Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Headings/Archive 1

Archive 1

Capitalization in headings

Capitalize the first letter only of the first word and of any proper nouns in a heading, and leave all of the other letters in lower case.

This is Wrong

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. David Newton 17:00, 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 17:40, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Our "incorrect" and "wrong" convention is in fact used in many places outside Wikipedia. To name two examples, BBC News and CNN.com. Fredrik | talk 01:22, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Related Links is incorrect according to Wikipedia's house style. All publishers have house styles. To fail to follow the house style is incorrect in the context of the particular publishing house and correct in the context of a house with a different style. Michael Hardy 02:12, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Michael's comments about house style are right-on. I'm also inclined to berate you for implying that Wikipedia's style guide should base itself on arbitrary U.S. publications that happen to coincide with your own esthetic. :-) (Some of) Us Americans... *sigh* --David Iberri | Talk 21:37, Jun 17, 2005 (UTC)

Absolutely right about the lower-case. To me, it's more elegant and aesthetic, especially here. I always hate seeing words capitalized, although the very top-level heading (title of article) might be capitalized. While I think about it, why is "Main Page" the only link under "navigation" whose second word is capitalized? ElAmericano 22:06, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

Indeed: the Manual of Style (I have just edited the linked section to include the British rules as opposed to saying merely 'uses capitals far more widely') suggests that capitalisation should be as appropriate, and not the American version thereof – a trend which, to me, does not appear to be overly sensible. —Sinuhe 09:07, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

It shouldn't be a problem to use British capitalization when it is necessary, but the point should remain on a matter of consistency, to not permit capitalization of unnecessary words (such as "See Also", "Playing Games in the Winter Time", or what have you). Dysprosia 14:41, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I don't understand why there's this sense that it's an American/British thing. I have a copy of the American Newsweek in front of me; it uses the supposedly British all-capitals style (in major headlines; minor headlines are sentence-style). I'm comparing it to British The Economist, also in front of me; it exclusively uses the supposedly American sentence-style, just like the Manual of Style urges. If anything I associate the initial-capitals style in publications as an American with foreign press, not American ones. It's a matter of taste, rather than of logic or nationalism. Sinuhe's edit to Manual of Style makes it sound like there are firmly-engrained rules, and to set a titles capitalization style would be imperialist. That's just not true. (In fact, I'm tempted to revert Sinuhe's edit to the MoS, but I'm willing to listen to his or her arguments on the matter before doing so.) Leave it as it is; there's no good reason to change it, changing it would be a big pain, and this is one easy place to gain a little consistency. --TreyHarris 20:20, 24 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Agreed. You said it better than I could. --Lexor|Talk 02:18, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I apologise for not having replied sooner: I was on holiday without much access to the Internet.

You may fancy reading this discussion in the mailing list (the entire thread, even if some e-mail header references are missing). The 'British' style is British in the sense that everyone learns it in Great Britain, and, as far as I know, everywhere in Europe and quite possibly elsewhere where the English taught is Commonwealth and not American (perhaps a better term would indeed be 'Commonwealth-style capitalisation'). The discussion above may give you some idea why The Economist might be using sentence-style capitalisation (although it is not "The economist", mind you). Nonetheless, I – as well as, I am certain, many others – may very well take offence if the capitalisation seen by me (us?) as proper is changed into one perceived as simply wrong. Sadly, with this rule so firmly engrained into the Manual of Style (mind the S), one is left powerless against this awful, terrible tendency of editing. Whereas I agree that it is important to be consistent, it is unreasonable to expect this from a work of so many. Besides, considering that American spellings are permitted, there is not very much consistency anyway, and for that very same reason that no one frowns (admittedly, in public) upon those spellings should capitalisation as standard in the Commonwealth of Nations be permissible. —Sinuhe 06:21, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

It appears that none of this talk above explains the use of "Sentence case" in headlines, which in the way they stand by themselves (and are not sentences) should use "Title Case" capitalization. I note that is almost everything else that I do, if I am not writing a complete sentence, then I usually mean the collection of words to be a title and appropriately capitalize the words. I could find no discussion of this on any of the above-linked pages--perhaps they have been changed in the intervening five months? —Bradley 00:03, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

If it is an actual title, then use title case. If it is not, adhere to the sentence case rule, regardless of whether it's a "complete sentence" or not. Dysprosia 03:22, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The question is not "What is the rule?" but "Why is the rule what it is?" Maurreen 03:59, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It's a style guide. There may be no reason to many of the rules here. The key thing to a style guide is consistency. It is best for us to pick one style and stick with it: so we should stick with sentence case. Personally, Capitalizing Every Second Word Just Looks Silly To Me... 05:34, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's Why We Don't Do It With Every Word In A Sentence, Just With Titles Due To The Fact That Titles Tend To Be Shorter Than Full Sentences David Newton 01:44, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

So, none of the above discussion explains WHY this incorrect practice started. There seems to be no justification. The 'rule' seems to have just been arbitrarily put into place. I have seen people talk about the Chicago Manual of Style for other rules for the Wikipedia, so where is the reference for this situation? David Newton 07:57, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Doesn't make any sense to me either. Possibly it's in the archives or the history. If you'd like to see the style changed on this, I'd go along with you. Maurreen 08:08, 4 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, let's start a vote somewhere. This is ridiculous. Avochelm 15:09, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Frankly I find that headers look odd if not capitalizing important words within them. For example "Route Summary" looks much better then "Route summary". Consequently I'm suggesting we stick with the more capitalized version and I will continue to do so in all contributions.Gateman1997 28 June 2005 07:48 (UTC)

• I want to propose changing this. In my view section headers are titles -- section titles. I think that using title case for them is far more natural and looks better. DES ^(talk) 16:27, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
• Here are some indications from online style guides of various sorts:
  • The Yale Web style guide reccomends title case for headlines;
  • CMS styled example psper uses sentance case, but all hadings are full sentances;
  • The Columbia Guide to Online Style] uses title case in its own headings, but the free section does not explicitly discuss the issue.
  • American Anthropological Association citation guide uses title case in its own headings.
  • National Library of Medicine Recommended Formats for Bibliographic Citation uses title case in its own headings.

Allow Me to Add my Voice to the Chorus of those who Believe the Current Rule is Wrong. RadioKirk 03:40, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry but David Newton is absolutely correct. This is not about what people hate to see or what headlines prefer, it's about the simple fact that the first letter of all words except minor prepositions and words like 'and', 'the', and 'a(n)' in headings and titles must be capitalised. Wikipedia is not a newspaper, and should follow the grammar rules of the English language.

Cypriot stud

But there is no such rule in English grammar. At least none that English students in England are tought! All that has been quoted here so far are typographic regional fashions and house style guides. Note that all the style guides quoted above were issued by United States publishers. Please do not confuse the peculiar in-house guidelines and fashions of say the University of Chicago Press or the U.S. Government Printing Office with English grammar. There are plenty of well-respected publishers that use the same standard English heading case as Wikipedia, for example Nature, The Economist, New Scientist, ISO, to name just a few. Wikipedia's heading style does not violate English grammar, it just avoids one particular, less practical, regional typographic fad. Markus Kuhn 19:24, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

I've no idea where you came up with this. I am taught this way as being the correct and standard grammar in the English language, and I live in England! The books and material all state this too. All words should be capitalised except minor prepositions and words such as 'th', 'and', and 'a(n)'. -- Cypriot stud

Please read this entire thread, and look at the archives as well. This issue has been thoroughly debated for three years, and the consensus to use sentence case has been stable that entire time. Your assertion that there is one true rule for capitalisation in the English language is simply false, and a perusal of some of the sources that have been cited previously should convince you of that. If you remain unconvinced, I'm afraid you'll just have to live with your frustration here. This is a very stable rule in Wikipedia which has been debated to death, and I cannot imagine any new information that might come to light to change the consensus. Certainly "I was taught the other way" will not. (By the way, please sign and date your messages by placing --~~~~ at the end of your final paragraph.) --TreyHarris 13:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Advantages of the current sentence-case rule

I'm delighted that Wikipedia uses sentence-style case in headlines! Sentence-style case in headlines has two great practical advantages:

• it preserves the distinction that proper nouns (names) get from being capitalized (a "god" versus the one and only "God");
• it is easy to understand and agree upon.

Valuable information would be destroyed if we followed the practice of many U.S. publishers, who capitalize "almost" every word in a heading. Capitalizing additional words in a title can add a lot of ambiguity. I find this very irritating. For example:

• "European union leaders" means "the leaders of some trade/labor/etc. unions in Europe";
• "European Union leaders" means "the leaders of the organization named European Union".

Applying title case, as in "European Union Leaders", destoys this semantically important distinction, especially in headings, where it is customary to drop the determiners that could preserve at least some of this distinction.

Sentence-case headings are standard practice among trained British typesetters (as opposed to British amateurs who imitate the house style of some U.S. publisher). There are countless different, mutually incompatible rules in use among U.S. publishers for what exactly "almost" means when "almost" all words in a title should be capitalized. The article on capitalization outlines some of the more common ones. It would be a nightmare for Wikipedia to first agree on such a complicated (and by practical necessity always incomplete) set of special capitalization rules for headings, and then train all Wikipedia users to follow it. None of this complication is necessary as long as we simply use the same rules in headings that we use in normal sentences, and those rules are not very controversial. Complicated special capitalization rules for headings would create lots of unnecessary changes; things are already bad enough at present with the neverending reverts between British and American spellings. Please let's stick with the simplest and most informative convention: sentence case.

To those asking for authoritative references, I can point at all publications of the International Organization for Standardization and similar international standards organizations, which use the same sentence-style case in headings as Wikipedia. A very good choice in my humble opinion. I agree that the use of "title case" in book titles may sometimes be justified if the title is such that it is likely to be used as the name of the book (as in Gone With the Wind, Gone with the Wind, or Gone With The Wind). In this case the rule for capitalizing names may become applicable. But this hardly applies for headings. Here, "title case" is really nothing but an archaic form of emphasis and it has become obsolete with the introduction of bold typeface and the use of larger font sizes to distinguish headings. I very much hope that sentence-style case in headings will catch on, even among U.S. publishers and U.S. style-guide authors!

— Markus Kuhn 16:51, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

As to the question of aesthetics, which style "looks better and more appropriate", I believe that this depends entirely on what you are accustomed to and what insights you have gained in the practical advantages of either convention. Preferences for heading case seem to be very much an acquired taste.

In may case, my profound rejection of U.S. style title-case capitalization began after I realized what mess it creates in bibliographic databases, such as the awful attempt in BibTeX to encode publication titles in several conventions simultaneously. It is easy to write algorithms that convert sentence case into any of the many title case conventions, but converting back into sentence case seems like a hard AI problem, as it requires understanding of the text. So just keep the original in sentence case!

This insight was compounded when I saw scientific journal editors mess up mathematical and scientific notation in headings by applying title case to them blindly, for example

• turning mV (millivolts) into MV (megavolts),
• changing n-ary into n-Ary or N-ary,
• etc.

Ever since I fully realized the advantages of using sentence case in headings, I have come to look at the U.S.-style title case with a deep sense of annoyance. It has caused me great pain being forced to use title case whenever I submit something to a (usually U.S. based) publisher whose house style requires such excessive capitalization in headings. None of the U.S. style manuals quoted in the discussion above gives even the slightest justification for why we should use different rules for capitalization in headings. I can see lots of practical disadvantages, but not a single advantage. I also do not know of any other language than American English in which house-style designers do such a cruel and unusual thing to their headings.

— Markus Kuhn 15:15, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Style

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump

What is the policy on headers? The headers that exist on such webpages as Analytical Society seem far too large for the article. Arno 07:33 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

What headers are those, then? There aren't any headers in Analytical Society - although the bit at the bottom that says <b>External links</b> should be a header.

(looks at edit history)

No, it was exactly right before you changed it: ==External links== is the standard header for an external links section of an article.

-- Paul A 07:47 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

A major list of links deserves such a heading, but I agree with Arno that it is a bit excessive for one or a few links, and that with just bolding it looks better (but use ' ' ' instead of < b >). - Patrick 09:26 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

Paul is right. "External links" is a header, specifically an H2 header. Therefore that is the correct markup. --mav

Wikipedia:Manual_of_style states that ==External Links== is the perferred header. (As a matter of taste and consistency, I perfer using this header even for a single link)Tenbaset 04:56 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

==External links==, with a lower case ell, please. Egil

I stand corrected - thanks.Tenbaset

Ok, then try United Airlines flight 93 as another example where excessively large headlines exist. Also none of the above answers answer my original question. What policy states that all the headers have to be excessively large - ie H2 size? Arno 07:59 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

I do not feel that these are excessive. The headlines would look much better it they followed the style guide though, avoiding capitalization. -- Egil 08:30 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Arno, the policy for Wikipedia section headings is laid out in the Headline style section of Wikipedia:Manual of style - including a point specifically to the effect that == is the correct markup even if the result happens to look too large on your computer, followed by an explanation of why.

-- Paul A 08:52 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Ah, an answer. Thanks, Paul. Methinks that the end result is still too big and excessive, though. Arno 09:10 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

An afterthought to all this, I'm sure how I managed to miss 10baset's aswer before. But the headers are still too large, in my firm opinion. Arno 09:17 24 Jun 2003 (UTC)

---

Note that with the == brackets used, no space under the headline is needed. The space should be removed.

This is not true. Leaving no space will cause the text to be put directly under the heading. This was done for the country template, to facilitate:

History (test)

Full article: History of Somewheria

Somewheria was first discovered ....

However, for normal headers, this looks ugly, and should be avoided IMO:

Caption (test)

Text immediately below

Header protocol

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump

I'm seeing a lot of pages where the Header hierarchy starts with a second-level Header (===). MediaWiki apparently has no trouble with this and just ignores the "hidden" level for the purpose of numbering the Sections; they start at 1. and continue. However if someone appends a further Section (say External Links) at the top level (==), this appears as another 1. Section which is confusing. Assuming that this is not the ideal state of affairs, is this explicitly stated somewhere? I have searched but have been unable to locate anything appropriate. If this is incorrect, is there an easy way to seek & destroycorrect or do we just keep an eye out? Phil 12:16, Dec 12, 2003 (UTC)

The Wikipedia:Manual of Style requests of you to start all headers at == and to work down from there. I go through now and correct mucked up headers when I see them - it looks rather ugly having === headers throughout and having == headers sporadically interspersed at the end, or whatever. Dysprosia 12:32, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

However, this can be usefull in a WikiProject, with the stuff at the begining (parent projects, sibling projects, list of contributers, etc.) on the "===" set of headings, and the template on "==", which then starts numbering at one again.Gentgeen 14:07, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

What, and form a Wikipedia Manual of Style brigade? :) Sounds cool, but I thought WikiProjects were dedicated to information, and not just formatting? Dysprosia 23:02, 12 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Links within headers

Moved from article by Dittaeva 13:40, 9 Feb 2004 (UTC)

• A. This is already violated in lots of places, especially lists List of reference tables, e.g.
• B. What users have problems with this?

I think it looks fine, is fairly natural for users, especially those new to wikipedia (see e.g. the open directory project, which does include links in their equivalent of headers).

dml 22:44, 20 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Spaces in headers

==Spaces in headers== or == Spaces in headers == ?

--Nohat 05:47, 2004 Feb 26 (UTC)

I don't think there is any guideline for this yet, but maybe we could figure out what is best? For the Wikipedia software it does not matter if you use space between :, *, or ==, it will show the same thing anyway. This is only an issue for users like you and me, that want to know what is best.

My own policy is to have no space, or at least be consistent. I figured that since no space is necessary I micght as well remove it.
But I think it is also a question about what is easiest to understand and work with visually. Summarising I'd say as long as you consistent, you're fine. --Dittaeva 12:57, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Spaces between header and section text?

Regarding:

Note that with the == brackets used, no space under the headline is needed. The space should be removed.

This does not seem like good practice to me, since it prevents the generation of a paragraph-opening tag, <p>. The opening tag is required for paragraphs in HTML; specifically, if the space under the headline is removed, the chunk of text to follow is not, semantically, a paragraph. (Its immediate parent containing block is the div id="article".) Minor, I know, but it may have adverse effects for some browsers. It still validates, because plain text is allowed inside div blocks, but without a <p> to mark it, it's text with zero structural meaning, and to me seems no better than using <font size=+4><strong> instead of <h1>. Yeah, there's the issue of the space causing the introduction of extra space between the heading and the paragraph - but isn't that an issue for the stylesheets anyway? -- Wapcaplet 12:34 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

That is an issue with our markup parser, which handles P tags poorly. You are absolutely right: all text should be in P tags. Since a future fix of our parser will a) fix P tag behaviour and b) make space beneath headings irrelevant, I guess we can just ignore it for now. -- Tarquin 12:38 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Sweet. I will not worry about it then. -- Wapcaplet 12:41 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

---

I would prefer a blank line in the wikitext between header and section text, to make the header stand out more in the edit box.--Patrick 13:38, 20 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree—the blank line makes it easier to locate the headers while editing. Since the generation of the HTML is the same, it seems like the "preferred" format in the edit text is whatever best facilitates editing. For me, at least, the whitespace helps to see the organization of the outline easily. – Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 01:51, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Rendering of level 3 headings

Is it just my browser, or is the Wikipedia software failing to distinguish between ===heading 2=== and ====heading 3==== headings? This is a really lame problem. See Energy development Hawstom 23:24, 17 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Space under headlines

Start with "==" (that's two equal signs). Note that with the == brackets used, no space under the headline is needed. The space should be removed.

Why? Obviously, it makes a difference whether there is a space under the headline. Look at this:

headline (test)

Blah blah blah

and this:

headline (test)

Blah blah blah

I've been changing the latter to the former in many articles; now I find this page telling people to use the latter, and saying it makes no difference! Michael Hardy 22:43, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

My main objection to introducing a space under the header is that it makes the wikitext more difficult to read. Without the space, the associations between the text and its header becomes clearer than if a space were introduced. I believe others have mentioned previously that the resultant rendering of the text, with the space removed, is typographically better somehow than the rendering of the text with the text in place. Dysprosia 04:22, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I do not think at all that the associations between the text and its header become clearer without the space. Quite the contrary, if there is no space I would instinctively connect the header with the paragraph following it. Normally headings are used for multiple paragraphs, so this is not good. Also, in many articles there are headers immediately followed by a dot-list, and those will have a space between them anyway, so it looks more consistent with the space. That's just my 25 öre, though, and if there's a good reason to get rid of the spaces, by all means I can accept it. Perhaps that "typographical rendering" thing is a good reason, but a layman like me doesn't understand it. Could someone please explain it? (That said, I don't go around adding spaces in articles, even if they were removed from stuff I've written. I'm not that kind of person. But I do use spaces myself. Pardon me for that.) -- Jao 19:26, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

"Quite the contrary, if there is no space I would instinctively connect the header with the paragraph following it." -- then we would be in vehement agreement then ;) What we are discussing whether a space should exist:

text text text

==Header==

here

text text text

or not. Indeed, if no space existed where here is, that would associate the header strongly with the text following it.

Regardless, with the space, a space is also visible when rendered - without it, the header is closer to the text. You can see this if you look closely at the previous examples. Dysprosia 23:27, 17 May 2004 (UTC)

I'm not sure you got why I italicized "paragraph", so I'll try to explain it in further detail. Point is, I can't for the life of me understand why someone would want:

History

This is the first paragraph about history.

This is the second paragraph about history.

rather than:

History

This is the first paragraph about history.

This is the second paragraph about history.

I do see, however, the point in wanting more space before the heading than after it. But I would be much more happy if this could be done like:

This is an intro paragraph.

<extra space>

History

<normal space>

This is the first paragraph about history.

<normal space>

This is the second paragraph about history.

rather than having more space between paragraphs than between headers and paragraphs, seeming to connect, as I said, the header with the first paragraph only. I might be alone to think this, though, and it's nothing but a matter of aesthetics anyway, so.. -- Jao 08:30, 18 May 2004 (UTC)

Funny, I can't see why you want the space after the header :) I think it dissociates the header from the content too much. If you are thinking about putting extra space before it, then you have, for example, 2 blank lines before and one blank line after - why not 1 blank line before and none after? But I think this dicussion is rather pointless and fruitless, we're going to go round in circles and not standardize on anything, and even if we do, everyone else is going to argue about it anyway... Dysprosia 22:39, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

No Jao, you are not alone, it makes sense. I think two blank lines before and one blank line after the header are best in the edit box.--Patrick 09:12, 27 May 2004 (UTC)

Now, in the new standard skin, this looks much better, and there is no longer a difference in the output between the versions with or without spaces, so it is no longer something for the editors to decide upon, and has much become a non-issue. I still think there could be a millimeter or two of extra space before the headings, but that's a lesser question. -- Jao 00:44, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

If there's no technical reason why we can't include spaces under the headings, then should we update the MoS? IMO, editors should be free to use either style (with or without spaces). The exception to this rule would be if an article is written using one style, then an editor cannot come in and change all the heading spacing to match their preferred style, unless they are essentially rewriting the article from ~scratch. This closely matches the current BE vs. AE decision process. --Diberri | Talk 14:46, Jul 8, 2004 (UTC)

This appears to be a non-issue now; the heading examples above (with space and without) generate identical HTML and appear the same. I've rewritten the policy on spaces after headings to state that they are completely optional, much like having one or two spaces after periods. -- Wapcaplet 19:07, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

External links vs External link

Note: I started a discussion of this long ago, and I'm not able to find it... So I'll have to start a new one here. If anyone else can find the old discussion, please tell me.

I have noticed that many pages which only have one ext lk use ==External link== as the header of that section, while others use the plural form, ==External links==. I would make a case for the latter, as the former heading is often not updated as more ext lks are added. Besides, I think the grammar is sound, since one link is to be understood as one item of external links. Any comments? --Wernher 13:49, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

For previous discussions, see:

• Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/External_links#External_links_-or-_External_Links
• Wikipedia_talk:Guide_to_Layout#External_link_vs._External_links

-User:Docu

Well, up till now I have always made it 'link' if there is only one, and 'links' if there are more than one. I would always make the change from link to links to match the number of the links, but I'm not sure that the reverse should be a universal rule. Having read the discussions that Docu pointed to, and bearing in mind how I would apply the rule to any documentation I produce at work, I am now coming round to the way of thinking that the use of plural should be standard. Unusually, given my pedanticism on matters lexicographal, I am flexible! Noisy 14:48, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yup, "External links" because it's easier to maintain, and it doesn't have to do with how many links there are, it's just the name of the section so the plural is still correct. Sort of like having "References" even though you may only have one. Dori | Talk 15:27, Jul 24, 2004 (UTC)

I vote for always using ==External links==. It is the most consistent all-around, as you just know that people will forget to update the list with a plural. --Lexor|Talk 15:29, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

---

If anyone else can find the old discussion, please tell me.

Wikipedia talk:Boilerplate text#External links or link

chocolateboy 15:59, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

---

Thanks for responding so quickly (and for tracking down the previous discussions)! Now, could we formalize this by making it a poll/voting issue at the suitable wikipedia community page? I guess having me and a couple others (you) feeling a change would be nice isn't enough for actually implementing the change. --Wernher 16:42, 24 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Please make a difference. 1 link is just a link, anything else is links. If people forget to update it, it's just as wrong as when there is 1 link under the heading links. IMHO, both cases need to be corrected. Kokiri 16:11, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I agree with Kokiri. I wish early on that a different heading could have been found that would be easier to maintain; but that didn't happen and we need to try hard to keep it consistent with the number of links listed. - Bevo 16:25, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

This does seem to be somewhat of an eventualist/immediatist thing - I think it should be "link" when there's one, and "links" when there are more, as that makes grammatical sense; if someone doesn't remember to update the header, someone else will, eventually.

James F. (talk) 17:16, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Though I haven't read the archived discussion (sorry!), I think both "External link" and "External links" are acceptable styles for a section with only one link; there is also a pragmatic argument for the plural, and I think it sounds slightly better, so I think we should use that. — Matt 00:12, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I much prefer having "link" where there is only one as "links" seems incorrect to me. However, I don't really mind as long as watchlists aren't messed up by changing this in thousands of articles all at once. Angela. 06:10, Jul 26, 2004 (UTC)

I think that whenever there is one link, you should immediately go look for a second one, obviating the need to ever include the heading External link. --ssd 04:37, 27 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I disagree. Wikipedia is not a link directory. Links should not be added for the sake of adding them, but because they genuinely add something to the article. Angela. 02:43, Jul 29, 2004 (UTC)

For just one link, I think having a heading at all is overkill. Just say "External link: [{link}]" -- Stevietheman 17:52, 29 Jul 2004 (UTC)

(more seriously than above) For a single external link, you could probably just merge it into the text or include it with the rest of the internal links. I frequently mix it with the internal links, and split them out when a second arrives. --ssd 03:14, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My idea is quite serious, and it doesn't lead to any confusion like your solution does. -- Stevietheman 19:59, 31 Jul 2004 (UTC)

• I'm not sure whether any consensus came out of this earlier discussion. As noted above, headings are simply section names, and therefore I'm in the External links is more elegant camp. Eighteen months or so down the track, is there consensus on conforming to the plural form, sufficient to support the insertion of relevant comments on the main page? Obey 03:16, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Titles italicized within headings?

My instinct is that titles in headings should not be italicized. However, I've seen it done once or twice, so I thought I'd ask about it here. (If I can remember where I saw this being done, I'll link to it as an example.) Jason One 01:01, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I lean toward agreement, but I lean away from italics in general. Maurreen 21:34, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

tee hee. Nice one, Maurreen! (I think that titles in headings should be italicized, though.) [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 23:21, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

So, does anyone else have an opinion on this? I'm still not sure what to do. Jason One 20:27, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If there's no policy, go with your instincts. If you want a policy, propose one! jguk 21:10, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

dates/years

What about dates or years in a heading? See The Ashes. IMO it looks ugly. 19:55, May 23, 2005 (UTC)

Special characters

Some editors use special characters in the headings, and I've added a new section recommending against its use in accordance with accepted naming conventions, but appealing to consistency of style rather than the technical issues one finds with article titles. I would appreciate any comments or suggestions. --Viriditas | Talk 09:18, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ordering of standard headings

4 standard headings are listed: See also, External links, References and Footnotes. My question is, should they always appear in that order?

The text reads, "Do not vary the wording or capitalisation of these headings." I am of the opinion that we should change it to read, "Do not vary the wording, captitalization, or order of these headings."

My argument for why the order should be the same is simply convenience for the reader. If an article has any information that falls under the standard headings, the standard headings will appear in a regular order, across all articles. Currently i have observed this to be generally true, that the same ordering is used, but i would like to see this specified. Alternately, if the order does not matter, we should state that explicitly. --Fudoreaper 00:35:52, 2005-08-04 (UTC)

TOC guidelines

The guidelines on left and right floating TOCs now linked to from the page were a result of discussion and a poll at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style#Template:TOCright, and should be considered to have achieved consensus as guideliens, IMO. the discussion was advertised at WP:RFC and at the village pump for over a month. DES ^(talk) 23:06, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

Remove edit tag?

How can I include a header without the edit tag showing up and without an automatically generated TOC. I'm only wondering for my user page, not a Wikipedia article. ElAmericano 22:09, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

The automatically generated TOC can be turned off by including __NOTOC__ on the page. As for the edit tag, I think those can only be turned off in by the user (by unchecking "Enable section editing via [edit] links" in Preferences/Editing). --Spiffy sperry 00:10, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

Capitalisation -> Capitalization

Shouldn't the heading capitalisation be spelled capitalization? I was under the impression that the American spelling should be used unless the article concerns a British or European topic. --Dan East 05:06, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

No, see Wikipedia:Manual of Style#National varieties of English: For the English Wikipedia, there is no preference among the major national varieties of English. --Vclaw 17:38, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

Further reading

A lot of pages seem to have a header called "Further reading" where books (that not was used as a reference) about the subject are listed. According to Cite sources "The ==External links== or ==Further reading== section is placed after the references section", but it doesn't say anything about how the order should be if there are both "External links" and "Further reading"-sections. Therefore I propose that the new "Standard headings and ordering" should be:

• See also
• References
• External links
• Further reading
• Notes

- David Björklund (talk) 13:35, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Please see Wikipedia talk:Verifiability#References/external links name-change proposal, which proposes to make some changes to these recommended headings. older≠wiser 14:07, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Order of headings?

Is there a reason for the given order of headings at the end of an article? To me, the following order makes much more sense:

• See also
• References
• Notes
• External links

Maybe it's inconsequential, but to me grouping references and notes is better than separating them, because they are directly related (Notes often refer to works appearing in the references). External links, since they were not referenced in the creation of the article, should go last, in my opinion. It would appear that a few people on Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Céline Dion would agree with me. Thoughts? --Spangineer^es (háblame) 03:29, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I agree with the above. The preferrable order—in my eyes—is "See also", "References", "Notes" (or vice versa, it doesn't really matter), and "External links". The latter does not reference the article, and should therefore be placed at the bottom. —Hollow Wilerding 23:17, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

Agree completely. I'll add that having "Notes" before "References" seems to be rather more common than vice versa. Kirill Lokshin 23:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

I think "Notes" after "References" often works better; for example, see gas metal arc welding. If there are multiple references from the same source, it's preferable to list the references first so that the notes can refer to them by the last name of the author. It probably depends on the actual referencing system used. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 03:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Quite true. Traditional Chicago-style notes (which I personally prefer) repeat the full reference in its first appearance in the notes, so the question of author names is neatly avoided; but this might be more of an issue for other systems. I suspect it's best to just leave the order of those two sections flexible. Kirill Lokshin 03:28, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

In Chicago-style notes, do you even need a references section? In any case, leaving it up to the author of the aritlce is probably the best way to go. Let's wait a day or two and see if anyone disagrees, and if not, we can make the change. --Spangineer^es (háblame) 03:48, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

A separate reference section is still needed if some works are references but not directly cited, and it's useful to have one as a summary of the sources if the list of notes is long. Kirill Lokshin 03:55, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Exception of the rule to use == as top level section

On template talk pages I suggest that sections of level = are encouraged to be used, this for the ability to separate documentation and discussion, and allow using + to add a new section under discussion (see {{subst:doctl}}) _→AzaToth 20:19, 9 December 2005 (UTC)

I agree, templates are a special case.--Patrick 03:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

What about full stop (period)?

What is the rule for a full stop at the end of a header? Given the rule that says headers should be nouns or noun phrases, this implies that a header should not be a complete sentence, nor should it have any full stops (periods). This is not explicitly mentioned in the main page. It should be. See Coins of Cyprus for an example of this. Markkawika 11:13, 21 December 2005 (UTC)

Obviously there should be no end-of-sentence period (full stop) at the end of a heading, not even if the text of the heading forms a full sentence. Periods terminate sentences within a paragraph. But in the case of a heading, the typographic emphasis applied makes it already perfectly clear where the heading ends. However, you can have a ? or ! at the end of a heading, as well as a period if it indicates an abbreviation. I would have thought that this is so well established and commonly followed that there seems no real need to explicitely mention it in the Manual of Style. Is the problem very common? Are there contributors who object to you removing such periods? Otherwise, just be bold and fix it where you spot it. Markus Kuhn 17:46, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

There is a contributor who insists on full stop at the end of every heading in all of the articles he creates. I guess I'll just go and remove it, and if he objects I'll bring it up here again. Markkawika 01:15, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

TOC and Numbering Sections

The automatically generated TOC is great - it provides order in a document. For a large document it would be good to be able to reflect the automatically generated TOC numbers in the actual section titles appearing within the document eg (within the body) 5.1.2 network neutrality. That way readers of hardcopy versions would be able to refer to the TOC and then find the appropriate section within the hardcopy document relatively easily. To simply insert them into the section or sub-section title creates a duplication of the numbers in the TOC eg you would get 5.1.2 5.1.2

I have been unable to find any "magic words" or HTML fix to accommodate this capability. Any thoughts?

"References" vs. "External links"

What exactly is the difference between a "References" section and an "External links" section? Both are just pointers to more information on the subject. What does the reader gain from this distinction, and where is it documented what the difference is? Markus Kuhn 17:37, 29 December 2005 (UTC)

The references section can provide book references and such that don't have web links. I see what you mean though. External links tend to be both "see also" and "references" at the same time... — Omegatron 15:24, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

External links are links given that are useful for further information but that were not used as a source for the article. Their printed equivalent is "Further reading". If any outside source was used in the writing of the article, whether printed or online, it is a reference and should be included in that section. --Spangineer (háblame) 16:12, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

Repeated titles

How about adding the following (or something like it) to the "Wording" section, if it's correct:

"Avoid repeating section titles. However, if this is necessary, the automatically generated Table of Contents will be able to differentiate between the repeated titles, but not if they have different capitalization. Manual links to sections with repeated titles (regardless of capitalization) will only go to the first occurrence."

--Spiffy sperry 00:34, 1 January 2006 (UTC)

The capitalization part needs a bug report? — Omegatron 14:31, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

I think this new wording is in conflict with the prior paragraph. It would be common to have some parallelization, such as the following in an article about cheese:

• Types
  • Gruyere
    • Taste
    • Process
  • Cheddar
    • Taste
    • Process
  • Brie
    • Taste
    • Process

and this new paragraph would seem to conflict. --TreyHarris 22:07, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

To answer both questions above, my main interest in this entry was to let people know what might happen if titles are repeated. Maybe we can say something other than "Avoid" while still getting that point across (which is why I put "if this is necessary"). I haven't checked whether a bug report has been made (or decided if it's needed), but I wouldn't mind if someone else took the lead on that. However, I would think that in most cases the title's capitalization was the problem, rather than the TOC. --Spiffy sperry 14:55, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Reverted template talk text

I have removed the language added about the formatting of Template Talk pages. The Manual of Style is for articles, not for project pages or discussion pages. While I'm sympathetic to the aim of the text, it doesn't belong anywhere in the MoS. --TreyHarris 16:13, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Where should it be placed then? _→AzaToth 16:21, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, probably? --TreyHarris 22:01, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Articles that start with headings

I have noticed quite a few articles that start with headings, see this for example. I consider this terrble style, it looks awful and is totally unnessecary as the title of the article acts as the first heading anyway. Possibly even worse are articles that start with ==Overview== or ==Introduction== (e.g. this). Can we add a brief sentence to discourge this? thanks Martin 11:35, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it's necessary, as Wikipedia:Guide to layout and Wikipedia:Lead section already make this clear. Feel free to add pointers to this, however. --TreyHarris 14:14, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

I didnt realise it was already stated there, thanks for pointing it out. I have compiled a list of 400 articles that start with either == Overview == or == Introduction ==, now I can go about fixing them. Martin 14:28, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

When to not use headings?

Hi. On the article about The Apprentice I changed the country headings (under "Other countries") to proper headings level two headings (i.e. "==="). These were promptly changed back on the grounds of "shortening TOC; sections are not detailed enough to justify an entire header". Now, I can see the logic in that from an aesthetic perspective, but simultaneously, these are definitely headings, so my pedantic side says they should be labelled as such. I was hoping to find guidance in the MoS, but couldn't spot anything definitive (it did read like the assumption was that headings should be marked up accordingly, but I don't think it says it outright). So, I'm here looking for guidance. I guess a good solution might be something that allows them to be marked up correctly, but supresses their appearance in the TOC. Jamse 23:15, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

"Trivia" heading

Does anyone else sometimes feel the use of the heading "Trivia" to be inappropriate for the cluster or list of fact(oid)s that follow?
For me, "Trivia" has overtones of "trivial", which may be apposite for (say) tidbits of information about a celebrity, but not, for example, for information such as here (this is the most recent example I've come across, which I've managed to edit out).
I suggest (what I hope is) a more neutral term such as "Miscellany" for general use.
Regards, David Kernow 22:46, 25 March 2006 (UTC)

In general, trivia sections aren't highly looked upon in articles, so as far as I know there isn't a "standard" way to do it. Normally, the stuff in trivia sections is trivial (madeup example: Did you know that J. Lo's right pinky finger is bigger than her left pinky?) Normally, the information in a "trivia" section should be axed or incorporated into the article prose itself if it's significant enough. Often, a "In popular culture" section or the like is used to pull together media-related trivia facts (first person to appear on David Letterman 3 times, what have you). —Spangineer^[es] (háblame) 00:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts, Spangineer. Would you or do you think anyone else would oppose adding a paragraph to the MoS (headings) and/or Wikipedia:Section pages along these lines? :

Trivia, Miscellany, etc.

Bits of information that are relevant and might be of interest but do not sit easily in the main body of an article sometimes appear under a heading such as Trivia or Miscellany. The heading Trivia, however, should be reserved for collections of information that are of a more humorous or quirky nature.

Thanks, David Kernow 01:19, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Italics in section headers

If a word or phrase is typically written in Italics, such as the name of a book or TV show, is it appropriate to carry those Italics into a section header if the word appears there? As far as I can tell there is no mention of this in the MoS. Thanks! --Naha|^(talk) 20:21, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

As you will see if you look in your watchlist or page history and try to jump to this section, it looks like the jump arrow does not work on sections that have italicized text. So I think it would be best if we not use italics in sections for now. If you want to open a bug and the problem were fixed, we could revisit the issue. --TreyHarris 20:51, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Although the link does work fine from the TOC and if entered in a link using #Italics in section headers. I don't know if the bug with the jump arrows is enough reason by itself to not use italics. Not having a strong opinion or any precedent I can point to, I tend to favor using italics in the case given above. —Doug Bell ^{talk•contrib} 21:55, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Capitalization

What's the big deal about capitalizing the first letter of every word (except prepositions) in section titles? Getting sick and tired of all the stupid bots making the section titles look like sentences when they are NOT! -Eep² 06:35, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Title case (i.e., the idea of using different capitalization rules in headings than in normal text) is a typographic fashion that is not very fashionable outside the United States. This topic has been discussed to death and there is a broad consensus for use of British/international sentence-style header capitalization in Wikipedia. Please check the archives for the detailed rationale behind this well-established aspect of Wikipedia's house style. In a nutshell, the main arguments for sentence case are:

• sentence case is much easier to understand and explain (in fact, there would be nothing to explain if people were not confused by past exposure to some U.S. publishers' house styles);
• there are many different and conflicting rules in use among U.S. publishers with regard to how exactly title case works (i.e., which words exactly are to be capitalized), and there is no clear advantage gained from using any of them;
• sentence case preserves information about which word is a proper noun (name), which is a very desirable property, especially in scientific and encyclopedic works, and which can reduce ambiguity (e.g. "A nice woman" vs. "A Nice woman", "A new York company" vs. "A New York company");
• ISO standards, Nature, New Scientist, and lots of other highly respected English-language publishers world-wide use sentence-case headings in their house style.

Most importantly, we have not really seen any plausible practical advantages and arguments in favor of title case, other than somewhat uninspiring ones along the lines of "My copy of the Chicago Manual of Style says so, so it must be the correct way, don't really know why."

Markus Kuhn 10:20, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

The advantage/argument of title case is that it differentiates text from a normal sentence, which begin with the first letter of the first word (and any proper noun and/or acroynm) capitalized and end with a punctuation mark (period, exclamation point, question mark, etc). Titles shouldn't be sentence-like ("This is a sentence." vs. "Sentence") because they are supposed to be brief and vague so as to inspire the reader to want to read more about it.

Just because most of the world is backwards in this respect doesn't mean it's the correct/logical way of doing things. Lots of countries drive on the wrong (left) side of the road too... -Eep² 20:38, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

In my eyes (personal point of view, obviously), title case is nothing but an anachronism from the days before we had better means to emphasize headings. Today, headings are already clearly distinguished from normal text through the use of a different font type and font size. So there is no longer any need to mess around with capitalization to add an additional layer of differentiation. I'm afraid, I cannot agree at all with your assessment that "the world is backwards" in this respect. On the contrary, I very much hope that U.S. publishers will one day abandon the idea of title case. (I've seen enough garbled BibTeX output due to title case to have the slightest sympathy for the idea.)

If none of this convinces you, here is another very good case for sentence case:

It is trivial to convert sentence case into title case algorithmically, because simply all but a short (to be agreed) list of words have to be capitalized, which is very easy to do in software. On the other hand, it is a very difficult natural-language processing problem to convert title case into sentence case, because in many cases the meaning of the text must be understood to say whether a word is a proper noun or not. Therefore, if we keep in the article's source code all headings in sentence case, we still have the option one day to change the style sheet to title case and let the formatter do the conversation.

If we actually wrote the articles using title-case headings, we would not have this choice. In that sense, using sentence case is more flexible. If there really are enough U.S. users who really can't stand sentence-case headings for some reason, we could extend the Wikimedia software to provide for automatic conversation based on readers' personal preferences. I hope sanity will previal and this won't be necessary, but it is certainly technically doable. However, the source article will in any case have to remain in sentence case. Markus Kuhn 21:07, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

If no such capitalization emphasis is needed on EVERY word (or at least non-prepositions), then why even capitalize the FIRST word's first letter? The titles are NOT sentences because they (usually) don't have ending punctuation. "External links" isn't a sentence (and would be grammatically incorrect if it were "External links.". "external links" would be a better choice but then it just looks weird which is why I prefer "External Links" since it's short enough to obviously not be confused with a sentence. Hell, why even capitalize ANYTHING then? For emphasis, one could argue--which is what a title IS (and why I capitalize all letters in a word *I* want to emphasis (except "I" since it's ALREADY capitalized so I used asterisks around it instead). Are you getting confused yet? So many different ways to emphasize words yet no real agreed upon standard.

Again, just because most of the world was influenced by the British Commonwealth's (whatever) way of doing things (of which they are backwards in other respects) doesn't mean there isn't a better way. There's a reason the US REVOLTED from such monarchistic ideals in the first place... -Eep² 21:33, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

You initially make a good point. I personally would certainly have no objection against a house style in which not even the first letter in a heading is capitalized routinely (i.e. "external links"). This sounds like a very practicaly and advantageous approach, and on reflection it is indeed what I personally do in table-column headings and figure labels. Not capitalizing the first letter in a heading is, however, so far still a rather unusual convention. I have seen it used in some books and web pages, but these are certainly a small minority.

I am puzzled though, why you chose to discredit your line of argument by appending an entirely unrelated political rant to an otherwise calm discussion on typographic practicalities. Given your obvious hostility towards the non-U.S. English-speaking world, you may also want to consider a more global picture, namely the fact that title-case headings are unknown in any language other than English. This U.S. habit is really the exotic outlier here. I wonder whether its historic origin is simply the Germanic spelling convention of capitalizing every noun everywhere. 82.6.110.34 10:20, 4 June 2006 (UTC)

I don't believe "most of the world is backwards", but Wikipedia is certainly chauvinistic if it adopts one strategy for dealing with spelling differences -- aside from topics about an area with its own preferred way of spelling, use whatever the first non-stub author used, in order not to impose one standard on everyone, so that no one feels slighted -- but adopts a different strategy when it comes to titles: impose one standard on everyone. I move that the same general approach be applied to titles/headings as is used with spelling. I know worrying about Americans feeling slighted is not fashionable right now (because Americans are fat, or whatever), but, if it helps, please note that publishing houses in many other countries, where people are not fat, use non-sentence style capitalization for headlines. --Cultural Freedom talk 18:01, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

Note, furthermore, the arguments cited in favor of the decision are mostly incorrect:

• "sentence case is much easier to understand and explain (in fact, there would be nothing to explain if people were not confused by past exposure to some U.S. publishers' house styles)";

First of all, it's by no means just the U.S. Secondly, it's not that complicated, and, either way, that principle hasn't guided other Wikipedia style decisions. If it did, we would have mandated that vigor always be spelled with the Shakespeare/American spelling because it is "easier to explain" why you have to remove the u from vigour when adding the suffix -ous.

• "there are many different and conflicting rules in use among U.S. publishers with regard to how exactly title case works (i.e., which words exactly are to be capitalized), and there is no clear advantage gained from using any of them";

There are a few slight variations.

• "ISO standards, Nature, New Scientist, and lots of other highly respected English-language publishers world-wide use sentence-case headings in their house style."

And lots of other publications don't use sentence-case headings. Same with how some people spell color "color", and some "colour".

"Most importantly, we have not really seen any plausible practical advantages and arguments in favor of title case, other than somewhat uninspiring ones along the lines of 'My copy of the Chicago Manual of Style says so, so it must be the correct way, don't really know why.'"

There are no plausible practical advantages and arguments in favor spelling favor "favour", and, many contend, few in favor of spelling it favour. This is why it was decided that both are acceptable. Cultural Freedom talk 18:09, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

This is not a spelling issue. Spelling and heading capitalization are really issues in two very different categories. Spelling rules are well known throughout the population, are applied very consistently and do not vary widely among publishers. The capitalization of headings, on the other hand, is a far more loosely defined matter, a typographic fashion really, which varies greatly between publishers. It is therefore far easier to define a single consistent house style here than would be the case with spelling. I very much appreciate that we have a clear house style here and that it is followed very consistently. And the many practical advantages of the chosen solution, as listed earlier, should really speak for themselves. (Having that said, I am nevertheless all in favor of a terrorist plot involving kidnapping the world's dictionary publishers and locking them up with limited food on a remote island until they have agreed on a single spelling for the English language ... :) 128.232.8.250 18:20, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

About the world's dictionary publishers: I agree! (At least Noah Webster and Samuel Johnson!) But this issue really is, I'm afraid, more similiar to the spelling issue than you might imagine. I have lived in many countries, including the UK and the US. Virtually all Americans would look at Wikipedia's titles and thing they're weird. The reason you might not realize this is that (if your IP number is any guide) you're British, and in the UK, there is much less consistency than in the US (though there is a bit of variation in the US).

My main concern here, however, is that I see no evidence of a consensus having been reached. Claims of a consensus have been made, but that's not the same thing. Someone just imposed their will on the group. That's worrisome.

Again, if you gave me enough time, I'm convinced I could argue that American spelling would be a far more sensible standard for Wikipedia than any other existing spelling system (though, moi, I'd get the c back in defense, offense, etc., and double a few consonents, and use British comma placement, but I won't be on the remote island). But Wikipedia shouldn't impose any system where there is a significant chance that many people will feel "imposed upon". Americans are, in fact, people. Many here seem to find that difficult to believe. The fact that your country has lots of McDonalds doesn't mean some sort of "let's impose on them" payback is justified (not saying this what you're thinking! but there's plenty of evidence that many Wikipedians feel that way). No one should be imposed upon. Period. It seems that's something we all should agree on. --Cultural Freedom talk 18:36, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

I have no objections against U.S. English spelling. And I like standardization. How about a (hypothetical) deal? Let's standardize on U.S. English spelling for Wikipedia, but – in exchange – we also standardize on the following non-U.S. (international standard) conventions, which (unlike British spelling) all have rather clear practical and logical advantages over the corresponding U.S. habits:

• sentence case in headings instead of U.S.-style Title Case
• SI units (metric system) instead of U.S. customary units
• logical/gramatical quotation marks instead of the U.S.-habit of pulling a full stop or commas before the closing quotation mark, even if it belongs to the remaining sentence and is not part of the quoted text
• 24-hour clock notation (not U.S.-style a.m./p.m. 12-hour clock)
• Bigendian all-numeric date notation (yyyy-mm-dd) à la ISO 8601 instead of U.S.-style mm/dd/yy
• no em-dashes – only en-dashes surrounded by space

I am actually very curious, what percentage of U.S.-American Wikipedians would consider such a deal acceptable. 131.111.8.96 18:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

(Pardon delay, was away for a few days.) Your question bespeaks an odd view of Americans. Very few Americans would disagree with the above proposal. Indeed, many Americans or "American orthographists" would be happy going even further: eliminate some of the weird American spellings. (Personally, I think defense is questionable, so long as fence can't be changed to fense.) Americans are far more open to change in the name of improving the world than you seem to believe. American culture is newer, more flexible. There's less to defend. I think you need to ask the parallel question of Commonweathers, especially the English. Best, Cultural Freedom talk 2006-07-10 21:44 (UTC)

Refs in headings

I was looking to find how to ref a whole subsection from one source without having the number to <references /> in the heading or if this cool as is. Please see Geography of Texas#Resources, and point the way. Joe I 12:19, 30 July 2006 (UTC)