Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 8

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Lede? . . . and LEA too

The article here lists 'lede' as a possible alternative spelling. Is this vandalism, or is it some jargon I'm unaware of? Just thought I'd better check before removing it... --Plusdown (talk) 19:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

It's journalist jargon see Lede (news) or the wiktionary definition--Cailil ^talk 20:23, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Well, as my grandmother liked to say, you learn something new everyday... --Plusdown (talk) 20:30, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

A piece of pretentious ignorance, which appears to have arisen since the Second Edition of the OED in 1989; but we're stuck with it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 13:43, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

I find myself again agreeing with Anderson. I was taken aback the first time I saw it, which was on WP. Tony (talk) 14:01, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

It has presumably arisen to differentiate from lead: "tip, clue to a good story", but we might do well to deprecate it here, where the other sense is not common. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 14:22, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

• Indeed; do you propose that it be excised from the page? Tony (talk) 15:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
  • Well, it is an existing, all-too-widely-used spelling; removing it would confuse people. Our usage of lead consistently is silent deprecation. We could downgrade it to italics from bold. Septentrionalis PMAnderson

Well, this is more interesting than I thought it was. "lede" doesn't appear in Websters or AMHER, which comes as a complete surprise to the few journalists I know. I wouldn't mind changing Sept's "or lede" to "or, among some journalists, lede". Btw, the etymology is that "lead" (the kind that's pronounced "led") was the metal used in the printing presses, and also the name for a strip of the metal used to separate type, so the old spelling of "lede" (common before 1600) was re-appropriated by printers and journalists to mean "lead section".

Sept, you made several other changes; can you point to the discussion that led to the changes, please? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Anderson: why can't we remove "lede" from the opening statement, then? Tony (talk) 07:47, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd be happy either with my language or leaving it out. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:29, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

It's surely not necessary to include every synonym. It's not a thesaurus entry, dictionary entry or even an encyclopedia article; it's just a guide for editors. I'd take all the synonyms out and have just "lead section". But since it's not an article and this is just a bit of distracting clutter, I don't care a great deal. Nurg (talk) 11:51, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

And while we are thinking about such things - how important is LEA?. Can I take it and redirect WP:LEA to Wikipedia:Law enforcement agency for a page I am about to propose ? Peet Ern (talk) 06:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

No objection. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:01, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Please don't change shortcuts to point to new proposals until they are established. Christopher Parham (talk) 22:28, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

No - of course not. Peet Ern (talk) 22:56, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

keeping lede in some form

The spelling lede is not so dead as some suggest. There is a NYTimes blog entitled The Lede [1], and m-w.com defines the word [2]. I favor keeping it, in some form, in the first sentence of WP:LEDE, if only for the benefit of those who may be confused by the variant spelling. For what it's worth, the OED 2d edition does include lede in this sense, but marks it as obsolete, which it may be in British English. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:57, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

P.S. A search of e.g. washingtonpost.com and latimes.com will show that the lede spelling is still in active use in the news industry. — Carl (CBM · talk) 00:07, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

For example, the Associated Press actively uses the term. [3]. — Carl (CBM · talk)

Alan, what's a "boundary"?

I'm going to get that question 100 times if we put it at the top of WP:LEAD, so I figure I better ask you :) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 22:22, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I keep on forgetting that only I can read my brain!! I have clarified it a bit more. Whaddaya think? -- Alan Liefting (talk) - 22:50, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Kia ora. List of environmental issues doesn't have a lead section. I think your addition of "time" and "location" are good; journalists would say that the lead section needs to establish "who, what, when, where and why", when they're relevant, and we didn't specifically mention "when" and "where". The other stuff you're talking about seems to be covered by the sentences that are just before the sentences you're inserting, and we try to stick to the minimum necessary to get the job done, since this page is one of the requirements at both WP:FAC and WP:GAN. Can you come up with a smaller change that covers time and location, and is there something else that isn't here and can't be guessed from context already? - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:31, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Names of articles in multiple languages and bolding in the lead section

Posted at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style and Wikipedia talk:Lead section I have a question about bolding the name in the lead section of an article. At Kosovan Serb Assembly, I have put that name in bold as well as the two Serbian spellings of the name in its original language. Is this proper, or should only the English name be in bold? Please respond on my talk. —Justin (koavf)❤T☮C☺M☯ 00:21, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I've debolded the rather long foreign-language equivalents, which not only looked messy on the page, but took the limelight from the title in English. It is, after all, the eng.WP. Tony (talk) 07:51, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

title

The lead, strictly speaking, is not a section. It doesn't appear in the ToC, which numbers "1" as the first (real) section. Any objections to changing this? Tony (talk) 04:46, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I've objected to this at WT:GTL. One of the OED's definitions of section is "one of the portions into which a thing is cut or divided". The lead is one of the portions into which an article is divided. The fact that it doesn't have a heading and therefore doesn't appear in the ToC does not make it not a section. "Lead section" avoids the ambiguity of simply "lead". Nurg (talk) 11:28, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

By this thinking, from now on, everyone's banned from using "sentence" (jail sentence) and period (period of time). Tony (talk) 11:37, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

In the url of any article page, change the section number to "0", and you get the lead, so the lead is the 0th section. If you change your preferences to give yourself an edit button the lead, and hover over it, Wikipedia will tell you that the action is "edit lead section". "Lead section" is a phrase I see all over Wikipedia, and a phrase I've used a lot. I expect everyone will know what "lead" means if they were paying attention in college or if they write professionally or if they've been editing on Wikipedia a few months, so maybe I should be using "lead", but so far I've generally been saying "lead section". - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:00, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh...and "lead section" is the name of the page. On another note: it's the end of the month, time for summaries. If possible, let's wrap up the current arguments by this evening so I can make the changes and write the monthly summary. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:07, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Stand on its own

I often see WP:LEAD cited as a reason to include criticism within the lead statement, under the guise that the lead should be able to stand on it's own and reflect the article major points. However, this tends to be a matter of opinion in many situations, and appears to be interpreted that criticism must be included in the lead, which I believe is the opposite of what should be happening. I suggest that criticism be limited or excluded from the lead since it usually results in edit wars and other conflict. If one were so inclined every political or well known figure could, or even should have criticism listed within the lead simply because there are alway people that like to criticism. This should not be confused with actual controversy surroundind a specific event which should be handled on a case basis. Arzel (talk) 18:27, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

The lede only has to stand on its own for the purposes of having a very short article on the topic. If the criticism receives only one or two sentences in an article, it is probably not notable enough to be included in the lede (per WP:NPOV's concept of "undue weight"). On the other hand, if the criticism receives an entire section in the article, it would usually be worthwhile to mention it in the lede. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:24, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Rede and hede

Using Middle English spelling, which was at the whim of the writer and the printer, as a justification is like justifying the Gulag by saying the concentration camps were worse. Middle English was notoriously free in it's spelling, relying on the sound of the particular dialect spoken by either.

BTW, the OED does not recognise Random House's distinction on the grounds I mentioned above, and because there is no proof at all that lead (leed) was ever pronounced "led" in the sense used -- essentially, RH is engaging in folk etymology to support the unsupportable.

Also, note the different spellings I submit to prove my point

a1300 Cursor M. 1570 ai left e lede of ar lau. Ibid. 12029 an tok ioseph iesus to ledde. c1400 Destr. Troy 10653 Hom lacked the lede of e lorde Ector. c1470 HENRY Wallace IX. 1532 Decest scho was, God tuk hir spreit to leid.

Also:

f. Journalism. A summary or outline of a newspaper story; a guide to a story that needs further development or exploration; the first (often the most important) item in an issue, bulletin, etc. Cf. lead story, etc., under sense 11b below. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 21:55, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

The term is in active use by the Associated Press [4], and m-w.com gives a definition of it [5], dated to 1976, with no marker that it's nonstandard or obsolete. It's pretty tenuous to describe that as "Middle English". It may well be that the term is less used in the British English that the OED describes. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:34, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The OED does not describe British English. Whether lede's in use is irrelevant. "Irregardless" is in use, to, but it's still bad English.

Also, Merriam-Webster is not the dictionary to which linguists turn for word history. Sorry, but it's just not. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 21:28, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Follow-up: the OED's latest "Featured additions" are subprime, adj.; wantaway, adj.; cookie cutter, n.; and radiophysics, n. Of those, only wantaway is British. •Jim62sch•^dissera! 21:32, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

The use of the word, "lede", is just an attempt to be elitist, especially since there is hardly any verification that it is in current common usage. And if I buy into the specious argument that it might be used occasionally in journalism, I would contend that Wikipedia is not a newspaper, magazine, or journal. The word is archaic, elitist, and irrelevant. OrangeMarlin ^{Talk• Contributions} 17:15, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Jim: I fail to see how the history of the term is relevant in any way.

OrangeMarlin: the argument that the term is "archaic" or not in current use is humorously weak given that the Associated Press, which has firm style guidelines and good copyediting, uses the term. Arguments about the term being élitist are irrelevant (and lead to the strange implication that the Associated Press is élitist...). The only reason to include the word in the lede of this page is for the benefit of those who aren't familiar with the other spelling yet. It's not as if removing the other spelling from this document will remove it from newspapers or the dictionary. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:36, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Footnotes

Can alternate names be mentioned in footnotes in the lead? --I'm an Editorofthewiki^{[citation needed]} 00:23, 23 August 2008 (UTC)

Example or non-example?

Currently, our article reads:

The first paragraph of the introductory text needs to unambiguously define the topic for the reader. It should establish the context in which the topic is being considered, by supplying the set of circumstances or facts that surround it. If appropriate, give the location and time context. Also, establish the boundaries of the content of the article, for example List of environmental issues is only about the effects of human activity. It should be assumed that readers of an article do not know what the context would be and those that do can skim over the material with which they are already familiar.

I have added to boldface for emphasis. I earlier removed this because, quite frankly, I consider it to be a confusing and non-helpful example. Why? It's not clear to me if the reader is saying that this is an example of what should be done or what should be avoided. I will not remove it again at this time—edit wars are an anathema to me—but I need to see this rectified. I'm sure that it's totally clear to the editor who wrote it, but it needs to be clear to the rest of us. Unschool (talk) 14:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Another poor example

The following text exists in our article, and is just not a good example:

The first paragraph should begin with a straightforward, declarative sentence. Ideally, this opening sentence should immediately provide the reader who knows nothing at all about the article's subject with the answer to the questions "What is it?" or "Who is he/she?" and "Why is this notable?". For example:

• Introduction (essay): "In an essay, an introduction is ..." or,
• Introduction (music): "In music, the introduction is ..."

Now I'm quite sure that this is the result of piecemeal editing that has happened over the years—no one started off with the nonsense we see above. Quite clearly, these are examples of how to write the first line of an article that has a dab clarifier in the article title, and this information clearly needs to be in here somewhere. But not here; in its current appearance, this is a piss-poor example of what it purports to be an example for, namely, showing context and demonstrating notability.

I am going to try to do a little repair here, but perhaps one lesson for us all from this example and the one I cited in the previous section is that importing text from other article by cutting and pasting is not always wise. What made sense in one context is not—regardless of its perceived "authority"—automatically going to make sense in this context. We need to actually write, not cut and paste. That's my 2¢ worth. Unschool (talk) 14:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've done some digging, and I've found that I was wrong; this was not originally inserted as a recommendation for articles with common titles. Nonetheless, it still stands that it fails to address the current context, and needs some work. Unschool (talk) 14:42, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Two comments in response to your remarks:

First, with regard to the cut and paste that did recently take place, the reason I am doing an almost word-for-word transfer is to be an honest broker. Once the text is out of an article it shouldn't be in (and is consolidated into an article it should be in) then it is fair game for folks such as yourself to "fix" it. The result: there are not two different articles saying the same thing. A happy ending in my book.

Second, I would like to suggest that your recent example change is incorrect. The text that precedes the example reads as follows Thereafter, words used in a title may be linked to provide more detail. For example: The original example illustrated this point. The new example doesn't. (And, because of those links, the original example is not circular.) Would you consider a reversion of your edit to not be out of line? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 14:57, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Replies:

• I appreciate your comments regarding the "cut and paste" situation. You're quite right on every point you make; additionally, as I indicated above, my assumptions were not altogether accurate.
• Regarding the buddhist vs. bay examples: Now I see your point! Yes, the buddhist example did do a better job of that. I hadn't gotten all of that before. But though I recognize that the previous example illustrated the point better, I have a real problem with it because it appears to violate the previous (now deleted) advice to not use circular definitions (and that's just commonsense good writing as well). I shall endeavour to find a better solution.

Thanks for your comments. I think it's clear that we're both pursuing the same end. Unschool (talk) 15:41, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

What do you think of the Arugam example now? It's a simple change, but I think it meets your very valid concerns. Unschool (talk) 15:45, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:31, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

What's going on here?

The page has taken a serious turn for the worse. It's now repetitive and disjointed and the new material doesn't provide much insight. I'd strongly suggest reverting back to the simpler long-standing version. Marskell (talk) 16:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Reverting back to when exactly? (Are you saying that nothing good has happened since whatever date you name? If not then perhaps the solution is to fix only what is broken.) Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:25, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I think the mathematician example has some use. Beyond that, I don't see any real improvement. Marskell (talk) 17:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The "Content of the Lead" might also be of use, although it should be renamed and moved down. I don't know about linking to ACCESS, which is a mess at a glance. Marskell (talk) 18:00, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

It's not just here, Marskell. I've been struggling against instruction creep, repetition of the same text across multiple pages, and redundancy in MoS pages for months. Text has grown (proscriptively) on a number of pages, and text is being repeated across multiple guideline pages, making it hard to sync the pages. I have been advocating for months that WP:MOSCO needs to be energized, and work needs to be done to coordinate these pages and assure that text is dealt with primarily in one place, but no one has been interested so far. I don't have time and I've also been traveling; at least in the last week, this page has really taken a turn south. The last version I looked at was August 30. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:32, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Mmmm. Where's our favourite Australian? Marskell (talk) 17:34, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Chasing dates. We need to get focused on the forest, not the trees. I suggest WP:MOSCO is the vehicle, and a more coordinated approach to the beast that MoS has become is needed. I am ready to throw in the towel unless something gives. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:07, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the difference between the current edit and the one of August 30, I don't see a huge difference other than the order in which information is presented. I do believe that the current examples are probably better than what existed before, and I like most of what User:Marskell has done to the order of sections. What I guess I'm saying is, if this article "has really taken a turn south", I'd like to know what specifically is inferior in the current version. It's not all how I'd like it, I just don't see what exactly is worse (BTW, I've missed significant points before, so this is not a challenge, it's an honest request for clarification.) Unschool (talk) 17:59, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The main mess for me:

• The ToC had suddenly become huge and confusing.
• "Provide an accessible overview" and "Establish context" naturally fit together and thus I merged them.
• Instruction creep: in "Opening sentence" the math example would suffice to make both points. Why have two examples when you only need one?
• Etymology did not strike me as agreed upon practice. People often use parenthesis.
• The Introduction music/essay bit has been in for a while, but really have you ever encountered an editing situation where you've needed to point somebody to it? Again, if there's no real need to provide an instruction, then don't for the sake of brevity. (That's why they call it creep.)

Anyway, I think I've better rationalized this without resorting to full revert. Marskell (talk) 18:08, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

And I'll add one simple example: what is this?

• To avoid overwhelming the reader, it is best to use as few links as possible before and in the bolded title.

Editorial commentary is being introduced throughout MoS pages (to avoid overwhelming the reader?) and this sentence isn't in complete agreement with the earlier sentence about bolding in the lead. These attempts to explain and give examples are diluting clarity. Further, I'm not that interested anymore in fixing any one page on MoS; the problem now has become how all of these pages are turning into monsters, both redundant and contradictory, and that something needs to be done globally, at the level of MoS WikiProject. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The phrasing about "avoid overwhelming the reader" has been in place for more than two years. Explaining why a particular guideline in place shouldn't be seen as a problem. Yes, it makes the guidelines longer, but it also makes them more robust and more resistant to change, and actually helps with clarity for a first-time reader. If we're going to build editors' faith in the guidelines, we have to present the rationale, not treat them as edicts from on high.

There is a wordiness problem, yes, but don't pick on the wrong parts. It's sentences like "The article should, however, begin, as the above example does, by stating its subject." that need to be shot on sight. Warren -talk- 19:05, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Reply:

• The ToC had suddenly become huge and confusing.

Well, I'm afraid I contributed to this; on the whole, I approve of the trimming that's been done on that today.

• "Provide an accessible overview" and "Establish context" naturally fit together and thus I merged them.

Well, the stuff about WP:ACCESS has confused me a bit since I first encountered it, only a few weeks ago. But I don't really see them as being the same thing. I'm more concerned with "establishing context", because I understand it, and because I have a peeve with articles (usually encountered with the Random Article button) that lose me from the get-go. Providing access just, well, I just don't get it. I guess it's because I'm not blind or physically handicapped, but I guess I'm lost as to how a) that policy helps anyone, and b) belongs here at all.

• Instruction creep: in "Opening sentence" the math example would suffice to make both points. Why have two examples when you only need one?

That's what I thought at first, but User:Butwhatdoiknow points out that the second example is needed to clarify that if the title of an article consists of more than one word, and at least one of those words (when standing alone) is the title of another article, that that potential link should be deferred until later in the opening, not linked in the boldfaced title. So the example of Arugam Bay is a bay situated on the Indian Ocean in the dry zone of Sri Lanka's southeast coast. is valuable, in his eyes, because we see that "bay" is not wikilinked in the boldfaced "Arugam Bay" but is only linked later. That was his point; I have no strong feelings on the matter, but chose to respect his point, at least partially out of feeling stupid that I misunderstood it for so long.

• The Introduction music/essay bit has been in for a while, but really have you ever encountered an editing situation where you've needed to point somebody to it?

I'm with you 100% on this one, for sure. I only wish I had been as bold as you, but I was intimidated by the fact that it had been in there for 2 ½ years.

• To avoid overwhelming the reader, it is best to use as few links as possible before and in the bolded title.

"To avoid overwhelming the reader" is, I must admit, really, really bad writing. I approve of removing it. (My apologies to Circeus.)

All in all, I think that the changes I've seen here today have been positive. Unschool (talk) 19:50, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

bolding mess at the very opening of articles

As long as we insist that all variants and "otherwise known as" items be bolded as well, the openings of some articles will be degraded by bold mess. Bold is ... very bold, and vies for attention with the title format. Its scattered appearance, which is hard to avoid with the current rules is a great pity.

I think the time has come to change the rule so that it's acceptable to merely put in quotation marks or italics the variants and aka terms after the first term is bolded. There are many worse examples than the UK article, but here it is with full bolding, with quotations marks (possibly better than italics in this case, given the dab italics just above), and with italics (which could work well in the absence of italics in the vicinity).

Bold-mess has been irritating me for a long time. It's why MoS generally deprecates other than minimal use. Tony (talk) 04:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Italics are a non-starter; for articles that deal with topics in foreign languages (like Mexico), it is customary to write the foreign language text in italics. Also, bolding is the style used natively by MediaWiki to mark links inside an article that point towards itself, and overall, I don't find the bolding to be problematic. It's the topic of the article, it should try to grab the attention of the reader. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 04:28, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Titoxd, have you considered my main point, which is the ungainly mess of bold? I think you're overestimating the ability of bold to engage the attention of the reader. Have you compared the examples I've provided? Tony (talk) 05:45, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I just do not agree with your assessment, and I also think that the use of bolding has two practical benefits: It signals the name of the article, but more importantly, it also signals the name of appropriate redirects for the article. In the UK example, if you type UK, United Kingdom, or United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a wikilink in any other article, you are directed to this particular article. Since all three titles are proper, I have no problem indicating so in the lede via bolding. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:03, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see the use of bold in the example provided as at all bothersome. It is beneficial in indicating titles that are redirects to the current page; when people arrive via redirect it helps assure them that they are on the correct page. Christopher Parham (talk) 05:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

How unpredictable that you should chime in to try to thwart any hint of change. How ridiculous to assert that alternative/variant titles need to be bolded at the opening to reassure someone who's been redirected. What is wrong with quotation marks or italics for that purpose, if highlighting were required at all? Presumably our readers are not that stupid. Tony (talk) 06:00, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

How about you stop attacking the messenger? I indicated what is wrong with italics, and quotation marks would be even more messy, as they could be confused with scare quotes. You don't think that bolding looks nice—fine. Others do. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:05, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Ignorance of MoS (read about the use of italics and quotation marks, please), basic formatting, and bald-faced resistance to change do not deserve sweet comments in response. Tony (talk) 06:10, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

That is always your answer to everything—"I know more than you do," which tells me that you don't have a counterargument, and are simply making an appeal to authority. How about Kosovo: Putting quotes around "Republic of Kosovo" would cause problems with extremely nationalist editors. You just indicate that your personal opinion is that bold is ugly, which I happen to not agree with. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:16, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

• "I also think that the use of bolding has two practical benefits: It signals the name of the article"—um, why on earth do we need to signal the name of the article just below the name of the article? "it also signals the name of appropriate redirects for the article"—why does someone who has already arrived at the article need to have the appropriate redirects shoved in their face? These are fanciful reasons that do not stack up against the need to reduce ugly bold-scattering in the lead. Tony (talk) 06:08, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
  • It signals the name of the article as it would be done if MediaWiki detected a link that links to itself, which is helpful in several situations (article splitting comes to mind). The bolding for redirects is also very useful for editors, and I have never seen a single complaint of a user asking why an article's title is bolded, so our readers aren't as bothered as you make them to be. Titoxd^{(?!? - cool stuff)} 06:13, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

So ... let me get this right: article splitting is typically done by people who haven't read the opening sentence properly, or who are giddy from the concept of disambiguation. They need the bolding to keep them on the right track ... Tony (talk) 10:50, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree also. The bolding of the alternative names is useful for the reader. I don't find it aesthetically displeasing, and on my computer at least, I actually do find the unemphasised and italic form to be insufficiently distinct.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 14:40, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Sandy just brought up the fact that this page isn't in line with WP:MOS on this issue. Until we can figure out which way we want to go, I added the sentence from WP:MOS that I think was here before (or something like it), "Equivalent names may follow, and may or may not be in boldface." That seems to represent current practice for the moment. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 18:30, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

And your post caused me to notice this thread when it popped on my watchlist. I have always believed bolding of alternate terms in the first sentence was a benefit to the reader (and I suspect, not sure, it's also an important and useful factor in google rankings). Hey, it's good for me to be on the other side of an argument with Tony every now and then, huh? Sorry, Tony, but I think this one is good for readers and improves clarity. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:36, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with everyone who favors bolding. This has become an unfortunate exception on discographies, among other articles, and has brought inconsistency to the project. Jennavecia ^(Talk) 01:37, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

I also feel that boldface should be kept to a minimum, preferably just for the title term, or possibly also very important alternate names. Boldface is a page-level graphical device; its function is to draw the reader's eye from a glance at the page to the start of reading. Once the reader begins, additional phrases in boldface merely distract.

Quotation marks are not a valid alternative. They indicate direct quotations or glosses (or, less relevantly, “scare quotes” in informal writing), but they are not used to present words as words.

There is nothing wrong with using italics. One of the functions they serve is to show you are writing about the words (the use-mention distinction). That italics are also used to indicate emphasis or foreign terms doesn't disqualify this normal use. Italics are specifically meant to differentiate text within a sentence, without screaming across the page, and without littering the text with more punctuation marks. —Michael Z. 2008-12-28 18:20 z

At the very least, simple abbreviations and repetitive variant spellings should be in italics, and not bolded. —Michael Z. 2008-12-28 18:33 z

Parham's reversion of my grammatical corrections

As usual, Parham's deep psychological resistance to any change has reared its head here in his recent reversion to the lead. "Where do you live?" "I live in UK". But no, Parham is persisting in the dogged belief that the deictic ("the") is not part of the proper noun. Sorry to disappoint you, Parham, but it is an essential part of the noun, just as for "the United States". Both countries have three-word titles, unless used attributively (US policy, UK wealth), where, by convention, the deictic is dropped. Parham acts beyond his knowledge of the grammar. However, I'm tired of arguing with him, and this point isn't of sufficient importance to do battle over. Tony (talk) 05:51, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

What other page in Wikipedia uses the convention you propose? Christopher Parham (talk) 06:38, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

So first of all, Tony is certainly correct that no one says "I live in United Kingdom". Still, my intuition is that the the is not part of the noun, but just a linguistic appendage that needs to be there to make it not sound bad. Otherwise, you'd have to say "I live in The United Kingdom", with the capital T, wouldn't you? Along the lines of "Friedman is at The Ohio State University" or "Milosevic was tried at The Hague"? --Trovatore (talk) 06:53, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

No, unless you took hook, line and sinker the kind of narrow trad. grammar that was taught in schools until the 1970s, "the" is very much part of the noun (nominal group). By very reasonable convention, "a/an" and "the" are excised from first position in article and section titles; but compare that with the title "History of the United Kingdom", where only the first "the" is excised. The convention does not extend to excising "the" from the opening of a sentence, and that is what is at issue in the first sentence. It looks very strange to bump into the bold in the second word of the three-word compound unit, and more than once in the same sentence. Tony (talk) 10:49, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't look strange to me; it seems quite natural. Compare with the opening of dog, where it says

The dog (Canis lupus familiaris)<ref>http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Canis_lupus_familiaris.html</ref> is a domesticated subspecies of the wolf…

Now, would you want to put the dog into bold here, rather than just dog? I think we can agree that that would look bizarre. And yet as far as I can tell your argument applies with equal force; the noun phrase, as I learned it, which I think is the same as your "nominal group", is the dog, not just dog. --Trovatore (talk) 16:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

For proper nouns, compare Ford Motor Company, MacArthur Fellows Program, and Nobel Prize. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Lead length for big, complex article

Evolutionary history of life covers 4550 million years and a few dozen key points in the evolution of life on Earth. There's a draft lead at User:Philcha/Sandbox/Evolutionary_history_of_life#Lead_v_1 - the article's current lead is not a good summary. The problem is that a good summary of the content is big. It also does not fit well into 4 paras - combining paras would just blur boundaries between major topics, and this would confuse newbies to the subject. Is 4 paras an absolute limit, or is there some flexibility? -- Philcha (talk) 15:47, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not the final word (by any means), but I think you should at least aspire to four paragraphs. Perhaps you are taking the "summary" aspect of the lead too much to heart. Maybe "brief overview" would be a better way to put it - something to tell the reader what will be found in the article is enough when the article is about a subject as broad as that in Evolutionary history of life. Otherwise you will run into the TLDR problem with casual readers. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 02:45, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

TLDR? When the article saves them the trouble of reading a 400-page text book?

More seriously, while I can see ways to trim the word-count, the number of paras results from the number of significant events / transitions / stages covered. -- Philcha (talk) 04:02, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Your question was about the length of the introduction, not the length of the article. Here is one sentence, taken at first glance, that does not need to be in the introduction: Early fossils of animals are rare because they did not develop mineralized hard parts that fossilize easily until about 548 million years ago. I am sure there are many more. Try this as a guide: What if a 6th grader came to you in a social setting and said "What is the history of the evolution in life on earth?"

Here, at no extra charge, is a first draft of the first three sentences of a one paragraph introduction: "Life has evolved on the planet Earth over more than three trillion years. For the first two trillion years or so microbial mats were the dominant life form. About x trillion years ago complex eucaryotic cells appeared." Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:31, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Butwhatdoiknow, thanks for your thought-provoking suggestions - that's sincere, I really will think about how I can use them. You're right about "Early fossils of animals are rare ... 548 million years ago" being unnecessary, and I've removed it from my draft. However your other points present some difficultiesL

• If a 6th grader came to me in a social setting and said "What is the history of the evolution in life on earth?", there would be a conversation and I'd tailor my approach accordingly. I might start, "Well, it's long story that began over 3,000 million years ago, and there were dozens of important steps. What aspects are you most interested in?" WP articles don't have that luxury.
• No mention of panspermia vs. local abiogenesis, nor of the problems of abiogenesis.
• "About x trillion years ago complex eucaryotic cells appeared" masks the fact that there are 2 theories about the origin of eucaryotes: that they were relatively late arrivals produced by endosymbioses of eubacteria within archaeans; and that they were early, possibly even the first of the 3 domains, but remained obscure until they "won the lottery" twice, with oxygen-powered endosymbionts and then with sexual reproduction and multicellularity. These points are not in the text, as a good description would be too long (a subset of User:Philcha/Sandbox/LUCA).
• My initial question was about number of paragraphs, not about word-count or KB.

In case you prefer to continue discussing the details elsewhere, I've added a "Discussion" sub-section to my draft. -- Philcha (talk) 15:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the opportunity, but I decline the invitation to discuss this further. Whether it is fewer paragraphs, fewer sentences, or fewer words, I hope I have made my opinion clear that the introduction is the not the place to discuss, for example, the "problems of abiogensis" (except, perhaps, to briefly say that there are some). If you choose to have another opinion then that is your privilege. And, since you are the one who is editing the article, your opinion will probably prevail. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:21, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the idea of aspiring to 4 paragraphs. But I think that the guideline should permit more than four for longer articles. Don't forget that there are other rules out there that demand compliance with this guideline, and if we don't permit that, then some articles will never go GA or whatever and their leads will thrash uselessly.- (User) Wolfkeeper (Talk) 19:25, 16 September 2008 (UTC)