Wikipedia's Manual of Style contains some conventions that differ from those in some other, well-known style guides and from what is often taught in schools. Wikipedia's editors have discussed these conventions in great detail and have reached consensus that these conventions serve our purposes best. New contributors are advised to check the FAQ and the archives to see if their concern has already been discussed.
Why does the Manual of Style recommend straight (keyboard-style) instead of curly (typographic) quotation marks and apostrophes (i.e., the characters " and ', instead of “, ”, ‘, and ’)?
Users may only know how to type in straight quotes (such as " and ') when searching for text within a page or when editing. Not all Web browsers find curly quotes when users type straight quotes in search strings.
This system is preferred because Wikipedia, as an international and electronic encyclopedia, has specific needs better addressed by logical quotation than by the other styles, despite the tendency of externally published style guides to recommend the latter. These include the distinct typesetters' style (often called American, though not limited to the US), and the various British/Commonwealth styles, which are superficially similar to logical quotation but have some characteristics of typesetters' style. Logical quotation is more in keeping with the principle of minimal change to quotations, and is less prone to misquotation, ambiguity, and the introduction of errors in subsequent editing, than the alternatives. Logical quotation was adopted in 2005, and has been the subject of perennial debate that has not changed this consensus.
Why does the Manual of Style differentiate the hyphen (-), en dash (–), em dash (—), and minus sign (−)?
Appropriate use of hyphens and dashes is as much a part of literate, easy-to-read writing as are correct spelling and capitalization. The "Insert" editing tools directly below the Wikipedia editing window provide immediate access to all these characters.
Why does the Manual of Style recommend apostrophe+s for singular possessive of names ending in s?
Most modern style guides treat names ending with s just like other singular nouns when forming the possessive. The few that do not propose mutually contradictory alternatives. Numerous discussions have led to the current MoS guidance (see discussions of 2004, 2005, 2005, 2006, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2008, 2008, 2009, 2009, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2017, 2017, 2018, 2018, 2019, 2021,
2022).
Why doesn't the Manual of Style always follow specialized practice?
Although Wikipedia contains some highly technical content, it is written for a general audience. While specialized publications in a field, such as academic journals, are excellent sources for facts, they are not always the best sources for or examples of how to present those facts to non-experts. When adopting style recommendations from external sources, the Manual of Style incorporates a substantial number of practices from technical standards and field-specific academic style guides; however, Wikipedia defaults to preferring general-audience sources on style, especially when a specialized preference may conflict with most readers' expectations, and when different disciplines use conflicting styles.
This page falls within the scope of the Wikipedia:Manual of Style, a collaborative effort focused on enhancing clarity, consistency, and cohesiveness across the Manual of Style (MoS) guidelines by addressing inconsistencies, refining language, and integrating guidance effectively.Manual of StyleWikipedia:WikiProject Manual of StyleTemplate:WikiProject Manual of StyleManual of Style articles
This page falls under the contentious topics procedure and is given additional attention, as it closely associated to the English Wikipedia Manual of Style, and the article titles policy. Both areas are known to be subjects of debate. Contributors are urged to review the awareness criteria carefully and exercise caution when editing.
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Add a link to new discussions at top of list and indicate what kind of discussion it is (move request, RfC, open discussion, deletion discussion, etc.). Follow the links to participate, if interested. Move to Concluded when decided, and summarize conclusion. Please keep this section at the top of the page.
Help talk:Table#Indenting tables – Help page is conflicting with MOS:DLIST and MOS:ACCESS on a technical point. No objection to fixing it, and a suggestion to just do it WP:BOLDly, but the work actually has to be done. (Aug. 2023 –Jan. 2024)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Trademarks#Minor consolidation merge – To merge a line-item (about stylization of stage/pen names) out of MOS:INITIALS (where the one of the examples is only semi-pertinent anyway) and into MOS:TM, leaving behind a cross-reference to MOS:TM from MOS:NAMES. Because of some things that apply to personal not corporate names, this ended up not being practical; intead the MOS:BIO material was cleaned up and cross-references between the two MOS sections was improved; description at: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#Minor overhauling. No objections or other issues have come up. (Nov.–Dec. 2023)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers#MOS style for odds – About changing MOS:RATIOS to specify a format (new or otherwise) for betting-odds ratios. Result: No formal closure, but apparent general agreement that the : style for ratios in general applies to odds ratio in particular like the rest, and MOS:RATIOS updated to say this. (Oct.–Dec. 2023)
Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 187#Proposed change MOS:TERRORIST – On how WP uses terms like "terrorist/terrorism" and "freedom fighter", specifically to add a requirement "these words should only be used in quotations or referencing third-party use of the term". Result: "nearly unanimously opposed". (Oct. 2023)
Talk:2023 Hawaii wildfires/Archive 2#Use of Hawaiian symbols in names – Involves MOS:HAWAII and could have implications for what the guideline says due to wildfire news bringing many more editorial eyes to that page than to WT:MOSHAWAII. Result: Archived without closure or any clear consensus; the general gist seems to be that the state of Hawaii is named Hawaii, the island is named Hawaiʻi, and diacritics (ʻokina and kahakō) should not be suppressed in the more localized names (and the US Geological Survey, which sets official placenames, along with the Hawaiʻi Board on Geographic Names, which basically tells USGS what to do in Hawaii/Hawaiʻi, both agree). (Aug.–Sep. 2023)
Talk:Bayes' theorem#Requested move 23 August 2023 – MOS:POSS stuff. Result: Not moved. Lots of invalid arguments, and confused attempt to pit WP:COMMONAME against MoS (COMMONNAME is not a style policy, never has been one, and never will be; every proposal to incorporate a style matter into a policy has failed). (Aug. 2023)
Wikipedia:Help desk/Archives/2023 August 5#Hyphen vs. En dash usage (Wikidata)? and d:Wikidata:Project chat/Archive/2023/08#Hyphen vs. En dash to separate years of birth/death? – Relating to concordance between wikidata descriptions and enwiki "short description". Result: Good summary: "as long as you choose a comprehensible form, your edits are fine. However, you should not change existing descriptions for stylistic reasons, and also not to unify desriptions for a given set of items"; also observations that various languages, e.g. Spanish, do not use an en dash for this purpose. So, Wikidata will not be changing away from hyphen as default, and any desire to have WD material, like automatically provided short descriptions, will have to do that change on our end. (Aug. 2023)
Talk:SAG-AFTRA#Requested move 20 July 2023 – move to SAG–AFTRA like AFL–CIO, or is there a reason to hyphenate as SAG-AFTRA? Result: Not moved. The closer actually misunderstood the guideline wording badly, and this has created a WP:CONSISTENT policy failure with titles of other such entities including AFL–CIO, and the Famous Players-Lasky decision covered just below. This probably needs to be re-done. (July 2023)
Talk:Famous Players-Lasky#Requested move 24 June 2023 – proposal to use dash instead of hyphen. Result: Use the dash per MOS:DASH; a followup RM to add "Corporation" to the title rejected that idea despite WP:NCCORP supporting it, one of several recent RM incidents suggesting that at least some portions of the page do not enjoy consensus. (June–July 2023)
Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 182#RFC: MOS:GENDERID and the deadnames of deceased trans and nonbinary persons – Primarily about "When should Wikipedia articles include the former name of a deceased trans or nonbinary person who was not notable prior to transitioning?" Result: "there is a consensus against using the former names of transgender or non-binary people, living or dead, except when of encyclopedic interest or when necessary to avoid confusion. Also, there is clear consensus that a former name is not automatically of encyclopedic interest. Where, exactly, the lines of encyclopedic interest and avoiding confusion are is not simple or clear and will likely need discussion on individual articles, although there is definitely space for more guidance in the MOS". This has let to a lot of follow-on discussion and dispute. (May–June 2023)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Biography#2022_archive#Neopronouns RfC (moved) – several options were under discussion, including singular they, using neo-pronouns like xie, always referring to subject by surname, etc. Result: strong consensus to use singular they for subjects who use neopronouns. (Oct.–Nov. 2022)
Talk:Winston-Salem, North Carolina#RfC about Info Box – involves MOS:INFOBOX and MOS:ICONS and should be a broader discussion than just about this single article. Summary: about 50% of our US city articles include highway signs in the infobox, which is very inconsistent. Result: Near-unanimous agreement to remove them, though this does not appear to have resulted in changes at other articles and probably should. (June–Sep. 2022)
Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Linking#RfC on self-linking within article prose - Result: "There is a consensus that self-links within prose should be allowed and that linking should be based on editorial discretion." This is about linking to one section of an article from another section of the same article. (Nov. 2021 – Jan. 2022)
Talk:Rolling block#Case and hyphen – "rolling block action" vs. "rolling-block action", and "Remington Rolling Block breech" vs. "Remington rolling-block breech". Result: inconclusive discussion (May–Dec. 2021).
Talk:Love On Top#Requested move 25 April 2021 – Revisiting whether to capitalize the first word of a compound preposition even when that word is a short preposition; MOS:5LETTER might need a revision. Result: No consensus, not moved.
Talk:Woman on Top#Requested move 6 April 2021 – Multiple proposals like "Receiving partner on top", "On top (sex)", etc., motivated by gender and language-reform advocacy views. Result: essentially a WP:SNOW: "not moved, and with a reception likely to strongly discourage near-future requests. ... Consensus in this discussion is strongly in the direction that any such move would be OR/SYNTH violating article title policies."
Talk:Pied-Noir#Lowercase – Lowercase "Pied-Noir" (or use "Pied-noir" or "Pieds-Noirs" or "Pieds-noirs" or "pieds-noirs")? Result: Lowercase "noirs", leaning lowercase for "pieds" as well.
Talk:Toy boy#Requested move 17 December 2023 – Should lowercase indicate a boy that is a toy rather than the title of some published works? Result: Yes; disambiguation moved to uppercase.
WT:WikiProject Freemasonry#Capitalization – Where do we draw the line of capitalization of offices and such in Freemasonry? Result: Some say just follow MOS:OFFICE, others want to follow Freemasonry's conventions. No clear consensus.
Talk:NTV Plus#Requested move 15 September 2023 – Is all-caps an appropriate distinction between Russian and Nepali TV channels? Result: No; use ordinary title case for proper name, not all-caps.
Talk:Sangaku#Capitalization: is the article title just an ordinary Japanese word borrowed into English, or a proper noun? (note - while the discussion was not formally closed, all instances are now in lowercase
Talk:Welsh Revolt#Requested move 30 July 2023 – Initially Welsh Revolt → Glyndŵr Rebellion but subsequently a question of capitalising the second word in any choice. Result: Lowercase "rebellion".
Talk:In Search of...#Requested move 10 October 2022 – Should the "of..." become "Of..." because it is the last word of the title? (a two-article RM) Result: Retain lowercase since truncation of a longer title is implied.
Talk:Lost Decades#Requested move 7 July 2022 – Lowercase "Decades", among other issues? Result: Not moved. The closer commented about primary topic status but did not comment about capitalization.
User talk:Snickers2686#MOS:JOBTITLES – "until [JOBTITLES is] applied consistently, which it isn't in this set of articles, then to me, it doesn't apply at all". – judges generally lowercased
Talk:National Historic Landmark#Requested move 18 January 2022 – Multimove to lowercase for "National Historic [Capitalized singular]", "National [Capitalized plural]", and "List of Historic [Capitalized plural]"? Result: Withdrawn after near-unanimous opposition to the central principle based on the linguistic concept of a proper name, noting consistent capitalization in sources.
Talk:g-force#Requested move 7 January 2022 – "g-force" or "G-force"? Result: RM procedurally closed (made no difference) and usage in article prose already changed to "g-force".
2021
RMs on capitalization of "Attorneys" and "Ambassadors" (or rephrasing to avoid the plural formal title): – all downcased
WT:AT#RFC on dash-separated titles for sports events 2 January 2022 – Capping of "Men's Singles" and "women's doubles"? Result: No consensus to ban dashes, no consensus on capitalization; consensus that capitalization should be worked out at WikiProject Tennis.
Is the use of quote box in article to highlight certain contents considered pull quote?[edit]
A user argued that use of quote box within the article does not constitute a "pull quote" within the context of MOS:PQ, because it is not repeating something in the article. Although, the editorial intent is obviously Wikipedia editor's desire to accentuate and bring more attention to that part than rest of the article, so I believe it is considered pull quote for the intent of the guideline. Please help with the interpretation of the meaning of "pull quote" as used on Wikipedia as used in Boy_Scouts_of_America#ProgramGraywalls (talk) 16:47, 8 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, repeating something or displaying it prominently obviously needs to consider additional NPOV concerns. Remsense诉 14:47, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
A pull quote is an extract pulled from the material within which it's embedded to highlight it. A quotation from an outside source is not a pull quote, it's just a quote, even if it's given special emphasis. However, making arbitrary quotes in articles pretty is not advisable. See, for example, the documentation at {{Quote box}}. Largoplazo (talk) 15:25, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
People have been repeating this stuff about POV for years and it's thoughtless nonsense. Judgment must be exercised, and the use cases are limited, but a highlighted quote need be POV no more than does a block quote in the article proper, or a photo caption. EEng 20:57, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I thought the point was that choosing to highlight a particular quote is itself POV, not just providing it for verification or illustration purposes but giving it undue emphasis. It's perhaps the same as MOS:NOTETHAT; beginning a sentence in an article with "Note that" implies that what immediately follows should is merits note—as though the rest of the article doesn't so much. In both cases, we should let the reader assess the significance of each piece of information given in the article without cuing them as to what we think deserves special attention by them. Largoplazo (talk) 21:23, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It's POV if it's POV, and its undue if its undue. We make editorial decisions about what to include or not include, what to put in the lead or not put in the lead, what to emphasize or not emphasize, all the time. Quote boxes are just one more such decision. EEng 14:16, 11 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It matters a bit more than those elements because highlighted quotes are a bit more distinctive than them, is what I think the common sense idea is. Remsense诉 21:00, 9 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Despite your indentation I think you're addressing me. Yes, a highlighted quote is more distinctive than the other situations I mentioned, and that's wh, as I said earlier, use cases for highlighted quotes are limited. But they're not nonexistent, which is what since people persistently claim. EEng 14:15, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Support for … (unicode ellipsis, U+2026) is widespread now. The decision to prefer ... over …[1] was made 15-20 years ago when unicode support was nascent.[2]
If we discuss this, we need to discuss the use of typographical quotation marks too! Gawaon (talk) 18:23, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Eh, I'm not so sure about that. Curly quotes have drawbacks (e.g. being 'keyed', being more frequent to the degree where I would argue the extra byte substantially increases page sizes on average) that U+2026…HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS does not. Remsense诉 18:36, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. We also use en dash (–) and friends, after all. Gawaon (talk) 20:05, 16 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Gawaon's 1st sentiment that curly quotation marks/apostrophes should be discussed in the same vein as ellipses. Both deal with the distinction of ASCII representation vs. extended character maps. I don't think that their multi-byte effect on increased page size is of any concern. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 04:49, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know! Let's have an RfC on whether they should be discussed together! EEng 15:11, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The big BIG advantage of requiring straight quotes and period ... ellipses is that it doesn't allow yet another gratuitous style variation for gnomes to slow-war over. It looks fine, it works, it contributes to having a clean readable style instead of a fussy special-character-elaborated one. Why get rid of those advantages? —David Eppstein (talk) 06:57, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Though I said the opposite above, I think it might indeed make most sense to limit this to the ellipsis issue for now, since it would be a relatively small change – much smaller than changing the rules for quotes and apostrophes. So if this is changed now, the quote issue could possibly be reconsidered in a year or two, then taking into account the experience with the ellipsis change.
For the ellipsis, there are two possibilities:
Allowing both ... and … as equally valid options. Very easy change, but with the disadvantage that usage in any given page could then be mixed, annoying the typographically aware. Though the visible difference between ... and … is small (much smaller than "quotes" vs. “quotes”, I'd say – in fact, in our standard font I can hardly see it), so that shouldn't matter very much. Also, to prevent "slow-warring", we could make the rule that changing ... to … is allowed, but changing in the opposite direction is not. In that way, pages would slowly evolved in the typographically correct direction.
Requiring, from now on, that … is used, and deprecating ..., just like MOS:DASH has deprecated the use of single or double hyphens instead of dashes. This would ensure that there is a single standard all pages are meant to adhere to, so totally eliminating the risk of edit warring. The disadvantage, of course, is that there are 100,000s of pages (at least) that currently don't adhere to that standard. I suppose a bot could help with that change, but it would still be a giant task to bring them in adherence.
Personally I think option 1. would be fine, while 2. daunts me a bit because of the size of the required changes. Gawaon (talk) 07:39, 17 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
While I'm not opposed on principle, I doubt implementing this change across thousands of articles would be feasible. InfiniteNexus (talk) 23:48, 20 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Well, option 1 wouldn't have to be "implemented", it would just be an option for editors to choose from now on. Gawaon (talk) 06:06, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Bad idea. The point of an MoS is to be as consistent as possible. And changes would have to be implemented regardless; if you don't do anything, AWB, bots, and other automated tools will just continue changing them. InfiniteNexus (talk) 06:10, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose any "use whichever style you want" option. Gonnym (talk) 11:24, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I have no real preference for one or the other, but I oppose the change. It wouldn't be too much work for a bot to change all of one to another. Still I see no reason to mess with what's been working. Actually, I do prefer the three dots. Anyone can type ... and the … requires a bit more effort, and … displays differently depending on the font used, so sometimes looks odd. Mixed use looks sloppy and I really want to avoid that. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 11:48, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I'm wary of creating yet another challenge for new editors who want to do the right thing – we want to keep them. NebY (talk) 14:26, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My preference would be to create templates for such things as ellipses and in-line quote[a] and relegate the style arguments to the talk pages of those templates. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 12:55, 22 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Notes
^
In some cases the obvious name is already taken, e.g.,
This isn't an attempt to relitigate--I promise!--but just curious why all the examples under this policy take the form of rendered dialogue, without also using example quotes and context from newspapers, academic journals, magazines, encyclopedias, etc. This may be part of the confusion for some editors, especially those from North America (an MOS essay mentions that the aesthetic style is used mostly in North America...). Thank you. Caro7200 (talk) 19:14, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh crap, not again. Look, it's very simple: if the punctuation is part of the quoted text, it goes inside the quote marks; if it's not, it goes outside. That's all. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 19:35, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Ha, sorry to trouble you ... yet your tone indicates that you fear that Jericho may one day fall again... ;) Caro7200 (talk) 19:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
For complete sentences, but not sentence fragments. It’s ‘the critic said the film was “great”. ‘, even if in the original text the sentence ended “. . . great.” MapReader (talk) 19:54, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would be fine with changing a few "said"s to "wrote"s, but I don't think the dialogue/written-text distinction is causing much of the confusion. Firefangledfeathers (talk / contribs) 19:41, 19 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
*The following final items never take section headings:
**Internal links organized into navigational boxes
**Stub templates, if needed
**Authority control metadata, if needed, using {{Authority control}} (distinguishes uses of the same name for two subjects, or multiple names for one subject)
**Categories, which should be the very last material in the article's source code
Standard practice is to put stub templates after categories, so that stub categories are listed after navigation cats. This is reinforced by information at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Layout#Order of article elements. This section seems to suggest the opposite. Needs rewording, perhaps? Grutness...wha? 15:02, 21 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Just a heads up for now: at some point most likely in the next month to few months a Wikipedia in the Mossi language, with the ISO code mos, and thus a "mos:" interwiki which would overwrite the "MOS:" pseudo-namespace, is likely to get created. I've been jotting down various ideas to avoid this problem at m:Requests for new languages/Wikipedia Mooré#Comments. * Pppery *it has begun... 00:39, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interesting case. Congratulations to the creators of that new Wikipedia! I wonder whether it might be possible to special-case all-caps "MOS:", since interlanguage links are by convention nearly always lower-case ("mos:")? Gawaon (talk) 05:31, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Great suggestion @Gawaon. I totally agree with you. The Moore language is a big language In Africa, spoken across multiple countries with more than 11 million speakers. Having the wikipedia created with mos.wikipedia.org would be very useful. Shahadusadik (talk) 09:52, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Interwiki prefixes are currently case-insentive, and that's (probably) not very practical to change. * Pppery *it has begun... 15:07, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I know, I suppose it could be a special "hack" for just this one special case – of course, the software (MediaWiki) would have to be modified to support it. But what's the alternative? And especially, is there a practical alternative? (I would accept it as a given that mos.wikipedia.org is going to come.) Gawaon (talk) 15:24, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Pppery's suggestion "English Wikipedia to convert its pseudo-namespace for MOS into a full namespace" looks practical. Existing links in policy pages, edit summaries and discussions should all work, though interwiki linking from en: to mos: would have to be done in some unusual way. enwiki's range of search selections would have to be expanded - is the code so good that would happen automatically? - and we'd be lucky if that was all, but it's a more elegant evolution than the deep-cludge alternatives. NebY (talk) 16:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With relief I've verified that there are no languages with code "wp" or "wt". Largoplazo (talk) 10:37, 23 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Though this wouldn't fix past edit summaries, could we rename it "Style" and mass-replace /(\[\[)MOS(:.*?[\]\])/i with $1Style$2 throughout the content? Largoplazo (talk) 18:36, 25 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I fear that would re-date all the talk-page and project archives, again, and be a long annoyance to editors who accidentally use the old shortcuts – but any solution's going to be somewhat annoying. NebY (talk) 12:34, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there written guidance somewhere on the use of upper or lower case on prime minister, president, etc? Gråbergs Gråa Sång (talk) 12:20, 26 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Clarification on foreign language quotes and suggestion to add examples.[edit]
Hi, I am confused by the guidance on foreign-language quotations and I think some examples are needed. For example, I am trying to quote the phrase "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig" with an English translation of "Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig" in the article Free City of Danzig Government in Exile. Should the English or the German version come first? Should the English version include quote marks? If not, how do I separate the English phrase from the rest of the text? Should the German text by italicised in the quote marks? For example, which if any of these are acceptable after "von Prince was convicted in Switzerland for forging a passport and a number plate that he claimed were validly issued by the ..."
"Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig" (German: Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig).
"Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig" (German: "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig").
Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig (German: "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig").
German: "Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig" (Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig).
(I took the liberty of numbering your list.) I would use any of nos. 1 to 3 your examples, but omit the quotation marks for either language. If pressed, I'd prefer a modified #3:
Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig (German: Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig)
It is a proper noun and proper nouns in a foreign language are not italicized as such. However, they are italicized if they are provided as a translation of a phrase or word already used in English. There's no need for quote marks for either the English or German words any more than for other proper noun phrases. Which to use first depends on which is more common in English language reliable sources. I'd suggest either:
Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig (German: Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig).
or
Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Freie Stadt Danzig (Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig).
This is in the context of a micronation where the "Administrative Association of the Free City of Danzig" doesn't actually exist. It's just a thing a person claims to belong to. Does that not make it not a proper noun or change your advice at all? Safes007 (talk) 04:27, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, the International Association of SchreiberBikers is properly capitalized despite not existing. Sometimes pretend names are enclosed in quote marks to indicate that those words only exist in a person's mind or writing, but that should be clear from the text. SchreiberBike | ⌨ 19:04, 28 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Epigraphs and opening quotations vis à vis pull quotes[edit]
MOS:PQ is pretty clear in its explanation of why pull quotes are considered undesirable in an encyclopedia, as they are a form of editorializing, produces out-of-context and undue emphasis, and may lead the reader to conclusions not supported in the material. However, a gray area seems to lie in quotations that haven't been pulled from the article text, but are still placed at the head of a section without being contextualized in prose first. The inciting example for this particular thread is currently at Higgs boson § Gauge invariant theories and symmetries:
"It is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry" – Philip Anderson, Nobel Prize Physics[1]
Gauge invariant theories are theories which have a useful feature; some kinds of changes to the value of certain items do not make any difference to the outcomes or the measurements we make. An example: changing voltages in an electromagnet by +100 volts does not cause any change to the magnetic field it produces. Similarly, measuring the speed of light in vacuum seems to give the identical result, whatever the location in time and space, and whatever the local gravitational field.
The issue is I actually rather like this section! It's well-written if a bit quirky, and the quote concerns an important theme of the article in a way that doesn't seem overly egregious. But is it adequately encyclopedic? I'm not sure. What is an encyclopedia, again?
In any case, I feel it's odd for the MoS to explicitly address pull quotes but not these quotes generally. Remsense诉 05:19, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Some word of caution against using epigraphs would probably be advisable. Though personally I think that neither pull quotes nor epigraphs (essentially the difference seems to be just one of formatting and possibly placement) are totally unsuitable for an encyclopedia, as long as they are used sparingly, with careful editorial judgement. Gawaon (talk) 05:56, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I suppose I would consider adding an explicit note that WP:PQ doesn't cover epigraphs at-large? That way it's easier to view cases on their own merits rather than potentially pointing to WP:PQ for something it analogizes but doesn't say. Remsense诉 06:21, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
References
^From P.W. Anderson (1972) "More is different", Science.
Change "foreign-language" to "non-English language"?[edit]
Of course "foreign-language" is a common adjective to mean "in a language other than English" and that's fine, but it also looks a bit odd in the guidelines of an international internet encyclopedia? "non-English language" is clunkier I'll admit, but it's also more precise in a way that seemingly doesn't cost much. Should we consider changing it on policy and guideline pages?
(I'm fairly sure it shouldn't be non–English language or non-English-language even as an adjective, right? Those both look ridiculous.)Remsense诉 05:28, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. “Foreign” presupposes where the reader is, which isn’t appropriate for an international encyclopaedia. MapReader (talk) 07:08, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My concern is that "non-English" might exclude the English-based creoles like Nigerian Pidgin; we should treat these creoles as we would treat any other non-English language, as English speakers tend to be unable to understand them. BilledMammal (talk) 08:28, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think it is fairly safe to say that no one would have this as their public definition of "English language", right? Remsense诉 08:37, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It’s not exactly an English language - but it’s also not exactly a non-English language. BilledMammal (talk) 08:52, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Right, so how does "foreign language" do better with that ambiguity? I would think it does worse. There's no definite boundaries between any two lects you can define. Remsense诉 08:54, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Don't fix what ain't broke. Foreign is fine as we all know it means a language other than English. Masterhatch (talk) 08:48, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I would agree if it were a big deal to fix. Plus, it is a little bit broken—we all know what a lot of words *should* mean, but that doesn't mean we can't seek to further improve our word choices. Remsense诉 08:50, 3 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
What's the meaning of "left" and "right" in images if removing them leaves the images completely unchanged? JacktheBrown (talk) 19:02, 7 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
"left" places an image to the left, "right" (which is the default) to the right. But I suppose you know that already. So what's the question? Gawaon (talk) 13:16, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
One of the most important things to know about Jack is they use Wikipedia on their phone. They are seemingly unaware of what Wikipedia is like outside the mobile app, which is interesting and thought-provoking. Remsense诉 13:41, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense: I'm aware of this, but using Wikipedia only on a mobile device seems much better to me, because I can zoom in and then, like an eagle, immediately notice all the errors and things that need to be improved. Note: I use both the website and the app. JacktheBrown (talk) 13:43, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
My bad, that wasn't meant as a dig at you to be clear. I genuinely do think it's interesting to try to fully consider an editor with that kind of relationship with the site. Remsense诉 13:45, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Remsense: it's important to consider that young readers, and not only, use almost exclusively their mobile devices to read Wikipedia pages (I think). JacktheBrown (talk) 13:53, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
totally agreed! Remsense诉 14:11, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, so you mean |left and |right as in [[File:Example.jpg|thumb|left|An example on the left]]. If you had said that at the start of this thread, we wouldn't have been wasting time (I had thought that you meant in image captions like "From left to right: Smith, Jones, Brown and Foobar"). Anyway, as shown at WP:EIS#Location, these options control which margin the image is placed against; and when |thumb is specified (see WP:EIS#Type), |right is the default. So altering |thumb|right to |thumb makes absolutely no difference; but altering |thumb|left to |thumb will move the image from being against the left margin to being against the right margin. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 14:59, 11 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Which part says 'let's' is bad style for us?[edit]
I just removed a problematic sentence from an article ("Let's delve deeper into the various characteristics and cultural symbols of deep clothing together"). Which part of MoS or another page or essay can I mention to tell the editor who add it that this is bad style? Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 03:01, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:PEDAGOGY: "interactive personality is inconsistent with an encyclopedia's passive presentation of objective matter". Hawkeye7(discuss) 03:18, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
There's so much wrong with that sentence it's impossible to know where to start. EEng 03:50, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
But I guess the first word is reasonable. (why exactly did deel become "deep" anyway?) Martinevans123 (talk) 09:17, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Martinevans123 Probably because it was spell checked into common but incorrect word... I removed all of the related content (poorly referenced). Sigh. Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 05:46, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Martinevans123 Actually, I was wrong, student says it is Shenyi which perhaps can be called deep. That said, that project so far has major issues with lack of references too, which probably is secondary to tone... sigh. Piotrus at Hanyang| reply here 05:57, 10 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like an emulation of an engaging lecture or textbook style, so WP:NOTTEXTBOOK, especially parts 1 and 6, might help. NebY (talk) 10:08, 9 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Is there a Manual of Style on Election Percentages?[edit]
Hi, I've seen MOS:TIES as interpreted to mean article titles should only use the name in that (local) variety of English. So Bangalore is argued to be possibly Bengaluru because that's what it is in Indian English but not all English. I think this is incorrect, with TIES meaning spelling/grammar/specific generic vocabulary? If I am correct, can therefore "orthography"/ "spelling" etc be added to
An article on a topic that has strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation should use the (formal, not colloquial) English orthography of that nation
or some other clarification, that it doesn't mean article titles, such as places, should use the local name.
Unless they are supposed to use the local name? DankJae 13:17, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That move request failed, as far as I can see, because of insufficient evidence that Bengaluru actually is the more commonly used name, whether in India or outside of it. So it's not a TIES issue. Gawaon (talk) 13:27, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I am aware it did not pass, but on less known RMs it may be enough, eventually legitimising the argument, so just asking that the text be more specific. While you state the RM stated there wasn't evidence in and out of India, TIES was used to say "we don't need to consider out of India at all". DankJae 14:35, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
MOS:TIES is a section of the "Manual of Style" which is a guideline. Article titles are governed by"Article titles" which is a policy. So I think the issue should be settled in the "Article titles" policy and the "Manual of Style" should be adjusted so that normally the place name used in the running text of articles agrees with the title of the relevant Wikipedia article, no matter whether the text is in the article about the place, or some other article that refers to the place. Jc3s5h (talk) 13:31, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
That said, it seems to me that articles on topics that are strongly connected to a local variety of English should use the best title in that variety of English, e.g., Québécois people. The principle is correctly understood as applying to word choice, not just orthography, IMO. Newimpartial (talk) 14:53, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Noted, can that be added? so it can be clearer justification to use local titles, place-names etc. DankJae 16:19, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I think this might require more discussion. In my view, MOS:COMMONALITY should normally trump MOS:TIES, with the latter being mostly relevant in cases where there is no COMMONALITY. In any case, there have already been tons of discussions about these issues and they aren't easy to resolve. So any addition will require careful vetting to ensure it doesn't break the existing consensus. Gawaon (talk) 16:44, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that any addition will require vetting, but I don't agree that MOS:COMMONALITY should normally trump TIES, at least not in cases where national varieties of English offer specific and clearly-defined terms that generally used in WP:HQRS to talk about the relevant concepts or phenomena. I also haven't seen any evidence that the community endorses the nearest equivalent term in US or UK English in such cases, which is what COMMONALITY advocates are usually asking for.
Well, actually, in my own view the third bullet of COMMONALITY - to include a gloss - does set out the relevant guidance in such instances, but that isn't what editors typically mean when they want COMMONALITY to be the deciding principle. Newimpartial (talk) 17:07, 15 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]