Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Style of "External links"

I would like to add something to the style guide Wikipedia:Manual of Style, but am not sure how to do this and with whom I have to discuss this. My question is about "external links": sometimes it is handy to add additional information than just the URL. Unfortunately there is no standard about that and at the moment I am aware of three different methods:

Adam Bede
http://www.kde.org/whatiskde/qt.php -- History of Qt and Harmony
City's own website: http://www.hannover.de/

examples: George_Eliot, Harmony toolkit, Hannover

-- mkrohn 23:05 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)

I think the Adam Bede method is the preferred method. See external links on this page: [1] -- Notheruser 23:13 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)

#1 is the standard. Note that the "printable version" of a page reveals the URL. --mav 23:49 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)

I object very much to the proposal suggesting two different styles for "External links" heading. Wikipedia is far too confused as it is wrt. the style of the external link heading, and it certainly does not help to confuse the matter further by having two different styles in the "Manual of style". If it is believed that a smaller font size is suitable when there are no other headings in an article (something which in my view looks odd and inconsistent, but that is another issue), then that must certainly be handled by the Wiki markup to html converter. The Wiki markup *must* be consistent. -- Egil 18:55 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

I agree, and I've changed it to say that two equals signs should be used, not three apostrophes. The external link header is just like any other header, so this is how it should be treated. I've very rarely seen "external links" marked up any other way, and I change it if I do. --Camembert

Agreed. -- Tarquin

Large image links

Can we devise something better for these than "Click here for larger version"? (http://www.w3.org/2001/06tips/noClickHere ) How about "See a larger version"? -- Tarquin 12:26 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

On Rachel Corrie I just used "larger version", which is nice and short :) Martin

Or "See also larger version". Additionally, put the large image on the image description page of the small version, because it is common and intuitive to click the thumbnail itself to get the larger version. See also [2], [3] - Patrick 13:35 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

I used to do that, but I was told off - see wikipedia talk:image use policy. Martin

It may be "common and intuitive" but in the case of Wikipedia all images are clickable and only a very few of our images have larger versions. Therefore the user has no idea without clicking the image if that image has a larger version. That is why media links are used in the caption area below images which directly link to the larger versions. Our users should only expect to see image meta data on an images description page unless the caption area below the image in the article says otherwise. BTW, I use "larger image" for the displayed text of media links. "Click here" bugs the hell out of me and I try to avoid using those words. But I must admit that when there is a substantial description on an Image's description page I will often write "Click image for description" (see Saturn (planet)). It would be great if somebody could think of something better to say. --mav

Okay, I see. But it is a bit confusing: normally, the text that pops up at a link describes what you get when you click; so when xxx.jpg pops up you expect an image; may be the pop-up text should be "description of xxx.jpg". - Patrick 00:21 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

That's a very good idea - I suggest you make a feature request. --mav

Well, I just saw a great example of how not to do it, at wasp. :p -- John Owens

let's see if we can't make life easier for ourselves: m:Image pages -- Tarquin 08:51 Apr 10, 2003 (UTC)

Links within headers

Depending on settings, some users may not see them clearly.

I put this earlier, rephrasing "They seem to get buried by the bold type.", but is this really so? Normally links are underlined and/or a different color, so bold links can be distinguished from other bold text. Sometimes the words to be linked are not in the text itself, so links in headers can be convenient, avoiding cumbersome duplication. I agree that links in headers must be avoided if they distract from the meaning of the header as a whole, but I like them in headers like "Transportation in Azerbaijan", where they are the two main generalizations of the subject. - Patrick 11:29 Apr 13, 2003 (UTC)

I really dislike links within headers, because I think the bold interferes with the underline and colour change. I prefer to have them as free links in the first sentence. Or, if it's an important link, to use a "Main article" style to really draw attention to it. Martin

I agree. I think really look terrible and should be avoided if at all possible. --Daniel C. Boyer 19:04 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

My 2c: links in headings are ugly. Avoid where possible, unless all the headings are links in that particular section of the entry. Mixed colour headlines look really amateurish. Tannin

It should usually be possible to write the first sentence of the section to mention the heading. Eg: "== Foo == \n The

muffin were prominent in the bar region...." -- Tarquin 13:14 Apr 20, 2003 (UTC)

Names of people - first names or surnames?

When writing about people, we obviously use their full name (+link) the first time it appears. EG "Saddam Hussein is a very naughty boy". However, later in the article is it correct to say "Hussein did bad stuff" or "Saddam did bad stuff"? I thought I saw advice to do the former, but I can't find it, and I can't recall what the reasoning was... Martin

Just my 2c. In general, use the more formal last name. But there are common sense exceptions - consider, for example, trying to write anout the Wright Brothers that way! Tannin

Well usually the surname. But in this case, "Saddam" is his surname; Hussein is his given name -- Tarquin 13:14 Apr 20, 2003 (UTC)

Righto - thanks for the help :)

Explanatory text

What's the policy on articles containing explanatory text, e.g. "This article will detail how one goes about proving that all cows are green." Is it bad? Good? Uncertain? Graft

It's useful in certain articles, such as anarchism -- the explaination helps people find what they're looking for much quicker. -- Sam

I agree it's useful, but we don't always operate based on what's most useful... I am wondering more if people think (or have thought) that this violates some sort of encyclopedia etiquette, or if it munges with the "voice" of the encyclopedia in some taboo way... Graft

An alternative would be to have some sort of stub text (maybe links to other sites if available) then put the explanatory text on the talk page. Personally I have nothing against explanatory text on pages for a short time though -- Chris Q 09:26 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

Whitespace under headings

The chapter "Headline style" says: "Note that with the == brackets used, no space under the headline is needed. The space should be removed.", but if one looks at the source code, not putting an empty line after the heading will result in the first paragraph of the text not being marked with the <p> tag, and for this reason there will be no whitespace rendered under the heading (In my browser anyway). So, in order to make the markup to be produced correctly, it is necessary to put an empty line after the heading. (IMO, this makes the text look somewhat cleaner in the edit window as well). Timo Honkasalo 09:15 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

our parser doesn't use P tags correctly anyway, since they are never closed. -- Tarquin 11:56 14 May 2003 (UTC)

So, it's more of software rather than style issue. After all, the ideal would be that the empty line wouldn't make any difference, because the users are not going to be consistent with it anyway. Timo Honkasalo 13:20 May 14, 2003 (UTC)

Indeed. I've raised the matter with the mailing list a few times ... -- Tarquin 14:54 14 May 2003 (UTC)

Question re: quotation marks

In transcribing the words, for instance, of hymns or poetry, it is frequently necessary to use a single quotation mark to indicate a missing letter, o'er, or o’er, for scansion. My preference is for the latter, as, given the context of the usage, it runs together better. Nevertheless, I can see that someone a little more experienced in Wikipunctuating may be able to offer guidance. Ought I change my solitary submission thus far to the general style of ', or is ’ acceptable? Wooster 11:01 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

’ is an HTML entity, and will not show on all systems. Best to stick to ' , for the immediate future at least -- Tarquin 11:10 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

There is an alternative; ’ as in "o’er" is more acceptable as an HTML entity. But I'm still in the "o'er" camp myself. -- John Owens 11:40 2 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Longer Articles and references

Comments please:
First let me apologize for going over some old ground, but I'd like to suggest an approach that seems better to me. The subject is the bottom of article references. I prpose to expand or adjust the style manual. First, for short articles with one or two references, I see no problems with the current general approach of *See also: [[article]], [[article]]. For mega-articles such as countries, I also really like the Main article: [[Article name]]. under a subheading. Enough preamble, I propose that long articles with several references get an ending structure like:

==Additional information== (we could be folksy and use ==To learn more==)
===Wikipedia articles===
*[[article 1]]
*[[article 2]]
===Reference material===
* Book 1 citation (ISBN nnnnn)
* Book 2 citation (ISBN nnnn2)
* Periodical reference
* CD, DVD, VHS tape, etc.
===External links===
*[URL1 description]
*[URL2 description]

I haven't adopted this yet, but the idea was prompted by two articles. Daniel Morgan is already too busy at the bottom of the page. I've also got material to update the Battle of Trenton which would make it as bad or worse. The material is in pages of stuff on my growing to do list, ;-). ....Lou I 18:03 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I don't see the point of adding another level of hierarchy; I don't think anybody capable of reading the article is going to have trouble understanding that the different kinds of end material are for "additional information". I could go with merging external links with references, since there are now many websites that are as good as or better than printed works as authoritative sources. For my part, I would abolish "Further reading" and just use "References", can't see any useful difference between the two. Stan 18:24 21 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You're right, I like your proposal better than my own. I've tried it at the Artemas Ward article. ....Lou I 08:33 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Ah, but "references" are works that were actually used for developing the article. "Further reading" is more comprehensive works that can be read by the reader to get more information. Very often a reference is from a textbook or part of another work that doesn't focus on the subject of an article. So many times all or most of the information that is in the reference has been inputed into an article. But a "further reading" selection should always have way more information than is in the article. So we need both sections. --mav

Thanks, Mav. I agree about Further reading, unless of course the reference is to a video, ;-). Also, I think that if we need the references I'd just as soon call it Sources, since many times you can't take everything in them at face value. I may need to see some longer lists before even having an intelligent preference, so I guess this subject will stay open a while longer. Lou I

To me that's a distinction without a difference. By nature an encyclopedia article is supposed to be a condensed version of the original material, so a reference used to build the article is also legitimate as "further reading", irrespective of whether it's a complete work or not. Conversely, what kind of valid "further reading" would there be that is not also a useful reference? Consider the case of a relative newbie like myself - if I see an existing article mentioning a book in "further readings" that happens to be on my bookshelf, I then dig out the book and add a missing factoid or two, does that mean the book now has to be moved from "further readings" to "references", or do I instead list it in both sections? A distinction based on how the material was used originally becomes pointless after several generations of edits. If a reference work is recommended as an better-than-average read, then just say so in a comment. Stan 21:09 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

You missed my point. I said that often most or all the good information in a particular reference has been incorporated into the article. There is no reason to direct our readers to those sources when that is the case. What I often do when a reference also happens to be a good choice for ==Further reading== or ==External links== is I place the reference only in one of those two sections and then after the listing (in parenthesis) I say "also used as a reference." That prevents the need for a double listing. --mav

Ah, I see the sentence now. Perhaps it's just my style, but aside from lifted PD text, I rarely run into a reference that I use everything from. Stan 04:16 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Mixing Article introduction (bold) and Title style (italic) to boltalic

I have the feeling, that this two things should not be mixed. Other people seem to think, they should. I think there is some clarification needet to make it clear, that Article introduction is not italic but bold (at least the article says so!). Thanks for comments, Fantasy 20:16 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I've given my opinion elsewhere, but I'll repeat it here for completeness: The MoS says "All articles should have the title or subject in bold in the first line" and "Use italics for the title or name of books, movies," ... The two are not mutually exclusive. If the words in question are the article title or subject and the name of a book, movie etc. then both rules apply. The words should be bold and italic. -- sannse 20:58 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I think this is wrong. Why should Matrix be bold and The Matrix be Boldalic? I guess, you are confusing a title in an article with the title of the article.

Maybe an example can help you understand the difference: The article Keanu Reeves contains a reference to the film The Matrix. THIS LINK should be in italics, not the introduction of the article about The Matrix.

And: As long as the user manual says: All articles should have the title or subject in bold in the first line it is wrong not to do so. There are two ways: We change this text or we do as it says. Fantasy 21:16 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

PS: If there would be no difference between Title style and Article introduction, why should there be two extra paragraphs for the same thing?

Humm, we are really managing to misunderstand each other. I'm sorry I'm not being clearer. I'll give it another go :)

"All articles should have the title or subject in bold in the first line" - agreed. But something being bold doesn't mean it can't also be italic and still be bold. An object can be large and red.

Any time the film title The Matrix is mentioned it should be in italics. So the italicised link in the Keanu Reeves is correct. If it is in the first sentence of The Matrix article then it should also be in bold. The reason matrix is bold and not italic is because it is not a film title.

I agree the paragraphs on title style and article introduction are talking about different things. But in this case The Matrix is a film title (and so the "Title style" paragraph applies) and is part of the article introduction (and so the "article introduction" paragraph applies). One says bold, the other says italic - so we use both and the words are written in bold and italic.

I have to go to sleep now, apologies again for not making my point clearer. Regards -- sannse 21:57 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I don't see a reason, why film titles should be italic. What is the advantage? In normal text, to make it visible, ok. But in the Article introduction, it is already visible. So WHY? Fantasy 06:48 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Because by convention all film titles are always in italics (this is a standard English convention far bigger than any conventions we have for just Wikipedia). And we have a convention to bold the subject of an article the first time it is mentioned. So we bold and italicize movie title the first time they are displayed in an article. --mav

ok, this makes it clear. I did not know that this is an English Standard (I am not a native english speaker). Thanks for pointing this out, Fantasy 07:50 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Lovely to wake up and find this sorted - thanks mav and Fantasy -- sannse 08:17 23 Jun 2003 (UTC)

External links

or

External Links

-- 136.152.197.237 06:28 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)

My impression is that the general convention is not to capitalize subsequent words in section headers (unless they're proper names, of course). I suppose it doesn't really matter, but "External links" etc fit in better with the house style. --Brion 06:32 Feb 14, 2003 (UTC)

Wikifying?

move to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

Do I have to put blabla on the See also list when I have wikified the blabla already in the text? --webkid 05:45 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I never do Theresa knott 07:10 19 Jul 2003 (UTC)

You don't have to. If it's a really important link, you may wish to.

I tend to think we shouldn't, because it's already linked to, and often remove those from see also lists. Vicki Rosenzweig 02:53 21 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I agree. It makes the "also" meaningless; how would it be "also"? --Daniel C. Boyer 19:05 28 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Wikifying (part 2)

When we have an article which has a lot of years in it ( for example the Erich von Manstein article ), do we have to wikify all the years ( of course, I won't wikify one year twice, but there are at least 15 years in this article ). webkid 17:49 24 Jul 2003 (UTC)

No, in my opinion years should only be linked if they are really important to the subject in question. In the Erich von Manstein article, currently only the years of birth and death are linked. One could add a few more, but it certainly sounds like a bad idea to link them all. Just like one does not link every word that might be a Wikipedia article. Andre Engels 13:32, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Automated Table of Contents

In many Wikipedia pages there are Automated [Table of Contents]. But I can't see, from an editing view of the page, how this is done. Can we please have some instructions somehwere on how to put an Automated Table of Contents into a page. Thanks. RB-Ex-MrPolo 09:54, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)~

See Table of contents. - Patrick 11:43, 29 Jul 2003 (UTC)

em-dash and en-dash

Question on Style. I recieved the following comment on a page I edited: (&am; "#151;" is not a valid HTML entity... it should be & "mdash;" or & "#8212;"). I think & "#151;" is perfectly valid for a "printer's em or em dash" Anyone know why it is not? Also, should not the em be separated by spaces from the rest of the text, since it is NOT an ordinary dash, but a device for redirecting rthouyght within a sentence? Anybody know about this? Marshman 04:47, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

In ISO 8859-1 and Unicode, code point 151 is reserved as a control character. It is not an em dash except in Microsoft's proprietary code page extensions, and any program that displays an em-dash for "" is doing so either erroneously or in deliberate emulation of common bugs in Windows. Relying on buggy behavior is not recommended. :) Please use the standard, either — or —. --Brion 05:02, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Thanks I will use — in the future. Coffee-Cup Software HTML Editor inserts "" for an em-dash and it certainly displays that way on browsers. Why the confusion? 24.94.86.252 05:36, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)me not logged inn Marshman 05:38, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

please don't! — looks very ugly in wikisource and some editors may not know what it is. Stick to "--". I know it's ugly, but in future our parser may turn that into mdash automagically. -- Tarquin 12:17, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Does hardly look more ugly than L&uoml;beck.

"--" gets really ugly when broken between lines, " - " would be a better advice.

-- Ruhrjung 12:42, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

— is the only form that renders correctly on the largest possible number of browsers. — is almost as good. No other form renders correctly, except by mistake. Always use — or —. Tannin 14:07, 15 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Use of %

I was going to rattle on at great length about this, but I'll be brief: I'm not really happy with disallowing the use of the % symbol - I think in lots of scientific contexts, spelling out "percent" would look considerably stranger than just using "%". --Camembert

(I've fiddled with this now, and am less unhappy, though I still have a nagging doubt (I have a predilection for nagging doubts, though...). --Camembert)

It was a bit of a unilateral decision by me so I fully expected to have it reverted! It was just based on the house style I am used to using, but I'd be glad to hear comments from others on whether they regard its use as correct. It is most often in the geography related articles (like the rambot city ones) that I have noticed it. Angela 06:19, Sep 15, 2003 (UTC)

Hm, the %s don't really bother me on the rambot pages - I think it's largely a matter of taste, which is probably why I have this nagging doubt. Still, having slept on it, I've decided I don't really mind the rule in its current form. By the way, for the sake of comparison, I think the Chicago Manual of Style says to use % in scientific copy and "percent" in humanistic copy, which is more or less what we've got here now. I don't know if there's anything on it in Fowler. --Camembert

You write: 10% and ten percent. 10 percent is as silly as ten %. Here on the 'pedia, our policy is to always use numbers instead of words, even for single-digit quantities. (I don't happen to like this policy, but no matter - it's the policy we have.) In consequence, we don't have to ponder this question: it's always % Tannin

That makes sense to me, but I think Chicago says to always use numerals in percentages, but use "%" or "percent" depending on context (I know Chicago isn't the last word, but it's widely used). I think the whole thing is probably too fiddly for us to be offering advice on, to be honest - it's a matter of taste, and I think we should just let people handle percentages how they see fit. Do we really have a policy that says always use numbers instead of words, btw? If so, where is it? --Camembert

I'm willing to let the percentages thing go, especially as the Americans will spell it wrong anyway :), but I think the numbers rule is important. Numeric values less than ten look unprofessional IMHO, so I'd like to leave that one in there. Angela 19:28, Sep 15, 2003 (UTC)

I agree, Angela. I'd prefer to see numbers smaller than ten be written out rather than done in numeric values - it does look unprofessional. But (unless someone has changed things while I wasn't looking), that's the Wikipedia rule, so I try to remember to respect it. Tannin 14:23, 16 Sep 2003 (UTC)

But where does it say that is the rule? Angela

Good question. I've certainly seen it somewhere, because I know perfectly well that I didn't much like it but figured I had to respect it. I'll have a hunt around. Tannin 00:14, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

BTW re the % versus percent debate, there is another complication. Many users of British English and Hiberno-English use per cent and see percent as an annoying americanism to be resisted on pain of death. One English teacher I know tells students that Americans use percent because they are in too much of a rush to bother writing two words where they think one will do. The 'rush' argument is also used jokingly used to explain the American 'inability' to spell colour properly, the u just being too much hazzle for all the lazy yanks! :-) Oh the joys of English (or as a surprised American commented - I had the pleasure of hearing it and laughing for days - on having to make an emergency landing at Shannon Airport, the first airport one meets when travelling from the US to Europe, and hearing Irish people speaking in English, "Gee, these guys speak American too!" An Irish traveller responded rather cuttingly, "the difference is, we can spell it too." Meow! lol FearÉIREANN 02:06, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Bah. I dream of a world where the Americans learn to speak properly, and the English learn to spell sensibly! (Alas, I confess that I usually spell color as colour, but that's probably just habit. Or general laziness. Or something.) On the numerals vs spell-it-out thing, I can't find that rule anywhere. Maybe it has been changed? Tannin

Aha! Another (partial-)convert to the true way of spelling! :-)

On-topic, I would suggest that Angela's suggestion should stand; on whether we should use 'percent' or 'per cent' or, indeed, ' per cent ' (as one would use id est or ejusdem generis), I would be more for either the first or last, but more so for the former due to inertial difficulties in converting the dratted Americans ;-)

James F. 14:13, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I am not native (although I use English more than other languages in my work), and I do most definitely don't argue that I represent anyone except myself, but let me tell that I as a foreign reader of English texts find that the guidance against the use of percent signs decreases the readability and the scanability of the text. I hold, firmly, that percent signs are superior to any of the two(!) spellings per cent and percent in most contexts where it at all is meaningful to speak about percents, as when the sizes of population minorities are given, or successive changes of something from year to year. On the other hand, there are other and better ways to express that roughly 25% or 50% or 60% is something, or goes somewhere... ;-)
--Ruhrjung 18:29, 17 Sep 2003 (UTC)

IMHO, using % instead of per cent increases readability if several percentages are mentioned. -- User:Docu

I favour % over percent, spelling out numbers smaller than ten, and never spelling out percentages (1%, five, 14, 12.5%)

This should be at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers). Martin 10:09, 24 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Spelling Style

I fail to see why the spelling Anglicization might jar (Wikipedia Manual of Style). My understanding is that the suffix -ize (and thus -ization and -izing) is normal in American English but in British English one has a choice betweeen -ize and -ise. However, the Oxford English Dictionary and its offshoots strongly recommend -ize, and the OED presents a good argument in its favor. Since this spelling convention is compatible with American English it would make sense to employ it consistently in preference to -ise. To quote the OED: "as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." Shantavira 11:21, 25 Sep 2003 (UTC)

Quotes and foreign language words

From the village pump

I remember having seen guidelines and/or discussions relative to:

Quotes should be avoided as the opening pararaph(s) of an article, but rather be placed below in the article body or at the end.
Foreign language words should be italicized. What about places' and people's names? What about titles? What about the translation/transliteration/original wording of the title in a foreign language within the definition paragraph?

With the multiplication of guideline and talk pages, I cannot find these references. Could anyone help me spotting them? If no such discussion/guideline really exist, where should they be started? Thanks. olivier 13:36, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

So far as I know from the books, loan words in English should be printed in italicized while underlined when handwriting. Since we can do nothing about the titles ( can we change the style of titles? ) I think it's alright for titles not to be italicized. But inside the articals, all foreign words should be in italicized, be they definition or anything ( it maybe troublesome, but makes them look more standard ). Like the people's names or places' names from foreign languages ( like from Chinese or other ) should be in italicized. --Gboy 14:37, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The trouble is some foreign words are so adapted that they are treated like English words like kamikaze, tyhoon, samurai and so on. -- Taku

For titles: ==Titles <i>can be italicized</i>== or in text:'''''Italicized'''''. Alex756 15:27, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think Olivier means the title of the page. --Gboy 16:00, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I think you might be looking for the Wikipedia:Manual of style. --Camembert

People's titles in article intro

Really trival question here, but it wouldn't hurt to have an answer, and I've failed to find it so far.

The article about a person generally leads off with the person's name and a brief description of who this is. Sometimes the name as given here includes an honorific title, such as Sir or Dr. or Baron. Sometimes not.

My inclination would be to use the title for [Sir] Francis Drake or [Baron] Manfred von Richthofen, but not for [Dr.] Dorothy L. Sayers. This is current usage in those three articles, but has not always been. My choice is not because of the silly Victorian convention that physicians, having adopted a title that belongs to learned people qualified to teach others, are entitled to exclusive use of the title in preference to inferior beings such as Dr. Samuel Johnson and Dr. Benjamin Franklin; it's personal whim. But is there a stylke on it, and should there be?

Unambiguous depictions

I fully expect argument on the point I added with regard to captions for graphics, and I'm very open for discussion. My take on the matter, though, is that when an article has, for example, "George Patton" in big h1 type right at the top, and the first sentence has "George Smith Patton" in bold, when I then see a picture of some guy in an Army uniform, my first thought is not "I wonder who that is, maybe it's Omar Bradley."

And I admit I'm prejudiced in this respect because it was the common style of a now-banned user to put these in. I think it's redundant. I'm open for comments. - Hephaestos 00:59, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I agree. It's obvious the picture is of the person concerned by the article. Now if it's a group shot and we need to say which person is George Patton, a caption is needed -- Tarquin 09:14, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Yep. Makes good sense to me. --Camembert 12:20, 18 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Sure, but one still may want to add an alt text ;-) -- User:Docu

Agreed, although I often forget, but I'm trying to improve. :) - Hephaestos 15:09, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think this discussion needs another go; I perceived some consensus on the subject earlier, but evidently some disagree. Regardless of the decision, we really should reach some kind of agreement on standardization here. - Hephaestos 15:09, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Phonetic spelling

Moved to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (pronunciation)

-- Smerdis of Tlön 14:43, 21 Oct 2003 (UTC)

"See also:" formatting

Michael Shields just made me aware of the fact there are two different styles advised for formatting the "See also:" section. In Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a simple, unitalicised version is 'declared' the standard. While Wikipedia:Boilerplate text advises to italicise "See also:". We should definately have one standard. What are your preferrences? Why? What about bullet lists? (I don't like them but quite a few people use them) --snoyes 22:26, 9 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Agree, we should probably standardize this. I like the bullets, both in lists and elsewhere. My preference for "see also;" is one of these:

See also: plants

See also: plants

but I'm easy - Marshman 02:31, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

An example of what I meant when I said bullet list can be seen on Chinese written language. Every article in the "See also" list is a bullet point. --snoyes 03:34, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

If there's only one or two items in see-alsos, there's no point to list-fy them. It looks ugly. --Menchi 03:48, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I don't see any reason for it to be different than the "External links" section, which has a subheading and a bullet list. That is what the manual of style already recomments for multi-section articles, but it says the section should be called "Related topics" instead of "See also". I'd probably suggest deprecating inline "See also" paragraphs in favor of using a "Related topics" section for all articles. --Michael Shields 05:25, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

What do other encyclopedias do? If you'll notice, most of them have different styles of "See Also/Related topics" formats depending on the importance and length of articles. For example, in the World Book Encyclopedia, major articles have a full-blown Related Articles section with articles listed under appropriate subsections. In minor articles, related topics are listed inline in a separate paragraph as in "See also ..." --seav 05:32, Nov 10, 2003 (UTC)

I would like to note that the style exemplified on Chinese written language is the most consistent one, with "external links", "references" and "see also" in similar formats. Also, it offers enough structure for the reader who wishes to look up something quickly. Whether it is called "related topics" or "see also" does not make much difference IMO, but it might be desirable to be keep this consistent throughout Wikipedia. Kosebamse 07:41, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I asked this question a while back here (can't find where it ended up now). Since then I have decided to use bullet lists on a separate section for See also to make stand out and uniform. I think it should be a separate section because it "moves" readers to a different page. Therefore you need the bullet list to make it look cleaner. Also, it should probably be near the end (the only thing I could see after it would be an External links section). Dori 07:58, Nov 10, 2003 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer this:

See also: plant, tree

for short lists. For sections that have numerous entries (i.e. over four or five entries), I prefer the seperate section with a list afterwards. But I really don't like the latter "secion-ified" version—it's ugly and obstrusive. The only reason I use it is because with numerous entries, the former version looks worse. But I agree that the "see also" section—whatever the format—should appear directly before the External links section. If a See also item pertains to only one section of a very long article, however, it can appear at the end of that section. Just my $.02... :^) —Frecklefoot 17:36, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I confess I've personally slid towards using the sub-heading and bullet-points format even for just one entry on the list. My thinking has been that the format is more encouraging for others to add to the list, and is easier for the reader to grasp visually. But that is just me; I'm not bothered if someone reverts them. -- Cimon Avaro on a pogostick

I think it depends upon the number and the emphasis needed for the "See also's". My suggested style(s) (above) would be for one to several links. If the links are pretty significant and there are many of them (often the links are to rather dubious connections), then a bulleted list seems appropriate and most helpful to the user. Order at the bottom (IMHO) should be "See Also", External Links", "References" - Marshman 19:18, 11 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Actually I would do References, See also, External links because the references are usually about the content (text) above and have nothing to do with the see also and external links (if you are including an external link about the references, it would probably go in the references section). That's what I've been doing anyway. Dori 23:35, Nov 11, 2003 (UTC)

Re: "an article with only links is actively discouraged"

I'm sure this has been exhaustively discussed but to me the first step in writing an article is to research information available on the web and make a list of links.

So I did this and put the links on a page.

Unfortunately it seems "actively discouraged" means "people are encouraged to blow it away".

Next time I will keep a copy at home (Duh. Well, there weren't that many, I can find them again).

But supposing I have done a lot of research and collected a lot of relevant links and then I have difficulties actually writing something. Shouldn't I be able to make my collection of links available to others as a starting point? Perhaps I could make a "stub" page which mentions that links are availabe on the "talk" page?

But, you must see that an article with just links is not really an article at all and says near to nothing about what the article should be saying. An article about eggs with just links to eggs sites doesn't say what an egg is, how it is important, and so on.

If you like, add perhaps a 1 to 2 sentence description to start with (a stub), then the links. This way the page becomes instantly functional, and you can help it grow by adding information later (Of course not by blind copy and pasting! :) Dysprosia 06:34, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I think the reasoning behind this is that something that is linked is already available on the web (and, for instance, already comes up higher on a Google search than a brand-new Wikipedia article). I "blow these away" quite frequently; I wouldn't, however, if the least effort were made. An article consisting of simply a link to another site with an page about George Washington isn't going to cut it; a stub article that said "George Washington was a U.S. president" and then listed a link, I'd leave alone (except of course we already have an article on Washington, that's just a hypothetical example). - Hephaestos 06:38, 25 Nov 2003 (UTC)

US or U.S.

US

Lirath Q. Pynnor The .s are superfluous and annoying.
Angela (I don't like dots)
Martin
FearÉIREANN The dots are annoying and re-Mattworld's and Hep's comment, whether the US (opps, U.S.) uses dots or not is irrelevant, as US/U.S. is used in contexts far beyond American topics. If US/U.S was only used in American topics, then it would be OK to use American english. But a universally common form is needed in this specific case (or else we will have endless edit wars between AE and BE), and that international usage is US, so it is the logical choice. Anyway, what happens when articles are written in neither of the above but Hiberno-English, Indian English, Canadian English or (god forbid) MTV-english? :-)
Stan dots, bleah - I think it's becoming an initialism by analogy to military terms - seems idiosyncratic to write "U.S. Navy" and "U.S. Air Force" one moment, USN and USAF the next, and going by Google, lots of AE writers agree
I hate the dots, but for titles at least we should use either "United States" (for when it is part of a noun) or "American" (when an adjective is needed). --mav 06:51, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Viajero (cleaner-looking)
Ryan_Cable
Fizscy46 (People are more likely to search for things without dots or most other punctuation marks. So it's more user friendly.)
MadEwokHerd (dots don't belong in titles unless they are important to the title; these are not)

U.S.

Mattworld (more accepted way in United States, IMHO). Of course, I know that the English Wikipedia is not just for people from the U.S.; I agree with Hephaestos's comment below. -- Mattworld 22:17, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)
Hephaestos (this is fairly straightforward to solve, it should be US in articles where British English is used, and U.S. in articles where U.S. English is used.)
James F. (agree with Hephaestos)
VerbalHerbal Even the Chicago Manual of Style, which eliminates periods in abbreviations wherever possible, makes an exception in the case of "U.S.", saying it must "bow to tradition".
Daniel Quinlan More accepted in the U.S. and clearer than "US" which seems somewhat ambiguous to me. I think U.S. is even better in British articles. USN, USAF, etc. are okay without periods.
Fuzheado being pedantic is often good, especially when searching and parsing.
Minesweeper This is what I prefer, and the Random House Handbook puts it this way: "In general, you can feel safe in omitting periods from abbreviations written in capital letters, provided the abbreviation does not appear to spell out another word. Thus USA needs no periods, but U.S. does, since otherwise it might be mistaken for a capitalization of the pronoun us."

Compromise proposal:

When referring to the United States, use "U.S." to avoid ambiguity with "us". However when used as an adjective such as the US President or the US road system, or in a longer abbreviation (USA, USN, USAF, etc.) then the periods should not be used. Daniel Quinlan 06:03, Dec 7, 2003 (UTC)

Multiple Linking for albums

In the case of albums, especially compilation albums (In this case Echoes, is it considered OK to link out to the same word more than once.

In this case, there are many songs on the album Echoes from identical albums, especially The Wall.

It seems that in this case it would be better because then others won't have to search for another song from that album to get the link, however, another user thinks its better like it currently is (Though notice that on the second disk, for song 9 (Arnold Layne), the album it is from is left as Relics (album)|Relics, and this can be a negatice impact to not linking every song to its appropriate album. -Fizscy46 18:08, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)