Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style
Frequently asked questions Wikipedia's Manual of Style contains some conventions that differ from those in some other, well-known style guides and from what is often taught in schools. Wikipedia's editors have discussed these conventions in great detail and have reached consensus that these conventions serve our purposes best. New contributors are advised to check the FAQ and the archives to see if their concern has already been discussed. Why does the Manual of Style recommend straight (keyboard-style) instead of curly (typographic) quotation marks and apostrophes (i.e., the characters " and ', instead of “, ”, ‘, and ’)?
Users may only know how to type in straight quotes (such as " and ') when searching for text within a page or when editing. Not all Web browsers find curly quotes when users type straight quotes in search strings. Why does the Manual of Style recommend logical quotation?
This system is preferred because Wikipedia, as an international and electronic encyclopedia, has specific needs better addressed by logical quotation than by the other styles, despite the tendency of externally published style guides to recommend the latter. These include the distinct typesetters' style (often called American, though not limited to the US), and the various British/Commonwealth styles, which are superficially similar to logical quotation but have some characteristics of typesetters' style. Logical quotation is more in keeping with the principle of minimal change to quotations, and is less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing, than the alternatives. Logical quotation was adopted in 2005, and has been the subject of perennial debate that has not changed this consensus. Why does the Manual of Style differentiate the hyphen (-), en dash (–), em dash (—), and minus sign (−)?
Appropriate use of hyphens and dashes is as much a part of literate, easy-to-read writing as are correct spelling and capitalization. The "Insert" editing tools directly below the Wikipedia editing window provide immediate access to all these characters. Why does the Manual of Style recommend apostrophe+s for singular possessive of names ending in s?
Most modern style guides treat names ending with s just like other singular nouns when forming the possessive. The few that do not propose mutually contradictory alternatives. Numerous discussions have led to the current MoS guidance (see discussions of 2004, 2005, 2005, 2006, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2009, 2009, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2017, 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2021,
2022). Why doesn't the Manual of Style always follow specialized practice?
Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field, such as academic journals, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for or examples of how to present those facts to non-experts. When adopting style recommendations from external sources, the Manual of Style incorporates a substantial number of practices from technical standards and field-specific academic style guides; however, Wikipedia defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles. |
Discussions on this page often lead to previous arguments being restated. Please read recent comments, look in the archives, and review the FAQ before commenting. |
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Style discussions elsewhere edit
This section is pinned and will not be automatically archived. |
Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to Concluded when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.
Current edit
(newest on top)
- Talk:Shays' Rebellion#Requested move 27 April 2024 – Apply MOS:POSS and add an s?
- Template_talk:Infobox_university#Type – Should multiple entries be formatted as a list or a single phrase?
- Talk:Sino-Soviet border conflict#Flags and wikilinks in the Infobox "Belligerents" section - Do flags in this infobox serve a "useful purpose" per MOS:INFOBOXFLAGS or are they primarily decorative and should be removed?
- Wikipedia talk:Image use policy#Collages in infoboxes
- Wikipedia_talk:Featured_list_candidates#RfC_on_the_leads_of_DOY_articles_and_their_FL_eligibility – Lead length of Days Of the Year (DOY) articles (Feb. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles#Possessives in condition names – On Asperger syndrome vs. Asperger's syndrome, etc. (Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Names of deceased trans people (moved from WP:VPPOL) – Yet another round of this long-term, multi-RfC process. Consensus seems possible this time. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#Make Wikipedia:WikiProject Computer science/Manual of style into Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Computer science – Proposal to merge a "guideline in all but name" into MoS. (Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Increase default thumbnail size from 220px to 250px – Peripherally related to MOS:IMAGES and MOS:ACCESS. (Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (companies)#Use of comma and abbreviation of Incorporated – Involves MOS:TM (plus WP:COMMONNAME, WP:OFFICIALNAME. Covers more than thread name implies, including that guideline not having substantive revision since 2009. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#JOBTITLES simplification proposal – MOS:JOBTITLES has long been considered too complicated and hard to follow. This is not an RfC but drafting toward one; input has stalled out over the holidays, and needs to resume. (Dec. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/China- and Chinese-related articles#Kangxi radical template/gloss – Involves MOS:FOREIGN, MOS:SINGLE, MOS:ALLCAPS, MOS:BOLD. Still unresolved. (Oct.2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction#Fictional characters known by initials - what qualifies as the "preferred style for their own name" ? – Involves MOS:WAF, MOS:INITIALS, MOS:TM, MOS:ACRO, WP:OFFICIALNAME, etc. Still unresolved, but there seems to be no appetite for diverging from MOS:INITIALS. (Oct. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Islam-related articles#NPOV usage of "the prophet Muhammad" or "the prophet" – Involves MOS:HONORIFIC, MOS:DOCTCAPS, WP:NPOV, WP:CHERRYPICKING, etc. Still unresolved, though consensus seems to be forming in one direction. (Sep. 2023 – Jan. 2024)
- Help talk:Table#Indenting tables – Help page is conflicting with MOS:DLIST and MOS:ACCESS on a technical point. No objection to fixing it, and a suggestion to just do it WP:BOLDly, but the work actually has to be done. (Aug. 2023 –Jan. 2024)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Tables#Proposal to discourage vertically oriented ("sideways") column headers – Specifically in tables, possibly elsewhere. MOS:UNITNAMES (at the table "General guidelines on use of units") has an example of existing use that is being challenged, and material at Help:Table is also at issue. Still unresolved. (Dec. 2023)
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Accessibility#Making redundant table captions screen-reader-only – About use of
{{sronly}}
around table captions (which are primarily for screen readers) to hide them from the usual non-screen-reader view when their content repeats what is in the table headers. Still unresolved, too little input; probably needs to be RfCed. (Nov.–Dec. 2023) - Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Words to watch#"the late" – On MOS:EUPHEMISMS and whether to add another example to it. Still unresolved. (Oct. 2023)
- Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Linguistics#ALL-CAPS for "keywords for lexical sets"? – Involves MOS:ALLCAPS. Result: Thinly attended, but there does seem to be a linguistics standard to render lexical sets in smallcaps, so this should probably be accounted for at MOS:ALLCAPS in the exception lists (since our articles are consistently doing it). But this revision has not been done yet. (Oct. 2023)
Capitalization-specific:
- Talk:Motor Launch#Requested move 12 May 2024 – lowercase Launch and disambiguate?
- Talk:1999 NAIA Football National Championship#Requested_move_11_May_2024 – lowercase football national championship?
- Talk:Theory of forms#Requested move 28 April 2024 – Back to capitalizes Forms?
- Talk:More than This#Requested move 8 May 2024 (three articles) – Lowercase "Than"?
- Talk:Ave Maria ... Virgo serena#Requested move 8 May 2024 – Lowercase "Virgo"?
- Talk:Ae Fond Kiss (song)#Requested move 2 May 2024 – Sentence case as MOS:INCIPIT?
- Talk:Djurgårdens IF Hockey#Requested move 16 April 2024 – Lowercase hockey? Or other alternative?
- Talk:Pied-Noir#Lowercase – Lowercase "Pied-Noir" (or use "Pied-noir" or "Pieds-Noirs" or "Pieds-noirs" or "pieds-noirs")?
Other discussions:
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Music#THEBAND disambiguators – what to do about "The" in parenthetical disambiguators.
- Talk:F1NN5TER#Capitalization – Should the online persona be called "F1NN5TER", "F1nn5ter" or "Finnster"?
- Talk:Union Jack#Case consistency – Union Flag, or Union flag?
- Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Capitalisation of "oblast" when used as the name of a Ukrainian administrative division – May affect other administrative divisions (e.g. raion) and other nations for which such terms are used
- Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters#Capitalization in tables – Column by column, or entire table?
- Talk:2020 MLS Cup Playoffs#Rounds are proper names? – Lowercase some words in headings?
- Talk:Ballistic Missile Early Warning System#Article title – Use sentence case?
Pretty stale but not "concluded":
- Talk:Upstate New York#Other plausible capitalization issue – Capitalization of "Upstate" New York.
- Talk:Southern Italy#Lowercase or uppercase? – Capitalisation of "southern". Also "northern" and "central" in related articles.
- Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (capitalization)#Capitalization of geologic names – Despite being opened on an NC talk page, this is about usage in general not just in our article titles.
- Talk:Fall of Saigon#Names section and capitalisation – capitalisation of Vietnamese language names and capitalisation of their English translations?
Concluded edit
Extended content
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Is the use of quote box in article to highlight certain contents considered pull quote? edit
A user argued that use of quote box within the article does not constitute a "pull quote" within the context of MOS:PQ, because it is not repeating something in the article. Although, the editorial intent is obviously Wikipedia editor's desire to accentuate and bring more attention to that part than rest of the article, so I believe it is considered pull quote for the intent of the guideline. Please help with the interpretation of the meaning of "pull quote" as used on Wikipedia as used in Boy_Scouts_of_America#Program Graywalls (talk) 16:47, 8 April 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, repeating something or displaying it prominently obviously needs to consider additional NPOV concerns. Remsense诉 14:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
- A pull quote is an extract pulled from the material within which it's embedded to highlight it. A quotation from an outside source is not a pull quote, it's just a quote, even if it's given special emphasis. However, making arbitrary quotes in articles pretty is not advisable. See, for example, the documentation at
{{Quote box}}
. Largoplazo (talk) 15:25, 9 April 2024 (UTC)- People have been repeating this stuff about POV for years and it's thoughtless nonsense. Judgment must be exercised, and the use cases are limited, but a highlighted quote need be POV no more than does a block quote in the article proper, or a photo caption. EEng 20:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
- I thought the point was that choosing to highlight a particular quote is itself POV, not just providing it for verification or illustration purposes but giving it undue emphasis. It's perhaps the same as MOS:NOTETHAT; beginning a sentence in an article with "Note that" implies that what immediately follows should is merits note—as though the rest of the article doesn't so much. In both cases, we should let the reader assess the significance of each piece of information given in the article without cuing them as to what we think deserves special attention by them. Largoplazo (talk) 21:23, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
- It matters a bit more than those elements because highlighted quotes are a bit more distinctive than them, is what I think the common sense idea is. Remsense诉 21:00, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
- Despite your indentation I think you're addressing me. Yes, a highlighted quote is more distinctive than the other situations I mentioned, and that's wh, as I said earlier, use cases for highlighted quotes are limited. But they're not nonexistent, which is what since people persistently claim. EEng 14:15, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- People have been repeating this stuff about POV for years and it's thoughtless nonsense. Judgment must be exercised, and the use cases are limited, but a highlighted quote need be POV no more than does a block quote in the article proper, or a photo caption. EEng 20:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)
Slight edit made in MOS:ELLIPSES section edit
Background: Based on MOS:ELLIPSES, I had edited one of my own sentences, placing a fourth period inside the closing quotation mark because that is what I thought MOS:ELLIPSIS instructed. But it just did not look right to me.
I consulted Garner's Modern English Usage (4th ed.) and searched the Wikipedia Manual of Style. I found MOS:LQ, which naturally agrees with Garner.
Then to the Teahouse, where I posted: MOS:ELLIPSES and MOS:LQ seem contradictory, and I received an affirming reply from Mike Turnbull.
I therefore added one period and an explanatory sentence to the MOS:ELLIPSES section, as follows.
Before edit: Jones wrote: "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully ..."
After edit: Jones wrote: "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully ...".
(Note that the period ending the sentence should be placed outside the quotation mark; see MOS:LQ.)
All the best – Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 17:20, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- I've undone your edit, since I think this requires further discussion. Especially since the quoted example spans multiple sentences, I think it should rather be written as "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully ...." – three periods marking the omission, and the fourth marking the end of the sentence, which supposedly happens in the quoted text too, and can therefore be enclosed in the quotation marks. Gawaon (talk) 18:20, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- If the quoted text ended in a period, why would we include an ellipsis? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- This is a good question. Or rather, the question is: why would one ever need an ellipsis at the end of the quotation, if logical style is used. If one writes "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully". (with the period after the quote mark), this already indicates that the final period is not part of the quote. Hence no ellipsis is needed, even if the original sentence continues. Gawaon (talk) 18:32, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- Perhaps my understanding is flawed.
- Which of the following is correct?
- "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations ..."
- "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations ...".
- "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations ...."
- "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations."
- Note: The quoted text occurs in the middle of a long sentence, i.e., the sentence continues after the word, evaluations.
- Many thanks – Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 21:47, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- If that's supposed to be a quote within a paragraph, no ellipsis is needed at either side. Put in context, it might read: Some experts recommend "the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations".
- More interesting is the case that one wants to set it as a blockquote. It's too short for that, but we can ignore that. In a blockquote, there are no quotation marks and it's hence not possible to put anything "outside the quotation marks", so some kind of quote-final ellipsis seems necessary. Personally I'd tend to put four periods here (three for the ellipsis, one to end the sentence), though admittedly that's not what the MOS currently seems to recommend:
Gawaon (talk) 22:04, 16 April 2024 (UTC)The use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations....
- I had thought #2 is correct because, per WP:INOROUT: "If the quotation is a single word or a sentence fragment, place the terminal punctuation outside the closing quotation mark." – Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 22:06, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- True as far as the punctuation is concerned, but there is still no need for an ellipsis, which will usually only be needed in the middle of quotations. I'm afraid MOS:ELLIPSES is in pretty bad shape since it doesn't reflect that and rather works with toy examples which have nothing to do with encyclopedic usage. Gawaon (talk) 22:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- Ah, thank you, that helps. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 01:35, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
- True as far as the punctuation is concerned, but there is still no need for an ellipsis, which will usually only be needed in the middle of quotations. I'm afraid MOS:ELLIPSES is in pretty bad shape since it doesn't reflect that and rather works with toy examples which have nothing to do with encyclopedic usage. Gawaon (talk) 22:14, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- If the quoted text ended in a period, why would we include an ellipsis? Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 18:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- MapReader, regarding your latest edit: consider the text right after the example, which says: "Place terminal punctuation after an ellipsis only if it is textually important, as is often the case with exclamation marks and question marks but rarely with periods." Nevertheless adding a period here contracts this recommendation and makes the example contradictory. I would suggest you self-revert until this is resolved. Gawaon (talk) 18:40, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- Separating the two quotation marks is textually important, to avoid “sentence one…””sentence two”, which is clunky and clumsy. But if it’s all one continuous quote, it would be better (and probably meet both of our needs) if the middle quotation marks were removed and the sentences run together, separated by the ellipsis. My edit is better than what was there before, but the latter would be better still. MapReader (talk) 19:10, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- Hmm, my understanding is that the two examples are indeed meant as two examples that are completely unrelated to each other. If there was just one quote, surely one would write something like "sentence one ... sentence two" without intervening quotation marks. Gawaon (talk) 20:07, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- Separating the two quotation marks is textually important, to avoid “sentence one…””sentence two”, which is clunky and clumsy. But if it’s all one continuous quote, it would be better (and probably meet both of our needs) if the middle quotation marks were removed and the sentences run together, separated by the ellipsis. My edit is better than what was there before, but the latter would be better still. MapReader (talk) 19:10, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- This part is right:
the fourth [dot] marking the end of the sentence, which supposedly happens in the quoted text too, and can therefore be enclosed in the quotation marks.
If the original read, e.g., "... The facts suffer so frightfully at the hands of Johnson and his writing.", the "." is part of the original material, so can properly be included inside the quotation.If the quoted text ended in a period, why would we include an ellipsis?
Because material has been editorially removed from the original quoted material (in my example case, it's the "at the hands of Johnson and his writing" string).Which of the following is correct?
Depends on the original material. In most cases, this will be valid: "... and the use of experienced, second-level reviewers to conduct fully independent exams to evaluate the criterion validity of actual veterans' evaluations ...." unless the original material actually ended with "evaluations." There would not be a true need for... veterans' evaluations ...".
unless for some reason the original material did not end with "." after the elided material, perhaps because it had "!" or "?", or because it was itself terminated originally with "...", or was a title/headline/caption/table header/etc. with no terminal punctuation at all. However, using... veterans' evaluations ...".
doesn't actually break anything, and there might be a preference for this the more fragementary the quoted material is. If it's 20% of a sentence, I would probably go with that, but if the quote is 90% of a sentence and just lopped off an extraneous parenthetical comment (especially an inline parenethetical citation in an academic paper), I would be more inclined to use... veterans' evaluations ...."
which suggests a "complete thought", as it were.I'll repeat what I always say: LQ is not difficult in any way, and people need to stop trying to manufacture ways to make it difficult. Include inside the quotation marks only the content (including puncutation) of the original quoted material and do not change it (except as noted later here); do not include inside the quotation marks content (including punctuation) that is not in the original quoted material, and that includes changing one puncutation mark to another (this is principally how LQ differs from typical British styles, which do permit such "silent" alterations, as in {{"'Not today,' he said", with "." altered to ","). If it is editorially desirable to change content inside the punctuation, this is done with [square-bracketed] insertions, or in the case of ellision with "...". The ultra-academic, usually redundant style "[...]" is not necessary, except when the quoted material contains its own original "...". That's really all there is to it.
avoid “sentence one…””sentence two”
: Yes, there is no reason to ever do that. If you were quotating the same material, you'd just fuse the quotations: "Sentence one .... Sentence two.", if the first is a fragment; but it would be "Sentence one. ... Sentence two.", if two complete sentences were quoted with intevening material elided.) If you were quoting two different parties and thus couldn't merge them into one quote, they would be separated, and probably have introductory clauses making it clear which speaker/writer is which.PS: If anyone's still not clear why it's "evaluations ..." not " evaluations...", it's because the latter indicates a truncated word not a truncated passage. The ambiguity doesn't really come up with a word like "evaluations" but does with words like "which" and "there" and "as", for which longer words exist like "whichever" and "therefore" and "aside", which could have been truncated. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:28, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
PPS, regarding
If one writes "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully". (with the period after the quote mark), this already indicates that the final period is not part of the quote. Hence no ellipsis is needed, even if the original sentence continues.
Doing it that way would not an error, but it depends on editors and readers alike being 100% involved with LQ, which is obvioiusly not the reality. Various of our editors just DGaF and write however they like, leaving it to other editors to clean up after them later, so our readers (who even notice such puncuation matters at all) cannot depend entirely on the terminal "." having been placed correctly (and various of them would not pick up any implication from the placement anyway). When just quoting an isolated fragment like "Johson called it a 'disaster' in a press conference two days later", this really doesn't matter, but when quoting one or more full sentences followed by a fragment it is sensible (and zero cost/harm of any kind) to make it clear to the reader than the entire quoted material is ending with a fragment: "These stories amaze me. The facts suffer so frightfully ...." It is better to let the reader know that something is a fragment when they cannot already be entirely certain of this from other clues. Always remember that our goal is to communicate as clearly as we can, not to reduce our typography to the shortest imaginable output; this is not a "coding elegance" contest among hackers. — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼 23:39, 16 April 2024 (UTC)- Thank you, I have a much better understanding now. The sentence I wrote in another article that launched me down this rabbit hole was "20% of a sentence" so it's good to know I got it right the first time. Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/him] 01:32, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Reconsider ellipsis ...
vs … preference
edit
Summary ( as of 16:22, 22 April 2024 (UTC))
|
Support for … (unicode ellipsis, U+2026) is widespread now. The decision to prefer ...
over …[1] was made 15-20 years ago when unicode support was nascent.[2]
Benefits of … (unicode ellipsis) edit
- More accessible — screen readers can read "ellipsis" properly
- more compact & readable. Better line breaks
- renders with better fidelity using font glyph
- scales better when zooming & with high-DPI devices like mobile phones
- easier to parse (distinct unicode representation for character)
Tonymetz 💬 18:01, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- If we discuss this, we need to discuss the use of typographical quotation marks too! Gawaon (talk) 18:23, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- Eh, I'm not so sure about that. Curly quotes have drawbacks (e.g. being 'keyed', being more frequent to the degree where I would argue the extra byte substantially increases page sizes on average) that U+2026 … HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS does not. Remsense诉 18:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- Fair enough. We also use en dash (–) and friends, after all. Gawaon (talk) 20:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- I agree with Gawaon's 1st sentiment that curly quotation marks/apostrophes should be discussed in the same vein as ellipses. Both deal with the distinction of ASCII representation vs. extended character maps. I don't think that their multi-byte effect on increased page size is of any concern. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
- Fair enough. We also use en dash (–) and friends, after all. Gawaon (talk) 20:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- Eh, I'm not so sure about that. Curly quotes have drawbacks (e.g. being 'keyed', being more frequent to the degree where I would argue the extra byte substantially increases page sizes on average) that U+2026 … HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS does not. Remsense诉 18:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)
- The big BIG advantage of requiring straight quotes and period ... ellipses is that it doesn't allow yet another gratuitous style variation for gnomes to slow-war over. It looks fine, it works, it contributes to having a clean readable style instead of a fussy special-character-elaborated one. Why get rid of those advantages? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:57, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
- Though I said the opposite above, I think it might indeed make most sense to limit this to the ellipsis issue for now, since it would be a relatively small change – much smaller than changing the rules for quotes and apostrophes. So if this is changed now, the quote issue could possibly be reconsidered in a year or two, then taking into account the experience with the ellipsis change.
- For the ellipsis, there are two possibilities:
- Allowing both
...
and…
as equally valid options. Very easy change, but with the disadvantage that usage in any given page could then be mixed, annoying the typographically aware. Though the visible difference between ... and … is small (much smaller than "quotes" vs. “quotes”, I'd say – in fact, in our standard font I can hardly see it), so that shouldn't matter very much. Also, to prevent "slow-warring", we could make the rule that changing...
to…
is allowed, but changing in the opposite direction is not. In that way, pages would slowly evolved in the typographically correct direction. - Requiring, from now on, that
…
is used, and deprecating...
, just like MOS:DASH has deprecated the use of single or double hyphens instead of dashes. This would ensure that there is a single standard all pages are meant to adhere to, so totally eliminating the risk of edit warring. The disadvantage, of course, is that there are 100,000s of pages (at least) that currently don't adhere to that standard. I suppose a bot could help with that change, but it would still be a giant task to bring them in adherence.
- Allowing both
- Personally I think option 1. would be fine, while 2. daunts me a bit because of the size of the required changes. Gawaon (talk) 07:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
- While I'm not opposed on principle, I doubt implementing this change across thousands of articles would be feasible. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:48, 20 April 2024 (UTC)
- Well, option 1 wouldn't have to be "implemented", it would just be an option for editors to choose from now on. Gawaon (talk) 06:06, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- Bad idea. The point of an MoS is to be as consistent as possible. And changes would have to be implemented regardless; if you don't do anything, AWB, bots, and other automated tools will just continue changing them. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:10, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- Oppose any "use whichever style you want" option. Gonnym (talk) 11:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- Well, option 1 wouldn't have to be "implemented", it would just be an option for editors to choose from now on. Gawaon (talk) 06:06, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- I have no real preference for one or the other, but I oppose the change. It wouldn't be too much work for a bot to change all of one to another. Still I see no reason to mess with what's been working. Actually, I do prefer the three dots. Anyone can type
...
and the…
requires a bit more effort, and…
displays differently depending on the font used, so sometimes looks odd. Mixed use looks sloppy and I really want to avoid that. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 11:48, 21 April 2024 (UTC) - I'm wary of creating yet another challenge for new editors who want to do the right thing – we want to keep them. NebY (talk) 14:26, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
- My preference would be to create templates for such things as ellipses and in-line quote[a] and relegate the style arguments to the talk pages of those templates. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)
Punctuation inside or outside edit
This isn't an attempt to relitigate--I promise!--but just curious why all the examples under this policy take the form of rendered dialogue, without also using example quotes and context from newspapers, academic journals, magazines, encyclopedias, etc. This may be part of the confusion for some editors, especially those from North America (an MOS essay mentions that the aesthetic style is used mostly in North America...). Thank you. Caro7200 (talk) 19:14, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- Oh crap, not again. Look, it's very simple: if the punctuation is part of the quoted text, it goes inside the quote marks; if it's not, it goes outside. That's all. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:35, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- Ha, sorry to trouble you ... yet your tone indicates that you fear that Jericho may one day fall again... ;) Caro7200 (talk) 19:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- For complete sentences, but not sentence fragments. It’s ‘the critic said the film was “great”. ‘, even if in the original text the sentence ended “. . . great.” MapReader (talk) 19:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
- I would be fine with changing a few "said"s to "wrote"s, but I don't think the dialogue/written-text distinction is causing much of the confusion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:41, 19 April 2024 (UTC)
Categories "last in coding"? edit
I note the section on Section organization says:
*The following final items never take section headings:
**Internal links organized into navigational boxes
**Stub templates, if needed
**Authority control metadata, if needed, using {{Authority control}}
(distinguishes uses of the same name for two subjects, or multiple names for one subject)
**Categories, which should be the very last material in the article's source code
Standard practice is to put stub templates after categories, so that stub categories are listed after navigation cats. This is reinforced by information at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout#Order of article elements. This section seems to suggest the opposite. Needs rewording, perhaps? Grutness...wha? 15:02, 21 April 2024 (UTC)
MOS: Name clash edit
Just a heads up for now: at some point most likely in the next month to few months a Wikipedia in the Mossi language, with the ISO code mos
, and thus a "mos:" interwiki which would overwrite the "MOS:" pseudo-namespace, is likely to get created. I've been jotting down various ideas to avoid this problem at m:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Mooré#Comments. * Pppery * it has begun... 00:39, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Interesting case. Congratulations to the creators of that new Wikipedia! I wonder whether it might be possible to special-case all-caps "MOS:", since interlanguage links are by convention nearly always lower-case ("mos:")? Gawaon (talk) 05:31, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Great suggestion @Gawaon. I totally agree with you. The Moore language is a big language In Africa, spoken across multiple countries with more than 11 million speakers. Having the wikipedia created with mos.wikipedia.org would be very useful. Shahadusadik (talk) 09:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Interwiki prefixes are currently case-insentive, and that's (probably) not very practical to change. * Pppery * it has begun... 15:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- I know, I suppose it could be a special "hack" for just this one special case – of course, the software (MediaWiki) would have to be modified to support it. But what's the alternative? And especially, is there a practical alternative? (I would accept it as a given that mos.wikipedia.org is going to come.) Gawaon (talk) 15:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Pppery's suggestion "English Wikipedia to convert its pseudo-namespace for MOS into a full namespace" looks practical. Existing links in policy pages, edit summaries and discussions should all work, though interwiki linking from en: to mos: would have to be done in some unusual way. enwiki's range of search selections would have to be expanded - is the code so good that would happen automatically? - and we'd be lucky if that was all, but it's a more elegant evolution than the deep-cludge alternatives. NebY (talk) 16:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Ok. I understand this now@Pppery. Shahadusadik (talk) 17:17, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
- I know, I suppose it could be a special "hack" for just this one special case – of course, the software (MediaWiki) would have to be modified to support it. But what's the alternative? And especially, is there a practical alternative? (I would accept it as a given that mos.wikipedia.org is going to come.) Gawaon (talk) 15:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Interwiki prefixes are currently case-insentive, and that's (probably) not very practical to change. * Pppery * it has begun... 15:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Great suggestion @Gawaon. I totally agree with you. The Moore language is a big language In Africa, spoken across multiple countries with more than 11 million speakers. Having the wikipedia created with mos.wikipedia.org would be very useful. Shahadusadik (talk) 09:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- With relief I've verified that there are no languages with code "wp" or "wt". Largoplazo (talk) 10:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
- Though this wouldn't fix past edit summaries, could we rename it "Style" and mass-replace
/(\[\[)MOS(:.*?[\]\])/i
with$1Style$2
throughout the content? Largoplazo (talk) 18:36, 25 April 2024 (UTC) - Filed phab:T363538, since Phabricator is probably a better venue for this then here. * Pppery * it has begun... 23:05, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
- On a related matter, see the notification below. The actual RfD section is Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 25#Mos:DAB and etc. where several are listed. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:05, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
"Mos:DASH" listed at Redirects for discussion edit
The redirect Mos:DASH has been listed at redirects for discussion to determine whether its use and function meets the redirect guidelines. Readers of this page are welcome to comment on this redirect at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2024 April 25 § Mos:DASH until a consensus is reached. Utopes (talk / cont) 21:51, 25 April 2024 (UTC)
Prime Minister or prime minister edit
Is there written guidance somewhere on the use of upper or lower case on prime minister, president, etc? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:20, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
- Yes, here: MOS:JOBTITLE. Doremo (talk) 12:33, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
- Excellent, thanks! Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:39, 26 April 2024 (UTC)
Clarification on foreign language quotes and suggestion to add examples. edit
Hi, I am confused by the guidance on foreign-language quotations and I think some examples are needed. For example, I am trying to quote the phrase "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig" with an English translation of "Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig" in the article Free City of Danzig Government in Exile. Should the English or the German version come first? Should the English version include quote marks? If not, how do I separate the English phrase from the rest of the text? Should the German text by italicised in the quote marks? For example, which if any of these are acceptable after "von Prince was convicted in Switzerland for forging a passport and a number plate that he claimed were validly issued by the ..."
- "Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig" (German: Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig).
- "Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig" (German: "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig").
- Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig (German: "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig").
- German: "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig" (Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig).
Thanks. Safes007 (talk) 04:55, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
- (I took the liberty of numbering your list.) I would use any of nos. 1 to 3 your examples, but omit the quotation marks for either language. If pressed, I'd prefer a modified #3:
- Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig (German: Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig)
- -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 10:31, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
- It is a proper noun and proper nouns in a foreign language are not italicized as such. However, they are italicized if they are provided as a translation of a phrase or word already used in English. There's no need for quote marks for either the English or German words any more than for other proper noun phrases. Which to use first depends on which is more common in English language reliable sources. I'd suggest either:
- Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig (German: Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig).
- or
- Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig (Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig).
- SchreiberBike | ⌨ 19:16, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
- This is in the context of a micronation where the "Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig" doesn't actually exist. It's just a thing a person claims to belong to. Does that not make it not a proper noun or change your advice at all? Safes007 (talk) 04:27, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
- Nope, the International Association of SchreiberBikers is properly capitalized despite not existing. Sometimes pretend names are enclosed in quote marks to indicate that those words only exist in a person's mind or writing, but that should be clear from the text. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 19:04, 28 April 2024 (UTC)
- Of your two examples above, the first is the format proposed by our
{{lang-de}}
temple (see Template:lang-de):- Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig (German: Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig)
- It is a proper noun and proper nouns in a foreign language are not italicized as such. However, they are italicized if they are provided as a translation of a phrase or word already used in English. There's no need for quote marks for either the English or German words any more than for other proper noun phrases. Which to use first depends on which is more common in English language reliable sources. I'd suggest either:
Epigraphs and opening quotations vis à vis pull quotes edit
MOS:PQ is pretty clear in its explanation of why pull quotes are considered undesirable in an encyclopedia, as they are a form of editorializing, produces out-of-context and undue emphasis, and may lead the reader to conclusions not supported in the material. However, a gray area seems to lie in quotations that haven't been pulled from the article text, but are still placed at the head of a section without being contextualized in prose first. The inciting example for this particular thread is currently at Higgs boson § Gauge invariant theories and symmetries:
- "It is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry" – Philip Anderson, Nobel Prize Physics[1]
Gauge invariant theories are theories which have a useful feature; some kinds of changes to the value of certain items do not make any difference to the outcomes or the measurements we make. An example: changing voltages in an electromagnet by +100 volts does not cause any change to the magnetic field it produces. Similarly, measuring the speed of light in vacuum seems to give the identical result, whatever the location in time and space, and whatever the local gravitational field.
The issue is I actually rather like this section! It's well-written if a bit quirky, and the quote concerns an important theme of the article in a way that doesn't seem overly egregious. But is it adequately encyclopedic? I'm not sure. What is an encyclopedia, again?
In any case, I feel it's odd for the MoS to explicitly address pull quotes but not these quotes generally. Remsense诉 05:19, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- Some word of caution against using epigraphs would probably be advisable. Though personally I think that neither pull quotes nor epigraphs (essentially the difference seems to be just one of formatting and possibly placement) are totally unsuitable for an encyclopedia, as long as they are used sparingly, with careful editorial judgement. Gawaon (talk) 05:56, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
References
- ^ From P.W. Anderson (1972) "More is different", Science.
Change "foreign-language" to "non-English language"? edit
Of course "foreign-language" is a common adjective to mean "in a language other than English" and that's fine, but it also looks a bit odd in the guidelines of an international internet encyclopedia? "non-English language" is clunkier I'll admit, but it's also more precise in a way that seemingly doesn't cost much. Should we consider changing it on policy and guideline pages?
(I'm fairly sure it shouldn't be non–English language or non-English-language even as an adjective, right? Those both look ridiculous.)Remsense诉 05:28, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- Agree. “Foreign” presupposes where the reader is, which isn’t appropriate for an international encyclopaedia. MapReader (talk) 07:08, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- My concern is that "non-English" might exclude the English-based creoles like Nigerian Pidgin; we should treat these creoles as we would treat any other non-English language, as English speakers tend to be unable to understand them. BilledMammal (talk) 08:28, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is fairly safe to say that no one would have this as their public definition of "English language", right? Remsense诉 08:37, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- It’s not exactly an English language - but it’s also not exactly a non-English language. BilledMammal (talk) 08:52, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- I think it is fairly safe to say that no one would have this as their public definition of "English language", right? Remsense诉 08:37, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
- Don't fix what ain't broke. Foreign is fine as we all know it means a language other than English. Masterhatch (talk) 08:48, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
"Left" and "right" edit
What's the meaning of "left" and "right" in images if removing them leaves the images completely unchanged? JacktheBrown (talk) 19:02, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- Where is this? --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 21:21, 7 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: I mean in general. JacktheBrown (talk) 11:32, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- "left" places an image to the left, "right" (which is the default) to the right. But I suppose you know that already. So what's the question? Gawaon (talk) 13:16, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- One of the most important things to know about Jack is they use Wikipedia on their phone. They are seemingly unaware of what Wikipedia is like outside the mobile app, which is interesting and thought-provoking. Remsense诉 13:41, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Remsense: I'm aware of this, but using Wikipedia only on a mobile device seems much better to me, because I can zoom in and then, like an eagle, immediately notice all the errors and things that need to be improved. Note: I use both the website and the app. JacktheBrown (talk) 13:43, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- My bad, that wasn't meant as a dig at you to be clear. I genuinely do think it's interesting to try to fully consider an editor with that kind of relationship with the site. Remsense诉 13:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Remsense: it's important to consider that young readers, and not only, use almost exclusively their mobile devices to read Wikipedia pages (I think). JacktheBrown (talk) 13:53, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- My bad, that wasn't meant as a dig at you to be clear. I genuinely do think it's interesting to try to fully consider an editor with that kind of relationship with the site. Remsense诉 13:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Remsense: I'm aware of this, but using Wikipedia only on a mobile device seems much better to me, because I can zoom in and then, like an eagle, immediately notice all the errors and things that need to be improved. Note: I use both the website and the app. JacktheBrown (talk) 13:43, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- One of the most important things to know about Jack is they use Wikipedia on their phone. They are seemingly unaware of what Wikipedia is like outside the mobile app, which is interesting and thought-provoking. Remsense诉 13:41, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- Oh, so you mean
|left
and|right
as in[[File:Example.jpg|thumb|left|An example on the left]]
. If you had said that at the start of this thread, we wouldn't have been wasting time (I had thought that you meant in image captions like "From left to right: Smith, Jones, Brown and Foobar"). Anyway, as shown at WP:EIS#Location, these options control which margin the image is placed against; and when|thumb
is specified (see WP:EIS#Type),|right
is the default. So altering|thumb|right
to|thumb
makes absolutely no difference; but altering|thumb|left
to|thumb
will move the image from being against the left margin to being against the right margin. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:59, 11 May 2024 (UTC)- One example of why this might be desirable is to avoid WP:STACKING (see especially Help:Pictures#Alternating left and right). If, however, you are using a mobile device, then the L/R image placement may not be visible. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:13, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- "left" places an image to the left, "right" (which is the default) to the right. But I suppose you know that already. So what's the question? Gawaon (talk) 13:16, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Redrose64: I mean in general. JacktheBrown (talk) 11:32, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
Which part says 'let's' is bad style for us? edit
I just removed a problematic sentence from an article ("Let's delve deeper into the various characteristics and cultural symbols of deep clothing together"). Which part of MoS or another page or essay can I mention to tell the editor who add it that this is bad style? Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 03:01, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- A bit of MOS:WE and a bit of MOS:CONTRACTIONS. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 03:15, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- MOS:PEDAGOGY: "interactive personality is inconsistent with an encyclopedia's passive presentation of objective matter". Hawkeye7 (discuss) 03:18, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- There's so much wrong with that sentence it's impossible to know where to start. EEng 03:50, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- But I guess the first word is reasonable. (why exactly did deel become "deep" anyway?) Martinevans123 (talk) 09:17, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Martinevans123 Probably because it was spell checked into common but incorrect word... I removed all of the related content (poorly referenced). Sigh. Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 05:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- @Martinevans123 Actually, I was wrong, student says it is Shenyi which perhaps can be called deep. That said, that project so far has major issues with lack of references too, which probably is secondary to tone... sigh. Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 05:57, 10 May 2024 (UTC)
- But I guess the first word is reasonable. (why exactly did deel become "deep" anyway?) Martinevans123 (talk) 09:17, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
- It looks like an emulation of an engaging lecture or textbook style, so WP:NOTTEXTBOOK, especially parts 1 and 6, might help. NebY (talk) 10:08, 9 May 2024 (UTC)
Is there a Manual of Style on Election Percentages? edit
Stress marks in East Slavic words edit
Please join the work on the content of Wikipedia:Stress marks in East Slavic words. - Altenmann >talk 12:59, 11 May 2024 (UTC)
add MOS:TIES clarification, argues "local names"? edit
Hi, I've seen MOS:TIES as interpreted to mean article titles should only use the name in that (local) variety of English. So Bangalore is argued to be possibly Bengaluru because that's what it is in Indian English but not all English. I think this is incorrect, with TIES meaning spelling/grammar/specific generic vocabulary? If I am correct, can therefore "orthography"/ "spelling" etc be added to
An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English orthography of that nation
or some other clarification, that it doesn't mean article titles, such as places, should use the local name.
Unless they are supposed to use the local name? DankJae 13:17, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- That move request failed, as far as I can see, because of insufficient evidence that Bengaluru actually is the more commonly used name, whether in India or outside of it. So it's not a TIES issue. Gawaon (talk) 13:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- I am aware it did not pass, but on less known RMs it may be enough, eventually legitimising the argument, so just asking that the text be more specific. While you state the RM stated there wasn't evidence in and out of India, TIES was used to say "we don't need to consider out of India at all". DankJae 14:35, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- MOS:TIES is a section of the "Manual of Style" which is a guideline. Article titles are governed by"Article titles" which is a policy. So I think the issue should be settled in the "Article titles" policy and the "Manual of Style" should be adjusted so that normally the place name used in the running text of articles agrees with the title of the relevant Wikipedia article, no matter whether the text is in the article about the place, or some other article that refers to the place. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:31, 15 May 2024 (UTC)
- That said, it seems to me that articles on topics that are strongly connected to a local variety of English should use the best title in that variety of English, e.g., Québécois people. The principle is correctly understood as applying to word choice, not just orthography, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 14:53, 15 May 2024 (UTC)