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Welcome to the MOS pit[Humor]


    Style discussions elsewhere

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    Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to Concluded when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.

    Current

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    (newest on top)

    Pretty stale but not "concluded":

    Capitalization-specific:

    This section is an excerpt from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Current.[edit]

    Move requests:

    Other discussions:

    Pretty stale but not "concluded":

    Concluded

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    Extended content
    This section is an excerpt from Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Capital letters § Concluded.[edit]
    Capitalization-specific:
    2024
    2023
    2022
    2021

    Discussion at Archimedes § MOS:'S (redux)

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     You are invited to join the discussion at Archimedes § MOS:'S. Remsense ‥ 论 21:13, 29 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

    Specifically, input would be appreciated regarding the treatment of derivative proper names (e.g. Archimedes' principle) in running text versus the titles of dedicated articles. Thanks! Remsense ‥ 论 07:36, 10 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Just for the record, I detest and/or, which the MOS backs me on, but (besides ... instead of the clearer [...] in quotations) I also detest Archimedes's. Can't we just use the Latinate genitive Archimedis? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 04:56, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As someone who does not particularly despise Archimedes's, I would cast my even less ramified ;vote for that. Remsense ‥ 论 05:01, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Me also. It’s a straightforward grammatical rule that ‘s indicates a possessive singular and ‘ ,following on from an s, indicates a possessive plural. That is clear to both casual and expert readers alike, and the large majority of our readership nowadays wont have any familiarity with the archaic or traditional forms used for a handful of mostly ancient historical figures. MapReader (talk) 05:30, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Not quite; ‘s indicates a possesive of either a singul or of a plural not ending in s. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 13:34, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    The genitive Archimedis is faux Latin in this situation. The correct Latin is la:Cochlea Archimedea (the adjective wikt:Archimedeus = Archimedean). More importantly, the Latin genitive is confusing in English. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 02:25, 7 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    When are words being used as-words?

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    It seems to be required by MOS:WAW that any statement that uses constructions like:

    • This concept is called Example, ... (also termed, known as, referred to as, etc.)

    italicize the term. However, this is almost never consistently done even in many of our FAs (see Introduction to general relativity, used as an example in the MoS), and many other publications are unbothered. Am I worrying about something that doesn't make a difference in the clarity of many passages?

    I just struggle with paragraphs like (adapted from Chinese characters § Zhou scripts):

    It just looks weird that maintaining a natural flow in more jargon-y passages requires two terms to be italicized and one not to be. It looks arbitrary, and might even confuse readers if they notice? Remsense ‥ 论 01:56, 11 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    I don't think that either of the phrases in the example qualify as words as words. WAW, I think, applies to things like, "Of all the nouns, birdcage is the best." Or, "...some egghead discovered a misprint of the book, with relative misspelled." I would use quotation marks in the example you provided.

    Unless, of course, I'm mistaken. Primergrey (talk) 01:35, 17 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    If I diagram the sentence This is known as Example. out, it is clear to me that Example must be analyzed as representing the word Example, not the referent Example in itself.
    Maybe the wording needs to be relaxed or massaged a bit—something like, when a word is being invoked as the topic of discussion, as opposed to its merely functioning "as a word" to accomplish an identical task within a sentence (e.g. introducing vocabulary) that many other constructions would. Remsense ‥ 论 17:56, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Your initial example is definitely a "words as words" usage: as you say, we're calling out the name of a thing, not the thing itself.
    Note that this is accepted style outside of Wikipedia (see the Chicago Manual of Style FAQ entry). Even if it's not applied consistently throughout the encyclopedia, it should be fixed when its absence is encountered like any other brokenness.
    Personally, I find the "Chinese characters" example to be more readable with the WAW examples set off in italics, for the reasons given in the Chicago FAQ entry.
    "But it's broken in a lot of places" is not a reason to avoid fixing it or to soften the guideline language. (See MOS:THISISALIST as another example of "boy, sure is broken a lot".)--NapoliRoma (talk) 18:45, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes and no: of course a rule going unfollowed isn't itself reason to throw it out, but it's also the case that guidelines are meant to reflect consensus, and if no one understands this to be the guideline, then there's a disconnect that has to be bridged one way or t' other. The question is whether a softer position like the one I tossed out above is both logically consistent and in line with consensus.
    Two more points: firstly, what isn't illustrated in the example passage is that the frequent use of italics in prose is tiring on the eyes. Secondly, prose gets unwieldy fast when other uses of italics (non-English, emphasis indicating contrastive stress) also appear with some frequency—it's strictly correct that italics for non-English terms is also just a WAW usage, but I think the reader tackles the patterns differently enough that they can then be conflated and confused. Remsense ‥ 论 19:15, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree that it's less than clear. My mental shortcut is: If I could mentally add the "the word" before the word which might be italicized, it should be italicized, otherwise no. So, I wouldn't italicize "This concept is called the word Example, ...". But I would italicize in "Of all the nouns, the word birdcage is the best." SchreiberBike | ⌨  22:49, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Order of explanation for placing ref as per MOS:REFPUNCT

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    Hi

    I am finding an increased number of refs in the middle of text, and I wondered if it could be confusion to the current wording. If the editor/reader deos not read more/further than the first sentence of this section of the paragraph, they may well put the ref in the middle of a sentence and not after punctuation as it appears to first suggest that: "All reference tags should immediately follow the text to which the footnote applies, with no intervening space. Apart from the exceptions listed below, references are placed after adjacent punctuation, not before."

    Can we consider rewording this to: "All reference tags should immediately follow the text to which the footnote applies, and should be placed after the next adjacent punctuation with no intervening space. The exceptions to this are listed below."

    This would then read as a two-part instruction rather than the current which appears to be one instruction to place it directly after the text.

    Thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 01:32, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    No, you don't have to wait for punctuation to place a reference. The current wording is fine. Gawaon (talk) 04:22, 14 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It clearly states that we do, in the current wording - "references are placed after adjacent punctuation" Chaosdruid (talk) 14:07, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    No, it's saying that if there is adjacent punctuation, the ref goes after, but it does not preclude placing a ref immediately after the relevant text when there is no adjacent punctuation. Schazjmd (talk) 14:12, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I've always understood the part about punctuation to mean only that if the text to which the footnote applies ends in a punctuation mark, treat that mark as part of the text you're footnoting and put the footnote after it. There's no implication that you have to defer placement of the footnote to the next punctuation mark that appears. And certainly not to the end of the sentence: the guideline covers commas as well. Largoplazo (talk) 14:53, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Oxford spelling and commas

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    As far as I'm aware, serial comma inclusion/omission is always treated separately from spelling conventions; MOS:SERIAL doesn't say anything related to MOS:TIES. However, when an article employs Oxford spelling ({{British English Oxford spelling}}), would it be reasonable to require the serial comma? (Of course, this wouldn't prohibit removing it to avoid local ambiguity.) On one hand, it seems a bit odd that editors of a specific article must follow one prominent component of a specific style guide's instructions while being free to ignore another component, and because en-gb-oxondic is a narrow group of articles and compliance requires a little training, these articles are already having their spelling/grammar watched by editors who are familiar with everyone else not being aware of the standards. But on the other hand, I can imagine it being awkward to require serial commas on a small portion of the encyclopedia, while the rest of the encyclopedia merely requires internal consistency; it might lead to confusion because a small set of articles has rules different from the rest. Nyttend (talk) 22:18, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The serial comma and Oxford spelling are not related to one another save from the fact that Hart's Rules and the Oxford English Dictionary share the same publishing house on the River Isis, and they are not intended to complement one another in any particular way. As you've noticed, this is conflating apples with oranges stylistically. More concretely, our guidance on serial commas is not dependent at all on what variety of English is being used—instead, it should be consistent, and possibly depend on what is best for eliminating ambiguity in each article on an individual basis. Remsense ‥ 论 22:23, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So Hart's Rules doesn't demand the use of Oxford spelling? My thought process:
    • Oxford spelling says that Hart's Rules follows Oxford spelling
    • Style guides are created to be prescriptive on this kind of thing, so Hart's Rules will require a specific spelling system
    • Hence, it's highly likely that Hart's Rules will require the spelling system that it uses
    Thank you. Nyttend (talk) 22:40, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Oxford spelling is just that—spelling. As an ENGVAR, it is merely British English with etymologically-minded spelling conventions. Remsense ‥ 论 22:42, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As for Oxford comma, I refer you to a reply I gave some years ago. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:02, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Does Wikipedia use honorific titles?

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    I remember reading a while ago that Wikipedia does not use honorific titles in referring to people, e.g. Albert Einstein or Einstein instead of Dr. Albert Einstein or Dr. Einstein. I can't find anything like that today. Did I imagine that? Is there any style guidance on use of titles such as Doctor? MOS:HONORIFIC is just about using special honorifics associated with a person who is the subject of a biography. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:51, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    MOS:JOBTITLE and its subsection MOS:DOC says to avoid "Dr" and similar titles.  Stepho  talk  06:38, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    As a general rule, we also don't use even less specific honorifics or courtesy titles (I'm not super-sure of the distinction between the two), like Mr, except in quotes. See MOS:MR. --Trovatore (talk) 08:28, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    ENGVAR question

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    Based on a dispute at Bicolor cat. Does the fact that the article has, and has always had, a clear ENGVAR title control what variety the body uses? Seems obvious to me, but the guideline doesn't actually state what to do.

    In this particular case, the article was created as the stubbiest of stubs in 2002, with the creator using "bicolor" in the title (and the article has never been moved, I double checked) while using "bicolour" in the one-paragraph body. Over the next few years contributions included both spellings, and both appeared in the body at the same time. However, noting the inconsistency, a wikignome edited the body in 2008 to consistently use "color" and that ENGVAR was used consistently and continuously for 16 years until last September when, citing the ancient stub in Theo edit summary, someone changed the body ENGVAR to use "colour" making it inconsistent with the title. I changed it and was promptly reverted. I argue that there was no consistent variety at all until 2008, and that having a variety consistent with the title (which again, has never changed) is the only logical and valid ENGVAR. oknazevad (talk) 23:15, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Flip a coin if you want, but pragmatically a move is a "more substantial" alteration, so I would go with the title form. Remsense ‥ 论 23:22, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    A quick spot check of the article's early history confirms that it started as "bicolor". Since there are no close ties to any country for this term, there is no reason for it to prefer either British or US spelling, so we fall back to the spelling used when the article was created. The use within in the article should match the articles name, so "bicolor" is the correct spelling for this article. As said above, this is all following WP:ENGVAR. Note: I say this as an Australian who would naturally use "bicolour".  Stepho  talk  23:27, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I agree with oknazevad that it never had a consistent style until oknazevad's change to make the body consistent with the title. The previous change to use "colour" throughout the body does not count because the title remained inconsistent. I agree with the comments above that going with the original title is a smaller change and therefore better, but we can reach the same outcome by a different argument: oknazevad's version was the first consistent version so we should go with that. —David Eppstein (talk) 23:45, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    To be clear, I was not the editor who made it consistent in 2008 (which was done with this edit. In fact, I had never edited the article until today, after I noticed the obvious clash between the title and the body. A quick look at the history showed that it had been changed last September. I was just changing it back to the consistent ENGVAR the article had for over a decade and a half. oknazevad (talk) 01:33, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks, I stand corrected. —David Eppstein (talk) 01:42, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Please stop making this claim. It was inconsistent before I edited it: [2]. I noticed the inconsistency and looked at the oldest revisions to decide on which variety to change to. Traumnovelle (talk) 02:18, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Your implied claim that it was never consistent until you edited it is clearly false: the 2008 version that oknazevad links to is consistent. And your implied claim that your edit (I assume in this version) made it consistent is also false: there is no consistent spelling even if one ignores the obvious inconsistency between article and text. One could interpret your comment here as meaning merely that the version immediately prior to yours had inconsistencies (as did the version after your edit) but that is not a valid reason to choose one spelling over another; one has to look at the history. —David Eppstein (talk) 04:43, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Exactly. The version before the one you just linked to has one errant ENGVAR use. The alternate spelling in the first sentence is not only typical but expected. The only other use is in the title of a reference, and that should not be altered. oknazevad (talk) 10:24, 22 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Query about use of subsections

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    I understand that there is generally something of a taboo about breaking the entirety of a section into subsections without leaving any "independent" content; i.e., having all of the information under a given level two heading further located under level three subsections. I can see the appeal of having a separate paragraph at the beginning of the section as a sort of mini-lead, but as far as I can tell, there is nothing in the MOS requiring this. Is there truly anything wrong with having part of an article formatted like this, even if it isn't the most popular? — Anonymous 00:57, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    No, there's nothing wrong with this. I've done this in multiple Good Articles including Antiparallelogram, Binary logarithm, and BIT predicate. I don't recall seeing any complaints about this from the GA reviewers. As long as the section title is self-explanatory enough and its subsections independent enough, one doesn't need a section summary paragraph first. In all of these cases, one could add a paragraph briefly summarizing each subsection, but it wouldn't add much useful content to the article. —David Eppstein (talk) 02:37, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Per above, there are obvious cases when it is advantageous versus when it is not. It depends on which structure feels more or less natural for discussing the subject at hand, as obvious as that may sound.
    (Someone tell me if I'm wrong here, but iirc German academia actually has particular preference for perfect cover by the subsections within monographs etc. A bit different than ordinary technical writing esp. since it's doing something very particular, but the infamous Tractatus comes to mind as the total reverse.) Remsense ‥ 论 03:08, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Executive orders: quotation marks or not?

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    Just to be clear, executive order titles do not have quotations, correct? Across such articles, I have seen some with and some without, and MOS:NEITHER is not too explicit. I am asking due to the influx of executive order pages being created. Why? I Ask (talk) 10:53, 24 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Do you mean whether quotation marks should be used around their titles when referring to them? Gawaon (talk) 03:49, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    @Gawaon: Yes... For example, see Restoring Names That Honor American Greatness versus Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government at the time of writing this comment. I am fairly certain it should be no quotation marks, but given their equal prevalence, I thought I should ask. Why? I Ask (talk) 03:53, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'd say that yes, quotation marks should be used around them. We generally use quotation marks around titles of the kinds of works that are typically short and rarely published stand-alone (newspaper and journal articles, short stories, poems etc.), and use italics for long, stand-alone works (novels and other books, films and TV series etc.). Executive orders seem to fall into the short category and so get quotation marks. Gawaon (talk) 04:12, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I think we'd benefit from some explicit guidance in MOS:TITLES or MOS:LAW regarding laws, orders, etc. Currently, there doesn't seem to be much consistency. Affordable Care Act (USA) is in plain text, while Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act 2003 (Australia) is italicised. I also note that most treaties (e.g. Treaty of Versailles, Montreal Protocol) are simply capitalized. pburka (talk) 04:27, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah, MOS:NEITHER would make it seem like they do not get quotations as legal documents. That is what the MLA guidelines say, at least. I just wanted to ask before any mass edits. Why? I Ask (talk) 04:48, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I find capitalization sufficient for executive orders, laws, acts, etc. I don't see them in quotes in sources. I've noticed that Australian acts, etc. seem to be italicized, but I've never made the effort to investigate it. If something is capitalized on Wikipedia, that identifies it as a proper noun, a specific thing. That's enough. SchreiberBike | ⌨  12:53, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    According to the government style guides of both Australia and Canada, laws go into italics. But it seems like the United States and the United Kingdom do not use either quotes or italics. This is probably a case of WP:ENGVAR that the MOS on law or title of works should cover. Why? I Ask (talk) 18:55, 25 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    MOS:ELLIPSIS and midline horizontal ellipsis

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    MOS:ELLIPSIS says: "Wikipedia's style for an ellipsis is three unspaced dots (...); do not use the precomposed ellipsis character (…) or three dots separated by spaces (. . .)".

    Do this cover only the U+2026 character …, or also the U+22EF midline horizontal ellipsis ⋯ (a.k.a. centered dots), in which case this should be mentioned?

    I'm asking because there was an uncontroversial technical request by Hairy Dude to move 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ⋯ (with the midline horizontal ellipsis) to 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + ... (with an uncentered horizontal ellipsis). I don't know whether using uncentered dots is typographically correct in this context. In examples, Help:Displaying a formula#Larger expressions suggests the use of centered dots in such a case. About this, I've opened a discussion: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics#Dots / ellipsis in math formulas.

    — Vincent Lefèvre (talk) 13:39, 26 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Also, it would be helpful if any mention of Unicode character beyon ASCII, e.g., U+2026 … HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS, U+22EF ⋯ MIDLINE HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS, used the {{unichar}} template -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 15:57, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    It definitely only covers lowered dots, U+2026. The other kinds of ellipsis are used primarily in mathematical formulas and replacing them by individual dots would break the formatting of those formulas. Hairy Dude has stated in Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Mathematics that the supposed "uncontroversial technical request" (which per that discussion turned out to be controversial and was reversed) was based on a misunderstanding: they incorrectly believed that the dots in the article in question were lowered dots, U+2026, possibly because of technical limitations of their browser. Centered dots are typographically correct for this formula, and uncentered dots are incorrect. (The meaning is still conveyed but the formatting is not good, kind of like writing the name Lefèvre without using the grave accent.) —David Eppstein (talk) 18:15, 27 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Are there any circumstances apart from mathematical formulas where they might legitimately be used? pburka (talk) 00:15, 1 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I read that to be Wikipedia's style for an ellipsis is three unspaced dots (...) prohibits all other types of ellipses; the other things after the semicolon appear to be "including but not limited to". The purpose of MoS is consistency.
    The centering can easily be done with {{DISPLAYTITLE:1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + <span style="position:relative;bottom:0.3em">...</span>}}. In fact with this CSS, the dots render more centered on my computer. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 08:06, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    n-th versus nth

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    Is n-th or nth supposed to be used? If you do know, please add it to the dash/hyphen section of the page as that's where people will probably look for it, (idk if a hyphen or en dash is supposed to fall between "n" and "th") and if there is not a standard set for Wikipedia I think that it should be set to be "n-th" with a hyphen to match the OEIS, as n-th is typically referring to a sequence and the OEIS is probably the organization to look to when handling sequences. Apersoma (talk) 19:47, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    The OEIS, great as it is, is not eminently viable as a style guide, since its choices seem to be made toward facilitating plaintext representations. Since we're typically meant to italicise variables, wouldn't nth be correct? Remsense ‥ 论 19:50, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    My preference would actually be nth, as a specific exception to the rule about not using superscripts here, because it extends better to (n+1)st and so on. I think (n+1)st is kind of confusing. --Trovatore (talk) 20:23, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    You don't think that would be potentially confusing for expressions involving exponentiation? Remsense ‥ 论 20:27, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah. I don't know any solution that can't be confusing. I think the superscripts might be a little better. --Trovatore (talk) 21:11, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Reasonable minds may differ here I think. Given variables are theoretically italicized, I think I prefer the other method as more parsimonious. Remsense ‥ 论 21:18, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I strongly prefer nth, not n-th. The OEIS choice is not standard elsewhere and appears to be a hack to allow them to continue to use plain-text ASCII formatting and still distinguish the formula part from the text part. Because we do not limit our content to plain-text ASCII we do not need and should not use this hack. —David Eppstein (talk) 21:03, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    So what do we do with en-plus-first? --Trovatore (talk) 21:06, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    th, pronounced "n plus wunth". —David Eppstein (talk) 21:57, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Understanding perfectly well orthography need not adhere to phonology when semantics is what matters—is it common to pronounce it "n plus first"? Remsense ‥ 论 21:59, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm sure you can hear it pronounced that way but I think it is incorrect. We are using the numerical value of 1 in the expression, not using 1 in the positional sense, so it is "one" not "first", and then the suffix "th" applies to the whole expression. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:00, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    As I thought, then. Thank goodness. Remsense ‥ 论 22:02, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't agree with David about it being incorrect. Both forms are found in the wild, but in my experience "first" is more usual, and I prefer it because it just sounds better. --Trovatore (talk) 22:07, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Only until you think about it some more. It is a type error. "First" is grammatically ordinal, but the 1 in the subexpression is not mathematically ordinal. The meaning of the expression is ordinal(plus(n,1)), not plus(n,ordinal(1)). There are natural-language ways of combining ordinals (by which I mean positions, not mathematical ordinals): "second best" or "second from last") but the operation they represent is not quite addition. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:58, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I mean, I understand what you're saying. But you could make the same argument about twenty-first. In Italian (for example) you'd say ventunesimo, not *ventiprimo, but in English the suffix "agrees", so to speak, with the last numeral in the expression, which I think makes (n+1)-st or however you want to handle hyphen/superscript/etc more natural for English. --Trovatore (talk) 23:07, 28 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't think we need any guidance about this in MOS:DASH. We needn't list all the cases where dashes/hyphens aren't used, and I imagine anyone pondering whether to use one would end up at nth, which has an example of correct formatting. pburka (talk) 00:05, 29 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Change pseudo-namespace

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    I feel that it's time to change the paeudo-namespace to "MS:" because the "O" is for "of" and typically abbreviations shouldn't include letters standing for "of". style="color #964b00 Cyber the tiger🐯 (talk) 00:01, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    See what happens if you click this link, coded [[MS:Laman Utama]]: MS:Laman Utama. Largoplazo (talk) 00:33, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    See, for example, LOC, TOC, and MOU. pburka (talk) 02:01, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Good point. Also, POS and DoS attack. And, in the US, DOJ, DOE, DOD, DOT, and DOL. And G.O.A.T. Largoplazo (talk) 02:18, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    I offer MoS. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:58, 31 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout § Semi-protected edit request on 28 January 2025 fix contradiction with WP:MOSSIS

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     You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout § Semi-protected edit request on 28 January 2025 fix contradiction with WP:MOSSIS. 173.206.40.108 (talk) 07:28, 6 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    conciseness & succinctness: efficiency, not size

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    Apparently WP:BECONCISE, WP:SUCCINCT redirect to WP:TLDR, a stupid term with bad redirects. One of my professors is on a team editing the world's (maybe formerly) largest science/mathematics book--on abstract algebra--which was 20,000 pages (multi-volume). It was made more efficient (saying more with fewer words) while describing same, so they reduced to maybe 5,000 pages (or in range of 10% to 1/3). Isn't that what conciseness/succintness is, though for most people, still too long to read? Redirects should be to more (less unintellectual) details here (or WP:CONCISE), not a crass Internet meme term mostly used by Millennials, Zoomers who grew up reading few books; there's an article how even freshmen at USA's elite colleges feel they can't read books, because they never got in the habit. I'm not deletionist, but I'd say delete WP:TLDR, because people saying that about one full-length standard (not extended) Twitter/X statement (increasingly common) may not want knowledge.--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib) 06:18, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    It's just an essay, not policy. Gawaon (talk) 02:25, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yes, well people are throwing many of these around maybe implying they should be followed, and 'WP' could look official. What about the redirects?--dchmelik☀️🦉🐝🐍(talk|contrib)
    If you want to move or delete Wikipedia:Too long; didn't read you'll have to suggest doing so on that page. Success would be more likely without weird comments about people now in their 40s growing up without books. CMD (talk) 13:57, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    If you want others to read your posts? Then comply with their requests to shorten them. You can't force others to read'em. GoodDay (talk) 17:55, 10 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Yeah but TLDR is an insult. "I didn't read your whole paper, it was [not succinct enough, not concise enough, too prolix, whatever] might sting but is not an insult and is constructive criticism. "Here's your paper back, TLDR" is just dismissive. Herostratus (talk) 01:05, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    Actually I went ahead and did put in a requested move there. Herostratus (talk) 02:24, 11 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    More input wanted at Talk:IMEC regarding the brand's capitalisation

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    Hi, I would like some more input at Talk:IMEC § Spelling, regarding whether the name should be capitalised in all-upper-case to comply with MOS:TMRULES point number 3, or capitalised in all-lower-case which is the company's official way of writing their name. That point number 3 says, "as long as this is a style already in widespread use", however an issue here is that there are just as many secondary sources that spell the company name as "imec" as there are sources spelling it "IMEC".

    There just isn't enough watchers of the article to form a proper consensus, so more opinions from the people who know the MoS well would be appreciated! — AP 499D25 (talk) 05:07, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    RfC: Gentilic form of Botswana

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    How should the gentilic (adjective and noun) form of the country Botswana be written on Wikipedia articles?

    A: Botswanan (pl. Botswanans) in all cases, without exception
    B: Motswana (pl. Batswana) in all cases, without exception
    C: Motswana in articles with strong national ties to Botswana or South Africa, otherwise Botswanan
    D: Retain whichever word is used first in the article, either Botswanan or Motswana

    ―Howard • 🌽33 12:02, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comment: I am opening this RfC because I believe a decision here will affect many articles over Wikipedia. Articles are inconsistent with usage, with many using Botswanan and many using Motswana. There was a previous discussion on the matter, but it went for a week without agreement, so I hope by inviting more people we can come to a conclusion. I am inexperienced when it comes to opening RfCs so I apologize if this was malformed or unnecesary. ―Howard • 🌽33 12:09, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Pinging users from the previous discussion: (Mathglot—Aficionado538—SMcCandlish—David Eppstein—Blueboar) ―Howard • 🌽33 12:35, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • C: Considering that the Dictionary of South African English lists Motswana but not Botswanan as the gentilic of Botswana and the Historical Dictionary of Botswana (page xiii) uses MoTswana (alternate capitalization), it can be established that common usage within the countries of Botswana and South Africa is Motswana. This word is included in some foreign English dictionaries (OED, CALD) and by the CIA World Factbook, but the OED and CALD do also include Botswanan and two dictionaries (MW, AUH) include Botswanan but not Motswana. Therefore the only resolution, as far as I see it, is to use Motswana as the gentilic in articles with strong national ties to Botswana or South Africa and otherwise using Botswanan. ―Howard • 🌽33 12:28, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • C or D - Per MOS:TIES - however, mention both in the article text at least once.
      It will be helpful to readers (especially those not from Southern Africa) to explain that people from Botswana are called “Botswanans” externally, but use “Motswana” internally. Once this is explained, the reader will understand whichever usage is used in the rest of the article. Blueboar (talk) 14:08, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      This sounds a bit like consonant mutation in the Welsh language, where an initial "b" might sometimes be written and pronounced as "m". --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:48, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Should there be a disclaimer similar to Template:Family name hatnote?
      Something like:
      In this article relating to Botswana, the gentilic of Botswana is Motswana.? ―Howard • 🌽33 00:02, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Most readers won’t know what “gentilic” means. Keep it simple. Blueboar (talk) 00:40, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Gentilic is the proper word for it, no? Otherwise it would have to be something longer like "the adjectival and demonymic form." ―Howard • 🌽33 00:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I think you can just link the term "gentillic" to either the Denonym article or a soft redirect to Wiktionary to help readers, would that help? —Sparkle and Fade (talk • contributions) 01:42, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      That would be good enough, the same is already done for when patronyms are mentioned (eg. Lenin) ―Howard • 🌽33 22:06, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • C or D per Blueboar's rationale, it would help readers to explain the above and thus the usage in the article. It may also help to treat the usage similarly to MOS:ENGVAR, retaining it unless there is broad consensus against it, MOS:TIES, etc. —Sparkle and Fade (talk • contributions) 23:47, 15 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Didn't we just have this discussion already? Use option A. Use plain English, not terms that are familiar to nearly no one who is not from the area. I would grudgingly accept C as a compromise, but only barely. We need to get away from the idea that, e.g., articles about India are written only for Indians, that articles about Texas are intended specifically for (and to appease the preferences of) Texans, etc. That's not what Wikipedia is about or is for. But C would produce a bit less inconsistency than D (the "do nothing" option), and would impose fewer (than opt. B) instances of unfamiliar terms (arguably non-English at all, using a pluralization scheme that doesn't pertain to this language) on our readers. So C is slightly better than nothing. But A is clearly the proper course of action at this site, even if Motswana/Batswana might make more sense in a blog written in southern Africa with a Batswana audience in mind. This case isn't really any different from Navajo; the fact that their own endonym is Diné, and this term can be found sometimes in English-language sources (mostly specialist or activist literature), does not impose on Wikipedia a requirement to use it broadly (and we have good reasons not to, starting with intelligibility to the average reader). Some occurrence of it will be sensible in an ethnological context, such as the Navajo article itself. But we should not and generally do not use it in more general articles, e.g. on the history of the American Southwest or on the present demographics of New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah. The same logic applies to Botswanan vs. Motswana/Batswana. What next? Shall we start writing about Ireland as Éire and the Irish as Éireannaigh?  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  02:07, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Are you sure that these terms don't just fall under MOS:ENGVAR? I don't think that the concept of it not being Plain English applies here as readers can presumably infer that "Motswana" or "Batswana" refers to "Botswanan" in articles involving Botswana in some way, regardless if readers are familiar with the term. There are some cases where it is inappropriate, such as in articles that only briefly mention Botswanans (e.g."He later met the Motswana president" where this is the only mention of it in the article) and "Botswanan" should be used instead, but most readers can infer the meaning of it as a denonym of Botswana easily. —Sparkle and Fade (talk • contributions) 02:37, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Elaborating on this, I don't think the terms differ significantly from English enough to justify using Botswanan in place of it. While foreign-language terms such as "à la" are generally avoided on Wikipedia per Plain English, descriptive terms that do not differ enough from English such as "jeepney" in Philippine English (see Template:Philippine English) seem to be an exception of this, which I believe these terms fall under; but this is ultimately up to an editor's judgement to decide. The question is whether or not these terms are covered by ENGVAR or not. —Sparkle and Fade (talk • contributions) 02:52, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      I've yet to see any indication this is an obscure word considering the various sources which I have listed above, which come from both in and outside Botswana. Likewise, Google Scholar hits for Botswanan (5,170 results) are not drastically higher than for Motswana (3,050 results). I want to be clear I do not intend on promoting endonyms above exonyms in all cases. But what I do want to ensure is a consistency across all Wikipedia articles while conforming to the correct variety of English. By looking at the vocabularies of South African and Motswana English, I have found that Botswanan is nonstandard and Motswana is the standard and commonly used form. ―Howard • 🌽33 22:21, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • A - A vote for Botswanan.Halbared (talk) 22:44, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Please remember that this is not a vote but a discussion based on existing precedents in the MOS. Per the page's editnotice, comments/opinions may be ignored if there is no rationale that addresses policies or guidelines. Thanks. —Sparkle and Fade (talk • contributions) 21:47, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • D because RETAIN is a better rule than TIES in general. I understand (and feel) the impulse to avoid weird words that are not understood by most English speakers, but I have to admit that my sense of "weird" here is likely specifically Western; it's not a good look to allow (say) Irish-origin terms (e.g. Taoiseach) but not African. --Trovatore (talk) 23:04, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    • Question: I wasn't familiar with these terms prior to this discussion, but, as a westerner and a native English speaker, I don't find them surprising or difficult to understand. However, I do have some questions about nuance. According to Wiktionary, "Batswana" means "A member of the Tswana tribe of southern Africa, especially an inhabitant of Botswana; a Botswanan". Is it accurate that everyone from Botswana is Matswana, even members of minority ethnic groups? What about inanimate or abstract nouns? Is it correct to write the "Batswana economy" or "Matswana lakes"? pburka (talk) 23:38, 16 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
      Great question! The demonyms for Botswana are:
      1. Motswana (singular)
      2. Batswana (plural)
      For example, 'He is a Motswana' and 'They are Batswana'.
      In contrast, Setswana refers to the language spoken in Botswana and can also describe something originating from or related to Botswana, such as 'a Setswana lake' or the 'Setswana economy' it's akin to saying 'the French economy'. However, the use of "Botswana" in this regard is still okay and more widespread e.g., 'the Botswana economy'.
      The largest ethnicity in Botswana is Tswana; however, not all Batswana (that is, citizens of Botswana) are ethnically Tswana. So you can still have have Kalanga Batswana, Afrikaner Batswana, etc. Aficionado538 (talk) 04:59, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
    C: In Botswana, as well as in neighbouring countries with shared cultural and linguistic ties, the terms "Motswana" and "Batswana" are the standard and authoritative ways to refer to people from here. We do not use any other terms as they are nonstandard and foreign.
    I am inclined to vote in favour of Option C, because of MOS:TIES and for feasability's sake as juxtaposed to, say, options A & B.
    I also agree with the thoughtful point raised by @Sparkle & Fade, who rightly notes that readers are unlikely to encounter difficulty understanding these terms to begin with. They do not appear in isolation and are almost always accompanied by contextual clues that make their meaning apparent, even to those unfamiliar with Setswana.
    In the same vein, @Trovatore’s observation about the usage of “Irish-origin terms” on the Wiki (such as Taoiseach or Teachta Dála) that may confuse non-Irish speakers is a good one. Unlike such esoteric terms, "Motswana" and "Batswana" fit within a clear linguisti framework that allows for intuitive understanding. Through context, even readers encountering these words for the first time can readily grasp their meaning.
    Considering these factors—strong ties to national identity, the ease of comprehension and feasability—Option C stands out as the most fair, logical and respectful choice. Aficionado538 (talk) 02:52, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Adjust MOS:SIC

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    With regards to MOS:SIC:

    When applied to linked titles appearing between <ref>...</ref> tags, title parameters in citation templates, or similar text that is linked, the syntax of the template may be adjusted to {{sic|nolink=y}} (producing [sic] in the resulting linked text).

    {{Sic}} contains a {{COinS safe|n}} warning that it "should not be used in citation templates such as Citation Style 1 and Citation Style 2, because it includes markup that will pollute the COinS metadata they produce; see Wikipedia:COinS."

    Should the abovementioned MOS:SIC text not rather be changed to:

    When applied to text that is linked, the syntax of the template may be adjusted to {{sic|nolink=y}} (producing [sic] in the resulting linked text; for example in the link: [sic] template).

    waddie96 ★ (talk) 22:00, 17 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

    Sounds reasonable. Gawaon (talk) 09:00, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
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