Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 78

editSee also
	Wikipedia talk:Writing better articles
	Wikipedia talk:Article titles
	Wikipedia talk:Quotations
	Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
	Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/quotation and punctuation

This is an archive of past discussions on 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 75

Archive 76

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Thread removed

I have removed a thread, you know which one I mean. It was achieving nothing but the amusement of a troll, who is now gone. If you disagree with this removal, don't bother asking me, just revert me. But I dearly hope y'all can see that it was without merit. Hesperian 06:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks heavens for that. Now back to the business of improving the MOS. Tony 06:51, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank goodness for that. He was being awfully prescriptivist about who could participate and how, for an account which has existed for less than two and a half months, and been blocked for incivility for two of those months! -- Arwel (talk) 07:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I hate losing information. What about archiving the thread instead? JamesMLane t c 07:23, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Nothing's lost, of course, but, yes, I agree that it would best be archived. J ɪ m p 15:26, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I've archived it. J ɪ m p 00:56, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

How can you just remove some discussions? Are you Admin? This does not seem fair to people not Admins. Freedom of speeches!--MajorHazard 02:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

"Freedom of speeches!" does not apply to talk pages. Talk pages are for the discussion of changes to the ~~main~~ page. The discussion in question was not going anywhere. Its removal focused attention back onto real issues. You don't have to be an admin to do this. You don't even have to be logged in. But if you remove something that is useful, you might be reverted - almost certainly on a talk page as popular as this. The tread has not been put back: this is a good indication of what people think of it. J ɪ m p 02:41, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Qualify nouns

If possible, terms used to describe people should be given in such a way that they qualify other nouns. Thus, black people, not blacks; gay people, not gays; and so forth.

I think this hinges on whether you would consider words like black and gay as nouns in their own right or as adjectives as they were. If they are treated as nouns, qualifying another noun like people is not necessary; but if they are treated as adjectives then people should be included.

Then it comes back down to traditionally WP:NPOV or so as to the meaning of the word. This gives a description of the word cunt changing meaning from just a simple reference to a body part into an obscenity. Sorry but that was just the first top-of-head example and the first google hit. This is a better example: how the word nice has its meaning turned on its head. And this is a closer example that shows how using challenged as mostly a 'politically correct' euphemism (I personally disparage their use) has changed the meaning of the word itself. The point is that the meaning of a word is mutable and which to apply is necessarily a point of view in itself. Obscurans 09:21, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Passive voice should be avoided?

...or put another way, we should avoid the passive voice :-) At least, most editors insist on the active voice. An article whose sentences all use "to be" conjugations can be tedious to read. A book mark I have handy is http://www.linuxjournal.com/xstatic/author/authguide (which is not an endorsement of LJ, just a good set of examples on passive vs. active voice). Does this type of guideline merit inclusion in the style guide? Afabbro 04:15, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Not to be too white and black about it; active rather than passive voice is encouraged unless there are good reasons for using the passive. Tony 08:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It depends on what you want to emphasize, so it would be a bad idea to make a hard rule about it. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 08:07, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Sometimes people (especially scientists) use the passive without reason. So not a hard rule, but gentle encouragement to use the passive only where it serves a purpose. Tony 12:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Is the use of passive voice causing a problem on Wikipedia? The passive voice is a natural part of the language and as such it has its place. If it's so hard to understand, why do we use it so much? It may sometimes be used without a reason. Mostly, though, it would be used without any obvious reason. Do we need another rule here? If a passage reads poorly, generally it will be fixed. J ɪ m p 15:19, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

If you think a certain passage of an article is poorly written, rewrite it. Let's not issue a (patently stupid) blanket ban on a perfectly acceptable verbal construction. And look, the author of that Livejournal article even uses the passive voice to condemn it: The problem with this title is it is written in passive voice. What a riot! Strad 18:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I referred to Linux Journal, not "Livejournal"...and the title of that article is clearly meant in jest as an example of passive voice...just as my subsection here was. What a riot! Afabbro 07:19, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Tony, but want to speak to Strad's concerns. I do not think there should be an outright ban on the passive voice, but in my opinion, neither does this proposed style item. I think the point is that of avoiding the passive voice. The passive voice leaves out the actor in an action, and as such, it can tend to leave out noteworthy information. Therefore, I think this item really intends to say that you should examine your writing for statements made in the passive voice because they can sometimes leave out critical details that, when included, contribute to a more factual article. So I support the addition of this item, as long as it addresses why an author should avoid the passive voice, and consequently, gives the author room to use the passive voice when it doesn't detract from the writing. — Ke6jjj 19:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

You can leave out critical information in the active voice. Why have people go on a witch-hunt for the passive mistakes were made when mistakes occured is just as bad? It does Wikipedia and writers in general a disservice to insist that they waste time seeking out a specific grammatical construction to scrutinize when really they should go through, read the whole of what they have written, and assess whether they have adequately identified the participants involved in the subject. That is what should be added to the manual of style, not these linguistic superstitions. Strad 20:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The agent (i.e. the actor in an action), is not necessarily left out by the use of the passive voice. If information is really worthy of note, then it will be included by a good author/editor regardless. Often the passive voice is used with the specific intent of leaving the agent out. Blind application of the active voice, on the other hand, can lead to emphasis' being misplaced. Sure, such blind application is not what has been suggested but could, nonetheless, be the result of the addition of such rules (in some cases at least). J ɪ m p 00:20, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe the issue can be ignored by the MOS, but I'd be happy for a reminder to be included (!) that passive should be used with a reason. One reason that many articles in scientific journals read boringly is this belief among scientists that they have to use the passive. This arose, I think, in the naive belief that it helps to convey a sense of objectivity; but who is fooled that no one wrote the text or did the experiments? Apart from being tedious when used as a blanket formula for constructing sentences, it's often harder to read, taking more words and often intruding in the middle of the sentence, disjointing the main items or planting central material at the end: "Many programs, including a, b and c, are run in the summer season by the university." Tony 02:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

We shouldn't say anything about discouraging the passive voice here. Several editors already go around removing it — all or most of them are people whose first language isn't English — because they've read some rule somewhere that passive is bad. The result of their editing is usually that the writing deteriorates. Passive voice is fine depending on context and which part of the sentence you're seeking to emphasize, but it's usually impossible to make people who don't speak English well understand that, so please don't write anything in the MoS that will encourage them. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 07:27, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Standard to alphabetize lists?

Many pages contain a "list of famous X people" or "notable X people" and similar...as a random example, the Able Seaman (occupation) page has a list of "Notable Able Seamen". Should it be a standard that these lists are maintained in alphabetical order? Afabbro 05:29, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think so; I changed someone's list once, and got into big trouble, because it was in date order. Besides, lists of famous people shouldn't really even be in articles to begin with; they should be converted to prose (and they're usually not referenced, but that's another story ... ) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Foreign terms queries

I've tried to rework this section. But I'm confused. Here are the existing and proposed versions. I'm sure I haven't got it right. In particular, I can't work out whether or not the existing version means that original non-Latin scripts must be provided. (In addition, I wonder whether it should be a section rather than a subsection of italics, since it involves spelling, too.)

EXISTING

Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have common use in the English language. Use anglicized spellings for such words, or use the native spellings if they use the Latin alphabet (with or without diacritics).

Loan words or phrases that have common use in English, however—praetor, Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—do not require italicization. If looking for a good rule of thumb, do not italicize words that appear in an English language dictionary. Per the guide to writing better Wikipedia articles, use foreign words sparingly, and include native spellings in non-Latin scripts in parentheses. Native spellings in non-Latin scripts (such as Greek or Cyrillic) should not be italicized at all, even where this is technically feasible; the difference of script suffices.

PROPOSED

Foreign words are used sparingly.

Common usage in English. Loan words and phrases that have common usage in English—Gestapo, samurai, esprit de corps—do not require italicization. A rule of thumb is: do not italicize words that appear in an English language dictionary.
No common usage in English. Wikipedia prefers italics for phrases in other languages and for isolated foreign words that do not yet have common usage in English.
Spelling and transliteration. For terms in common usage, anglicized spellings are used, or native spellings if they use the Latin alphabet; diacritics are optional. Native spellings in non-Latin scripts (such as Greek and Cyrillic) are given in parentheses, and are not italicized, even where this is technically feasible.

Tony 04:50, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I have no idea what the existing version was trying to say, but your proposed version looks good. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:27, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

By the way, WP:MOS violates WP:GTL. {{Seealso}} and WP:GTL say See also and other templates go at the top of the section, and I agree. The reader should know before digging in that there's somewhere else to go for more info. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:29, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Quadzilla99 05:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Question, Tony are you sure you want to use bolding, when we're trying to get editors to scale back on bolding? duck and run SandyGeorgia (Talk) 05:49, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Good question. I guess I used boldface in the Capital letters section above to start with, considering it to cover inline headings. Take a look as a whole and let me know if it's a problem. In italics, it definitely has the advantage of not causing tension with the italics in the points. The kind of bolding I think is frowned on is its use for emphasising individual items in running text. Tony 07:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Bold is fine for these project pages where a longer point can be highlighted in the first word or phrase, making it easier to locate among all the others. The Capital letters section reads much better than it used to. For consistency's sake, it's probably worth tweaking the other sections the same way, although (for the same reason) I'd stick to using the usual imperative/subjunctive style, rather than the evidential, eg: "Anglicised spellings are used", which is better as "Use anglicised spellings". The opening phrase should be "Use foreign words sparingly", not "Foreign words are used sparingly". There are some other, minor edits I would make but that's the biggie.mikaul ^talk 08:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your endorsement of the inline boldings. But I wish you'd raised the issue of the indicative versus imperative above, when I flagged it. So you'd have the Featured Article Criteria changed back to instructions ("should". etc)? Tony 09:00, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

No, not in that context. The WP:FAC is less a set of instructions than a description of what a FA is. Your proposal is more guidance-oriented, so needs to be more prescriptive. As per some other parts of MOS (Images, Invisible comments, identity) there are areas where the indicative is too rigid like your opening phrase here, maybe less so (to be fair) for things like anglicised spellings, which was possibly a hasty example. The almost exclusive use of the indicative for the better part of MOS really jarrs with me; maybe that's another discussion, maybe (another) one I missed :o/ sorry I missed your earlier one. The thing is basically good, why not post it up and we can always copy edit later. mikaul^talk 11:46, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, I kind of like the way Tony was doing it. Let's see if we can get some other people to comment before he puts it in reverse. Quadzilla99 12:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Essentially no policy change, a great deal clearer and less hot air: green lights on this one so far - here's one from me. I think it would make sense to make it a section: not only does it also involve spelling but it concerns such general things as when to use foreign terms. Also, I think this use of bolding is fine. Post it up. J ɪ m p 08:31, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Still the issue of the ambiguity: is it mandatory, or if they're included they have to be parentheses etc.: "Native spellings in non-Latin scripts (such as Greek and Cyrillic) are given in parentheses, and are not italicized, even where this is technically feasible.". It's unclear. Tony 14:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify (now that I have it clear myself!) – the indicative sounds right when we're referring to hard/fast grammatical rules or accepted dictionary/encyclopedia academic protocol ("loan words [...] do not require italicisation") but sounds wrong when we're referring to a Wikipedia convention ("foreign words are used sparingly"). I realise we should be descriptive (opp prescriptive) wherever possible, but sometimes the occasional direct statement, perhaps with some qualification ("use foreign words as sparingly as possible") avoids sounding like we're quoting from more universally accepted practice. Agree?
mikaul^talk 09:07, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Mick, you've brought up an issue that has been buzzing around my mind, too. In editing the MoS thus far, I've noticed that the existing version uses (i) a mixture of three indicative expressions, and (ii) the instructional "must" and "should" and the imperative mood "Do this". It's (ii) that I still think is best minimised or not used at all.

The four indicative expressions—one passive and two active—are :

the one you explicated, a bald statement of what is done—"Foreign words are used sparingly"
statements in which Wikipedia is the subject, e.g., "Wikipedia prefers ..."
statements in which "we" is the subject, e.g., "We use upper-case for ..."
the passive voice, e.g., "Italics are used for ..."

I've used a combination of these three, but I see that my choice may have been uncomfortable in the example you gave; you may be right about that distinction between rules and convention. But ... take the first para in "Article titles":

If possible, the article’s topic is the subject of the first sentence of the article, for example, “This Manual of Style is a style guide” instead of “This style guide is known as …”. If the article title is an important term, it appears as early as possible. The first (and only the first) appearance of the title is in boldface, including its abbreviation in parentheses, if given. Equivalent names may follow, and may or may not be in boldface. Highlighted items are not linked, and boldface is not used subsequently in the first paragraph.

These are all conventions, but when you read it as a whole, it may be OK. How would you rephrase it? Is the imperative the only way? Tony 10:38, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Thinking it over (yet) again, it has a lot to do with assertiveness, or at least sounding authoritative. I'd suggest using the command form wherever the indicative is less than unequivocal and/or some conditional element needs to be included. Dogmatic use of the indicative occasionally creates doubt as to the "weight" a guideline carries, especially when there is a conditional element. The section you mention starts badly because of the conditional "if possible", which simply doesn't fit with the matter-of-fact indicative mood. In this case, whereas the command form works ok,
If possible, make the article’s topic the subject of the first sentence of an article, for example, “This Manual of Style is a style guide” instead of “This style guide is known as …”.
the simple removal of the conditional element does the same job, and is probably better still:
Wherever possible, the article’s topic is the subject of the first sentence of the article, for example, “This Manual of Style is a style guide” instead of “This style guide is known as …”.
The second sentence (albeit a little weird and self-evident) has the same issue which I think is less of a problem with the accursed "if" replaced with the definitive "when", perhaps with the clauses reversed:
The article title appears as early as possible when it is an important term.
Getting back to the foreign terms opener, maybe the mood isn't the issue, but the slightly wishy-washy term "sparingly", which really can't be made to be more assertive without using a command form, unless you use the last-resort "Wikipedia prefers".
mikaul^talk 16:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Quotations queries

Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Quotations

Two issues, IMO:

1. The insertion of non-breaking spaces is disputed in an inline comment, and frankly, the example of " ' " looks very odd. What to do?

2. Is it necessary to have those ugly dotted-line boxes for the examples of block quotes? I'm half inclined to get rid of these examples on the basis that the MOS is not a "how to" guide. For that, people can go elsewhere, surely? Tony 08:57, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

And a third in mine.

3. When the original style is unreasonable, indicate the changes, with [sic] or an explanation.

The point being that [sic] is not used to indicate changes but to indicate that this is how it was in the original. As for your two points, Tony, I couldn't agree more. I see no reason to insert extraneous spaces into quotes. Indeed, this could, in a sense be seen as contradicting the guideline to use logical quotations - why treat a space which wasn't part of the original quote differently to a punctuation mark - where's the logic there? No, the MOS is no "how to" guide. Rather than being of help to users, it seems to me that this kind of stuff's being here is an impediment. "How to" should be on "how to" pages. The place would be made much easier to navigate if everything is in its place. Instead we're thinking "Now, where was it I saw that peice of 'how to'?" and we've got the basic shape of it in our head but it's shaped differently on the page where it belongs and well, who knows, it could be anywhere. So, both points - burn 'em. J ɪ m p 08:05, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

That solves the ugly boxes problem. Sic needs attention. So the quote marks remain, but bunched up? I think the example is a little over the top. Tony 14:05, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

OK, I have something to say about a couple of things Tony has raised above, and I want to add a concern of my own.

The insertion of non-breaking spaces is disputed in an inline comment, and frankly, the example of " ' " looks very odd. What to do?

The insertion of some sort of a space between adjacent quotation marks is absolutely standard. Look closely at virtually any material from a reputable publisher, in which a fixed and non-breaking space, perhaps a so-called thin space or something even narrower, is inserted as a matter of routine. But the question arises anew for HTML documents, and seems not to have had adequate discussion, or to led to good implementations around the place. Standard style guides are of little use: Chicago is silent on the matter, but the printed guide (not the online) uses such a space itself. I made an enquiry to the editors, who replied that they endorsed the typographical practice of inserting such a space, but had no plans to incorporate guidance about it, on the ground that it was indeed a matter of typography, not of marking up text. They seem not to be interested in the question as it affects HTML. I say this: let our guidelines require this space, because on most browsers and in most fonts the separate identity of the two quote marks is lost if it is omitted.

Is it necessary to have those ugly dotted-line boxes for the examples of block quotes?

I agree. Brutish things. They should be avoided.

Now, I have made some changes to the section about different styles for quotation marks. My suggestion would be, however, that we endorse only " " and ' ' (and ' for the apostrophe). Not only are “ ” and ‘ ’ a vexation to the spirit when it comes to searching (see my recent change, commenting on this), they are much harder to type in. As things stand, we give no guidance on how to do that in our manual – whether in generating text (for editors) or in searching within an article (for everyone, even casual users). Yes, the relevant glyphs are there under the edit box, if you have the patience to find them, and happen to be editing when you need them. And yes, there are codes for producing them. But they have to be used so frequently that they are still a significant inconvenience.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 02:43, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

The primary goal of the MoS is to make texts please the readership, the authorship is only second. Therefore it does not matter whether it is harder for some to type typographic quotation marks. They do have easy key bindings on some computers, e.g. running Mac OS, and they are not that often required in encyclopedic prose (and thus are not often searched for). My suggestion would be that we only endorse “ ” (maybe also ‘ ’) and ’ as the apostrophe; but as the MoS is mostly made by lazy authors thinking about themselves first this has not and will not achieve consensus. Luckily, neither does your proposal. We do use typographic dashes and many other lingual versions of WP prefer and use typographic quotation marks of different styles without many problems.

My second suggestion is to improve Wikimedia’s search capabilities. Google handles both styles the same. Christoph Päper 11:22, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Your second suggestion: good luck with that one. Moving Wikimedia's developers is like trying to stop an ocean liner. So, how do I key in curly quotes and double quotes on a Mac? It would be very useful to know. Tony 11:38, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I am unsure whether it is the same on an English keyboard layout, but on my German one they are on Alt+2 / Alt+Shift+2 and Alt+# / Alt+Shift+# (Shift+2 being " and Shift+# being '). Otherwise try Alt or Option and the curly and square bracket keys. Christoph Päper 12:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Christoph, your comments are offensive and needlessly polemical. I for one am not a lazy editor. Nor is Tony, who as we see just now is, despite his long experience as an editor, calling for guidance on how to implement “, ”, ‘, and ’. Most editors have no idea how to do this at all conveniently. And certainly most readers have no awareness of the issue at all. As I have pointed out (in material that has just been deleted from the Manual and I am about to restore), if a reader searches for text known to include a quote or apostrophe using a straight version – the only sort they know how to input – they will not find the text if it has the turned version. This is an important consideration for editors; please do not censor it from our Manual.

If you want to do something constructive, insert in the relevant section instructions for typing in “, ”, ‘, and ’ – clear instructions that will be of help to everyone, readers and editors, using the platform of their choice.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 01:42, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

(JFTR, I did not delete nor change anything regarding quotation marks recently[1], except for the glyphs themselves. The perceived offensiveness and polemic behaviour rather is frustration. I still consider the searching issue contrived, although technically correct.)

We do provide input information for en and em dashes in the Manual of Style, so we probably should do so for typographic quotation marks, too, because they form a quite similar case. This makes best sense if we explicitly preferred them, though.

If I remember correctly such information once was in Quotation mark. On a quick glance I did not find it there, but Quotation mark glyphs talks a bit about it. The US International keyboard layout on MS Windows for some reason seems not to support curly quotes, but guillemets. We could provide a special (US/UK) keyboard layout for Windows users of course, made with MSKLC. This is easily installed, but still requires some action on the author side (and maybe one needs administrator privileges to install). — Christoph Päper 12:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

font differences

Regarding dashes, see Talk:Dash#font differences. ∞Σɛ_Þ² ^(τ|c) 12:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Bolding non-specific titles

It's possible that I'm just confused as to this guideline, but it seems to me that "If the topic of an article has no name, and the title is simply descriptive—like Effects of Hurricane Isabel in Delaware or Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does, it is not in boldface" would apply to an article like global warming controversy, which starts "The global warming controversy is a debate...". However, when I unbolded the title there I was reverted and told that MoS mandates that it be bolded. My understanding of this guideline is that if an article title is general like that the title shouldn't be bolded. Am I missing something? Oren0 22:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd say you were correct but the MOS is not as clear as it could be. J ɪ m p 00:30, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, I think the problem is in the epithet "simply descriptive". Global warming controversy might be on the boundary between this and the ... ?non-descriptive?

Also, I see now that the first bit "has no name" is confusing and adds nothing. I really think the example is unnecessary.

Existing

If the topic of an article has no name, and the title is simply descriptive—like Effects of Hurricane Isabel in Delaware or Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does, it is not in boldface:

A dynamic loudspeaker driver’s chief electrical characteristics can be shown as a curve, representing the …

Better?

If an article title is simply descriptive, particularly if it is long—such as Effects of Hurricane Isabel in Delaware or Electrical characteristics of a dynamic loudspeaker—it does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does, it is not in boldface.

Tony 05:11, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

My issue with that as written is that it's written like a hard and fast requirement but it uses "long," a matter of opinion. This can lead to confusion as to how long is long. Maybe come up with a rough number of words for "long"? Either that or change "it is not in boldface" to "it is not required to be in boldface." Oren0 14:19, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Longer than four words? Tony 02:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)