Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 43

ALL CAPITAL LETTERS (continued)
<< The discussion "ALL CAPITAL LETTERS" continues from Archive 42

Proposed rules

 * reduce newspaper headlines and other titles from all caps to the title case: "War Begins Today"
 * reduce court decisons from all caps to the title case: "Richard Arthur Norton v. William Allen Simpson"
 * reduce emphasis from all caps to italics

The only dissent is whether italics or bold should be used for emphasis. If we decide on bold, then the rules under italics need to be reworded. My personal preference is reserving bold for: 1) the title of the article 2) the name of the person in the biography, and the varations of the name as in E. E. Cummings. 3) headings and subheadings. What do you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:38, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Most browsers render &lt;em&gt; (for emphasis) as italics . TeX renders \emph (for emphasis) as italics. Who emphasises with bold? I thought only Microsoft Word users did. PizzaMargherita 08:52, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I resent you making fun of Microsoft Word users as always placing things in bold. It is a slanderous stereotype and has no place in Wikipedia. Wikipedia deals with truths, and the truth is that Microsoft Powerpoint users also add bold to everything. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 09:00, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
 * They also make use of witty animations to introduce every single word in their slides. Interesting how the number of animations used and the magnetism of the subject matter are usually highly correlated. PizzaMargherita 09:39, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I can't tell who's being serious and who's being sarcastic here (emoticons are allowed on talk pages, and can help in these cases ;-) but I think there's consensus that boldface should not be used for emphasis. I'm surprised this isn't explicitly spelled out in the MoS. Shouldn't it be? --TreyHarris 10:45, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I think if we don't make a decision now, it will just come up again later, and all this thinking will have to done again. The MoS is broken into two parts: The opening page and the individual subpages. The opening page contains the answers to the most common questions and the individual subpages have more detailed answers. Just look at the list of things to be italicized for an example of letting a person know everything. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 18:29, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * No. The MoS does not "[let] a person know everything"; not for italics, not for anything else.  It specifies common cases in which there is liable to be disagreement and a consistency across the project is desired.  We do not, for instance, specify in the MoS that you should use the usual dictionary spelling of words ra&eth;er &eth;an a me&eth;od of your own devising.  The fact that I just used a method of my own devising doesn't mean that, before correcting it, you now need to add a rule to the MoS first specifying that we prefer dictionary spellings to spellings made up on the fly.  Just fix it; the MoS is not a playbook that has to cover every case of editing for non-content-related purposes.  Now, if you can show that these cases of capitals-misuse you want to include in the MoS are widespread and disputed, we'll have something to talk about; but thus far, you haven't done that.  Imagining that it might be a case of dispute sometime in the future is insufficient reason to add it to the MoS now.  --TreyHarris 00:44, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for that clever example of reductio ad absurdum. Do I have your permission to quote it on the article page for that entry? I am sure if I could search for all capitals using a PERL script, I would find examples. For now, all are corrected. deliberate mispellings, as you point out are obvious and everyone but the writer will agree that it is incorrect. But the ALL CAPS rules have already been challenged by William Allen Simpson. He listed all three rules as incorrect. He said that court cases should be written as they appear in legal documents. He also cited the rule that ALL CAP headlines be quoted as ALL CAPS. We now have two versions of what is acceptable. Make a decision. If there is no more room on the MoS page then we can keep it a secret between you and me. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:24, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Q. What would you say to a translator who says that an author’s use of all caps for EMPHASIS should stand? I tried to invoke house style but she is claiming it is, well, LITERARY. I’d like to explain to the author and translator this looks AMATEUR at best, and to say, look, WE JUST DON’T DO THAT. A. If it’s not a lot of text, I would just put it in small caps without discussing it further. If it’s a lot, I would press on in my arguments, e.g., “I feel I must more strenuously insist on the use of italics for emphasis instead of all caps. Chicago style avoids the use of artificial emphasis in any form, including italics, which are sometimes perceived by readers as a writer’s crutch and (heaven forbid) a result of careless editing. We are also conscious of the wide influence of e-mail etiquette, in which the use of all caps is criticized as the equivalent of shouting. I’m afraid there is rarely a place for all capitals in published work these days.” Why don't we just follow one of the guides that is already written and avoid "reinventing the wheel". (See: cliche) Any comments? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:55, 13 February 2006 (UTC) --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:55, 13 February 2006 (UTC) --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 01:55, 13 February 2006 (UTC)
 * What is the objective criteria of what deserves to be in the MoS and what doesn't? Here is the entry in Chicago Manual of Style:


 * There have only been three actual articles referenced in this thread up to now: IBM, AT&T, and E.E. Cummings. None of these are on-point to the rules you are proposing.  All I'm asking is that you produce actual examples of disputes in progress that your rules will help to resolve.  The MoS is essentially a dispute-resolution and consensus-saving tool, not a manual of style to rival Strunk & White or Chicago in covering all cases. Where there is general agreement about a point of style, or when a point has not actually risen to being disputed in the article space, this MoS can and should remain silent about the point. --TreyHarris 01:59, 13 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I tend to agree with Trey, certainly on the first two proposals.  On the third, I think it highly unlikely that anyone who uses all caps for emphasis should ever be quoted, but if it should happen we should not change his usage.  We should of course not use all caps or bold for emphasis ourselves, but again I've never come across someone attempting to do so. Markyour words 20:50, 15 February 2006 (UTC)


 * As has been pointed out before, use of all caps is pretty rare and, MoS or no, most careful users will probably lowercase it unless there is a compelling use for it. Therefore, I would suggest keeping the rule simple: "Avoid using all caps unless there is a compelling reason to do so." We don't need to go into detail about corporate logos, headlines, typographic exercises, or the like; trying to come up with a list of times when all caps is acceptable is probably a bit futile, and is probably decided on a case-by-case basis. You could add to this the corollary "Never use bold." ProhibitOnions 21:55, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

RAN, you've made several edits to your earlier comments in the past couple days, but it looks like lawn-chair rearrangement to me. Your last edit had the edit summary "where do we stand?" which I'll take as a question you meant us to respond to. As far as I'm concerned, we still stand where we did a week ago: you haven't produced any example pages where use of all caps is currently in dispute. Lacking an actual dispute, any additional language to the MoS is superfluous and speculative. I have not exhaustively scrutinized the edit history of Roe v. Wade, but in a casual reading of it and its talk page, I haven't seen any signs of a dispute over capitalization—I note that ROE V. WADE and ROE V WADE do not even exist as I type this. This is the only page other than IBM, AT&T, and E.E. Cummings that you have referenced here, and we've already established that those three are not on-point to your proposed rules.

The MoS needs to be reigned in and made more minimal, in my opinion, not expanded to cover ever more esoteric cases. If there's no dispute over a given point of style, the MoS can and should remain silent on it. RAN, if you want us to budge on this point, stop tweaking your comments and instead point us at some actual editing disputes within articles in the Wikipedia that we can consider. --TreyHarris 09:11, 17 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I personally think direct quotations should reflect the source directly - after all, we don't correct spelling or grammar errors, so why should we correct capitalization? Titles of Wikipedia articles, however, should follow our standard conventions. Paraphrases you can capitalise however you like. Deco 05:57, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

US vs UK Capitalization
This change was good. We should keep the MoS short, else nobody will read it. There, we've discussed it now and it's pretty much consensual. Could you possibly stop reverting now sheriff? Thanks. PizzaMargherita 00:40, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Actually, that change would make the whole paragraph a general one about use of capitals, not specific about titles. Therefore I propose we move it (as edited by ProhibitOnions) as an intro to the Capital letters section. PizzaMargherita 10:22, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree. Martin 10:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree. User:Noisy | Talk 11:11, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks,PizzaMargherita, I originally removed that sentence ("Commonwealth English uses capitals more widely than American English does," etc.) from the MOS, as it seemed both inaccurate and superfluous. There was, furthermore, no discussion of the matter on the talk page (and thus no "consensus version"), so its immediate reversion without comment wasn't terribly helpful. While I would abstain in a vote that concerned only my own edit, I like your suggestion about turning the paragraph into a general one about capitalization, thus I Agree. ProhibitOnions 11:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

standard and consistent internal formatting
At  Omegatron and I have discussed which standard for section headings and external link lists to choose as the preferred baseline standard. Basically the options we have discussed so far would be, for section headings, either

Heading 1
Text 1

Heading 2
Text 2

or

Heading 1
Text 1

Heading 2
Text 2

and for lists either

Heading 1


Text goes here. Here is a link.

Heading 3
Here is some more text, and a list:


 * List item 1
 * List item 2
 * Numbered list as part of that list
 * Numbered list item 2
 * List item 3

Lyrics
{{listen|filename=Dixie (1916).ogg...

The lyrics of "Dixie" reflect the mood of the United States in the late 1850s.

with (no blank line after heading in internal markup)

Lyrics
{{listen|filename=Dixie (1916).ogg...

The lyrics of "Dixie" reflect the mood of the United States in the late 1850s.

Actual article with this construction is found at Dixie (song).

Is there something in the "listen" template that causes the difference in the external formatting that results from the two alternatives? Can "listen" be changed to allow both internal markup styles to give the same external format? - Bevo 20:17, 31 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I think that's a bug in the pipe table markup rendering. Check the source code for User:Omegatron/Sandbox/ExtraBR.  Sometimes things get an extra   before them. — Omegatron 19:31, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I was thinking of changing {{tl|listen}} to not use a table for visual formatting anyway... — Omegatron 20:51, 2 February 2006 (UTC)


 * My tests show that {{tl|listen}} is now fixed to give the same presentation with or without the blank line. Thanks! - Bevo 20:01, 4 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Yeah. It's just a kludge, though.  The bug should really be fixed. — Omegatron 20:22, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Special Care with Mormonism
I removed the following sentence from the section about religions, deities, and etc: "Mormonism requires special care &mdash; see Naming conventions (Mormonism)."

If Wikipedia will maintain a NPOV in regard to religions, there is no need to single out Mormonism as a religion that needs special care when being referenced in a Wikipedia article. -- backburner001 00:16, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I can see your point about the wording, but shouldn't it be mentioned that there is a rather extensive set of guidelines for Mormonism? Dforest 05:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry for the late reply. If the wording can be changed to reflect a more NPOV, then I would not object to mentioning that guidelines currently exist about referencing Mormonism on Wikipedia. I would also try to find guidelines that exist for other religions (if they do exist) and make mention of those as well. -- backburner001 19:58, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

This section is at best very poorly phrased. Does the word "mythical" mean fictional? Lots of people consider all deities to be fictional. Some of these people, I expect, consider elves and dwarves not to be fictional. On the other hand, many stories referred to as "myths" are about deities; Thor is rather inherently a "mythical creature". Worse, I think defining what a deity is could be pretty tricky. My recommendation: elves, dwarves, and gods are all species, and get treated like turtles or deer, and mentioned in the paragraph about species names. Individual deities, like God or Zeus, get capitalized because they are proper names, not because of the species they belong to. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bressen (talk • contribs).

I'm going to replace this in the page. If you think Mormonism does not deserve special mention, your problem is with the existence of the Naming conventions (Mormonism) page. Removing a link to a policy page is unwarranted. &mdash; Saxifrage &#9998; 00:31, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. However, I would've appreciated it if you would've noted that you did not only restore the reference, you edited it slightly (changing "special care" to "particular complications").  In any event, the current phrasing is better and strives toward my original point, which is that everything in Wikipedia (including this MoS) should maintain a NPOV.  When the initial reference stated that Mormonism requires "special care" - the implicit assumption is that other religions do not require that same care, which is a violation of the NPOV. -- backburner001 20:49, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, sorry about that. Actually, to get technical only articles require NPOV treatment. However, I do think that an appearance of partisanship in policy pages is best avoided when possible. I made the changes for clarity sake, since it's really just that Mormonism seems to have particularly confusing issues around names, and that's only a very specific kind of being "special". &mdash; Saxifrage &#9998; 21:20, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
 * That's okay, I didn't take offense to that. As I said, your minor edit is more nuetral, which I think is an improvement.  I just wanted to make my reasons for removing the content initially clear.  As for NPOV technicalities, I'll take your word for it, but I do agree that partisanship in policy pages should be avoided. -- backburner001 21:23, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

Bold article titles
I have boldly went and mentioned the normal practice of putting alternative article titles in bold: this is particularly important when the alternatives link to an article by a redirect, but as the River Plate demonstrates it can also be appropriate when the link is by a disambiguation page....dave souza: talk 21:45, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Language indicator for external links
There is a discussion going on Template talk:Languageicon about what style the language indicator should be. I suppose there may also be room to debate whether template is even desireable. -- Netoholic @ 22:53, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

Colon Spaces
In the section dealing with colons, there is an example given to show that there should not be a space before a colon. In looking at the example, I do not see any use of a colon. Is this a typographical error? It seems confusing as written 12.17.140.8 11:45, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


 * The colon is after the word 'example'. It's not entirely clear where the example starts, though. Markyour words 12:15, 5 February 2006 (UTC)


 * It originally had two examples but they were deleted for the current version, which is amusing but not clear in its demonstration.

Captions
I wonder if some style guides for captions should be made more explicit, e.g.: All comments welcome, mervyn 19:34, 7 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Dates should be fully wikified (contrary to the style example currently given)
 * Caption should not be all in italic, as is common with journal captions (some wikipedia captions are in all italic - tends to make less easy to read, problem with book titles etc.)
 * in the first picture caption in an article, if words in the caption exactly match the article's title, then those words should be in bold ? -- not sure if this is true??


 * Second point - no problem with book titles, just enclose them with '' as normal, and the title is no longer italic. This is (I belive) the accepted style, and is used e.g. when italicising a quote from a text with italics in original.
 * Third point - I would guess that the default is no bolding, because leading pictures are usually right-aligned and therefore occurs later in the page than the start of the article (despite being first in the source).
 * SeventyThree(Talk) 04:32, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * re your second point, do you mean that you think correct style is to be in italics -- I was trying to say that I thought this was incorrect, though often found. re your third point, I was trying to say (incoherent again!) that I thought it would be good style if the first pic caption word was bolded in addition to the intro word being bolded. An example is at Charles Dickens and I think it makes for a crisp presentation, but doesn't seem a widely used style. mervyn 16:43, 12 February 2006 (UTC)


 * Italics - I was mainly pointing out that there isn't a problem with double-italics or somesuch. I don't know what the 'right' answer is, but I agree with you that all italic captions can be difficult to read. I find the box round captions (in the skin I'm using) is enough to distinguish the caption from the rest of the text, so I don't italicise captions I make.
 * Bolding - after looking at Charles Dickens, I agree with you here. The bolding looks good! SeventyThree(Talk) 06:35, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Currency
I have moved this from the WP:NOT page as I have come to realise it would be better suited to this policy.

I have come across a problem that occurs on a few articles and that is the quoting of multiple currencies in an example of a price. An example would be a previous incarnation of the Warhammer 40,000 article which at one point had USD, GBP and Euro listed for each price. Would it not be advantageous to have a section in this policy regarding this? In my opinion, if a price must be quoted as an example, it should be in the currency that is most likely in line with the form of English (ie US English, USD. British English, GBP). There could be exceptions such as historical comparisons - ie people can include an old currency value and include a new currency value (as in present day an example being 1000GBP from 1900 being ~100,000GBP now (figures made up).-Localzuk (talk) 18:34, 8 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I would suggest using local currency wherever possible. Jimp 16:15, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I have recently added the section to the article. -Localzuk (talk) 16:51, 21 February 2006 (UTC)