Wikipedia:Update/1/General style changes during January 2009


 * Accessibility
 * In WP:ACCESS, changed "Screen readers [will stop reading the heading title when they encounter a link ...]" to "Some screen readers ..."
 * New proposal, WP:ACCESS: "Wikipedia articles should be accessible to readers using devices with small screens, or to readers using monitors with a low resolution. The lowest resolution that it is considered possible to support without adversely affecting other users is 800x600; all articles should look acceptable at this resolution without excessive horizontal scrolling. This is sometimes an issue in articles with multiple images on both sides of the screen; although lower resolutions will tend to stretch paragraphs vertically, moving images apart in that direction, be careful not to add images or other floating content on both sides of the screen simultaneously. Large tables and images can also create problems; sometimes horizontal scrolling is unavoidable, but consider restructuring wide tables to extend vertically rather than horizontally."
 * New heading: WP:ACCESS
 * New proposal, WP:ACCESS: "Scrolling and collapsible sections in tables or other block elements can be useful to save space and conceal at first-sight potentially superfluous information. However, such techniques must be used with caution, as this content can become inaccessible in a number of situations. Printers and screen-readers will both output only the content that is immediately visible on the page, and these structures are more likely to exhibit undesirable behavior on certain browsers. As such, these methods should not be used in the article body. This includes reference lists, image galleries, and image captions; they especially should not be used to conceal 'spoiler' information (see Spoiler). Collapsible sections are useful in navboxes and infoboxes and are widely used outside the article namespace; in these instances, care should be taken to ensure that the content will still be acessible on devices which do not support JavaScript and/or CSS."
 * New subsection, WP:ACCESS, containing only a pointer to HTML breaks problem
 * WP:ACCESS was changed substantially.


 * Avoid peacock terms
 * Added awesome, extraordinary
 * Added WP:Wikipuffery essay to the See also links


 * Avoid weasel words
 * Removed from lead section: "The "who?" link is used ..."
 * Added to WP:WEASEL: "It is rumored that...", "There are rumors that...", "Presumably...", "It turns out that..."
 * Removed from WP:WEASEL: "Convoluted syntax. Weasel words require some convoluted syntax to get a point across. "A square has four sides" is a simple sentence; "Squares are widely regarded as having an even number of sides, a number that has been conjectured by experts in the field to be precisely four" wraps the key point in layers of syntactic obfuscation, leaving it to be harvested with difficulty by the reader."
 * Added Avoid speculation to See also links


 * Citing sources
 * Added to WP:CITE: "Since per WP:V each fact presented by an article must be concretely verifiable, at the editor's discretion it is possible and appropriate to include as many proper and correct citations as desired to affirm the statements made. However citation is only required as specified in the following list of circumstances. And whether a citation is added in a required context or at an editor's discretion it must be accurate and should comply with the rules set forth in this guideline."
 * Added to WP:CITE: "For a comparison of footnote references using citation templates with references written freehand, see Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods."
 * Removed: "There are (at least) two families of citation templates. The Citation template is intended to provide citations for many types of sources. The other family has names of the form (for example, Cite book and Cite web). These two families produce different citation styles. For example, the  family separates elements with a full stop (period), while the Citation template separates elements with a comma. Thus, these two families should not be mixed in the same article."
 * The bullet points in WP:CITE were changed substantially.
 * Added to WP:CITE: "Optionally, one may add the name attribute by using  . Thereafter, the same reference may be used multiple times by adding  ."
 * Added to WP:CITE: "For more detailed examples using shortened notes, including the use of links from the short notes to the full references, see Wikipedia:Citing sources/Example edits for different methods."


 * Embedded list
 * Added to lead section: "Embedded lists should be used only when appropriate; sometimes the information in a list is better presented as prose paragraphs."
 * Added to WP:EMBED: "If you find an inappropriate or badly written list, insert a cleanup tag at the top of the article. For example, use the for a list that would be better written as prose paragraphs. Other cleanup tags may be found on the page on Template messages/Cleanup."
 * New subheading: WP:EMBED


 * External links
 * Added to lead section: "[Wikipedia articles may include links to web pages outside Wikipedia,] but must conform to certain formatting restrictions."
 * In WP:EL, changed "Affiliate or tracking links" to "Affiliate, tracking or referral links"
 * In WP:EL, shortened "If the link is to a relevant and informative site that should otherwise be included, please consider mentioning it on the talk page and let neutral and independent Wikipedia editors decide whether to add it." to "When in doubt, you may go to the talk page and let another editor decide."
 * Removed "Note that since Wikipedia uses nofollow tags, external links may not alter search engine rankings."


 * How to copy-edit
 * Added to WP:COPYEDIT: "Generally, an article about a certain English-speaking region or place should be written in the form of English used there."


 * Lead section
 * Added to lead section: "and the notability of the article's subject should be established in the first sentence of the lead"
 * The entire page was substantially edited, with material pulled in from previously transcluded pages.


 * Manual of Style
 * Added to lead section: "Another way to access the Manual of Style is through Editor's index to Wikipedia."
 * Added new subsection, WP:MOS: "If a section is covered in a dedicated article, then this should be marked by inserting directly beneath the section heading."
 * Changed WP:MOS to WP:MOS
 * Added to WP:MOS: "[The article "the" is not capitalized] unless it is formally a part of the name of the deity."
 * Added to WP:MOS: "See the Comma article for general information about usage."
 * The Currencies section was moved to Manual of Style (dates and numbers).
 * WP:MOS was substantially rewritten.


 * Manual of Style (capital letters)
 * In WP:MOSCAPS, added link to WP:MSM
 * Added: "Wikipedia does not capitalize the first letter, when, as in these cases, not doing so has become normal English usage. (Beginning article titles lower case requires the lowercase template or equivalent code.)"
 * Changed "If multiple styles have regular and established use in reliable sources, use the orthography preferred by the individual." to "Editors disagree on how often this should be done; some editors would never do it; some would always follow the personal preference of the subject."


 * Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
 * Page is still full-protected.
 * In WP:MOSNUM, added "It was further ratified in two December 2008 RfCs Manual of Style (dates and numbers)/Three proposals for change to MOSNUM and Manual_of_Style_(dates_and_numbers)/Date_Linking_RFC"
 * In WP:MOSNUM, added: "The names of currencies, currency subdivisions, coins and banknotes should not be capitalised except where normal capitalisation rules require this (for example, at the start of a sentence)."


 * Manual of Style (links)
 * Page was substantially rewritten.


 * Manual of Style (spelling)
 * Added to WP:SPELLING: "The Columbia University Guide to Standard American English states that "theater" is used except in proper names.", with a footnote: Wilson, Kenneth G. The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Columbia University Press. 1996. 435.


 * Manual of Style (trademarks)
 * In WP:TRADEMARK, added another example to avoid: "skate."


 * Words to avoid
 * At WP:EUPHEMISM, added "gave his life" as a phrase to avoid.
 * The WP:TERRORIST subsection was added back to this page.
 * The WP:AVOID subsection was substantially rewritten.


 * Writing better articles
 * The WP:BETTER section was rewritten to conform to WP:Layout.