Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting/Archive 8

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RFC: Formatting of the words "bold" and "italics" in article text

Should the words "bold" and "italics" be formatted in bold/italics in article text that describes the usage of that formatting in a table. E.g. (from [1]) which is correct?

1. (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)
2. (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

Note that this RFC question is about the formatting of the words "bold" and "italics" themselves in the legend, not the use of bold or italics in the table to denote (for example) pole position, fastest lap.

For previous discussions, see User talk:Mitch Ames § Removal of "unnecessary self-referential text formatting" and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Text formatting § Use of bold and italics in the legend for a table. Mitch Ames (talk) 08:58, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Added later for clarity...
Just for clarity - this RfC is about whether the formatting in several articles (in particular, motorsport articles, eg my change, reversion) should be changed. It is not a proposal to change MOS itself. However, if someone wants to raise an RfC to change MOS itself, feel free. (If that were to happen, I presume it would make sense to suspend this RfC, because it is based on MOS as it currently stands, but I'm not sure what the exact process is.) Mitch Ames (talk) 06:27, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Not formatted, because such formatting is contrary to MOS, which explicitly disallows it (with my italics here for emphasis):
  • MOS:BOLD - "Boldface ... is considered appropriate only for certain usages" (implicitly those listed in that section)
  • MOS:BOLD#OTHER - "Use boldface in the remainder of the article only in a few special cases" (which are listed)
  • MOS:ITALIC "Italics, ... are used for various specific purposes in Wikipedia, outlined below"

  MOS explicitly says to use bold/italics formatting only in the ways described in MOS, thus excluding usage in other ways. MOS does not say "use bold/italic formatting to show the reader what those words means", thus it is disallowed.

  Mitch Ames (talk) 09:23, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Mitch Ames: isn't the point of this RfC to change the MOS if needed? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 10:30, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  No, the RFC is to decide whether we should apply the MOS as it currently stands to the motorsport articles that were disputed. That being said, if anyone wants to raise an RFC to change MOS, feel free. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:06, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  I mean, the answer to that is pretty obvious, as you have already explained. I don't see why we'd need an RfC for that. Given other people's responses I think they also interpreted this as an RfC to change the MOS. Why not just turn it into one? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 14:04, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  See "Comment on scope" below. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:24, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

  I have added a paragraph to clarify the scope. Mitch Ames (talk) 06:30, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Formatted as it happens with the use of colours in the same key, keeping the example #1 (which has been used for years on thousands of articles) it will help for a clear and quick understanding of the table. Refusing the use just because a general guidelines might not support (when writing that guideline, this particular use might not be think of) is a poor argument. Nothing is static and continuous improvement is needed.Rpo.castro (talk) 10:31, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  as it happens with the use of colours in the same key — As I mentioned previously, the use of colour has its own guideline, MOS:COLOR, which does allow the use of colour in tables, whereas MOS:BOLD and MOS:ITALIC advise against formatting in those scenarios. Thus it is not a valid argument to say that because we use colour (in accordance with MOS) therefore we can use bold/italic (contrary to MOS).

  it will help for a clear and quick understanding of the table — Are the words "bold" and "italics" not clear? Do we think that the readers do not understand those word?

  Refusing the use just because a general guidelines might not support ... is a poor argument — I suggest that following the guidelines is the default position, that "follow the guidelines" is a good argument, given that MOS is "a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow", and that the onus is on the those not following the guideline to justify the exception. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:24, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Formatted as in Option 1, as it seems perfectly correct and useful. Whenever I come across some table in Wikipedia with some unexpected bolding or italicization (which happens quite often), I scan below and above the table for the legend (which is missing far too often, but I digress). What I'm scanning for is bold or italic (or asterisks, or colors, or whatever unique formatting the page's editors have employed). It helps if I can find something like "Bold indicates winner, italic indicates runner-up", in, say, the running text introducing the table or in a note afterwards. If we need to explicitly add these (to me, obvious) usage example to the MoS so that it's clear, then so be it. — JohnFromPinckney (talk / edits) 10:33, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  Option 1, as it seems perfectly correct — I have pointed out exactly why it is not perfectly correct, quoting the relevant parts of MOS.

  ... I can scan below and above the table for the legend (which is missing far too often) — If the problem is that you can't find the legend, perhaps the solution is to add something to MOS:TABLES to the effect that tables should have a legend (possibly stating whether above or below). Ie fix the thing that is broken, rather than expecting exceptions to the MOS guidelines. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:34, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: Personally I think this discussion should be a lot broader: can text style be used in an exemplary way? The article Emphasis (typography) does this all the time, not just with bold and italics but also with casing, spacing and color. Legends are just the most common place in which this is done. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 10:42, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  The article Emphasis (typography) is about typography, not motorsports or race results, and is already self-referential. Because of the article's subject I would consider it a classic candidate for WP:IAR. The same cannot be said for articles about motorsports, tables of race results etc. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:30, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• (Summoned by bot) More interested in the why than the "what does MOS say". @Mitch Ames: the question is why would the MOS disallow that here? Sometimes there are good reasons for MOS specifics that aren't immediately obvious, and sometimes MOS dogmatism leads to unnecessary conflict. My inclination is to say let's not disallow it, but let's not be prescriptive, either. Figure it out on a case-by-case basis. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 12:58, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Rhododendrites: I don't see how handling things on a case-by-case basis would be helpful? As far as I know the cases aren't that different from one another. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 00:00, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  There are tons of exceptions to the details in the MOS. We don't need to codify them all. It looks like others may disagree with me on the subject of this detail, but I fail to see the urgency. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 03:09, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  why would the MOS disallow that here — I can't find a specific answer to that. MOS exists - as does any style guide - to "maintain articles with ... consistent ... formatting". My understanding is that consistent formatting helps convey information that is not obvious from the text itself (e.g. the word "bold"), while not distracting the reader from the text. The reason for having MOS is to reduce the variations as individual editors have their own preferences, and to reduce debates over every individual variation/usage. In theory, we collectively agree to a common set of guidelines as a house style, to avoid debates such as this one. Mitch Ames (talk) 05:56, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  @Mitch Ames: Responding more to the clarification added to the top than this comment here. The RfC question asks whether text should be formatted that way. I read that as either a modification of the MOS or otherwise something prescriptive. I would oppose something prescriptive. If the question is simply "should this be allowed" then I would support absent any compelling reason which isn't immediately obvious. — Rhododendrites ^talk \\ 14:38, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  any compelling reason which isn't immediately obvious — I have quoted the relevant parts of MOS. The strength of words such as "should", "compelling" etc notwithstanding, I'm still waiting for someone to explain how one can follow the guideline and also use bold/italic formatting in a legend. Mitch Ames (talk) 03:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• Formatted (option 1) per my previous comment. The MOS (guidelines, not rules) does not explicitly advise for or against this use, which has been the practice for years (which might, to a certain extent, imply WP:EDITCONSENSUS). The purpose of boldface/italics in this context, as with colours, is purely emphatic, and does not look messy or obstruct readability—on the contrary, it can help spot the legend and thus interpret the table more easily. Therefore, the use is appropriate and useful, and I see no reason to disallow it. MSport1005 (talk) 15:14, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  The MOS (guidelines, not rules) does not explicitly advise for or against this use — MOS advises against it by use of the words "only" and "specific purposes ... outlined below" as quoted in my first bullet point above.

  The purpose of boldface/italics in this context, ... is purely emphatic — which is explicitly contrary to MOS:NOBOLD, which says "Avoid using boldface for emphasis". Mitch Ames (talk) 06:04, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Your first bullet point is blatantly erroneous because you keep getting "explicitly" mixed up with "implicitly". Also note that your quote is incomplete, and the full sentence states "Avoid using boldface for emphasis in article text" [in general]. As many people have mentioned, our holy MOS might need rewording to disambiguate sentences like this and specify what is and what is not advised in legends. MSport1005 (talk) 16:12, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  I disagree that I used explicitly/implicitly incorrectly, but even if we swap or remove those words from my post, the advice given by MOS is unchanged.

  your quote is incomplete — Feel free to quote the part of MOS that says, directly or indirectly "you may use bold/italic to illustrate them meaning of those words" or similar.

  our holy MOS might need rewording — Fee free to propose such a change. (See "Comment on scope" below.) Mitch Ames (talk) 03:21, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• Formatted. Makes it clearer, no real reason why it should not be used in my opinion. --Ita140188 (talk) 17:51, 27 December 2021 (UTC)
• Formatted per WP:COMMONSENSE because it's a natural convention that's more immediately accessible to readers, and because that's more important than preserving the sanctity of the existing wording of our holy MOS. —David Eppstein (talk) 18:09, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  If it was common sense, this discussion wouldn't have existed in the first place. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 00:05, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Option 1/Formatted mostly per my comments in the above discussion. But to summarise, this is helpful and consistent with similar usage of colour, and the only objection so far seems to be that it is not permitted by the MOS. I don't know if it's necessary to change any wording of the MOS specifically, perhaps just changing the lists of permitted exceptions to say "including:..." to imply that there are others not explicitly listed. A7V2 (talk) 22:31, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

  perhaps just changing the lists of permitted exceptions to say "including:... — Independently of whether this particular usage of bold/italics is a good idea, just changing MOS to say "including" is not a good idea, because that effectively allows anything. (And then we would end up with many debates like this one where people disagree on whether a particular usage is good or bad. The point of MOS is to reduces such debates.) Mitch Ames (talk) 06:08, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Is this seriously even a question? Option 1 and let's just WP:SNOWPRO this thing already. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 03:29, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  Yes, I asked a serious question, and my response includes quotes from, and links to, the specific relevant parts of the style guidelines. You (and others) are invited to give a serious response - with appropriate references to MOS or other relevant guidelines - addressing the specific points that I made. Mitch Ames (talk) 06:17, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

  one guy vs the world, really fighting every single person always with same words "Its carved on stone". Thankfully world evolves and rules evolve too.Rpo.castro (talk) 12:13, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• Comment: Given that most people's argument seems to be that there's no argument for the contrary, I thought I'd give one. Unlike background color in a table, which is purely a stylistic choice, bold and italics actually have meaning in English text. Bold indicates importance or some form of heading; italic text indicates emphasis, names of major works, etc. Using bold or italics in article text in this way violates its semantic meaning. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 14:14, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

• That has more to do with the use of bold and italics throughout the entire table, not merely in its legend, which as OP specifically stated is not at issue here. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 04:24, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

  Jochem van Hees's argument applies equally to the legend - in fact more so. For text within the table, the semantic meaning (of bold, italic formatting) normally defined by MOS is superseded by the semantic meaning defined by the legend. But for text within the legend itself, the semantic meaning is that defined by MOS, not by the legend. This is because the legend defines the meaning of the formatting in the table (eg, with my underlining here for emphasis, "Races in bold ..."), not the meaning of the formatting in the legend (eg "words in bold in this sentence illustrate the meaning of the word "'bold'"). Mitch Ames (talk) 12:40, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• Comment on scope, in general response to several comments above about changing MOS. I created this RfC because previous (less "formal") discussions were unable to come to agreement about whether to apply bold/italic formatting to certain text in multiple motorsport articles. Originally the discussion was on my talk page, then A7V2 moved it to this page to get wider coverage. I raised the RfC for two reasons: to get wider coverage, and to get a definite outcome. I raised it on this page because the discussion was already here. In retrospect, this is probably the wrong place - the banner at the top says "This is the talk page for discussing improvements to [MOS]" not "this is the place to discuss interpretation or usage of MOS" - so I can see that there might be some confusion. (On the other hand, if we all did exactly what the MOS pages say, we would need to have this debate at all. ) But where else would be sensible place to hold the discussion? The disagreement was on motorsport articles, but the matter for debate has nothing to do with motorsport per se, it's about formatting. So to reiterate - I'm not proposing a change to MOS, I'm asking whether the text on those articles should be formatted or not, e.g. should my edit here be reinstated?

I do not intend to propose a change to MOS, because I do not think it needs changing. It is clear and unambiguous, and (in my opinion) does not need have another specific usage defined. If someone else wants to propose a change to MOS - and some have suggested that MOS might need changing - they are free to do so, in a separate section or RfC. If someone did so, it would make sense to suspend this RfC because it is about interpretation and usage of the existing guideline (so would be meaningless if the guideline changed).

I know that, as has been pointed out, MOS is a guideline, not mandatory. My use of words like "allow / disallow", "should / should not" are intended to represent what I think the guidelines are telling us, ie what we "should attempt to follow"; I'm not implying "must". Also I know that those words are followed by "treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions", but I suggest that the onus is on those who choose not to follow the guideline to explain why. Mitch Ames (talk) 02:22, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Firstly, I don't see why there would be an issue discussing this matter here. On the notice at the top of Wikipedia:WikiProject Manual of Style it states "All maintenance and development and other discussion of MoS matters takes place at the talk pages of individual MoS guidelines." (emphasis mine). Secondly, I don't think it is necessary for a separate discussion on whether to change the MOS. As with any guideline, and as you have pointed out a few times, the MOS is supposed to give an indication of accepted (ie, consensus) practices. The notice at the top of MOS pages states "Any substantive edit to this page should reflect consensus" - if there is consensus that a particular practice in text formatting (as we are discussing, and as this page is dedicated to) which is currently not permitted within the MOS, then I see no reason it cannot be changed by a consensus here. There is no need to pile on further bureaucracy. That said, while it looks clear that there is consensus here to allow the formatting, there currently isn't (certainly it's not clear-cut) on whether the MOS needs updating. A7V2 (talk) 03:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Consensus here is, for me, as good as any to ratify a relevant change to the MOS. There's no real controversy here, more just WP:ASTONISHment that this isn't already explicitly allowed by the MOS because it hasn't hurt anything and has been practiced here for years. Whether people misunderstood the true scope of this discussion or not, it clearly hasn't hurt anything to do things this way over the years, there's no need to get rid of it where it is practiced, and people seem united on allowing it to continue — whether they think MOS needs to be changed to reflect that or not. Zeke, the Mad Horrorist ^{(Speak quickly)} _{(Follow my trail)} 04:24, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

• Formatted (option 1) agreeing with the comments of A7V2 . I'm not even sure if this discussion is about how to format a motor-racing table, or how to format the legend of the table. But either way it smacks of mountains/molehills and storms/teacups. This has been a long-standing convention in motor-racing articles and accepted by the fraternity of regular motor-racing page-editors. It is a clear and concise way to relay these important details in this sport, without resorting to additional character clutter in the table. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" Philby NZ (talk) 01:14, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Font sizes on Infobox services

I'm getting fraustrated after Jonesey95 (talk · contribs) removed font sizes on Module:Adjacent stations and Template:s-line per Wikipedia talk:WikiProject UK Railways#Infobox services. As being avoided to use <small>...</small> and {{small}} tags, it's shows that inconvenience view for Module:Adjacent stations and Template:s-line.

This is one of sample, after being removed font sizes:

Preceding station	State Railway of Thailand			Following station
Na Tha towards Bangkok (Hua Lamphong) or Krung Thep Aphiwat		Northeastern Line		Thanaleng (Laos) Terminus

-Jjpachano (talk) 10:07, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

That example looks good to me. What problems are you seeing? This discussion and this discussion may help you understand why I made the changes. – Jonesey95 (talk) 16:00, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Agree with Jonesey here. The table above looks good. Gonnym (talk) 16:04, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: not a good idea, after removed font sizes, it is gonna bit distracting. Jjpachano (talk) 00:24, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Having all of the text the same, easily readable size is distracting? Feel free to suggest a MOS-compatible and accessibility-compatible change that would improve how the table looks to you. – Jonesey95 (talk) 01:45, 5 February 2022 (UTC)

Determining whether bolding of names in lists, and any other contexts on which the MOS does not comment, are useful

Currently we have lists on Wikipedia in the following format:

• Example one: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum consequat mi quis pretium semper. Proin luctus orci ac neque venenatis, quis commodo dolor posuere. Curabitur dignissim sapien quis cursus egestas. Donec blandit auctor arcu, nec pellentesque eros molestie eget.
• Example two: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum consequat mi quis pretium semper. Proin luctus orci ac neque venenatis, quis commodo dolor posuere. Curabitur dignissim sapien quis cursus egestas. Donec blandit auctor arcu, nec pellentesque eros molestie eget.

Specifically, they are using bold for the 'title' text preceding the 'description' text. The manual of style does not explicitly state this should or should not be done. Can we get some data on this, to determine whether the bolding is useful? If the bolding actually is necessary, then it should be kept. If the bullet points themselves are found to be sufficient, then I recommend this style be recommended against in the manual of style. There may, however, be some cases where bolding is useful, and some where it is not.

The first task here will be to determine how to gather data about this. To be more neutral, I will make my suggestion in the subsection below entitled Data-gathering suggestions. If you have any thoughts on this, please don't hesitate to state them. Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 15:48, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

Data-gathering suggestions

• My suggestion for gathering the data is a reader survey. Give examples of the two formats and ask which is better. It is important that we don't use an external website (or service) to accomplish this. Any input on how this can be done would be appreciated. DesertPipeline (talk) 15:48, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

General discussion

Wouldn't this be better written in prose format anyway?

For example, lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum consequat mi quis pretium semper. Proin luctus orci ac neque venenatis, quis commodo dolor posuere. Curabitur dignissim sapien quis cursus egestas. Donec blandit auctor arcu, nec pellentesque eros molestie eget.

Lorem is another example, ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum consequat mi quis pretium semper.

To me this reads in a much more natural way than the bullet list. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 16:02, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

User:Jochem van Hees: In some contexts, prose isn't a suitable format. For instance, the antecedent of this discussion was me asking on Template talk:Aircraft specs whether the bolding that template has should be removed. For an example, see Gotha G.IV#Specifications (early Gotha-built examples). Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 16:21, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

In some cases – but not Gotha G.IV#Specifications (early Gotha-built examples) – MOS:DEFLIST would be the appropriate form. Mitch Ames (talk) 00:11, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

I agree that it would be unpractical to put all that information in prose. But woudln't it in this case it work better as a table or infobox? It seems weird to me to list characteristics like this. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 17:46, 27 October 2021 (UTC)

User:Jochem van Hees: I suggested on the talk page for the aircraft specs template that the information could go in a table; however, this will be somewhat difficult to implement due to problems with hiding parts of a table via conditional expressions such as "if". Even if the example I've given isn't the best one, though, there are some examples where this type of list is reasonable. Is this example better? Forklift#Counterbalanced forklift components; see this diff for a version where that list is bolded. Regards, DesertPipeline (talk) 11:44, 28 October 2021 (UTC)

• 1000% this statement The manual of style does not explicitly state this should or should not be done is incorrect. Not sure how this is debatable: MOS:NOBOLD specifically says we don't use boldface except in very limited circumstances explained in MOS:BOLD. The use anywhere else is against MOS. We don't need to "gather data". —Joeyconnick (talk) 03:05, 7 November 2021 (UTC)
  • @Joeyconnick: Then MOS:TEXT contradicts itself, because in section Names and lists there is a long list with boldface items. (Another instance.) I propose to extend the permission granted to "Terms in description lists" in section Automatically applied boldface to lists with manually applied boldface. fgnievinski (talk) 04:30, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
    • How the MOS is formatted does not necessarily follow the guidelines of how articles are formatted (because MOS is not as public-facing). I would argue that it ideally should, but the distinction is that MOS:TEXT is not a Wikipedia article, whereas MOS:NOBOLD definitely does apply to articles. —Joeyconnick (talk) 04:45, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
      • But why allow automatic boldface for "Terms in description lists" but disallow manually applied boldface for similar lists? fgnievinski (talk) 04:41, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
      • Furthermore, the usage is already widespread in mainspace, e.g., Wikipedia#Methods_of_access. There are 17 thousand [2] articles using the style170 thousand articles using the style:
        • 95k pages containing text *''': [3]
        • 77k pages containing text * ''': [4]
      • fgnievinski (talk) 05:51, 1 December 2021 (UTC)
      • Actually, manual boldface in bulleted lists is already validated in Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Glossaries § Bullet-style. fgnievinski (talk) 00:00, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
      • @Joeyconnick: Could you please participate in the ongoing discussion here. fgnievinski (talk) 19:46, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
        • Yes, I can participate and say the same thing as I've already said twice: what you're referring to (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Glossaries § Bullet-style) is a PROPOSAL, which has not been accepted as a guideline, so you don't get to just insert it in a vetted guideline because you happen to like it. —Joeyconnick (talk) 19:52, 6 December 2021 (UTC)
          • @Joeyconnick: Could you also respond to evidence of widespread adoption of boldface in manually defined lists, e.g., Wikipedia#Methods of access and 170 thousand articles (with regular expression search linked above). Thanks. fgnievinski (talk) 00:22, 7 December 2021 (UTC)
          • @Joeyconnick: Either you WP:DISCUSSCONSENSUS or it gives the impression it's just WP:status quo stonewalling. Could you please respond to the widespread adoption demonstrated above? Additionally, please quote explicitly where the proposal contravenes MOS:NOBOLD. You're writing more in the revert summaries than here in talk page. fgnievinski (talk) 05:48, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
            • If we're going with imperatives, how about: either you stop harassing me or I will report you? You do not get to determine how or how much I need to engage in a discussion. I've made my points: MOS:NOBOLD is clear. I've explained how your proposal violates it and yes, if 170k articles actually do fail its requirements, then those 170k articles should be updated to properly reflect our consensus-determined style guide. And no, our style guide does not change just to match usage; that's a ridiculous notion, because it means all you'd need is a few dozen people not following it and then you would apparently be like, "Oh yeah, see, there are X pages that don't follow the style guide, so clearly it's the style guide that needs to change." Your arguments are textbook "I (don't) like it" and "other stuff exists". Neither of those approaches is sufficient to warrant any change. And just to be crystal clear, that's my last word on the subject. —Joeyconnick (talk) 09:22, 8 January 2022 (UTC)
• If you want to do something like the two-entry example this opens with, then you should be using a MOS:DLIST in the first place.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:05, 21 December 2021 (UTC)
  • @SMcCandlish: what about delinquent cases such as Wikipedia#Methods of access and the 170k articles linked above -- should they all be rewritten to comply with the current MOS? the MOS is not cast in stone, it should reflect the actual style usage in Wikipedia. fgnievinski (talk) 01:21, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
    • Yes, they should be corrected. Using the wrong HTML element for the type of list is beyond an MoS fault, but is also a well-formed HTML fault.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:01, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

Proseline plus bolding

Hi all. I see we have relevant threads above. Did I do the wrong thing in this edit if you search for ";Upper shale"? I thought MOS says that we aren't allowed to do semicolon bolding for fake subsections like that, right? And as with the above threads, I'm thinking that we don't bold the front of each line of lists. But that's moot because we shouldn't have trivial lists according to WP:PROSELINE, right? It seems to me that, aside from technical word precision by a subject expert, this is supposed to be prose instead of a list. Right? Or did I make a mistake here? Is this some exception in a scientific context as detailed on Talk:Wellington Formation? Thank you. — Smuckola(talk) 08:53, 10 April 2022 (UTC)

Italicising links

Hi, can I just check, when italicising a link is it OK to place your apostrophes either side of the square brackets, like this:

''[[An article]]''

Or should you pipe the link and place the apostrophes within the brackets, like this:

[[An article|''An article'']]

I've always used the first method and thought I was tidying up Hallelujah (disambiguation) when I switched a number of links from the latter style to the former. However, that got reverted so I wanted to check if I was doing it right. Cheers, HornetMike (talk) 19:31, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

From what I can tell the quotes are currently pretty much always outside the link; I don't really see an argument for putting them inside. Might be worth adding that to the MOS. ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 22:08, 14 June 2022 (UTC)

If only part of the link text is italic, you'll have use [[Trent Affair|''Trent'' Affair]], but if the whole phase is italic, ''[[An article]]'' is much preferred to typing the link target twice. Some editors object to edits that do not affect how the article is rendered. That might be the reason your edit was reverted. Indefatigable (talk) 22:53, 15 June 2022 (UTC)

So someone sees an edit they think is useless and... makes another equally useless edit in response? How does that make sense? ―Jochem van Hees (talk) 01:44, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks all. I also added a couple of Alan Bennett works in the same edit and those didn't get reverted. So it goes - wanted to be sure I hadn't missed some style guide element I wasn't aware of! I'd agree that adding to MOS might be useful - although this is such a big page I wasn't absolutely sure this wasn't covered already! Cheers, HornetMike (talk) 09:55, 17 June 2022 (UTC)

Beauty pageants and special formatting?

An editor has commented in a revert of my edit here that beauty pageants normally use boldface in a way that I believe is contrary to MOS. Comments from readers of this are welcome. Miss Philippines Earth 2019 may be a good example of what I'm talking about also. ☆ Bri (talk) 21:32, 12 June 2022 (UTC)

Hello! I'm sure you've done your editing in good faith. From what i've seen during my edit tenure, all beauty pageant articles use boldface in one way or another, examples include Miss South Africa 2019, Miss South Africa 2020. or for articles which necessitates the use of flags, Miss France 2022. Then again, i feel like the use of boldface is done solely for aesthetic purposes. (Articles look very barren without them, doesn't it?) Call me PI. (talk) 04:07, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

The use of bold in those pageant articles is very definitely contrary to MOS:BOLD. The fact that there are many of them does not justify the excessive formatting. This seems to be a common thing for some types of articles (I've noticed it in articles about sports competition or people), that a project just collectively decides to ignore MOS - despite the fact that WP:CONLEVEL specifically says they ought not.

Call me PI. says boldface is done solely for aesthetic purposes. (Articles look very barren without them...), but aesthetics if very much in the eye of the beholder - to me excessive bold is much harder to read. The reason we have MOS is so that we don't have to debate our personal preferences - we have a consensus on style that so that we all follow the same general style, as agreed by most editors. Mitch Ames (talk) 11:32, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Apologies. Though in my opinion, it'll take time for editors that routinely edits beauty pageant articles to be aware of the MOS rules. Call me PI. (talk) 13:06, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Call me PI.: If you agree with Mitch Ames, could you please self revert the reintroduction of boldface you made at Puteri Indonesia 2022? I don't want to leave the appearance of editwarring. ☆ Bri (talk) 17:39, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Good day! I don't think that the usage of boldface is solely for aesthetic purposes only. Maybe the usage of boldface in beauty pageant articles is due to navigation. Well, for me, it is easier to navigate articles about pageants the way boldface is currently used since there is emphasis. For the Miss Universe articles, maybe the countries/territories are in boldface to act as keywords, so that the reader wouldn't get lost easily, same for Binibining Pilipinas articles which is a lot more harder since there are no flags beside the provinces/cities. For me, lack of emphasis (an example of which is Binibining Pilipinas 2022) can easily result to confusion, and it is actually harder to focus since there are no keywords and no emphasis. Allyriana000 (talk) 03:37, 24 June 2022 (UTC)

Agreed that boldface is not used on pageant articles for solely aesthetic purposes. It is used to convey the difference between Part and Whole. The Whole is boldfaced and depicts the country/state/region/etc. that the contestant is representing, while the non boldfaced words are the Parts that make up the whole – the name of the contestant, hometown, vital statistics, etc., and that is a helpful disambiguation. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 11:16, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

MOS:BOLD says "Boldface ... is considered appropriate only for certain usages", which are then listed. Which of the "certain usages" applies in the case of beauty pageants? Mitch Ames (talk) 13:31, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

@Mitch Ames: MOS:BOLD has a list of "When not to use boldface", and the situation described here is not in the section of when boldface cannot be used. In this specific case, I strongly believe that boldface helps readers distinguish between information. The bold is the primary information: ie, the country/state/region/etc. that is being represented, while the non-bold is the secondary information: ie, the name of the woman chosen to represent the entity and her vital statistics. The primary information does not change year by year, there will be a Alabama at every Miss USA, but this secondary information is used to describe the differences between each Alabama year by year, and is simply a description of each Alabama rather than of equal importance to "Alabama" itself. The bolded text makes that distinction known to the reader. Because of that, I believe that the bolded text is efficient in helping differentiate this information and there is no logical need to remove it. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 15:04, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I refer you to the word "only" in "Boldface ... is considered appropriate only for certain usages". Mitch Ames (talk) 23:47, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

MOS/Bold says boldface "is considered appropriate only for certain usages." It does not say boldface "is considered appropriate only for the following certain usages." Beauty pageant usage of boldface does not violate the "when to note use boldface" guidelines so I do not believe there should be an issue. { [ ( jjj 1238 ) ] } 11:38, 1 July 2022 (UTC)

So which "certain usages" do you think MOS:B means? Also MOS:BOLD#OTHER says "Use boldface ... only in a few special cases:" - again the word "only", and this time the sentence ends in a colon, clearly denoting that what follows is the list of "special cases". So again, I ask which "certain usages" or "special cases" do you think the beauty pageants formatting is covered by? Mitch Ames (talk) 03:01, 2 July 2022 (UTC)

RfC about boldfacing of the scientific names of organisms

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

Private Use characters usage

About Klingon scripts, see talk:§ Does this article need to include private-use characters?. The script is not defined in Unicode, but has Private Use designations. Question is whether this wiki can use these (requiring supporting font) in that article. Discuss over there please. DePiep (talk) 12:10, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

MOS:BADITALICS vs WP:SHIPNAME

This page states:

Text in non-Latin scripts (such as Greek, Cyrillic or Chinese) should neither be italicized as non-English nor bolded, even where this is technically feasible; the difference of script suffices to distinguish it on the page. However, titles of major works that should be italicized are italicized in scripts that support that feature (including Latin, Greek and Cyrillic); [...]

whereas WP:SHIPNAME states:

A ship's name is always italicized.

Now, my question is, does BADITALICS overrule SHIPNAME? For a Russian ship, should the native name be in ordinary type? My initial assessment is "yes". However, I can also see some validity in the opposite: ship names could fall under the same italicization category as "titles of major works", in that the overriding convention is to italicize when the script allows it. I've seen both situations in use:

Moskva (Russian: Москва, lit. 'Moscow', [mɐskˈva]), formerly Slava (Слава, 'Glory') was a guided missile cruiser of the Russian Navy.

but

Russian cruiser Varyag (Russian: Варяг, lit. 'Varangian') (formerly-Chervona Ukraina), is the third ship of the Slava-class of guided missile cruisers [...]

The latter explicitly sets italic=yes in the {{lang-ru}} template it uses. A very quick survey I did just now shows that not-italicizing is more common, but not universal. oatco (talk) 23:41, 21 January 2023 (UTC)

They should be italicised per WP:SHIPNAME. It was not the intent of MOS:BADITALICS to override situations where we would normally bold or italicise. It was only referring to the way that we normally italicise foreign words. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:32, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Alright, thanks for clarifying! Maybe an explanatory footnote is in order? (Or maybe not – this might not be a common-enough issue.)

I did come across something interesting, though: looking at the Russian-language Wikipedia, it seems like Russian text itself doesn't italicize names of ships (or titles of major works, for that matter), instead using «angle brackets». Some examples: ru:Титаник (Titanic), ru:Москва (ракетный крейсер) (Moskva), ru:HMS Queen Mary, ru:Преступление и наказание (Crime and Punishment). An example in running text:

В 2:20 15 апреля, разломившись на две части, «Титаник» затонул, унеся жизни 1496 человек^[9]. 712 спасшихся человек подобрал пароход «Карпатия»^[10].
V 2:20 15 aprelja, razlomivšis' na dve časti, «Titanik» zatonul, unesja žizni 1496 čelovek^[9]. 712 spasšixsja čelovek podobral paroxod «Karpatija»^[10].
At 2:20 am on April 15, the Titanic sank, breaking in two, killing 1,496 people^[9]. 712 survivors were picked up by the steamer Carpathia^[10].

So, perhaps in the lead sentence, where the "Romanized name (Language: Native name, tr. Transliterated name)" template is used, the native, Cyrillic name of a ship ought not to be italicized? (Exactly because it is the native form, and the language itself doesn't italicize ship names.) This appears to be the current convention, anyway. (For examples: Crime and Punishment, Pravda, Anna Karenina (which also uses angle brackets), Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, Vostok 1). Following this convention, the majority of ship names in Cyrillic wouldn't be italicized, as in most cases the romanized name would be used instead. (Sputnik 1 provides a counterexample.)

My original motivation for asking this was that I came across this revision of "Kara-class cruiser", and found the column of italicized Cyrillic names quite hard to read, then "fixed" it as violating BADITALICS. (Plus it didn't have {{lang}} tags; putting them in got rid of the italics also.) oatco (talk) 21:51, 25 January 2023 (UTC)

oatco The guidance in this page is not meant to overrule other guidelines but I have to point out that not all guidance are coordinated and sometimes contradictions or omissions happen incidentally. You should maybe move this discussion over to MOS:SHIPNAME because editors there might have more insights into the peculiarities of it. Thinker78 (talk) 18:25, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

True, but we do not tolerate contradictions for long when discovered. This needs to be resolved. I think a footnote will do, explaining that if there is some context-specific reason to italicize (ship name, book title, emphasis preserved in a quotation, etc.) then it should be italicized, if the script supports that. Cyrillic does.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:10, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

style for translation of title with multiple words unclear

from Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar ...gave him the honorific title "Vidyasagar" ("Ocean of Knowledge"; from Sanskrit, Vidya "knowledge" and Sagar "ocean"). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aniish72 (talk • contribs) 21:22, 13 June 2021 (UTC)

It should read:

...gave him the honorific title Vidyasagar ('Ocean of Knowledge'; from Sanskrit vidya 'knowledge' and sagar 'ocean').

Use appropriate language markup per MOS:FOREIGN; use single quotes for glosses (MOS:SINGLE); don't use "scare quotes" around honorifics; don't add unnecessary commas; don't over-capitalize misc. words. I've adjusted the text in the article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:24, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

Difficult-to-implement guidance in MOS:FOREIGNITALIC

MOS:FOREIGNITALIC says "Rule of thumb: do not italicize words that appear unitalicized in multiple major English dictionaries."

I'm in a debate over whether "en route" should be italicized, but in three of the first four definitions listed in Google (Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, Dictionary.com, and Collins), the text examples are in all italics.

By a literal reading of the rule, "en route" appears in italics in those three dictionaries since *all* of the words in the text examples are in italics, but I don't think that's the intent. :-)

Given that it says "loanwords or phrases that have been assimilated into and have common use in English" earlier in the section, what do people think about shortening the rule of thumb to just say "do not italicize words that appear unitalicized in multiple major English dictionaries"? If a word appears in multiple major English dictionaries, I think by definition that means it meets the standard of "hav(ing) common use in English".

Thoughts?

Stephen Hui (talk) 02:51, 1 December 2022 (UTC)

My Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (1974) lists en route on page 379; italicized here because WP:WORDSASWORDS. I suspect that your Merriam-Webster example also italicizes the term for similar reasons. Because en route appears in multiple English language dictionaries, I think that it should not be italicized except when used in a WP:WORDSASWORDS situation.

And I agree: unitalicized

—Trappist the monk (talk) 16:16, 1 December 2022 (UTC) 16:18, 1 December 2022 (UTC) (clicked the wrong button...)

@Stephen Hui I think you got it wrong. One would expect dictionaries, unless certain thematic ones, to have most words that exist in English. Most people would think that if a word is not in the dictionary it either doesn't exist or its use is not correct. Thinker78 (talk) 03:47, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

I compared en route with airplane in Merriam Webster's dictionary. Both are in italics. This tells me we should consider removing the rule of thumb altogether from the guideline. Thinker78 (talk) 20:52, 2 December 2022 (UTC)

@Trappist the monk and Thinker78: Only the three of us have chimed in on this, but all three of us think we should at least consider changing this guideline from "do not italicize words that appear unitalicized in multiple major English dictionaries" to "do not italicize words that appear in multiple major English dictionaries" (i.e. that "italicized" should be removed).

This is the first MOS discussion I've ever been part of -- does three people constitute enough of a quorum to make the change? Stephen Hui (talk) 21:19, 14 December 2022 (UTC)

Not a WP:VOTE; the quality of an argument is what matters, not the quantity of people making it. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 00:52, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

@Stephen Hui I did not say what to change it to, I only think maybe we should remove "do not italicize words that appear unitalicized in multiple major English dictionaries". For how decisions are made in Wikipedia, you can read WP:CONSENSUS. Thinker78 (talk) 02:56, 15 December 2022 (UTC)

I removed the rule of thumb as outdated but I forgot to mention this discussion in the edit summary. Thinker78 (talk) 19:11, 17 December 2022 (UTC)

It's noted now with this WP:DUMMY edit. Fred Gandt · talk · contribs 04:14, 18 December 2022 (UTC)

I do not think the "appears in xyz dictionaries" rule is a very good baseline. Dictionary writers (I have known some) see their job as helping readers by explaining what words mean; they are not trying to regulate the playing of wordgames, for example. Therefore there are many words in a big English dictionary which are not really in common/ordinary use in English at all. For example, romaji (ローマ字 / rōmaji) is the Japanese word for "Roman letters", and it appears in some dictionaries, because in specialist contexts it will appear in English texts. But this does actually recommend it at all, since it says nothing that "Roman letters" does not. This is indirectly linked to the italics problem, because the argument always proceeds that "if it's in a dictionary, it must be an English word." Anyway, I look at Chicago (the style guide, 13th ed.) and it is succinct: "Isolated words and phrases in a foreign language may be set in italics if they are likely to be unfamiliar to readers." Of course implementing this requires reason, so it is harder than mindlessly scraping pages, but there you go... Imaginatorium (talk) 07:01, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that seems sensible and I would endorse that approach. Though I can foresee arguments about familiarity. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:33, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Surely what is important is not the markup but the clue we are giving to a screen reader on how to pronounce it. So if it is to be pronounced in our best school French, we should write {{lang|fr|en route}}. If it is in common use (e.g., would Americans routinely say "on rout") then it should it really be tagged in any way? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:31, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Should "on rout" be tagged (for the pruposes of this discussion, should use italics)? Per MOS:FOREIGN, "Loanwords and borrowed phrases that have common usage in English – Gestapo, samurai, vice versa – do not require italics."

I see that you objected to the removal of the rule of thumb at MOS:FOREIGN, even though I was just mirroring the action taken in this page. This thread is about the guidance to use italics if a dictionary does. We tried to determine if the wording "Rule of thumb: do not italicize words that appear unitalicized in multiple major English dictionaries" was of any use. The discussion seemed to find that it was not. If you think otherwise, you can check whether such guidance provides any usefulness to your question about whether on rout should use italics. Thinker78 (talk) 21:43, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

This reply originally posted at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Revert, reposted here to avoid a fork.:

But the discussion did not reach a consensus, it just petered out. If you believe it concluded as you say, then you should have asserted that view at the end of the discussion rather than just go ahead as if had been resolved to your satisfaction.

As I remarked already, there are two reasons for italics and they are getting muddled here. One is purely visual, which is fine for sighted readers. The other is to identify (a) a non-English word and (b) indicate which language it is, so that screen readers used by visitors with impaired vision may interpret it. Per MOS:ACCESS, we must not deliberately or carelessly disable those visitors.

Pinging @SMcCandlish: for comment, as they know more about this issue than I do. I could be overstating it. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 19:24, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I see what I did wrong. OP was proposing to modify the rule of thumb and I removed it. I concede you had a valid revert.

Regarding the ongoing issue, the purpose of this discussion is about the usefulness of current guidance that states, "A rule of thumb is to not italicize words that appear unitalicized in major general-purpose English-language dictionaries."

So the questions at hand are, "what do people think about shortening the rule of thumb to just say "do not italicize words that appear in multiple major English dictionaries"?

Is the current rule of thumb helpful or not for its purpose of providing guidance on when to use italics? Should it be removed or modified as per OP? Thinker78 (talk) 20:46, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

In order to pronounce English correctly, screenreaders are going to need to rely on pronunciations from internal dictionaries, because English is not consistently phonetic enough for them to merely guess from the spelling. Given that this discussion is purely over words that can be found in dictionaries, I am skeptical that marking dictionary words as foreign is going to help these screenreaders. In fact, I could imagine scenarios where such a marking could hurt, when a word that has a standard English pronunciation is pronounced differently in the other language, or when that other language is non-phonetic and the screenreader has to guess how to pronounce it despite (if it were left marked as English) having a dictionary entry with its pronunciation. In the specific example that sparked this discussion, "en route", for instance, I would pronounce this differently if I were speaking French (with a nasalized first vowel, French r and an enunciated t) than in English (with an en consonant, American r and glottal-stop-elided t), and I would hope for a good screenreader to do the same. So I think that the issue of accessibility for screenreaders for words appearing in English dictionary is likely a red herring. But I have no actual experience with this matter so I would welcome input from those who do. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:25, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this particular sort of italicization has nothing to do with screen readers, and is a standard English-writing practice that pre-dates screen readers by at least a century. I have no objection to the proposed shortening of the rule of thumb to remove "unitalicized". When something is genuinely non-English (i.e. is not a frequent and familiar loan-word in English found in almost all mainstream English dictionaries), then using {{lang|xx}} markup will both provide language information for screen readers and italicize it appropriately. What I don't want to see happen is for people to get into editwars over whether they can italicize en route in a sentence on Wikipedia. If someone thinks it's better italicized, don't start shit with them about it. We have bigger fish to fry, and italicizing it isn't an error, just a MOS:STYLEVAR preference.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:31, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

Thank you all. I knew there is an issue but not really its extent. So my note was a hazard warning rather than a stop sign.

Just to clarify, I chose "en route" not as something to edit war over, but rather because it is a good example of a foreign language phrase that has entered common parlance () in English and American. Every rule should be tested against some edge conditions (but hard cases make bad law).

Thinker78's reformulation of the question is what I had expected. Do we have a consensus answer now? --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:03, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I do agree with the proposal of OP (User:Stephen Hui) that the rule of thumb should just say "do not italicize words that appear in multiple major English dictionaries". Thinker78 (talk) 21:25, 3 February 2023 (UTC)

 Implemented. Regards, Thinker78 (talk) 22:59, 10 February 2023 (UTC)

Conflicting styles

Hi, I posted this at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles of works#Conflicting styles a week ago, but, there doesn't seem to be much activity at that talk page. So, I'm bringing it over here in the hopes of getting some clarification.

At MOS:TITLE, under MOS:ITALICTITLE, laws are not in the list of works that should have their titles italicized. This was clarified at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles of works/Archive 3#Italics for legislation. However, at MOS:CANLAW, it's stated, "in Canada, per the McGill Guide, titles of acts are italicized". Which of these opposing instructions governs? ₪ MIESIANIACAL 00:19, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

That part of CANLAW should be removed to bring it in line with global style. Judging by that paragraph’s example of Residential Tenancies Act (Ontario)—which was moved in 2013—the text hasn’t been reviewed in a while. — HTGS (talk) 08:58, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

The relevant section of MOS:CANLAW was added in 2019 by Alaney2k without discussion, although no doubt in good faith. I have now removed it. — HTGS (talk) 02:22, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I'd say perhaps a discussion is in order before removing this; a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS exception should probably apply here. See for example how these secondary sources use italics for the Ontario Heritage Act [5] [6] or the Reform Act [7] [8] 162 etc. (talk) 04:41, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Local preference would give us a lot more capitalised Acts and Bills (as common nouns). I agree that we need discussion, and it will have to get much deeper to address this. I welcome the opportunity to develop the MOS properly on this, because MOS:LAW feels very bare bones at this point.

For contrast, CBC prefers unitalicised. It is generally my view that we are not writing for courts or lawyers, and I generally prefer a global style where reasonable. — HTGS (talk) 07:05, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I added the sentence because most laws and judgments in Canada, were mentioned with italics in Wikipedia articles, some not. So this was noting the common usage. I was basically wanting to provide a basis in the CANLAW for the convention. It is the convention here in Canada, not just for legal documents or dissertations or such to italicize law titles. That said, news organizations do vary in their usage. I am sure I could provide examples using the CBC website that do use italics. It really is no different from using Canadian English. For example, Toronto Harbour, instead of Toronto Harbor. An editor wanted to change the name to conform to international spelling. I think if you took a consensus of Canadian editors, we do want to preserve our Canadian style usage. I don't think Wikipedia should override the local usage. However, italics usage might be falling out of favour, I'll give you that as speed to post on the net seems to take on more and more precedence over everything else. Since 2019, I've not had any complaints over the usage of italics. I think it is accepted as common practice in Canada. Other things we do in Canada include using the province in a reference to a city. For example, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. But articles that are international use simply Toronto, Canada. Alaney2k (talk) 14:55, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

And, elsewhere on WP:CANLAW, the McGill Guide is referenced. So there was precedence. I did not set policy, only added a sentence to MOS:CANLAW reflecting the project. Alaney2k (talk) 15:04, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Fair. But, there are all sorts of style guides outside of Wikipedia that don't conform with Wikikpedia's; I'm almost constantly getting corrected here for using a style I leaned elsewhere, but is against Wikipedia's MoS. This all came out of one of those "correcting" moments; it prompted me to look up the guideline in MoS and that's how I discovered a contradiction with CANLAW.

I don't particularly care about whether the names of laws are italicized or not. But, I do lean slightly toward not, since, italicizing them can get confusing when they're in among descriptions of terminology, such as the fifth paragraph of Leader of the Official Opposition (Canada). If the law names were italicized, the paragraph would appear as:

"The term leader of the opposition is used in the Parliament of Canada Act and the Standing Orders of the House of Commons, as is the term official opposition. The terms leader of the loyal opposition, his majesty's opposition, and loyal opposition are sometimes used, but, are not in either the act or the Standing Orders."

Half the paragraph is in italics and it's getting difficult to discern a phrase from a title from an act of parliament. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 07:03, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I've moved this discussion to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Conflicting styles for names of laws in an attempt to get more eyes on it. --₪ MIESIANIACAL 03:41, 31 March 2023 (UTC)

exemption of MOS:SMALLFONT

This discussion on exemption of MOS:SMALLFONT on infobox may be of interest to editors here. Ckfasdf (talk) 00:07, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

Does "words as words" justify bold-italic for lead terms that are just words?

On concentric objects, another editor is italicizing the already-bold terms in the lead: the words "concentric" and "coaxial", which are somewhat technical words but in this case are being used as words with their usual (technical) meaning, stating that bold-italic instead of just bold is justified by WP:WAW. Is it? If it is justified, how can we distinguish this case from that of every other Wikipedia article whose title is a word rather than a name? Or should all such articles have bold-italic lead terms? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:26, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

As I see it from a hurried glance, whoever last formatted the lead was trying as best as she or he could, to meet several needs:

1. Bold-facing the title word;
2. Using italics to distinguish concentric from coaxial (not part of the title); and
3. Matching the two terms.

Strictly speaking, I suppose, concentric should (or could) be bold-faced and italic, while coaxial should be just italic, but while that would best meet abstract logic, it just doesn't seem that such a distinction would be readily apparent to the average passing-by reader, i.e. it might just look odd. Hard cases make bad law and "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds", so I'm not sure what the best solution for Concentric would be, and whether that would be any useful guide for other articles of this type. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:39, 22 April 2023 (UTC)

No, do not italicise. The article is not discussing the words, but the concepts. Consider: Two objects are said to be coaxial when they…, versus … coaxial derives from the Dutch word, koe and the American word, axel. — HTGS (talk) 03:29, 29 April 2023 (UTC)

Which template to use: Strong or Em

The boldface part says this:

For semantical emphasis (to denote importance, seriousness, or urgency), you can also use the HTML element <strong>...</strong>, or the template {{strong}}. This is desirable because the words can stand out for text to speech and other software, important due to accessibility issues.

It then contradicts this in the When not to use boldface section:

Avoid using boldface for emphasis in article text. Instead, use HTML's <em>...</em> element or the {{em|...}} template (which usually render as italic).

So which one should be used? Aaron Liu (talk) 20:22, 7 May 2023 (UTC)

My understanding is that bolding should never be used in article text for emphasis, as the second passage states. Even italics for emphasis should very rarely be used, since if you're emphasizing something, you're making an editorial choice that it deserves emphasis, and that's not very encyclopedic/neutral. (Exceptions could be things like quotations that contain emphasis in the source.)

What the first passage seems to be speaking more to is writing on Wikipedia outside of articles. So e.g. a template that has a bolded "don't do this bad thing!!!" message should be using {{strong}}. That could definitely be explained better in the MOS here; I'd be fine with tweaking it to clarify. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:02, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

Use of italics in references/citations

When referring to the title of a book or a film in the title of a source that is normally not italicised, should the title of the work be italicised in the non-italicised title of the source? Hopefully the following example will help you decipher the question. This newspaper article refers to the film Walkabout, so how should the reference be formatted?

1. Godfrey, Alex (9 August 2016). "How we made Walkabout". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
2. Godfrey, Alex (9 August 2016). "How we made Walkabout". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 February 2022.

Betty Logan (talk) 20:38, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Per MOS:CONFORMTITLE, the title of the work should be italicized in the title of the source, as demonstrated by your second example. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 22:48, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Thank you! Betty Logan (talk) 00:37, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

But it should be done with bare ''...'' markup, not with, e.g., {{lang}} for cases that in running text that could call for that.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:30, 25 September 2023 (UTC)

bold in song articles (fake headings)

An edit of mine removing boldface was reverted by @ResolutionsPerMinute; the reason was that other song articles use bold in that manner. I tend to look to this manual of style rather than similar articles, but the manual style of rife with exceptions and contradictions that are not linked to in MOS:BOLD. Is there something I missed? ~TPW 15:14, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I think "look at similar articles" is valid advice in such cases; the MoS can't handle every detail. Gawaon (talk) 16:10, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

If the usage is to make it look like a header, then just make it a real section header with "===". Gonnym (talk) 16:20, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

There is also MOS:FAKEHEADING, which does seem to support bold, but not semi-colons, for pseudo-headings. The current guidelines do seem quite confusing. --Yodin^T 17:10, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Yup, there seems to be no shortage of style guidance that's confusing and could benefit from some discussion. I'd much rather that the manual of style be explicit, rather than editors fighting because some rely on the style guide and others come to an understanding that's not documented in the style guide. That's the purpose of a manual of style, isn't it? ~TPW 17:32, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

I completely agree, it would be helpful either to discourage the use of bold pseudo-headings if there was consensus to do that, or to list them at MOS:BOLD#OTHER if not. @TPW do you oppose the use of bold pseudo-headings in general? And would anyone object if I added a mention of MOS:FAKEHEADINGs at MOS:BOLD for now, while both are part of the MOS? --Yodin^T 09:21, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

All I object to is the idea that an editor should be expected to guess as to local consensus. Either pseudo-headings are fine sitewide, or they are not. I'd prefer there not be any exceptions, but if there are let's have them laid out in detail in a centralized list, such as MOS:BOLD in this case. ~TPW 14:01, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

There is no topic-by-topic list of "exceptions" regarding such a thing, and shouldn't be one. I tend to agree with other comments below that the ToC problem can be solved by using {{TOC limit}}, so we really no longer have any need to permit pseudo-headings at all, especially since they lead to accessibility problems.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:16, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Creating subsections with === for each and every track listing bloats up the TOC like Thanksgiving dinner (compare this to something more reasonable), and I find that quite distracting. By applying bold pseudo-headings across hundreds of song articles with Track listings sections, I am introducing consistency that does not seem to be explicitly outlined elsewhere, not even in WP:SONGS. ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 17:26, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

A wikiproject is the last place any editor should be looking for style guidance. Whatever the outcome of this discussion, I'd like to see the actual manual of style updated to reflect it, because that makes it a lot easier for editorial compliance. ~TPW 17:34, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes. That said, using bold to make pseudo-headings isn't against any rule (and the main reason to do it is in fact to avoid massively lengthening the ToC). But using ; markup to do it against MOS:DLIST, because it's an abuse of list markup which causes accessibility problems.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:38, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

If it's distracting to you, then ignore it. Some people use assisted technology to read articles and for them it's helpful. Also, I personally find your "less reasonable" example perfectly fine. Especially if you add the country headers that were added to the "more reasonable" example which then make these headers one level deeper and visually smaller. Gonnym (talk) 19:45, 12 October 2023 (UTC)

@Gonnym Are there accessibility issues for the "more reasonable" example given above (You're Makin' Me High), or the use of bold pseudo-headings at MOS:FAKEHEADING? --Yodin^T 09:11, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

MOS:FAKEHEADING says this Screen readers and other assistive technology can only use headings that have heading markup for navigation. so yes, there are accessibility issues when actual headers aren't being used. I have no idea if there are others, as this area isn't my specialty. Gonnym (talk) 10:42, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

It suggests using {{TOC limit}} to avoid the issues raised by ResolutionsPerMinute above, and that "Using a pseudo heading at all means you have exhausted all other options. It is meant as a rarity." But {{TOC limit}} seems not to be working with the new Vector 2022 skin. I've now raised this issue on Phabricator, which also had suggestions for fine-grain control of TOCs, which could remove the technical reasons that currently permit pseudo-headings. But for now it looks like MOS:FAKEHEADINGs are supported by the MOS (albeit as a last resort), and accessibility concerns with it should probably be discussed there, rather than here. --Yodin^T 12:10, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

It's just that using proper subsection headers for e.g. six groups of two-to-five lines of text seems extravagant. They look better for prose than lists, which, as the name implies, Track listings sections are. Accessibility is a legitimate issue, but readability and presentation are just as important. I don't want to say using pseudoheaders "looks better," because that's my insignificant opinion, but a lot of song articles were that way before I came along, so there must be some benefit. ResPM (T🔈🎵C) 21:33, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

Might be worth trying to get consensus for a template that would display as bold text (in the same way that level 4+ headers currently are, for example), but render as h3 tags, so that it would be fully accessible, but also improve readability. Something like this should work: <h3 style="font-size:100%">test</h3>

Alternatively, how about using the bullet point method in the second example you gave? That way it would render as a list with sub-items, which again should address accessibility concerns. --Yodin^T 22:08, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

For another option, when there are a bunch of micro-sections in series and they're short and consistent in their style and purpose: template-structured glossary markup (which is not just for things that literally are glossaries; the underlying "association" or "description" list markup has various uses). See MOS:GLOSSARIES for the gist, and Template:Glossary and its related templates.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  05:51, 14 October 2023 (UTC)

This example could plausibly be formatted as a definition list:

;Australian 7-inch and cassette single
:1. "The Machine's Breaking Down" – 4:38
:2. "Rumour Has It" – 3:55
;Australian 12-inch single
:1. "The Machine's Breaking Down" (club mix Hot Dr. mix)
:2. "The Machine's Breaking Down" (radio mix)
:3. "The Machine's Breaking Down" (extended dance mix)
:4. "Rumour Has It"

Australian 7-inch and cassette single

1. "The Machine's Breaking Down" – 4:38

2. "Rumour Has It" – 3:55

Australian 12-inch single

1. "The Machine's Breaking Down" (club mix Hot Dr. mix)

2. "The Machine's Breaking Down" (radio mix)

3. "The Machine's Breaking Down" (extended dance mix)

4. "Rumour Has It"

This is not a pseudo-heading because we really are using the material after each bold item to provide detail about that item, as definition lists do. Note that there needs to be no blank lines between the lines per MOS:LISTGAP. There should be no accessibility issues because we are using the ;: wikiformatting as it is supposed to be used rather than to hack up pseudo-headings or indentation. Also note the manual track numbering; auto-numbering with ":#" works but adds unnecessary indentation. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:06, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this is why I said see MOS:GLOSSARIES, since it provides not just that semicolons-and-colons option but a more robust templated version with less easily-broken syntax:

{{glossary}}

{{term|Australian 7-inch and cassette single}}

{{defn|no=1|"The Machine's Breaking Down" – 4:38}}

{{defn|no=2|"Rumour Has It" – 3:55}}

{{term|Australian 12-inch single}}

{{defn|no=1|"The Machine's Breaking Down" (club mix Hot Dr. mix)}}

{{defn|no=2|"The Machine's Breaking Down" (radio mix)}}

{{defn|no=3|"The Machine's Breaking Down" (extended dance mix)}}

{{defn|no=4|"Rumour Has It"}}

{{glossary end}}

That markup permits blank lines (but not extraneous HTML elements) between items, and items with nested complex markup like multi-line input, block quotations, hatnotes, etc.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  19:26, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

Italics or not?

Should all these words be written in italics? idam, antahkarana, buddhi, ecc. JackkBrown (talk) 12:03, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

@JackkBrown: Yes, since they are not fully assimilated into English like "yoga" is. More properly, they should be written with lang-template markup, e.g. {{lang|sa-Latn|idam}}.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:11, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

MOS:BADITALICS - What is a proper name??

I read the description on proper noun 10 times and I still can't decide: Is Arena (countermeasure) a proper noun or a proper name? I had never heard of the term "proper name" before Wikipedia. Schierbecker (talk) 17:21, 3 August 2023 (UTC)

The term would generally be 'proper noun', at least as taught in American schools. Remsense聊 18:37, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

It's more that "proper name" is mostly a philosophy usage and "proper noun" more a linguistics usage, but "proper name" in broad usage also encompasses capitalized derivates of proper nouns, like "Scottish" (in languages like English that capitalize such terms; many, including Spanish, lower-case them and only capitalize the noun forms: escocés, escocesa 'Scottish', Escocia 'Scotland'). The term "proper adjective" or "proper modifier" is sometimes used for the derived forms, but these terms seem to have little currency compared to "proper name" used in the general sense. Overall, I think WP's MoS should prefer the term "proper noun" where ever practical, because we have been beset in the past by people trying to apply a broad, loose philosophy-derived defintion of "proper name" in an effort to over-capitalize a large number of things, when MoS clearly, necessarily means the linguistics sense, being a work about language usage not a treatise on philosophy of naming. Despite the obviousness of this, such "give me capitals or give me death" behavior has risen to very disruptive levels in the past, so it is best to nip it in the bud.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:20, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

de facto or de facto

Is de facto considered a foreign term or is it considered a loan-phrase for the purposes of MOS:FOREIGNITALIC? –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 04:02, 25 April 2023 (UTC)

My take is that it's been in every English dictionary ever printed, so it's an archetypal loan-phrase, no italics. Remsense聊 18:38, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Lots of Latin- and French-ism borrowings are found in English dictionaries but still often rendered in italics as not fully assimiliated (especially multi-word ones like in flagrante delicto, de rigeur, etc.), very commonly in legal writing. People are going to disagree on these, using "de facto" instead of "de facto" is not an error, and the matter is not worth fighting about. Just be consistent within an article.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:09, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

I don't think it's an error in the abstract, but if what MOS:FOREIGNITALICS means what it presently says, words that have been 'properly' loaned into English shouldn't be italicized as a rule. I hope I haven't come off as belligerent, I'm just curious where the line is intended to be and what form it should take.Remsense聊 01:52, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Lots of bright lines are intentionally not drawn by this style guide, to permit as much editorial freedom as is practical. See MOS:BLOAT: we generally only add a line item to MoS when it has been the subject of long-term, repetitive, disruptive editorial dispute. And even when we do add one, it often still permits editorial judgment, with wording like "usually", "often", "may", "recommended", etc. This is not a hard-and-fast policy. Cf. also WP:P&G: "Guidelines are sets of best practices supported by consensus. Editors should attempt to follow guidelines, though they are best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply." It would not be practicable for MoS to try to list out definitively every loan word/phrase and whether it should be italicized. Even determining on a case-by-case basis is apt to end up being a matter of whoever has more time to waste digging around in dictionaries and other sources to support their case that the term is or is not assimilated enough to warrant italicizing any longer. This is why I suggest just leaving it alone. It does not break anything if it appears as "de facto" in one article but "de facto" in another. We just don't want to see both styles in the same article. And consider also consistency as a class: if the article is making heavy use of italics for such phrases in general, there is probably no good reason to try to make a special exception for this specific term, while if it's presenting lots of fairly well-assimilated Latinisms without italics, it would probably not make sense to try to force italics on just this one.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:49, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Oh, certainly, I agree it would only make sense as a class, see my topic below. I suppose there's a particular sense of noise that I would concretely rather avoid with this class, but I could definitely see one seeing it as guideline bloat. Remsense聊 02:51, 25 October 2023 (UTC)