Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout/Archive 9

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Simplify wording of WP:SEEALSO?

The wording in WP:SEEALSO is a bit verbose and convoluted. Perhaps it could be made clearer as follows (red text replaced with green text). Original text:

Contents: A bulleted list, preferably alphabetized, of internal links (wikilinks) to related Wikipedia articles. Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent, when the meaning of the term may not be generally known, or when the term is ambiguous. For example:

Related person – made a similar achievement on April 4, 2005

Ischemia – restriction in blood supply

A reasonable number of relevant links that would be in the body of a hypothetical perfect article are suitable to add to the "See also" appendix of a less developed one. Links already integrated into the body of the text are generally not repeated in a "See also" section, and navigation boxes at the bottom of articles may substitute for many links (see the bottom of Pathology for example). However, whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense. Indeed, a good article might not require a "See also" section at all. Thus, although some links may not naturally fit into the body of text they may be excluded from the "See also" section due to article size constraints. Links that would be included in the article were it not kept relatively short for other reasons may thus be appropriate, though should be used in moderation, as always. Links included in the "See also" section may be useful for readers seeking to read as much about a topic as possible, including subjects only peripherally related to the one in question. The "See also" section should not link to pages that do not exist (red links) or disambiguation pages. {{Portal}} and {{Wikipedia-Books}} links are usually placed in this section.

Proposed wording:

Contents: A bulleted list, preferably alphabetized, of internal links (wikilinks) to related Wikipedia articles. Editors should provide a brief annotation when a link's relevance is not immediately apparent, when the meaning of the term may not be generally known, or when the term is ambiguous. For example:

Related person – made a similar achievement on April 4, 2005

Ischemia – restriction in blood supply
The See Also section generally should not repeat links which appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes. The number of links in the See Also section should be limited to a reasonable quantity. Many good articles do not have a See Also section, because all relevant links are contained in the article body or in navigation boxes.
The links in the See Also section do not have to be directly related to the topic of the article, because one purpose of the See Also links is to enable readers to explore topics that are only peripherally relevant.
The "See also" section should not link to pages that do not exist (red links) or disambiguation pages. {{Portal}} and {{Wikipedia-Books}} links are usually placed in this section.

Thoughts? --Noleander (talk) 18:17, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

The new language is certainly clearer, but it is also more restrictive. Is that your intent? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:55, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

No, my intention was simply to clarify the existing guidance, not to change it. Can you point out the wording that looks more restrictive? I'll try to fix it (or you can just jump in and re-word it yourself). --Noleander (talk) 19:05, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

To give one example, "Links already integrated into the body of the text are generally not repeated in a "See also" section" has turned into "The See Also section should not repeat links which appear in the article's body". Your wording will (unfortunately, but predictably) be interpreted as "must never-ever-ever repeat links" rather than as a statement that we don't normally do this, but that sometimes we find it beneficial. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:23, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I changed it to ".. generally should not repeat ...". Is that okay? Any other inadvertent changes of meaning? --Noleander (talk) 19:38, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Accepting your invitation to edit your draft, I will do so in stages. Step one: create two paragraphs containing related content. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:35, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

[edit conflict]Seeing no more comments, I've put that proposed text into the guideline. Again, the purpose of the change is to clarify the wording, not to alter the guidance. If anyone sees a way to tweak the text, go right ahead, or revert, and continue the discussion here. --Noleander (talk) 13:38, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

@Butwhatdoiknow: No problem. I just put the text in the guideline, so you may want to edit it there ... or revert and do it here. Either way. --Noleander (talk) 13:39, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

I put Butwhatdoiknow's "split into 2 paragraph" improvement into the guideline. --Noleander (talk) 14:01, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

@ButWhat: When you split that paragr into two, was the intention that the first paragr contain "exclusions" and the second contain "inclusions"? If so, the sentence "the "See also" section should not link to pages that do not exist (red links) or disambiguation pages" should be moved from second paragraph, to first, true? --Noleander (talk) 15:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for assuming that I engage in rational thought. What I had in mind was that the first paragraph spoke to quantity (number of cites) and the second to quality (type of cites). Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:16, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, as long as there is some reason to the rhyme. --Noleander (talk) 19:30, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

@Nikkimaria: I see you re-inserted the sentence "A reasonable number of relevant links that would be in the body of a hypothetical perfect article are suitable to add to the "See also" appendix of a less developed one." I find that sentence hard to comprehend. Its intention may be good guidance, but could you supply (here) a plainer version of what it is trying to say? For example, say a novice editor were trying to decide whether to add a given link into a See Also section: is there a simpler phrasing for that sentence that the novice would be able to understand? --Noleander (talk) 22:41, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

I could try, but I'm not sure what you're having trouble with? Nikkimaria (talk) 22:46, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

The sentence seems very hard to understand, especially for novices that are most likely to be in need of guidance from the MOS. Specifically, the sentence is rather hard to parse; "less developed" doesn't mean much to a novice; how is "relevant" determined?; how would a novice know what a perfect article is? Is the novice expected to conjure up the perfect article, fully formed in their mind, before they can use this sentence as guidance? If you don't mind, could you try re-phrasing the sentence (what are its essential points of guidance?) into really simple wording that a novice could grasp? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 22:57, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

"The number of links in the See Also section should be relevant, limited to a reasonable quantity, and should reflect the links that would be present in an ideal article"? Given that your proposed rephrasing also contains "relevant" and "good article" (which I understand as something other than GA - correct?), I'm not sure what you're looking for in rephrasing those points. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:06, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Nikki: Thanks for that alternate phrasing - it is definitely better than the "...hypothetical perfect article..." wording. Could you elaborate more on the "... should reflect the links that would be present in an ideal article" part? Does that refer only to the body of the ideal article, or also to it's NavBoxes? How does the "ideal article" guidance differ from the "relevant" guidance (I can see how they might be interpreted to mean the same thing)? Does the "ideal article" guidance tell the reader that (1) if the link were in the ideal article, then it should be in the SeeAlso; or (2) if the link were not in the ideal article it should not be in the SeeAlso; or (3) both? (i.e. Necessary and sufficient condition). Thanks in advance for your replies. I'm not trying to be pedantic: I'm genuinely trying to improve the wording of WP:SEEALSO so it is more useful for novices. My intention is not to change the essence of WP:SEEALSO's guidance, but rather to clarify the wording. --Noleander (talk) 01:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Body, and 3. I don't know that the body vs navbox distinction would be clear to a novice, anyways. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:51, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, that makes sense. How about this for a wording to replace the "...hypothetical perfect article..." sentence: "The links in the See Also section should be relevant, should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic, and should be limited to a reasonable quantity." Does that sound okay? --Noleander (talk) 03:59, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and made that replacement. Feel free to revert, or change, if you think it can be improved. --Noleander (talk) 04:12, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

"Good article" != GA

@ButWhatDoIKnow: I removed the link from "good article" phrase to WP:GA. I think that text is trying to indicate high-quality articles in general, and not GA articles specifically. That "good article" wording has been in WP:SEEAlSO for a long time (see the red text above). I changed it to "excellent articles" just now so the GA confusion wouldn't happen again, but Im not sure "excellent article" is ideal. Maybe "high quality article"? "top quality article"? "good quality article"? "well written article"? --Noleander (talk) 01:25, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

My inclination would be "high-quality article", and I would note that well-written does not (necessarily) equate with comprehensive (a la WP:WIAFA), which I think would make more sense in this context. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:51, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Sounds good. I changed it from "excellent" to "high-quality, comprehensive". Feel free to change to "high quality" alone, if you feel that is better. --Noleander (talk) 04:09, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

It's all good to me. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:22, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Links to templates in See also sections

An article I watch has a link to a template in its See also section (specifically, Derbyshire#See_also ~~has~~ had a link to Template:Derbyshire Places of interest). This feels at best unorthodox, but linking to templates doesn't appear to be formally discouraged in WP:SEEALSO. Should it be? Dave.Dunford (talk) 15:28, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

If I ruled the world navboxes would appear in the See also section. Alas, that boat has sailed. So the practice of putting a navbox link in See also probably runs contrary to the spirit of wp:APPENDIX. The question then becomes whether to add an explicit proscription to Layout. My thought is that this practice is so infrequent that we don't need to add complexity to Layout to deal with it. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 14:28, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

Notes and references

I would like to state my very strong objection to using "Notes" for exclusively reference citations. While it may be commonly used in some sources, it's ambiguous. Our same MOS recommends against using "citations" and "sources" on those same grounds. When I'm looking for references in an article, I will be looking for "References" or "Citations." "Notes" I would automatically assume to be a section of explanatory footnotes. (Or endnotes, if we're going to be nitpicky about terminology.)

I don't know what would be good form to distinguish between mixed sections and explanatory footnote-only sections, but at the least we could avoid muddling things by including "notes" as an option for reference-only sections. For a long time (as recently as this revision) the MOS merely noted that it might be inappropriate in mixed sections, without suggesting also using it for notes. "References" being already the most commonly used name for such sections on Wikipedia, if we're going to change away from them for mixed sections, it makes sense to advise to make the change when it's a mixture of explanatory footnotes and citations, and against it when it's reference citations only. --Quintucket (talk) 13:48, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

The use of Notes is based on practice, that is, what editors are actually using. It is used at Help:Footnotes, Help:Shortened footnotes and elsewhere. I will check style guides later. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 15:32, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm sure there are sections that use "citations" and "sources" too, just as "references" is used for mixed references and endnotes. If we discourage those, I think that we ought to discourage the use of "notes" for citation-only references too. --Quintucket (talk) 16:36, 2 February 2012 (UTC)

Location of Media sections?

Several articles have Media sections, e.g. World War I. In that article, I've moved Media to a subsection of See also (since the links in it are to files on Wikipedia per se, rather than to any sister project), but is there a proper place to put it?—DocWatson42 (talk) 08:57, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

It would presumably fall under the image gallery rules. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:43, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Location of {{coord}} or {{coord missing}}

This is not specified at present, and while stub-sorting I usually add {{coord missing}} when appropriate and would like to know the best place for it. I raised the question at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Geographical_coordinates#Placement_of_.7B.7Bcoord_missing.7D.7D, and it was pointed out that The Anomebot2 puts the {{coord missing}} immediately above the categories and defaultsort, and that this was "just following the conventional lead of many editors".

So I would like to propose: that in "Order of sections" we add "Geographical coordinates" ~~after "Persondata" and~~ before "Defaultsort". I'm not sure whether it would be more useful to link it to MOS:COORDS for the MOS or to WP:GEO for the Project. PamD 09:36, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Putting proposal on pause: Have just consulted Anomebot to find out whether the bot puts it before or after PERSONDATA. The two will rarely co-occur, but presumably the bot is following a rule and, for want of other input, we might as well follow its established precedent. So I will return with a proposal which specifies whether before, or after, PERSONDATA. Anomebot does not have a view on this, as it will not assign {{coord missing}} to an article about a person. Fair enough. PamD 18:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Revised proposal after that consultation": So I would like to propose: that in "Order of sections" we add "Geographical coordinates" after "Navigation templates" and before "Persondata". There's a logic in having it following the navboxes, which are for display in the article, as the coords are also displayed in the article (albeit not at the point where the template appears), unlike the persondata and other later elements (except {{stub}}) which are not. I'm not sure whether it would be more useful to link it to MOS:COORDS for the MOS or to WP:GEO for the Project.

I'll add it if no-one objects in the next week or so. PamD 18:59, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

I have now made that change to Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout#Order_of_sections, as no-one has objected. PamD 09:32, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Noted. ^_^—DocWatson42 (talk) 07:41, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Etymology

Recently I've been adding the etymology of various words in the lead after the title (see this or this). Sometimes though, if the etymology requires detailed it is given a section of its own.

I'm wondering if etymology should always be mentioned later on, after the lead, or if its short enough can it be mentioned in the first sentence?VR _talk 06:24, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

I think this depends on the WikiProject and their guidelines for page layout... if they have it. – VisionHolder « talk » 20:05, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

Given that Wikipedia is not a dictionary, the etymology frequently should not be mentioned at all. Having said that, as a general rule of thumb, your "length-based" approach sounds okay to me. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:45, 25 February 2012 (UTC)

Editorial judgment in See also

The sentence "whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense" seems to add nothing of value. That sentence could be inserted into any section in any WP guideline: "whether [to do something] is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense". If there is some specific, concrete point that sentence is trying to make, then it should be made explicit; otherwise it should be deleted. --Noleander (talk) 15:57, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

WhatamI can, perhaps, give a more authoritative history on this. But my understanding is that See also had been the source of an unusual amount of wikilawyering. So the section now includes a specific reminder that its guidance is not rigid. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:10, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

There are hundreds of individual guidelines throughout WP that are subject to controversy, but they dont each contain a stern reminder to use common sense. Every WP guideline is "ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense". Was there some specific aspect of the See Also guideline that was the target of controversy? If so, what was the aspect? Perhaps we can come up with some wording that clarifies that particular aspect, if it exists. --Noleander (talk) 19:38, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

There is a conversation in the archives that explains this compromise wording. Like all things on WP it is subject to improvement. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Looks like it took place in early 2008: Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Layout/Archive_2#Proposed_change_to_.27See_also.27_guideline. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:42, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Schmucky: thanks for pointing me to the archives. I see four discussions there:

The most important one is the earliest, Feb 2008, when that sentence was first introduced. It looks like 3/4 of that discussion focused on the issue of repeating links in the See Also section (which were already in the body), but the discussion also touched on red links in the See Also, obvious/trivial links, and excessive quantity of links. A big part of the discussion was whether or not repeated links could be outlawed, or made discretionary. The latter prevailed, of course. It looks like the See Also guideline was in its infancy, and getting fleshed-out at that point. The See Also guideline has been enhanced since then to prohibit red links, and to make it clear that excessive linking is discouraged; and the guidance on repeating links is clearly discretionary. I think the sentence served a purpose 3 years ago, but is no longer useful. After reading the discussions, I would still recommend removing the sentence. --Noleander (talk) 21:47, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

As I re-read the 2008 archive, it appears that the sentence was created to address the question of determining the relevancy of a link. If so, its message could be useful, but its wording should be improved to something like "Determining whether a link belongs in the See Also section involves weighing several factors, including relevancy to the article, utility to the reader, risk of confusion, and the quantity of links in the section.". Does that sound like an improvement? --Noleander (talk) 22:22, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

In reply to a comment above, I'll be kind and say that rather than wikilawyering, we've had two problems. The more common problem has been slowly evolving standards, which resulted in different experienced editors believing that significantly different practices are normative. The other is a problem with people wanting very exact guidance, so that there was always a single, obvious One True™ answer about whether a given pages should be linked. This is similar to the occasional plaintive cries for "Can't you just tell me the name of every single reliable source, so I won't get it wrong?", and the fact is that it can't be done.

What to link depends not just on the points that Noleander suggests in the prior comment, but also on things like whether or not a well-developed navbox is included (you probably wouldn't want to repeat links that are in the navbox, although you might if it was an important related page and the navbox link was buried in the middle of a lot of collapsed navboxes) and the length of the article (you might want to repeat a link that was last seen four screenfuls ago in a very long article, but never one that is clearly visible immediately above in a two-sentence stub). WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:51, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Yes, the SeeAlso guideline shares that tension (desire for concreteness vs. the desire for flexibility) with many WP guidelines. Yet each guideline should avoid generic motherhood pronouncements ("use common sense") and instead tailor its guidance to its unique requirements. How about this for a replacement of the above sentence: "Determining whether a link belongs in the See Also section involves weighing several factors, including relevancy to the article, the quantity of See Also links, the size of the article, the presence of the link in the article's body or navigation boxes, utility to the reader, and risk of confusion." If we want to mention "proximity to the (other) link to the See Also section" we can, but that probably deserves its own sentence. --Noleander (talk) 13:32, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Proximity shouldn't matter. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

That's fine. I only mentioned proximity based on the above comment by WhatamIdoing where he said "you might want to repeat a link that was last seen four screenfuls ago in a very long article, but never one that is clearly visible immediately above in a two-sentence stub". For now, the proposal is simply to replace the generic "common sense" sentence with the "Determining whether ..." sentence which is tailored to SeeAlso. --Noleander (talk) 19:14, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Any more suggestions on how to improve the wording of the generic "common sense" sentence to tailor it to SeeAlso? --Noleander (talk) 01:19, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

Candidly, I believe that the generic motherhood-and-commonsense statement is preferable. It is impossible to produce a comprehensive list of specific considerations, and even when the considerations are known (length of the article, for example), they are often difficult to explain concisely. For example, I'm sure that Schmucky would agree with me that duplicating a link that is less than an inch away from the ==See also== section is silly, but that under certain limited circumstances, duplicating a particularly relevant link that was last seen four screenfuls ago might be desirable. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

The "use commonsense" dictum applies to every single of the hundreds of WP guidelines, but the most useful guidelines do not rely on such generalities. Consider, for example, WP:UNDERLINK and WP:OVERLINK: they are very similar to WP:SEEALSO in that a line must be drawn: not too much, not too little Yet those guidelines do not punt and say "just use common sense". No, they list very specific factors to consider, and yet they make it clear they are just suggestions, and exceptions can be made. That is the way a good guideline should read: the accumulated wisdom of the sages. Why should the SeeAlso guideline withhold those specific factors that veteran editors have identified as useful to determine whether a link belongs or not? --Noleander (talk) 04:06, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

IMHO duplication is OK

I apologize if I've jumped in without extensive studying of the "historical" background of this discussion. This is just my 0.02. I am concerned about being helpful to the reader.

In my opinion, a "See also" section can be helpful in "speeding up" browsing for a casual reader who may not be familiar with the subject, and/or who may not have spent much time reading "all" of (or a large "percentage" of) the article that contains the "See also" section.

I have been in this situation (maybe we should call it the "clueless newbie" situation) before; -- and the fact that an infobox (for example), or a template or "navigation" box of some kind, -- or maybe even a "See also" section! -- may contain the link[s] I am looking for, has sometimes saved me some time. When that happens, I am thankful, and it has given me a certain perspective (maybe the "clueless newbie" perspective?) on whether such "duplication" is OK.

Apparently it is already considered OK (allowable) for an infobox (for example), to offer the reader a given hyper-link (or cross-reference), even if that exact same hyper-link already exists somewhere else in the same article! Good! I have seen this many times, and -- (in my opinion) -- the "duplication" was not just OK, it was super OK. The duplication did not bother me. On the contrary, it may have saved me some time. It sometimes means that I do not have to read the entire article. Reading an entire article could be a waste of time -- (or, an inefficient use of time) -- if what I am really looking for is a hyper-link (or cross-reference) to some other article.

The hyper-link I am looking for (and delighted to find!) (quickly and easily) might be an "internal" link, that points to some article here on Wikipedia; or it might point to [say] a footnote, with perhaps a reference to an external web site, or an "ink-on-paper only" source, such as a book or magazine. It doesn't matter. In my opinion, helping the reader is what is important. I do not see a big advantage in "requiring" the reader to have to spend more time reading, because the hyper-link they are looking for only occurs one place -- or a small number of places! -- in the article. ...I mean, if we were short on disk space, or bandwidth, or something, that would be a different story. I don't think we are short on disk space, or bandwidth -- ...at least not so much that it should be a deciding factor in making a rule against allowing a long "See also" section -- even [a rule against] allowing a "See also" section that contains hyper-links or cross-references that also occur elsewhere in the same Wikipedia article.

I am more concerned about the drudgery (or, the "waste of time") involved, when a reader has to read all of (or, most of) some article, in order to find something, like, a cross-reference that was not duplicated -- or is not duplicated "very much" -- so that it only occurs one place -- or a small number of places! -- in the article.

In my opinion, that potential drudgery (or, "waste of time") could be significant, and it could justify duplicating cross-references, if such duplicating might save time for some readers.

I am NOT very concerned about the "waste of time" involved, if any, when a reader has to endure the possible 'inconvenience' of having to "skip over" a "See also" section -- (even a very long "See also" section!), -- if he or she does not "need" the "See also" section, or does not "like" to read "See also" sections, or something. In fact, that 'inconvenience' is so minor, that I would put it in the "chicken feed" category.

I noticed that, at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style/Layout#See_also_section it says, in part,

Whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense. The links in the "See also" section should be relevant, should reflect the links that would be present in a comprehensive article on the topic, and should be limited to a reasonable quantity. As a general rule the "See also" section should not repeat links which appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes. Thus, many high-quality, comprehensive articles do not have a "See also" section.

I think we should have less emphasis on having "rules" that sound good, or rules that are politically correct in some way, or rules that meet some other kind of goals other than practical and realistic goals. I think we should have more emphasis on choosing recommendations that will result in organizing an article in such a way that -- bottom line! -- we help the reader to save time, and to find the desired links quickly and easily. ...and if that means repeating links that may already appear elsewhere, then that would be OK with me.

Just my 0.02. (This sub-section [my comments today] might also be an example of some writing that is tiresome for a reader to [have to] "read all of" -- and/or an example of some writing that has a lot of duplication. Happy to be of service, in that regard! ["if applicable"] :-)

--Mike Schwartz (talk) 19:43, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

==Bibliography== vs. Bibliography

I've noticed a inconsistent use of sections ==Biliography== and Bibliography.

If you look at this article, "Bibliography" is used as a extended data-section for the footnotes, so that the page is shorter (the footnote system employed shortens the article and aids in navigation and reading). Should we use Bibliography sections this way?Curb Chain (talk) 00:21, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

There's very little uniformity on how references are done. I've seen many styles. So long as the article picks one that's reasonable and sticks to it, it's fine. I've started to see the style shown in your link more frequently recently. I like it. It's really beneficial when you want to reference the same books over and over. I sort of dislike the page number after the ref number style. I've thought quite a bit about how referencing "should be done". There's really no obvious solution. One of my pet peeves recently has been the word "bibliography" itself. Sometimes people use it for references, sometimes for list of works by the person the article is about. That can be confusing. Anyway, there's not set way to handle this. Don't know if there ever will be. Jason Quinn (talk) 03:57, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The layout there is fine, although most editors choose other section headings, so that they don't have to use the potentially confusing word bibliography at all. ==Notes== (or ==Footnotes==) and ==References== is a typical combination. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:14, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

The reference style is Shortened footnotes. ---— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk 08:22, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

@Jason Quinn: I use ==Works== or "Works" or Works (if I have to) for works by the article (the subject of an article, say, if it is a biography). Could you describe what you mean by "I sort of dislike the page number after the ref number style."?Curb Chain (talk) 09:38, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

There is advice on these section names (including why Bibliography isn't the best choice) at MOS:APPENDIX, under the headings "Works or Publications" and "Notes and References"; see also link in this footnote.

I believe that "page number after the ref number" refers to markup like

Some fact.<ref name="SomeRefP12" />{{rp|34}}

which generates text like

Some fact.^[1]^: 34

see {{rp}}. The problem as I see it is that you read the text, then click on the footnote link to see which book it's in, then you have to go back up to see what the page number is. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:34, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

@Curb chain: I meant the style that Red Rose illustrated using the "rp" tag. The first time I encountered that style referencing, I had no idea what it was. I thought it was some sort of markup error in the ref tag that ended up screwing up the footnote. The style is just confusing. Sure, after you realize that the "extra junk" are pages numbers, it's obvious, but I think most of our readers will not make the connection. The style is also aesthetically displeasing in addition to the practical problems it presents that Rose pointed out. Lastly, I totally agree that using "Works" is usually better than "Bibliography". Now if only a million other editors would see the light. :-) Jason Quinn (talk) 18:04, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Section templates and summary style

This kind of interfaces two or three guidelines but I think it's best placed here. Where a section summarises not another article but a work on a sister project - particularly Wikisource in regards to my interest but also Wiktionary (for an etymology section), and probably Wikibooks (similar to wikisource where the section summarises the book content). Is it reasonable to use a sister-inline template at the start of the section as one would usually use the Main template? For instance the article The Cats of Ulthar currently reads:

== Synopsis ==

An unnamed narrator...
...
== References ==

{{Reflist}}
{{wikisource}}

Would it be reasonable to replace this with


== Plot ==

{{wikisource-inline|single=true}} 
An unnamed narrator...

...
== References ==

{{Reflist}}

giving " The full text of The Cats of Ulthar at Wikisource " below the section heading. Currently our sister projects guidance only suggests putting the sister link in the last section or "External links" section if there is no better location to put it. The MOS here suggests that Wiktionary and Wikisource may also be linked inline (e.g., to the text of a document being discussed or to a word that might not be familiar to all readers) which appears to apply here even if the whole article is about that document , word (or indeed as I'm suggesting adding- book). I don't think it draws much more attention to itself than the {{Main}} template and looks a lot better in some articles which currently have the graphic box at the bottom. The wording of the template can be tweaked (though it needs an admin to alter the protected template) to improve it as is seen fit.Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 18:18, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Suggested Wording

4 days and no comments on the above, so I will proceed to propose changes to the wording of the guideline.

In section Section templates and summary style below "You can use the {{Main}} template to generate a Main article; link." a paragraph reading "If the section summarises a public domain work on Wikibooks, or Wikisource, or if the section summarises a definition on Wiktionary; a link to that article should appear immediately under the section heading. The appropriate in-line sister template ({{wikibooks-inline}}, {{wikisource-inline|single=true}}, {{wiktionary-inline}}) can be used to generate this link."
In Section External links "(except Wiktionary and Wikisource)" should be replaced with "(except Wiktionary, Wikibooks and Wikisource)"
In Section External links "Wiktionary and Wikisource links may appear in this section, but they may also be linked inline (e.g., to the text of a document being discussed or to a word that might not be familiar to all readers)." should be replaced with "Wiktionary, Wikibooks and Wikisource links may appear in this section, but they may also be linked inline (e.g., to the text of a document or book being discussed, or to a word that might not be familiar to all readers), they may also appear at the start of a section summarising the content of that document, book or summarising the etymology of an article name."

Editors who support this proposal

As Proposer. Stuart.Jamieson (talk) 19:15, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Editors who don't
Comments

Navbox shells

Is there a rule, or a rule of thumb, for when it is appropriate to put end of article navboxes within a navbox? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:56, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I'll interpret the silence to be a "no." Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:18, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Hatnote vs. See also

If the hatnote directs a reader to a disambiguation page, I'd like to suggest that, in most cases, the links contained on that disambiguation page should be unnecessary in the "See also" section of the original article. I.e. cluttering up the "See also" section with topics accessed from the hatnote's disambiguation page should be discouraged. This will help keep the "See also" section to a reasonable length. Regards, RJH (talk) 03:39, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

The two have very different functions. The hatnote is for "You are looking for title X; this article is not the one you want, but this dab page will help you find it." See also is: "Your understanding of this topic will be enhanced if you also look at these articles." There may be some overlap in content, but I wouldn't consider valid SA links to be "clutter" just because they are included in a dab page. PamD 07:26, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

If this were all that the "See also" section were used for, then I would agree with you. But it is not, and I do not see that spelled out in this document. Instead the "See also" section becomes a repository of any topic that a contributor thinks is even remotely connected to the article title. I'll give an example: the Life article has a link to Quality of life in the See also section. The "Quality of life" is a sociological topic, whereas the "Life" article is biological. Unless I'm mistaken, the former does not provide any enhancement to the reader's understanding of the latter. Regards, RJH (talk) 22:10, 9 June 2012 (UTC)

RJ, your goal of keeping See also links to a minimum is laudable. However, would someone looking at the See also section think "I'd better check for a hatnote to a disambiguation page because, if there is a disambiguation page, I might find be able to ferret out one or more related articles amongst the unrelated articles found there." And, if even if that happened, do we really want to make it that difficult for readers to find related articles? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:12, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Proposal for navbox link in See also section

Problem: If you are reading this now then you are an experienced editor who knows you can find helpful naxboxes at the end of articles. However, casual readers do not share your level of expertise and may never even think to check the end of an article for Easter eggs. The recent trend toward putting multiple navboxes within a shell (see Andrew Luck#External links for an example) makes it even more likely that an unsophisticated reader will miss navbox information altogether.

Proposed solution: Insert a sidebox in the See also section directing readers to navbox information (and providing a link). SeeUser:Butwhatdoiknow/Sandbox1 for an example. (Thanks to Whatamidoing for this idea.)

Question: Is this approach allowed under the wp:Layout guideline? Note: The question is NOT whether the approach should be required (or even encouraged), just whether it is allowed. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:22, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

Anybody? Anybody? Bueller? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:19, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

O.k., so I'm hearing: "Well, of course this approach is allowed. What a stupid question. I won't even waste my time answering it." Contra Wikipedia:Silence means nothing. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:35, 6 May 2012 (UTC)

Be bold and do it a few times and see what happens. I suggest medium profile articles. As we previously discussed I neither support or oppose these, but I'm not convinced they are necessary. So don't take this as an endorsement of the idea, but as advice on process on creating new practices. SchmuckyTheCat (talk)

Give it a shot and see if others endorse or object. Just don't keep doing it if too many disagree. oknazevad (talk) 19:30, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I think we need a bigger talk before this is added to thousands of articles. The link does not work in the intended manner for all. I simply get the bottom of a page (beyond the navboxes and only see that cats). We would need this to work properly before spamming all over.Moxy (talk) 01:26, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. I was adding to pages to get feedback. Now that you have identified a problem I hope you will help be part of the solution. I'll continue this conversation at Template talk:Navbox link. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:34, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

I see - sorry if I sounded rude. I actually like the idea as I have made many navboxes and would love all to see them. Could this be a resolution problem? That is not all have th same screen size thus the link fails some ediotrs because of resolution?Moxy (talk) 01:39, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

No problem. I've responded to this issue at Template talk:Navbox link. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:54, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to butt in, I have found them via another talk page, and I have tried a couple out on my user page to the NavBoxes at the bottom of the page. dolfrog (talk) 14:09, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, now that a hundred odd articles have been messed up by this, you have met objection. There is no consensus for this, it is not mentioned in SEEALSO and deployment of this should stop until a consensus is reached. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 18:44, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Per BR's suggestion, the substantive aspect of this discussion is continued at Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates#views on boxes in "See also" that link to navboxes?. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 22:34, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

the real problem is editors being unwilling to accept that they do not have all the answers, and that they do not know it all, and can not include all the related information in a readable article. So the so called FA and GA articles gain an ego all of their own which goes against future developments and research, so as top please the uniformed why review their article. Pure self indulgence of the egos of the editors who maintain these supposedly highly rated articles, who use consensus as a tool to get their own way, and prevent experimentation of new ideas and concepts they do not want to use or understand. dolfrog (talk) 19:31, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

For the record, while I understand dolfrog's frustration, I do not join in his comments. Let's all remember to wp:assume good faith.Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 21:04, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Whatever most of that means… Anysways, I understand what this is; it's poor user interface design and a solution in search of a problem. Nav box are well understood and the practise of collapsing them is a poor solution to the problem of too many poorly conceived navboxes. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 21:04, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

From my perspective as someone who has a communication disability which is still part of on going research as to its neurological origins; I read an article and check to citations as I go, so when I get to the end of the article I am looking for more, or alternative sources of information which can either be included in "See also" section or a navbox or both. So articles that do not have a "See also" section due to some humbug principle are not being very encyclopedic. with regard to the above, I have also come across many other editors who using the so called consensus option as a form of disability discrimination against my communication disability, rather than helping me to edit they use consensus to block and prevent editing. dolfrog (talk) 21:40, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I've a long history of supporting WP:ACCESS on this project. That said, I'm not seeing this as an accessibility issue. And I'm not arguing against "See also" section, just against littering them with clunky boxes that mess up the page layout and unwarranted intra-page links and anchors. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 22:22, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Problem: linking when there is no See also section

Have you come up with a solution for our featured articles? As FA and GA article reviews actually imply best not to have a see also section and thus gaining acceptance in most new FA and GA articles.Moxy (talk) 00:57, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

The quick answer is "no." WP:NAVHEAD would do it but the FA people have rejected that idea as "new." Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:48, 15 June 2012 (UTC)

{{Navbox link}} proposed for deletion

Here is the link if you want to weigh in. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:20, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

External links navbox alone

The theme is parallel to #See also shortcuts alone but this pertains to other recent discussion too. So it's a new section.

The God Beneath the Sea#References (footer) includes a navbox without any external links or "External links" section. Previously I have introduced that section for Template: Authority control alone, but the authorities template does provide external links which the navbox does not. So I give it to you all for comment here instead.

P.S. Having made the point, let me note that The God probably should have an External links section with a genuine external link (how can so long an article have none!? that never happens for books or writers). Perhaps one of those we provide for the book's illustrator Charles Keeping#External links. Would it make a difference if "The Keeping Gallery" provided access to one of the illustrations in this book? We might then provide "The Keeping Gallery" —with illustrations from The God Beneath the Sea". --P64 (talk) 23:46, 19 July 2012 (UTC)

Until about two years ago, there was a clear division between appendices and footers: appendices were named sections, whereas footers did not have section headings but were the stuff that went after the last named section. Although the division has been removed from MOS:LAYOUT, the concept remains that all of these are optional, and that the ones with recognised headings (e.g. References, External links) come before those that do not (e.g. navboxes). The succession box in The God Beneath the Sea#References is covered by item 6 in WP:FOOTERS, so it's one of the standard footers which go after the standard appendices. It's therefore not intended to be "part of" an External links section, but to follow on from whichever section comes last - in this case it's References.

In summary: there's nothing in The God Beneath the Sea#References that goes against WP:FOOTERS either as it currently stands (2 See also; 3 Notes and/or References; 6 Navigation templates; 9 Defaultsort; 10 Categories), or as it stood in June 2010 (appendices 2 See also; 3 Notes and/or References; footers 1 Navigation templates; 2 Categories). --Redrose64 (talk) 12:36, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

I think the point is that the rule leads to an absurd result. So, perhaps, we should consider changing the rule. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:54, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

For what it's worth, I have determined to add section External links containing {{worldcat}} for every book article where I find oclc number for a first edition, and some others. Among CILIP children's book award winners such as The God there have been many without any External links --to my surprise, but I've learned it's film adaptations that generate EL for books. --P64 (talk) 23:41, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

Butwhatdoiknow, I don't understand your reply. There is no absurd result in the example given, and I don't know what rule you want to change. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:26, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

When to introduce sectioning

I think we should add a statement about when to use the lead/body sectioning style. Most short (stub to start) articles don't really need sectioning of the prose as this merely disrupts flow. I have seen numerous cases where three-paragraph articles have been divided up needlessly, with articles like Alejandra García being an extreme case. In my opinion, the prose of articles like Dracula fish or Orlando Ortega hang better together in one prose section, rather than multiple ones. At the moment the manual doesn't make it explicit that body sections are not compulsory. SFB 11:10, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

The main point shouldn't be "When" during progress from Stub to the heights. Let me state the more important point first.

Some articles, perhaps like Dracula fish or Orlando Ortega, may not benefit from sectioning even when they are polished, not to mention adequate. (Grades vary a lot, presumably across wikiprojects but also because we generally lack time to keep up. I doubt there is any benefit from using "Start" to cover articles so adequate as these two seem to be.)
How should MOS here and elsewhere distinguish what guidelines are considered important in Starts? important even in Stubs?

P.S. Regarding Alejandra García: do we have a robot that periodically checks for template {{spanish name 2}}, among others, and ensures that they precede (as hatnotes) article contents such as {Medal table}, {infobox}, and Image? If {Medal table} frequently has too-high placement, it will be good to alert WP Olympics before this year's Games. --P64 (talk) 17:04, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I used stub/start here to frame the idea of what is short, not an absolute. Obviously we could just say "up to four or five paragraphs" for clarification instead. If the manual of style is only meant for long articles then it is deficient, seeing as most of our articles are actually short ones.

Regarding the Spanish names: I don't think that error is very common, but it appears to be another unusual facet of CroesJ's editing (which also includes whitespace, forced TOCs, excessive sectioning and incorrect links to Track and field athletics). I've mentioned this to him but it hasn't seemed to make a difference so far. Otherwise, his editing is good so it's just a bit of clean up to be done. SFB 09:22, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good idea. Sometimes it's clunky, but a single sentence in a section might encourage someone to expand the section in a way that an unsectioned article won't.

Also, some editors have said that visually breaking things up makes it easier for them to read. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Sometimes it can be overdone. Here is an article I wrote a couple of years back. Here is how it now looks with several extra section headers. I don't think they are all necessary; "Death", for example, can't really be expanded much unless we find out how he died. --Redrose64 (talk) 13:59, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Duplicative see also links

I agree wholeheartedly with the general statement that see-also links should not duplicate text links. I also agree that keeping "See also" sections trim is a laudable goal. However, the MOS does say Whether a link belongs in the "See also" section is ultimately a matter of editorial judgment and common sense. It seems to me that there are common sense exceptions to this general rule that would include: (1) where the text reference is in a piped link and is non-obvious and (2) in a longer article where the text link is in a highly technical section, but the linked article is more generally of potential interest to readers. --Bejnar (talk) 17:27, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

"Sources" as section title, depreciate "References"

The MOS currently says "Sources" may be used but may be confused with source code in computer-related articles. I do not find this to be either particularly true, nor a reason to be wary of using "Sources" as section title. I did not find articles using "sources" to mean "source code". "References" is, by far, more ambiguous, and should, in my opinion, be depreciated. ----Bejnar (talk) 18:03, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

No, this is just WP:CREEPy. Also, please check the meaning of the verbs "depreciate" and "deprecate". --Redrose64 (talk) 19:32, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

Actually given less value, rather than avoided entirely. --Bejnar (talk) 16:41, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I think it is helpful to include the list of reasons why some "obvious" options are underused. ==Sources== is confusing in several contexts, not just software code. It could mean "where can I buy this product", "what is the start of this river", "what is the source of this pollution", "who told the reporter that", "what documents was this based on" (e.g., WP:TRIFECTA is the source of WP:5P), and so forth. There are many articles for which ==Sources== would be a confusing item to encounter in the table of contents. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:03, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

While I'm thinking about it, the ever-popular ==Notes== could be confusing if the subject is Stationery. Is that "list of citations to reliable sources" or is that "a size of paper smaller than letter, but bigger than a calling card"? I agree with Bejnar that ==References== is ambiguous in some contexts, e.g., as "references to this subject in popular culture". But for better or worse, that's (by far) the most common choice of the community. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:28, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Isn't "References" silly as a heading for coverage of references in popular culture or references to real-world geography?

Beside the main point, I dislike "References in popular culture" or "References to real-world geography". Where popular culture and real-world geography make sense at all, "Popular culture" and "Real-world geography" are commendable section headings.

I wonder which senses of "Source(s)" are good choices as section headings. Never writing about software, I suppose I would use it only when covering the sources of information used by the subject of the article, likely to be a writer or book. "Origin(s)" or "Genesis" is better where I most commonly see "Source(s)" or "Background": as the name of section 1 in some book or fiction article (She was inspired to write this story by the death of a pet dog). I use "Origin(s)" frequently. --P64 (talk) 17:47, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Portal templates

Is there guidance on where to put the portal templates if there is no "see also" section. I generally place them in the "external links" section but they could go below the nav bars. They do not fit really in the references section.Doc James (talk · contribs · email) (if I write on your talk page please reply on mine) 16:11, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Some infoboxes add a portal link (see, for example, London Paddington station which has two portal links at the bottom of the infobox). If the infobox does not offer this feature, I would personally put the portal box under External links. There was a recent discussion (see #See also shortcuts alone) on this topic, but it was inconclusive. --Redrose64 (talk) 19:42, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Move See also to after External links

At present, if WP:FOOTERS is followed rigidly, the only visible content after the navboxes will be stub templates (plus the persondata if you have the relevant cusomisation set up, see WP:PDATA), because the categories and interlanguage links are moved into separate boxes not because of their positioning in the wikicode, but by features built into the MediaWiki software. Since navboxes constructed using {{navbox}} are always full-width, there is a psychological effect that they "draw a line" marking the end of the article; there is No More To See Here, Folks: Move Along Now. Essentially, what happens after the navboxes is stuff that's been swept aside, thus, if navboxes are moved up to "See also", this will downgrade the references. People won't take refs seriously, and won't bother adding them.
If we must move navboxes to "See also", let's do it by moving "See also" to after the external links. --Redrose64 (talk) 11:44, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

Why has my posting from 11:44 been duplicated above? --Redrose64 (talk) 15:12, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

It appeared to me that your posting had two separate subjects: First, the concept of allowing a single navbox in See Also. Second, the concept of moving See also to after External links. So I started a separate section for the second subject and, not wanting to change or split your text, duplicated it in the new section. I hope that was o.k. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:48, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

That makes a lot of sense, and I'd support it as a standardized-option. (Clustering all the "topic-Related" bits (Seealso/Categories/Navboxes/Sistertemplates) into the same location at the Page End, separated from the "topic-Specific" material above.)

There might be a concern that it moves the ExternalLinks section deeper into the article, but that is partially counter-balanced by the effect of moving the externallinks away from the very prominent "Page End". It's reasonable to predict that there might even be less of a spam problem, at least in some cases, as the list of links won't be dangling at the end there, looking all plainlist and editable. "Page End" is prime mental-real-estate in long articles.

This would also potentially allow more navboxes to be Uncollapsed/expanded by default, because we can more solidly assume that a reader at Page End is looking for topic-Related materials. (not seeking to leave the site, which having the ELs down there encourages). -- Quiddity (talk) 02:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I tried it at South Side, Chicago, and it seemed to work quite well, but TonyTheTiger reverted it. (Presumably based on the current-standard) So once again there are 2 sidebar templates above the Refs, and 2 navbars+categories below the refs. -- Quiddity (talk) 00:27, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

If you all will forgive sort of a drop-in, not thoroughly resolved or necessarily exactly to your all's point:

I'm fresh off being reversed here when I'd done what I regularly have done (ignorant of this policy) which has been to move See alsos below References.

My rationale has been that a reader of the article will refer "down" to the references and the See alsos just obstruct that "good" process. The See alsos are usually (or really should be, in my opinion) integrated into the text somehow anyway. I've recently mastered the "click" correspondence between the footnote number in the text (now improved even more with the balloon of the reference with "hover cursor") and the carat (sp? the "^") at the footnote to return to the body (undereffective only when there are multiple (lettered) references for one source/footnote). I've almost talked myself out of my preference of References over See alsos but I still think my gut feel over lots of edits and lots of articles is right, that Ref's ought to supersede (go above). If you decide to drop further the See alsos (below Ext. links) I'd of course be fine with that too. To me they're both sort of "cheater" sections; not to say I don't cheat once in a while but ....

For what it's worth to your deliberations. Thanks. Swliv (talk) 14:01, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Personal belief is that the "See also" section should remain above external links, references, notes, bibliographies and all other external information . The "See also" section in most cases indicates to our readers that beyond the section they will most likely be encountering external links and information that is not affiliated with Wikipedia. All section related to internal navigation should been seen first, thus external links, notes, refs would be the last section(s). This format is what I believe most experience with our articles. Not that we are trying to trap our readers here within the encyclopedia, but our info should be linked well before any external section that lead readers to info beyond what is offered here. Like most web pages info beyond what is available at a site is linked at the end of internal information. i.e Multiculturalism in Canada beyond the "See also" section is noting but extremal links - all the linked information is great for our readers, however should be secondary to our articles. 17:14, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

I support keeping ==External links== last.

Navboxes and ==See also== aren't quite the same thing. Navboxes serve much the same function as categories. (Some have identical content, in fact.) ==See also== is a more specific, human-judgement section for related articles. So it makes sense to me that the navbox and the cats would be together, and that they would usually be separate from ==See also==. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:28, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

What WhatamIdoing said. Note that although I suggested moving the "See also" down, this was intended to be a compromise, a concession to those who wish the navboxes to be adjacent to the See also links. My italics in "If we must move navboxes" were intended to be read as "I don't want to do this, but if others insist, then how about..." --Redrose64 (talk) 18:51, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Oppose — remember that there is a rational to the APPENDIX matter: the more likely links are to take users away from Wikipedia, the further down they go. That's why the main order is "See also", "References", "External links". Of course the nav boxes violate this but that is because of their "footer"-like style. The question is if the semantic similarity between the "See also" section and the nav boxes is important enough to A) override the status quo and change millions of pages and B) break the rational for the layout. I think the answer is no. Jason Quinn (talk) 23:52, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Quick clarification: The proposal was just to make it an "optional alternative" in cases where it seems sensible (Like the South Side example I tried above). There was no intent from anyone to try to change the default, nor to implement it system-wide. It boils down to Flexibility vs Rigidity in layout guidelines (and both have their pros/cons). -- Quiddity (talk) 23:55, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Discussion on parent page

There is a discussion about white space and the use of hidden-comments to introduce them at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Discussion (date: 22:33, 12 August 2012 (UTC)).Curb Chain (talk) 22:35, 12 August 2012 (UTC)

Footnotes versus notes

There's been discussion at MoS central concerning the undesirability of the term footnotes. I suggest that notes be used consistently on this page, which would require a little cleaning up. Tony (talk) 00:52, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

I personally prefer "notes", except when referring to parenthetical remarks, in which case I prefer "footnotes". Where both exist in the same article, I use the section title "Notes", with the subsections "Footnotes" and "Citations" for clarity.—DocWatson42 (talk) 04:12, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

This page used to take more of a "here's what editors actually used when we surveyed a random sample of articles" approach, and less of a "here's what one editor says you ought to do" approach. Perhaps we should go back to the old approach. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:28, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

What do you mean by that? Tony (talk) 06:28, 26 June 2012 (UTC)

I mean that a couple of years ago, we manually counted the section headings in a random sample of 2,000 articles and determined which section headings were used most frequently. Then we listed that information on this page, explicitly saying that these were the typical choices made, in descending order of frequency.

But a couple of months ago, someone re-wrote this to exclude that information and instead to say that if you're using this name, you ought to put this content under it, and if you're using that name, then you ought to put that content under it, and so forth. I'm not at all convinced that the new approach is an improvement. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:19, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree that the page currently may be viewed as being unduly prescriptive. Personally, I prefer using the section heading "Notes" for the Reflist template. This is true whether the notes are explanatory, expansive, merely citations or a combination of purposes. The problem with attempting to separate citations from other notes is that occasionally citations require a wee tad of explanation to be effectively utilized by the reader, which explication generally precedes the actual citation in the note field. Similarly, some explicative notes have attached citations. On a related, but distinct, linguistic issue, some people regard citations placed at the end of an article as "notes" ("end notes") and those at the bottom of the page as "footnotes" making the distinction between the two one of placement and not content. Others, like apparently DocWatson42 make a distinction between "notes" and mere citations based upon content. Since we cannot change the way people in mass use English, if we need a distinction, then it should be made using unambiguous terms. I am not certain that a distinction here is possible, much less highly productive. --Bejnar (talk) 17:52, 24 July 2012 (UTC)

I also agree with WhatAmIDoing that the survey was the right idea. Note that Wikipedia is supposed to operate by consensus, and that the choices made by thousands of editors represents the current consensus. Nothing we say here can outweigh the consensus that is being made right now out in the article space. ---- CharlesGillingham (talk) 18:02, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

And since anything that differs from Layout will be reverted for that reason, "current" consensus will never ever change. That doesn't seem right somehow. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:26, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

I don't think that's true, but what's wrong with a lack of change? Change is not a moral good. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

I'll grant you that, all things being equal, the status quo should prevail. Will you grant me that, when all things are not equal, the status quo should not stand in the way of change? As Jimbo Wales put it, Wikipedia is "a permanent work in progress"? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:56, 21 August 2012 (UTC)

Related comment on how I do things...I always have a problem when I see citations is a section titled notes instead of references or citations (not that I change them). I think that notes, references, bibliography and further reading sections to most are different things. Yes here on wiki, notes/footnotes and references/ citations seem to be interchangeable (as in the real world), however in lengthy complex articles notes are used for more text on the topic that is not needed in the article main space - where sources that simply shows info on a citation are references and should be in a section so titled. Or ref section will be full of harvard style citations that link to the Bibliography section. Further reading is reserved for books, papers etc.. that are not used in the article.. e.g Canadians.22:47, 22 August 2012 (UTC)

Image gallery position

Any input from editors on the placement of image galleries? I've run into a situation at Ozoroa paniculosa where an editor prefers to use {{multiple image}}, forcing the images to be large and places them below the References section. I transferred them to a gallery an put them just below the text. That was apparently objectionable to the editor in question simply because the Manual of Style is silent on the topic where images should be placed. Any guidance? It's my understanding that the layout is pretty clear in only external links or further reading following references. Why would you want to divorce the images from the text that accompanies them? Seems like WP:COMMONSENSE to me, which is probably why the MoS never felt it necessary to say something about it... Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 12:06, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

The MOS isn't silent - see MOS:IMAGES, third and eighth bullets ("Each image should be inside the major section to which it relates"; "The use of galleries should be in keeping with Wikipedia's image use policy"). --Redrose64 (talk) 12:30, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Missed bullet #3 somehow. Rkitko ^(talk) 14:09, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, the editor is insisting placing the gallery below references does not violate any section of MOS:IMAGES of WP:LAYOUT and has been placing galleries (WP:IG) below the references in several articles: [1], [2], [3]. A discussion at Talk:Ozoroa paniculosa has not progressed. Could someone other than me clue him in to the relevant guidelines? We've never seen eye-to-eye and it is possible some of the digging-in-of-heels with regard to the layout and image style is in response to the messenger, not the message. Rkitko ^(talk) 13:35, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that you get a 3rd opinion. LittleBen (talk) 11:31, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

'See Also'

'As a general rule the "See also" section should not repeat links which appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes.'

Just wanted to get a bit of a community take on this - what are the exceptions to this rule? It's worded pretty solidly (to the extent that I though it might be bot-able...) Fayedizard (talk) 11:16, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

The exceptions are when "editorial judgment and common sense" lead the authors of an article to deviate. In short, it is most certainly not bot-able. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:00, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response - although I was looking for a bit more detail... do we have any examples that we could put in? Fayedizard (talk) 19:36, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I second Butwhatdoiknow's response. There's navigational value to having certain items in the "See also" section even if the term is already linked in the article. People can and do use "See also" to find articles. If you are looking for Y but can only remember the name of related X, people go to the article for X and go straight to the "See also" to find Y. Under strict adherence to this rule, you'd have to wade through a ton of text looking for link that may or may not exist in a spot that may or may not be expected. That'd be terrible. I'm puzzled why you would even consider taking that rule so literally because I would have guessed most editors would have noticed this in their own usage of the encyclopedia. And then there's the matter of stability. An entry in the "See also" section means it's somehow important. There's no such indication about a link in the text itself. Articles are in constant flux. If your proposed bot removes a "See also" entry because it's linked in the text, and then some editor tweaks that text so that the link is removed altogether, we've now lost an important link that may not be re-added for quite some time. The phrasing of the "rule" is something that has always bothered me in WP:SEEALSO. I'd prefer something weaker like, "Editors should consider not repeating links which appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes." Jason Quinn (talk) 20:06, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

Okay, first of all let me restate a couple of aspects of my post - first of all that I, from an initial read of the MOS had got an impression of the rule to the extend that I suggested a bot, until the guy at the bot noticeboard corrected me. The reason I came here was to get some guidance from you guys on what sort of exceptions there are in practice, and maybe even see if we can reword to make sure that people don't get the same impression as I did. Does that make things a little clearer? Also - if we were to suggest the change of the current text to the one that Jason proposed - what would the process be to get that implemented? Fayedizard (talk) 21:23, 29 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Jason Quinn. Also, the prohibition does not work for long complex articles because people only look at the sections they are concerned with and will miss links that appear in other sections that they have skipped over. The goal here is not to save space but to help readers, and thus a little duplication is beneficial. Rjensen (talk) 03:48, 30 August 2012 (UTC)

This is at least the second round of this recently. I should just write up an essay.

Ideally, you don't repeat any links. Actually, ideally, you have no need for a ==See also== section, because everything related to the subject is brilliantly and neatly connected and explained in the article itself, and the reader doesn't want to read anything else because he (or she) is so entranced by your jewel-like, self-contained article.

Back here in reality, you don't duplicate links that are easy to find in the article, included in a navbox, or tangential. But you may choose to repeat links that are difficult to spot (buried in an eye-glazingly technical section, hidden under a pipe) or far away (last seen several screens ago).

It also depends on the relationship between the articles. A really important link deserves a {{Further}} or {{Main}} link. Treatment of cancer deserves a Main link, not a mere ==See also== in the article Cancer. An unimportant link (e.g., one of hundreds of cancer treatments) shouldn't be linked anywhere except in regular article text (if it's even worth mentioning there). An in-between link might be worth duplicating under ==See also==: important enough to give the reader a second chance at finding it, but not important enough to highlight it as a Main article.

(This is all in addition to links that might interest the reader, but you can't figure out how to include them directly in the article.

It's really not bot-able, although some related aspects of overlinking (Main + See also, more than three links to the same page) might be. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:47, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Swapping order of categories and stub templates

Hi, I never read this page so I was astonished to see that the convention is to put stub templates *after* categories, even though they are shown the other way around. In my opinion this does not make any sense. Since it seems to be merely historical without any real reason, I propose to change the standard order to correspond with the actual display. In a lot of pages this seems to be already the case anyway. Regards, SPQRobin (talk) 21:14, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

No, please don't without discussion. This has been proposed (and rejected) before. One of the reasons is that every stub template generates a stub category, and those stub categories appear after the "main" categories. Another is that certain bots and scripts are set up to expect the cats, stubs and ILLs to appear in that order, and will reposition them if they don't. Therefore, any manual attempt to change the order is doomed unless the bots and scripts are also altered. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:38, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, I wrote here exactly to start a discussion about this. And if the order is changed, that would indeed mean that bots and scripts need to adapt to that. However, the category order reason you give is a valid one. Maybe it makes sense to make those hidden categories? But that would not be a discussion for here... (and thanks to User:Butwhatdoiknow for putting Redrose64's explanation on the page) SPQRobin (talk) 01:12, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

Is having stub categories before the main categories such a bad thing? I prefer after because it's better to have content before meta-content but I could live with it the other way without much pain. The logistic concern over bots is an important point which demands much debate before any change. But ultimately the arguments supporting whatever is the best, most logical ideas for the encyclopedia should outweigh arguments based on the current behavior of bots. That's for long term benefit. In this case, it's not clear to me what the best idea is. I currently lean towards keeping the status quo but I'm not married to it.

Recently I've been contemplating a much more radical idea: what if stub templates were eliminated altogether? One issue I have is that it's often unclear to editors when to remove them. It is very common to come across articles that are way past stub status and still have a stub template. Conversely, there are also many many articles that are unlikely to ever get past stub status so the templates just linger providing clutter. Speaking of clutter, spoiler tags were removed because it was "generally expected that the subjects of Wikipedia articles will be covered in detail". Isn't a template reminding us that we can expand an article equally useless when it is always true that we can help expand an article? Sure, a case could be made that the templates encourage new editors to start editing but stub templates have always been sold as helping organize articles, not as an "editor engagement" method. Even if the "editor engagement" benefit of footers is worthwhile, it could easily be done sans all the categorical baggage that stub templates entail. For example, simply putting "You can help Wikipedia by expanding this article" at the bottom of every article does the same trick. I believe that the benefits (which seems to just be allowing editors interested in a topic to find short articles to edit) of stub templates could be subsumed into the article class rating of wikiprojects. Any editors or wikiprojects that like to expand should articles could locate them through the wikiprojects. I'd be curious to hear solid reasons why eliminating all stub templates would be a terrible idea. What am I neglecting to consider? Jason Quinn (talk) 05:35, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

That would require that all articles be tagged with WPP banners, and that a WPP exist for every article. I'm pretty sure that not every article is covered by a WPP's scope, and certainly, many articles have no banners at all -- 76.65.131.248 (talk) 05:54, 13 September 2012 (UTC)

Jason, This isn't the place for that discussion. Please talk at Wikipedia talk:Stub. PamD 06:59, 6 September 2012 (UTC)

As no discussion was generated at Wikipedia talk:Stub, I have made this proposal at the Village Pump. Jason Quinn (talk) 15:15, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

As to the original proposal: I see no reason to change the order which is accepted at the moment. Especially since the main reason for the proposal seems to be WP:IDONTLIKEIT. And I do see the argument to keep the order that stub categories get sorted after other categories. The claim that many articles have another order is probably true, but as a percentage of all articles, this is probably a small number, and it is those articles that should be aligned with the majority, and not the other way around. Not that it is too important either way, but still. Debresser (talk) 20:17, 18 September 2012 (UTC)

Placement of section hatnotes

Couldn't find any previous discussion on this. Under Section templates and summary style it says:

If one or more articles provide further information or additional details (rather than a full exposition—see above), references to such articles may be placed immediately after the section heading for that section, provided this does not duplicate a wikilink in the text. These additional references should be grouped along with the Main template (if there is one), for easy selection by the reader, rather than being scattered throughout the text of a section.

I feel that, with the exception of {{Main}}, these hatnotes don't work well this way. In the case of Main article:, it makes sense to use a section hatnote to quickly let the reader know that they can click the link to pursue the more detailed article right away. The other templates generate notes saying "For more details on this topic, see:", "Further information:" and "See also:". The usefulness of these links are dependent on the reader having already read the text in the current section. I won't want to check out "more details" or "further information" until I have read this piece of information. Therefore I think it would make more logical sense to have these templates (excluding Main) at the bottom of the relevant section. I don't think the current formatting of the templates would be inappropriate there. Thoughts? --Paul_012 (talk) 15:37, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

This probably would not be a good idea because for the skimmers, having a heading at the top of the paragraph is easier because they can easily click on the link to go to that page.Curb Chain (talk) 00:27, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure we need to give these additional links such prominence (since they're supposed to be superseded by wikilinks in the text anyway). --Paul_012 (talk) 11:48, 16 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, upon further thought, I think having these templates at the top of the section is distracting and should be changed. The current configuration may even be detrimental to skimming, since their relevance is low compared to the information they detract from. --Paul_012 (talk) 18:01, 22 September 2012 (UTC)

I see no support for this and I Oppose your proposal.Curb Chain (talk) 00:47, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

We don't need a rule against putting such hatnotes at the head of section. They're called hatnotes for a reason. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ∘¿¤þ Contrib. 05:10, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Well, another thing is that these section hatnotes are inconsistent with real article hatnotes, which are explicitly for letting readers know if they are in the wrong place. Their use was added back in February 2006, before WP:HAT was accepted as a guideline. --Paul_012 (talk) 13:26, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Notes and References section

I'd like to include language in this section to say what the preferred name for each type of section is. My proposed changes are in bold:

"Title: The title(s) of these sections depend on which of the three types of item are present, and whether the two types of footnote are combined or separated. Possibilities include:

for a list of explanatory footnotes only: "Notes" is preferred, but "Footnotes" may also be used
for a list of citation footnotes only: "References" is preferred, but "Notes" and "Endnotes" may also be used ("Citations" may be used but is problematic because it may be confused with official awards)
for a list containing both types of footnote: "Footnotes" is preferred, but "Notes" may also be used ("References" may also be used but is less appropriate)
for a list of general references: "Works cited" is preferred, but "References" may also be used ("Sources" may be used but may be confused with computer source code, product purchase locations, river origins, Journalism sourcing, etc.; "Bibliography" may be used but may be confused with a list of printed works by the subject of a biography).

With the exception of "Bibliography", the heading should be plural even if it lists only a single item.^[1]" Rreagan007 (talk) 03:24, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

Rreagan007, I think you need to back up and explain why you think we should state preferred titles. If and when the community agrees with that concept we can then talk about the specific titles that will appear as preferred. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 11:51, 19 September 2012 (UTC)

There is no preferred title. See this for one reason why. I think we need to go back to last year's version, in which we just say what's most popular without trying to recommend any particular title/purpose combination. WhatamIdoing (talk) 02:23, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I beg to differ. Guidelines "are sets of best practices that are supported by consensus" (per wp:Guides). So we should provide some best practice guidance (without going to the other extreme and laying down hard and fast rules (or "preferences" that will be read as rules)). Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:17, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

There is no "best practice" in which all articles ought to use the same section heading for the purpose of naming sources. We officially do not have a preference. The community refuses to declare any of the acceptable options to be "best". WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:42, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

What is the real problem?

The reasons given for this reversion are that it is (a) atypical and (b) requires pre-edit consensus. There is no suggestion that it is incorrect or the guidance it provides is unnecessary. Further, with all due respect, I don't believe that either of the proffered reasons are proper rationales for objecting to an edit. Perhaps the reverting editor can tell me what, if anything, is substantively wrong with the original edit. Once I know that then I can "discuss toward consensus." Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 23:52, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The text you added was offtopic and unprofessional.Curb Chain (talk) 00:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

CC, while we wait to hear from the reverter, let me respond to your concerns: Off topic. The topic is the titles to give the notes and references section. The footnote explains why WP:Layout does not give "preferred" titles. I am at a loss to understand how that is off topic. Unprofessional. I am afraid I don't understand this concern. What is unprofessional about explaining why something is the way it is? Or are you saying that the concept was somehow carried off in an amateurish fashion? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 01:04, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

I reverted your undiscussed edit, B. It was quite a long addition (quoting a Wikipedia essay). Some of your added text:

"Wikipedia doesn't standardize section headings for citations because the real world doesn't. There are four major style guides that are heavily used in universities, and articles using each one can be found on Wikipedia. ..."

And after about 130 words that introduce and cite four external style resources:

"Wikipedia hasn't chosen one over another because nobody wants to be stuck telling the English people that they have to follow scientific conventions, or the history folks that they're required to follow the English manual."

For a start, this is arguably more explanation than one needs on a MOS page, and its tone and register are conversational rather than economical in the manner of Wikipedia guideline and policy text. People complain that MOS is oversize and overcomplex. If we were to explain everything at great length, the whole thing would become unmanageable. Attempts have been made at WT:MOS to remedy this with a register of such background and reasons, with uneven success. New ideas would certainly be welcome; but striking out on one's with long explanatory notes seems ill advised.

Apart from those general points, there are particular concerns. Does what you add really give Wikipedia's reason for not choosing one style over another, for the relevant section headings? That is debatable. All sorts of things are done in the "real world" that the Wikipedia community chooses not to do. For example, WP:MOS recommends against spaced em dashes (after long community consultation in 2011); see WP:DASH at WP:MOS. But they are common enough in the real world. Same for curly quotation marks and apostrophes (“ ” and ‘ ’); see MOS:QUOTEMARKS, also at WP:MOS, where most exceptionally some explanation is indeed added – but only after extensive discussion and refinement.

Wikipedia's manual of style does restrict choices in its recommendations. It could not be a manual of style if it did otherwise! So appealing to the diversity of choices available and adopted in external guides and manuals gives no true explanation, and lessens the standing of MOS as representing our community's will.

Noetica^Tea? 01:21, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Thank you for the explanation. Let me respond to your concerns: Length: Boldness. Can you provide me with a policy or essay that suggests an edit should be reverted because the editor is "striking out on one's" own? Length: Conciseness. If I may suggest, editing rather than reverting is a more appropriate way for one editor to respond to an edit that appears to lack conciseness. I certainly have had no objection to you taking a pair of scissors to what I've added. (Preserving the right to argue for restoring text if I felt you went too far.) Tone and register. Again, my understanding is that editing is preferred approach to dealing with this problem. Bloat. I agree that not everything needs to be explained. But the question answered by this footnote seems to come up with some regularity (see the "Notes and references section" talk immediately above). And, by placing the explanation in a footnote I have done little to detract from the readabilty of the policy itself.

Taking all of these concerns to heart, I can reduce the footnote to:

One reason this guide does not standardize section headings for citations and explanatory notes is that Wikipedia draws editors from many disciplines (history, English, science, etc.), each with its own note and reference section naming convention (or conventions). For more specific guidance regarding titles for note and reference sections see Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects.

Better? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 13:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Two comments:

It's not taken from an essay; it's taken from my userpage.
The reason it's on my userpage is because so many people ask about it, and so many history- and fine-arts-oriented editors come around to tells us that we're "wrong" to use ==References== because their schoolteachers told them to use something else, that I've gotten tired of re-typing it every fewmonths for several years.

That, by the way, suggests that we would benefit from providing at least some minimal explanation, at least to the extent of pointing out that the real world is not all CMOS. WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:48, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

What is "Cmos"?Curb Chain (talk) 22:53, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Chicago Manual of Style. CMOS is a major guide to style but one that has barely begun to acknowledge the sorts of realities that Wikipedia confronts, and that MOS deals with routinely – despite its 16th edition pretending to do so. ☺ Noetica^Tea? 23:19, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Butwhatdoiknow:

WhatamIdoing has corrected me: your inclusion was not from an essay, but from her userpage. So much the worse! It was not even presented to the community for the sort of scrutiny that essays sometimes get.
From an ArbCom decision:

"All parties are reminded to avoid personalizing disputes concerning the Manual of Style, the article titles policy ('WP:TITLE'), and similar policy and guideline pages, and to work collegially towards a workable consensus. In particular, a rapid cycle of editing these pages to reflect one's viewpoint, then discussing the changes is disruptive and should be avoided. Instead, parties are encouraged to establish consensus on the talk page first, and then make the changes."

Considering the size and content of your edit, it is reasonable that it be discussed first. You did not simply "strike out on your own"; you did so with a significant innovation. So I reverted, and called for discussion.

You suggest further editing rather than reversion; but I object to the addition of any note of the sort that you added, and certainly with that content. I give my reasons above.
You refer to "the explanation" as if what you added was something agreed upon. It is not. In particular, citing external style guidance that is concerned with traditional printed matter may be deemed irrelevant. Wikipedia is not print. To illustrate: the term "footnotes" assumes placement at the foot of a page, contrasting with "endnotes" at the end of some larger section, or of an entire work. That distinction cannot apply on Wikipedia; so the sources you cite do not address the issues that confront us here. The variation in style between disciplines is nothing compared to the variation between print media and the medium in which Wikipedia presents its content.
For all of those reasons, I once again object to any note of the sort that you propose. It is one view of the matter, and not a consensual one.

WhatamIdoing:

I agree entirely that the real world is not all CMOS (just as well!). But also, the real world is not represented well by any of the "authorities" you and Butwhatdoiknow cite to justify the guidelines here. Not even by all of them together. Wikipedia is utterly new in many respects; for it, the world of footnotes and endnotes is almost as remote as the world of girdle bindings or deckle edges.
The whole issue of naming these sections needs to be addressed again with such facts in mind, but with very wide community consultation. As in other discussions at talkpages for guidelines and policy, there should be no prejudgement of the outcome, and no slavish or unexamined deference to external sources that have little to do with Wikipedia's unique environment.

Noetica^Tea? 23:19, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Noetica, what about my proposed revision, just above "Better?" above, which does not come from a user page, does not result from a rapid cycle of editing, is no longer lengthy, and does not cite external style guidelines? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:52, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I don't mean to be difficult without reason, B. The problem is that we have a well-motivated practice of not adding explanations like that. Very rarely in a note, which makes navigation unhelpfully complex. There would be no end of it, if we did it without exceptional circumstances. I'd prefer to get rid of almost all such notes in guidelines and policies, myself. Readers can't tell at a glance whether there is something that needs their attention, so they are inconvenienced by flipping down to it just in case. (Incidentally, why do you call it that a "footnote"? And why did you introduce that archaic term at WP:CONSENSUS, in a recent edit?) See how the explanation for quotation marks is managed, at WP:MOS (linked above).

My suggestion: do it without a note. Just insert something uncontentious in parentheses. Perhaps this, adapted from your shorter text:

(Specific projects on Wikipedia often make their own recommendations, so sometimes the choice of headings for these sections is constrained. See Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects.)

Or words to that effect. Neutral, factual, good to be aware of, no big distraction, and no added complexity in navigating the MOS page.

How's that, then?

Noetica^Tea? 08:27, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Noetica:

Can you provide me with a cite for your statement that "we have a well-motivated practice of not adding explanations like that"? The practice on this page (WP:Layout) seems to be just the opposite (see footnotes 4 - 8 & 10). While I would certainly agree that we have to monitor against footnote bloat, if issues keep popping up on the talk page then placing explanations on the policy page seems warranted.
Your points regarding the advantages of parentheticals over notes are well taken. The problem is that there are equally good points in favor of footnotes (they leave the body simple and direct without a lot of clutter that discourages casual readers and camouflage the policies themselves). The approach on this page seems to be to go in the footnote direction. So, for consistency sake, I suggest we do that with this explanation.
I personally prefer "Footnotes" as a title for a section containing both references and explanatory notes (leaving "Notes" for sections containing only explanatory notes) and WP:Layout gives Footnots as an example of a possible title in that circumstance. However, since it is a personal preference, feel free to change it back on the Consensus page. However, it should probably not be changed on Layout because there is already a "Notes" anchor at "Notes and References."
Turning to the text (whether in parentheses or a footnote), how about:

One reason this guide does not standardize section headings for citations and explanatory notes is that specific Wikipedia projects make their own, often differing recommendations. See Category:Style guidelines of WikiProjects.

What say you? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 12:11, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Butwhatdoiknow:

Yes, I can provide evidence. Look at WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM. Those are very large pages, yet each has only four short notes. Both pages are watched closely; they are the major pages of the manual of style, and editors have not wanted them weighed down with notes. That has been the tradition. It would be easy enough to remove all eight notes at those pages, and I think that should be looked at.
The approach on this page reflects the fact that it has less attention from editors. It appears to be in need of some tightening, and more scrutiny to see that it reflects the will of the community better. Don't you think the pages of MOS should themselves adopt a uniform presentation, just the projects you want to mention do? This page is not easy to navigate, because of those notes.
In particular, why have the equivalent sections here and at WP:MOS and WP:MOSNUM called by different names? Why "Notes" there, and "Footnotes" here? Not a good look. I wonder whether your personal preference, or anyone's, should overrule a project-like uniformity for MOS pages. Would you object if we changed "Footnotes" to "Notes", here?
Your text is OK, but I would strongly recommend parentheses. This bit is unnecessarily awkward: "their own, often differing". Make it "their own different". Then we can agree. No one thinks those projects must all differ, on every point! Economy of expression, without serious loss of accuracy.

Noetica^Tea? 13:10, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree that it is helpful to add an explanation to this page, giving the reasoning that has consistently been put forward, as to why Wikipedia allows and endorses multiple citation styles, as well as multiple citation-heading names. See these talkpages (and their archives): Wikipedia talk:Citing sources/Example style, Wikipedia talk:Citing sources, Wikipedia:Centralized discussion/Citation discussion, Help talk:Footnotes
I believe it is useful to name specific styles that are commonly used in various academic fields, for the familiarity that they have for anyone who has been through post-secondary education, and as explicit acknowledgement of where we derive our practices from. (Try searching those pages (or many MoS talkpages) for combinations of: MLA, APA, CSE, Chicago, Harvard. We refer to them regularly, and have always done so.)
These locations point to this page, as a place to "see further information about this": Wikipedia:CITE#How to create the list of citations, Help:Footnotes#Creating the footnote list, Help:Cite errors/Cite error refs without references, Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing, Wikipedia:Citation templates#Use in footnotes (and more).
If you prepare an RfC to revisit all this, please collect a list of most-relevant old talk threads (whilst you're researching them), so that we can add them at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Register#Section headings (currently empty).
See also Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Changes to standard appendices (linked at the top of this page for the last 3 years) and Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Establish a house citation style and Template:Cnote2/example (and WP:VPR and WP:VPP).
Until then, we should be describing the actual practices. The 1st and 2nd proposals of wording, were the clearest and most informative, so far. I'd like to see those merged/tweaked/added.
Many (most?) of the "Style guidelines of WikiProjects" do not mention or recommend any appendix-section heading names, so it seems unhelpful to mention that category. —Quiddity (talk) 20:46, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Explanation text

One reason this guide does not standardize section headings for citations and explanatory notes is that Wikipedia draws editors from many disciplines (history, English, science, etc.), each with its own note and reference section naming convention (or conventions). For more, see Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Changes to standard appendices, Wikipedia:Perennial proposals#Establish a house citation style and Template:Cnote2/example.

O.k., it seems we've reached a consensus to say something. But what? I've started a draft above. Please feel free to edit that draft to your heart's content. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 00:28, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

I approve of your choice to omit WikiProject WP:Advice pages, which have no special standing and are just essays (the style cat name notwithstanding). WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:06, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

I'm content with those sentences, and support adding them as is.
However, as I suggested above, I believe it is helpful (and heavily precedent-based, in discussions, and in practice when documenting the accepted citation methods) to mention specific academic standards. I would support adding a short list "(e.g. MLA, APA, Chicago, CSE)", or a longer footnote as was originally added, or similar. (If anyone agrees, please add on behalf of us both). —Quiddity (talk) 05:55, 1 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 30 September 2012

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

"view by the default" should be "view by default" 121.45.223.144 (talk) 17:03, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. As it turns out, the whole clause seems to be wp:BLOAT, so I removed it. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:25, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

Using == Sources == in appendices

There's a bot request at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/TAP Bot 2 to change section headings currently named ==Sources== to ==References==. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:07, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Sounds like something a bot shouldn't do. How and where do I register that opinion? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 04:23, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I figured it out. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 19:05, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

SEEALSO to foreign language WPs

Is there a standard for adding interwiki see-alsos? It seems to me that there ought to be some way to do this, as sometimes an article that exists only in a different Wikipedia is relevant to the topic, but is not reasonably construed as the same topic (so you can't just use the interlang link). Of course it would be possible to use an external link, but I believe external links to Wikipedia are considered inferior to using wiki markup.

The solution I chose at zabaione was to add the link unpiped, so that the language code is clearly evident, and add a warning that it is in Italian. But there may be a more elegant or more standard way. If so, perhaps we should mention it explicitly at WP:SEEALSO. --Trovatore (talk) 09:04, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Interlanguage interwiki links of any type other than "essentially the same article, but different language version of Wikipedia" interlanguage links are discussed at inline interlanguage links. Template:Seealso2 allows you to add other text after the link such as "(Italian Wikipedia)" for example. Your solution looks OK to me. LittleBen (talk) 12:41, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Now RfC

There is now an RFC at Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#RfC:_Should_lines_be_used_between_a_template_and_text_above_it.3F on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Layout/Archive 9#Discussion on parent page.Curb Chain (talk) 07:58, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Authority control

Is there a consensus as to where {{Authority control}} should come in the list of Standard appendices and footers? If so, would some kind person add it to the Manual. -Arb. (talk) 19:21, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi. I was about to ask the same question. What a coincidence. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 19:33, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

It should be in External links, presumably as the last Ext link because it draws a horizontal line whereas Wikiquote(?) and that ilk are flushleft.

{Authority control} would then precede navigation boxes, according to WP:FOOTER. The popular location in biographies that I visit, however, may be described as "last of the External links if we consider navigation boxes External links". --flush against the last navigation box, where it is practically invisible unless all navigation boxes are collapsed.

It seems to me that genuine rather than superficial consensus for {authority control} depends on consensus about the navigational boxes. --which we don't yet have; see the preceding section.

The WorldCat link is immensely useful and {{Authority control}} has been redesigned recently to display it first, at left, rather than last. It belongs in External links and it cannot function as a replacement for template {{worldcat}} if it follows navigation boxes. --I mean a {worldcat} link to the subject of a biography in the footer of the biography. That is practically redundant only if {authority control} precedes any navigation boxes.

--P64 (talk) 21:07, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

It was discussed some weeks ago at User talk:VIAFbot#Authority control and stub templates (there had been a number of problems with edits which altered pages so that they no longer conformed to WP:FOOTERS), and AFAIK once it had settled down to a position immediately above the {{persondata}}, there have been no further complaints. --Redrose64 (talk) 22:31, 22 December 2012 (UTC)

Sections for navboxes

Please see discussion at Wikipedia talk:Categories, lists, and navigation templates#Sections for navboxes concerning layout. —Quiddity (talk) 05:07, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

RfC: Section headings for horizontal navigation templates

Wikipedia_talk:Categories,_lists,_and_navigation_templates#RfC:_Section_headings_for_horizontal_navigation_templates Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:15, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Note that this proposal conflicts with the Navboxes & "See also" one immediately above (and more importantly, with its more reasonable "Alternative" version). — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ^⊝כ^⊙þ Contrib. 01:45, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

"See Also" and tangential links

I approve of returning the statement that:

The links in the "See also" section do not have to be directly related to the topic of the article, because one purpose of "See also" links is to enable readers to explore tangentially related topics. ...

However, that statement needs to be balanced with a caveat, because "tangential" relationships can be overly tangential. For example: I would question adding a link to Dentistry in the "See also" section of our George Washington bio article, even though there is a "tangential" relationship (Washington wore false teeth). So... I have added:

On the other hand, avoid linking to articles where the relationship of topics is overly tangential.

Feel free to tweak. Blueboar (talk) 16:53, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the whole existing sentence should be removed. I have always viewed See Also sections as including links that one could reasonably expect to see in the body of an article if the article were FA status - it's not for whatever some contributors subjectively think has some tangential link. When was the discussion to add this sentence? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:43, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

No, ==See also== is not for this purpose. If Washington wore false teeth, and a link to dentistry was included, that would be offtopic, not overly tangential, so I oppose your addition User:Blueboar.Curb Chain (talk) 00:46, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Curb Chain that a "See also" section is not for the purpose described by Skeezix1000. Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 22:54, 19 January 2013 (UTC)

I think we need language in policy making clear that one of the purposes of the "See also" section is to include internal links to "tangentially related topics". Bus stop (talk) 01:58, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Repeating links in See also section

My thoughts expressed here are prompted by discussions at Talk:Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting#See also and cats but I have thought about this before. At WP:SEEALSO I find: "As a general rule the "See also" section should not repeat links which appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes. Thus, many high-quality, comprehensive articles do not have a "See also" section." My personal use of this encyclopedia finds me heavily using "See also" section links. At a glance I can jump to an article that is more focussed on what I am looking for. And just as easily, with the "back" button I can return to "See also" sections I have looked at before. Personally I see no reason for eliminating any of a bunch of neatly arranged little links to somewhat related topics. I think the language in policy about not repeating links that are found in the body of the article should be eliminated. And I think the second sentence should be changed to something as bland as: "All articles need not have "See also" sections. Bus stop (talk) 23:35, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

The purpose of the rule is to stop large, double columned see also listings, and for see also sections to keep from repeating obvious material. That's fine. If, however, it were enforced strictly, the policy makes any link included in the article ineligible for a See also section. That's a problem for long articles or for links that have different targets than their text. Often a reader skims an article and may miss these lightly used links.

I do think the "general rule" language has been interpreted as allowing this usage. Anything heavily or prominently linked doesn't need to go in the see also (anything in the lead, for example). But there may be some room for improving the sentence slightly. I'm fine with Bus stop's change to the second sentence as well. Curious others thoughts though too. Shadowjams (talk) 05:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that we should soften the often misinterpreted "as a general rule" text. But perhaps we could leave in the next sentence to make it clear that the floodgates are not open. How about:

To avoid clutter, the "See also" section should not repeat any but the most relevant links which also appear in the article's body or its navigation boxes. Thus, many high-quality, comprehensive articles do not have a "See also" section."

Or something like that. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 17:30, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

That's a little different than what I was meaning. My understanding is that the current policy is that a commonly found link doesn't need to be in the See also. E.g., Lion doesn't link big cats, because that's an obvious link and it's found in the lead. I'm not, and I don't think that Bus stop was advocating changing that. Just loosening the wording slightly. Shadowjams (talk) 00:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

How about this:

Links that feature prominently in articles need not be repeated in a "See also" section, although the rationale for this is merely the paring down of the number of links in a "See also" section where that is deemed necessary. All articles need not have "See also" sections. Obviously an article lends itself to a "See also" section when a variety of links to other articles are deemed to be of potential interest to a reader.

A bit wordy, but that's me. : ) Bus stop (talk) 19:23, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Does feel too wordy imho. Shadowjams (talk) 00:40, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

How about this: delete the first sentence and change the second sentence to read: All articles need not contain "See also" sections or "See also" sections are not mandatory. Bus stop (talk) 01:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

None of the items listed at MOS:APPENDIX are mandatory, not even References (stubs are often unrefd). The only one which is pretty much universal is the categories. We shouldn't need to give special treatment to See also. --Redrose64 (talk) 10:10, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I would be content to see both of the above referenced sentences deleted. Bus stop (talk) 10:17, 8 January 2013 (UTC)

I agree that the suggestion about 'the "See also" section should not repeat any but the most relevant links' is exactly backwards. ==See also== usually features those links that are interesting but tangential or quirky.

I have some sympathy for Bus stop's style, since back when I could actually read articles (rather than checking them for problems) I sometimes did the same. But I don't really think that we want to style our pages to make it handy for "non-readers" to not read the articles by providing a substantial list of links. The best articles have either no ==See also== section or a very brief one. If you have more than eight or ten links, you've probably made a mistake. WhatamIdoing (talk) 03:49, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Whoa! Do you mean to imply that we should have a goal of forcing "non-readers" to play "find the hidden link"? If so, why? Is our content so wonderful that we have to make people read it (no doubt for their own good) to find a link to the article they are actually looking for? Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 04:53, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Basically, yes. We're here to write an encyclopedia, right? We're not here to provide lists of links. The articles are primary. The point is for the articles—meaning sentences and paragraphs—to get read. We do therefore make stylistic choices that encourage the reader and discourage the non-reader. Often, we can accommodate both users, but whenever the list of links becomes distracting (e.g., by being more than a few links long), we choose reading over link-finding. WhatamIdoing (talk) 22:58, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, an encyclopedia is a reference work so our content includes lists of links (think disambiguation pages). We all agree that See also sections should not become link farms. But we should not, I assert, throw out the baby with the bathwater. Often, that mean See also sections appropriately include more than a few links. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 05:22, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

You're starting with the false premise that "searching a page" is the primary way to find a particular new topic. I would venture that someone actively looking for a new page would be using the search bar.... --Izno (talk) 12:57, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

I would agree with your premise if you add the phrase "most often" before "would be using." But if you accept that modification then you open the door to my conclusion that See also is helpful to folks who land on a page (perhaps after doing a search) and realize that it isn't quite what they were looking for. Butwhatdoiknow (talk) 18:17, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment That wording has always bothered me too. It's one of the few cases where I frequently find myself ignoring the guidelines on purpose. I also use the "See also" links section for navigation. My opinion is that the section should contain a set of links that "make sense", regardless if they have been used in the text above. My superior intellect lets me quickly and accurately decide if a link "makes sense" although some people lack this ability. ;-) Jason Quinn (talk) 17:14, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

The collection of links in a "See also" section should be well thought out. Too many links might be a problem, but too many links might not be a problem. The reader's interests have to be uppermost in mind. I favor more rather than fewer internal links to Wikipedia articles. What I am often impressed by is that we actually have articles on topics that I might have thought were too obscure to have their own articles. The "See also" section is good because I can see at a glance what ground has been covered by previous editorial efforts. By scouring these links and the links that they lead to, I can also discover that an area I think should be covered does not have its own article. For instance, a relatively quick search of "See also" section links in various articles led me to conclude that School#School security does not have its own article. Yes, I now see that I could have discovered that by simply typing "school security" into our search box. But I actually didn't know that was the terminology that should be used. For an interesting collection of "See also" links see our article Physical security. Some may feel it is too much. I obviously don't have much of a problem with it. Bus stop (talk) 12:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Oh well, somebody just pared down the "See also" section of the Physical security article. Bus stop (talk) 16:30, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Comment I actually think the wording is fine as is. First, this is a MOS - it is to apply in a common sense manner, and exceptions will arise. If there is a key wikilink that is otherwise clearly lost in the body of an article, there is already an argument to be made that it should be included in the See Also. Second, everyone seems to think that the See Also section is improved by a few, key links that already appear in the article, but the decision as to what is key/important is so subjective that once you open the floodgates, it's hard to argue that anything isn't helpful or important. I agree with WhatamIdoing that as an article is improved, the See Also section should shrink. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:04, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

The problem is that the concept of "floodgates" works in the opposite direction. On several occasions I've heard editors invoke the "rule" that links already in articles cannot appear in "See also" sections. Once something simply stated and easy to implement appears in "policy" it becomes something enforced. It becomes an uphill battle to argue for an exception to the "rule". Bus stop (talk) 18:42, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

I'd rather err on the side of caution and restraint than on the side of linkfarms. If people are occasionally too restrictive, then one probably didn't have consensus in the first place. But if you open this up to any link that people feel is "key" or "important", then I am not sure how you stop anything. This is a can of worms we should leave well enough alone.--Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:47, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Aother thing - many articles already have decently-sized See Also sections comprising relevant links that are not in the body of the article. If we move forward with this proposal, such that we start also adding links from the body of the article that seem lost, important or otherwise merit more prominence, are we not in effect creating topic lists at the end of articles? --Skeezix1000 (talk) 18:55, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

One thought is that perhaps we should be "creating topic lists at the end of articles". Wikipedia is vast. It is different from other encyclopedias. And the world of information what with the internet is vast. Perhaps we should view ourselves as facilitating research. Often a person does not even know what they are looking for. The reader, especially the younger reader, is pursuing interests. Linking subject areas can be key to transitioning to related subject areas. The "See also" links are like stepping stones. One can zero in on interests. It also helps editors to know where articles are missing. Finally—article titles don't always indicate content. Even missteps can be fortuitous. People don't read articles thoroughly and that's OK. Wikipedia is only one of many sources of information on the internet. But since we are self-contained and huge, we can serve the unique role of allowing especially neophyte readers to zero in a particular field of interest. From that point forward they can also avail themselves of sources off of Wikipedia. Bus stop (talk) 19:27, 16 January 2013 (UTC)

Oy - I was mildly concerned with your proposal initially, but that makes me really worry. We have wikilinks within the body of an article, portals, categories, etc. to allow our readers to explore the encylopedia. A linkfarm at the end of the article, consisting of whatever contributors subjectively think is "important" or "key" and which would largely replicate links already on the page, does not sound like a good idea at all. Skeezix1000 (talk) 13:33, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

Skeezix1000—you say "but that makes me really worry." Please explain. What "makes [you] really worry"? Bus stop (talk) 18:31, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

I think I have expressed my concerns quite clearly in my earlier comments. And your comment about the benefit of having topic lists simply confirms that the intent here is to create linkfarms at the end of articles - which is the reason for my increased concern. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 21:32, 22 January 2013 (UTC)

We already have "topic lists at the end of articles". They're called navboxes. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:28, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

Very good point. --Skeezix1000 (talk) 15:22, 23 January 2013 (UTC)

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