Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 56

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Proposed guide for writing about and linking to U.S. state highways

Wikipedia:Guide to writing about U.S. state highways --SPUI (T - C) 01:18, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Notability icon at the top of articles?

Hello every-body! (Dr Nick). I put an idea on the village pump - really just to play devil's advocate - and after several days the idea has morphed to the idea of assessing new articles - especially those about people (which are often vanity articles) and giving them (in the case of 'keep' - as so many are borderline) a rating or icon at the top which will say 'notable' or 'not-notable'. This could be non-erasable and applied by an admin somehow. They could be amended to 'notable' later after the appropriate discussion. I know this is not really 'style' but it would help give users an immediate idea of whether something's worth reading or not or purely of local or specailised interest. Comments?? Lgh 04:44, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think that's a good idea; there's a reason there's a full AfD process to be followed in the event that an article topic doesn't seem to be notable. And I'm not sure "notable" implies "worth reading" to most people; I'll grant that Green Day is notable, for example, but I've no plans to read their article. Ruakh 15:14, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Nested parentheses

Is (word word [word word]) the correct notation for nested parentheses? Brianhe 17:26, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I would say not. There are semantic difficulties (brackets are often used for notes by a quoter about a quote, which is not the same as parenthetical notes), they could conflict with MediaWiki markup and even if they don't, are still confusing since single brackets are usually used for external links; they're not common, and it's not like nesting regular parentheses is all that difficult. On a side note, Lisp initially had a distinction between brackets and parentheses, but experience led all Lisp programmers to drop the former - empirical evidence we shouldn't use them? -- Gwern (contribs) 18:14, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I was all agreeing with you that () and [] aren't the same thing, until you brought up Lisp, which in my experience is a very convincing argument against nesting ()s within ()s. ;-) Ruakh 18:49, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, that's why I added the question mark, to show that I wasn't sure whether it was support for or against. :) -- Gwern (contribs) 18:55, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Computer programmers like to nest parentheses, and that has influenced writing style for English in the last few decades. It used to be strictly Verboten. (word word [word word]) would have been the normal way to do this until quite recently; now (word word (word word)) is probably equally acceptable.

MediaWiki markup is a red herring. There are many contexts in which square brackets are simply correct (for example, editorial markup in a quoted passage). If you have a context where you might accidentally cross up wiki syntax, use <nowiki>[</nowiki> etc. - Jmabel | Talk 02:27, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

There's something to be said in favor of using brackets as well as parentheses. I read and write code all the time, so I have no trouble with nested parentheses in code, but when I'm reading normal text, it's like my "parenthesis stack" isn't active, so when I encounter a closing parenthesis, I expect to be back in the main body, not still in a parenthetical. The brackets provide a visual reminder that I'm still within a parenthetical. On the other hand, if I encounter a closing bracket, I know that I'm still reading a parenthetical. If the style manual is going to address the issue at all, I think it should express a preference for using brackets for nested parentheticals, and to recast the sentence if something needs to nest deeper than that. This is in the interest of making things easier for readers. With concentration, anyone could parse nested parentheses, but why make them work harder than they need to? They're reading an article to learn about the subject matter, and parentheses aren't the subject matter, so let's not distract readers with a harder-to-read style. --Rob Kennedy 17:50, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikitext and computer programming languages are irrelevant. In English writing, the normal way to nest brackets is (... [...]). Redundant prentheses, like (... (...)), or even worse, (...) (...), are confusing.

However, this use of square brackets is a bit awkward-looking and may be mistaken for an editorial remark in a parenthetic statement. Good style would recommend rewriting the sentence to avoid this, or using some combination of commas or dashes instead, for example:

• (..., ...)
• —... (...)—
• (...—...)
• , ... (...),

 —Michael Z. 2006-09-18 19:02 Z

Animated GIFs

What does the MoS say about animated GIFs, especially those that don't actually contain an animation but rather several separate pictures? (E.g. at Le Chevalier D'Eon) I note that these detract from the visual stability of the page, cannot be properly resized, and cannot be printed properly. Several separate images however could, and they would also allow a reader to view them in his own tempo, rather than at the one the creator of the image proscribed. Shinobu 13:59, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

It doesn't say anything about them, but that doesn't mean you can't bring up on the talk-page what a horrible idea it is. Ruakh 16:43, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

Sometimes they can be valuable, but yes, they should be avoided in general for the reasons you mention. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:56, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Animated GIFs are generally to be avoided, but they can be valuable when depicting not a number of independent images but an animation of a single subject over time. In any case the first image should be the most informative, since it is the one that will be printed. Deco 03:01, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

The example is an interesting application, but I don't think 600 kB of image files is warranted just to show 18 anime portraits in that article.

Animated images in text are distracting: I find they often make it frustratingly impossible to read a paragraph of text. Also keep in mind that in printed versions of Wikipedia, only the first frame of an animation will be visible.

Animation should only be used when demonstrating something where the dynamic nature is essential to demonstrating a point. Even then, it's probably better to place a static image or images in an article, and provide a link to an animation. If the point is just to show several images, then separate diagrams are better, since it allows the images to be seen together and to be compared (I recently replaced animated image:Athistory.gif with image:At-sign evolution.png in at sign).

Maybe it wouldn't hurt adding a brief mention to the MOS: "animated images should be avoided". —Michael Z. 2006-09-18 19:15 Z

Stränge diaëresës

Occasionally on a Wikipedia page I come across fully assimilated English words spelled with diaereses, apparently to indicate that two adjacent vowels should be pronounced distinctly (such as those in cooperate or reelect—rendered coöperate and reëlect). Some examples on Wikipedia are Organization for Security and Coöperation in Europe and Urho Kekkonen.

Now, I've seen this practice in a very few old books, but never on the internet or in any newer publications (except the New Yorker). Googling "coöperation" (with quotation marks) returns a small number of sites. A google search for cooperation (which will return cooperation, co-operation, and coöperation, because Google ignores diacritics and certain characters like hyphens) doesn't have any instances of coöperation for at least twenty pages. Wiktionary notes that "[this use of diaereses] has has become fairly uncommon—so much so that The New Yorker is famous amongst stylists and editors as the only well-known publisher that still insists upon it." The danger here is that many readers will be baffled or distracted by such an obscure spelling.

As far as I am aware, there is no official Wikipedia policy on this. However, the fact that almost no Wikipedia article uses diaereses this way (or articles from almost any book or publication, for that matter) in my mind is good grounds to codify the "bare" spellings (cooperate, reelect) and/or the hyphenated spellings (co-operate, re-elect) as official style. Strad 19:33, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

I've also seen this used on occasion. I suspect it is not adopted from older books but rather from conventions used in textbooks for learning English or another language, where it is used as a pronounciation aid. I would (as you do) suggest using either the hyphen or nothing to separate the syllables, since this is far more common. I think the quote on Wiktionary provides ample evidence for its obsoleteness. Then again, a motion by me to remove the spelling "connexion" was once opposed on the grounds that a certain geographical region of England still used it commonly; perhaps the same is true here. Deco 19:48, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

This section heading is misleading, as all three of those are incorrect uses of the diæresis mark. Traditionally the diæresis mark is used when the two vowel letters would otherwise be read as a digraph — so, coöperation has it because otherwise the -oo- is liable to be pronounced as it is in the word coop. In particular, it's actively misleading to write diaëreses, because the a and e aren't pronounced separately — indeed, they're not even really supposed to be written separately, though that's at least understandable. At any rate, I think the diæreses are fine as long as they're used correctly, and I don't think we need a policy of removing them. Ruakh 20:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

He has the title that way for effect, not for illustrating their use. Like a heavy metal umlaut. Sheesh.

It’s not my impression that coöperation is a common spelling. Wikipedia’s article-naming policy advises to use common names, even when they aren’t the formal, correct names. I think it’s appropriate to apply that same guidance to choosing how to spell words. Cooperation and co-operation and much more common spellings, and are less likely to distract readers.

And the æ is a ligature, not a separate letter anymore. That makes the spelling diaeresis perfectly valid. --Rob Kennedy 21:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Thou ſuggeſteſt that Wikipedia permit even archaic Modes of Writing within his Pages?

More seriously: diareses are never used to delineate syllables anymore. We're writing in the English of 2006, not the English of 1956 or 1886, and we should follow modern conventions. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 22:11, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

P.S. You're mistaken that Googling cooperation will return hits for co-operation; simply look at the first page of hits for cooperation, and you'll see that co-operation is not bolded when it appears. (In the hits where no word is bolded, it's because people frequently link to the page using the word cooperation, boosting its cooperation PageRanking, even if the page itself doesn't use the word.) Ruakh 20:02, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

The diaereses over the title was just a little joke. Thanks for the heads-up on Google, by the way. Strad 21:29, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Strad isn’t mistaken. For me, four of the first 10 hits use co-operation (including the link to Wikipedia’s own article), and it appears in bold every time. If I put the word in quotation marks, then Google doesn’t include the hyphenated version in its results. --Rob Kennedy 21:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes, when I did the search again it seems co-operation is included. Time to un-delete. Strad 22:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

Single quotation marks for a gloss

In professional typography, a language gloss (translation or explanation of a term) is often put in single quotation marks. In Wikipedia this is often useful in the first line of an article, especially when the title is a foreign term or derived from one, and often appears many times in a linguistics article. Arguments for including this in the MOS:

1. Italics and single quotation marks clearly distinguish a word and its gloss
2. Quotation mark style subtly clarify the distinction between a gloss and quoted text, without slowing down the reader
3. Where several glosses appear in a row, single quotation marks reduce visual punctuation clutter, for example in Ukraine#Etymology of the name
4. Including it in the guideline would reduce the common editors' confusion about how to format a foreign term (italics), the first instance of a defined term (italics), a word as a word (italics), a language gloss (single quotation marks), and a short quotation (double quotation marks), several of which often appear together, and make the results clearer for the reader
5. It is a common convention in good-quality professional typography
6. Wikipedia editors often use it already, although inconsistently since there is no guidance (example: intro paragraph of samurai)
7. The guideline would only require one sentence and an example in the MOS

Suggested addition to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotation marks:

A gloss, translating or defining an unfamiliar term, may be surrounded by single quotation marks, to distinguish it from a short quotation. Example: “The name moose is from mus or mooz (‘twig eater’) in several of the Algonquian languages.”

Suggested addition to Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Words as words:

A defined word or foreign term may also be followed by a language gloss, in single quotation marks, for example “Cossack, from the Turkic quzzaq, ‘freebooter’.”

Any comments or objections? —Michael Z. 2006-09-18 17:15 Z

Regarding point 1, I think context already distinguishes a word from its definition, doesn't it? Regarding point 4, the only thing to go in quotation marks (of any kind) are quotations. Everything else (words as words, foreign words, emphasized words, artistic titles) gets italicized. Could you provide an example for point 5? I don't recall anything like that in style books I've read. The gloss article you link to doesn't mention anything like that, either. It says linguists use small caps, and that glosses appear between lines or in margins. --Rob Kennedy 17:38, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't think context alone does distinguish a word from a one-word translation, and I am often tweaking article intro paragraphs where editors have entered a an odd mix of italics and single quotation marks. Case in point, an edit to this very manual page, made a few minutes ago. Harmil just formatted a gloss of the word deuce as if it was a word as a word (it's actually the meaning of the word).

Quotations are not the only thing to go into quotation marks, although arguably a gloss could be considered a kind of indirect quotation from a dictionary. Words used ironically, titles of minor works such as articles, chapters or songs, and nicknames are some examples. Also terms borrowed self-conciously from another context, perhaps a hypothetical quotation but not a direct one, also akin to ironic usage but not exactly, for example the “Red threat” was commonly cited as a reason for vigilance.

What else do you need illustrated in an example for point four? Ukraine and samurai already show examples of words and glosses together, the latter showing how words as words, foreign terms, and language glosses can be mis-formatted, with no help for the editor in the MOS.

I'll have to pull out some books to provide typographic examples, but see below.

The Wikipedia article on gloss seems to concentrate on glosses in old manuscripts, or ones which occur as sidenotes or footnotes, but this is also the editors' term for such an inline translation or definition, normally set in single quotation marks. A list of glosses is a glossary. The definition of gloss in the American Oxford glosses the etymology using single quotation marks:

Gloss² noun a translation or explanation of a word or phrase.... ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: alteration of the noun gloze, from Old French glose (see GLOZE), suggested by medieval Latin glossa ‘explanation of a difficult word,’ from Greek glōssa ‘word needing explanation, language, tongue.’

 —Michael Z. 2006-09-18 18:34 Z

I'm pretty sure I normally see definitions in double quotes (that is, in American publications), same as anything in quotation marks. So I would write mus or mooz ("twig eater"). I'm not sure I've ever seen the style you're referring to. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 02:57, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

After a quick Google search, I find that general style guides rarely go into so much detail about glossing, but I did find a guide to punctuation and a passing reference in Joe Clark's weblog—some others merely recommend normal quotation marks or parentheses instead. In Linguistics publishing, where inline glosses come up regularly, most style guides specifically require single quotation marks (the following examples all use double quotes for direct quotations): Computational Linguistics, Folio Linguistica, John Benjamins, Language@Internet, Mouton de Gruyter, the Text Encoding Initiative, and more.

UK publications, and a number of North American ones, simply use single quotation marks throughout. I don't have any paper encyclopedias handy, to see if they've adopted this convention, although the online Britannica appears to use double quotation marks, while World Book and Encarta treat glosses as parentheses, and put them in round brackets.  —Michael Z. 2006-09-22 21:45 Z

Caption period discussion

Kaldari and I are having a little debate about how periods are to be used in captions. As this would be a change of the current MoS standard, I thought it would be a good idea to drop everyone a line here. Plus our attempts at starting some sort of discussion have failed miserably; we posted our arguments five days ago, and nobody has responded...

If people could weigh in at Wikipedia talk:Captions#Using periods, that'd be swell. Thanks! EVula 21:06, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Captions

If the caption is a single sentence or a sentence fragment, it does not get a period at the end.

Why?? — Omegatron 21:40, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

The sentence-fragment part should be obvious — it’s not a sentence. The full-sentence part is not unheard of when it’s just one sentence. De stilis domorum non est disputandum. --Rob Kennedy 00:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Converting Units of Measure

I don't know if this is covered somewhere already (I would guess that it is, but I haven't found it), but I have a question about converting units. If an article needs to reference multiple sources, and these sources use different units of measure, such as cubic feet per hour vs. cubic meters per hour, should the article report facts in these varying units, or should all these measures be converted to the same units. If the article reports in a single unit, that makes things easier for the average reader, but makes it harder for someone who wishes to verify the article against the references. On the other hand, reporting in different units, makes the article more confusing for the average reader, but it becomes easier to verify assertions against the references. Any help, thoughts, suggestions, places to look for guidelines, would be appreciated. --BostonMA 14:57, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

The general convention is to use the number as in the reference, and add the standard unit of measure in parentheses or, within a direct quote, in brackets. For all I know, some subjects might do it differently. DGG 04:36, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

It is covered elsewhere (esp. here). As I write there I think the best thing would be it put the source value first with a conversion in parentheses/brackets or put the metric value (where appropriate) first with other units in brackets and a footnote alerting the reader that the bracketed value is the source value if this is the case. --Jimp 01:06, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

News style

We should add something about the writing style of Wikipedia - be clear and brief (like news style)... ··gracefool |☺ 05:21, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that describing an ideal article's style as "clear" is sort of obvious, while describing it as "brief" is somewhat deceptive, as we actually aim for comprehensiveness, rather than artificial brefity. In any case, only parts of news style are applicable, and primarily to the structure of the lead section rather than the article as a whole; once we get past the lead, the bulk of an article's text can be written in any number of organizational styles (e.g. chronological narrative, thematic, etc.) that aren't really "news style" in any meaningful way. Kirill Lokshin 05:44, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

External Links

The IBM 1401 article contains the following markup:

A 1401 Restoration Project is in process at the [[Computer History Museum]] in [[Mountain View, California]], complete with the old "false floor" of the mainframe era, used to hide cabling<ref>{{cite web | title = 1401 Restoration Project | url = http://www.ed-thelen.org/1401Project/1401RestorationPage.html }}</ref>.

which produces the following:

A 1401 Restoration Project is in process at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, complete with the old "false floor" of the mainframe era, used to hide cabling.

.........lots of vertical space .......

1. "1401 Restoration Project".

While it could be improved by moving the ref to follow 'Project", what happens is that the reader encounters "A 1401 Restoration Project ... and the ref, the reader knows only that there is some sort of additional information. The reader can choose to interrupt reading, click the refence number, and learn there is an external link, only to then click to return to the original text. A lot to do, an interruption, only to learn there is an external link. This is a common occurance, and with the internet seemingly growing without bound, can only occur more and more often.

The Wikipedia external link can be used in a way that better meets reader needs, as follows:

A [http://www.ed-thelen.org/1401Project/1401RestorationPage.html 1401 Restoration Project] is in process at the [[Computer History Museum]] in [[Mountain View, California]], complete with the old "false floor" of the mainframe era, used to hide cabling.

which produces the following

A 1401 Restoration Project is in process at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, complete with the old "false floor" of the mainframe era, used to hide cabling.

Now, the reader knows immediately -- no footnote number, no click, no scan of noted text, no back click -- that an external link for the Restoration Project is available. But Wikipedia editors have been trained to reject such external links (at least those editors that I have encountered!).

Would you please make this an accepted style, it provides the best service to the reader! Indeed it should be the preferred style when the link is exact to what is being referenced.

Thanks tooold 06:16, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

In my opinion a full citation should always be provided, in a footnote. The reference should be something like {{cite web | title = 1401 Restoration Project | url = http://www.ed-thelen.org/1401Project/1401RestorationPage.html | title = IBM 1401 Restoration Project Computer History Museum | last = Thelen | first = Ed}} instead, producing "Thelen, Ed. "IBM 1401 Restoration Project: Computer History Museum".". That way, if the site goes down in the future, etc., there will be some reference information that could help interested people track down the info. If only a link is provided, then yeah, there's no point in a footnote, but more than a link should be provided. —Simetrical (talk • contribs) 05:35, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, Rwwww, but I strongly disagree. This would be an absolute invitation to linkspammers. It also often conceals the fact that we have or need an article on the linked topic. - Jmabel | Talk 17:21, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Indeed, the purpose of that link is not just to provide an external link to the given project. The link is there to provide a citation to back up the facts stated in that sentence. And that’s why the <ref> should go at the end of the sentence, too. It’s not simply asserting the existence of the project; it’s talking about where the project is being developed and what sort of floor it has. A simple link doesn’t accomplish that. --Rob Kennedy 06:31, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

Sections

Is "No mass moving of pages" an appropriate section for a MOS subpage? There is currently one on Wikipedia:Manual of Style (U.S. state highways). --SPUI (T - C) 18:42, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't really see what it has to do with style -- niether with regard to highways nor in general. It looks more like a topic to be covered at Wikipedia:Move. --Rob Kennedy 22:09, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

It's merely a more specific (and necessarily more pointed) version of the "Disputes over style issues" section here. Kirill Lokshin 22:20, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I agree with Rob in that it doesn't belong here. Sometimes, mass moving is acceptable and benefits the articles; if it isn't, it falls under vandalism, which is outside the scope for the Manual of Style. EVula 22:22, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

I would argue that this is something of a special case. Kirill Lokshin 22:25, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Why are you bringing this here, rather than discussing this at the talk page? Is this "venue-shopping"? --Rschen7754 (talk - contribs) 02:35, 28 September 2006 (UTC)