User:Owain.davies/Sandbox

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OwainDavies (about)(talk)

OwainDavies (about)(talk) 19:45, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

OwainDavies (about)(talk) edited at 19:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

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WP:MOS Commonality
In order to try and make Wikipedia as accessible as possible, the prose should be easy to read, regardless of the dialect used. In the vast majority of cases, so long as the article is consistently written, most dialectal variants can be used ('organization' rather than 'organisation' for instance). However, in order to increase readability, in some instances, it is preferable to use words which are not contested between languages.

Using words which are not common worldwide should be avoided wherever possible, except where it is used in an article about its use, or is in context for a regional article. For instance, references to 'grid iron' would be suitable in articles regarding American Football, but would not be appropriate in a biography or list of sports. Other examples include headings such as 'Etiology', which is only widely used in North America.

More examples of words to avoid can be found at:
 * List of words having different meanings in British and American English
 * List of American words not widely used in Great Britain
 * List of British words not widely used in the United States

The use of international terms is especially important in naming articles, especially where contested words occur. For instance, 'Grid iron', should redirect to 'American football' or a similar title.

There are also contests over nouns where there are slight differences between countries, such as 'airplane' and 'aeroplane'. In cases such as this, a common substitute (such as fixed-wing aircraft - a term often used by professional pilots) is favored over national varieties (“fixed-wing aeroplanes” (BrE) and “fixed-wing airplanes” (AmE).

When using a common word, or where no common word exists, editors should redirect the alternate spellings to the one main article, such as Artefact and Artifact, where one points to the other, there being no suitable alternative available. This helps to stop article proliferation, with repetition, and confusion for readers.

It is acceptable for editors to change regional words to internationally recognized words as long as it does not affect the cadence, flow or quality of the prose. However, editors whould not generally replace international words with regional ones, unless it is necessary for the article.

AMPDS Categories
=Fox Hunting Auto Peer Review== The following suggestions were generated by a semi-automatic javascript program, and might not be applicable for the article in question. You may wish to browse through User:AndyZ/Suggestions for further ideas. Thanks, Owain.davies 22:53, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Please expand the lead to conform with guidelines at Lead. The article should have an appropriate number of paragraphs as is shown on WP:LEAD, and should adequately summarize the article.[?]
 * Consider adding more links to the article; per Manual of Style (links) and Build the web, create links to relevant articles.[?]
 * Per Wikipedia:Context and Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), months and days of the week generally should not be linked. Years, decades, and centuries can be linked if they provide context for the article.[?]
 * There may be an applicable infobox for this article. For example, see Template:Infobox Person, Template:Infobox School, or Template:Infobox City.[?] (Note that there might not be an applicable infobox; remember that these suggestions are not generated manually)
 * Per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (numbers), when doing conversions, please use standard abbreviations: for example, miles -> mi, kilometers squared -> km2, and pounds -> lb.[?]
 * As per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates), dates shouldn't use th; for example, instead of using January 30th was a great day, use January 30 was a great day.[?]
 * Per Manual of Style (headings), headings generally do not start with articles ('the', 'a(n)'). For example, if there was a section called  ==The Biography== , it should be changed to  ==Biography== .[?]
 * Per Manual of Style (headings), headings generally should not repeat the title of the article. For example, if the article was Ferdinand Magellan, instead of using the heading  ==Magellan's journey== , use  ==Journey== .[?]
 * Please reorder/rename the last few sections to follow guidelines at Guide to layout.[?]
 * Per WP:WIAFA, this article's table of contents (ToC) may be too long – consider shrinking it down by merging short sections or using a proper system of daughter pages as per Summary style.[?]
 * This article may need to undergo summary style, where a series of appropriate subpages are used. For example, if the article is United States, then an appropriate subpage would be History of the United States, such that a summary of the subpage exists on the mother article, while the subpage goes into more detail.[?]
 * There are a few occurrences of weasel words in this article- please observe WP:AWT. Certain phrases should specify exactly who supports, considers, believes, etc., such a view.
 * allege
 * might be weasel words, and should be provided with proper citations (if they already do, or are not weasel terms, please strike this comment).[?]
 * Please make the spelling of English words consistent with either American or British spelling, depending upon the subject of the article. Examples include: honour (B) (American: honor), behaviour (B) (American: behavior), metre (B) (American: meter), defence (B) (American: defense), offence (B) (American: offense), organise (B) (American: organize), recognize (A) (British: recognise), recognise (B) (American: recognize), criticise (B) (American: criticize), isation (B) (American: ization), any more (B) (American: anymore),  gray (A) (British:  grey),  grey (B) (American:  gray).
 * Watch for redundancies that make the article too wordy instead of being crisp and concise. (You may wish to try Tony1's redundancy exercises.)
 * Vague terms of size often are unnecessary and redundant - “some”, “a variety/number/majority of”, “several”, “a few”, “many”, “any”, and “all”. For example, “ All pigs are pink, so we thought of a number of ways to turn them green.”
 * Avoid misplaced formality: “in order to/for” (-> to/for), “thereupon”, “notwithstanding”, etc.
 * The script has spotted the following contractions: didn't, if these are outside of quotations, they should be expanded.
 * As done in WP:FOOTNOTE, footnotes usually are located right after a punctuation mark (as recommended by the CMS, but not mandatory), such that there is no space in between. For example, the sun is larger than the moon [2]. is usually written as the sun is larger than the moon.[2][?]
 * Please ensure that the article has gone through a thorough copyediting so that it exemplifies some of Wikipedia's best work. See also User:Tony1/How to satisfy Criterion 1a.[?]