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Should the manual of style require citations in the lead for contested statements about BLPs?

Should the manual of style require citations in the lead for contested statements about BLPs? The current text is generally considered to contradict itself on this point; see discussions here for details and general implications about what this would mean for the text. --Aquillion (talk) 04:43, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Survey (citations in the lead for contested statements about BLPs?)

  • Yes. We give leads significant leeway in terms of rephrasing and summarizing the text; this is fine in some places, but for controversial statements about WP:BLPs, where we must adhere to the most stringent sourcing requirements, it is necessary to be more careful - especially given the particular risk of harm present in the lead section (which is, after all, normally the most widely-seen part of an article.) Requiring citations in the lead reduces the risk of this. There is also a risk of "lead drift"; small tweaks to the lead can move it away from the citations in the body - or a game-of-telephone effect can form between the body and the lead, where the body rewords the sources in some acceptable degree, then the lead rewords that text in a summary that becomes disconnected from the sources to the point of being a BLP violation. To prevent these things, it is extremely important that people be able to identify and review the precise sources that go into every individual BLP-sensitive statement made anywhere in the text, including the lead - and that is often not possible, or is at least rendered vastly more difficult, if we leave citations out of the lead of a massive article whose sentences each summarize an entire section. Finally, the only argument anyone seems to have been able to present for leaving citations out of the lead is stylistic - this does have some value, and is perhaps sufficient to allow us to omit citations in less sensitive places, but it absurd to weigh that equal to the unequivocal more serious risk of immediate harm posed by BLP sensitive statements that drift from or incorrectly summarize the citations in the body. --Aquillion (talk) 04:43, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. I do like the style of leads without cites, but BLP and WP:V concerns override stylistic ones, and ensuring citations for all BLP sensitive statements regardless of where they are means editors can verify the statements are supported by the sources. Galobtter (pingó mió) 06:44, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes: The lead takes the reader to expanded material; however - as above - BLP and WP:V concerns override stylistic ones, and ensuring citations for all BLP sensitive statements regardless of where they are means editors can verify the statements are supported by the sources. --Whiteguru (talk) 10:46, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes (1) for BLP concerns (2) Hopefully this would reduce the opportunity/risk of arguments. Sweet6970 (talk) 14:28, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No Long-standing consensus at this article has it that the cost of citations in the lead (visual clutter) would exceed their benefit. DYK, ITN, GAN, FAC and most projects have held that every non-trivial statement is contested, so this would require the lead to be fully referenced like the article. In a massive article where each sentence summarizes a section of the body, that sentence will acquire all the references of the body. WP:V is satisfied by a fully referenced body. The presence or absence of citations in the lead will not alter whether or not a statement is contentious, and the issue usually revolves around whether a statement is WP:UNDUE, which is magnified by the lead being a summary, and the presence or citations will not alter that. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:13, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No per WP:CREEP. I strongly contest the notion that "BLP and WP:V concerns override stylistic issues". There are way too many situations where a complex situation about a controversial figure has to be briefly summarized in the lead, and forcing blunt solutions by fiat is just a wrong and prescriptive approach. We do not want formulations like he was accused of sexual misconduct on several occasions[1][2][3][4][5], but denied accusations[6][7][8][9][10] ascribing them to smear campaign by his opponents.[11][12] Thanks but no thanks; proper summarizing works just fine by the existing means of consensus and dispute resoluton. No such user (talk) 19:19, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No. Direct quotes in the lead need to be sourced, but beyond that, footnoting in the lead tends to obscure the more important question of whether the lead is a proper summary of footnoted body content. Adding footnotes won't change the controversial nature of the lead content, which will still tend to raise debate over whether or not it is lead-worthy. —David Eppstein (talk) 20:36, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No Contested content in a BLP should be removed, actually, until sourced. If it's sourced in the body and not contested no need to source in the lead. Littleolive oil (talk) 21:31, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No per David Eppstein. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:39, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No (Summoned by bot) – quotations yes, but otherwise, no need for this. Is it acceptable to footnote something in the lead? Sure, if there's a particular reason for it; the guideline already covers that case. Should we require it? No; if it's supported, it's fine; if it isn't, out it goes. No need to change anything here, we're already where we want to be. Mathglot (talk) 00:49, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No, because "required" is a step too far and "contested" is itself, well, contestable. How many people have to be upset with a sentence for it to qualify? (There's always somebody...) On occasion, citations in a lede can help short-circuit arguments or make it obvious that some drive-by edits can be instantly reverted. That can end up being wishful thinking, however; I've seen enough pages where copious sourcing was just ignored because somebody was unhappy with our "political bias". I think a good style manual should have practical advice on when footnotes come in handy, rather than a blanket prescription one way or the other. XOR'easter (talk) 00:52, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No: it should only be required if the contested statement is not already in the body. If it is in the body and unreferenced, then it can be tagged at that location. If it is not in the body (of a lengthy article), then it should probably be moved there instead. Perhaps we need a 'not in body' warning tag? Praemonitus (talk) 15:23, 9 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. WP:LEADCITE does not need a separate BLP mention though, because *every* article and anywhere in it must meet the higher policy of WP:V. LEADCITE should not be readable as allowing local consensus to choose skipping V. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 07:38, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. If we have a policy on controversial statements requiring citation always, then editors have to determine what counts as controversial on a stateent-by-statement basis anyway. This proposal therefore won't lead to additional decisions, but it will have the benefit of making clearer which important statements have emerged as controversial (because they are cited in the lead). And BLP WP:V concerns have strong weight. Stylistically, no fact really needs more than two or three good references so it shouldn't matter too much. Re: WP:CREEP, this doesn't introduce any additional regulation – it just clarifies which of two existing guidelines takes precedence. Charlie A. (talk) 11:19, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes, per Aquillion 2ple (talk) 19:22, 10 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No I believe the lead should concentrate on summarizing the body and any citations hould be in the body. Putting citations into the lead tends to make the lead develop separately forom the body - the body should always have anything put in it first. There's always exceptions of course where one might really want a citation in the lead, because it tends to be challenged a lot but I would not have it as a requirement - only as something the editors do to have a quiet life in the circumstances. I believe the argument put forward by Aquillion is wrong and its effects are counterproductive doing the opposite of what they intend and separating the lead and the body. NadVolum (talk) 14:13, 11 May 2022 (UTC)
  • No Controversial statements on BLPs should be properly vetted and sourced using highly reliable sources in the body of the article. When there is a lack of consensus, leave it out of the lead paragraph(s) all together. A summary of the key points in the lead from the article should be sufficient. After all, if one was going to use a citation in the lead, it should be a citation that already exists in the body, which sums up my point that it's not needed. Some of everything (talk) 16:29, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. Given that lead drift (mentioned above) happens in all but the most aggressively-maintained articles, any potentially controversial statements in the lead should be cited separately to ensure that they do not become unmoored from their supports. Reasonable people might disagree over whether that principle should apply to every article, but the heightened importance of avoiding any unsupported (or seemingly unsupported) controversial statements in BLP particles makes it non-negotiable in that context. -- Visviva (talk) 00:39, 23 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes. It's generally a good idea to include citations for controversial claims in the lead, so that readers can verify the claim without having to wade through the entire article to figure out which part is supposed to support the claim (and sometimes finding that no part of the article supports the claim, due to the drift mentioned above). This is especially important in a BLP, for the same reasons that the rest of our verifiability policies are enforced especially rigorously for BLPs. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:18, 29 May 2022 (UTC)
  • Sometimes. Apologies for what appears to be a middle-of-the-road answer but I don't think the question is binary in nature. I basically agree with Praemonitus comments above which IMO are spot-on. If a contested bit of information is not referenced later in the article, then it must be cited in the lead. If it is mentioned later in the article, no reference in the lead . --- VeritasS (talk) 21:39, 3 June 2022 (UTC)
  • No -- having worked on a highly controversial BLP, which got through its WP:TFA just fine, without a single citation in the lead. While I agree there is sometimes a middle-of-the-road solution, we shouldn't be constraining practice in a guideline. All guidelines are just guidelines; middle-of-the-road is always an option, but shouldn't be requiring one way or the other, rather deferring to editor consensus. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:23, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

Discussion (citations in the lead for contested statements about BLPs?)

  • Apologies for opening this while the RFC above is still in progress, but I feel (per my statement there) that the proposed changes in that RFC so completely fail to address the underlying problem that it's necessary to have an RFC asking it more directly, especially since this is both a flat contradiction in the current MOS and something that touches on the key policies of WP:BLP and WP:V, meaning it requires a clear resolution; and since the other RFC doesn't even ask this question (nor, by my reading, anything that reasonably could be construed as resolving it) I don't think there's any contradiction in terms of opening this one. --Aquillion (talk) 04:43, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
    Also, I should add: The linked discussion contains some proposed text, but I specifically left off any text proposals here because the meaning of the current wording is so clearly contested (and the discussion above seems to contest what even small text changes would mean) that I feel we need to take a step back and establish the intent before we settle on a specific wording. I don't think it would be difficult to come up with a wording that supports one version or the other once we have that aspect settled. --Aquillion (talk) 04:58, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
    @Aquillion:, never copy the |rfcid= from another RfC, as you did here. Always let Legobot (talk · contribs) assign its own - the rfcid is used as a key to a table of all RfCs, both ongoing and current, so must be unique; and it's also used as a link anchor, so following the link in this RfC listing will jump to the other RfC, not to this one.
    Also: this RfC and the previous one do overlap significantly, which is against WP:RFC#Multiple simultaneous RfCs on one page. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:21, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
    The way I'm understanding the question is that we're to decide whether (a) contentious matter about living people that (b) appears in both the lead and elsewhere the article should:
    • be cited in either the lead or the article body, vs
    • be cited in both the lead and the article body.
    Right? Or if this proposal is adopted, would it be enough to cite it in the lead, and then omit citations from the body of the article? WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:03, 12 May 2022 (UTC)
  • If a lead is uncited and there is a need to cite a particular contested statement, how is this to be done when the statement is not the first in a paragraph? Must we cite every statement in the paragraph? Thincat (talk) 12:43, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Copyedit proposal lead length

Currently the guidance for length states, "As a general guideline—but not absolute rule—the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs." I propose cutting some words, because the whole lead guidance and the Manual of Style are guidelines, therefore it may be redundant stating again "as a general guideline, not an absolute rule" while subsequently the text also states "usually". I can see the intention is emphasis, but in my opinion there is too much emphasis and redundancy in the mentioned text. I propose as a copyedit leaving from the sentence just "the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs". Thinker78 (talk) 17:53, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

  • Support. The words "should" and "usually" provide enough qualifiers; we don't need the others. CUA 27 (talk) 20:36, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Support. The words "should" and "usually" provide weasel words qualifiers. I consider the guideline too restrictive; many leads benefit for more paragraphs. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:05, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Support for reasons given. It would be cleaner to limit it to a word count. Most FA leads appear to be under 400 words. For example, "...the lead should usually be no longer than 400 words, or about four paragraphs. Praemonitus (talk) 13:09, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose. While I agree with the logic about redundancy presented in this proposal, how to use a guideline correctly is often ignored in practice, and we unfortunately may need the extra words. I'll (shortly) present one example (that I see frequently) of misapplication of this guideline in the discussion above, at #Seeking consensus for table modification. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:39, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Just guessing here... the extra bit of verbiage probably does nothing to keep drama at bay, and more likely increases it, by providing extra words for wikilawyers to argue about. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:56, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Not that I've seen; please see my example in the section above from experienced writers and reviewers. Had I seen that FAC, I would have emphasized the words that we are now discussing removing. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:09, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Change to word count per Praemnonitus (this thread, above) and WhatAmIDoing (prior thread of today's date) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:56, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose People take guidelines as gospel too often. Saying in multiple ways that the rules aren't absolute is a helpful thing. XOR'easter (talk) 02:54, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose per opposers. Even as it is, far too many editors ignore all qualification & treat this as a hard and fast rule. The new text would only make this worse. Johnbod (talk) 15:16, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
    • I'll just note that a size limit does have the significant benefit of pushing for a better focus on the key points of the article. If your words are limited, then they need to go straight to the point. Praemonitus (talk) 20:01, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose because sometimes you really do have to pound on the optional nature of some suggestions to make editors notice it. Even then, you'll get someone "accidentally" leaving out as much of the attenuating language as they can. If you want to reduce the number of words, then consider "The lead should–as a general guideline, but not absolute rule—usually be four or fewer paragraphs." That cuts one word and makes it more difficult to skip. Alternatively, consider "The lead is usually four or fewer paragraphs, but there is no absolute maximum." I believe that will cut four words/24 characters. Of course, depending on the outcome of the discussion above, the whole sentence might get cut. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:52, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Support, per nominator. The extra words are redundant in the context of MOS. Possible alternative/compromise is to delete the parenthetical "but not absolute rule", ie the sentence becomes "As a general guideline, the lead should usually be no longer than four paragraphs." Mitch Ames (talk) 03:08, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
  • SandyGeorgia, XOR'easter, Johnbod, WhatamIdoing, I understand your concerns that editors (including me) tend to take guidelines as a fast rule. But my question, is, why singling out this particular small part of the overall lead guideline to use extra words? Following your train of thought, wouldn't then all sections of the lead guideline and all guidelines would have such extra words? Is that what you aim to? Or you want only this particular section dealing with the length of the lead have the extra words, and if so, what's the rationale to singling this section out? Thinker78 (talk) 18:23, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
    Because this particular part is so pervasively ignored (see my example in the section above). Lots of guidelines are misapplied, but this has a serious detrimental effect on the part of articles most read. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:49, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
    (edit conflict)
    Usually, when a particular bit feels "singled out" for an unusual level of clarification, it's because that particular bit is the one editors misunderstand or mis-apply the most. We used to have frequent problems with editors thinking that Wikipedia:External links was the same as Wikipedia:Citing sources. About a dozen years ago, every time WT:EL got another question about URLs in citations, I added yet another "This guideline does not apply to inline citations" line or another footnote about WP:EL not declaring certain websites off-limits for reliable sources. It looks like it took six copies of that footnote and a couple of rounds of bold-face type before we achieved the goal, but we got there. I don't think we even get one of those questions a year now. Based on that experience (and several others like it), I assume that the same thing happened here. We said here's what "usually" happens, and everyone tried to apply it as a hard-and-fast rule. So we added "This is a general guideline", and some people figured it out, but some thought "Oh, guidelines are the same as rules, and 'should' means 'must', right?" So we added "No, really, it's not an absolute rule", and that mostly settled things. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:49, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Yes, what they've said (and several people had already said). Johnbod (talk) 21:00, 3 July 2022 (UTC)
Ok, that makes sense. Thinker78 (talk) 20:55, 5 July 2022 (UTC)
  • Oppose I think in this case the clarity is worth the extra words. In my experience there are people who would read the proposed shorter sentence as a mandate to slash and burn until every Lead on the project was no longer than four paragraphs. ~Awilley (talk) 00:09, 4 July 2022 (UTC)

Rewording

Ok, if the extra words that seem repetitive are there to provide emphasis, is there another way to highlight said purpose, without repeating what in general applies to all guidelines? Or you prefer to stay as it is for the time being and if so why (per consensus?) Thinker78 (talk) 21:09, 5 July 2022 (UTC)

Short description before hatnote?

Why is the SD template supposed to go above the (disambiguation) hatnotes (WP:SDPLACE)? I did a search of the history of this talk page, but I can't seem to find the rationale. It doesn't seem logical to me that the short description of the content to go above the part that clarifies other content. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:21, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

Spelunking in article history brought up this, i.e. Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout/Archive 13#Where to put {{short description}} (broken section link because a transclusion happens otherwise, d'oh, I suppose it has to be escaped somehow). --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:29, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

To use the prasing from WP:SHORTDESC, it applies ot the 'scope of the page', yet hatnotes are about what is outside the current scope of the page, which makes reading lead section sources with both shortdescs and hatnotes counterintuitive to me. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 21:39, 9 July 2022 (UTC)

There was a discussion of this at Wikipedia talk:Short description/Archive 5#SD Placement. A rationale offered by User:RexxS was

Anyone who looks at an article containing a hatnote using the Wikipedia App will see the short description rendered before any other content, and well before any hatnotes. It's obvious that a reader who spots a typo or other error in a short description and tries to correct it will expect to find the short description before any other text on the edit page. These are the folks we want to convert to editors and it's crazy to confuse them by trying to prescribe having items in the wikitext in a different order from the order in which many readers will see them. What is the argument for putting hatnotes in the wikitext above short descriptions? Whatever it is, it surely pales into insignificance when judged against the common sense of having items editable in the same order as they are viewed.

Donald Albury 21:55, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
Do we have any statistics to support this, for example, how many editors are using this app, and how many are using other tools? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 22:30, 9 July 2022 (UTC)
Since the location was decided years ago, and we have added short descriptions to over 4.5 million articles, I think it is pointless to be discussing this. MB 00:15, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
We've previously made major data migrations such as Persondata to Wikidata, why would this be pointless? Esp. because it seemed to be decided rather organically and under clear protest by other people a couple of years back, too. --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:29, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
Because the amount of effort and number of edits/watchlist clutter would not be justified by the benefit, which has not been stated. Your only reason is "it doesn't seem logical to me". MB 15:39, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
Is this considered meta-information? It seems appropriate to consistently group meta-information before the article content. Hence, GA/FA status, protected status, M/D/Y format, spelling format, hatnotes, and short descriptions should be grouped at the top. If there's an order to those templates, then probably non-rendered should go before rendered. Praemonitus (talk) 01:21, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
Seems reasonable, but how do we define SDs as "non-rendered" if the main argument for them being at the top is that they are indeed rendered inside this aforementioned app? --Joy [shallot] (talk) 15:29, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

In a long lead, is it good practice for the first, short para to be a summary of the rest?

I've done this in articles with long leads, so that the main points are presented up front where the drive-by reader will see them. Sometimes a lead may only have 3-4 paragraphs, but they're rather long and technical, and could lose the casual reader. However, I don't see anything in the MOS that states this explicitly; I've inferred it from best practice in writing a section of an article. Should we say something explicit, or is the need for a summary para in the lead an indication that the lead as a whole needs to be reduced?

The article that made me think to look here was fetal heartbeat bill. Most news sources have decided to avoid that phrase because it's intentionally inaccurate. That IMO is a basic piece of info that belongs in the first paragraph, to explain why there are competing terms. Another editor argued that we're not allowed to duplicate information in the lead, and so they merged the entire medical para, which had been at the bottom of the lead, into the introductory paragraph. That, IMO, makes the intro rather opaque and the article less accessible.

Do we need to avoid repeating info in the lead, or can it be good practice to create an intro paragraph that presents key points of the lead, which in turn presents in more detail the key points of the article? — kwami (talk) 19:08, 10 July 2022 (UTC)

It will depend on the article, but I think in the case of large articles about complex subjects, a one paragraph summary of the lead would be appropriate. - Donald Albury 20:26, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
Without addressing the OP's example article, from the perspective of mobile readers, this practice may by more beneficial than is immediately obvious. Infoboxes are not collapsed on mobile, and are presented between the first paragraph of the lead and the remainder. On my device, our article on the Tao Te Ching inserts six full scrolls of infobox information immediately following the opening paragraph (including the lead image; five and a half screens of infobox excluding the image). The lead is not particularly long, so the idea of the opening paragraph serving as a very high level summary benefits the readability of a larger set of articles on mobile. Folly Mox (talk) 21:11, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
I hadn't thought of that, but I think it's something we should be aware of as editors and IMO should be mentioned explicitly in the MOS. — kwami (talk) 05:23, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
No. Our guideline is stated in WP:NOTLEDE: Wikipedia leads are not written in news style. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:17, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
That's not the issue here. We're not talking about reducing the lead to news-style length and content, but rather how to the structure the lead. I'm also not advocating that irritating practice in some scientific writing of preceding the introduction with an abstract that is then repeated verbatim in the introduction. I agree that would be horrible practice for WP. I'm thinking instead of succinctly mentioning the key points at top, then expanding on them in the rest of the lead. That's not news style, it's just good writing. — kwami (talk) 05:14, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
I recently saw this edit by Herostratus (talk · contribs) which is relevant. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 22:39, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
Yes, that's the kind of thing I mean. In that case it follows LEADSENTENCE, but goes further by making it a separate paragraph. In the article I came here from, the first paragraph would be more than just the lead sentence. — kwami (talk) 05:18, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
The guideline already has advice regarding this. Check MOS:LEADSENTENCE and MOS:OPEN. Thinker78 (talk) 14:59, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Neither addresses this issue. The reason for the edit I came here for was the idea that we're not allowed to repeat information in the lead. That doesn't seem to be addressed one way or the other. — kwami (talk) 05:02, 12 July 2022 (UTC)
I don't believe that my position on the changes I made or the article are being correctly explained here. The article is not particularly long, nor is the lead. The information may be considered somewhat complicated but not like what we might consider complicated for encyclopedia information, dark matter for example. But unlike dark matter, the confusion regarding a fetal heartbeat is easily explained in the body of the article and the information that is now contained in the lead is a better summary than saying, "...claim that a 'fetal heartbeat' can be detected though at this point there is no fetus, no heart, and no heartbeat" and then waiting till the final para to explain what that might mean. I consider this more like journalistic catchy opening copy and not encyclopedic writing. As for my position being that we are not "allowed" to duplicate copy in the lead, this editor is using my quickly written edit note and ignoring my talk page note where I did not even mention what we are "allowed" to do. Sectionworker (talk) 04:27, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
I wasn't aware that you'd changed your mind. Anyway, the question here is not what we should do in any particular article, but whether an opening summary may sometimes be a good approach to the lead.
(Even if the MOS is changed, I'm not going to say, 'See! MOS agrees with me! You have to accept my edit!' I started this thread in response to your initial statement that my edit was 'not allowed', and a positive response would've been necessary but not sufficient to argue for it -- as you've noted, there's more involved than whether 'it's allowed'. But the question goes beyond the details of that article. It's a general policy question.)
I've crafted lots of leads this way, with the vague feeling that I was supported by the MOS. I was surprised to find that I couldn't find any obvious MOS support for what I've been doing. — kwami (talk) 06:04, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Please let's not drag this out into a long argument that the other editors must put up with. I never said the information was "not allowed" per any sort of Wikipedia rule as you keep quoting me. I said the information must not be be used twice in the lead of that particular article. If you must go on with this do it on the article talk page or my talk page. Sectionworker (talk) 06:34, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Um, then don't bring that up here? You're arguing over the difference between "not allowed" and "must not"? I shouldn't have used quotation marks just now -- my bad -- but this is a quibble over nothing. — kwami (talk) 07:53, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
I disagree with Sectionworker in that we shouldn't continue this conversation here if it applies to all articles and not just one. Also, this is not about dragging or not dragging, because discussions are about seeking a proper informed consensus. I have actually encountered a few times editors who for one reason or another are very eager to close discussions instead of properly seek consensus. I don't understand why Sectionworker would try to end the discussion when it's not even a week old. So I encourage to continue the discussion here if it's about the lead and also pertains to articles in general and not just to one page. Besides, I am also interested in further clarification of this thread.--Thinker78 (talk) 15:28, 13 July 2022 (UTC
I would like to continue the discussion as well as long as it sticks to WP guidelines and thoughts on mentioning information twice in the lead and not whether I said it's not "allowed" per MOS. Sectionworker (talk) 18:41, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
— kwami, you wrote, “Sometimes a lead may only have 3-4 paragraphs, but they're rather long and technical, and could lose the casual reader. However, I don't see anything in the MOS that states this explicitly”. I disagree with you, the MOS actually states this explicity in MOS:INTRO, ”Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and overly specific descriptions – greater detail is saved for the body of the article […] avoid difficult-to-understand terminology and symbols […] Where uncommon terms are essential, they should be placed in context, linked and briefly defined. The subject should be placed in a context familiar to a normal reader.“ Thinker78 (talk) 15:47, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
Yes, that supports the 2nd option I presented: "the need for a summary para in the lead [may be] an indication that the lead as a whole needs to be reduced." But it doesn't address the question here, which is "is it good practice for the first, short para to be a summary of the rest?" A couple editors here have presented situations where that may be good practice even in a lead that properly follows INTRO.
I think perhaps the MOS should mention "the idea of the opening paragraph serving as a very high level summary", as user:Folly Mox put it, but also warn that the need for such a summary may be an indication that the lead is overly lengthy or specific and should be rewritten per INTRO. Otherwise I could see the presence of an intro paragraph resulting in a lack of restraint in the rest of the lead. — kwami (talk) 20:15, 13 July 2022 (UTC)
— kwami I am focusing in the other thread for the time being so I may not respond to this thread for a while.Thinker78 (talk) 15:36, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
— kwami, I have analyzed your question deeply and for a few hours. Here is my opinion.
1.Do we need to avoid repeating info in the lead? MOS:LEADCITE, "the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body [of the article]".
2.Do we need to avoid repeating info in the first paragraph of the lead that is in the rest of the lead? Not necessarily. MOS:CONTEXTLINK states, "Exactly what provides the context needed to understand a given topic varies greatly from topic to topic." We can similarly say, "Exactly what should or should not be repeated in the first paragraph may vary greatly from topic to topic or from page to page."
MOS:LEAD states, "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents. It is not a news-style lead or "lede" paragraph. The average Wikipedia visit is a few minutes long. The lead is the first thing most people will read upon arriving at an article, and may be the only portion of the article that they read." It is my experience as a reader of Wikipedia that mostly I only read the first paragraph, and even only the first sentence, when I am trying to find out what is something or who is someone. Having this in mind, I think that the idea of a lead of the lead of an article is good, specifically when the lead is long.
Following the spirit of MOS:LEAD, the first paragraph could serve as an introduction to long leads and a summary of their most important contents, even repeating information that is in the rest of the lead if necessary. All these respecting MOS:FIRST, MOS:BEGIN, and MOS:LEADREL—among other relevant guidelines—within the frame of Wikipedia:Consensus, which may mean that in the end such format may or may not be accepted in some articles. Thinker78 (talk) 00:27, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

A discussion of interest

There is currently a discussion over at WP:SHIPS over how the project handles some disambiguators and whether the project’s practice should be brought in line with the guidance at MOS:FIRST or it should be an exception. Comments are invited here. Thanks. Parsecboy (talk) 10:24, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

FYI pinpoint cite to the discussion appears to be Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Ships#Broader_issue NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 11:18, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Seeking consensus for table modification

I worked on the table that appears on MOS:LEADLENGTH, expanding it to provide editors more information based on their diverse needs. To some, article length in characters would suffice, but others like me would like more units of measurement. Therefore I present the modifications I made to seek consensus and maybe replacing the current table already in the guideline. I didn't modify the original units, I only did some copyediting and added the other units of measurement columns.

Article length in characters Article length in words[a] Article length in kb[b] Lead length, in paragraphs
Fewer than 15,000 Fewer than 2,500 Fewer than 15 One or two
15,000–30,000 2,500–5,000 15–30 Two or three
More than 30,000 More than 5,000 More than 30 Three or four

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Thinker78 (talk • contribs) 20:30, 19 June 2022 (UTC)

Notes

  1. ^ Estimate based on Prosesize numbers
  2. ^ Per WP:SIZERULE
  • Since WP:SIZERULE is about readable prose, the article length in kilobytes column is redundant on the English Wikipedia; the two would only differ significantly in a multi-byte character set like Chinese. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 21:49, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
  • Change headings Any column listing KB should be relabeld to make it clear the KB size is "readable prose", and text in this section should explain what SIZERULE means by "readable prose". Under that rule, word count is irrelevant, so column two should be deleted. I tentatively like the proposal to provide some guidance on lead size in relation to overall readable prose size, but that is a rather big idea that should be well-vetted, so It took me awhile to get my brain around this since MOS:LEADLENGTH talks characters and WP:SIZERULE talks kilobytes and the WP:PROSESIZE tool reports kilobytes and words but not characters. I support deleting the character column that is now live at MOS:LEADLENGTH and replacing it with readable prose KB count (and leaving word count out altogether) so that it matches up perfectly with WP:SIZERULE and the existing report generated by the WP:PROSESIZE tool. FYI, I left a note about this useful effort (thanks) at the Vpump here . (Original comment revised) NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:12, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
PS, if you can win consensus to add character or word counts at SIZERULE first, then I would support keeping (or adding) such columns here too. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:22, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
The change that I'd like to see is more emphasis on the "optional suggestion" aspect, and alternatives to measuring the lead's size in paragraphs. Why should three short paragraphs be "worse" than two unusually long ones? Maybe we should say 2500 words in the article = 100–500 words in the lead.
I do not support the "Article length in kb", because (a) it will be misunderstood as being the file size as shown on the history page, no matter what you say and (b) it is basically redundant to the first column, except penalizing articles that contain more non-English content. WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:32, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
I suppose that makes sense; this will be relevant to loads of new editors, whereas WP:SIZEPLIT (the source of the SIZERULE table) will more often be a matter for experienced editors. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:44, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
I agree that words would be a better measure than either KB or characters (both should be dropped), and also agree that expressing lead size in words would help address the sub-optimal paragraphing often seen. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:02, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
Hawkeye7, you wrote, "the two would only differ significantly in a multi-byte character set like Chinese". I didn't get your point. What two things would differ? Thinker78 (talk) 15:23, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
The number of bytes and the number of characters. Wikipedia pages are rendered in UTF-8. In this character set, everyday Latin upper- and lower-case characters require a single byte, but other character sets are rendered using up to four bytes per character. See also WP:UTF-8 for examples. Characters or words (which the readers can see and count) is the appropriate measurement here rather than bytes, which would require a technical explanation and can only be counted by software. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:08, 11 July 2022 (UTC)

I present an example for consideration in several proposals on this page.

In general, I always support emphasizing words of readable prose over KB, along with clarification about how readable prose size is measured. But this table has led to misapplication of the overarching principles of WP:LEAD-- "The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies." If a (relatively) short but comprehensive article does that best in a four-paragraph lead, we should not constrain the lead simply because an article is relatively short.

See:

FAC reviewers a) missed the error, b) minimized the key points of WP:LEAD, and c) focused instead on the relatively less important guidance about length.[1][2] Rather than defending the superior lead, the nominator reduced the lead to an inferior one, simply because the article had only a couple thousand words of readable prose.

If a relatively short article is comprehensive, we should not be reducing a lead which otherwise meets the more important aspects of WP:LEAD simply based on (over application of) a length guideline. This article's lead was damaged at FAC, and I've seen that more than once.

While we often emphasize that a guideline is just a guideline, to be taken with a grain of salt, they are often applied to excess. Can the wording here be adjusted to account for this problem? I am not an effective wordsmith, so don't try myself, but this is a recurring problem at FAC. In fact, the two reviewers who requested a lead reduction (Ergo Sum and The Rambling Man) had likely been subjected to same on other articles, as they tend to write shorter articles. @Ovinus: per separate discussion about reviews at FAC of leads on my talk that I haven't yet found time to reply to ... this, and lack of adequate scrutiny of leads at FAC (leading to the error on this FAC), is a problem. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:06, 30 June 2022 (UTC)

In my limited experience the four-paragraph rule is a nice one to follow and suggests a reasonable amount of, hm, "consistency of concision" across articles. Character count and even word count are only crude instruments of determining quality and appropriateness, and I agree with Sandy that, in that instance, a longer lead was totally fine. But frankly I haven't seen enough short FACs (I tend to not review those) to know how indiscriminately or poorly this guideline has been applied. I know that I think a four-paragraph lead for The Bigg Chill, for example, a short but enjoyable article that I reviewed for GAN, would be inappropriate. I will think about it. Ovinus (talk) 19:35, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
For example, the Featured Article Hanford Site 622 words has eight paragraphs. Whereas the Featured Article Cleopatra meets the requirement by packing 1,020 words in just four. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:27, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
I should add that, had the nominator challenged this over-application of a guideline, the @TFA coordinators may have respected that challenge. But nominators don't always realize that ... and sometimes feel they most go along or see their FAC be unsuccessful. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:32, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
"as they tend to write shorter articles". Nope. And unnecessarily speculative. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 21:13, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Sorry ... it was my impression that you had written a lot of shorter articles (eg your latest FA, The Boat Race 2021), although I did not mean that to imply you hadn't written longer ones as well. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:32, 30 June 2022 (UTC)
Which is longer than L. D. Reynolds?? This is a strange point to try to make, and in no way useful. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 06:19, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
The Boat Race 2021 is not longer in readable prose than L. D. Reynolds, but that's a tangent here (for practical purposes, they're both short articles according to this proposed table). Perhaps this is a better example for the purposes of this discussion: 1964 European Nations' Cup Final is a short article, with an appropriate three-paragraph lead. The proposed length table is an improvement in that it introduces words as measured by the prosesize scripts (rather than characters), but as a guideline, my L. D. Reynolds example is one where length was used to constrain an appropriate lead ... which did not happen at the Cup Final article. My point is that a short, comprehensive article can still have a four-paragraph lead, and we shouldn't cut the length of good leads to meet a suggested guideline. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:19, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
The tangent was the initial assertion that I'd suggested compliance with a MOS guideline because I write shorter articles which is simply not true. In any sense. Why you felt the need to make a personal judgement on my own opinion here is beside me, I've been working very hard to avoid such interactions after the way specifically you have made me feel, yet you suddenly feel the need to drag me into this? Just weird, and completely unnecessary. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 15:10, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
A simple, "No that is not the case in my experience" would have sufficed. I'll take greater care in not soliciting your feedback in the future. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:32, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
There was no attempt to solicit feedback, simply an attempt to call out something you personally made incorrect assumptions and assertions about, name-checking someone who has made it clear they wished to have no interaction with you in any way, shape or form, having reduced my activity in certain areas of Wikipedia specifically because of you. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 16:43, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
User talk would be more appropriate place to explore our differences in AGF. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:00, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
It would have been more appropriate for you to not cast aspersions on my motivations on this talk page, especially full in the knowledge that your behaviour toward me drove me away from certain parts of the project. You already know all that. Don't turn this round on me. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 18:23, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
  • I don't like the existence of this table at all. The point of the lede is to summarize the article that follows; the point of grouping sentences into paragraphs is to organize them by their logical and conceptual relationships. Maybe a shorter article hits five separate main ideas, or maybe the flow of a longer one can be expressed in only a couple grafs. We need to stop thinking about "quantitative" metrics that provide nothing more than the illusion of objectivity and opportunities for drive-by nit-pickers to waste the time of the people building articles. The goal is clear writing, not numerical gamesmanship. XOR'easter (talk) 03:02, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
    Agreed. One big problem with the existing table is that it uses character counts, rather than readable prose size, so I support the addition of readable prose if the table is kept. But the bigger problem may begin with the introductory wording: The appropriate length of the lead section depends on the total length of the article. Maybe, sometimes. But I believe the L. D. Reynolds FA example above presents a counterexample, and I suggest a comprehensive short article may warrant a longer lead than this table suggests, based on the more important principles of a good lead. I don't know how to fix the wording to reflect this, but just dropping the table still leaves us with the same problem, because it's also in the wording. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:27, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

Alternate idea: thinking aloud, more work needed.

I am in agreement with the gist of what both XOR'easter and WhatamIdoing present above, and yet some sort of semi-numerical guidance (tempered with all the disclaimers) is needed to address those situations (like Hanford Site) where apparently novice editors are chunking new text into the lead rather than the body. This is often a problem in underdeveloped leads (and Hanford Site is only listed as an FA because no one has sent it to WP:FAR yet-- it appears abandoned and outdated).

What comes to mind is to do something like what is done at WP:ELNO:

Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article. In other words, the site should not merely repeat information that is already or should be in the article.

That is, WP:ELNO qualifies the statement to what the article should become when fully developed. This makes sense to me as a medical editor because it would be OK to have a fully developed lead that covers everything at WP:MEDORDER, even if that content isn't yet fully developed in the body; that is, the lead could be well written yet disproportionate length-wise to what is in the (as yet underdeveloped) body. The lead in a fully developed, comprehensive article should not be artificially constrained but on the other hand, neither should it be allowed to sprawl like Hanford Site. An underdeveloped article might have a correctly written longer lead when measured proportionally, as may a relatively short article.

What if we dropped the table and the para suggestions, and suggested (loose) percentage ranges of overall measurable prosesize in the lead instead? I've looked at the dense medical FAs I write, and others like J. K. Rowling, as well as several other FAs mentioned on this page, and although we might get a bot to look at a bigger sample of FAs, we might suggest instead that fully developed long FAs tend to have leads that are in the range of 5% of overall word count measured by readable prose, while shorter or underdeveloped articles are around 11% of their prosesize in the lead, with medium-sized articles somewhere in between. I realize this leaves us with just another artificial numerical measure, which XOR objects to, but it wouldn't artificially constrain paragraphs, and it could provide (if we had more data) broader ranges to play with, while accounting for the article's development via its assessment.

Samples:

Longer FAs

Shorter FAs

Medium-size listed as FA, but not at standard

  • Hanford Site, 624/4970, 12.5% of total readable prose in the lead (again, perhaps 10% is a better target)

GA sample presented by Ovinus

Just an idea to experiment with ... more data on a larger sample of FAs would be needed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:50, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

If we are to present suggested percentage ranges, then this sounds like a good way to develop them — survey the FAs, remove the stale ones from the sample, and use those figures to get a sense of what a satisfactory balance might be. I'm not yet convinced that semi-numerical guidance of this sort is necessary or sufficient to handle novice editors are chunking new text into the lead rather than the body. Novice editors do that just because the lead is what they see first. The choice to excise those chunks or migrate them into the body (if they aren't redundant there) can be made with a conceptual judgment call without running "readable prose size" numbers. (Typical edit summary: "way too detailed for the intro, which is meant to be a concise overview" or "these details already present in the appropriate section below".) XOR'easter (talk) 16:05, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
A nice person who knows how might run the data, but I'm not sure anyone has implemented a readable prose size script since Dr pda used to present the charts on longest and shortest articles at Wikipedia talk:Featured article statistics. And we'd have to throw out the outliers: eg, Douglas MacArthur should not be where it is, and reducing the wordiness at Bob Dylan has been on my ToDo list forever. I'd also like to come up with an example of an underdeveloped medical article (body) that nonetheless has a correct lead summary that hits all the main points; that is, lead disproportionate to the body and yet a correctly written lead for where it should be if at featured comprehensiveness. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:24, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
I've found the medical example I'm seeking: arthritis. The article is under-developed (listiness), so readable prose size comes in at only 2733 words. And yet the lead is fairly well developed, at 253 words. So the proportion is 253/2733, which at 9.25% would seem to be, if we only employed numerical measures too high. Yet it is almost where it should be/would be if we consider, as in WP:ELNO, "what the article would contain if it became a featured article". A featured medical article typically needs at least 400 words in the lead to summarize all the elements at WP:MEDORDER, which make (most) medical articles comprehensive. So arthritis is an example where we would not make the claim that the lead is too long based on the size of the readable prose in the body. What I'm after is some way of coming up with wording something like the wording at ELNO to avoid arbitrarily cutting leads based on a numerical measure, and look instead at where the article would be/should be if better developed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:58, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
I can see some advantages to percentage-based rule, but it will not work on very brief/incomplete articles. One might say "5 to 15%, depending upon how complete the article is", but even this will be too low a percentage for some articles. Try that calculation on List of Leeteuk performances: the readable prose size is basically equivalent to the lead. But if you raise the percentage to accommodate Start- and List-class articles, you'll end up providing basically no useful guidance to FAs.
I think we should instead be suggesting word counts, as that will depend less upon the amount of existing text and more on what it takes to summarize a subject well. The suggestions could be very broad, e.g., 100–300 words for shorter articles/simpler subjects, 200–600 for longer articles/complex subjects. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
I agree that a word count would work, although we may need more data to develop this. Just from experience, for example, I know a medical condition requires 300 to 450 words for an adequate summary of the items that should be included in an optimal, comprehensive lead, using the suggested items at WP:MEDORDER. This paragraph restriction is resulting in poor leads, with info shoved arbitrarily into a certain number of paras, and word counts may be a better way to go. We need data. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:45, 1 July 2022 (UTC)
The word counts for WPMED-tagged FAs are listed at User:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox#WPMED FAs. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:50, 2 July 2022 (UTC)
Perfect! I can make a statistical analysis with that data. Thinker78 (talk) 16:20, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
I think List of Leeteuk performances may not really follow the intention of MOS:LEAD. Possibly some content should be moved from the lead to the body of the article, because the lead is basically acting like the main content of the article, which practically only has tables. Therefore it may not be a practical example of the point you were making. Thinker78 (talk) 16:17, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
Having the "body" be entirely a list is typical of Wikipedia:Featured lists. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:11, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
Probably lists then need a special guideline for lead length. Thinker78 (talk) 23:07, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
Or just "the lead for a list can be any length". WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:28, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
Would 400 words be only for featured medical articles or for featured articles in general? Thinker78 (talk) 16:11, 22 July 2022 (UTC)
I think @SandyGeorgia was specifically referring to medical articles. There is some variation by subject. I would not be surprised if the pages in Category:FA-Class Tropical cyclone articles ran a bit shorter than some or if pop culture articles had more variability than others. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:46, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
Generally agree ... a medical lead is a fairly well defined thing in terms of what it needs to cover to be comprehensive. And hurricanes are often shorter. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 02:52, 24 July 2022 (UTC)
  • IMO there should be no formulaic guideline for lead length based on article length. A nuanced and humanistic guideline would say make it no longer, or shorter, than is required to comply with the LEAD guideline. It's the difference between traffic lights on timers, and round about circles. Top down vs. bottom up. -- GreenC 04:19, 3 July 2022 (UTC)

Draft for table modification

I have been working on a proposal for a new lead size guidance taking as basis general writing principles, Wikipedia guidance, and the input of editors who are contributing in the thread. I created a page (Draft:MOS:LEADLENGTH table modification) for community discussion while I work on it to hopefully achieve a consensus proposal that can be accepted for inclusion in the guideline. Everyone is welcome to discuss any issues about it in its talke page. --Thinker78 (talk) 17:37, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

Hawkeye7, NewsAndEventsGuy , WhatamIdoing, SandyGeorgia , Ovinus, The Rambling Man, XOR'easter , Green Thinker78 (talk) 17:37, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
In your mind, what is the #1 most serious short=coming in the current text? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:55, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Whatever is happening at the draft page, I can't decipher which table is being proposed, and it's way too much information to think anyone will read it at the guideline page. And I disagree on the "short paragraph"ing stuff, as it just creates another "rule" people will misunderstand. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:08, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
NewsAndEventsGuy, when I started the thread I just wanted to add extra columns that reflected the information of the original table, but as the thread shows, the #1 most serious shortcoming in the current text apparently is that it doesn't satisfy editors' needs or desires as other guidelines. This is reflected in edition of pages where editors don't care much about the current lead size guideline. Maybe the current LEADLENGTH guidance doesn't reflect a community consensus. Thinker78 (talk) 22:10, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
Re it doesn't satisfy editors' needs or desires as other guidelines Assuming this vague criticism to be true, what is the #1 deficiency in your opinion? Please be specific so I don't have to ask you to articulate the #1 problem you want to fix for a third time? NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 22:34, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
SandyGeorgia, sorry, I fixed it and added explanation of its purpose. Thinker78 (talk) 15:42, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
I'd like to not be pinged on this discussion again. I was originally pinged in bad faith by someone who knew I was doing my best to avoid interactions with, and yet she went on regardless to make false assertions about me and my motivations. I've been working very hard to avoid these kinds of "interactions" yet clearly some users here just want to level up on the drama. Not for me. The Rambling Man (Keep wearing the mask...) 22:28, 15 July 2022 (UTC)
NewsAndEventsGuy play nice or you don't get cookies.--Thinker78 (talk) 15:30, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
I'm in the process of analyzing this thread because editors have different concerns. The #1 problem in my opinion is that the guidance for the size of the lead and the paragraphs may not reflect a community consensus. Thinker78 (talk) 15:34, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
But I am playing nice; I would happily write out your opinion (see WP:Writing for the opponent) but the only thing I know for sure is that you think there is a problem with the existing text. By way of analogy, a custom home builder should never build the house without a blueprint and never draw up a blue print without a clear understanding of the client's needs and goals. By writing up a draft before there is a bulleted list of concisely-stated issues to be "fixed", I think you are doing the process backwards. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 16:37, 16 July 2022 (UTC)
You got it wrong. The reason why I put a page in the draft space is to build a draft blueprint with community input while analyzing and brainstorming. I have seen multiple times editors who don't like the current guideline and their comments stating so and if you read above there is some evidence of that. Unfortunately I haven't had much input or none in the draft talk page, although I will continue analyzing the comments posted in this thread by editors, because I haven't finished doing it. The plan is, after building a final draft blueprint, to present it in this talk page for a final phase seeking community approval before adding it to the guideline. But as I stated previously, the current guideline may or may not reflect community consensus, so I understand that what I am working on may or may not be approved by the community. Thinker78 (talk) 17:20, 17 July 2022 (UTC)
AFC isn't for that sort of material, so I tagged it as misc for deletion, but I'm ok with it being "userfied" and moved to your userspace. NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 18:23, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Update1

I have put some significant work on the lead guidance modification, even though I understand it may not be adopted. It would be great if some editors provide some feedback so far for the draft (extended content needs conciliation yet), but I clarify it is still a work in progress and that I also need to finish analyzing the discussion in this thread. Thinker78 (talk) 21:18, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

I have come up with an option [Draft:MOS:LEADLENGTH table modification#New recommended lead length guideline]. Feedback anyone? WhatamIdoing, SandyGeorgia? --Thinker78 (talk) 22:57, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

@Thinker78, I see a lot of tables and descriptive statistics – an impressive amount of work, and I hope you will move that out of Draft: space at some point, so it can be preserved – but I don't see specific recommendation in that section. That is, it describes what people have done, but a recommendation is about what people should do. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:41, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
@WhatamIdoing thanks for the recognition! I am working out some tables to choose a replacement for the current one in the guideline if the community so decides. You are welcome to give me feedback about it. The one that is ready for review is the Option 1 table. Thinker78 (talk) 15:08, 28 July 2022 (UTC)
In Option 1, I don't think we should encourage five-word leads, or even single-sentence leads. I think the lead should be a minimum of two sentences, which might mean as little as 25 words (but could be ~50 words). I understand that a "snippet" in Google search (the text shown under the link, so you can decide whether you want to click on it) can be a maximum of 320 characters long (including spaces and punctuation), and I think articles should take full advantage of that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:13, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
I like the "Lead words" column, but I wonder if this is the full range. I'd much rather see the range minus outliers, and then rounded off generously. Perhaps then 5–225 would become 50–200 words, 360-520 would become 400–500 words, etc. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:15, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
I took out the outliers per your advice. Thinker78 (talk) 18:33, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
Reason why I wrote a minimum of 5 words is because establishing a minimum is more subjective and difficult to determine in the first paragraph than the maximum. I wasn't sure what to place as minimum in the first paragraph, so I took into account the advise of the professional writer in one of the references and placed 5 words, thinking about the minimum words necessary to give a definition and work from there. Thinker78 (talk) 18:18, 1 August 2022 (UTC)
Looking at "Option 2", I don't think we want to recommend more than 1,000 words for the lead.
As a point of reference, a normal newspaper article is around 300 words, and a classic "feature length" article is 600 article. An adult who reads English very well can read about 300 words per minute (slower for complicated subjects, unfamiliar words, etc.). We should probably keep the recommended lead length closer to one or two minutes. It should not take five minutes to read the introduction. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:24, 2 August 2022 (UTC)

MOS:LEADCLUTTER

Here's a great example of how NOT to write a first sentence, from the Teutonic Order article:

The Order of Brothers of the German House of Saint Mary in Jerusalem (official names: Latin: Ordo domus Sanctae Mariae Theutonicorum Hierosolymitanorum; Italian: L'Ordine dei Fratelli della Casa Tedesca di Santa Maria a Gerusalemme; Spanish: Orden de Hermanos de la Casa Alemana de Santa María en Jerusalén; French: Ordre des Frères de la Maison allemande de Sainte Marie à Jérusalem; German: Orden der Brüder vom Deutschen Haus der Heiligen Maria in Jerusalem; Dutch: Orde van de Broeders van het Duitse Huis van Sint-Maria in Jeruzalem; Polish: Zakon Szpitala Najświętszej Marii Panny Domu Niemieckiego w Jerozolimie), commonly known as the Teutonic Order (German: Deutscher Orden, Deutschherrenorden or Deutschritterorden), is a Catholic religious order founded as a military order c. 1190 in Acre, Kingdom of Jerusalem. CUA 27 (talk) 21:06, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

But it is beautiful!! Thinker78 (talk) 22:10, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Alt. names and transgender/deadnaming

See also: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Biography § Deadname_and_lede/body_agreement

Would it be reasonable in the Alternative Names section for cases of transgender individuals where their deadname was known enough/notable to be included under WP:DEADNAME, that while including the deadname is still fine, but normal bolding from a redirect should be held back except in the most extreme cases? For example, the case I started from is Maddy Thorson, where her deadname is notable but not extensively, so while its still a search term and should be in the lede, doesn't need to be highlighted. The same would likely go for The Wachowskis, where their first names were likely not as household compared to "The Wackowskis", so there's no need to bold their original names. But on the other hand, both the original names for Elliot Page and Caitlyn Jenner are household, well beyond the DEADNAME minimum threshold, and thus bolding their original names make sense.

The idea is that for those where the deadname should be mentioned but which lack the wide-scale recognition, we don't need to be calling out that name by bolding it, just letting it sit as normal in the lede. Masem (t) 03:32, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

I suggest that if the name is significant enough for a redirect, it is significant enough for bolding. If it's not significant enough for bolding, then perhaps there ought not be a redirect. Mitch Ames (talk) 04:54, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

Input needed about first sentence in article

Please comment in the RfC about the first sentence in Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal. Cheers! Thinker78 (talk) 23:57, 14 August 2022 (UTC)

RfC about boldfacing of the scientific names of organisms

I have opened an RfC at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Biology#RfC on boldfacing of scientific names in articles about organisms. The discussion should take place there, not here, in order to keep the discussion centralized. The result may affect MOS:BOLDSYN. —⁠ ⁠BarrelProof (talk) 01:46, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

Rfc about modifying leadcite template

There is a discussion about modifying the text of the leadcite template in Template talk:Leadcite comment. Your input is welcomed. Thinker78 (talk) 17:16, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

What do you do if there is no lead?

Zaloni doesn't have one and there's not really any text already there that I can work with. The source I was using to add to the article doesn't help for general information because it's mostly PR doublespeak. And most of the article isn't much better.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:22, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

It looks like the "Overview" section could largely be repurposed as a lead section. While you're at it you might take a quick look to see if you think it meets WP:NCORP. That's nothing specific about this company, more of a general consideration for corp articles where you're having trouble finding independent sources. --Trovatore (talk) 17:39, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
I just moved the overview section to the lead and I noticed one of the sentences worked as the first sentence.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:24, 26 August 2022 (UTC)

Idealogical descriptors in lead sentence

This discussion on WP:BLPN might be of interest to some people here. Connormah (talk) 15:42, 20 September 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Juan_Sebastián_Elcano#RfC_on_bolding

I invite editors who are more or less fluent in MOS to participate in this discussion on a relatively simple dispute. Thank you, Drmies (talk) 00:10, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Compare the readability of first sentence with Britannica

Hi all. I just want to draw your attention to the Manual of Style readability of the first sentence. Specifically, I want to highlight the article about Mother Teresa in Wikipedia and in Britannica [3]. No idea what the manual of style of this latter source is. But I am thinking something is amiss in their page or to be more objective, it is not of my personal liking. Thinker78 (talk) 17:56, 21 September 2022 (UTC)

Add sentence about wikipedia "Previews"

Wikipedia "Previews" are the text shown in a popup box when hovering over a link to another page. These popups always show the first paragraph of a page. This manual should make clear that the first paragraph has special priority within wikipedia and is the only info seen if one doesn't click through to a page. The void century (talk) 18:57, 22 July 2022 (UTC)

I do agree that the first paragraph is specially important and that this fact should be mentioned in the guideline. Not only due to the hovering popup, but also most readers probably only read the first paragraph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thinker78 (talk • contribs) 20:34, 23 July 2022 (UTC)
@The void century, you might also be interested in what Folly Mox said early about the display of the leads and infoboxes on the mobile site (about half of the English Wikipedia's page views). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:37, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Why not spell it lede?

I've seen this spelling many times, probably from British editors. It helps distinguish from other meanings of the word "lead" so I use it even though I'm American.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:26, 25 August 2022 (UTC)

Nooo! It's Americans who mostly do this, and as usual blame any linguistic quirks they don't like on the British. Johnbod (talk) 02:24, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
As I recall, the "lede" spelling was pretty popular on en.wiki talk pages a decade or so ago, but someone pointed out that it's specifically newspaper jargon, and means something rather different from what an introductory paragraph/section means in encyclopedic writing. --Trovatore (talk) 17:07, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
See MOS:NOTLEDE and WP:NOTALEDE for the discussion. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:19, 25 August 2022 (UTC)
Claims of the difference between a journalistic lead and a (very short) encyclopedic lead have been exaggerated on wiki. Usually, when an editor says "But journalistic leads hide information", I find that they haven't figured out the difference between a headline and the lead, or they think that it means doing things that your journalism prof tells you not to do (e.g., bury the lead – something that is characteristic of academic writing, not newspapers). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:45, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Is there no guidance on Lead duplication of Infobox ?

Is there no guidance re the relationship of lead and infobox content ??? Both of them are to be summaries of the important items of the topic, but I was surprised nothing is said in either MOS:LEAD or MOS:IB about how they are to get along or a balance of their respective content.

The only guidance I saw in MOS:LEAD for infoboxes was a sidenote in the placement guidance MOS:LEADORDER : " Infoboxes contain summary information or an overview relating to the subject of the article, "

This interest came up from a TALK in Pound sterling noting the article starts with detailing of ISO code, abbreviation, symbols, and compound noun forms. To me this seemed poor narrative of redundant restating the Template:Infobox currency which is immediately alongside the lead. And almost all of the List of circulating currencies seem to start with the same sort of lead. It doesn't seem to be from a guidance of MOS:CURRENCY, or Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers, or a TALK in archives...

More than just currencies though, I am surprised there is not something at a general level talking about lead and infobox content... have I missed something ?

Cheers Markbassett (talk) 14:39, 15 September 2022 (UTC)

Other than a possible synchronization issue for updated data, why would it be a problem? The summary content in the lead gets duplicated in the article body anyway. The infobox data will probably get migrated to wikidata at some point. Praemonitus (talk) 17:23, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
It is largely a question -- the redundant statements right next to each other looked like poor narrative in currency articles, and I simply found no guidance about how the two 'summaries' should relate -- should a lead contain the same information as the infobox right next to it ??? Then what's the point of having an IB ??? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 18:39, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
I don't know what the policy pages say, but generally everything that is lead-worthy should be in the lead, and we should not worry if it repeats stuff in the infobox, which many readers never look at (though others seem to never look at anything else). Johnbod (talk) 20:10, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
MOS:INFOBOX: an article should remain complete with its summary infobox ignored Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:38, 24 September 2022 (UTC)
@Praemonitus, I think that this comment above about the Teutonic Order is the best answer for your question about why it would be a problem to repeat everything that's in the infobox in the text of the lead. Some articles handle that >100-word mess by sticking it in the infobox. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:31, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
The lead and info boxes while both summarize do so in very different formats, and require different modes of reading. Our purpose is to inform and doing so can be done in multiple ways. Littleolive oil (talk)

Ending the first paragraph with a colon

If the first paragraph of an article ends with a colon intended to lead into a quotation template, and if that article has an infobox or image, then the mobile display will put the infobox or image above that quotation in a way that will make no sense when the article is read top to bottom (for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Duck_test&oldid=1105847402).

Should MOS:OPEN caution against doing this? It feels like it might be technically bad practice even outside of mobile use, as breaking the key information of a paragraph into two paragraphs, one of them a quotation, goes against MOS:OPEN's list of what "the first paragraph" should be doing. (I'd assume that the API and tools like Wikipedia:Tools/Navigation popups would consider the quotation to be a separate, second paragraph, rather than part of the first; it's clearly what Wikipedia's mobile code for where to put the infobox is doing.) Lord Belbury (talk) 13:30, 17 September 2022 (UTC)

@Folly Mox, do you want to write a section about the mobile site? This is the third separate problem that someone's brought up in the last couple of months. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:32, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Information in lead never mentioned in text of article

Am I correct in thinking that the lead should not contain significant information that is never mentioned in the text of an article? Skimming quickly through the MOS now I don't see any such admonition, but may have missed it.

National Abortion Federation is in the news today, with an important article in the Washington Post, and people will be searching there. I think what must have happened is that this had been simply a stub with no lead, until February 2021 when an editor added a new section about Canada, which converted the entire stub to what appears to be a lead. In any event, the entire article badly needs updating and rewriting. (Don't look at me — I know nothing about the subject; and after getting in trouble several times as a noob, I've long restricted myself to spelling and grammar, and adding links.) Milkunderwood (talk) 02:06, 27 August 2022 (UTC)

Sort of. But this "rule" needs to be interpreted with common sense, which it sometimes isn't. For example, in an article about a painting, the dimensions need to be in the lead, probably the first para, but it is foolish to then repeat them in the body just for the sake of it. Johnbod (talk) 02:22, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
Good counter-example — thanks. I still think it could useful for this Lead MOS to include (unless I did miss it) a brief discussion of what should usually not be in the lead. In my eclectic rummaging I've noticed a few such problems. Milkunderwood (talk) 05:34, 27 August 2022 (UTC)
If somebody adds content to the lead that is not in the body, I often migrate it down to the article body. Particularly if the content is cited. Praemonitus (talk) 17:25, 15 September 2022 (UTC)
@Milkunderwood, I think this is covered under MOS:LEADNOTUNIQUE: "Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although not everything in the lead must be repeated in the body of the text." So "significant" information should be in both the lead and the body, but "not everything" needs to be in both places. Determining whether a given claim is "significant" is the difficult bit, and naturally the MOS provides no advice on that. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:26, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
Thanks very much for finding this MOS, which specifies what Johnbod and Praemonitus had suggested. I appreciate your looking back to a query from last August. Milkunderwood (talk) 19:23, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
  • Yes and no. In the article's "ideal form", so to speak, there should be no significant information in the lead that isn't also referenced in the body, since the lead's purpose is to summarize the body. But since the lead is the most prominent part of the article, drive-by editors will sometimes add something important to the subject there and not in the body; in that case it might make more sense to add it to the body rather than to remove it from the lead. (Although you can also do both, if it is significant but not lead-worthy.) And there are a small number of exceptions, things that belong in the lead but not the body - the most relevant is prominent alternative names, which must be in the lead for navigation purposes (so editors know they arrived at the correct article) but may not necessarily need to be elaborated on in the body. --Aquillion (talk) 19:48, 8 October 2022 (UTC)
    Shouldn't alternate names also be supported by reliable sources? Otherwise, how do we know that an alternative name that is added to the article is legitimat? I know that it is rare that we have a list of alternate names gathered up tidily in one source, as at Sabacola#cite_note-2, but I think alternate names should be sourced. - Donald Albury 23:37, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

The problem with the National Abortion Federation article is still unaddressed, and trying to fix it is way above my pay grade. I'm convinced that it had been a stub with no lead, concerning the U.S. organization, and when an editor added a new section on its presence in Canada, it converted the entire stub to what is now a lead. This makes the article a nonsensical mess. Milkunderwood (talk) 20:12, 8 October 2022 (UTC)

Ref styles changes, to article leads

An RFC here, has been opened. In relation to article leads. GoodDay (talk) 02:04, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

What is the intent of having foreign translations in the lead section?

Do the guidelines mean, or should they mean, that we only use a foreign translation if knowledge of that foreign translation is significantly helpful in understanding the English language article? That makes sense to me. What does not make sense, and which is the cause of this problem, is adding foreign translations in a language that has some connection with the subject of the article. See Pope John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus II; Italian: Giovanni Paolo II; Polish: Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła [ˈkarɔl ˈjuzɛv vɔjˈtɨwa];[a] 18 May 1920 – 2 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church. What does it add to the article about John Paul II to know what the Italian or even Polish translatiuon is? Answer: nothing really, at least not enough to justify its use in the first sentence. However, in..The Falkland Islands (/ˈfɔːklənd, ˈfɔːl-, ˈfɒl-/;[5] Spanish: Islas Malvinas[A]) is an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, knowledge of the Spanish name (which isn't actually a translation) is useful because so many sources in different languages including English, refer to the islands as the Malvinas. The way these foreign translations are being used is riddled with original research. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 06:54, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree generally with your point -- we should not list in the lead sentence every foreign translation that has some connection to the subject. Feel free to propose specific changes to the guidance if you think they need improvement. CUA 27 (talk) 17:04, 15 November 2022 (UTC)
That's right, it adds nothing (to the running text). Your Falkland/Malvinas example is a good one; that's something that *does* add to the article, and leaving it out would be a violation of WP:DUE, imho. And your JP2 is also a good example; the left sidebar with the language links provide all the information anybody needs about other names. Other cases might be countries or events with linguistic issues; Austro-Hungary, Belgian, Swiss, Canadian, etc.; but those should be handled case-by-case, and they should follow whatever it is that reliable sources have to say about it. Mathglot (talk) 08:44, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Translation in lead section

There is a content dispute at Talk:Environment and Climate Change Canada#French translations, regarding French translations in the lead sentence. Your input would be appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:10, 23 November 2022 (UTC)

RFC about non-English in lead sentence

I have started an RFC about a non-English translation in the lead. This discussion if focused on an interpretation of MOS:LEADLANG. Please join the discussion at Talk:Environment and Climate Change Canada#RfC about French translation in lead. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:30, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

New sentence in MOS:LEADCITE

I want to add this sentence to the end of paragraph 2: The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article, and redundant citations shoul not be removed from the lead simply because they are repeated elsewhere. What do y'all think? Cessaune (talk) 05:21, 24 November 2022 (UTC)

Many times editors add citations in the lead not knowing they are already in the body of the article, whose reflection the lead is. Citations are needed in the lead mostly when information is challenged, to have its verification right there. Otherwise, it is best not to use them in the lead, for easier reading. Thinker78 (talk) 00:28, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Links from the lead to article sections

Talk:The_Martian_(film)#Link_within_same_page_seems_redudant. Apokrif (talk) 10:44, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Anyone? -- 109.77.205.15 (talk) 01:08, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
My personal view always sides on accessibility. What is the easiest thing to do for our readers to gain information they wish to learn. if linking a word in the lead - be it to another article or within an article - to acquire knowledge they wish to learn it should be done. Moxy- 01:41, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
My personal view Personal views can be requested elsewhere WP:3RD. The question was asked to find out more from editors familiar with the past discussions to lead to these guidelines and the logic behind them, because this seems like something the guidelines might have addressed. Please indicate any relevant accessibility policies or guidelines that recommends adding extra links, especially ones that are redundant to the table of contents. WP:OVERLINK The link might seem harmless as a one-off but other editors might want to copy the example of a {{Good article}}. If this link is acceptable, then why not fill the lead section with other links to sections within the article (such as the reception section)? Please note MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE which says "Avoid links to sections within the article; the table of contents provides that function." The logic of that advice would seem to also apply in the case of the lead section. -- 109.76.140.168 (talk) 19:46, 28 November 2022 (UTC)
Are you sure the content is clear in the TOC? Moxy- 00:06, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

I believe that it would be ideal if we also elaborated that links should not be used in the alternative names that are placed in bold. Right now, it only refers to the boldface reiteration of the title in the first sentence of a lead. Although, one of the two footnotes that are used, implies it by stating in general that linking part of the bolded text is discouraged because it changes the visual effect of bolding, and some readers will miss the visual cue which is the purpose of using boldface in the first place. Demetrios1993 (talk) 21:32, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
Closing. There is WP:SNOW consensus against including such links. InfiniteNexus (talk) 07:07, 17 December 2022 (UTC)


Should the lead section of an article contain links to sections that are further down on the same page? InfiniteNexus (talk) 07:03, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Survey

  • No – Much like the infobox per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE, the lead section does not and should not serve as a table of contents. Including such links would also potentially violate WP:EASTEREGG (e.g. on a film article, readers would most likely assume that the word plot is being wikilinked to the Wikipedia page about plots in general, and would thus be astonished to find that it actually links to a section on the page about that film's plot), WP:OVERLINK (while not specifically prohibited by OVERLINK, these links are unnecessary in the same way linking common terms is unnecessary), and WP:SEAOFBLUE (if we added links to every section in the article, there is a fair probability of this happening). The only justification given by the opposing side thus far has been WP:BOLD, which is irrelevant to the crux of the matter. InfiniteNexus (talk) 07:03, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No That is the function of the Table of Contents. Wikilinks should lead to other artcles,, not to other sections of the same adticle. That is bizarre and is bad practice. Cullen328 (talk) 07:17, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No per above, unnecessary and distracts from links to actual articles. Thanks, Indagate (talk) 09:13, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No per the reasons already presented above: distracting and unnecessary (that's what the TOC is for) --Ita140188 (talk) 09:58, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No, links in the lead should go where readers expect links anywhere in the body to go—to general information regarding the topic denoted by the linked text. While sometimes the main information has on such a topic is within the article containing the link, in a case like that a link should exist only if the topic is itself sufficiently encyclopedic that one might reasonably expect it to have its own article some day, in which case the link would be retargeted. Largoplazo (talk) 11:17, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No, The ToC is immediately underneath and, provided the lead is not too long, is visible with the lead on a full-sized screen. Many leads already fail WP:SEAOFBLUE, and this would just add more confusion. - Arjayay (talk) 11:27, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No, A lede is a summary. Beside it is often an infobox. Below it is often a table of contents. Readers understand a lede's purpose and will see how to discover more information within the article. —¿philoserf? (talk) 14:51, 30 November 2022 (UTC)
  • No. This will bring too many links, would detract from the ToC, and from a UI perspective, janky. SWinxy (talk) 20:19, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

Discussion

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

First sentence of this guidance

On 21:26, 21 December 2022, I removed a redundancy in the first sentence. MOS:REDUNDANCY states, "The title of the article need not appear verbatim in the lead if the article title is descriptive." Although some editors are of the opinion that this guidance are mainly intended for articles and not WP or MOS space, I believe that for the sake of coherence this guidance can be applied in this case.

User:Valjean chose to use "lead paragraph" in their edit. IMHO, I don't think this was a better or even accurate option because the lead can have several paragraphs.

User:CUA 27 stated when restoring to longstanding version, "This is the title of the article". Something that MOS:REDUNDANCY addresses, as mentioned in the beginning. Said guidance even cites a relevant example,

Pakistani–Iraqi relations are the relations between Pakistan and Iraq.

Iraq and Pakistan established diplomatic relations in 1947.

Likewise, in the first sentence of the current guidance,

☒NThe lead section of a Wikipedia article... is the section before the table of contents and the first heading.

checkYThe lead of a Wikipedia article... is the section before the table of contents and the first heading.

Sincerely, Thinker78 (talk) 03:54, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

You're right about my poor choice of "paragraph." I initially followed a link that redirected me, without my noticing it, to an article, not a MOS page. You're right that "section" was the better word, so all's well now.
BTW, now that I've read further in your comment, I disagree about your interpretation of "redundancy" in 'this' situation. The lead is a section, so "lead section" is proper and much better for readers who don't understand the esoteric terminology of Wikipedians. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:51, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
The provision you refer to, MOS:REDUNDANCY, isn't directed at all at this sort of title. It's directed at situations such as the one depicted in the example given in that provision, where trying to squeeze a descriptive title verbatim into the first sentence produces an awkward tautology replicating all the parts of the title. It doesn't mean, for example, that for an article like Razor clam, one should fret over the fact that the lead sentence includes the full title and then uses the word "clams" further in the sentence. The repetition there isn't awkward or unnatural, and such is the case here.
Further, there is no redundancy here. It can't read "The lead ... is the first section" because "the lead" by itself can also refer to the lead paragraph or the lead sentence. "Lead" by itself is ambiguous. Largoplazo (talk) 12:33, 22 December 2022 (UTC)
@Largoplazo, @Valjean I don't understand why the need to state "the lead section is a section..." instead of only "the lead is a section...". I find this repetition awkward and unnecessary. We could modify it further to make it completely clear what's the term's context, "In Wikipedia, the lead of an article is the section before the table of contents and the first heading."
Largoplazo, I haven't read anyone who wrote "lead" to refer to the lead sentence (two words) alone or just to one of the paragraphs of the lead if the lead has several paragraphs. Maybe lead paragraph but not only lead to refer to it. Besides, the whole guidance refers to "the lead" throughout the page and it can be found throughout other guidelines and policies. Thinker78 (talk) 00:38, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
@Largoplazo In this guideline, "The lead is the first thing most people will read upon arriving at an article, and may be the only portion of the article that they read."
"The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic."
"The lead must conform to verifiability, biographies of living persons, and other policies." Thinker78 (talk) 00:40, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
Experienced editors (unlike newbie readers) say "lead" as shorthand for what the title of the guideline terms the "lead section." (It's not awkward there, is it?) That two-word phrase then finds a natural use in the first mention, and it isn't unnatural or awkward there either.
That shorthand is then used throughout the guideline and most instances where editors mention it. That is a natural and informal way to refer to the lead section. The same idea is used in articles about a person. Their first and last names are used in the beginning, usually akin to the article's title, and after that just their last name.
When you add elipses and shorten the first sentence, you create an artificial awkwardness that does not exist in the real world, so I'm not buying that.
The current and longstanding version is fine and needs no change to improve it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:25, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
I understand you want to keep "lead section". I still don't understand why you like more the form "the lead section is a section". It is a needless repetition. In any case, even if "lead section" is preserved, in my opinion the first sentence needs to be copyedited to remove the redundant word. Per WP:GUIDELINE, "Omit needless words." Thinker78 (talk) 05:04, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
See my comment below. You're now repeating a misleading trick. The sentence does NOT say "the lead section is a section". Otherwise, we'll have to agree to disagree and leave the status quo ante consensus version in place. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 05:17, 23 December 2022 (UTC)
ADDENDUM. I accidentally AGF and assumed you honestly used elipses, but you didn't. Instead you did not accurately quote that sentence but wrote "the lead section is a secion..." Tsk, tsk. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 01:31, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

IMHO, we should reverse the first and second sentences of this article. The first sentence should say what the lead sections is (ie, an introduction and summary). The second sentence should say where it goes (ie, before the TOC). This reordering sound also make it easier to fix the issue that is bugging Thinker 78. CUA 27 (talk) 02:30, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

In Wikipedia, the lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents. The lead section—also known as the beginning or introduction—is located before the table of contents and the first heading. Thinker78 (talk) 17:45, 24 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks, Thinker78, for moving this discussion forward. Your proposed version looks good to me. One further suggestion for consideration is to remove everything between the dashes, as it seems redundant. The first sentence makes clear it’s an introduction. The second section could be revised to say “The lead section is located at the beginning of the article, before the table of contents and the first heading.“ CUA 27 (talk) 03:42, 25 December 2022 (UTC)
In Wikipedia, the lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents. The lead section is located at the beginning of the article, before the table of contents and the first heading.--Thinker78 (talk) 03:14, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure why redundancy was actually added by repeating "lead section" in the second sentence. "Lead" as been fine there. Let's try again by just saying "it":
In Wikipedia, the lead section is an introduction to an article and a summary of its most important contents. It is located at the beginning of the article, before the table of contents and the first heading.
How's that? -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 04:01, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
It actually looks neat. Thinker78 (talk) 04:05, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
I agree this is an improvement. CUA 27 (talk) 15:06, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
Okay, I have installed it. -- Valjean (talk) (PING me) 18:37, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
Thanks! Thinker78 (talk) 19:29, 26 December 2022 (UTC)
Much improved over the previous version, which I copy below in case in future any editors arriving to this discussion want to compare at a glance:
The lead section of a Wikipedia article—also known as the lead, beginning or introduction—is the section before the table of contents and the first heading. The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents.
CUA 27 (talk) 22:35, 26 December 2022 (UTC)

LEADLANG and number of languages

MOS:LEADLANG says "If the subject of the article is closely associated with a non-English language, a single foreign language equivalent name can be included in the lead sentence, usually in parentheses". It is my experience, however, that sometimes more than one foreign name is closely associated with a concept. For example, in the context of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Polish language is the main foreign one, but arguments have been made for Lithuanian, Belarusian, Ruthenian and Latin in various contexts. A quick glance at Stanisław Leszczyński (Polish name) shows Lithuanian and French used in lead (since Lithuanian is pretty standard for kings of PLC, and he was also associated with France). Stephen Báthory (English name) also lists Polish, Lithuanian and Hungarian (he was from Hungary). Sigismund III Vasa uses an English name, and lists Polish and Lithuanian in the lead. Etc. We need to decide if those articles all fail MoS or LEADLANG needs some rewording. Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:47, 8 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't think LEADLANG needs rewording for the motive you say. Per MOS:LEADCLUTTER, Be wary of cluttering the first sentence with a long parenthesis containing alternative spellings, pronunciations, etc., which can make the sentence difficult to actually read; this information should be placed elsewhere.
Many articles do not follow MOS standards. Even feature articles sometimes fail in a thing or two of the Manual of Style. But not because many articles are subpar we are going to establish a subpar guideline, unless the community determines that it is not subpar. Thinker78 (talk) 04:40, 8 November 2022 (UTC)
Pls stop language spam in leads. Massive readability accessibility problem.Moxy- 00:34, 10 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Thinker and Moxy. Maintaining the readability of the first sentence (and first paragraph) helps the non-specialist reader more than listing numerous alternative names unfamiliar to most English language readers. CUA 27 (talk) 14:06, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

November 2022 edits

I'm not happy about these edits by Thinker78, but I'm not sure how to fix them.
  1. Some of wording is a bit verbose - "a single foreign language equivalent name can and is encouraged to be included in the lead sentence". Could this be "foreign language equivalent name can and should be included"? Or is "should" too strong?
  2. "an article about a person who do not write their name in English. Or an article about a location in a non-English-speaking country." is just bad grammar. I agree with the principal of including "person" but perhaps we should split into two sentences with one example of each. The current layout seems very awkward.
Mitch Ames (talk) 12:30, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
Having started to fix it piecemeal, I think it better to roll it (mostly) back. Perhaps we should discuss the changes here first. Mitch Ames (talk) 12:43, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
I'm not sure that my partial rollback was correct. Could someone else please review the state of the page. Possibly a further rollback is required, but I'm reluctant to touch it again, in case I mess it up (again, and/or further, as applicable). Mitch Ames (talk) 12:56, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
@Mitch Ames, did you take a close look at the edit summaries of my edits? Because it was not a simple operation I did and many of those edits are interconnected. It took me a while of analyzing. I have plenty of experience with lead sentences and the guideline. Thinker78 (talk) 18:12, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
With all due respect Mitch Ames, you did not even state a rationale for your edits in your edit summaries. It would have been a courtesy to have proper edit summaries, because I did take my time to explain my edits in the edit summaries. I hope you did not edit just because. Thinker78 (talk) 18:15, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
it was not a simple operation I did and many of those edits are interconnected — Agreed. Which is why I am concerned that my partial rollback was worse than a complete rollback.
you did not even state a rationale for your edits in your edit summaries — That's true, but I did say "see talk page" and explained my rationale (which I thought too long for an edit summary) on the talk page. I still maintain my initial bullet-pointed comments and that my reversion of your punctuation change (over several edits) was correct. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:23, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Let's move away from any finger pointing, and let's focus on substance instead. There have been a number of edits already, and I think (hope) we can all agree to discuss issues here before any further edits. With that throat-clearing out of the way, would someone (Thinker?) like to describe here the most significant perceived problems, and the proposed solutions. CUA 27 (talk) 19:33, 11 November 2022 (UTC)

Given that:
  • Thinker78's edits were many ...interconnected, and that my edits were ultimately a partial rollback (badly done, for which I apologize), and
  • Thinker78's last version (diff) includes (to my mind) obvious problems (grammar, punctuation, if nothing else) per my previous comment(s)
I suggest that we rollback to here, before any of Thinker78' edits, then discuss the specific changes and agree on them before implementing.
However if Thinker78 (or anyone else) wants to revert to Thinker78's version - on the grounds that it should at least be consistent - I won't make any significant changes without first discussing them and getting agreement. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:45, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
@Mitch Ames, in order to analyze, can you pinpoint the specific problems you see please, quoting relevant portions. Thanks. Thinker78 (talk) 18:57, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, I just read your comment about your previous reply. Are those the only instances of obvious problems you see? Thinker78 (talk) 19:04, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
3. In [4], Do not include foreign equivalents in the text of the lead sentence just to show etymology, for alternative names or for particularly lengthy names. — "just to show etymology" is a restrictive clause here, whereas previously it was not. The original was correct - one ought not (in general) include foreign equivalents at all, whereas your sentence implies that we can include them for any reason other than to show etymology.
4. In [5] and [6], Separate languages should be divided by semicolons; romanizations of non-Latin scripts, by commas. is incorrectly punctuated. The comma ought not be there and the semicolon should be a comma: Separate languages should be divided by semicolons, romanizations of non-Latin scripts by commas. (as it was originally, with "and" being optional).
Mitch Ames (talk) 02:02, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
@Mitch Ames I don't understand why you think it is a restrictive sentence. If I'm not mistaken, a restrictive sentence would be, "Do not include foreign equivalents in the text of the lead sentence which shows etymology for alternative names or for particularly lengthy names". A non-restrictive clause may be, "Do not include foreign equivalents in the text of the lead sentence, which shows etymology, for alternative names or for particularly lengthy names."
Compare to my text, "Do not include foreign equivalents in the text of the lead sentence just to show etymology, for alternative names or for particularly lengthy names. This clutters the lead sentence and impairs readability."
Compare to the original text before my edits, "Do not include foreign equivalents in the text of the lead sentence for alternative names or for particularly lengthy names, as this clutters the lead sentence and impairs readability. Do not include foreign equivalents in the lead sentence just to show etymology."
An alternate text could be, "Do not include foreign equivalents in the text of the lead sentence if they are for alternative names, for lengthy names, or for etymology. This clutters the lead sentence and impairs readability. When this happens, consider footnoting.[1]
@CUA 27, @Mathglot, thoughts? Thinker78 (talk) 19:24, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
My 40,000-foot view: I agree with Thinker78's comment above (and with Moxy and CUA27) that LEADLANG doesn't need rewording, at least, not for the given reason. Beyond that, I wonder if anyone sees the irony here about adding more text to the first sentence of § Foreign language.
That said, my reaction to the specific issue here (and let's beware of getting too far into my-eyes-glaze-over territory that only a grammar maven—like us? —could love) was that like Thinker, I don't see the alleged issue about restrictive clauses either. Unless I missed the point, my grammar-maven reading of it, is that just to show etymology is simply an adverbial phrase that modifies the main verb (do include), and thus is completely out of the paradigm of what is (or isn't) a relative clause (no pronoun), a restrictive clause (no modified noun phrase), or nonrestrictive (no appositive NP). Nor is it a reduced relative. So the whole restrictive/nonrestrictive discussion is a red herring.
Back to the main point of alternative formulations: I support the original wording, and while I appreciate all the good faith effort that has gone into attempting to find compromise wording, by my count, that appears to constitute a limited consensus for no change, and unless more editors voice support for a chanage, I think we should conclude this. Anyone is free, of course, to seek wider input via any of the dispute resolution methods, should they be unsatisfied with that result. Mathglot (talk) 20:41, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
At the risk of glazing more eyes, the claim above of incorrect punctuation in the following sentence is mistaken:

Separate languages should be divided by semicolons; romanizations of non-Latin scripts, by commas.

This is a compound sentence consisting of two clauses; the second is an elliptical clause with an elided verb should be divided, and the elision is indicated by a comma, as required.[2] The full compound sentence with the elision reintegrated, is this:

Separate languages should be divided by semicolons; romanizations of non-Latin scripts should be divided by commas.

The elided version is perfectly correct English grammar, but although briefer (thus usually to be recommended) since the guideline should be written clearly in a way that can be understood by non-native speakers, I'd opt for the expanded version of the sentence, or a version separating the compound sentence into two sentences. You could also keep the compound sentence and replace the semicolon, with comma + and or but; that is probably equally clear to ESL speakers. Mathglot (talk) 21:18, 26 November 2022 (UTC)
Thanks for your detailed analysis Mathglot. The reason why I made a series of edits is elaborated in the subsection "Explanation of my November 2022 edits. First two bullet points". Due to those reasons, I believe the current text needs to be modified somewhat. Thinker78 (talk) 00:18, 27 November 2022 (UTC)
@CUA 27 will do. Just waiting for Mitch Ames to tell me which problems they see. Thinker78 (talk) 18:58, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ For example, an excessive lead at Genghis Khan at one time read:
    Genghis Khan (English pronunciation: /ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/ or /ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/;[1][2] Cyrillic: Чингис Хаан, Chingis Khaan, IPA: [tʃiŋɡɪs xaːŋ] ⓘ; Mongol script: , Činggis Qaɣan; Chinese: 成吉思汗; pinyin: Chéng Jí Sī Hán; probably May 31, 1162[3] – August 25, 1227), born Temujin (English pronunciation: /təˈmuːdʒɪn/; Mongolian: Тэмүжин, Temüjin IPA: [tʰemutʃiŋ] ⓘ; Middle Mongolian: Temüjin;[4] traditional Chinese: 鐵木真; simplified Chinese: 铁木真; pinyin: Tiě mù zhēn) and also known by the temple name Taizu (Chinese: 元太祖; pinyin: Yuán Tàizǔ; Wade–Giles: T'ai-Tsu), was the founder and Great Khan (emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.
    This was later reduced to the following:
    Genghis Khan (/ˈdʒɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/, often pronounced /ˈɡɛŋɡɪs ˈkɑːn/; Mongol: Чингис хаан Chinggis Khaan [t͡ʃʰiŋɡɪs xaːŋ] ⓘ; Mongol script: ᠴᠢᠩᠭᠢᠰ ᠬᠠᠭᠠᠨ Chinggis Qa(gh)an/ Chinggis Khagan; c. 1162 – August 18, 1227), born Temüjin, was the founder and Great Khan (Emperor) of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history after his death.
  2. ^ See the "Chris left his house..." example here.

Explanation of my November 2022 edits. First two bullet points

I will start by replying to the initial bullet points of Mitch Ames.

I copied the word that was in the "Usage in first sentence" subsection of the "Alternative names" section in the version before my most controversial edits. "Relevant foreign-language names, such as in an article on a person who does not themselves write their name in English, are encouraged, usually in parentheses."

I integrated it in the specific subsection about foreign language in the first sentence (MOS:LEADLANG). This because if there is a specific subsection about foreign language in the first sentence, it seemed logical to me that guidance about foreign language in the first sentence should be in said subsection. Because editors seeking guidance about foreign language would probably look in a foreign language section.

This latter section (Leadlang) was, "If the subject of the article is closely associated with a non-English language, a single foreign language equivalent name can be included in the lead sentence. For example, an article about a location in a non-English-speaking country will typically include the local-language equivalent".

As a result, my edit became, "If the subject of the article is closely associated with a non-English language, a single foreign language equivalent name can and is encouraged to be included in the lead sentence, usually in parentheses. For example, an article about a person who do not write their name in English. Or an article about a location in a non-English-speaking country.

Notice:

  1. How both subsections were basically talking about the same thing, foreign language equivalents.
  2. How I simply integrated "encourage" in the guidance—not using a new word (I simply changed the tense to fit)—moving the wording from one subsection to, in my opinion, a more relevant subsection that was crying to be together with the other content.
  3. How I simply integrated both examples of usage of foreign equivalents in the same guidance (about a person who do not write their name in English and a location in a non-English-speaking country). Each example was in different subsections, but they were examples of basically the same thing—foreign language equivalents.

Thoughts about these bullet points? Thinker78 (talk) 20:28, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

@Thinker78: I am confident you're aware that a person who do not write is not grammatical English, and simply reflects an oversight in proofreading followed by copypasting. Likewise I am sure you understand Or an article about a location in a non-English-speaking country is not a complete sentence, since it lacks a required verb. As to the remainder of the content, I agree that can and is encouraged to is wordy, and can and should is strong. I think maybe it is encouraged to include a single foreign language equivalent name in the lead sentence, usually in parentheses. Guidance should also indicate that if multiple foreign language equivalent names seem equally appropriate (i.e. no consensus on which is more appropriate, especially in contentious topic areas where editors may feel their linguistic group is being slighted due to absence in the lead sentence), then zero foreign language equivalent names should be included, all being mentioned elsewhere (later in the lead paragraph, infobox, body, footnote...). 98.246.75.122 (talk) 22:02, 12 November 2022 (UTC)
@ 98.246.75.122 yes, I noticed previously about "person who do not write". It used to say people and I forgot to change the verb. But because that's how my edit was in the page history, I just placed it in this discussion like that. Regarding the incomplete sentence... yes, it was a mistake. You are correct. I agree also with changing the other sentence to "it is encouraged".
Regarding your comment about what guidance should indicate in other cases, I did add such content. For the sake of order and conciseness, allow me to discuss this later on when we discuss my other edits, because it's included there. Thinker78 (talk) 00:48, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Proposed change, subject closely associated with a non-English language

I propose this change (relative to the current version of "Foreign language")

If the subject of the article is closely associated with a non-English language, a single foreign language equivalent name can be included (and is encouraged) in the lead sentence, usually in parentheses. For example, an article about a location in a non-English-speaking country will typically include the local-language equivalent:

Chernivtsi Oblast (Ukrainian: Чернівецька область, Chernivetska oblast) is an oblast (province) in western Ukraine, bordering on Romania and Moldova.

An article about a person whose native language is not English may include that person's native-language name:

Boris Vasilievich Spassky (Russian: Бори́с Васи́льевич Спа́сский, romanized: Borís Vasíl'yevich Spásskiy; born January 30, 1937) is a Russian chess grandmaster ...

Mitch Ames (talk) 02:49, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

My comment:
  1. Looks good, but it is missing the rest of the content (about etymology, bolding, etc).
  2. I am no fan of long foreign equivalents in the lead sentence. If it's a single word of reasonable length I think it's fine. But even the long-standing example of Chernivtsi Oblast, in my opinion is in the grey area between acceptable and cluttering. Probably many readers may not be interested in said equivalent, specially the part with the foreign script.
    1. We could adopt the MOS:PRONPLACEMENT standards. I particularly favor placing said content in footnotes.
Thinker78 (talk) 03:14, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
1. Looks good, but it is missing the rest of the content (about etymology, bolding, etc).
My block quote is intended only to show the specific changes (additions marked up with <ins> tags and appearing like this) to cover "encourage single foreign name" and "non-English person name". The remainder of the "Foreign language" section would remain unchanged from the current version. I disagree (per my original comments) with your wording to add those elements, but I agree in principle that they should be added, hence my proposed change.
2. I am no fan of long foreign equivalents in the lead sentence. ... favor placing said content in footnotes.
My proposed change is not intended to address the length of the foreign equivalent, only its encouragement and usage for people. I deliberately found an example of a person similar in form to the current (accepted, by existing consensus) example of a place. I suggest we get consensus, or not, on those two changes (encouragement, usage for people - independently of each other if necessary) first. Then, separately, we can discuss the length or footnoting of foreign equivalents. I have listed four (1, 2, 3, 4) specific objections to your changes; it might be better to resolve those first, before muddying the waters with a fifth item (even if it is related). Mitch Ames (talk) 06:06, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree that we can discuss the remainder of the foreign language section later on so I explain my rationale. Thinker78 (talk) 18:30, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

 Done There being no objections, I have made the change. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:19, 21 November 2022 (UTC)

Sorry I'm late to the party, but I've reverted until we can get more opinions on this. I think "encouraged" is a mistake, on the basis of lead clutter, and because it contravenes both the "non-specialist" and the "plain English" exhortation in the first sentence of MOS:LEADSENTENCE. There's no reason I can think of that a foreign expression should be in the running text of the lead sentence at all; who exactly is it aimed at? Such interpolations tend to unnaturally separate the subject and verb of the sentence with gobbledygook that 99.9% of readers are not interested in. And I say this as someone who is very strongly supportive of foreign language issues, and considers that in general Wikipedia fails to support foreign readers sufficiently, and can actually read and understand the Spassky example. But this proposal helps hardly anybody. If it's needed for factual completeness, stick it in an explanatory note, or in the last paragraph of the lead, or in the #Terminology section of the body, if it has one. Nobody cares how the title is written in other languages, and it certainly shouldn't be encouraged in the first sentence. Mathglot (talk) 08:33, 21 November 2022 (UTC)
@Mathglot I guess your objection managed to connect items 1 and 2 above. I included "encouraged" according to explanation in the first longer paragraph of the title above "Explanation of my November 2022 edits. First two bullet points". Thinker78 (talk) 01:44, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
I agree with Mathglot. There is already enough lead clutter — we don’t need to encourage more. CUA 27 (talk) 03:18, 22 November 2022 (UTC)
@Mathglot, @CUA 27 reviewing this discussion, you mentioned not wanting to encourage foreing equivalents. I have to say that this has been the guidance in MOS:ALTNAME. Do you want to remove "Relevant foreign-language names, such as those of people who do not write their names in English, are encouraged?" Thinker78 (talk) 01:41, 31 December 2022 (UTC)

Proposed change to punctuation, "separate languages should be divided"

I propose changing the punctuation of this sentence in the current version of "Usage in first sentence") thus:

Separate languages should be divided by semicolons;, romanizations of non-Latin scripts, by commas.

i.e. (because underlining and strike-through markup on punctuation can be hard to read) to:

Separate languages should be divided by semicolons, romanizations of non-Latin scripts by commas.

Mitch Ames (talk) 03:07, 13 November 2022 (UTC)

Separate languages should be divided by semicolons and romanizations of non-Latin scripts by commas.

Thinker78 (talk) 03:33, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
Even with the word "and", I think the comma after the word "semicolons" makes it easier to parse. I'd be happy to have both, i.e. exactly what it was before your edits:

Separate languages should be divided by semicolons, and romanizations of non-Latin scripts by commas.

Mitch Ames (talk) 05:10, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
"Separate languages should be divided by semicolons, and romanizations of non-Latin scripts by commas." This has a misplaced comma, which—if I remember correctly—should be used before "and" when it separates two independent clauses. Thinker78 (talk) 18:17, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
According to Comma#Separation_of_clauses:
"Some style guides prescribe that two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so) must be separated by a comma placed before the conjunction. ... The above guidance is not universally accepted or applied. Long coordinate clauses are nonetheless usually separated by commas:"
I assert that in our case:
  • the second clause is independent - it contains an explicit subject ("romanizations of non-Latin scripts")
  • the second clause could be considered "long"
  • the comma aids parsing of the sentence
Mitch Ames (talk) 23:53, 13 November 2022 (UTC)
Sorry, Mitch, regarding your consideration of "romanizations of non-Latin scripts" as an independent clause, could you provide some reference? I understand that some grammar authors have different thoughts than others. I consider an independent clause expressing a complete thought, having a subject and a predicate, and being able to be a sentence of its own.[1] Thinker78 (talk) 03:30, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
I don't think we're going to get anywhere useful with a detailed grammatical analysis if we can't agree on the grammar rules. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:59, 14 November 2022 (UTC)
That's true. But you forgot to provide the requested reference. I asked because I looked and didn't find, just found the grammar of independent clauses I presented.
If we present different grammar or style rules, but we provide citations to reliable sources for them, we can have an easier time finding consensus and checking if there are mistakes. Because no one knows it all and no one is perfect. Thinker78 (talk) 16:33, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Could some other editors please comment on the proposed change(s). Mitch Ames (talk) 03:59, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Surely someone else must have an opinion. In the absence of any agreement, I propose that we should simply revert to the previous long-standing:

Separate languages should be divided by semicolons, and romanizations of non-Latin scripts by commas.

Mitch Ames (talk) 01:58, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

Commented above. Mathglot (talk) 21:33, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

References

  1. ^ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/punctuation/independent_and_dependent_clauses/index.html

Separate languages

That fragment could be the start of a sentence something like, "Separate languages into semicolon-separated series...", but it isn't. This is kind of a minor point, but in the current guideline, the sentence-initial Separate languages... is a type of garden-path sentence because of the possible misreading of separate as an imperative verb, instead of as an adjective. (In fact, I was a victim; I misread it, the first time I saw it on this page.) It's only two words into the sentence, so not a lot of backtracking is required for a proper parse, but still, there's that annoying, momentary hitch that occurs when you get to the word should, if you parsed it as a verb. Maybe the wording could be improved, but if not, no big deal. Mathglot (talk) 21:29, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

A MOS:ALTNAME subsection duplicates function of MOS:LEADLANG

The subsection Usage in first sentence duplicates the function of MOS:LEADLANG, except for its initial sentence. It provides guidance about foreign language and as such I think it belongs in MOS:LEADLANG in order to have such guidance mainly in one place. Therefore I propose deleting the subsection "Usage in first sentence". Its contents should be moved and integrated to LEADLANG, except for the initial sentence, that can be moved to MOS:ALTNAME. Thinker78 (talk) 03:21, 5 January 2023 (UTC)

You raise a good point re overlap and duplication between the Alternative names and Foreign languages sections. I agree there is room for improvement. In looking through the other parts of the "Alternative names" section, there are some other sentences that deal solely with foreign languages (eg, Danzig example, and surrounding sentences). My suggested solution: Move the entire Foreign languages section out of the First sentence section, and put it as a subsection under the Alternative names section. Then, for any sentences in the Alternative names section that discuss solely foreign languages, move them to the Foreign languages subsection. CUA 27 (talk) 23:11, 5 January 2023 (UTC)
If there are no objections, I can make the proposed change, and then other editors can take a look and edit or discuss further as they see fit. CUA 27 (talk) 17:11, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
What's your proposed text? Thinker78 (talk) 17:16, 7 January 2023 (UTC)
I just made some changes along the lines of what I outlined above. Feel free to edit and suggest improvements, or feel free to WP:BRD if you hate it. CUA 27 (talk) 16:19, 8 January 2023 (UTC)
Boldly skipping a bureaucratic process. I do like how you changed it. Cheers! Thinker78 (talk) 17:35, 8 January 2023 (UTC)

MOS:BOLDAVOID and MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD as applied on Main Page

I've opened a discussion at Talk:Main Page#Today's Featured Article about the possible relevance of MOS:BOLDAVOID and MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD to the Today's Featured Article section of the Main Page. --Jameboy (talk) 02:20, 20 January 2023 (UTC)

Featured Article stats

I've added some stats on lead length, based on a survey of last month's TFAs. It would have been ideal to base this on a whole year's worth, but it was annoying enough to count all of this for 31 articles, and I wouldn't volunteer to do 365 myself. If any one else wants to, however, then please feel free to grab the table out of the current revision of User:WhatamIdoing/Sandbox 3. I doubt that we'll find anything special about last month, though. (I did word counts in Google Docs and the rest by hand.)

@Thinker78 and @SandyGeorgia, you might find this a useful follow-up on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 22#Seeking consensus for table modification.

WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:46, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Should we mention more on the fact that "lead section receive between 26% and 43% of the clicks on wikilinks" this may convey more about as to why we want the highest quality links over a sea of blue. Moxy- 01:05, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
We want to avoid a sea of blue because readers can't see that adjacent links, such as blue link is two different links.
I assume that you meant you'd like to discourage "having too many links", an unfortunately subjective, and therefore disputed, situation.
I'm not sure why your evidence that readers find links helpful means that we should have fewer of them. Maybe it's an argument for having more. Consider this story: "As a reader, when I can't remember the name (or spelling) of the article I want to read, I go to a related article, in the expectation that I'll be able to find a link to the subject that I really want to read about." For example, if you can't remember the name of an author, you could start at the book. If you can't remember the name of an actor, you could start at the film. Your actual goal is not the article you started at.
If you wanted to include something along those lines, I'd suggest saying instead that links in the lead are about twice as likely to be clicked on as links elsewhere in the article. The data in the study you link suggests that 60% of readers never look at anything outside the lead anyway. Given that, it's possible that the "excess" clicking of links in the lead is really just a function of that being the only part of the article that gets read 60% of the time. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:30, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
MOS:OVERLINK and MOS:SEAOFBLUE are two different things. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:50, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks for the headsup! I see you did a lot of work! You could have saved yourself some if you remembered my draft. :D Your paragraph count is accurate. Thinker78 (talk) 04:10, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
Your draft didn't include sentence counts or link counts, so I was going to have some work anyway. It looks like your sample and mine came to the same conclusion about the number of paragraphs and words. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:10, 30 January 2023 (UTC)

Usage of a Pejorative as Alternative Name in Lead

May want to also reference WP:OTHERNAMES. Can the usage of a pejorative as an alternative name in the lead be addressed here. Based on the African-American page and the lack of mentioning of the pejorative for African-Americans in the lead there, I am guessing WP:OTHERNAMES and WP:ALTNAME is not calling for the mentioning of pejoratives in the lead. Can this be addressed clearly? Thanks LeenchaOromia (talk) 16:05, 26 January 2023 (UTC)

There is also Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Words to watch. Donald Albury 18:33, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
Which then links to WP:GRATUITOUS. Praemonitus (talk) 22:14, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
Thanks. This statement from WP:GRATUITOUS leads me to presume offensive material shouldn't be used in the lead since there is a suitable alternative, but should still be included elsewhere in the article since not including would lead the article to be less informative.
WP:GRATUITOUS: Offensive material should be used only if its omission would cause the article to be less informative, relevant, or accurate, and no equally suitable alternative is available LeenchaOromia (talk) 22:41, 26 January 2023 (UTC)
Unless I'm missing something, it would seem that removing one of the widely used bolded alternative names in the aforementioned article would make it less informative. Even if there are those who deem them pejorative. I'm not clear what needs to be clarified here that isn't already covered in the more general sense by the MOS. Praemonitus (talk) 03:02, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
By aforementioned article you mean African Americans? I don't think there's anyone who views the bolded alternative names there as a pejorative. I was instead referencing the lack thereof of the pejorative Negro in the lead.
I think I may have confused you a bit, but if you could re-read my initial point, I am asking if the African American page is correct in not including the pejorative for African Americans, i.e. "Negro", in the lead.
And for this decision to be a general guideline for other pages as well where pejoratives are not required to be presented as alternative names in the lead. LeenchaOromia (talk) 03:42, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
The original reason for this question arose from this discussion on the Oromo language talk page, which may also serve as a good example about what Leencha is asking about. Just as Leencha, I would be very interested in any clarification you may bring to this question here. LandLing 21:51, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
I believe what the pussy-footing around above is about the term 'nigger' as a perjorative term for African-Americans. This is the English Wikipedia and I think it is very widely understood that it is a pejorative term amongst readers so as per WP:GRATUITOUS it does not need to be spelt out in the lead. As for the Oromo language as far as I can judge it is not common knowledge amongst readers of this encyclopaedia that Galla is pejorative and it is quite possible that someone coming to that article wanting to know more about it will not actually know that, and it looks to me like the sentence there about that is appropriate. Is that what you wanted to know or is there some other something else besides that you were wondering about? NadVolum (talk) 23:40, 27 January 2023 (UTC)
No, this never was about "nigger", but "negro", as part of a language name such as "negro dialect" - terms that have been used in the academic literature as names for the people or the language. The use of the other term, I think, has never been suggested and would be out of the question. But it may be correct to describe the use of "Galla" in today's Oromo context as offensive as "nigger" the way we know it. But it has been used widely without such connotations in previous times, including in the academic literature. Your hint that this is to be seen in the English Wikipedia context, though, is very helpful. LandLing 06:58, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
@Landroving Linguist, I was under the impression that the word Negro was outdated (about half a century out of date by now, and even the UNCF stopped using it 15 years ago), rather than pejorative (e.g., belittling or disparaging). Do you have sources saying that it's always a term of abuse now? WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:07, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
No, I don't, and given that neither Leencha (I assume) nor I are English mother-tongue speakers, we may both be entirely wrong about this idea. If we are, then apparently there would be stronger reasons to include the name in the given articles. To find out whether it is seen as pejorative, one would have to do that edit, run for cover, and see what happens.
Note, though, that neither Leencha nor I have any intention to interfere on African Americans or African-American Vernacular English about this question. It rather came up as a point of comparison to decide what to do on Oromo language. Here the situation about the pejorative nature of "Galla" is not disputed, and also confirmed by Ethnologue (sorry about the paywall). What we disagree on is the question whether this alternative name needs to or must not be mentioned in the lead. LandLing 09:06, 30 January 2023 (UTC)
In many cases most English speakers will not realize that a term commonly used to designate a people is offensive to at least some of those people. See one way to deal with this in the third paragraph of Eskimo. I think it is appropriate to mention pejorative names in the lead of an article about the people it has been applied to, where such term has been widely used in the past, and the typical reader cannot be expected to know it is pejorative. However, an explantion that the term is offensive to at least some members of the group must be attached. An explantion of the history of the term might also be useful, such as is found for the term "Creek Indian" at Tribal town#cite note-2. We want readers to find the information they are looking for, and we want them to know when a name previously used to refer to a people is now known to be offensive to at least some of those people. - Donald Albury 15:54, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

Foreign-language equivalent names

Is it appropriate to include a foreign-language equivalent name in the opening sentence of articles such as Hungarians in the United Kingdom? My reading of MOS:LEADLANG is that it isn't, but I'd appreciate others' views. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:18, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

It seems that Nigej agrees with me. Cordless Larry (talk) 19:56, 5 February 2023 (UTC)
I think it makes sense if the foreign language is sometimes used in English. It even makes sense for articles like Hungarians, even perhaps Prime Minister of Hungary. However if the article title is a topic and not a "thing", eg Hungarians in the United Kingdom, Human rights in Hungary then it doesn't seem to me that it makes any sense, we're just providing a literal translation. Nigej (talk) 20:16, 5 February 2023 (UTC)

RfC about election article intros

There is a request for comment about whether boldface or links should be preferred in election article lead sentences. Surtsicna (talk) 09:43, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Trademark logo in first sentence

There is a content dispute at Talk:T&T Supermarket#Trademark logo in first sentence regarding a company logo in the first sentence. The input of others would be appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:30, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Editing the lead section

"By default, there is no edit link just for the lead section, but registered users can get it by enabling one or both of the following preferences ..."

The second option (Enable section editing by right clicking on section) does not work for me. There is no [edit] link after activating that option and the lead section does not have a title to right-click. Maybe this tip is outdated and should be removed? Dalba 05:37, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

@Dalba: If you want edit the lead section, you need to enable "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page"; if you want to edit sections using right-click, you need to enable "Enable section editing by right clicking on section titles". These two features are independent: neither provides the functionality of the other, so if you want to edit the lead section using right-click, you need to enable both of them. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 10:23, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
I see, thanks! This is unfortunate though, I was looking for a global preference, but edittop is a local gadget. Dalba 11:03, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
edittop is found as a gadget on many Wikipedias, but not all (it's not on cy:, for instance). It should be possible to get it to load on all WMF wikis by means of your global javascript and CSS pages at meta. Note, the following is completely untested, I may have made some fundamental errors. First you would disable it at each wiki where it's enabled, then you would edit meta:Special:MyPage/global.js to add this line 
mw.loader.load('//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-edittop.js&action=raw&ctype=text/javascript');
and edit meta:Special:MyPage/global.css to add this line at the top 
@import "//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Gadget-edittop.css&action=raw&ctype=text/css";
However, because of dependencies, one or both of these need more code in order to work, try asking at WP:VPT. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:54, 24 February 2023 (UTC)
Just a heads-up, there are some weird layout effects if you use edittop with Vector-2022 (see several sections of MediaWiki_talk:Gadget-edittop.js). DMacks (talk) 03:59, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Bolding alternative names

"Usually" here can account for cases like "Foo, also known as Bar, Baz, or Quux", where the "Baz" item is actually not a redirect from "Baz", but maybe "Baz (chemistry)", and so it wouldn't fit an absolute redirect requirement, but would be visually confusing if de-boldfaced between the other two. "Usually" isn't blanket license to boldface things for emphasis.

Per the above, if Baz (chemistry) is the only AKA, should it be bolded? My interpretation is no, it should only be bolded (on it's own) if it's an absolute redirect, but would like some feedback. Cheers. – 2.O.Boxing 01:39, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Yes it should be bold face. If we remove the parenthetical clauses the guideline is: ... "Foo, also known as Bar, Baz, or Quux", ... "Baz" ... would be visually confusing if de-boldfaced between the other two. Possibly the one long sentence needs to be re-written / split into two, so it's easier to parse. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:17, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Ah right. It was the wouldn't fit an absolute redirect requirement bit that threw me off. So, if somebody were to create The Joker (basketball player), that would satisfy BOLDALTNAMES for Nikola Jokic? – 2.O.Boxing 02:36, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
MOS:NICKBOLD seem more relevant for bios:

Common nicknames, aliases, and variants are usually given in boldface in the lead, especially if they redirect to the article, or are found on a disambiguation page or hatnote and link from those other names to the article.

—Bagumba (talk) 03:54, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Incidentally, the naming convention WP:NCBASKETBALL suggests a disambiguator of plain (basketball) is sufficient, not (basketball player), unless it's still ambiguous with other basketball people with different roles.—Bagumba (talk) 04:05, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
Fuck sake. These fucking guidelines. – 2.O.Boxing 07:28, 24 May 2023 (UTC)
"The great thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from." (variations attribted to Grace Hopper and Andrew S. Tanenbaum) DMacks (talk) 07:54, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Proposal: first sentences should be defining

Inspired by @Aquillion's thread on the NPOV noticeboard, I think we should amend MOS:BIOFIRSTSENTENCE, changing the fourth item from:

One, or possibly more, noteworthy positions, activities, or roles that the person held, avoiding subjective or contentious terms.

to:

One, or possibly more, noteworthy positions, activities, or roles that the person held, avoiding subjective, contentious, or non-defining terms.

(change in bold)

As a quick reminder:

A defining characteristic is one that reliable sources commonly and consistently refer to in describing the topic, such as the nationality of a person or the geographic location of a place.

The guidance on definingness was written for categorization, but I think it is good advice for first sentences of biographies too, because the first sentence should also focus on describing how the subject is commonly and consistently referred to.

Definingness is already associated with lead sections:

if the characteristic would not be appropriate to mention in the lead portion of an article (determined without regard to whether it is mentioned in the lead), it is probably not defining;

This proposal would strengthen that association.

By asking editors to avoid non-defining terms, we address the problem of subjects being introduced as philanthropists, criminals, authors, and such, where those may be verifiable and even significant descriptors, but fall short of being what the subject is generally known for.

Problematic examples:

  • Chris Moyles: Christopher David Moyles (born 22 February 1974) is an English radio and television presenter, author and presenter of The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X. He's written a couple of autobiographies, but he's not known as an author.
  • John C. Malone: John Carl Malone (born March 7, 1941) is an American billionaire businessman, landowner, and philanthropist. Sure, he's donated money, but I don't see sources introducing him as primarily a philanthropist.
  • Amber Heard: Amber Laura Heard (born April 22, 1986) is an American actress, humanitarian, and social activist. Actress yes, but the other two seem oversold.

What do we think? Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 10:52, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

Lead sentences are certainly often blighted with rather tenuous lists of secondary occupations. Iskandar323 (talk) 11:21, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
I like this idea. Anyone can publish a book through a vanity press, and "philanthropist" usually just means "doesn't pay taxes". Folly Mox (talk) 13:44, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
There is a little dispute at Stephen Adams (politician) (and, apparently, other articles) about adding "slave owner" to the first sentence of biographies when ownership of slaves is not a defining characteristic of the subject of the article. - Donald Albury 18:48, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
I think Moyles is ok, but the other two over-peacocky. I favour including significant occupations, but not non-work things. Johnbod (talk) 22:50, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
Mind you, according to Wikipedia, Malone's big donations tot up to $236 M (constant value), which maybe does make philanthropist defining (as it would be for Bill Gates, say). Johnbod (talk) 22:55, 15 June 2023 (UTC)
The definingness of an occupation is not determined by whether it was paid employment, but by how sources commonly and consistently describe a subject. Similarly for philanthropy - it shouldn't be about how much the subject donated, but about how sources commonly and consistently describe the subject.
(As an aside, $236m isn't that impressive for an individual with a net worth of ~$9b. It's 3%. The Giving Pledge starts at 50%. 3% is equivalent to the median US family giving ~$3,600. Generous perhaps, but no Carnegie.) Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:08, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
What about One, or possibly more, noteworthy and defining positions, activities, or roles that the person held, avoiding subjective or contentious terms. Thinker78 (talk) 23:25, 15 June 2023 (UTC) Edited 07:27, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
I'd prefer not to have "defining" mentioned twice. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:11, 16 June 2023 (UTC)
Accidental overlook. I deleted the offending part. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 07:27, 17 June 2023 (UTC)
I like this proposal. - Enos733 (talk) 16:53, 18 June 2023 (UTC)
if 1st sentences were defining no one would read to the end Pastalavist (talk) 19:20, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

Gee, I don't know about this. Consider, for example, Buzz Aldrin: an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. There is no doubt whatsoever that "astronaut" is what he is best known for. But it is also true that this was only a small part of his life, and had he not become an astronaut, he would still be notable as an engineer for his work on orbital rendezvous and the Aldrin cycler and as a fighter pilot for his exploits in Korea. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 07:54, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

It's a good example. If I look at a few random biographies [7] [8] [9] [10] [11], they all mention his career as a fighter pilot in the first paragraph, while none of them position him as an engineer beyond mentioning his degree. Now, this is just based on a few minutes of googling "Buzz Aldrin biography", so it's not exactly a full survey, but I'm willing to believe this counts as sources commonly and consistently describing him as both an astronaut and a fighter pilot, but not as an engineer. So I think his article's first sentence should be amended to ...an American former astronaut and fighter pilot. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 08:13, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

I hope this means that we can remove all of the nationalities in the first sentence for articles on people for whom the nationality is not commonly and frequently mentioned when describing them. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:18, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Unfortunately, Wikipedia:COP#N specifically calls out nationality in its first bullet point on definingness, on par with vital dates. It will be a long road to remove it from the lead sentence. Folly Mox (talk) 16:52, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

Support the nom, quite sensible. Captain Jack Sparrow (talk) 13:08, 19 June 2023 (UTC)

I oppose this, because it will make lead sentences less informative by tending to exclude relevant information. I support including important things, but I think the rule should be "summarize the Wikipedia article", not "see what's mentioned in sources when they briefly mention the subject" (="defining"). A useful rule of thumb is that if a vague or disputable point such as "philanthropist" or "humanitarian" doesn't have a corresponding ==Section== in the article, it's probably not appropriate to mention in the first sentence. For example, Amber Heard has sections on her acting career and charity-and-activism, so she'd probably be described as an actor and activist, but not as a humanitarian. John C. Malone has sections called ==Business career==, ==Land ownership==, and ==Philanthropy==, so that lead sentence is correct.
Also, using the "defining" standard will increase the number of disputes, since some editors have very strict rules about what constitutes "defining", sometimes leaning towards "things I think should be considered the most important" rather than the actual definition, which is a "characteristic...that reliable, secondary sources commonly and consistently define, in prose, the subject as having". For example, the defining characteristics of Dodi Fayed, per the actual definition in our guidelines, are:
  • being the son of his billionaire father
  • being a film producer
  • being in a relationship with Diana when they died
How do we know this? By looking at "reliable, secondary sources" and seeing that when he's introduced briefly, it's through phrases such as these: "Dodi Fayed, the son of the billionaire", "the film producer Dodi Fayed", and "Princess Diana's boyfriend at the time of her death".
Some editors object to familial relationships as being "defining", and I can understand it feeling weird, given our usual notion of WP:NOTINHERITED. Other editors will correctly point out that his career as a film producer is not "consistently" mentioned by reliable, secondary sources. What we will end up with is more disputes, rather than better articles. WhatamIdoing (talk) 08:19, 24 June 2023 (UTC)
(Aside: do you want to vote in the RfC below?)
To clarify, the rule for the lead would still be "summarize the Wikipedia article". MOS:BIOFIRSTSENTENCE is about what parts of the lead to prioritise in the first sentence.
Regarding disputes, personally I think having good faith source-based debates about what characteristics are defining is likely to result in an improved article. We already have debates about first sentence content (e.g. the original motivating one about philanthropy). The revised guidance is intended to steer those debates to a quicker and better conclusion. Barnards.tar.gz (talk) 07:51, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

If the lead is excerpted to another article should it be cited?

I tend to think yes as few readers of the other article would know that they would need to click through to the lead and then go down to the body to verify the info Chidgk1 (talk) 12:53, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Personally, I don't think article sections should ever be excerpted, if only because of potential format differences between the two articles. The editors shouldn't need to revise one article in order to satisfy the format and citation requirements of the other. That technology should be dumped. Praemonitus (talk) 14:21, 1 March 2023 (UTC)
@Chidgk1 do you have good examples of this in action? I agree that clicking through to another article is problematic for citing, but I think a caution against this practise would be better than forcing another article’s lead to be filled with cites. — HTGS (talk) 09:13, 2 March 2023 (UTC)
My question is not about whether a lead should be excerpted - my question is whether a lead which is already excerpted should be cited.
For some time I have been gradually bring articles related to Climate change in Turkey up to good standard. As you can imagine there is quite a lot of overlap in the subjects, so I have used some excerpts so that info can more easily be kept up to date in future.
At Talk:Gas in Turkey/GA2 @AirshipJungleman29 asked me what I thought of WP:LEADCITE. My opinion at the moment is that it ought to give guidance on whether leads which are excerpted should be cited. I think the guidance should say there ought to be cites but I don't think it should be mandatory. Chidgk1 (talk) 14:34, 3 March 2023 (UTC)
This also happens in COVID-19 articles.
The "receiving" article will not be able to achieve GA or FA status unless those paragraphs are cited. Whether the extracted information is correct is more important than whether the citations are visible in the receiving article, but visible citations will be required to pass certain processes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 7 March 2023 (UTC)
They always have the option to do a copy/paste of the text and cite that up. There shouldn't be a need to force an article to cite up a lead merely to satisfy the requirements of a different article. Praemonitus (talk) 02:23, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
Agree....should copy paste and add sources.... that in theory should already be in the article body. Transclusion isn't a good thing for most articles of higher quality H:TRANSDRAWBACKS Moxy- 02:39, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
These opinions on transclusion are just personal opinions, but it is a bit of a problem. WhatamIdoing is correct about GA and FA, and my preference is for copy, paste and customise. It is seldom that a lead section is exactly suitable for a summary section, and as it is likely to change, may get even less suitable over time without anyone noticing directly. I say this as having done a lot of these copy, paste and customise edits. I feel that transclusion is best suited to material that is specifically composed for transclusion, where it is specifically desirable that the transcluded content is identical in each use case, and where it makes sense to have all necessary citations embedded in the original, so that they transclude along with the text. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 11:40, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

LEADCITE rewrite

I rewrote LEADCITE and LEADCITE COMMENT: User:Cessaune/MOS:LEADCITE

It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing change; I'm willing to workshop something, but LEADCITE as it currently stands is messy, ambiguous, and contradictory. Cessaune [talk] 16:52, 26 June 2023 (UTC)

I frequently copy/paste/rehash lead sections to serve as summary sections in higher level articles, and having the lead adequately cited is a huge help, as it can be quite difficult to work out exactly what citation in the body text refers to a specific statement in the lead, particularly when there are multiple references at the end of a long paragraph and they are not accessible on-line. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 12:29, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Too often people say stuff like "we don't cite in lead sections" or "you're not supposed to cite in the lead, it's redundant" in GA/FA reviews and such even though that has never been at any point true as far as I know. Having citations in the lead is a big help, but people don't like it, which is why LEADCITE is so ambiguous. I think I clarified up the real essence of LEADCITE: citations in the lead are required for quotations/controversial or challenged statements; user discretion for anything else. Plain and simple. Despite the fact that citations in the lead are useful. Cessaune [talk] 17:28, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
One of the problems with citing the lead is that we're often trying to summarize very big subjects in one sentence. While some of that could be easily sourced, "please cite everything" can end up with editors arguing that although there is a huge, well-sourced section called ==Controversy==, it's not okay to write a sentence like "It was controversial" unless you can find a source that uses the exact word controversial.
Also, leads (and first paragraphs of technical sections) tend to provide context, and that can lead to somewhat irrelevant citations ("Foo is unrelated to the similarly named Phoo" – probably citeable, but why bother?). WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:29, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
"Please cite everything" and "cite nothing because you aren't supposed to" are equally bad in my opinion, especially when you consider lead/body visibility (people read the lead first, and often don't get to the bottom parts) and such.
Anyway, what do you think of my version of LEADCITE? I don't actually change anything/make any new points. Cessaune [talk] 21:37, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
Some common sense is desirable, but unfortunately not always on display. We have some editors who get fixated on the literal meaning of a few points and either are unaware of the others or find it convenient to ignore them. We are also stuck between the hammer of no original research and the hard place of copyright infringement, with bypasses through the swamp of inaccuracy and the jungle of bad writing style. I agree that citing everything and citing nothing are both not ideal.· · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
"If it ain't close paraphrasing, then it's obviously original research."
Cessaune, I think that the best way to re-write the template is to delete it, and if that isn't feasible, then I think it probably wants to be re-written in very direct language, such as:
"I see that you added a {{citation needed}} tag to the beginning of an article. Wikipedia has always allowed inline citations at the beginning of articles. However, I've removed the tag this time, because that specific fact is cited elsewhere in the article, and we normally only provide a citation once for each fact in an article. If you have trouble finding the relevant source, please ask me directly, and I'll show you which one it is."
I don't have strong opinions about the re-write of the MOS section. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:11, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
@Pbsouthwood: What do you think of my changes? Cessaune [talk] 17:34, 28 June 2023 (UTC)
I plan to get back to you on this later. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 08:30, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
My impressions are that it is more clearly expressed than the original, and I have not noticed any significant omissions. Also a little shorter, which I consider an advantage. Cheers, · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 12:24, 29 June 2023 (UTC)
Regarding the template rewrite, check its talk page. I tried changing it and there was a discussion some time ago. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 02:23, 29 June 2023 (UTC)

Mobile lead image placement

I've noticed on mobile articles that the image (or infobox) places before the first paragraph in the code always appears after it instead (though not on user pages). What exactly causes this? Sorry if this is the wrong place to ask, I was wondering if it was something that could be added on other wikis and I couldn't find anything about it. Ringtail Raider (talk) 17:46, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

It's a technical issue. I don't remember the specifics. But the infobox should show first, per MOS:LAYOUT. You can ask in Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) if your question doesn't get traction here. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 23:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Input requested

There is a discussion about the first sentence of the article Talk:Oxford English Dictionary. If you can provide input that would be great. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 23:25, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

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