Wikipedia talk:Guidance on applying the Manual of Style

Opening up the discussion here...

One style
This first part should be changed to read: "Consistently use the form of standard English for the country the article most pertains to. For example" and give examples. DreamGuy 01:02, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, I guess you cover that later. It might be good to sumarize them all briefly at the top. One of the problems with policy statements (or pseudo-policy as the case may be) is expecting everyone to read the whole thing. It should be spelled out at the top and then explained in more detail below for those who want the detail. DreamGuy 01:05, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

Quotation marks
This section is all messed up, IMO.
 * here called the "logical" style and the "aesthetic" style

Why don't you just come out and declare the one you don't like "illogical"?


 * The aesthetic style, which is only really now used in North America, was developed as early typesetters thought it was more aesthetic to present punctuation that way.

Modern typesetters say that too. Commas and periods go inside or else you normally get a horrible gap on the bottom of the line, unless you are going to a press that adjusts those things. Website text soes not adjust those things.


 * In the aesthetic style, the punctuation goes within the quotation marks

Not always true. In fact, the example you give earlier for "logical" style (putting the exclamation mark inside of the quotation mark only if it relates to the item inside the quotes) is the standard for North America too for things like exclamation marks and, especially, question marks.

This section needs to be updated to be less POVvy and more accurate. DreamGuy 01:02, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * I have to agree here. I had to read the section three times to figure out what the difference was. The etymology of the terms is irrelevant (and their global dispersion is secondary); focus on describing what the two styles are. &mdash;Wahoofive | Talk 06:01, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Don't arbitrarily change style
This of course is pointless without explaining the reasons. One of the reasons has to be to make the style in line with the version of English that's appropriate for that article, per the section above. If you don;t spell that out there will always be people who refuse to accept that as a good reason. DreamGuy 01:07, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)

False statement
The following is false: "This page outlines how different Wikipedians have interpreted the official style in certain situations." Maurreen 09:20, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * It's a draft page for discussion and amendment. Please feel free to improve it as you see fit, jguk 10:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Why are we splitting the Manual of Style into 2 pages?
I don't see anything on this page that wouldn't make sense to include in the main Manual of Style page. Why are we splitting part of the Manual into a separate page? What is the criteria for putting something on this page instead of the main manual? It seems like we're just making a mess of the whole thing. Do we really need guidance on applying guidance? This is getting rediculous. If it's not broken why break it? Kaldari 23:21, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Indeed. I feel this only makes sense if we're either, making the "guidance" something stronger than the MoS is at present, i.e., policy, rather than guidelines;  or, if it's intended to make the MoS itself weaker (not even guidelines any more).  And in either event, only if there's some conceptually clean separation.  I'd suggest ideally, the MoS should discuss only style as such, and the "guidance" should restrict itself to meta-issues, like which "national style" or "option" prevails in a given case, and general ground rules.  One thing I would like to see raised to the status of policy would be something like:  "Editors should start these articles in whatever style and form of English they feel comfortable using, but if another editor changes the English to conform to the Manual of Style, the change should not be reverted."  (Apologies to SlimVirgin, from whom this text is substantiatially plagiarised, and slightly generalised.)  Alai 05:16, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Just Guidance, no style.
I propose that we delete all the "style" injunctions (or commentary to the effect that there is no injunction) from this page, so that it is, as the article name suggests, "guidance on application", and which can be discussed independently on the contents of the style guide as such. What we currently have seems more like arbitrary extractions (and in many cases, weakenings and voidings) of elements of the manual of style, and not a systematic separation at all. Alai 04:26, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * My understanding is that this is part of a proposal with very little support. Maybe it should just be archived. Maurreen 06:02, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Possibly, but while I'm certainly opposed to the proposal in toto, as it currently stands, the idea of splitting would have a certain logic to it (if done in a logical manner). Any other thoughts on this, esp. from the proposer?  Alai 21:47, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Lord of the Rings Example
Is the Lord of the Rings really closely related to the UK? Most of the world associates it more with Peter Jackson's film trilogy than the books. When people picture Aragorn, they usually picture him with a beard. Look at almost any video game or card game in the years since the films came out. Characters are depicted like their movie interpretations more than their book descriptions. LotR is no longer Tolkien's. Even MtG's grossly political appropriation of Aragorn's character kept his beard.

Even ignoring this major criticism of mine, LotR was already an international phenomenon long before Peter Jackson dominated people's perception of the work. In my opinion this is such a bad example that this policy shouldn't even be applied to the LotR article, let alone listed as an example here. It would be like if I insisted that Minecraft is closely associated with America. LotR has been international for decades, and in the last couple of decades, is associated with an American film series more than any books. Uchiha Itachi 25 (talk) 04:50, 9 January 2024 (UTC)