Talk:Bullet (typography)

History of the bullet

This seems like a pretty cool new invention; would somebody research it and write up the history of the symbol? Thanks. David McCabe 03:45, 5 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It would also help to know how to type the bullet.

I'd love some guidance around capitalization within bullets.

David,

Here is the history of the bullet point, as it has been told to me. It is possible that it dates further back than the mid-1960's, but I've not found anything on it.

The history of the bullet point

In the mid-1960’s, in budding Silicon Valley, there was a perhaps under-valued child psychologist named Regina Ball. While widely recognized within the Cupertino Unified School District as a leader in her field, what went un-recognized was her significant ••••••••contribution to what would later boom into everyday use with the mass adoption of personal computers. Unimpressed with the standard report writing techniques, Ms. Ball took a great leap of faith, risking her professional reputation and possibly social standing by insisting upon the use of a series of solid black dots as an alternative to standard outlining methods in the main text of her reports. Met with great resistance by her secretary, who insisted the black dots should not be used because they looked unprofessional and detracted from the report, Ms. Ball had to resort to uncharacteristic demands to achieve her goals. Ms. Ball continued to use the bullet point, even in the face of ridicule.

Years later, the series of black dots became a staple of everyday writing, no longer confined to Microsoft Word and Power Point. A Google search of the term “bullet point”, results in numerous websites offering instruction on improving the use of the bullet point. However, a search for the history of the bullet point results in a mere request by David McCabe, on March 5, 2007, for a “history of the symbol”. His request can now be met because of Ms. Ball’s emergence as the inventor of the bullet point.

Ms. Ball, now Lady Smith, resides in Oxford, England with her husband, Sir Brian.

ArviLu, 2:47, 24 August 2008 ArviLu (talk) 21:48, 24 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I dispute the assertion that Ms. Ball invented the bullet point. Bullet points or non-specific cues have been available to designers and printers for centuries. They are often seen in the work of Modernist designers of the 1920s and 1930s and the glyphs used have been in printers typefaces since at least the 19th century. The earliest example I have seen was a German book from 1896; I am certain there are earlier uses. The puncture was used in Roman times in a similar way.

Their increased use in the 20th century is not due to technological advance but because of a change in the a) the type and formality of language we use and b) the frequency and volume of publications. Bullets allow writers to produce content more quickly and with less thought for composition; they also allow readers a quicker way to scan content and retrieve the relevant points of a piece of writing, which would take longer with continuous prose. There is a parallel with the use of bold type in the 19th century: bold was required as the volume of information meant readers needed to find information quickly such as on train timetables and the like.

The increase in self-publishing and small business publishing (reports, leaflets, correspondence, etc) from the 1930s onwards, is likely to be the catalyst behind the growth in the use of bullet points. The wider use of typewriters, then electronic typewriters and then personal computers only increased the need for this kind of device.

The bullet point is unusual in terms of punctuation in that it is often used in multiple contexts with the same shape. It is the user who needs to understand their use: for example bullet points can be used to indicate the start of an item and also the end. The bullet point is most common as a circle or square but many symbols can be used. This has to lead to an interesting development in that the design of the bullet point adds context to the item it relates to. An example of this is commonly seen in packaging: bullet point 'ticks' used to show positive messages in a list or 'crosses' used to show negative aspects. I have seen pictures of gun bullets used in a list about effects of gun crime. The image or bullet shape reinforcing the content which is a unique feature amongst typographic symbols. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davemccourt (talk • contribs) 13:29, 16 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

In the book What Do You Care What Other People Think, Richard Feynman recounts bullet points as a specific curiosity of NASA presentations during his time working on the Challenger disaster investigation. Since Feynman was very familiar with academic writing, at least within theoretical physics, this strongly suggests that bullet points were not yet mainstream during the late eighties. Although this conclusion is borderline original research, the account by Feynman himself seems useful.Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 13:30, 4 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who worked at E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Company knows that before the PC and electric typewriters, listing items in a company report required using a small or large O. Mr. Berger, a long time duPont employee, started coloring the insides of the O's so that they stood out better, and soon everyone (at DuPont) was doing it and now they are in Microsoft Word. Hence, the name "Berger." — Preceding unsigned comment added by ADuPonter (talk • contribs) 15:17, 13 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article has numerous problems...

...including, but not limited to:

Not differing between the bullet character and characters used in a similar role (notably in lists) appropriately.

Not treating the bullet character and bullet lists sufficiently separately.

Being Windows centric.

Containing undue instructions (WP is not an instruction manual).

Generally, being poorly written.

I suggest a complete re-write.

Is it acceptable to have a bullet-ted list with only one item? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.91.76.190 (talk) 22:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

188.100.201.34 (talk) 18:58, 14 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Berger dot?

I've also heard people refer to bullets as "berger dots" (or maybe it's spelled "burger dot"), but can't find any reliable sources for this. Can anyone corroborate this? Thanks! GoingBatty (talk) 20:56, 17 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Political Correctness

My office in Canada says we should not even call them "bullet points". Their style manual says "round points" and there might be other names. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.241.130.86 (talk) 12:43, 17 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Additional uses

There are other ways bullet points (and bulleted lists) are used, especially nested lists to designate a hierarchy, that aren't mentioned in this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1700:59EB:C600:1408:F01D:7D12:A792 (talk) 22:32, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Can you give a source which describes that? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 23:22, 31 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Tainome

Tainome redirects here, but there is no mention of the word in the article. The Unicode code chart for the Geometric Shapes block mentions tainome as an alternative name for U+25C9 (◉), but gives no explanation beyond “Japanese, a kind of bullet”. And if tainome means ◉, then they shouldn’t redirect to different articles, as they currently do. --Zundark (talk) 08:48, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unfortunately, ◉ points to a disambiguation page, circled dot, so that is not a sensible target. Its section on this symbol just lists its uses. (It didn't have tainome, it does now

.) So I guess the best solution is to mention it briefly in this article and hope that someone develops it. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 10:25, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

very sorry. I know very little about this area, so I can't comment on it. Please note. Wikidate47 (talk) 13:35, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Unicode

The page currently indicates: “BULLET OPERATOR for use in mathematical notation primarily as a dot product instead of interpunct”. Where does this come from? This does not seem to be recommended by Unicode. Indeed interpunct (I suppose, U+00B7 · MIDDLE DOT) is not to be used as a mathematical operator, but U+22C5 ⋅ DOT OPERATOR seems to be appropriate for the dot product, not BULLET OPERATOR. Though I wonder what BULLET OPERATOR is supposed to be used for. OlivierMiR (talk) 16:51, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

The Unicode consortium doesn't recommend anything. It just records what was believed by members to be the primary use at the time. As to what the difference in meaning is between two marks that look pretty much identical, maybe talk: mathematical operator might advise? Why, for a start, did the same (apparently) mark need two codepoints? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 18:55, 14 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Swiss keyboard layout

It seems to be non-existent on the Swiss keyboard for Mac/Windows. I wonder why that is. Stjohn1970 (talk) 12:06, 23 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Bullet point and Android phones

I wonder why it seems that on Android phones, using Chrome 128.0... or Firefox v. 128.0... the Wikipedia articles' bullet point on "Desktop view" appears as full stop (.). If I'm looking at Wikipedia using "Mobile view" there is no bullet point problem. Using Firefox v. 128.0... on Windows desktop machine bullet points look allright on both views. Dm5 (talk) 07:59, 20 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]

History again

Earlier this month, Killamator added an excellent source (Neeley, Kathryn; Alley, Michael (June 2011). The Humble History of the "Bullet". 2011 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition. Vancouver, BC. pp. 22–1462.1–22.1462.14. doi:10.18260/1-2--18810. Retrieved 2025-01-02.), which has made it possible to clear out a load of uncited assertions.

Unfortunately, we now seem to have an issue in that 50.35.123.19 wants to restore the uncited assertions about usage in the late 1800s, about series within sentences and so on, thus contradicting a reliable source that has done the scholarly research and not only says no such thing but positively denies that there is evidence of usage before 1950. As far as I can see, the only valid content for the history section would read:

The 1950 New York News Type Book is credited as the first style guide to include a defined use for bullets. The Type Book described it as a typographic device to be used as an "Accessory" alongside asterisks, checks, and other marks available to people making advertisements for the News. The book "neither discusses the function of bullets in advertisements nor distinguishes them from any of the other items in the 'accessories' category", but can be seen to use them as a form of dinkus in an advertising panel.[ref Neeley and Alley (2011) as above]

Possibly we could add some more from

If we use the evolving meaning of the term as charted in the OED as a guide, we see that the function of bullets is expanded by 1960, when the OED adds the definition of bullets as "small ornaments. . .primarily useful as type-breakers, story-starters, and story-enders, in which instances they are usually referred to as dingbats, bullets, or spots." This citation suggests that the use of bullets has expanded from advertisements to longer documents. An OED citation from 1971, indicates that editors had begun "using various-sized dots or bullets at the beginning of a paragraph as a means of breaking up large gray masses of type." Throughout this period, the shape of the mark is less important than its size or characteristic position in the text. Bullets are understood as a device to attract the attention of readers and as a complement to white space in making text easier for readers to understand.

but I don't see how that supports any of the material that 50.35.123.19 wishes to add. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 01:04, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

50.35.123.19 has not responded, let alone provided any citations that verify their assertions. WP:NOR clearly states,

Wikipedia articles must not contain original research. On Wikipedia, original research means material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists. This includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that reaches or implies a conclusion not stated by the sources. To demonstrate that you are not adding original research, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support the material being presented.

If the evidence is not forthcoming by this time tomorrow, I will again remove the unsupported material and will request sanctions if there is any attempt to restore it without such evidence. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:57, 12 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And in the absence of any further engagement, let alone a reliably sourced citation, I have removed the original research. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 00:43, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ludviggy, may we assume that you and 50.35.123.19 are the same person? Please read WP:EPTALK: it is not acceptable to try to bludgeon your preferred text. You are expected to engage in discussion and gain consensus.

You need to read WP:OR and wp:citing sources again: specifically, an example of use (as in the extract fromm The Bee, New London, Connecticut (1803)) is not a valid citation. Even then you have decided unilaterally that a numbered list is the same as a bulleted list, so even it it were valid, you would have violated WP:SYNTH.
The Amazing Algorithms site is not obviously a reliable source for monastic marginalia, as I explain at [Since ancient times]] below.
You cite Stuart in support of your claim In later years a large comma glyph was used at the start of each sentence series. The article says no such thing.
You cite Akinci in support of your This early style for bullets explains why most modern styles used for professional writing still follow the sentence series style for bullets. Again, the source says no such thing.

I suggest you revert your edit, go and research the topic properly, then come back with a proposal. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:50, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Going through Special:Contributions/50.35.123.19, it seems that this IP has not made any edits to any talk page, and Ludviggy has barely made any edits to any talk pages since 2022. I'm not sure what to make of this. Additionally, both Ludviggy and IP don't use edit summaries and make many sequential edits (I'm sure you've noticed this). I really want to assume good faith here, but this just doesn't seem like behavior that's WP:HERE (cf. WP:ENGAGE). I wouldn't feel any shame in bringing this to a noticeboard; no harm can come of bringing in other editors. /home/gracen/ (they/them) 22:17, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I should probably also note that I have essentially no concern for the actual content of the article at the moment (although I'm always open to that changing

); I just want to see this conflict resolved. /home/gracen/ (they/them) 22:23, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be clear: I am not questioning Ludviggy's good faith, who has been an editor for quite some time (it is not a WP:SPA). That they have made relatively few edits is only relevant to the extent that it suggests unfamiliarity with the principles that en.wikipedia operates – in particular that questionable assertions must be supported by competent and reliable sources and that the support is well-founded. It reads to me that they have done quite a bit of research on this topic and believe that it should be published – but that is not the function of Wikipedia.

As of now, I don't see a reasonable basis for a referral to the Administrator noticeboard. It needs the input and perspective of people familiar with typography (which is why I asked for advice at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Typography#Bullet), not generalists. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 09:51, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Your perspective definitely makes sense, and I may have come into this with the wrong idea. I want to be clear that the reason that I was questioning good faith was not because of any of the edits that Ludviggy has made, but rather the edits they haven't. The way I see it, collaboration is essential to building an encyclopedia, and talk pages are essential for collaboration. Not being apparently willing to collaborate with other editors is, again as I see it, a major problem.

You're most likely right that Ludviggy is here to build an encyclopedia and acting in good faith (thanks for reining me in), but just doesn't know how we operate here. I'm unsure of how to let them know of this, however. /home/gracen/ (they/them) 15:47, 15 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since Ludviggy (directly or as 50.35.123.19) has continued their silent refusal to participate in this discussion (while continuing to edit the article), their good faith must now be seriously in doubt. If this is not rectified by this time Sunday, I will revert their entire contribution (unless anyone else is willing to defend it). WP:NOR is unambiguous and Ludviggy's contribution does not comply with you must cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article and directly support the material being presented. In addition, it contains material—such as facts, allegations, and ideas—for which no reliable, published source exists. Consequently, it must be deleted. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:42, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Absolutely; I agree that the edits aren't acceptable. I just think that Ludviggy potentially doesn't understand how Wikipedia operates and I hope that we don't need to take this to a noticeboard (although, like I said above, I wouldn't be ashamed for it), because I don't want to lose a potential contributor. /home/gracen/ (they/them) 17:12, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I was going to suggest leaving a Welcome template but it looks like one was added here: [1] GA-RT-22 (talk) 17:38, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

And if Ludviggy/50.35.123.19 would learn to collaborate, we could explain why the Merriam-Webster citation that you added fails to support anything about history but does support current usage. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:53, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

On 14 January, Ludviggy added it shows how the style evolved in the 20th century but continued to follow the typography's original intent to improve sentence series comprehension, citing DeGroot Carter, Karen. "All About AP Style". writingcooperative.com. Medium. Retrieved 14 January 2025.. I can't verify this source without a subscription to Medium.com but, given Ludviggy/50.35.123.19's track record of "citations" that consistently fail verification, I see no reason to take it on trust. Not that it matters much since, given their continued refusal to participate, it is all about to be deleted in an hour's time as a WP:No original research violation, egregiously compounded by the fake "citations". --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 15:39, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It only mentions bullet points in a single sentence: "Another AP style change this year: Bullet points no longer need periods when they list only single words or phrases." It doesn't say anything about how style evolved in the 20th century, or about "sentence series comprehension". GA-RT-22 (talk) 16:52, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh what a surprise.

This charade has gone on long enough. I am reverting it all now. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 16:55, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Since ancient times

I have tagged as dubious this statement "can be traced back to ancient times" because the source is not evidently reliable. It claims (without evidence_ that

The origin of bullet lists dates back to ancient times, where scribes used symbols to Mark important passages in scrolls. In the 16th century, bullet lists gained popularity in printed books, where they were used to indicate topics, emphasize key points, and break down information.

The author has seriously misunderstood the function of the obelus, which was to highlight errors and dubious text. In other words, precisely the opposite of the bullet. --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:50, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I don't see any evidence that amazingalgorithms.com is a reliable source. It's unsigned and undated, there is no editorial board listed, not even a location. It seems to be mostly just a collection of web authoring tools with a bit of content. This should just be removed. GA-RT-22 (talk) 22:44, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Done --𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 12:43, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki bullets or unicode?

So in the example list in the lead I'm leaning in favor of using unicode bullets instead of a wikilist, just because the opening sentence talks about the glyph and we have the unicode bullet as the image in the infobox. But I'm not super attached to this. It's gone back and forth a couple times. Opinions? GA-RT-22 (talk) 22:33, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I can see your logic (and dilemma).

The 'normal' wiki bullet is just a bit fatter afaics, its shape is the same. The bold one is almost the same but of course it depends on what system you are using to generate it for your display:

wiki

• unicode

• unicode

The wiki one gives us indented wrapping "for free". My very weak preference is for the wiki one, but only for an easy life if we need indenting. Very few visitors will spot the difference. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:57, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

It depends entirely on your web browser and wiki theme. To me they look completely different. The unicode bullet is small, round and black, the html list bullet is bigger, square, and light blue. We could use Template:poem:

• unicode first item
• second item

But I'll confess I'm probably thinking too hard about this. Let's just leave it as-is. GA-RT-22 (talk) 16:33, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, that explains your concern! So now I agree we really do have a more serious issue that does need fixing. The one we display must be at least round and black, size is less critical so long as it is there or thereabouts. So yes, I agree with your {{poem}} idea: please do it.

It raises another question though ... Do we need to include something about different presentations according to platform? It would mean making .SVGs of what you see and what I see. Is it documented anywhere that we can cite? 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 17:43, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Were you thinking of something similar to {{Contains special characters}}? I like the idea of including a warning box like this in (and only in) articles that use wiki markup to render an example, but I do think that certain editors would be prone to overuse a warning like this. {{Contains special characters}} has an obvious use case, but a warning that goes like "this article contains explanatory content that may render differently than intended" could be very easily misinterpreted and overused. (In fact, under some interpretations, it could apply to the whole of WP!) /home/gracen/ (they/them) 19:50, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The more I think about this the more I want to say this is a bug in the browser or maybe in the wiki theme. Not rendering html list items with the actual unicode bullet just seems wrong to me. But this might require more research. If I just write a plain html list with no css, my browser renders it with unicode bullets. So something is corrupting the glyph somewhere. If I'm the only one seeing this then we shouldn't do anything special about it in this article. GA-RT-22 (talk) 00:24, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

You could ask for advice at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical) but fwiw I see round black bullets on

chrome on chromeOS
chrome on android
firefox on Windows
edge on Windows

What are you using?

(and no, we really don't want a "what I see is maybe not what you get". I agree, there are a lot of {{contains special characters}} still in articles that are maybe 10, 15 maybe 20 years old and are no longer remarkable.) 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 14:36, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

How much experience do you have with debugging issues like this? I'd be more than willing to help out if you don't feel confident doing it yourself. /home/gracen/ (they/them) 15:53, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Monobook theme, which I use, renders the bullet with this svg box: [2]. The Vector theme, which is the default, renders it with an actual bullet. I don't know why Wikimedia is doing such a silly thing (I would even call it a bug) but I don't think we need to pursue this any further. Thank you for your indulgence. GA-RT-22 (talk) 23:27, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]