Wikipedia talk:Editing policy

Quotations vs. italics

A lot of people ask about the use of quotations versus italics. I would like to add the following or some version of it to the "editing policy" page; what do you all think? --KQ

Movies, books, CD/LP/8-track :-) titles, TV series, magazines and epic poems (The Iliad, The Odyssey) are italicized; short stories, songs, episodes of TV shows, articles, and most poems are in quotes.

Perhaps more importantly, quotes are never, ever used for emphasis. The single-quote, single-quote notation for emphasis is misleading in this respect.

Talk vs. discuss

The body of the text says the bottom of each page has a link "Talk". They don't, it is "Discuss this page". Does this matter? User:SGBailey

the link text has been changed since that bit was written. Feel free to update it! :-) -- Tarquin

Merge with Wikipedia/Policies_and_guidelines?

It seems to me that this page probably could be merged with Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines... or not?... -- Viajero 13:52, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

not I think.... they serve differing purposes, though this article is probably poorly titled. Martin 14:06, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

agreed, how about something livlier, like Joy of Editing... -- Viajero 15:32, 31 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Slight edit

Change note: I changed "rephrasing while preserving content" to "rephrasing or accurate precis while preserving content", under acceptable reasons for removing material, which I think correctly interprets the existing policy. Please rollback if you disagree. -- The Anome 16:56, Jun 1, 2005 (UTC)

multiple comments?

This is probably more of an etiquette question than a policy question, but I didn't find a page on that subject. Anyway, what I'm wondering is if there is a 'policy' for when someone wants to comment several times in the same talk/voting page. On the one hand, commenting in each section individually probably makes experienced users happy, because Related Changes/Recent Changes/Page History shows "→SectionTitle summary" correctly; on the other hand, it is faster and less disruptive to Watchlists (which I presume most novice users still rely on) to do a single Edit this page and summarize to the best of your ability. What do you all think? nae'blis _(talk) 18:07, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

One line summary

There being a need for concise one line summaries of guidelines, I offer this version. Please feel free to change it as necessary, and update the template Template:Guideline one liner to suit your taste. Please don't remove it simply because you think the summary is inaccurate for this guideline. Comments and opinions welcome! Stevage 02:54, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

• Splash removed the summary, citing again, this template is a profound misstatement of the idea: "leave it in whatever state you like"? that's an excuse to vandals. My summary was this: Improve any page without hesitation, regardless of the state you leave it in. Avoid removing information wherever possible. The word "improve" should rule out vandalism being acceptable. Stevage 12:15, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
• I object to "regardless of the state you leave it in". It encourages sloppiness. I also object to "avoid removing information" in a oneliner; there is often a good reason for removing things, and putting it right at the top could lead to people ruleslawyering "hey, our editing policy says you cannot remove my information" (see WP:0RR for a related discussion about some 'pedians who believe it is never appropriate to remove other people's work). Radiant_>|< 13:15, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
  • Fair enough. I was trying to capture the two important ideas from this guideline:
    1. You should not avoid improving a page simply because it will still be in a bad state afterwards.
    2. You should try to avoid removing information un-necessarily.
  • So how about: Improve any page without hesitation: you don't have to make it perfect. Avoid removing information unnecessarily. Stevage 13:23, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
    • The first sentence is good; the last one is still awkward. What about something that focuses on the difference between verified facts and unverified speculation, which seems to be most of what gets removed, besides vandalism? -- nae'blis _(talk) 16:52, 22 December 2005 (UTC)