Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style

A proposal to simplify all of this

A number of points spring to mind:

Although this discussion is long, I think we are making progress - one final push may see us through to a good, workable solution.
It is advantageous to have one official style - that's the whole purpose of a style guide. It also gives a useful point of reference to all WPians who care about style. I therefore suggest (post-amendments - see below) to refer to this page as "official style". The term would give this page proper authority, whilst at the same time not using the term "policy", which some people think would mean the ArbCom would get involved if people broke it.
On the issue of usage, we need to be permissive - allow any standard form of English. Exceptions to this rule are damaging to this page (see above).
"Official style" should be as short as possible - people do not like lots of complicated rules!
This Manual of Style can and should be supplemented by a non-official page offering guidance on how to interpret it.

To this end, I have made a working draft proposal on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/proposal (the first edit to this page was the current policy, so going to history and looking at the diffs will show what changes are proposed). Please feel free either to edit this page, or to offer comments either here on on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/proposal. I have also made a draft additional guidance page on Wikipedia:Guidance on applying the Manual of Style and Wikipedia talk:Guidance on applying the Manual of Style. All comments would be welcome, jguk 22:00, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Style guides, national differences, etc.

I'd like to suggest the following:

Anyone making a complaint or a suggestion about the style guide should do so with the reader in mind, and not the editors.
Making a complaint or a suggestion based on national differences can be divisive, especially if it is not handled carefully.
If people are terribly offended by something they consider foreign, they might be wise to reconsider working on an international project.

Some points from above are worth repeating:

Few people know their own language as well as they think they do.
Various publications have their own style. A lot ot things vary and it's seldom a problem to readers.

Some points about style guides and writing for publication:

Probably few, if any, people agree 100 percent with any style guide.
Writers for probably any publication have their work changed. They don't always agree. They often don't know until after the fact.
Mature people accept these things and don't make a conflagration out of small matters.
A major reason for a style guide is consistency. Certain things are long-established in Wikipedia style. That should not be taken lightly.

People who want changes for anything, especialy to things that are long-established, would be wise to consider their approach. Maurreen 02:41, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I haven't looked at Jguk's links yet, so have no idea whether I'll agree or not, but I just want to respond briefly to Maurreen and say that I do agree with her point about writers and style guides. Writers learn a new style with each publication they go to. It's no big deal and professional writers don't fuss about it. I also agree that pointing out differences based on nationality is extremely unpopular at Wikipedia, and if the MoS continues to pursue that, people are going to vote with their fingers, so to speak. If the MoS is to be respected, it has to respect the prevailing culture and try to work with it, not against it. SlimVirgin 02:48, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

It is for some of the reasons outlined above that I favour a permissive, rather than prescriptive approach: a MoS that allows any standard form of English, supplemented by non-binding guidance on how it is interpreted in practice. And having a permissive approach should, I hope, allow us to give MoS back some official status.

On the issue of different national differences - it is really a question of give and take. We should take the largely accepted approach that most Wikipedians are able to accept as a compromise - and go with that. It's not a perfect approach, by any means, but it seems the best way to reduce needless edit wars and conflict. After all, is there really any benefit in me edit-warring to force the article on 2005 in NASCAR, to which I am the major contributor, back to British English when someone converts it to American English? Similarly, is there any problem with me continuing to write my major contributions to it in British English, since, whilst I am aware of many linguistic differences that we have, I am not fluent in the niceties of American English? IMO, the answer is no, but I shan't try to revert to BE if another editor converts to AmE. SV, I also hope the approach I am suggesting, which allows for a longer description of what "closely-related" means and which allows for differing opinions to be expressed in non-binding guidance, helps reduce our differences on this.

I hope you look at both discussion drafts (on Wikipedia:Manual of Style/proposal and Wikipedia:Guidance on applying the Manual of Style and offer constructive comments thereon. As noted above, I hope, after all these discussions, we are nearly there. If we can get there by actually reducing the instruction creep for once, so much the better. Kind regards, jguk 08:45, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I have mixed feelings about this. It takes us further away from having a style guide per se, and closer towards having a set of Yalta Conference rules on which national style to use when. (Assuming it's even clear which style each actually is.) But since this is already the case with spelling, perhaps doing the same thing with punctuation is merely "going with the flow": the same bun-fight will determine both, rather than having to have one over spelling, and then still not being sure one can copy-edit to MoS punctuation without someone complaining. Alai 03:41, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In the drafts what does standard English mean? Philip Baird Shearer 14:20, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I mean English as written in at least a semi-formal or formal context - eg as you'd write a business letter or exam, or as a broadsheet newspaper would write - as opposed to slang or dialectal, jguk 16:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps a note at the bottom explaining this would be useful, or perhaps change "standard" to "formal". Philip Baird Shearer 10:12, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Would it be helpful if an author could include some metadata in an article indicating the variant of English she is using? This might help prevent inadvertent conflict and acrimony, where the style of English being used wasn't obvious to a contributor. This could be easily accomplished by placing a comment at the top of the page.

 <!-- this article is written in Canadian English -->

I write in Canadian English, and I'm sure that many British and U.S. editors would take a look and decide that it's full of spelling errors, if they weren't familiar with it. —Michael Z. 2005-03-15 15:02 Z

I don't think it would be helpful - labelling articles as being in one form of English is really the sort of thing we're trying to get away from. Make hidden comments if a change really irks you, but otherwise I'd recommend just going with the flow, 16:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Michael, have a look at the "Proposal: Introduction of Style Tags"-discussion above.

I agree with you that articles started in Canadian English will probably be changed to British or American E. in the course of editing. If you're the first major contributor, I think you're free to add comments to your article and state what kind of English you're using. Flo 02:41, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out the discussion I missed. I notice someone else just added  at the top of Canada.

Canadian English was just an example.

What I think will happen more often is that an article's regional English may be non-obvious. An editor will miss the single occurence of "gray" in section seven, and write "tyre" in a minor edit of section two. After a while you have a mix, and it's a waste of time to try to track down who used the first Britishism or US-ism, but it may be considered rude to arbitrarily pick a language. Tagging the article early on would avoid this.

Also, this may have useful applications down the road. Perhaps Wikipedia could use the info to add standard metadata like <html lang="en-US"> to the page, or a future spelling-checker feature could flag inconsistencies. —Michael Z. 2005-03-17 19:59 Z

This has been proposed and discussed before, but I don't think anyone's ever spoken about a "future spelling-checker" feature in this context. That, I feel, makes the proposal even more compelling. –Hajor 14:54, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Pure speculation on my part. But I could see something along the lines of the automatically-generated lists which catalogue wiki code errors, etc. —Michael Z. 2005-03-18 15:38 Z

In the first discussion, I was the one who initially proposed to use such tags. I've realised however that it's quite a sensitive issue... Nationalities don't "own" articles, but for some editors, tags might suggest they do. I agree with Michael - if the first major contributor clearly states what style/spelling he or she used, it will simply save time later. Flo 15:49, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Somebody mentioned the spelling comment in the Canada article (which has been removed by User: Jguk. I added the comment to provide spelling information for editors. Jguk objected, saying "everyone is welcome to edit articles", which is of course true. My spelling comments are not intended to deter editors, but rather to help copy-editors. Suggestion:

 SpNeo 03:05, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you think that such spelling comments are not necessary, have a close look at: [1] and count how many times the spelling has been changed and reverted. I consider this a waste of time. SpNeo 03:14, 24 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Spelling comments may be really helpfull for many of us who are non-native English speakers, and have learned a specific dialect of English (e.g. British or American) so we are unaware wether a particular spelling is correct in a less "common" (for us) dialect (say Canadian, or Australian). Most Europeans learn British English, so may think other spellings are odd or even incorrect, just because we are unaware of it. --Xavier 06:30, 2005 Mar 31 (UTC)

Can't wikipedia replace British spellings with US spellings (and vice versa) on the fly based on a user preference?--Will2k 14:17, Apr 18, 2005 (UTC)

Removal of guidelines

I'm not wild about removal of parts of the guidelines ("quotes", vs "quotes,") simply due to their being under discussion. Perhaps there should simply be an "under discussion" notice on the section. And in any case, it ought to apply equally to the whole punctuation section, not just punctuation-in-quotes -- the serial comma rule and double quotes marks would equally be removed under the proposed revision. Alai 05:06, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree. The removeal is not customary or needed. Maurreen 06:19, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Separate page for national differences?

Maybe people who want to fight about national differences should just take that to a separate page. I'm not sure any of this has been productive. Maurreen 06:14, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Have you seen my proposals referred to above? Inter alia they achieve this, jguk 06:44, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We are apparently looking at this from two very different perspectives. I'm not sure the gap can be bridged. Maurreen 06:51, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My perspective is to have a formally expressed official style that is short, to the point, permissive and is already in line with what WPians do - and supplement it by comments on how that official style is interpreted (which is where the national differences discussions will belong). One advantage is that the non-binding supplement could represent more than one view - which should minimise many of these arguments. What's your perspective? jguk 06:59, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Jguk's proposal

Wow, it's good to be back! Having the database read-only is like peering in from behind the Iron Curtain. Not that I'm addicted or anything ... Anyway, I've left comments about Jguk's proposal at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/proposal, but feel free to move or copy it here as preferred. SlimVirgin 07:51, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

If the style guide is going to be revised, I urge at least keeping the style concerning first major contributors. Maurreen 08:18, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I like the first-major-contributer rule myself, but there are others who don't, so I was thinking instead it might make sense to add that any changes to articles must be done sensitively, and should be respectful of the work of previous editors who may have put a lot of time and work into them. Phrasing it that way won't sort out an edit war, but it will point people in the right direction. By the way, I just made a chronological archive of this discussion as the page was over 200 kb; feel free to sort it out as you see fit. I made a note at the top of this page which archive I put it into. SlimVirgin 08:37, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

If the first major contributor uses completely different rules for spelling, punctuation and grammar than the readers and other editors of the topic, there's absolutely no reason at all to keep the style incorrect just for the sake of keeping it the same. That's almost as bad as saying that an article needs to keep all the spelling errors of the original editor because the first editor is more important than all the others who follow. "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds," or so it's been said. In most cases the rules that should be used should be fairly obvious = version of English language taught there. That way if it's foregin language but uses British English (like much of Europe) or American English (Mexico, say) you go with what the English speakers there use. That way the largest number of readers will see what they expect, and most likely the same can be said for editors too, which would make everything more consistent and less likely to lead to fights with people trying to impose rules that make no sense for the article in question. Of course the wild card is those people who don't seem to understand any rules in the first place, but then that'll happen no matter what rules are adopted. DreamGuy 16:41, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I have publicized the proposal at Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals), and WP:RFC. Maurreen 16:44, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In case it's not clear, I oppose the proposal. For one thing, Jguk has included material which is extraneous to any differences between national varieties of English. But I have several other reasons. Maurreen 07:39, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What I like about Jguk's proposal is that it's shorter. The MoS should be as long as necessary and as short as possible. But what about the Usage section? In the proposal, it's extremely short. The four sentences are really good, but what about keeping spellings in proper names, avoiding e.g. ... It seems a bit too short to me. Flo 16:11, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for your support. The idea is to keep the MoS short, but allow for other non-binding guidance on Wikipedia:Guidance on applying the Manual of Style page (which I admit, needs developing further - please feel free to amend it), jguk 17:25, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I do like that the new proposal allows us to use i.e. and e.g. (though I've gotten into virtual edit wars over whether it's "e.g." or "eg."), since calling those "scholarly abbreviations" always struck me as a bit silly. I suppose I can live without n.b. and viz. --Angr 17:58, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

But so often it's just silly

I just do want to remark: I am constantly amazed at the people who seem to have nothing better to do than to go through perfectly good, perfectly comprehensible articles, changing "-ise" to "-ize" or vice versa, or changing the forms of the dates back and forth. I've started just ignoring them. -- Jmabel | Talk 09:05, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

I've just added the following to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/proposal, basically saying we may need to address the point you make:

"I wonder whether it might be worth adding a paragraph stressing the importance of being sensitive to other editors' work. I've seen the MoS being used as almost a weapon by some editors (a very small number). It would be good to say explicitly that style issues and issues of national preference should never take precedence over substantive content issues or good writing; and should not be used to start edit wars. I'm not sure how to phrase this, and would need to think about it some more. I feel that if the MoS is to be respected, it must work with editors, not against them, and we should perhaps make that explicit somewhere in the text." SlimVirgin 09:17, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

Why can you not just drop attacks on the "national preference"? Articles which are perceived to be linked to a particular English speaking nation, will over time end up using that nation's English because many contributers tend to move articles that way. That the MoS recognize this tends to reduce conflict, all your suggestions which try get the Mos negate the use of specific national styles of English on articles perceived to be linked to a nation, will if adopted, encourage more edit wars not less and may well reduced the influence of the MoS. Philip Baird Shearer 13:36, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

What about hyphens?

Just to add to the confusion, I would like to point out that right now the MoS says nothing at all about hyphens after prefixes like "non" and "anti" and the like. At "non-" OED says, "In the majority of the compounds of non-, the hyphen is usually retained; but it is commonly omitted in the case of a few, such as nonconformist, nonentity, nonsense, in which the etymology has to some extent been lost sight of." But Collins English Dictionary, which is also British, only hyphenates after non- if the next word starts with a capital letter (non-Hodgkin's lymphoma) or an N (non-negotiable). The American dictionaries I've checked only hyphenate between non- and a capital letter, but leave nonnegotiable without a hyphen. Anti- is even worse: OED gives anti-convulsant but anticonvulsive, Collins usually hyphenates anti- before a vowel (except antioxidant) but not before a consonant (unless capitalized, of course), and the American dictionaries hyphenate anti- only before capital letters and I. At the risk of being perceived as an American capitalist imperialist pig-dog, I suggest following the American dictionaries because the rules are easier to follow: don't hyphenate after prefixes unless what they're prefixed to is capitalized, or to prevent the jarring look of two lower-case I's next to each other. --Angr 18:55, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we need a rule about this, jguk 20:36, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If it comes to that, we don't need rules for any of the things covered in the MoS. But we have them anyway. --Angr 17:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We need some rules about structure and Wiki-syntax, or the encyclopaedia really would look like a hotchpotch of articles. But we could certainly do with some simplification, especially on the divisive issues. Have you seen Wikipedia:Manual of Style/proposal? It's time we got rid of the unnecessary rules! jguk 19:14, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Angr , I don't feel strongly either way. Can you draft something and put it here? Maurreen 04:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Oops, you did that already: "Don't hyphenate after prefixes unless what they're prefixed to is capitalized, or to prevent the jarring look of two lower-case I's next to each other."

If we do add hyphenation to the style guide, I would suggesting including something along the lines of favoring "re-election" to "reelection", although I can't think of good wording right now. Maurreen 07:07, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would actually prefer "reelection", and it's the one preferred by American dictionaries. British dictionaries prefer "re-election". The more I look into this, it seems there is a de facto preference for hyphens on Wikipedia and in the world at large ("re-election" gets way more Google hits than "reelection", for example). Which is why I shouldn't be the one to draft a proposal, because the proposal I would draft will be contrary to what most people are already doing. --Angr 07:39, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personally I'd go with the Oxford definitions, but like so many other things, spelling checkers use a set of rules which may or may not conform to perceived national standards. So I think the best to go with any style, but if there is change or an addition to the text which leads to a dispute then go with primary usage. Philip Baird Shearer 10:23, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In the case of "reedit" and "reelect", it would prefer "re-edit" and "re-elect" for better readablity. "Reedit" and "reelect" suggest "REEDit" and "REElect". Flo 04:49, 22 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Quotation marks, splitting the difference

My understanding is that no one objected when Hajor stated an intention to reinsert into the style guide the material on splitting the difference for style on quotation marks. My understanding is also that there was no discussion to remove that material, either originally or recently.

Hajor's reinsertion was reverted. I am going to restore it. If anyone disagrees, I ask that you discuss it here and get consensus first. Maurreen 04:43, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Personally, I agree with it, and with the "compromise style" it rationalises. Indeed, one might make a similar comment about the entire punctuation issue. However right at the moment, re-introducing it might be seen as advocacy against Jguk's "vive la difference" proposal, so I'd personally be cautious about doing so unless there was some evidence of a consensus to do so. Alai 23:54, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with the current phrasing. As a foreigner I read "we split the difference between American and British usage" and had no clue what it meant. I had to read the discussion to understand. First, the fact: "Wikipedia uses the American quotation symbol (") and the British punctuation rules." Second, the rationale: "These are the best choices for reasons of symbol visibility and sentence logic." So finally the "split the difference" comment is not the fact, not the rationale, just a happy consequence. If you want it, then it should come third after the fact and rationale which are more important.--67.124.149.4 21:51, 27 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just found out about the reinsertion of that crazy "splitting the difference" rule because I first read the Manual of Style in February and had no idea it had changed until right now (because a BE contributor reverted changes I had made to the Supreme Court of the United States) page to bring it into proper AE style. Just for the record, I preferred the previous rule (which I understood as where contributors simply keyed in their additions in their native dialect and generally refrained from editing each other's dialect peculiarities). The current compromise rule is simply insane, because as some people have pointed out in the archived talk pages, the result looks equally ridiculous to English writers everywhere. --Coolcaesar 00:10, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

As I understand it, the actual rule was at no point deleted, at no point reinserted. What I was keen to see reinstated was the description of that rule as "splitting the difference" (which was deleted). Why? Basically, to head off further threads of the The manual recommends British-style punctuation on US topics??!?! kind. –Hajor 01:53, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This manual of style requires some British English usage on pages which are dominated by American English, and some American English usage on pages which are dominated by British English. This is but one example of this. This does give a ridiculous result, as Coolcaesar notes - and the Manual regularly gets ignored (for obvious reasons) by many WPians.

Unfortunately all attempts to permit articles to be fully consistent with one standard form of English have met with rebuffs by those unwilling to give up their pet likes. It's a shame, and it means this Manual does not reflect WP practice - but until those users decide to stop dictate their individual preferred styles to others, it's not going to change, jguk 07:22, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Personal titles

What personal titles are allowed? Someone just went through and added "Chef" to some articles including Bobby Flay. To me, this opens up a can of worms, as these are not official titles. For example, one could go through every article on a conductor and prefix their names with Maestro. – flamurai (t) 09:23, Mar 28, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think that it's a question of what's allowed, but of what's correct. Neither 'chef' nor 'maestro' are normally used as titles in English-speaking countries, so it's incongruous to use them as such in Wikipedia.

On a related point, I've noticed one editor styling himself 'Dr John Smith, B.Sc., M.Sc., Ph.D.'; it's worth pointing out that, first, one uses either the prefix 'Dr' or the suffix Ph.D., and secondly, that one would normally only use the 'M.Sc.', as the 'B.Sc.' is implied. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:57, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

one would normally only use the 'M.Sc.', as the 'B.Sc.' is implied Only if one attended a university with a tradition of considering that the difference between a B.Sc and an M.Sc is a fiver (or has it gone up in recent years?). At "normal" universities there is a difference. For example one might do a B.A. and then an M.Sc. or some other combination. -- Perhapse I am showing my ignorance here is it only MAs which can be purchased? Philip Baird Shearer 19:28, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

gender neutrality

I'm just noting there doesn't appear to be any discussion of gender neutrality in the Manual of Style. Shouldn't there be?

There was discussion, no consensus. Maurreen 03:37, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

See: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (gender-neutral pronouns). The issue was also raised (though undiscussed) at Talk:Non-sexist_language#Poll_on_Wikipedia.27s_adopted_gender-neutral_pronoun. Hyacinth 01:25, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Lead section conventions for films

I'm a newbie testing the potential of Wikipedia, and a problem has come up concerning stylistic conventions. I find it difficult to locate clear guidelines about this sort of stuff in the Manual of Style, so maybe you guys can help me out.

Background: See the history page of Spartacus (movie) for an exchange of reverts.

Then follow the brief conversation at User talk:Cburnett under "Spartacus (movie) title row".

I mean, this is so very petty... Considering that Casablanca is the only film page that has reached featured article status, I think that a discussion of the stylistic conventions could very well get underway. 62.148.218.217 21:14, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As mentioned at Cburnett's Talk page, the discussion has moved on to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Movies ("Intro format"). 62.148.218.217 21:22, 29 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Italics

Hi! I have a question about the use of italics. Namely, in the article Pope John Paul I, I used them, then another editor came by and removed them. See comparison of both versions. What approach would be stilistically correct? Thanks for your answer. --Eleassar777 16:19, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm not quite clear what most of the italics were meant to signify; if you could explain your reasons for using then, it would be easier to give an opinion. Without knowing, my first reaction is that they shouldn't be there.

I've noticed that many editors use italics for quotations, which is both non-standard and odd. Any idea why this is done? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 17:17, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I just thought that all quotations should be in italics, as it is more readable then (at least for me). I got the similar answer at the article's talk page. This should be explained in the Manual. --Eleassar777 17:49, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Italics are used for several different things, including indicating foreign terms, for emphasis, to refer to words (instead of to what they represent), and for short quotations. None of these are non-standard or odd, but they are a matter of editorial style. —Michael Z. 2005-04-1 19:10 Z

Brief quotations, a sentence or two, should be embedded in the paragraph and set off with quotation marks, as if they were conversation. Longer quotations, however, often read more clearly if they are separated in "blockquoted" indented paragraphs. Setting the quote in italics may help differentiate the blockquote from the rest of the text. Partly an esthetic decision. --Wetman 22:28, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Below is the explanation I wrote on Talk:Pope John Paul I when I edited the quotation and italicisation in the main article. Eleassar777 requested there that I add it to this article under italicisation. I think most of what I stated is already scattered throughout the italicisation & quotes sections, but I thought there might be a place for the last sentence, with the caveat that it applies to quotations short enough to be embedded in the text, not to long quotations offset in their own paragraph.

For some reason, every quotation in the article had been italicised. I've fixed this, removing either the italicisation or quotation where appropriate. Quotation marks should be used when directly quoting, even if the attribution for the quote has to be inferred rather than being stated directly—Mark Antony knew that his "friends, Romans [and] countrymen" would demand vengeance for Julius Caesar's death—or to indicate that this specific use of the word might carry a meaning slightly different from its dictionary defition—With "friends" like these, who needs enemies?; The Italians were worried they would "lose" the papal throne. Use italics when discussing the word itself—He preferred use to the more pretentious utilise. If we italicise a word inside quotation marks, it should be for the same reason we italicise it outside quotation marks; words should never be italicised just because they're inside quotes.

Binabik80 04:35, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I just encountered this issue about italics/quoting with The Cantos. And while my changes may have been accepted, I have to admit that it is possibile that using italics for quotations is considered good practice in some English-speaking countries who copy the practice from (IIRC) French. In the novels of James Joyce (an Irish writer) & Alan Paton (a South African), dialogue is presented as follows. When the quotation begins a paragraph:

--Good morning, said the teacher to the class.

And when the quotation is embedded in a paragraph:

The teacher said, Good morning, class. Has everyone done their homework?

Obviously, if this standard practice in these two countries, Wikipedia should acknowledge it & accept it. However, I know Joyce was an experimental writer & he may not be a suitable example for acceptible use (e.g., would you trust a spell-checker based on Finnegans Wake?) And I can't remember if the other South African writer I've read (Nadine Gordimer) follows this same style.

I mention all of this not to stir up trouble, but to be sure our consensus is as inclusive as possible. -- llywrch 17:28, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Standard style guides state that italics are not used in quotations. Short quotes are embedded in the text and separated using quotation marks. Long quotes are given in block form. Each line is indented and quotation marks are not used. The reference goes outside the final full stop (period). Even when the original quote contained italics, these italics are replaced by an underline when quoting. The only time italics are used is when the author wants to emphasise something in her/his own text. Exploding Boy 17:44, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Writers should use italics when their use would help the reader to understand or follow the text. The same is true for punctuation. Also, different fora look different to a reader, and style to adapt to the particular forum being used: or to put it another way, newspapers are different from typed letters, which are different from books, magazines and websites.

So the real question here is whether using italics for quotations will help a reader of Wikipedia to follow the text. The answer is, in some articles, yes; in other articles, no. In some circumstances, usage of italics for quotations helps a reader understand that it is a quotation - and on other occasions it's not necessary. And it's for this reason that we should not be prescriptive about the matter, jguk 19:28, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

jguk's point is not often enough explicitly made: that these guidelines (not rules) for points of usage, whether for italics or anything else, and even consistency of usage itself, merely serve a more essential purpose: to guide the reader. Well said. --Wetman 21:05, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Use of quotation marks surely is sufficient that a reader can understand whether he is reading a quotation. So in my opinion, inside quotation marks, italics should be used in the same manner as outside them. Another important thing for the reader is to be able to differentiate if they were used in the original or were only subsequently added. In general this means that when they appear in the quotation, it should be explicitly stated whether they were added by the editor or were already used by the source. --Eleassar777 21:27, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

...which is exactly why style guides call for underlining words that were originally in italics when quoting. We all know that Wikipedia is not paper, but it is supposed to be academic. We should be following widely recognized and used academic styles for the exact reasons those styles are used in other academic writings. Exploding Boy 21:37, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Not all readers know these rules, so it is probably better to explicitly state than to underline. Another thing is the style guide of Wikipedia does not state that italics can also be used to emphasize (at least not in the section "italics"). --Eleassar777 21:54, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, but people can learn. The fact that some people may not be familiar with academic citation styles does not mean that we shouldn't use them. Exploding Boy 22:09, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

The reason this guide is falling into increasing disrepute is the insistence of some readers on trying to impose their views on style on others. If the style you adopt can easily be understood by readers - that's great - keep using it! But if others adopt a slightly different style that is equally understood by readers - that's great too! Readers want content. Content has to be presented in a suitable style if it's to make the greatest impact - but which suitable style is used is largely irrelevant. To return to this specific point: We certainly should not be dogmatic on the usage of italics, jguk 22:22, 6 Apr 2005 (UTC)

All this would be alleviated by stating that Wikipedia uses recognized styles: MLA for humanities topics, APA for psychology, Chicago for sociology, and so on. We could even simplify further by requiring MLA style for all articles. Exploding Boy 22:53, Apr 6, 2005 (UTC)

Superscripted Ordinals

Is there a definitive guide that Wiki's using to define whether or not superscripted ordinals are to be used?

Far as I can see we never use them. We write 4077th, not 4077^th. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:05, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

- My opinion is that they shouldn't be used, but if you look at the pages on How to name numbers in English and superscript, they talk about how ordinals are "often" superscripted, yet those pages use both superscripted and non-superscripted. On most of the pages for U.S. states, superscripts are used very often.

I have been returning superscripted ordinals to non-superscripted on several pages, when I received this rather haughty and annonymous message:

I believe you may be confusing style guidelines for typewritten manuscripts with typography rules. Because many typewriters and word processing programs did not support the proper display of ordinals, many schools developed guidelines requiring that none be used. In typography, superscripted ordinals are not only common, they are standard. Since html does not yet have standard character codes for displaying ordinals (as it does for some fractions; i.e. ¼, ½, ¾) the most common method is the ^{tag. Please consider fixing those you removed. Thank you. - 12.74.169.35 15:24, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)}

I have over 1,000 books, which, I assume have been set by typographers, and only one uses superscripted ordinals (it's a rather old book, at that). Although many of the books use the fancy numbers that drop below the bottom like, which could make ordinal tags look superscripted, I don't get the feeling that superscripted ordinals are "standard," at all. Madmaxmarchhare 17:34, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

But, instead of being a punk, I would rather find out for sure.

Articles in encyclopedia space merely document common English-language practice, not Wikipedia's own style. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:03, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

That's "interesting," but I'm not sure if it gets us any closer to a solution here :-) Madmaxmarchhare 17:26, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Headings and Sub-Headings: Capitalization of Major Words

At the moment the Manual of Style section on headings talks about, "Headings begin with a capital letter just like any other normal text. So, capitalise the first letter of the first word and any proper nouns in headings, but leave the rest lower case."

This part of the Manual of Style is WRONG. Normal English usage is to capitalise the major words of headings and sub-headings. For example, to quote section 3.39 of The United States Government Print Office Style Manual 2000:

"3.39. All principal words are capitalized in titles of addresses, articles, books, captions, chapter and part headings, editorials, essays, headings, headlines, motion pictures and plays (including television and radio programs), papers, short poems, reports, songs, subheadings, subjects, and themes. The foregoing are also quoted." [bolding of relevant words is mine]

So, we have Related Links NOT Related links being correct usage. We have other similar incorrect styles used on the Wikipedia for a long time. For article titles we have to capitalise in certain ways for disambiguation. However, for headings and sub-headings within an article normal English language rules for capitalisation of titles should be followed.

Back in March I asked on the talk page of that particular part of the Manual of Style for a reference to a style manual which applies the 'rule' which seems to have been put in place for the Wikipedia. I have not seen anyone put a reference in place. However, after a short search I have found a manual of style from a major American organisation (thus torpedoing the argument that capitalization of major words is a British usage only) which is directly the opposite of what is said with the Wikipedia's guidance.

So, we have an American manual of style, my education and the application of capitalization rules for headings that I have seen in the media to say that the person who put that 'rule' in the Wikipedia Manual of Style was wrong. I would therefore strongly urge that this be changed asap. David Newton 17:16, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Further, to quote the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition:

"In regular title capitalization, also known as headline style, the first and last words and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinating conjunctions (if, because, as, that, etc.) are capitalized. Articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, for, nor), and prepositions, regardless of length, are lowercased unless they are the first or last word of the title..."

That is certainly contrary to the 'rule' for Wikipedia. David Newton 17:41, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Again, there is no "academy" for English, Wikipedia is quite entitled to adopt any style we want. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:11, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, our weird capitalisation for section headings has always irked me, too. You have my support for changing it. Binabik80 18:30, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Actually, Wikipedia is not weird, it's following the latest trends. Most places using style guides that were not simply copied over from the 1920s do not randomly capitalize words just because they are in a heading. Capitalizing words for no reason in headings is an archaic holdover from the 19th century. You only capitalize words that would be capitalized normally. It's simple, common sense, and if there are places doing it the other way I'd argue that they are the ones doing it wrong. DreamGuy 09:05, Apr 15, 2005 (UTC)

I wouldn't support the idea of changing one prescriptive method (which is, in the main, followed) with another one. But would support removing any prescription. Some people like what the MoS says, others (myself included) would prefer your method - but why not allow either? The important thing is to present things nicely so a reader can absorb the info easily - not to prescribe, jguk 19:01, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This last remark appears to be part of jguk's ongoing campaign against establishing style standards. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:07, Apr 9, 2005 (UTC)

My views are consistent throughout - readers welcome a well-written, well-presented article, and that, rather than any diktats imposed by self-appointed style gurus, is what is important. Also, my remark is based on the MoS's statement that where practice diverges from what the MoS says, the MoS will change, which is presumably a point you agree with? jguk 23:29, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Your views do seem perfectly consistent, but also, opposed to consistency. Header caps. seems to me to be one area WP is pretty consistent already, so why would there be any motivation to change the MoS on the basis of practice? Clearly the MoS can't (and shouldn't) attempt to be consistent with all existing practice (otherwise it'd include things like "arbitrarily change articles from British English to American English as seems good to you"); rather it should attempt to reflect usages that there's explicit (in terms of support expressed for the guidelines themselves) and implicit (in terms of said practice) consensus for. That's hardly a matter of "diktat" by self-appointed anyone. The "Manual of Style" should be, in my opinion, a manual of style, not an "editor's bill of rights". What purpose does the latter serve, other than maintaining inconsistencies for their own sakes, or for the sakes of validating unfortunate notions of ownership of article text. Alai 05:51, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that Wikipedia is not WRONG, it is simply different. Headings look random when they are randomly capitalised, and they are thus harder to read. Note that the Chicago MoS does not indicate capitalization of only "major" words. Hyacinth 23:17, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I have to disagree with David for the following reasons: 1) The headings in a Wikipedia article are only meant to loosely structure a page. They are not a formal division like chapters in publications, so I don't see why they should have headline capitaliziation. 2) Most headings in Wikipedia do not have any special capitalization, so it's too late to add this rule now. It would just create an inconsistancy. Also, I don't agree with jguk that we should remove the current wording, because I don't think it prescribes anything. Perhaps it can be rephrased to say "In a heading, there is no need to capitalize the rest of the words" instead of "...do not capitalize the rest of the words." --Sean Kelly 02:24, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

If all else were equal, I'd prefer capitalizing the main words in both headings and titles. But if David is suggesting changing the capitalization style for section headings and keeping the current style for article titles, I'm not sure about that, because it would be inconsistent between the two.

The only advantage I see for our current downcasing style for article titles is that it doesn't require piping. (A hypothetical example: If I want to link to ~~"British botantists"~~ British botanists", I can do that directly, instead of ~~"British Botantists|British botantists"~~ British Botanists|British botanists".) Maurreen 04:08, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Like every other literary institution, Wikipedia has appropriately evolved its own "house style". And I concur that the trend is away from capitalization in titles. Keep the wording of the section as it is now for the sake of a consistent user experience. Fawcett5 13:08, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Some publishing houses, such as the long-established Brookers in New Zealand, have been pioneering what is now the WP style for years, if not decades. And it certainly has that distinct advantage for editors pointed out by Maurreen above. So let's use it if we feel like it and leave it alone if we don't like it! Robin Patterson 03:23, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

IMHO Wikipedia housestyle is embarrassingly awful. It is frequently semi-literate and makes a laughing stock of us sometimes. I had an academic colleague recently roar with laughter when we called an article Letter of credence. He, and everyone else knew, that it should be Letter of Credence. But everytime I capitalised correctly some neanderthal who didn't know what the article was about would lowercase it, making the article look like it was the work of someone who didn't know that a Letter of Credence is a 'formal diplomatic term', not just a loose collection of generic words. Capitalisation exists for a reason, to distinguish between formal names and descriptive words. So one can talk generically about a president but specifically about the President of Ireland, generically about popes but specifically when talking about Pope as a title, generically when taking about someone getting advice (non-obligatory recommendation or guidance) but specifically when talking about a head of state receiving Advice (ie, binding constitutional instruction). But all these specific rules, and the guidance that should come from capitalisation, gets lost here with the make everything lowercase brigade. FearÉIREANN 23:29, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Well, Jtdirl, not everyone (not even every 64-year-old English-speaking university graduate) knew before today that "Letter of Credence" was a specific technical term. Your solution there, I suggest, (AFTER you have "corrected" it throughout the article!) is to add a note to the article's Talk page so as to reduce the likelihood that someone will ignorantly revert the capital. Robin Patterson 03:23, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

BTW, I would have capitalized ~~(n)~~Neanderthal. But I don't necessarily think Jtdirl's failure to do so makes him a laughingstock. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:47, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

Commas and places

Does anyone object to an addition along the following lines (and can anyone suggest better wording?):

"In constructions such as 'city, country,' or 'city, state,' use a comma or other appropriate punctuation after 'country' or 'state'." Maurreen 04:17, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Support, obviously. But perhaps using italics instead of quote marks, to avoid the whole vexed issue of commas-before or commas-after. Thus: "In constructions such as city, country, or city, state, use a comma or other appropriate punctuation after country or state." And throw in an example to make it abundantly clear: "Acapulco, Guerrero, is a city and major sea port..." –Hajor 04:33, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't think we should prefer one style over another here. Personally, first I prefer to try to avoid such constructions, but if I can't avoid them, I'd not have a second comma. I looked in all my favourite style guides, and couldn't find anything about the subject - so I guess it's not really a great hot potato. In Hajor's construction, would it anyway not be better to write "Acapulco is a city and major sea port..."?

I note that in general terms, on this side of the Pond, the trend is towards having a minimum of punctuation. It's best to stay silent on the matter and enjoy the wonderful mélange of styles that is Wikipedia than issue a directive that will be largely ignored, jguk 06:59, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

OK, so that's what I get for trying to combat systemic bias in examples. Miami, Florida, then. sigh But more importantly: modern British punctuation doesn't hold that a phrase in apposition (which is what these are) needs setting off with commas? –Hajor 07:28, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand. What's the systemic bias you are trying to combat? As far as the particular British English style, I've looked for an example of what people may use - but have failed. I think it's more a case of there not really being a need for constructions of "Place, Country" other than at the end of a clause. All the best, jguk 08:10, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The Wikipedia project has a systemic bias that grows naturally out of the demographic of its contributors, which is why I took my example from the least well known of the big three North American federal countries. Perhaps Nogales, Sonora, would have been a better option; too late now, I suppose. Re the UK usage, running a Google search on "in-newport-gwent site:guardian.co.uk" (or bbc.co.uk, telegraph.co.uk, etc.) is informative but, of course, not conclusive.

On a related note, the current punctuation on "ITN" -- Charles, Prince of Wales weds Camilla Parker Bowles, who is now known as the Duchess of Cornwall -- looks dead wrong to me, but the comma I inserted arguing phrase-in-apposition was reverted, with the argument that it wasn't apposition, but rather his name. Counter-intuitive to me, but who am I to say? –Hajor 15:53, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In general, I believe that place names should be given without any country/state information in article titles. However, when a number of places have the same name, it is usual to disambiguate by giving the location after a comma. Particularly in the United States, rapid settlement patterns led to numerous places sharing the same name, and the disambiguating style has become the norm even for unambiguous place names. This does not mean that this style is only used in the US: Newport, Gwent, is an obvious British version of this style (there are other Newports in Britain); Boston, Lincolnshire, is an international disambiguation that doesn't sound at all round. Local style and good English usage should work together to determine which system is more appropriate. Technically, when a comma is used in this way, it is a bracketing comma rather than a listing comma. Therefore, in text another comma is required after Miami, Florida, for the flow of the sentence not be interrupted. I think this style is better than parentheses in titles when it is called for. --Gareth Hughes 19:47, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Those advocating a second comma after a state or country name are suggesting adoption of a construction that is used with ever decreasing frequency on both sides of the pond. It would be mistaken to make this official policy. Fawcett5 22:35, 10 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Concerning the "ever decreasing frequency": Do you have anything to back that up, or is it just your opinion? Maurreen 02:25, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Yes, it is being used less frequently, but that doesn't necessarily make it right. There is some misconception that the comma is part of the name, and thus exists for itself. A comma always has to have a role in the syntax of a sentence. I think the misconception is that it is a listing comma. When I write my address, I sometimes use listing commas to separate each element (when I can write it on different lines, I don't need them: they've gone out of fashion!). These place names look a little like addresses, and so the comma may feel like a listing comma. However, the comma is bracketing off additional information: the where and which of places with the same name. As a bracketing comma, unless the phrase appears in isolation, or immediately before another punctuation mark, it should take a closing bracketing comma. This is as important, albeit not as glaring, as opening parentheses and not closing them. --Gareth Hughes 13:32, 11 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm going to have to agree with Garzo there. If it's being used less frequently, that's only out of sheer laziness. When attention is paid to the proper placement of commas, even if it may not be entirely possible to regulate such a thing, it greatly increases Wikipedia's credibility. Improper punctuation smacks of poor workmanship. Tim Rhymeless (Er...let's shimmy) 02:08, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Citation-Style Recommendations?

I've been trying to find a proper manual or recommendation for how to cite my sources in wikipedia. Should I just adopt MLA, Chicago, APA, etc, etc? I assume I ought to use foot/end-notes, is this correct? Have I just missed the page entirely in my searches? If it does exist, I believe it at least ought be linked to the manual of style. Jxn 07:18, 2005 Apr 14 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Cite sources. -- Jmabel | Talk 16:19, Apr 14, 2005 (UTC)
- Thanks, I added a link to the guide on the main manual of style to save others the trouble I went through. Jxn

Example

Does there exist an example page (ie: a dummy sample) that possesses most/all of the aspects from the Manual of Stlye that I can refer to? I think it would be easier to use than trawling the Manual of Style. --Commander Keane 12:14, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No. Most articles of any length - including almost all featured articles, are inconsistent with it in some respect. This is a fault with the MoS, rather than the articles, as the MoS has not adapted to deal with the expansion of WP and the variety of equally valid styles that different users use, jguk 19:22, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think Commander Keane is asking if we could create a short article that actually fits the MoS and shows off the styles. The problem is that some of the style points are restrictions, such as no curly quotes, or too specific, such as the italicization of genus and species. --Sean κ. ⇔ 19:28, 17 Apr 2005 (UTC)

That's what I thought he meant too. It's just that, with respect, I do not think it is a very good idea - some parts of the MoS are ignored more often than they are adhered to, and I don't think it would be useful to encourage people to change WP wholesale to comply with it. To see what well-written articles look like I would advise looking at Wikipedia:Featured articles and copying the styles there, jguk 18:04, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Annotated article might be helpful. Maurreen 02:12, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also, just for clarification, No. 8 in the featured article criteria is: "Comply with the standards set by any relevant WikiProjects, as well as those in the style manual." Maurreen 02:18, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

National varieties

The first words of the article Internationalization and localization were recently changed from "Internationalization and localization" to "Internationalization (or internationalisation) and localization (or localisation)". Given that no human being could possibly understand one of these spellings and fail to understand the other, this seems just plain silly to me. As I understand our section on National varieties of English, it is also against policy. Could someone who has not got a personal stake in that article (which I do) please comment here and maybe revert? Thanks. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:03, Apr 19, 2005 (UTC)

Deities begin with a capital letter

Proper names begin with a capital letter. Thus "There is no god but God, and God is the god both of Christianity and Islam, and his name is God.".

I have often erroneously used philosopher quotes instead of italics when using words as names for themselves. Maybe there should be a mention in "quote usage" referring back to "words as words".

Pmurray bigpond.com 00:09, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

More capitalisation: "the Church" vs. "the church"

I've had a couple of discussions in different contexts about this, but it probably needs a bit of "democratic centralism". Where a particular church is being referred to, should it be referred to as "the Church", on the grounds of an abbreviated reference to a full title containing the capitalised word "Church" (Catholic Church, United Methodist Church, etc), or should it be referred to as "the church", on the basis of referring to it as a descriptive, non-proper noun, and avoiding any possible implication of uniqueness, definitiveness, etc? (I think there are at least two NPOV issues: bodies which are incontestably churches, and which make contested claims to be "The Church" in some sense; and bodies which are contested even to the churches, but which indubitably have the word "Church" in their titles.) Alai 05:32, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The obvious point first (just in case anyone misses it): the word should be capitalised in a proper name — the United Methodist Church and St Andrew's Church. I believe that the word should also be capitalised when refering to the theological concept of the unity of Christian believers, the Body of Christ, the Church — "Pentecost may be described as the birthday of the Church". Where, dogmatically, a Christian denomination understands itself to be the only true church, it might be described as Church. Thus, "Pope Benedict XVI is the new leader of the Church". I think this form should be avoided, as POV (it suggests that other churches are not part of the Church), and that individual organisations and Christian buildings be referred to as church.

Church — in proper names and for the theological concept.
church — all other instances.

--Gareth Hughes 11:30, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Two direct analogies, obviously, are Museum and Government. If the specific museum or denomination has been mentioned, capitalization is an option. If the idea of government is the issue, capitalization is an option.

Wikipedia does not capitalize Reality or Life or Church otherwise. --Wetman 15:33, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

My feeling is that when "church/Church" is being used as a referent to an entity whose proper name includes a capitalized "Church", then the capitalized form of the referent should be used as well. I believe it is well-understood in such cases that "the Church" is a shortening of the proper name and not an endorsement of special status for that particular entity. As Wetman points out, a similar situation occurs with "Museum", which I think perhaps illustrates less contentiously the principle we should be applying: if the subject has already been established to have "Museum" in its name, to have it referred to by "the Museum" is only natural. Example: "... tried to donate his masterpiece to the Museum of Bad Art; however, the donation was declined. A spokesperson for the Museum explained the decision as ..." This is what seems natural to me, but YMMV. -- Antaeus Feldspar 23:00, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The standard rule is straightforward. Is the word church being used generically or as a shortened proper noun for a specific religion (ie, is it just a way to avoid constant usage of the full name)?

For example.

Visitors to the church were amazed by its stained glass windows. (There 'church' is simply referring to a building.)
Pope Benedict XVI is the oldest pope in the History of the Roman Catholic Church for 250 years. John XXIII, though often thought of as older, actually was a younger head of the Church. (There 'church' is simply shorthand for 'Roman Catholic Church'.)
The Anglican Church's Lambeth Conference of that year was crucial to the Church's evolution of teaching on sexual matter. (Again 'Church' there means Anglican Church, so it is capitalised.)
The Christian Church of the years after the apostles lacked a central structure. Yet still the Church survived. (There too the 'church' is specific, and short for a proper noun, the 'Christian Church', so is capitalised.)
There are many churches in the United States. (There the term is used generically, not specifically referring to any specific one.)

The trick is simple. When one reads back the sentence, can the name of a clear specific organisation be fitted in to the text before the word 'church', with 'church' simply a shortened version of the full name. If it can, it is capitalised. If it can't, it isn't. FearÉIREANN 23:17, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I'm aware of this usage, but it's not at all clear to me that it rises to the level of a "standard rule". Do you have a reference? (Ideally a publisher's or newspapers style guide or something at such a level.) Alai 02:18, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree that the above is not standard (which is not to say that there is an opposing standard). The above would at least generally not comply with Associated Press style. Maybe we should leave it up to individual editors. Maurreen 05:54, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Judging by the Guardian Style Guide's take on capitalisation issues, I'd predict they wouldn't, either. Any such source that definitely would? Alai 01:42, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is elementary English taught in schools - sometimes called Implicit Proper Nouns (IPNs) and Explicit Proper Nouns (EPNs). If a word though appearing not be a proper noun is in reality a shortened version of a proper noun then it is treated as a proper noun for capitalisation purposes. It is a way to avoid clumsy repetition of long proper nouns that make text complicated to read.

Two examples Number 1

Rather than writing The Roman Catholic Church's decision to elect as Roman Catholic Church's head one of the Roman Catholic Church's most outspoken conservatives has shocked many members of the Roman Catholic Church (which is a tangled mouthful) one can write The Roman Catholic Church's decision to elect as the Church's head one of its most outspoken conservatives shocked many members of the Church. The capitalisation tells the reader that the word church is not generalised but is specific: the same church named in full at the start of the sentence. Technically if you lowercase the last church it could be misinterpreted as meaning the church is in broadest sense, ie, not specifically Roman Catholic but the broad Christian Church.

Number 2

Example 1: Various Church leaders attended the installation of the head of the Roman Catholic Church.
Example 2: Various church leaders attended the installation of the head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Both sentences look the same but mean something different. In Example 1 the capitalised Church shows it is an Implicit Proper Noun, linking it to the proper noun in the sentence, Roman Catholic Church. So the Church leaders are Roman Catholic Church leaders: cardinals, bishops, etc. Example 2, by lowercasing church shows that it is not an IPN. So the church is generic, not specific. So church does not mean Roman Catholic Church but any church. So it refers to non-RC figures like the Anglican Church's Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Lutheran Church in Rome, etc etc.

It is something English teachers recommend strongly to ensure that the reader knows unambigiously what church is meant in the sentence. Copywriters do it all the time in academic texts and encyclopaedias. It is more used in British English than in American English but my American publishers are sticklers for it; they say they prefer Irish and British authors to American ones because there is less work involved in copyediting, as the meaning of sentences are clearer on account proper use of IPNs.

Newspapers (and so their style guides) used it less often for technical reasons.

1. It was more difficult to do in the pre-computerised days of hard metal. They tried to avoid cutting between upper and lowercase letters because it was more time-consuming to do in a job where you hadn't much time (and once a style is decided in a newspaper, it is next to impossible to change it even when technologically there is no need for some of the rules anymore. If you think wikipedia has a lot of rules, you should try working in a newspaper!)
2. Their attitude was - the paper will be used for wrapping chips in tomorrow so who cares if we don't get every capital (or even every spelling) right.

But what is written here is appearing in an encyclopaedia, not a newspaper, so it has a far longer shelf-life. Many articles deal with far more complicated subjects, at far longer length, than a 300 word piece in a newspaper. And we are using modern technology. So there is no justification in using a standard that loses the benefits of capitalisation, when the whole point of upper casing is to add clarity to sentences and minimise misunderstanding. Wikipedia is already poorly regarded academically, not because of the standard of its contents (some of which is first class, some not so) but because of its notoriously illiteracy and poor use of grammar. (I have already heard one academic roar with laughter because some idiots kept lowercasing an article's use of capitals that were there to specify that the article was about a formal legal term. What the lowercasers didn't realise was that when lowercased the term meant something totally different, and the article went from being a first class piece to a semi-literate piece of junk.

From marking academic papers and theses, I know that failure to use IPNs in many universities will result in an automatic docking of 8%. Overall failure to capitalise correctly will see 18-25% docked automatically. If wikipedia wants to be taken seriously it needs to follow high standards in a number of areas, and one key one is to know how and when to capitalise. And that flows from knowing why somethings are capitalised and some things aren't. That key to that is knowing whether some words though at first glance look as though they should be lowercased are actually implicit proper nouns that as a result should be treated as a normal proper noun. FearÉIREANN 02:34, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

This is another archaic holdover that's not in common usage everywhere. Capitalizing a word that is not within a proper noun context just ecause it could be used that way really doesn't make a lot of sense. To claim that newspapers don't do it because it was hard to typeset and they didn't care if they got it right or not is complete nonsense, as the guidelines have been used and enforced long after those two feeble explanations were even issues. It's used because it makes more sense logically. DreamGuy 03:34, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

That is a classic. You write about clarity of language in one of poorest written comments on the page, littered with grammatical, linguistic and spelling errors!!! Usage of PNs is elementary english that 12 year olds learn in most of the english-speaking world even if not maybe in your school. As to the newspaper stuff, that is what the newspapers themselves say. I write for newspapers. I have done copy-editing for newspapers. And if you had actually read and understood what I wrote you would know that style books for newspapers all originated in the hot metal age. The newspaper industry is notoriously bureaucratic and once a rule has been set down it does not change. So rules set when they could not for practical purposes use capitals except in limited cases are still followed because of archane demarcation rules about changing the conditions of work of journalists. One of those conditions (I know from personal experience in the National Union of Journalists) was that 'we didn't have to obey IPN standards under our 'hot metal' contracts. You can't change the rules without giving us (financial) compensation.' And newspaper bosses aren't going to pay more money, so the hot metal style remains, even though it is notoriously illiterate. If you are going to write about clarity of language, DreamGuy, it would help if you actually possessed some. FearÉIREANN 04:15, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It is not helpful to insult people.
Possibly some of this is regional differences.
Not all newspaper style is as cemented as the experience of FearÉIREANN apparently suggests. At my newspaper, for example, we make some style changes every year.

If we want to get into this deeply, my suggestion would be to use some references.

Another option is we could just drop it, move on, and leave the issue to individual editors. Maurreen 05:20, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Here's an example, from the Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, third edition: "Roman Catholic Church, Christian church headed by the pope, the bishop of Rome. ..." Maurreen 05:28, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I think the usage of "the church" is more NPOV and should be the established standard regardless of usage in other areas, including for uses of the body of Christ since using "the Church" pushes a specific theological concept that is not accepted by all Christians. I can see some logic in using "Church" for an IPN but only if such a style is standardized in the US and UK. Trödel|talk 16:36, 25 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Disagree (and I am not a Christian). A "church" is typically a building or a single congregation, a "Church" is a denomination. -- Jmabel | Talk 15:42, Apr 27, 2005 (UTC)

Punctuation and brackets

I did not find any rules on where to put punctuation, when brackets are used. Should it appear inside the brackets (like this,) or outside (like this), or should there be any different rules for commas, full stops and question marks (like this)? −Woodstone 20:30, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC)

Punctuation goes where it belongs. (A sentence wholly inside brackets will have its full stop within those brackets.) This means that bracketed clauses at the end of sentences do not include a full stop (if you see what I mean). Kind regards, jguk 20:43, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable. I just wondered, because I saw so many differences existing in arcticles. I will add this guideline to the styleguide. −Woodstone 21:22, 2005 Apr 23 (UTC)

Proposed style for episodic descriptions

I have been working on the Ed, Edd n Eddy entries for the past several days, and have conceived a rather straightforward 'template' of sorts for this type of article. Please look at the layout I have applied to this article and sub-articles (the episodes) and tell me if you like it, and if it should be appended to the Wp MoS.
Ed Otto 2300, 2 May 2005 (IST)

Dashes

Caesura's edit to change a pair of en dashes to em dashes was reverted. May I ask why? According to Chicago, em dashes are used for breaks of this nature, whereas en dashes are used for ranges, open compounds, and so on. Is it different elsewhere? — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:57, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd un-revert it and cite Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dashes). —mjb 09:27, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah, sorry. I've never seen em dashes used parenthetically anywhere else in Wikipedia, only en dashes. After I checked the dash#Em dash article, it seems they were incorrectly spaced, but the re-revert fixed that. Noisy | Talk 10:21, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

Serial comma

The following was removed from the article:

Serial comma can also be problematic: consider "They went to Oregon with Betty, a cow, and a piano." See serial comma for further discussion.

The comment on removal was:

removed sentence which is problematic only if serial commas used inconsistantly; also, the MOS should follow the MOS in puncuation placement

I am not convinced that this is only a problem with serial commas used inconsistantly, but I don't think this example adds to the MOS, so I ahve moved it here. -- Chris Q 15:09, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the removal.

Nohat, please notice that three people have disagreed with your addition. If it's important to you, please try to build consensus on the talk page. Maurreen 16:22, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think the current situation is misleading—it makes out the Oxford comma to be some kind of punctuation panacea, which it is not. Some kind of nod should be made to the fact that a policy that always uses the serial comma can result in ambiguities. Nohat 16:28, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For one thing, can you find a more realistic example: one that has been published without being contrived for demonstration purposes? Maurreen 16:33, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I do not like or use the serial comma as I find it generally unnecessary. However, I do acknowledge that there are some circumstances where a serial comma can be helpful: this is when an item in a list includes a conjunction. I don't think the serial comma leads to ambiguities, but I think it can overburden the punctuation of a sentence. --Gareth Hughes 18:13, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

But serial comma does create an ambiguity in the sentence "They went to Oregon with Betty, a cow, and a piano" or for that matter any NP of the form [NP1, NP2, and NP3] whre NP2 can be interpreted as an appositive of NP1. Another example: "After the lights came back on, the only people left in the room were Betty, a maid, and my sister." Nohat 19:04, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is this really an issue with the serial comma? It seems the following sentence has just as much ambiguity: "They went to Oregon with Betty, a cow, Hank, a horse, Jimmy, a pig, and Joseph." Are there seven travelers or four? —Sean κ. ⇔ 22:45, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The MoS says "pages will either gradually be made to conform with this guide or this guide will itself be changed to the same effect". Here many pages do not use the Oxford comma (which is the serial comma's more common name this side of the Pond) and many pages do. There should be no surprise about this - whilst having or not having a mandatory Oxford comma is permissible in all forms of English, in North America more people use it than don't, and outside North America more people don't use it than do. Though this is not a rule - there are plenty of counter-examples both ways, but the point is that there is a large proportion of people that don't and a large proportion of people that do use the mandatory Oxford comma.

Therefore, as long as WP encourages edits from anyone wherever they are in the world, some pages will be written without Oxford commas, others will. Since both styles are permissible in standard written English - and if we actually tried to enforce either a pro- or and anti-Oxford comma we'd piss a lot of people off very quickly, I suggest that this guide is changed so that it conforms with what is already standard WP practice and makes clear that both styles are OK, jguk 19:00, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with jguk. I was taught to not use the final comma: in those circumstances where ambiguity exists, you should use the semicolon. In my nigh on fifty years of reading fiction and non-fiction, I don't recall ever seeing a final comma ... and I'm sure it would have stuck out like a sore thumb if I did. Noisy | Talk 19:40, May 3, 2005 (UTC)

I'm one of the "use serial comma" people. We were taught to use it. It also seems more natural to me, as commas are often used where pauses occur in sentences and when I read aloud "Cheese, bacon, and mayonnaise make everything better", I pause after both "cheese" and "mayonnaise". — Knowledge Seeker দ 20:01, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Strange that there's no mention of semicolon (";") in this (nearly non-) debate or in the serial comma article. If you have a list of items in which one of the items is a phrase that contains commas, be it for appositives or otherwise, then you just use a semicolon instead of a comma as the separator between list items, right? However, in the case of "Betty, a cow, and a piano", if Betty is the cow, then the ideal phrasing would probably, IMHO, be "a piano and Betty, a cow". Perhaps someone should look this up in Chicago? — mjb 21:27, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Chicago says, and I quote:

"In a series consisting of three or more elements, the elements are separated by commas. When a conjunction joins the last two elements in a series, a comma is used before the conjunction . . .:

Attending the conference were Farmer, Johnson, and Kendrick.

We have a choice of copper, silver, or gold."

(Chicago Manual of Style, 14th Edition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993, Chapter 5.5.)

However, I would also go with the semicolons as they leave no room for confusion. Onlyemarie 22:29, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I also agree with jguk. Official policy should not take a stand on this issue. Nohat 21:29, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Now, that is good. I believe that the use and non-use of the serial comma both have pros and cons, and none of these are all that significant. Let each editor follow their own aesthetic on this matter, and let us agree only to worry about a serial comma when its presence or absence might confuse. --Gareth Hughes 21:40, 3 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What about having a section along these lines (feel free to propose improvements):

Oxford comma

The Oxford comma (sometimes known as the serial comma ) is the optional last comma in a list that ends in "and" or "or". For example, it's the second comma in "ham, egg, and chips". Many writers always use an Oxford comma in these situations, others only use an Oxford comma where it is necessary to avoid ambiguity or otherwise improve the reading of a sentence. Wikipedia has no preference between these two styles.

jguk 12:07, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would prefer to use the title serial comma for it. It is also known as the Oxford comma and the Harvard comma (and perhaps has other names). However, serial comma is the most neutral. The Chicago has great influence in USA, where the use of the comma is the norm. Elsewhere, there is much more freedom whether to use it or not. I don't believe that this MoS should compel editors to use or not use this comma. The occurrences of lists where the presence or absence of a serial comma affects comprehension are not all that common: let's just use common sense with it. --Gareth Hughes 12:41, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with the title change to "serial comma" since many editors are not familiar with the other names and it is more descriptive. Trödel|talk 14:07, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Happy to change "Oxford" to "Serial" and "Serial" to "Oxford" in the above. (Note that "Oxford comma" is the more common name for it in the UK - and also that "serial" can be misleading in that it only refers to the last optional comma in a series, not the other mandatory commas.) jguk 16:23, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I was taught that it isn't necessary, not that you shouldn't use it (I'm from the same side of the pond as jguk). I generally do use it as it reads closer to the way I think of the list, but if it is ambiguous at all I don't use it or substitute it. I like this proposed version, as it fits nicely with most the regional varieties of English guidelines, and this seems to be a case of similar usage differences. I have a mild preference for "Serial comma" over "Oxford comma" as that is where the article is, and it seems to make sense for Wikipedia's MoS to be consistent with the title of a Wikipedia article. Thryduulf 19:56, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As long as we're reopening the issue of the serial comma, I'd make the following suggested policy: that both uses are allowed, and, unlike the British/American English policy, we also allow editors to freely change either to the other. This seems to be pretty much what people are doing anyway; build the sidewalks where people walk. Of course, any ambiguous wording should be avoided and corrected, in general. Deco 23:52, 6 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If the style is going to be changed, I suggest being more concise, perhaps like this: "Wikipedia has no preference concerning the serial comma." Maurreen 03:30, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm all in favour of being concise. One option would be to remove the comments on the comma completely - leaving it implicit that we have no guideline. However, this would have the disadvantage that anyone looking here for guidance would not know that we had no preference. If we are to be explicit (which seems the better option) then I think:

(1) We need to explain what we mean - and I think the term "serial comma" is not so self-explanatory as to require no explanation.

(2) Explain why it is an issue.

(3) Make the advice as accessible to all - ie use straightforward language, and acknowledge that the more common term in the UK by far is the "Oxford comma", rather than the "serial comma".

I partly agree with Deco's point. I am unconcerned if editors freely change from one approach to another (as long as an editor trying to change a style backs away from doing so if edited back, and as long as no editor deliberately goes out of their way to edit as many pages as possible into their preferred style). The bit I disagree with is the need to state that point here. It would make the advice more complicated and, as Deco notes, people are already doing what he proposes anyway - and the revised guidance won't pretend to ban that practice either.

Amending my earlier suggested wording, I have the following for further (brief - as it seems we are agreed on the basic tenets) discussion:

Serial comma

The so-called Oxford or serial comma is the optional last comma in a list in phrases such as "ham, egg, and chips". Many writers always use a serial comma, others only to avoid ambiguity or to improve the reading of a sentence. Wikipedia has no preference between these two styles.

jguk 09:16, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I like it; I think that should be the wording. We may just want to draw attention the point in question, "ham, egg[,] and chips", but otherwise it's grand. --Gareth Hughes 16:44, 7 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Post Change discussion

There being no other comments for a couple of days, and there being general agreement on the principle of the change, I have added the text suggested above to the MoS. Kind regards, jguk 18:23, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I reverted the revert since there were no objections raised in talk and the reverter did not explain his position here. Trödel|talk 21:36, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. This change represents the consensus that there should be no specific guidance. Nohat 21:46, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have significant reservations about this change. I must admit that I'm not a serial comma user, rather dislike it, and consider the arguments for it being in any sense logical, as opposed to merely an arbitrary convention, to be pretty weak; so in that sense I'd not be at all sad to see it go. But I'm concerned about the precendent that a change to a "do your own thing" stance sets: one could iterate such "but some people won't like it" arguments over every point in the MoS, and end up saying nothing about any of them -- a "comparative essay on usage", and in effect no house style whatsoever. (Indeed, jguk's proposal is a further step on the way to doing as much -- and if there's any danger of a "package deal" effect coming into play, I'd far prefer serial commas and "logical" quotes, as at present, than end up with no serial comma and "aesthetic" quotes, or some system where we have to determine stylistic questions on a per article basis, or otherwise balkanise the article into different usages, as already arises with US vs non-US spelling.)

If such a change is to be made, I'd prefer it were in the form of an outright deletion. Having a "Manual" that discusses something without coming to any conclusion as to the correct use seems to me to be pointless: "instruction creep" in the form of a longer document, without the benefit of any actual "instruction". Alai 22:32, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think a compromise of the above suggestion and the existing solution would be best. My suggestion is therefore:

A serial comma is the optional last comma in a list in phrases such as "ham, egg, and chips". It should be used whenever there may be ambiguity in the sentence. For example, "The author would like to thank her parents, Sinéad O'Connor and President Bush" may imply that those two people are the author's parents.

Contrary to this, it is common convention to not use a serial comma when specifying the name of a railroad. For example, "Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad", not "Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago, and St. Louis Railroad"

I prefer using one to not, but there are too many people that don't use it for us to force it on them. violet/riga (t) 22:43, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The problem here is that, quite frankly, you shouldn't use a comma to disambiguate in "The author would like to thank her parents, Sinéad O'Connor and President Bush". It'd be bad writing to have such a sentence in the first place - the syntax is poor. To see my point, think about how you might read the sentence to someone in a way to avoid the same ambiguity. It's difficult, if not impossible, to succeed. What would be better would be to recast the sentence: "The author would like to thank Sinéad O'Connor, her parents and President Bush", jguk 05:16, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The first paragraph is reasonable (I thought about suggesting that should be become may be, being against prescription). The second paragraph is a nonsense: railways should not have their own style. The absense of the serial comma is due to the list being one of modifiers to the verb. Anyway, I don't feel that to not use is a place to boldly go without thinking where it might lead. --Gareth Hughes 23:46, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually this isn't a "railways" rule, but a rule for proper use of a proper name. As Strunk said "In the names of business firms the last comma is omitted, as "Brown, Shipley and Company." [2]

Oh dear: special case within a special case. But surely this is covered by the more general rule of preserving original usage? Whether that usage is itself "stylistically correct" is a subsidiary issue. Alai 01:24, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

LOL - I agree the original usage is a better way to go - it also is supported by the fact that we should generally call people/companies/groups by the name they call themselves. Trödel|talk 01:30, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly object to a few days discussion among a small number of people making such a drastic change to a long-standing part of the MoS, that affects the entire project. A handful of opinions expressed within a few days of the issue being re-raised hardly represents a consensus among the thousands of Wikipedia editors. Was the issue publicized on the Village Pump? Going's on? Mailing list? Anywhere? I don't want to have to take to checking this talk page every couple days to see if there is an issue I care about that has been re-opened. Chicago and Strunk & White both support serial commas, serial commas solve ambiguity more often than they cause it, and have been the Wikipedia standard for years. I strongly object to this change. And I am sick of people making this an AE vs. BE issue--I attended public school in the US and was taught to NOT use them--it wasn't until I was an adult professional writer that I adopted that style. Niteowlneils 23:56, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I supported the change in support of the KISS principle. Additionally, sometimes making the change is the only way to see if there are in any true objections. This is a wiki, if concensus is truly against the change it will be obvious to all soon. Trödel|talk 01:04, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just to put in my perspective: I agree with Niteowlneils's views as expressed above. I personally prefer the serial comma for noun lists, since that is how I was trained to write. Although, I have to admit I didn't know the Strunk rule about business firms — I just looked up the names of several famous American law firms and they all follow that rule. --Coolcaesar 01:20, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, and in response to Niteowlneils, the change does not affect the entire project - all it does is to bring the MoS in line with what has already happened on the project. The previous guidance just didn't reflect what has actually happened on Wikipedia where many, many articles do not use the mandatory Oxford comma convention. The MoS has always stated that if it goes out of kilter with what is happening on Wikipedia, it will change. The revised wording is just following that principle. Kind regards, jguk 05:16, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If this was "already what happened in the project", why did a majority of editors in the last POLL reject your proposal to remove the longstanding rule? (And that wasn't the first time.) Why, if it's "what already happened", did you not advertise that you were going to strike a whole section of the style guide, other than a few comments in the middle of one talk page? Jonathunder 05:59, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

You'd have to ask them - but from memory there was only 1 vote in it (it was certainly evenly balanced) - and certainly not enough to say there's a big wave in support of forcing everyone to use the mandatory Oxford comma. It's quite a minor change (not a big, earth-shattering amendment) and it was discussed above. I did not advertise the change as, although I proposed the new wording, I did not initiate the discussion, which was already tending towards allowing a variety of styles (which is what already happens in practice) before I added my support. And I strongly disagree that every change to this page needs to be advertised everywhere, jguk 06:28, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I understand, Jguk, that you would prefer the Manual of Style to be less prescriptive and to have editors follow their own preferences more often; however, I disagree. Having a consistent style is preferable, in my opinion. I am not crazy about using "logical quotes", and I detest not capitalizing all the major words in article titles. But I prefer those to haphazard mixtures, especially within the same article. I would like the text to stay the way it was. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:31, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

As noted, we already have inconsistent practice throughout WP on the Oxford comma - this change to the MoS merely reflects that. There will be no changes to WP at all as a result of the MoS change. I look forward to your comments on straight quotation marks below:) jguk 06:55, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have been asked to comment on this most recent incarnation of a never-ending debate, presumably because I've passionately argued in the past to recommend (but not necessarily require) final serial comma use. Here are my observations, for whatever they're worth:

Anyone making edits to the Manual of Style who can't be bothered to spell correctly should be automatically reverted. (It's inconsistent, not inconsistant, no matter what common dialect you use.)
Anyone making edits to the MoS based primarily on what they learned in school, insisting it's the right way, should also be automatically reverted. They display an amazingly parochial view of the world, and are too foolish to be considered responsible editors.
Most others making edits to the MoS tend to promote only those arguments that support their position and work hard to refute even logical arguments against them. There is little spirit of broad consideration and reasonable compromise.

We don't expect people without a serious mathematics background to make appropriate changes to Axiomatic set theory, yet everyone feels qualified to update the Manual of Style because they've learned how to speak English in grammar school. Many MoS editors make changes without troubling themselves to read prior debates on their pet causes. As a result, the MoS can be expected to suffer from its own style whiplash, rendering it impractical as a guide. Frankly, I (and likely many other otherwise responsible editors) no longer pay any attention it, so there's no point in asking for my unworthy opinion. — Jeff Q (talk) 07:12, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are we ready to re-insert the revised version (there seems to be little support for continuing including guidance that does not reflect current practice)? jguk 19:11, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

No. Have you not read the comments above? Have you not looked at the last poll on the subject, where a majority specifically rejected this? Have you not read the many comments there and in the archived pages since by editors on both sides of the Atlantic who said the serial comma is not what they were originally trained to use, but that they do use it because it reduces ambiguity? Jonathunder 22:05, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

The change is not prescriptive. It doesn't suddenly say you must not use the mandatory Oxford comma. It recognises that there are also those who have been taught not to use the mandatory Oxford comma, and that in some parts of the world it is rare (for instance, over here, the main national newspapers, most publishers and everyday business language does not use the mandatory Oxford comma). It also recognises that already very many WP pages do not use the mandatory comma. It also recognises that users of one style of English should not on WP prescribe to others that their usage is wrong. And so it is permissive - making it quite clear that pages may or may not adopt the mandatory Oxford comma. It also makes it clear that the alternative to not using the mandatory Oxford comma is not to never have an Oxford comma - it is to use it only where it is necessary to avoid ambiguity or to improve style.

If you read the comments in the most recent discussion you will see comments both from those who use and those who don't use the mandatory Oxford comma - but are quite prepared to accept that there are those who write in a different style than them and do not seek to dictate that their preferred style is followed.

Also, please bear in mind that in reality the change will have no impact whatsoever on any WP article. It is merely bringing the MoS in line with existing practice. Kind regards, jguk 22:18, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I still don't get it... WP is riddled with spelling errors. Does that mean the MoS should allow misspellings? No: There are inconsistencies, and when we see them we fix them. The MoS needs to take a stand or else it's useless. It doesn't matter if it doesn't reflect current usage. For the record, I disagree with the recent change. —Sean κ. ⇔ 23:23, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

BTW, I propose arbitration. Get a committee together, decide a policy, and set it in stone. This wavering is getting ridiculous. —Sean κ. ⇔ 23:34, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care much about serial commas either way. But because Jguk says WP tendency is not to use them, it would help if he provided evidence that shows a representative proportion. Maurreen 02:11, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I make my observations having read many WP articles. Given that we have over half a million articles, it's not really practical for me to list out all the articles that do not have a mandatory Oxford comma and compare them to the number of articles that have an Oxford comma which would probably not be added by someone who does not automatically use it. I can only suggest you look at more articles - particularly those that have large contributions by non-American editors, as the mandatory Oxford comma is much more prevalent amongst American contributors.

Regarding Sean's point, I strongly beg to differ. One of the reasons WP has expanded so fast and worldwide has been the acceptance of different styles. Any editor can edit an article without his style being arbitrarily changed (as opposed to improved) - and therefore editors do not suffer the annoying habit of their texts being arbitrarily changed. This approach also makes WP a more welcoming approach to users worldwide. For example, I'm sure if WP had adopted a policy of only using one form of standard English throughout all WP, it would have only a fraction of the editors and readers that it has.

The policy that we really need on usage can be reduced to three bullet points:

Any form of standard English is permissible
Be consistent within each article
Do not arbitrarily change which form of standard English is used

As a practical matter, it would also be sensible to observe that where a particular article relates to a topic closely-related to one part of the English-speaking world there is a tendency for that article to use a form of standard English used in that part of the English-speaking world. However, it would be best if this remained an observation rather than a firm requirement.

Kind regards, jguk 07:18, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Compromise?

The Oxford or serial comma is the last comma in a list in the phrases such as "ham, egg, and chips." In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use the serial comma. However; if the serial comma creates ambiguity or if there is more than one conjunction, clarity is preferred over this convention. For example: "They went to Oregon with Betty, a cow, and a piano." Additionally, for business firms (railways) the serial comma is usually (always) omitted.

I am proposing a compromise. I think the current "there is no guidance" is not useful since 1) it is A style guide, 2) this is not an official policy page, and 3) best practices should be encouraged. Note that after reviewing my Strunk & White from 11th grade English I have changed my view (see my comments above). Trödel|talk 21:53, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Trodel, if you were to pick almost any style guide outside N America (except for OUP and Fowler's, which is published by the OUP) you will see the opposite guidance given. The other problem is that where there is potential ambiguity, more often than not it is because the sentence is written badly, and changing the syntax to avoid the ambiguity would be better stylistically. Kind regards, jguk 06:36, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I agree re rewriting. The rule I really like instead is: In a series of three or more terms with a single conjunction, use the serial comma. If the serial comma creates ambiguity consider rewriting the sentence. For example: "They went to Oregon with Betty, a cow, and a piano." should be "Betty went to Oregon taking only a cow and a piano."

I didn't realize this is a 'cros the pond issue. I won't worry about it. Jesus is the Christ 21:44, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm willing to accept the compromise, largely as writen now, with just three more statements: 1) Ambiguity should be avoided. I don't know why that sentence was removed. Our aim is clear writing. 2) If we can avoid ambiguity by adding one simple comma rather than rewriting the sentence, editors are free to do so. 3) In the style guides listed, include the OUP and Fowler's. They are both influential and highly regarded by many throughout the English speaking world. Jonathunder 09:02, 2005 May 19 (UTC)

MediaWiki 1.5: time to drop straight quotation mark requirement?

When MediaWiki 1.5 comes out, the English language Wikipedia will switch to Unicode, and curly quotes can be put safely into the article source. I can see no good reason to keep WP:MOS#Use straight quotation marks and apostrophes after the switch. Susvolans (pigs can fly) 17:30, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You mean apart from the fact that we have thousands upon thousands of articles that already uniformly have straight quotation marks and apostrophes? :)

If we can keep it enforced, I think I'd prefer to try to keep them all straight, jguk 18:14, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Those of us with a taste for professional typography would prefer proper quote marks. The only things that have been preventing more widespread adoption of proper quotes have been that it makes the wiki source hard to read and they can be hard to input. With UTF-8 wikisource and the "insert special characters" box on the edit pages both of these problems are obviated. It will not be hard to implement a robot to fix all the quotes in current articles. Implementation of professional typography (including proper quotes) is one of the two major remaining issues that makes Wikipedia unsuitible for professional print publication (the other being a drive to upload more images with print-quality resolution).

Definitely support officially preferring proper quotes, but of course cheerfully tolerating straight quotes.Nohat 22:04, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The beauty of the wiki is that they're easy to edit. Introducing that would make it more difficult. violet/riga (t) 22:28, 9 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

They would just appear as ordinary punctuation in the edit box. How is that harder to edit? Nobody would be forced to use them. Surely templates with parameters are far more complex than some curly quote marks, yet we have those... Nohat 00:56, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Smart quotes would be a real pain for those of us who sometimes use text editors to mark up articles, as they often copy in strange ways. Jonathunder 06:07, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

That's going to happen anyway with all the other special unicode characters like dashes and Greek letters, and mathematical symbols. Nohat 07:11, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Greek letters, mathematical symbols, and other special symbolic whatnot do not occur that often in most articles. I've even edited a few math articles in simple text editors without hitting a problem. Dashes can be a problem sometimes. Smart quotes, if not implemented with a great deal of care and consideration of cross-platform editing tools, could be a bigger problem than dashes. Jonathunder 02:06, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

I don't understand all the technical issues, but I would love to be able to use proper quotation marks. I always use proper typography on my own website and writing. I especially hate when I'm copying a quotation to Wikipedia:Press coverage and I have to change the proper typography to those ugly straight quotation marks. I sincerely hope we can find a way to implement this change as I've been waiting for it since I joined. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:34, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This sounds absolutely stupid to me. None of my keyboards have curly quotes on them, and I'm unlikely to go to the trouble of searching for a way to enter them (an attitude that I suspect will extend to the vast bulk of Wikipedia editors). Noisy | Talk 16:24, May 11, 2005 (UTC)

Tons of GUI programs have an algorithm called "smart quotes" built in to them—you type straight quotes, and the algorithm converts it to curlies if necessary based on rules as to the context of the quotes—it usually changes other punctuation characters and ligatures as well. So you type

"Hello--I'm typing 'straight quotes,' my dear AEvar."

and you get

“Hello—I’m typing ‘straight quotes,’ my dear Ævar.”

I may have missed the implications of using quote characters for italics and bold, but it should be possible to have smart quotes in the renderer, so that the wikitext keeps straight quotes but curlies get displayed in the HTML. So why not agitate for that instead? (Obviously it would have to be a language-specific feature.) Having just typed that example, I'm convinced by those who say this is too hard to type—and I'm on a Mac. It looks like on my Windows machine, I have to hold down Alt and press a sequence of numbers on the keypad—that's just ridiculous. It's definitely not wikiwiki (quick). TreyHarris 16:57, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have to say that a lot of people feel strongly about this issue, since, as most people don't seem to realize, the use of straight quotes is a bastardization of proper punctuation that was introduced with the modern keyboard. That said, I think we should look into using the TeX style of quotes, where the apostrophe is translated into a right quote, and the backtick is translated into a left quote. That way people would just have to get used to writing,

``Hello--I'm typing 'straight quotes,' my dear AEvar.

for

“Hello—I’m typing ‘straight quotes,’ my dear Ævar.”

Which is just as "wikiwiki", since it only introduces two more keystrokes per quotation. Also, it is backwards-compatible with the current use of straight double quotes. The only issue would be straight single quotes, which would not translate correctly in their current usage. —Sean κ. ⇔ 18:05, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You must mean making the wikitext renderer convert (``) to (“), right? This would be going from markup in the database that is at least acceptable type-writing practice (if not typographically correct), to markup which is completely non-standard and rather ugly, to boot. Why replace a single character with two? And it doesn't address most of the problem: how to type single quotation marks, apostrophes, en dashes, em dashes, and figure dashes.

Unicode correctly solves this entire problem—just type the actual characters you want to enter. Why create an abstraction for plain text?

On a Mac it’s easy enough for anyone to type quotation marks and apostrophes without stretching their brain. I can’t believe there isn’t a single solution or add-on for Windows text fields out there in the world! —Michael Z. 2005-05-11 18:52 Z

It's not non-standard if you're used to writing in TeX. But I just realized that it wouldn't work, since two apostrophes, '', already have a meaning in wiki markup. —Sean κ. ⇔ 06:03, 12 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oh [[deity of your choice]] no ... please noooo ... Firstly, can you image the overhead on the database as people decide they will change every quote in every article (and even if we tell them please don't they will) but also not everyone will be (a) browsing using a unicode-acceptable browser, (b) editing using a 'rich' text editor. I could *only* support this if every keyboard in use worldwide to edit WP had left- and right- single- and double- apostrophe keys for the direct input of these characters. Just as with the input of other special characters, errors happen because of misentry, and the javascript version below each edit box (if turned on) isn't a great deal of use as the characters are (ime) too small to see accurately too. For the avoidance of doubt, therefore, a strongly against this proposal from me. --Vamp:Willow 18:34, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have to agree with no here - first, not eveyone thinks the curly ones look better; second, direct entry is much more difficult for many users; three, it changes the software and/or the usage in a way that makes things more complicated Trödel|talk 20:00, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

(a) is there really a browser still in use that can't deal with typographic quotation marks? Even the Lynx text-based browser displays these acceptably on an ISO-Latin or pure-ASCII display.

If typographic quotation marks display correctly, but look worse in your browser, then it sounds like an issue with poorly-designed fonts or bad font rendering. This web site's display should be aimed at working acceptably in the average browser, but let's not use the wrong character because some font has an ugly version of the right one. Curly quotes have worked in all mainstream browsers at least since 2001.

(b) I agree that no one should be required to type typographic characters that aren't standard on their keyboard layout. A smart-quotes renderer built into Wikimedia would completely eliminate any differences in typographic quotes and typewriter quotes in articles, but even without one I don't see it as a problem. —Michael Z. 2005-05-11 21:26 Z

As I pointed out above, it would be perfectly possible to put the proper quote marks into the special character insert box that appears on the edit page. Then all you would have to do is click on the quote marks that you want. Do the people who oppose curly quotes in the wikitext also oppose accented letters? Nohat 21:08, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry but there is no way I want to click on a button to insert specific symbols when all I currently have to do is press <SHIFT><2>! I can't even begin to think how much that would slow my typing down. By all means use smart-quotes (perhaps preference-configurable), but they shouldn't be required when writing the text. violet/riga (t) 21:49, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I certainly wouldn't want to require their use. All I want is permission to use them. — Knowledge Seeker দ 22:08, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support. Besides being "right," smart quotes" will make the Wiki look better. To steal a phrase, Wikipedia is Not a Typewriter. --FCYTravis 22:44, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose. No thank you. To echo others, this would merely be an annoyance. Being able to store text in Unicode does not mean we should make it harder to edit. Now that greek characters, etc. will appear in-line I will probably have to compose them in another window and paste them in--irritating enough for those few special cases. I will not be doing that every time I use a quote (or a dash, for that matter). Demi ^T/_C 02:56, 2005 May 13 (UTC)

Renderer for quotation marks, etc.

The wiki text renderer should definitely be extended to handle existing wiki text, and convert it to curly quotes, apostrophes, and dashes. This isn’t a trivial problem—apostrophes can mess up the apparent nesting of single quotation marks. Apostrophes can also appear in strange places, and I don’t think even Microsoft has figured out how to make ‘smart quotes’ smart enough. And there are also cases where typewriter quotes shouldn’t be converted.

Examples:

cut ’n’ paste [apostrophes for omitted letters]
summer of ’05 [omitted numbers; some ‘smart’ quotes renderers put an opening single quotation mark here]
6′-8″ tall [primes, or even typewriter quotes, should be used for feet and inches]
Latitude 49° 53′ N. [ditto for lat./long.]

—Michael Z. 2005-05-11 19:05 Z

I don't think even Microsoft has figured out how to make smart quotes smart enough. Indeed. Just google "smart quotes" to see how much mumbling and gnashing of teeth they can cause. Jonathunder 01:57, 2005 May 12 (UTC)

I've never had a problem with the WordPerfect smart quotes. Another reason not to use Word? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:40, 13 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

commas

Someone sent me a link to this manual of style. It had a whole section about commas, what other style manuals say, when you should use them, and a memorable example using Sinead O'Connor. Now I can't find it. What happened? CDThieme

It was never as comprehensive as that. Please see above for the recent related discussions. Kind regards, jguk 12:55, 14 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What we have is one or two editors dedicated to making the style manual completely "nonproscriptive" - to the point of deleting references to other manuals, deleting longstanding language about avoiding ambiguity, deleting examples of clear and unclear uses. It is unfortunate. Jonathunder 20:41, 2005 May 14 (UTC)

Here is a source I encourage you to consider: http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/commas.htm "Use a comma to separate the elements in a series (three or more things), including the last two." This is preferred in academic work such as an encyclopedia. CDThieme 00:27, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

There is not universal agreement that such commas are mandatory; therefore Wikipedia policy makes no assertions about requiring editors to include them. Nohat 01:37, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Nohat is quite right - there are plenty of style guides that mandate using Oxford commas at every opportunity, and plenty of style guides that say only to use it where necessary to avoid ambiguity (although, in practice, where the latter style is adopted, sometimes they are used stylistically too). On the whole (and please bear in mind that there are many exceptions to this), the main American style guides support mandatory use of the Oxford comma, the non-Americans mandate against it (with the most notable exceptions being OUP and Fowler's Modern English Usage, but they are very much in a minority). Kind regards, jguk 07:35, 15 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I restored the original text. I understand the objections, but there clearly is not a consensus to for this modification. Proposed changes to the Manual of Style must have considerable agreement to be implemented; the scope of the discussion should be wider and more should support such a change before it is made. — Knowledge Seeker দ 06:19, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I restored the original wording again. It is not my intention to "force" anyone to do anything. I understand arguments both for and against use of the serial comma, and indeed I might support modifying the Manual of Style to not favor one so strongly. However, this is longstanding text that was based on significant discussion in the past. Old polls are not binding, of course, and one may wish to be bold and try a new change. However, the amount of opposition to this change clearly shows that there is not consensus to modify the Manual in this manner. In fact, I believe that there should be considerable support for a modification to be incorporated into the Manual—certainly nothing as contentious as this. Perhaps the Manual is due for this change—but I cannot agree with a handful of editors making a change when another handful are actively opposing it. There needs to be more discussion, and more agreement before a change of this nature is warranted, in my opinion. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:05, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I would think that the amount of controversy over the issue is a good reason for being nonprescriptive over it. Mark ¹ 08:14, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Surely it should be obvious that there isn't consensus support for the old version either. Sitting around on the talk page arguing about it isn't enough. If we waited until there was consensus here for every change nothing would get done. Why don't we try to come to a compromise on the wording? Nohat 08:25, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The whole style manual is already nonprescriptive in that contributors are not expected to follow any or all of the rules. What the manual does is provide guidance for those who like to copyedit. I think what we most need to keep in mind is "what will most aid the reader?" When a reader sees a list of countries and there is not a comma before the conjunction separating the last two, the reader may well wonder if this a country like Serbia and Montenegro. In a list of islands, are the last two intended to be grouped, like the Turks and Caicos? Or in a list of ancient weapons, are the unfamiliar last two used together, like bow and arrow earlier in the list? (All of these are taken from lists I've seen in articles lately, not contrived examples.) If the reader has to re-read the sentence, or has to puzzle over that for even a bit, we have not communicated as clearly as we might have. That is precisely why so many style manuals recommend the Oxford comma. If this style manual drops the recommendation, it still needs something addressing how to avoid ambiguity. What will be the clearest to the most readers? Jonathunder 16:58, 2005 May 16 (UTC)

What will be clearest to readers? is indeed the right question to ask. Unfortunately there is no one answer here. Many many people (a heavy majority of non-North Americans and a minority of North American) do not use a mandatory Oxford comma and get by in life quite easily. And suddenly using them where they are not necessary will only confuse or inhibit the flow of the text for readers so used.

The examples usually given for where Oxford commas help are usually pretty poor sentences anyway. Try reading them out, when you have the full flexibility of tone and gesticulation, and think whether you truly can distinguish what you want to distinguish. Essentially, often such sentences can be reordered to give a better formulation.

I'm not convinced by your examples. Compare the following:

Yugoslavia broke up into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro

Yugoslavia broke up into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Serbia and Montenegro

Yugoslavia broke up into Slovenia, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina

If you list the new countries from south to north without an Oxford comma:

The former Yugoslav republics of Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia...

would that tell the reader there are in fact five countries, not four? Would it be clear? CDThieme

There are also two other points:

(1) There's no point making subtle distinctions - they will pass many readers by (in particular those not used to the mandatory Oxford comma)

(2) The alternative to having a mandatory Oxford comma is not to never have an Oxford comma, it is to have it only where it helps resolve ambiguity or improves the flow of the text.

WPians already use both styles - in practice this has been accepted for a long while. All we're suggesting here is stating what practice is. And can we please make the text shorter. It's gotten far too long! Kind regards, jguk 18:36, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Could someone please just set up a vote on this issue? —Sean κ. ⇔ 19:44, 16 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Having read the archives now, I see there already was a vote on this. A majority decided to keep the Oxford comma recommendation. CDThieme

They could, yes, but keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a democracy. —Simetrical (talk) 00:49, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

If there is not a consensus about what this style manual should say, indicating what most other style manuals say will be helpful. I know I found it helpful, so added that back. CDThieme

It's probably quite easy to find 100 style guides pointing in each direction though! jguk 21:26, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Probably, by why is that a consideration? This guideline is a "Manual of Style", not a guide to which styles there's a rough consensus (much less unanimity) for among other style manuals. Doubtless reporting different views without recommending one has a place, but is it really here? Alai 23:52, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed - we should make a recommendation if we can reach consensus Trodel 00:00, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It seems the only consensus that we'll ever reach on a recommendation would be something to effect of "Use serial commas when necessary to avoid ambiguity. You can use also final serial commas if they are not necessary to avoid ambiguity, but such commas are not obligatory." Final serial commas have such an incredibly tiny impact on the stylistic feel of articles, that recommending one style over another seems needlessly prescriptive, especially considering that we already have plenty of stylistic policies that are left to the editor's discretion. Nohat 00:20, 19 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Pink box

I'm removing the pink box from the top of this page. It's obvious that the alternative proposal isn't going to generate a consensus for adoption, and since this is a page frequented by WP newbies, it seems particuarly irritating to have the most glaring thing on the page be non-content. Besides, talk pages, not project pages, are the place to call attention to proposed changes. —Wahoofive (talk) 21:20, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Makes sense, but why did you comment out the request that people take extra consideration before editing the MoS? TreyHarris 21:31, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

For the same reason. It's a message to editors, not readers; this usage is recommended on Wikipedia:How to edit a page. —Wahoofive (talk) 22:40, 17 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Diaeresis in English

I've noticed that a handful of pages use the diaeresis in certain words (e.g. 'coöperation' and 'reëstablished'). I'm inclined to believe that unless this form of these words are used exclusively across Wikipedia, that particular usage should be eliminated. Wikipedia's own page on the subject states that particular usage has become rare. Surprisingly, I have seen no mention of it on the style guide. I'm inclined to be bold and remove them myself, but I don't want to get flamed for some obscure reason. Opinions? --Bletch 02:45, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've never personally seen those two in common use, but I do like seeing 'naïve', for some reason. —Sean κ. ⇔ 03:18, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Actually you are right; naïve (and names like Chloë) seem to be in regular use. --Bletch 12:05, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd remove the diaereses where they are no longer commonly used in English (although if you are quoting someone who used the form "coöperation" you may choose to leave it as is. Only a few words, such as naïve, naïveté, and the names Zoë and Chloë still on occasion retain their diaereses. Kind regards, jguk 19:08, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation page style survey

A proposal for a supplementary Manual of Style for disambiguation pages. Please register your votes and comments on that article's talk page. Wikipedia:Disambiguation/Style. —Wahoofive (talk) 17:16, 18 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

How do I set the background color of a page to something other than white?

I know it can be done because a long time ago I remember seeing it. Its actually for the Wikibooks site, I have a kid's book, http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Gramma's_Grammar , and I'd like to color the pages up a bit. Can anyone help me? Thanks!! --karlwick 01:57, May 21, 2005 (UTC)