Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 8

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Spelling and usage within quotations

Most of the rules in this guide would give way to the principle of accurate quotation. To take the example just above, if a written source says "He had 8 children" or "She is twenty-three years old", then the quotation should preserve the choice of the original. I'd like to warn overeager style mavens not to change quotations. Is there agreement with adding something like this (perhaps under the "Usage and spelling" heading, where it would come up most often): "When a written source is being directly quoted (as opposed to paraphrased), the quotation should conform exactly to the original text, even if the source does not follow the style prescribed by this manual." JamesMLane 08:52, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely. Might also want to mention that it is perfectly OK to wikify within a direct quotation. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:46, Jan 26, 2005 (UTC)

I agree that it's usually preferable to stick to the original spelling and usage within quotations - but I would not have a hard and fast rule. Unless there are special reasons to keep the original style, correcting misspellings, improving punctuation and correcting grammar are all acceptable, jguk 20:44, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I lean toward agreement with Jguk on this. Maurreen 07:09, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. Correcting spelling and grammar seems wrong. It's meant to be a direct quote. (Of course, in quotes of speech, borderline rewriting is the norm, as any journalist probably knows. Spoken speech is messy in the extreme, and word-for-word transcripts look ugly and are often hard to understand.) —Simetrical 20:31, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

According to typographic tradition, a quotation or extract should never alter spelling, punctuation and the like. If such alterations are done it is no longer a quotation. –Peter J. Acklam 10:40, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

If you're worried about people thinking Wikipedians can't spell, judicious use of the word "sic" should help. It might help if the page at [[sic]] were adjusted to make it more friendly to this usage. HTH --Phil | Talk 13:26, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

By quoting typographical errors all you tend to be doing is perpetuating the typesetter's and/or proofreader's mistake. It is perfectly acceptable to correct these mistakes (indeed, it seems to me to be somewhat snobbish to retain them and then place sic after them to tell everyone how clever you are at realising it's an error). They also very often say absolutely nothing about the author (ie the person you are quoting). I'd suggest only retaining errors in quotations where the error is particularly important (such as "one small step for man"), rather than a pure and simple mistake.

Note that Hansard, the record of parliamentary proceedings regularly corrects errors so that the official report records what someone wanted to say, rather than what they may have said, jguk 13:53, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree that a transcript or report of an oral statement is on a different footing. My original proposal cravenly dodged that issue by referring to "a written source", by which I meant an original written source (not a written transcript of extemporaneous speech). In a quotation of a book, a magazine article, or even a website, when we say we're quoting a particular author, I see no reason why we should overrule that author on matters of spelling, punctuation, or grammar. I agree that wikifying within a quotation is OK. JamesMLane 14:10, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

There's a difference here between preserving an author's chosen style (which IMO we should do), and correcting errors and updating spellings. A book of Shakespeare plays preserving the spelling of the first folios would look very odd indeed! jguk 15:23, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

However, should Wikipedia editors be making such "corrections" themselves or quoting emendations made by authoritative sources? older≠wiser 15:45, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

I agree with JML. Oral transcripts are different from published texts or manuscripts. In an institution other than Wikipedia, it *might* be acceptable to make minor corrections to texts when there is a consistent understanding and application of what is considered "minor" corrections. In a place like Wikipedia, making an allowance for minor corrections opens the door to potential abuse as to precisely what is or is not "minor". I'd much prefer a hard rule about quoting verbatim from written sources. As for oral sources, I don't think it is generally appropriate for Wikipedia to include "original" transcriptions--I think in nearly all cases we'd only be quoting transcription published by someone else and so we should reproduce the quote from that source exactly. On second thought, I guess there may need to be some leeway in transcribing video news sources. older≠wiser 14:27, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Oral transcripts are definitely different. Ask any journalist—things people say are usually all but rewritten. People tend to speak in a much less clear and more fractured way than they write, so writing down every pause, stumble, and misspeaking looks very odd. —Simetrical (talk) 18:21, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

jguk's changes

Maurren, where did you move this to? [1]. The reason I ask is that I felt Jeff Q's comment was worth keeping. SlimVirgin 10:31, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

It's all at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (jguk's changes). Sorry, I meant to note that and forgot. Maurreen 10:52, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Computer game titles

What's the style for the titles of computer games? Or other games, for that matter? Italics, quotes, simple Roman? —Simetrical (talk) 00:44, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I think there is at least a discussion of this in a different section of the style guide, but I don't remember exactly where. Other games are in Roman. Maurreen 12:09, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles)#Italics says to use italics. It makes sense to me and it's what I've been doing. —Triskaideka 22:06, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Italics for quotations

The MOS is not explicit about whether quotations may, or should, be italicized. It would make sense to italicize quotations about one sentence or longer, embedded in the paragraph, and maybe even indented quotations. Pgan002 05:25, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

I disagree. Embedded quotations shouldn't be italicized. Block quotations could be italicized, but that should be done through the site's stylesheets rather than markup. What we could add to the MOS is a suggestion of when to switch from embedded quotes to block quotes so long quotes aren't embedded in the text. – flamurai^TM 05:46, Feb 2, 2005 (UTC)

I am not an expert on punctuation; this is just what seems to me to be easiest to read, because italicised text stands out and there is less danger that the reader will miss the end of the quotation. Is there a convention outside WP about this? If it is universally accepted, we should go with it. Either way, this should be made explicit in the MOS. So should when to use embedded quotation, and when block. Pgan002 09:32, 2005 Feb 8 (UTC)

The MOS is for the most part laissez faire on the subject of when to italicise, but in this case I think we have to go with a solid no. I have never seen a quotation italicized in any form. Embedded quotations have quotation marks, and indented quotations are identified by context. --Sean Kelly 12:11, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Sean Kelly. Quotations should be italicized only for emphasis, which we would almost never do. JamesMLane 12:42, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The best way to distinguish quotations is by using the <blockquote> tag, which was designed for this purpose, and is purposefully allowed in Wikitext. The use of italics is best reserved for the source of the quotation, for example:

"There were a lot of people doing a lot of things…"—Some Book or Other by Some Author

HTH --Phil | Talk 13:20, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Except that since we're on a wiki, there is a shortcut for the blockquote tag, namely the colon. If you want to indent a quotation, just precede it with a colon, just like we're all doing in this conversation. The source code ends up the same in the end. --Sean Kelly 16:11, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Hmm, no. The HTML produced by a colon is different from that produced by blockquote tags. They may appear similar within the presentation of the current skins and wikiparser, but when using blockquote it is possible to modify the presentation for such quotes in the CSS in a way that is not for colon indentations. Specifically, using a colon produces indentation through nested <dl><dd> content </dd></dl> HTML tags while <blockquote> is a standard HTML tag. older≠wiser 16:43, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

…and more specifically, <blockquote> affects both left and right margins, whilst using colons only affects the left margin. --Phil | Talk 18:09, Feb 8, 2005 (UTC)

Oops, you're completely right. --Sean Kelly

For the benefit of those of us who are computer illiterate -- would somebody dumb this down and explain the advantages/disadvantages of each method of indenting a long quotation? If the knowledgeable people are in agreement about which way we should do it, I'll happily fall into line. JamesMLane 21:21, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

"Blockquote" is better HTML. It is a tag specifically intended for quotes. It's very easy to control visual presentation (which is distinct from HTML labeling) with "blockquote" because we can change the style settings across the entire site (or depending on individual user preference). If we decided that all quotes should be in italics, we can put all blockquotes in italics (or you can, in your own personal style sheet). The only disadvantage, as far as I can tell, is that it doesn't look like wiki markup.

Using the : indent is easy for people to remember, but it's very bad HTML. (The code that it produces is intended to be used for specific kinds of lists.) Because it is not as explicit as to function (that is, we always use "blockquote" for quotes; we sometimes use the colon indent for other things, like talk pages), it's more difficult to control visual presentation of quotes that are marked with ":". (In general, it is better not to try to get the HTML to control visual style. That's what style sheets are for.) The advantage is that it's a little easier to type and for people to learn and it looks like wiki markup. -Aranel ("Sarah") 22:23, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

For comparison's sake, here are two blocks of text. The first uses the colon markup, and the second uses <blockquote>.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Note in particular the right margin. This effect, needless to say, is increased substantially when the tags are nested—some of the comments in this heading are indented six times over, which would look like this with <blockquote>:

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Also, take a look at the edit window for this. Note that the tag produces two line breaks, so you have to place your text right after the tag rather than adding line breaks in the edit window to get it to show up normally when viewed. It is true that the colon markup is pretty bad HTML, though—is there currently any way to get blocks of text indented with style sheets or something? —Simetrical (talk) 18:44, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for the comparisions. However, it's hard to imagine a situation where it would be necessary to nest so many levels of blockquotes within an article. If one simply wanted to indent the blockquote further, putting one or more colons would do the trick

With colon indent. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

Withou colon indent. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

For discussions on the talk page, colons are OK (though i would welcome a more robust discussion mechanism). older ≠ wiser 19:10, Feb 11, 2005 (UTC)

This thread started with Pgan002's observation that the MoS was "not explicit about whether quotations may, or should, be italicized." Pgan leaned toward italicizing but was apparently willing to go along with not italicizing, which was everyone else's preference. On that basis, I'm changing the MoS passage that now reads "Since quotations are already marked by quotation marks or indentations, they need not be put into italics." I'll make it more explicit by changing "need not" to "should not". I'll leave it to others to decide whether the MoS should mention the availability of the <blockquote> tag (right now it doesn't), or even go beyond mentioning it and characterize it as preferred. JamesMLane 02:15, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think the previous version of the MOS was ok on this - we shouldn't force unnatural styles on articles. Style and punctuation should be chosen so as to make an article as clear as possible, so a one-style-fits-all approach just doesn't work, jguk 08:57, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Jguk, it appears that you are going against the majority. Maurreen 10:04, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have to agree with Maurreen on this --Sean Kelly 21:37, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree that articles should be clear. Standardization can further that goal. If some editors italicize to mean "this point is being emphasized" and others italicize to mean "this is an indented quotation", then the reader who encounters a particular set of italics doesn't know what it's supposed to mean. JamesMLane 10:54, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Agreed. It's not an "unnatural style". What's "unnatural" is specificifying a quote like

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."

Plus, the MoS is a guideline in the first place, and there are very, very few cases where it's necessary to break that rule. – flamurai (t) 13:24, Feb 12, 2005 (UTC)

The wording that I reverted was too insistent. There's one thing about having something that worded as a guideline ("Usually quotations are dealt with....") and something that allows for no leeway, regardless of circumstance ("Quotations must always be dealt with by..."). I think the latter approach is far too prescriptive and may, on some occasions, make articles confusing. Whilst I don't see a need for any change to the policy here, I would not oppose wording that makes it clear that it is a guideline (that can clearly be breached when appropriate to do so), jguk 22:58, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The wording that you quote ("Quotations must always be dealt with by...") is indeed insistent. It doesn't happen to be the actual wording that anyone inserted in the article, though. What you reverted was my wording that said that quotations "should not be put into italics". That doesn't say "always" or "never". I think it meets your suggestion for appropriate guideline language. The current "need not" will be read by some people as merely assuring them that they're not required to make the extra effort to give it this nice little touch, so they'll still go ahead and italicize when there's no reason to. I worry that something like "they should not be put into italics except, as with any other text, for emphasis" will unduly encourage such emphasis. I sometimes use italics in a brief, when I'm arguing one side of an issue and I want to emphasize a helpful point, but that's usually not appropriate in an encyclopedia article. Even in a brief, I'd almost never italicize an entire quotation. Incidentally, you also reverted my addition of "Indented quotations should not also be marked by quotation marks." Do you have a problem with that guideline? JamesMLane 23:15, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ah, it's just occurred to me what's happening here, and it's only just come to me after months of looking at this page! In the UK, "should" in the context of what you added means there is a compulsion. That is, "should not be put into italics" is synonymous with "should never be put into italics". I think I'm right in saying that "should" doesn't tend to have that meaning in American English.

Maybe replace "should not be put into italics" with "are not usually put into italics"? I think a similar point arises for the rest of your proposed amendments that include the word "should" and suitable adjustments should (compulsion) be made to them. Kind regards, jguk 23:52, 12 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I understand the word should in this contextin the same way as jguk, would "ought" be a less ambiguous word? Philip Baird Shearer 01:59, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

If we're agreed that quotations "are not usually put into italics", then I'd be comfortable with "should" in either sense of the word, or with "ought". An alternative would be to give more detail about the "not usually" standard:

Use quotation marks or indentations to distinguish quotations from other text. Do not italicize quotations unless the material would otherwise call for italics (emphasis, use of non-English words, etc.).

Thus, in the article Dulce Et Decorum Est, I would italicize the quotation from Horace, because it's in Latin. Finding it not italicized now, I'm off to change it. JamesMLane 10:26, 13 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I've substituted the foregoing alternative on the subject of italicizing quotations. JamesMLane 20:53, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Order Captions of Photographs

In what order should objects and subjects in a photograph be named? I suggest that in photographs depicting more than one significant individual arranged in rows, the people should be named left-to-right, top-to-bottom (for Left-to-right languages). If they are arranged in a circle, they should be named clockwise, starting at the top. If they are named in some other order, that order should be specified in the capton; for example "John (right) and Ann (left) in front of their house". The same rule seems to make sense for photographs of houses, geographical landmarks and other objects. Pgan002 05:44, 2005 Feb 2 (UTC)

I agree with your order, but do we need a rule for this? Maurreen 06:47, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I have seen photos named in arbitrary order. See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Albert_Einstein&oldid=9880762 . (Sorry, I don't know how to wiki-link to an old version of a page.) I think that if we care about the order, we should make our preference explicit. Pgan002 09:20, 2005 Feb 8 (UTC)

SI always ?

The statement requesting SI units seems a bit strong. While a good guideline for most cases, there are fields of study and practice where other units, whether from inertia or convenience, are widely used either alongside or in place of SI units. For example, in talking about distances within the solar system, millions of kilometers can be reported, but the astronomical unit is such a convenient yardstick that it, too, is widely used. The world petroleum industry works on barrels, not liters, and when talking about petroleum production, the barrel is the unit to discuss it in. Even in the most metrified of countries, the weather is reported in degrees Celsius rather than Kelvin.

There should be some statement that when common practice uses other-than-SI units, then those units are acceptable. (I see this analogous to the Jimmy Carter vs. James Earl Carter example. Shimmin 14:02, Feb 4, 2005 (UTC)

I don't think SI units have to always be used. See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)#Style for numbers, weights, and measures. — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 19:33, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)

This probably belongs at Wikipedia:Measurements Debate. —Simetrical (talk) 23:59, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Political vs. Traditional correctness

(copied info from the Village pump)

This is a subject brought to my attention when I studied what I saw at Talk:Cowhand

I suggest that we need a talk in Wikipedia's manual of style about the kind of correctness being used in Wikipedia. A few possible choices include political and traditional. Any comments?? Georgia guy 16:29, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Yes. What the heck are your talking about? -- Jmabel | Talk 19:25, Feb 5, 2005 (UTC)

Based on the discussion at Talk:Cowhand, I guess the question is about whether Wikipedia has an official stance on political correctness. Currently the answer is no, there's nothing mandating the use of "cowhand" or "salesperson" or their traditional counterparts. I think the identity section of the manual of style gives some good broad guidelines, and I don't think it's beneficial to make this more specific by providing lists of words and exact rules. Georgia guy if you want to start this discussion on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style, go right ahead. Rhobite 02:40, Feb 6, 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia follows a "Neutral Point of View" policy. That means we do not embrace "political correctness", or indeed any other approach that supports one point of view over another. Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, so we report. If people tend to use "salesperson" in a particular context, rather than "salesman", "saleswoman", "seller", "sales executive", or whatever, then "salesperson" is the term we would use. Also, when deciding what words we use, we should use forms that are most likely to be understood by as many people internationally as possible, jguk 15:24, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)