Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style--Archive1

Table of contents 1 See also 2 See also (or Internal Links?) 3 External Links 4 External Links 5 Establish Context 6 Punctuation style 7 Caption Style 8 Captions 9 Names, Asian and European

See also

A lot of articles contain "See also" on the bottom linking some related topics. Some of these links are unnecessary, as they are already linked from within the article, but some are not. How should these be presented? In a similar way as the External links, as give below, or are there better ways?

See also (or Internal Links?) Alpha Beta Gamma

Jeronimo

The most used style I have seen is simply;

See also: foobar

Which I don't have any issues with and would like to keep (otherwise we will have one hell of a time trying to establish anything else -- remember, above all else newbies copy the style they see and few bother visiting these help pages before diving-in).

Either way, there is no reason to have a see also that is already linked in the article. In fact, one of the main functions of the 'see also' section is to list things that probably should be discussed in the article but aren't yet mentioned. --mav

The "see also" section is usually just a list of 2-3 items. There's no need for a heading, and indeed, as mav says, the links are often subsequently integrated into the body text of the article. -- Tarquin

See also isn't just used to hold topics that should be in the article. It allows us to link to topics that don't quite fit into the article but are related in some fashion. For example, look atEncyclopedia. It has see also links to History of Science and Technology, Information and Library Science[?], and lexicography. These topics are relevent, but there's really no need to force them into the article simply to link to them.

Maveric has suggested a Related Articles sub-heading, which sounds better than See also. However, most encyclopedias use See also, and thus so will most contributors. I've always used a sub-heading for it to keep it consistent with External links sections, but I don't mind the simple table option. -- Stephen Gilbert 16:58 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)

Well that is not entirely correct. Most encyclopedias use see alsos in parentheses inline with the text to accomplish the same function that our wiki links do. Our see alsos are simple lists after the body of the article that usually contain topics that can and should be mentioned in the body of the article. Your usage of see alsos is still a perfectly valid one but it should be under a correctly named heading such as Related Topics. See alsos would still be there to serve as a queue. However, there is some duplication and potential confusion with such a set-up -- there is often a real fuzzy line between whether a topic should be discussed in the body or if it is just of peripheral interest. I rarely use see alsos or headings like Related Topics since I try to mention and link relevant topics in the body as I go. But many others do and the dominant style is to have a no-frills horizontal vanilla list. I support this option because: 1) it is easier to implement since it is already the dominant usage and 2) vertical lists lead to massive amounts of white space. In more complete articles there is no reason to not also have a Related Topics section (heading and all). --mav 21:11 Dec 1, 2002 (UTC)

Well, the h2s are still damned big in my browsers despite changes, but I think that ==Internal Links== is more consistent and useful to the reader. Someone just moved the Gallic Wars out of Julius Caesar and it is as if the whole section (including one of my favorite sentences!) has dropped off the face of the earth. Much better to have an ==Internal Links== section for major associated articles, even if those articles are linked by a wiki link or a See also elsewhere in the article. Ortolan88 17:47 Dec 2, 2002 (UTC)

I like ==Related articles== much better than Internal Links. Flipping through a few encyclopedias, I see that most use "See also" within the article text, and then a list of related article follows the main article. -- Stephen Gilbert 17:30 Dec 14, 2002 (UTC)

Well, I liked Internal Links== cause it was parallel to External Links== and therefore more "hypertexty". By the same token, it is also more geeky, so maybe Related Articles== is better. Ortolan88 18:00 Dec 14, 2002 (UTC)

If we want Wikipedia to be widely used, we should avoid geekiness whenever possible. I think it's a turn off for the non-geeky (not that I know many non-geeky persons, but I've heard that they exist). -adam

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External Links "I'm puzzled by external links. Two things:
(1) I haven't managed to find a clear style guide to how they should be presented, but using '== External Links ==' seems common at the end of an article.
Having said that we come to
(2) Some pages appear to have == External Links == in the page source and yet display as
== External Links == whilst others display apparently the same source text as External Links As an example, try Swedish towns Sunne and Karlstad. "SGBaileyDone using 'br' rather than blank lines so it is easy to see which chunk I've added - if this is bad form, sorry.

(1) Wikipedia:Manual of Style has a small section on external links recommending the == External Links == heading.

(2) This looks like a bug. Usually, the problem is due to having text appear on the same line before '== Heading ==' characters. But this is not the case here -- hitting Save page again fixes the problem (which I tested on Bengtsfors).

The problem only seems to affect some of the pages created by the original contributor of those Swedish towns (a bot, apparently). I hope that helps. Mrwojo 06:57 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

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Establish Context Some things that might need to be in here:

• Create context: many articles assume that the reader already knows the field in which the term is used; this is especially true for articles regarding computer science and mathematics. These should included some reference in their introduction sentence to the field, such as "In mathematics ..." or "In the field of computer science, ..."
• Links can be used to explain a term, but not for acronyms or abbreviations the reader cannot be expected to know. So "Central Processing Unit (CPU)" on first occurrence.

Jeronimo

I agree with both. Especially the first, which I broke too often in my youth. On that subject, note that we can say something more specific than "In mathematics" (if the subject is truly thus restricted), such as "In topology". We can even say "In homotopy theory[?]", even though most people have no idea what the heck homotopy theory is, because they can click on the link to find out. But we still need some context. — Toby 13:04 Sep 24, 2002 (UTC)

In that case, I'd prefer something along the lines of "In the mathematical field of topology,...". In that case, both mathematicians (but not topologists) and complete layman can get an idea what the topic is about.

Well, I do have a lot of articles that say "In topology and related branches of mathematics", since the basic ideas of topology are widely used in other branches. But how does it work for homotopy theory? "In the mathematical field of topology's subdiscipline of homotopy theory[?]"? We could say "In the mathematical field of homotopy theory[?]", since mathematicians know that homotopy theory is topology and nonmathematicians only want to know that it's math.

OTOH, consider "In the mathematical theory of buildings[?]". Had I read that last year, I'd have had no ideas what buildings are in math; they're not so well known. I would have understood "In the group theoretic theory of buildings[?]", but then the nonmathematicians would be lost. So we would only have complete context given for everybody by saying the loquacious "In the mathematical theory of buildings[?], used in group theory".

Anyway, the point of this note is to say that giving complete context will sometimes be quite wordy. But I do agree that we should give as much context as concise sentence structure allows. So basically I agree with you. — Toby 13:40 Sep 24, 2002 (UTC)

BTW, I thought topology had something to do with geography? Jeronimo

I thought that this was the same as topography, but the OED disagrees. Now who wants to go through 93 links to Topology and disambiguate them? — Toby 13:40 Sep 24, 2002 (UTC)

At first sight, they're all right (just did a checking of the page titles, and looked at those I was least sure of) Andre Engels 13:46 Sep 24, 2002 (UTC)

Just stepping in to point the way to the policy page Wikipedia:Establish context -- maybe add all these ideas there & move this talk to its talk page? -- Tarquin

I'd say do it the other way round. This page collects all kind of style guidelines, so we should include it here. That way it is easier to get an overview for new - and old (I still find new Wikipedia guideline pages) - users. Jeronimo

My idea was that this page will need splitting at some point anyway. If guidelines on this page already have pages elsewhere, we might as well use the other pages & link to it from here. -- Tarquin

I agree with Tarquin on this one. When I did the first draft of MOS, I assumed there would be separate pages on layout and on scientific articles and suggested separate pages on hairy subjects like tables. There's a list of other pages at the bottom (the only thing left of the "old" MOS). I think we should keep the MOS simple and unimposing and put the philosophy and special cases on links. Ortolan88

Hmmmmm. One of the problems I have with this is that, as so often happens, the two articles start to live separate lives. However, at the least, these style guidelines should be mentioned, a link will explain the specifics and the ideas behind it. Jeronimo

I agree with Ortolan88. This should be like Wikipedia:Naming conventions in that regard. — Toby 09:03 Sep 27, 2002 (UTC)

Yes, that's probably the best. We should take care however that both pages state the same, and link to each other. Jeronimo

They seem to be keeping things together with the naming conventions page, but it probably helps that the subsidiary pages' names have the format [[Wikipedia:Naming conventions (...)]]. Should we do similarly here? That is, if we adopt a previously existing style page as a subsidiary page to the MoS, then should we rename it [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (...)]]? — Toby 01:43 Sep 29, 2002 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable to me. We could do the same thing with the talk page and stash all that maundering about hectares and poods and versts and furlongs out of the way. Ortolan88 01:49 Sep 29, 2002 (UTC)

I was planning on moving dates, numbers and units onto a separate page once the orders of magnitude links are all ready; the relevant talk would be shunted across too -- Tarquin 08:45 Sep 29, 2002 (UTC)

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Punctuation style When punctuating quoted passages, put punctuation where it belongs, inside or outside the quotation marks, depending on the meaning, not rigidly within the quotation marks. This is the British style.

This sound appealing; even as an American, I have never quite accepted the idea that punctuation should go inside the quotes as often as style manuals seems to insist. I'm not clear what the British alternative is, however. Are there any links here, or could someone provide a brief set of examples? --Ryguasu

Example added. Ortolan88

Thanks. How about punctuation for As John Doe points out, "The man with the most cheese molds the least." Americans would obsessively put the period inside the quotation marks. Is this true for British folks as well? --Ryguasu

Um, there's no obsession about it. If it is a complete sentence, the punctuation goes inside in both countries. The MOS has always said that. Ortolan88

Ortolan88 is right. If you were to be perfectly logical about it, you would write

As John Doe points out, "The man with the most cheese molds the least.".

because there the quotation is a complete sentence (requiring a period) while it sits at the end of another complete sentence (requiring its own period). I will often use just this style, since I'm a hyperlogical person, but most people regard it as too ugly, so the usual style convention is to keep only the period inside the quotation marks. (It might just as easily have gone the other way, however.) What distinguishes the two countries' systems is:

John Doe called him "the man with the most cheese".

Here the quotation is not a complete sentence (thus requiring no period), so the style above is the one demanded by pedantic logic. Since this style is not ugly, we can use it in ordinary writing, and the British do; the Americans, however, move the period inside the quotation marks, because ... I dunno why, they just do. — Toby 09:14 Nov 3, 2002 (UTC)

As I understand it, it is a prejudice of American printers that little bits like periods look "bad" hanging outside the "quotes". I don't agree and I have to catch myself when I'm writing commercially to do it the American way, but in everything I write for myself I do it British style and I was delighted to note when I was working up the Manual of Style that British was already the convention in Wikipedia. Ortolan88

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Caption Style Caption question. Most graphics don't seem to have captions, but the issue came up in blackface as to whether captions should be italic or not. For myself, I find it confusing, since if the caption, as in the case in the blackface article, includes something that would normally be italicized, it becomes non-italic in the caption itself. That is, which is preferable:

17-year cicada

or

17-year cicada

Or, in the tougher case:

Al Jolson, in The Jazz Singer

or

Al Jolson, in The Jazz Singer

So, here's a proposal for discussion:

Captions

• Photos and other graphics should have captions unless they are "self-captioning" as in reproductions of album or book covers.
• Captions should follow the style of article text, using italics only for normally italicized material.

Ortolan88 18:46 Dec 10, 2002 (UTC)

I like the proposal. Instead of italicizing the caption text, I'd like to see a smaller font size. Mrwojo 06:53 Dec 11, 2002 (UTC)

I'd like to see a caption style and let the CSS decide what to do with it. DanKeshet 16:30 Dec 12, 2002 (UTC)

That's what I was hinting at. As a downside, it would pretty much rule out setting the caption style in italics and trying to un-italicize book titles (etc.) with HTML (such as '' produces). Mrwojo 05:50 Dec 14, 2002 (UTC)

Added to Manual of Style. Ortolan88 06:12 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

I think maybe captions should be in italics after all. If they aren't in italics, they are sometimes hard to pick out. Lots of people seem to have felt this instinctively. There are as many captions in italics as not. I changed a caption to regular text type, following the current Wikipedia:Manual of Style, only put in place just a few days ago, and changed it right back to italics, it looked so odd the other way. Ortolan88

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Names, Asian and European

TakuyaMurata just added a style recommendation to use European naming convention for Asian names, even in kanji. Call me sentimental or backwards, but I must say, I like the Asian way of going from big to small. It is a wonderfully consistent system that encompasses everything from date/time to addresses. Maybe Murata-san was just accommodating. I think it would be more confusing if we reverted the kanji, because my impression is that this is unusual, but of course he should have the last word on this. All I can say is that for someone with a basic idea of Kanji it is not a problem to reverse them in mappin one to the other. It would be a trifling compromise in deference to a great cultural heritage. Sebastian 07:00 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

I agree, and I've removed it. Here is what was added:

Stick to the first then last name order. It is common in English writing. For example,

Basho Matsuo (芭蕉 松尾, 1644 - November 28, 1694)

The Japanese characters should correspond to the order of an anglicized name. While it seems weird, it is much less confusing.

It seems to me that this is at odds with the anligcisation naming convention, which says to give things the name most commonly used in English. In the case of Basho, I believe this would mean Matsuo Basho, not Basho Matsuo; and in general, it means we can't have a hard and fast rule about whether to put given names first or second. We put them wherever they are most usually put. That's the right way to do things, I think. --Camembert

First of all, this problem is so difficult to make a standard. I am totally aware that people often put Matshu Basho or Miyazaki Hayao. In fact, Google returns "Basho Matsuo" with about 2000 pages and "" But in the same time,

I am sorry I did without any suggestion. I concluded that first of all, this is English encyclopedia then stick to English convension. For me, as native Japanese, 芭蕉 松尾 looks extremely odd. But the basic principle is a least surprise and common standard. I bet the majority of English speakers assume when they see "Matsuo Basho" Matsuo is the first name. How about Japanese character order? Again this is English encyclopedia. If someone sees,

Basho Matsuo (芭蕉 松尾)

he/she probably thinks 芭蕉 is Basho. It is confusing that the order in the real name is different in the English name.

Also there is another much difficult problem. What about Chinese name? What about Arabic name? I have no idea at all. But we have to settle a convension as soon as possible. -- Taku 16:35 Jan 25, 2003 (UTC)

How can people argue about this? Spell Matsuosan's name correctly in Kanji. Spell it in English the way it is most commonly encountered in English. Don't put up a foreign translation that is nonsense. We don't translate the sentence Matsuosan wa uchi kaerimashita as Matsuo-Mr., I'm talking about, house returned and we don't translate Mr. Matsuo returned home as San matsuo kaerimashita uchi. Anyone who thinks they can guess which part of the name is pronounced how deserves to be confused.

For the record, Magyar names such as Liszt Ferenc are generally both inverted and Anglicized—into Franz Liszt. And pronounced incorrectly, too. Is this good? There is no ideal way to handle the problem since you have to overcome centuries of English chauvinism and habit. After all, Matsuo is his first name, it's just not his personal one. The subtle solution is to simply name a relative or two, or name his family, and suddenly the problem goes away. the librarian

Matsuo is his surname, last name, unless you advocate the first name in Japanese should be the surname. I think you don't understand what is the problem anyway. I am talking about the order of first name and last name. That is it. Spelling doesn't matter at all since Japanese don't spell Japanese in English alphabet. But the core of problem is how to make sure what is his/her surname (family) and his/her first name (given name) and distinguish the birthname, pseduate-name, adult name, pet name and so on.

First of all, we have to understand that there is no such a nice solution. If there is, many of encyclopedias or dictionaries already emploies it. But the reality is, they have always trouble naming/labeling people, particulary in foreign that stuff is disastrous. Actually Japanese name is less troublesome than Chinese name or other complex ones.

So then, we have to compromise in some way. My proposal is a compromise. The problem is again, if the majority of those who don't know who the hell Basho is see the name Matsuo Basho. They confuse Matsuo as the first name simply because they assume the name is in order that the first name followed by the last name. It really doesn't matter what the real name is in the title of the article.

Yes, but if somebody who does know who Basho is sees him listed as "Basho Matsuo", they'll find that surprising, and probably think it is a mistake. We already have a convention on this anyway, at Wikipedia:Naming conventions (anglicization), which says to use the form most commonly used in an English-language context. Sometimes this means putting the family name first, sometimes it means putting it second. This applies to Chinese names and others as well. --Camembert

Then the second problem, which is more subtle and almost invisible to majority of wikipedians. That is 芭蕉 is basho or matsho? Unless the order corresponding to the English name, you cannot be sure which one is which.

This is a bit troublesome, I admit. I tend to think they should be given in their native order, no matter what order the English names are given in, but this does lead to a little trouble. I'm not sure it's a very serious problem, because I think there will be very few readers indeed who will care about which part is "Matsuo" and which part is "Basho", but I agree it's awkward. I'm not sure how best to handle this, but I'm pretty sure we should follow above-mentioned convention when deciding what form of the name to use in English. --Camembert

I disagree because the encyclopedia should be for general audience but not only for those who care. -- Taku 18:26 Jan 26, 2003 (UTC)

Maybe we should give up puuting the real name for Japanese because it so confuses readers and the problem providing misinformation always outweights the benefit of important information.

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Yes, my proposal has a conflict with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (anglicization). That's for sure Matshuo Basho is more common than Basho Matshuo.

Actually I started to think there is a foundamental question, what name is anyway, what is the first name, and what is the last name. Names are not as simple as we expect usually. For example, Murasaki-shikibu is an author of Genji monogatari[?]. But her name is just a title, like chief officer of department of culture. Murasaki is not the first name nor the last name, so is shikibu not. I wanted to make things less confusing. But names are confusing in the first place. It is impossible to have a standalized form for naming, like the first name is followed by the last name. I think I agree with to stick to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (anglicization).

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NPOV or not NPOV? With the comment "adding some NPOV" to the opening paragraph some words undermining the idea of a style guide have been introduced. Since I don't want to be too proprietary, I am raising the point here, rather than simply taking them back out, but the style guide is no place for equivocation and weak remarks about "some believe". No one is required to follow the style guide, but in the end every serious publication must have and use a style guide. The paragraph already says both those things.

I have bolded the phrases that were added:

A Manual of Style has the simple purpose of making things look alike - it is a style guide. The following rules don't claim to be the last word. One way is often as good as another: some Wikipedians believe that if everyone does it the same way, the Wikipedia will be easier to read and easier to use, not to mention easier to write and easier to edit; others disagree, of course. Be that as it may, new contributors are reminded that clear, informative and unbiased writing is always more important than presentation and formatting. Writers are not expected to follow all these rules -- rather, copyediting Wikipedians will be referring to these pages when weeding.

I have no problem with the and unbiased, but the other additions imply that the statement that "if everyone does it the same way it will be easier to read" is not true. If one article refers to the short story The Black Cat in italics and another as "The Black Cat" in quotes, and another article refers to Gogol's novel "Dead Souls[?]" and compares it to War and Peace and contrasts it with "Remembrance of Things Past" and For Whom the Bell Tolls and Tobacco Road[?], the Wikipedia will be harder to read and edit without a doubt. People need to be able to tell the song "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" from the album Sgt. pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This is not a matter of opinion, it is a conclusion that has been reached by every newspaper, every magazine, every book publisher, and every software documentation group. I have worked in every one of those environments. Out of respect for the reader and her ease of understanding all serious publishers use some such style rules. They may differ from place to place. The New Yorker puts quotes where most publications put italics, for instance, but all publications strive for consistency and so should this one. Ortolan88

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I'm not against consistency. It often improves readability just as you say. And I've done my bit in improving it, I hope, through spell-checking and work I did on the history timeline pages a while ago. However I don't like consistency being imposed for its own sake. Mainly because the more style rules that are imposed, the more difficult it becomes for contributors to know them all and to avoid breaking them. Even longterm contributors can be caught out when style rules change, never mind newcomers.

There's no doubt that serious publishers use some style rules but as they depend on paid rather than volunteer labour they can afford to impose a great deal more than we can. I think that we have to be careful not to impose too many style rules and to ensure that the ones which we do impose are the really important ones -- whatever they might be :)

In any case, as you point out style rules do differ from publisher to publisher. Somehow readers manage to deal with this inconsistency between publishers without bursting into tears or becoming hopelessly confused. I'm sure that readers will behave just as well when faced with the inconsistencies which they are sure to come across no matter how many style rules we impose upon our contributors. Whether our contributors will cope is another matter however. -- Derek Ross

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These are guidelines for volunteer copy editors and I fondly imagine they will continue following them. I certainly will. Most people who write articles will never look at them. Look at the statements on English and American spelling, or on use of quotation marks. These are very loose guidelines.

I just don't see the point of the additions you made. If you think a little consistency goes a long way, then just write on as you please. It is likely that no one will ever change it, but if someone else comes along and changes your inconsistency to consistency, that is a gain. If you think some of the rules given here are unimportant, they can be moved out to a specialist pages, as has already been done with biographies and dates.

That there is not one master style guide for the entire universe is no reason for there not to be a few straightforward rules for each publication (and this is a very simple style guide) that people can use so readers can tell one thing from another. Notice, by the way, that I don't raise any objection to your similar remarks elsewhere regarding dates. I am not rigid about this, but I think that smooth prose goes smoother when people take care with it. Best regards, Tom Parmenter Ortolan88

Maybe I'm just having an off-day. What you say above is entirely reasonable. -- Derek Ross

I've edited the opening to make it clearer that we don't expect everyone to burdern themselves with following these guidelines. -- Tarquin 09:00 Mar 1, 2003 (UTC)

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