Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 42

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Question re normally italicized text in already italicized block?

Greetings.

How should one treat text that one would want to italicize (parenthesized literal text in a foreign language) within a block of text that is already italicized (translation from that language)? Currently I am using (a) parenthesized "scare" quotes, but I don't know whether I should (b) UN-italicize without quotes or (c) only parenthesize ... or maybe anything goes? I was looking for a mention of this case in the MOS but didn't happen to see one. I don't think I have a strong preference myself, right now, but it would be nice to know if there is any consensus about it. -thanks, Onceler 00:20, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

The usual convention is to unitalicize italicized text in an italicized block. This isn't exactly the most visually effective form of emphasis, but I've seen it used a lot and it jibes nicely with the wikisyntax for it, which is the same as ordinary italics. Deco 00:38, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

That's what LaTeX's \em command does: it toggles between italics and upright for nested emphases. PizzaMargherita 14:57, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Since asking this question, I also wondered whether there were other applications of it--good enough to warrant adding something to the WMOS--and I have not been able to think of any. The admittedly awkward motivation for my question was that there was a word in a block quote of translated text that was ambiguous--various interpretations would serve the same purpose and some license by the translator was unavoidable. I had included this word within the italicized block but have since moved it to a Notes section indexed via footnote. This seems to be a more conventional way to treat such cases and I expect go this route from now on. Thanks all for your feedback. -regards, EN1-UTE- (Talk) 12:27, 25 December 2024 UTC [refresh] </nowiki> -->Onceler (Talk) (Mail) 21:59, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Generally, block quotes should not be italicized or quoted. The indention and spacing already serves to indicate that they are quotes. Deco 22:10, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I used the italics not just because this is a quote, but because it is a quote that I translated, as part of translating an entire article. Though this does not fall under the sense of being a "foreign word" per the WMOS, there is no mention of how to treat translations, and so I gave it the benefit of the doubt. If they are misapplied I'll remove them. So, just to confirm: one should go without italics even for a translated quote? -thanks, EM1-UTE- (Talk) 12:27, 25 December 2024 UTC [refresh] </nowiki> -->---Onceler 18:44, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

Parenthetical information

I removed this recently added edit. I don't see any basis for it and there was no discussion of this that I can discern. I don't necessarily object to the examples given, but I think it could easily be interpreted as deprecating any parenthetical information. older ≠ wiser 15:45, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Which do you think should be the preferred method of adding new information to the text of an article? Adding it in parenthesis, or integrating it directly into the text:

Charles M. Vest (President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) said ...

Charles M. Vest, President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said ...

or

In 1954 he attended MIT (and graduated in 1958)

He started at MIT in 1954 and graduated in 1958

Wikipedia should standardize on a single way. People tend to add new information parenthetically rather than attempting to integrate it into the narrative of the article. When I find parenthetical information I integrate it so that the article reads as a single continuous narrative. What do you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 16:18, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

In the examples you cite, the latter. However, there are cases where I think a parenthetical aside is fine (can't think of an example just now though). The wording seems that it could apply to ANY sort of parenthetical information, even say DOB and DOD in bios. older ≠ wiser 17:16, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Correct in that it is used in the following:

"Richard Arthur Norton (1958- )" for year of birth and death
"Richard Arthur Norton (born September 1958- )" in biographies
"Head of Research (1990-2005)" but I prefer: "Head of Research from 1990 through 2005" so as to not confuse birth and deaths with lengths of reign
In acronyms: "Department of Justice (DOJ)"

Absolutely not. This is a matter of style, and a single way should not be mandated. Parenthetic phrases can be set off with commas, dashes, or parentheses in good English writing. Sometimes they can be integrated without being set off, as in the second graduation example above. By the way, the Vest comma example above is missing its second parenthetic comma. —Michael Z. 2006-01-23 16:51 Z

Hear, hear! Puffball 17:11, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

And that is why this section is called "Manual of Style". We have to make the difficult, and often arbitraty style decisions, so that Wikipedia has a consistent "look and feel". So the question is: Should new information be added parenthetically or should it be integrated into the narrative? Does anyone else have an opinion on which style should become canonical? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk • contribs)

Yes, and for consistency, let's just always write "double-plus" instead of very, extremely, acutely, amply, profoundly, terribly, or extraordinarily. This is a guide to style, not the elimination of style. —Michael Z. 2006-01-23 17:34 Z

It is true, it is a guide to style and not its elimination. However, this isn't one of those instances where it'd be elimination — actually, let me rephrase that; with care taken it shouldn't be.

Then again, this is probably one of those things where if you do include it, it'll probably get misinterpreted as a hard-and-fast; and to actually come up with a detailed, proper guideline (e.g. acronyms should use parentheses) might be a bit long. I'd say it's one of those things where, if it's right, you should just go and change it because sometimes, it's better writing, and sometimes, it's not.

With respect to those examples, I agree with the latter in both, but do people actually write things like that? That's shocking style.

If people do, then an addition would work, as long as it was kept specific which as I said can be difficult. Neonumbers 04:22, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

We don't require that editors pass a composition examination before editing. Some editors will always be more stylistically trained and inclined than others. I just took a look through my past few weeks of contributions for various parentheticals—whether using round brackets, em dashes, commas, or semicolons. It strikes me that Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) has set up a bit of a strawman here with his example. Surely there are cases where parentheses are misused (and you won't hear me disputing this). But a blanket rule, such as that proposed, seems to miss the point; the language is rich in nuance, which cannot be captured in a few bullet points in the MoS. (To the contrary: any such list of bullet points is liable, as Neonumbers and Mzajac point out, to be read as inviolate law leading to the elimination rather than furtherance of style.) If you find a stylistically inappropriate use of parentheses, or em dashes, or question marks for that matter, edit the page and fix it. You don't need the blessing of the MoS to do so. --TreyHarris 06:33, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Removal

I think the following part of the MoS should be deleted:

When abbreviating United States, please use "U.S."; that is the more common style in that country, is easier to search for automatically, and we want one uniform style on this. When referring to the United States in a long abbreviation (USA, USN, USAF), periods should not be used.
When including the United States in a list of countries, do not abbreviate the United States (for example, "France and the United States", not "France and the U.S.").

Reason: Too specific. These two points would appear in a U.S. English style guide. I agree that both guidelines are preferable for articles using American English, but they should not be a general "rule". In British and Australian English, "US" without periods/full stops is preferred. One might argue that if the guidelines above are included, the following should be included as well:

When abbreviating United Kingdom, please use "UK"; that is the more common style in that country, is easier to search for automatically, and we want one uniform style on this.
When giving a percentage in an article related to the United Kingdom, please use "per cent" instead of "percent" because it is the more common spelling in that country.

... and so on. NeutralLang 14:03, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

These should stay, because they are very common and the best way to do it is not obvious to a new editor. Regarding the counter-examples:

UK and other abbreviations are covered by Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Acronyms and abbreviations (currently missing in action); the treatment of U.S. is an exception to the rule, because it's similar to the word us
This is not a hard-and-fast rule; both are acceptable British English usage (correct me if I'm wrong)

—Michael Z. 2006-01-23 17:41 Z

I agree with the original comment. There's no particularly good reason to have such a specific rule in there, other than that lots of Wikipedians are Americans. It just makes the MoS seem even more US-biased. The "it is easier to search for automatically" is spurious - who searches Wikipedia for "U.S."? Why not just go to United States and see what links there? I also doubt the "We want one uniform style on this" - who does? Americans? We have different styles on lots of other things, including spelling. Stevage 19:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I totally agree with Stevage. These rules are US-biased. In reply to Michael's comments: U.S. is more common in the U.S. than "US" just as "per cent" is more common in the UK than "percent".

I wanted to show how similar the "per cent" argument is. In the U.S. both "US" and "U.S." are used, but for some reason, it is tolerated that the MoS prescribes that "U.S." should be used throughout Wikipedia ("we want one uniform style on this"). By the way, the latest edition of the "Chicago Manual of Style", the most influential American English style guide, even prefers "US" to "U.S."! The other point about when to spell out United States is too specific and too US-centred as well. If we allow guidelines like this, the MoS will continue to grow. The MoS should be short, details can be discussed on sub-pages. NeutralLang 20:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I also agree with the original comment. And by the way, yet another problem that this proposal could solve once and for all. PizzaMargherita 20:26, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

I disagree, but this goes in two different ways.

I don't see this as "too specific", and for the record, I'm not American. We list this because it is an exception to the rule, "never use full-stops in acronyms". It is perfectly acceptable for every acronym except for "U.S." to not have dots and for every "U.S." to be written so — you still get consistency, because the same "rule" can be applied to everything. ("Rule plus exception" still counts as "rule".)

As for whether or not the rule should exist, well, people, flip a coin. Honestly. The abbreviation stands for "United States", so of course it's allowed to be United States-centric — compare this to how the U.S. is probably the last country not to switch to the metric system: measurement is not American. The arguments "to avoid confusion with 'us'" and "it's in all-caps anyway so it shouldn't matter" are both logical, even if they contradict.

If the Americans want control over their own name, so be it; 'cos otherwise, they'll just go see what other places they can gain control of ;-) (just joking.)

But seriously, it doesn't matter which way, it really doesn't, and this isn't "it shouldn't be debated", this is "it really doesn't matter because either way works". Neonumbers 04:12, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm not from the U.S. either, in case you thought so. If you're so worried about Wikipedia becoming U.S.-centric then why quote the Chicago Manual of Style? —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 06:54 Z

Are you referring to my comment? Because Neonumbers didn't quote the Chicago Manual of Style, I did. I think this style guide shouldn't prescribe the spellings of single words. The rule is not followed anyways, at least in UK-related articles, there are even five "US" in the United States article! I doubt there is consensus about the "U.S." rule. It makes sense for US-related articles, so I propose moving it to a sub-page of the MoS NeutralLang 13:48, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Stupid question: Why is so much time wasted on these issues if they don't matter? PizzaMargherita 08:13, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

Let me rephrase myself: "it doesn't really matter as long as one is chosen and stuck to because either way works". Meaning, one should be chosen, but we needn't spend three decades deciding which. Neonumbers 10:02, 24 January 2006 (UTC)

We've debated the issue of U.S. v. US twice before. The last time I checked, U.S. is still preferred by the Bluebook, and nearly all U.S. lawyers and judges are trained in Bluebook style. As I have stated before, articles on American law and government should use U.S. simply because that is how the vast majority of American lawyers (and law-trained government bureaucrats) do it — or else we will have huge edit wars. But I concede that allowing US in articles not specifically relevant to American law and government may be a good idea. --Coolcaesar 03:39, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

I suggest that we allow both U.S. and US in articles, as long as each article is consistent, except in contexts where "US" in ambiguous. I suggest article titles exclusively use "U.S." for consistency. This seems to fit more with what's actually current practice. Deco 22:13, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

No-no. Nay. No. That's not why we're here. That's not why this document exists.

This thing exists to make recommendations, to leave no-one in doubt as to what's best. While writers and editors aren't required to follow these, articles are.

This matter is a trivial enough one to be able to pick one and stick to it very little cost. Unless there are actually circumstances where U.S. works better, and circumstances where US is the better alternative, we can pick one, and we should. Now, let's not have any "compromise" or lack of specification with this one — the consequences of not having a preference in this case are far more disastrous than that of just picking one — any one — and sticking by it. Neonumbers 03:38, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't perceive any disastrous consequences, but I agree that it's probably better to be consistent where there's no clear advantage for one. On the other hand, people will continue to use both no matter what we say - someone has to be responsible for cleaning up the articles to match the guideline. Deco 02:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Maybe not so much "disastrous" as "worse"... slight mishap in selection of wording, whoops. Neonumbers 11:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I will move the guideline to the abbreviation section and add "In U.S.-related articles". I think that's a fair approach. It's inappropriate to impose "U.S." in UK-related articles for example. The rule clashes with the widely accepted rule that articles related to a specific country should conform to that country's spelling and usage. On top of that, in an otherwise very neutral MoS, it's the only guideline that tries to prescribe a certain US-specific usage for all articles. That's why this guideline shouldn't have been included in the first place. Both justifications of the rule ("we want unform style" and "it's easier to search for") cannot be taken seriously. NeutralLang 16:23, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I repeat, as I've said before, the United States have a right to specify their own abbreviation. There is no benefit either way, the benefit comes from having one consistent style. I say again, we may as well flip a coin, but the coin is not allowed to land on its side.

This a very very important principle. The manual has that very principle stated at the top, "One way is often as good as another, but if everyone does it the same way, Wikipedia will be easier to read and use, not to mention easier to write and edit." This is one of those cases.

One is to be preferred for all cases, for this reason. Consistency is half if not most of the reason for this manual's existence. Incidentally, this case of consistency is not a foolish one.

I'm sorry, I cannot accept that change because I don't see enough support in this discussion, for the moment, it looks very much split. A change to this rule must be to prefer "US" in all cases, which as people have said, is not ideal. Neonumbers 11:04, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

"Consistency is half if not most of the reason for this manual's existence." ...and what a miserable failure the current guidelines for National varieties of English are at that. Not only do they fail preventing WP articles from being inconsistent, they are themselves inconsistent. Again, you may want to look at this proposal for one possible solution. PizzaMargherita 11:53, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

By the way, I thought the edit by NeutralLang was good. PizzaMargherita 21:18, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Yep, the National varieties of English guideline is a failure at that, but it's one of the few there's no way around (unless there's a way to standardise either British or American usage — and I have seen the proposal to incorporate it into markup so that user preferences can be set, and I'd support that because it's a solution and not a compromise.)

(For that matter, I'd also support a change to mandate "US", but I never support changes to allow either or either-in-certain-situations where consistency is a better option, whichever way.) Neonumbers 09:47, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

(You say you would support the proposal—so why don't you? There's plenty of opposers in denial or even in complete contradiction with their own "mission statement" on that proposal, we really don't need any shy supporters...) :) PizzaMargherita 17:45, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

(lol... I guess I was a bit too lazy to actually get into that debate... I'll try and get round there sometime, just to drop a word... (I admit though that I wouldn't recommend using that idea for this particular issue because I don't perceive this as a spelling difference, of course that is a trivial and unimportant issue and I couldn't care less if people perceive this otherwise.)) Neonumbers 05:42, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

I understand your point, Neonumbers, you seem to like consistency and that's of course what a style guide is about. But the rule that articles related to an English-speaking country should conform to that country's usage and spelling is one of the oldest consensus-based rules. Prescribing "U.S." for all articles challenges that rule. Try to change several "US" to "U.S." in a UK-related article (virtually all UK-related articles use "US") and somebody will revert the changes and will tell you to stop doing that because it's a UK-related article. NeutralLang 21:34, 31 January 2006 (UTC)

Colouring in tables

Have a look at the table in National Football League championships#List of Championships by Team; take note of the coloured backgrounds. Compare to New Zealand general election, 2005#Official election results table.

Now, I know that maybe the NFL has two colours per team, but that's not the point. Does anyone find the colouring in the NFL page hard to read? Personally, even though I can read it fine, I find it annoying.

I don't plan on actually doing anything about this or adding a provision to the manual unless someone else wants to. I'd just like to get opinions on it, to get a general idea of whether it is or isn't a good idea.

Note that even though the manual asks for no colour-coding, this isn't really "colour-coding" as such, because the colours aren't "codes". Neonumbers 04:25, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

I've used colour coding in the past in situations where I thought it was really helpful, but this is simply horrifying. Just changing the background colour between teams might be okay, but changing both the text and background colour makes it look like a rainbow exploded all over the page. Deco 02:21, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

What an unprofessional eye sore, get rid of it. You can always add a small column that just contains the colours. PizzaMargherita 13:47, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Indeed. That is dreadful. this is still an encyclopaedia, isn't it? The colour-box approach used in Canada, UK and NZ elections could be employed effectively here. The secondary colour could even be incorporated by putting an initial letter in the colour box, e.g., "D" for Dallas. Ground Zero | t 14:00, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

See what I've done: National Football League championships#Championships by Team. Ground Zero | t 14:24, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Nice. Very nice. I'd go as far as to remove the colouring in NFL, AFL, etc. at the top, and just link them all, the colouring there's so not needed — in fact, I'll do that now. But the table looks way better now. Neonumbers 10:03, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

ALL CAPITAL LETTERS

When are all capital letters to be used if ever? I see some companies listed as all capital letters and wonder what the rule is. (other than acronyms like "IBM"). As I look at the official listings of the companies in Hoovers and others they are listed with just a single capital. What shall we standardize on? Do we agree that all capitals should not be used FOR EMPHASIS. My rules of thumb are:

reduce newspaper headlines and book title from all caps to the title case: "War Begins Today"

Examples of this type:

reduce court decisons from all caps to the title case: "Richard Norton v. Allen Simpson"
- Most original court decisions are released as all caps
- see Roe v. Wade for Wikipedia standard
reduce emphasis from ALL CAPS and bold to italics

What do you think? --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 21:45, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

I've seen quite a number of requested moves over time to make the name of a company all upper case or to change from all caps to normal mixed case. Every single one that I saw reached consensus to use normal mixed case. (Names that are or were initialisms, such as AT&T and IBM, are exceptions, of course.) Jonathunder 22:03, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

IMO when all-caps are used for emphasis withign quoted content, they should be left unchanged as in general quoted content should be reproduced as exactly as possible. Otherwise the use of caps for emphasis should be discouraged. It might be acceptable for a single isolated word which might otehwise be overlooked with a major change of meaning (for example "not") but even there italics or bold should be enough. In some cases a corporation or institution may have an all-capitols name as its official style, in which case we should probably use that style when using the full name. All this IMO of course. DES ^(talk) 22:06, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

All caps should generally be used only for acronyms (with exceptions like scuba) or in quotes. Never ever for emphasis - if you see these, fix them. If this isn't already in the Manual it should be. It might also be okay for subjects whose name is normally written that way. Deco 22:17, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Rule of thumb: Don't use all caps for emphasis, fully agreed. (Exceptions may arise, but they are very very few and far apart, and that's true with any guideline, really.) (Acronyms don't count, of course) Neonumbers 09:59, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Today, RAN just made changes to his hastily written start of this topic, partly cleaning it up. To keep the conversation in sync, I've reverted the changes, and bring the new text here for discussion.

--William Allen Simpson 13:30, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

reduce newspaper headlines from all caps such as "WAR BEGINS TODAY" to: "War Begins Today"

reduce court decisons from all caps such as "NORTON v. EVERYONE ELSE" to: "Norton v. Everyone Else"

reduce emphasis from all caps to italics

There appears to be a consensus that all caps should not be used for emphasis. That's the purpose of bold.

(#1) is incorrect. Quotes should reflect the original. We already have a section on that.

rebuttal: ALL CAPS are not used in the New York Times in their transcriptions even if they appeared as headlines NYT reduces ALL CAPS to the Title Case

(#2) is incorrect. There are extensive manuals of style for legal citations. They should be followed. In the US, the Federal style is most prevalent, although each state usually has its variants. But the gist is "Norton v Everyone" with "Else" eliminated or reduced to et alia or et al. where there is confusion. Additional parties are rarely cited except in the opinion itself.

rebuttal: Wikipedia itself uses the title case for most legal opinions despite the court releasing all documents in ALL CAPS for the name of the court case. Please see Roe v. Wade

(#3) is incorrect. Italics are used to emphasize "words as words" and we already have a section on that.

rebuttal: The first line in the guide under italics says: "Editors mainly use italics to emphasize certain words"

--William Allen Simpson 13:30, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

If you dont agree with the week of discussion above, you should have participated in the discussion, but that is ok. Please write the William Allen Simpson rules so we can have something for the MoS. I don't mind you writing the rules, I just want some rules to follow, so I can get my editing done. And if italics are not to be used for emphasis please rewrite the first rule on italics in the MoS: "Editors mainly use italics to emphasize certain words" (emphasis added). Perhaps its clear to the person who wrote it, but I take it to mean "italics are used for emphasis".

I don't believe we need to follow the rules of legal publications and use all caps. We should follow how Wikipedia is already written: see Roe v. Wade. We should not be editorial activists or be forced to follow antiquated rules for paper publications. Other style guides are good references, but Wikipedia needs to have a "look and feel" best suited for screen reading and an international audience. Thats why we abandoned italics for quotations. When quoting an all capital headline the New York Times reduces it to what is called the "title case". See this example [1]. I don't see why we should not be doing the same. All capitals seems out of place in an encyclopedia. I repeat, conventions that were developed for print 100 years ago don't have to be repeated here in Wikipedia, just because they have a noble pedigree. We should look at what looks best for Wikipedia "on screen" and standardize on that. Please let me know what you are all thinking, and I hope I wasn't too preachy. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 20:25, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I support Richard's proposal in full and I think that the reversion was uncalled for. PizzaMargherita 18:33, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

The added section is, to put it gently, imperfectly written. I have no problem with the substance of what I think he's trying to say, though. Mark ^{your words} 20:18, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

I haven't a clue which of the three people writing you are supporting. Can you be more specific about who "he" is? Also which of the 6 added sections above are you referring to? I am not sure whether to nod in support or viciously attack you. I believe these options are the two modes of Wikipedia discourse I have so far witnessed in my tenure here. Have you noticed that humour doesn't translate well in ascii text?

--Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 10:20, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I have a feeling that we may be overspecifying here. RAN, can you give some examples (links to diffs are fine if you've already repaired them) where you feel that all capitals have been used incorrectly (other than the emphasis case, which I think there's consensus to specify—I have added a sentence to do so). The Manual of Style does not need to specify every case—merely to set style for common cases in which there is dispute and for which consistency is desired. --TreyHarris 10:42, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

I share your concern. The MoS seems to include both useful and common style rules and petty rules that style lawyers push in the MoS and then use to resolve disputes—or as an excuse for their nazi reversions. I think the latter should be confined in a "Worthless MoS", or "Advanced MoS" to make it sound important. PizzaMargherita 11:48, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Note: The discussion "ALL CAPITAL LETTERS" continues on Archive 43 >>

Question re normally italicized text in already italicized block?

Parenthetical information

Removal

Colouring in tables

See also section

ALL CAPITAL LETTERS