Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout

Periods at ends of links in see-also sections
has been adding periods to the end of see-also links when the short description provided in the link happens to resemble a grammatically complete sentence. Example: the link to Immerman–Szelepcsényi theorem in Savitch's theorem, provided using annotated link to incorporate the short description of the linked article, currently "Nondeterministic space complexity classes are closed under complementation" (but significantly too long and in need of shortening). My position is that see-also entries in general, and the ones generated by annotated links in particular, are more often than not only sentence fragments, and that for consistency we should use a format for see-also sections in which the period is omitted from all entries. I don't see any guidance on this issue in MOS:SEEALSO, but this is consistent with all examples provided there, including the "Joe Shmoe" example which happens to resemble a grammatically complete sentence. Should this be addressed more explicitly there? —David Eppstein (talk) 22:39, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * In your edit summary, you wrote "As a general rule see-also links do not use periods and I see no exception for this case."
 * I'm just asking for that general rule because I couldn't find any guideline which states that. That's why I requested a link to a corresponding guideline in my edit summary.
 * The Joe Shmoe example in MOS:SEEALSO is merely a sentence fragment, as the description lacks the subject because it's obvious from the context to which it refers — "[He] made a similar achievement on April 4, 2005".
 * If there's no guideline regulating this Wikipedia-specific issue (yet), which it seems like, I'd argue that the general rules of the English grammar should apply, after which every complete sentence should end with a period. Maxeto0910 (talk) 23:26, 22 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Guidance at MOS:LISTFORMAT: basically, don't mix sentences and sentence fragments in a list, but if every item is a full sentence, should end with a period / full stop. —Joeyconnick (talk) 17:50, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

Acceptable sorting orders of "Further reading" sections
I've recently sorted a couple unsorted "Further reading" sections by publication date, earliest first, but have had this sort order opposed by Skyerise over at User talk:Tollens/Archive 4. It seems to me from a reading of both MOS:FURTHER and Further reading that while such sections are frequently alphabetized, sorting chronologically is also appropriate. I would think that a chronological sort order makes more sense in further reading sections.

Alphabetization is of course so that it is easier to locate a given entry in a list, which is important for a general reference section because it will be referenced by inline citations – readers will therefore be searching a general reference section for a particular entry. In the case of further reading sections, however, there is no possible way for a reader to know in advance what entries are contained in the list, because they weren't referenced in the text of the article at any point – otherwise they would belong in a general reference section. Readers are then never searching a further reading section, but instead browsing the section. As described at Further reading, this allows readers to do multiple things: skip to the newest writings recommended in the section, or see how opinions expressed on the topic have changed over time. An alphabetized list allows neither, allowing only for works to be grouped by author, which is not helpful unless the authors are especially well-known (in which case yes, alphabetization is likely of more use).

Clarifying MOS:FURTHER to either explicitly allow chronological ordering, explicitly disallow it, or alternatively specify what cases the "usually" currently in the guideline does not cover, would be appreciated. Tollens (talk) 23:13, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I of course don't mean to suggest that in either case the list should be changed from one to the other, because as a purely stylistic change doing so would violate MOS:STYLERET. I am wondering only about lists that are already unsorted and new further reading sections. Tollens (talk) 23:17, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * I apologize for my tone yesterday, but there must be a good reason to sort a bibliography chronologically. Normally further reading should only contain material that could be used as a reference, but simply hasn't been cited in a footnote yet. The MoS also says that further reading should be presented in the same way that the reference bibliography is presented. Alphabetic order helps facilitate the integration of a newly cited further reading item into the list of cited works.
 * There are sometimes good reasons to sort chronologically, particularly in showing the development of an idea say in philosophy or some other historical development: but when doing so, the date should be presented first on the line, which means all the citation should be manually reformatted to present the date first.
 * I suggest that the writers of WP:FURTHER did not anticipate that the reader may not have ever written a research paper in college and WP:FURTHER should be clarified that the standard alphabetic order used in nearly every academic publication is strongly preferred and then give examples of when and how different orders might be used where they are actually useful. WP:MOSLOW should also be revised to include instructions on how to order bibliographies containing works of multiple authors. Skyerise (talk) 11:28, 22 January 2024 (UTC)

Word count per paragraph guidance
Is there any guidance anywhere for how long is "too long" for a paragraph in the new Vector skin or mobile view? This isn't a question about how to write better paragraphs and I'm not looking for answers about writing style. It's a question more about web accessibility. eg, now that the default skin maintains a narrower paragraph, do we hit "wall of text" problems in shorter paragraphs than before, or is that concern less relevant now? -- asilvering (talk) 18:45, 27 February 2024 (UTC)
 * No. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 22:28, 28 February 2024 (UTC)
 * Thinker78 (talk) 03:41, 29 February 2024 (UTC)
 * It doesn't affect screen readers. Graham87 (talk) 04:36, 29 February 2024 (UTC)

Help Formating
Hello

On the list List of universities in Ecuador I can't get the image to stay to the right and the table to the left in order to mimic the page in spanish --HarveyPrototype (talk) 05:30, 17 May 2024 (UTC)
 * as it stood at the time that you posted here. I don't see what the problem is. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 13:48, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Hello @Redrose64 thank you for your time. I just saw the page and it has been formated. HarveyPrototype (talk) 17:21, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oh, I see; it's a page width issue. If your screen is narrow, or you use a skin that constrains the width (such as Vector 2022), or if you zoom in, the table may then be too wide to fit between the image stack and the left sidebar. The problem does affect the current version of the page, but only appears at narrower widths or greater zoom levels. If you go to the spanish page and zoom in a few times, you will see the problem appear there too. Really this should have been a matter for WP:HD, since this is the page for discussing improvements to Manual of Style/Layout. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 18:01, 18 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your input HarveyPrototype (talk) 15:12, 19 May 2024 (UTC)

citation maintenance templates
I've only recently begun seeing, , and similar templates being added to articles. Speaking on the list at MOS:ORDER, do these count as "maintenance tags" (despite not being found at that page) for ordering purposes? —  Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 22:32, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Template:CS1 config says this template should probably be placed adjacent to or (if present), and Template:Use list-defined references says Place this template near the top of articles that use the list-defined reference format. What's the problem here? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 15:31, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * The ordered list at MOS:ORDER doesn't seem to indicate where such templates should go. Saying only  and  doesn't answer my question of where they should specifically be placed (as the rest of MOS:ORDER is laid out) and whether they count as maintenance tags' (despite not being found at that page) for ordering purposes".  —   Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 17:44, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I'd group them together with "Templates relating to English variety and date format", as their own docs suggest. They aren't maintenance templates, since maintenance templates are meant to be removed sooner or later (once the problems they describe has been resolved), which is not the case with variety, format, and config templates such as these. Gawaon (talk) 18:06, 13 June 2024 (UTC)
 * 10-4. If that's where they should go, MOS:ORDER would benefit from naming them more specifically, especially since  (and any similar templates if they exist) doesn't have anything to do with language or date formatting.  —   Fourthords  &#124; =Λ= &#124; 18:10, 13 June 2024 (UTC)