate for an encyclopedia. We need to delete it and replace all instances with <blockquote> or {{quotation}}. — Omegatron 16:36, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree, and not just about using one style, but separating the style entirely apart from wiki markup. Not every user will want to use monobook.css, nor should they be forced to settle with it. I'm hoping that the proper format of wiki markup of pages becomes easier and more obvious to contributors (the insert box below need a lot of rearrangement) , while at the same time offering them a chance to add their own styles to the CSS, without having to "hack" the layout (bringing the undesirable effects thereof).

Wikipedia will always have misuse of markup — that's the drawback of open source editing. More clarity and instruction on the importance of the "official" Wikipedia Manual of Style (and how style ≠ markup) is needed before rolling out the Wiki Police. —Down10 ^TACO 07:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Wasn't one of the benefits of open source editing that we could correct each others mistakes? Shinobu 23:42, 12 October 2006 (UTC)

Someone has changed the quotations on one of my regular articles to use the {{Quotation}} tag. I wanted to see if this was the recommended method for quotes as I don't think it looks that good on the article. My goal is to get the article to FA status, so I'll go with what is expected but I wanted to verify its use. Also, what defines a "long quote" - 1 sentence, 2, paragraph? Personally, I think it just looks better with the normal "" but that's just me. What say you MOS gurus? Morphh ^(talk) 14:50, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Wanted to redirect the thought back to my question. It seems that blockquote is now acceptable but is it recommended and under what conditions. It is being used any time someone is quoted.. even one/two sentence quotes. I also think it adds POV as particular statements / ideas have emphasis if quoted. Morphh ^(talk) 16:42, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

Ellipsis

Are there guidelines for use of an ellipsis? (i.e. should it be ". . ." or "...", etc.?) David aukerman 02:23, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I've always seen "..." --maru (talk) contribs 02:46, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Mostly "..." is used, but it's really the job of the font to decide. You can use "…" (…) if you want; you can also insert this character by clicking on it after Insert: below the edit box. Shinobu 17:05, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Or insert the ellipsis from your keyboard. On my (American Mac)-keyboard it is on ALT-;. I use it… a lot. Arbor 11:43, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

According to Bringhurst's Elements of Typographic Style, it depends on the typographer's preference and the character and size of the font. But he writes that a full space between each dot is a "Victorian eccentricity" with too much separation—he suggests using flush dots, or thin-spaced dots (M/5), or the prefabricated ellipsis character (… … ). Thin spaces must be avoided on Wikipedia, because they cannot be displayed reliably on some important platforms [*cough* MS Windows]. In the middle of a sentence, the dots ... should be spaced fore-and-aft, to separate them from the text: I use a non-breaking space before the dots, so they won't wrap to the beginning of a new line. But where they occur next to other punctuation, they should be combined with it.... Examples in Bringhurst include:

composed with separate dots:

i ... j

k....

l..., l

l, ... l

m...?

n...!

composed with the ellipsis character:

i … j

k….

l…, l

l, … l

m…?

n…!

In my chosen Wikipedia font (Lucida Grande), the plain dot looks subtly bolder next to a precomposed ellipsis, but all of the spacing is the consistent. I just use plain dots for consistency and ease of editing. —Michael Z. 2006-07-28 04:40 Z

I deliberately avoid the special character, because the character is not universal. The typographer (below), can use variable size and spacing. We are composing for direct reading, but also for reuse, and should avoid that DGG 08:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Sentence case in headings

I don't know if this is the right place for this, so feel free to move this comment to the right place and/or tell me. I tried to use sentence case headings in Srebrenica massacre but was reverted. Can people take a look and see if what I was doing was wrong? Thanks. bobblewik 18:27, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Your edit was in line with MoS:HEAD guidelines. --Muchness 18:40, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I just fixed the headings in said article. Shinobu 22:07, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Thank you. bobblewik 19:04, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

defining "encyclopedic tone"

In terms of defining "encyclopedic tone", is there a specific guidelines policies that explicitly mention it? I.E. there are cleanup templates for this as well, but I've had new users ask what this means specifically - and I guess "the formal tone expected of an encylclopedia" isn't good enough. Any good way to explain this? RN 18:32, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

It could be said that encyclopedic tone is an attempt to make the material look more authoritative than it really is. Like a textbook, but implying infinite reservoirs of learning in the background. DGG 08:25, 18 September 2006 (UTC)