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Sidebars (navboxes) should NOT be used in the lead

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

There is a consensus against an absolute ban on the use of navboxes (sidebars) in the lede. However, there is a moderate consensus in favor of introducing guidance that in general, editors are discouraged from placing navboxes in the lede, with about two thirds of participants in support. This consensus does not authorize the mass removal or deletion of sidebar navboxes. Several participants emphasized the need to make case-by-case determinations; if editors seek the deletion of a particular navbox, it should be brought to TfD as usual.

To bring this consensus into effect, the following text in MOS:LEAD should be changed: Sidebars are sometimes placed in the lead, especially when no infobox is present. If an infobox is present, the navigation sidebar may be moved to either the top or bottom of any other section in the article.. I suggest that to implement this RfC the text be changed to Sidebars are often placed at the top of bottom of any section of an article. The placement of sidebars in the lead is discouraged. This specific text is not consensus-backed, however, so it may be changed through the normal editing process as long as it is consistent with the consensus articulated above.

A procedural matter: RfCs are required to be written neutrally. This RfC (with a section title Sidebars (navboxes) should NOT be used in the lead) should have been put on hold until it was replaced with a neutral question like "Should editors be prohibited from adding sidebars (navboxes) to the lead?" In closer cases, or where the non-neutral question clearly prejudiced one perspective, a closer might determine that an RfC is invalid for failing to present a neutral question, and close the discussion without finding consensus.

Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 01:04, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

---

Navigational sidebars should not be used in the lead.

Technical note: Navigational sidebars are not visible on mobile versions of Wikipedia representing approximately 60 percent of readers. (i.e. Desk top vs Mobile version)

Rationale: The MOS should strongly reject the use of navboxes (sidebars) in the lede. There are many reasons, such as

• The top right corner should be reserved for an image related to the article's topic.
• Wikilinks are the best way for readers to navigate between aticles. Few if any readers will want to hop between articles by topic. Practically none will do so by using the sidebars.
• As a rule, an article belongs to many general topics. Which one gets to put its sidebar there?
• Editing and inserting sidebars uses a lot of editor brainpower that could be used in more productive ways.
• Sidebars imply a division of knowledge into topics that is at best artificial, at worst misleading and mind-limiting.
• Readers who want to read broadly on articles about a given topic are much better served by a regular article on that topic, that points to specific articles trough wikilinks. The "tab" feature and back" button of most browsers makes it unnecessary to have a sidebar on every article with that topic.
• Sidebars tend to split Wikipedia into a federation topical encyclopedias, each "owned" by a Wikiproject -- which inevitably tends to be dominated by a few editors who create their own rules of style and contents, and are unconsciously hostile to "outsider" editors.

For these and other reasons, the MOS should say "no" to navboxes in the lede. Existing sidebars should be merged into the articles about the respective topics, or, at worst, turned into navbars at the bottom of the article.--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 23:06, 15 August 2020 (UTC)

The RFC guidelines require a neutral heading and introductory paragraph posing the question to be answered. This most definitely does not have either. SpinningSpark 07:26, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Jorge Stolfi, can you give me an example of an article (or several) where there are active disputes over a sidebar? WhatamIdoing (talk) 21:37, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

If there aren’t, it’s partly because I don’t put up a fuss about how much I hate them. For all the reasons mentioned by Jorge. Navigational sidebars in article space should be horizontal, at the bottom ... we have enough clutter at the top with infoboxes. Actually, I have put up a fuss before about these, even on a FAC once, but with so many years, who knows where to find those now. And we are even getting navigational templates IN infoboxes, at hurricane articles. See hurricane Dorian. These are See also, and WP:LAYOUT tells us See alsos go in an appendix, so we already have a guideline on it, that is never enforced (unless at FAC, as I did oppose them in my day) or followed. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 22:01, 17 August 2020 (UTC)

There probably aren't, because these are added by prolific drive-by nuisances editors who probably don't even watchlist the articles they add them to. I've removed or moved down large numbers, with few complaints that I remember. But plenty will be left, and one shouldn't have to do this work. Frankly, many of these should just be deleted, but who can bother? Johnbod (talk) 12:45, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: @SandyGeorgia: Amen...
A big meta-problem of Wikipedia is that complaints about bad rules and features are either wasted, for being posted on general forums that hardly anyone reads, or are read only by the same editors who created those rules and features, who naturally dismiss all complaints. Sigh...--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 01:40, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

And no one reads this page, either. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 01:43, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

I've long wondered how much readers use the end-of-page navboxes. They don't appear on the mobile site, and I don't recall ever seeing a complaint about that, which suggests that they're not missed too often.

Hi - here is a complaint about the lack of end-of-page navboxes on the mobile site. They are useful on desktop, and I miss them on mobile. Newystats (talk) 09:33, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

I think the problem with 'just remove it' as an approach is that the navbox page is interpreted as requiring that if the article is present in the navbox, then the navbox must be present in the article. I don't know if that is enforced as strongly for the sidebars, which are usually more general. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:31, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

They are typically used to advance a POV. I suspect they are much more used by editors than readers ... the links are typically all in articles anyway, but editors use navbox lists when they need to make across-the-board changes. Another reason why I think they disrupt article space. It would be nice of me to find an example ;) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:23, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

(to both the last) I don't really agree with the POV poinrt. They are imo typically done by people who like coding them, often perhaps because English language skills are not required. They are one example of what unfortunately constitutes the majority of our "editing" today. As I've said, I don't get comeback from removing them - I doubt the placers are aware, & I think most other editors approve. Only their creators love them. Johnbod (talk) 17:13, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Johnbod, I think that parts of {{Alternative medicine sidebar}} might count as a sort of POV pushing. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:02, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

No doubt - Template:Humanism has had issues in the past, as have related articles. But these are local fires to put out. Not I think typical of the general problem. Johnbod (talk) 20:07, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

@SandyGeorgia, Johnbod, and Jorge Stolfi: WhatamIdoing wrote, a few levels back: I've long wondered how much readers use the end-of-page navboxes. They don't appear on the mobile site, and I don't recall ever seeing a complaint about that, which suggests that they're not missed too often. ...I think that's largely accurate, but it may be more correct/complete to say that they're not often missed by mobile users.

Speaking for myself, I find reading on my phone far more tedious and unproductive than on my desktop (due largely to the vast disparity in both the size and format of the two screens involved), so when I read articles using a mobile device I'm far more focused on a goal-oriented "get in, get what I need, and get out" approach where I'm not really looking for distractions, tangents, or information on related topics — the sort of connections infoboxes are meant to facilitate. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't miss those infoboxes on the desktop site, where I'm far more interested and likely to make use of them. Seems as though, even if only by accident, we may have actually gotten the balance pretty much correct on that with the way things already stand. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 22:58, 30 August 2020 (UTC)

FeRDNYC, do you mean Wikipedia:Infobox (white at the top) or Wikipedia:Navboxes (blue at the bottom)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:15, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: ...Yes? Navboxes for sure are pure distraction, I think I'd actively dislike if they appeared on mobile. (Especially in their current HTML-tables design, which is completely unresponsive and looks comical on a mobile screen.) But even Infoboxes, while nice to have on the desktop, are mostly "enhanced content" that doesn't translate well to the smaller screen. Having what's basically the built-in equivalent of mobile browsers' "Simplified view" of the article can be a welcome relief from the distractions of additional data and links, no matter how relevant. -- FeRDNYC (talk) 16:31, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

I believe that infoboxes are displayed on mobile, underneath the first paragraph. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:02, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Indeed they are! And not even, as I'd had it in my head they'd surely have to be, in any sort of stripped-down form. They're pretty much fully intact. Even embedded content like maps and charts are included, where present. Which makes sense, I suppose, since unlike navboxes the standard infobox layout is almost inherently mobile-friendly. (In fact, since the box is shown full-page-width in the mobile form factor, it gets slightly more room to spread out than in its corner of the desktop page layout and looks a bit less busy and cluttered.) It's still an opportunity for distraction, but at least an attractively-laid-out one with a reasonable signal:noise ratio for the actual article topic (again unlike navboxes). -- FeRDNYC (talk) 01:01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Middle ground wording might be best for moving this forward? ...." Navigational sidebars should not be placed in the lead section if an infobox is present to avoid clutter."--Moxy 🍁 02:02, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

There should also not be more than one. Frankly, if the MOS merely warned against including sidebars in article bodies, that would be an improvement. CMD (talk) 14:23, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

Agree with mid body templates and with main article infoboxes that get stuffed in the body of articles as seen at China#Names that only need to be at the lead of Names of China.--Moxy 🍁 17:08, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

After looking at some samples, I became more concerned about how they are used to advance a POV. Most likely, there have been disagreements over which template comes first if someone wants to dig back in article talk archives. For example, does Discrimination or the anti-Catholic screed take priority in the Catholic articles? I would wager that, with the Hurricane articles aside, and setting aside the mostly abandoned Psychology WikiProject, an examination would reveal that many of these are for advancing a POV, giving them a prominent position within articles. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:06, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: As for examples of disputes about alternative navboxes, I cannot give one that is active right now. But there seems to be frequent contention, for example, between infoboxes {{chembox}} and {{Infobox drug}}. The article on ascorbic acid apparently had to be split in two (vitamin C and chemistry of ascorbic acid) because of that reason. I personally had that dispute with another editor over chlorine-releasing compounds.
The current style of infoboxes is a problem too, for that reason. But at least infoboxes contain important information, so we can discuss that problem separately. Navboxes in the lede have no such excuse...--Jorge Stolfi (talk) 18:03, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

I think this discussion warrants an alert to editors that these boxes are being discussed for mass deletions. I don't know how to place an alert near every sidebar (sidebox) on Wikipedia.

A consideration that needs to be appreciated is that sideboxes are useful on articles that are about concepts or abstractions. Articles that are about events, people, things (physical objects), and places can rely upon infoboxes or simple images. A case-by-case approach seems better to assess the usefulness of the sidebars. Or a small group of questionable sidebars can be examined at a time. Mitchumch (talk) 06:03, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

This would also affect our odd guide that encourages indiscriminate template spam at WP:BIDIRECTIONAL that some academic topics (such as Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Military history#Navigation templates ) have already tackled. Left a notice and turned this into an RFC--Moxy 🍁 16:48, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Can we codify that WP:MILMOS#NAV templates are exempt (perhaps as an exemption for the {{military navigation}} base template)? Templates such as {{campaignbox}} are not merely navboxes and it's bad enough that many of these campaignbox templates are routinely nominated for deletion for having "too few links for a navigational template" (as here), even though that's how many battles were in the campaign. Mojoworker (talk) 16:45, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

Mojoworker, that could be done, but why does MILHIST want {{Campaignbox Iraq War}} to be vertical and collapsed, instead of horizontal and open? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:09, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps a bit of a tangent: Would you recommend limiting the size of a sidebar somehow? Like normally no more than 10 links, or saying that everything linked must be very closely related (e.g., about a single person/book/business)? WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

Template:Rembrandt (a bottom of the page one) is something to chew over in that context! Johnbod (talk) 20:33, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

@Johnbod, the bottom-of-the-page navboxes aren't sidebars. This is about the Category:Sidebar templates, such as Template:Sociology. WhatamIdoing (talk) 14:39, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

I know, I know. But, as many have said above, large sidebars should be converted into bottom-dwellers, they come into it as well. Johnbod (talk) 14:54, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Sidebars are okay for conceptual topics (that wouldn't usually be served by an infobox, per Mitchumch's above observation) covering a very limited set of closely related articles (that wouldn't overlap with other topics). However, as Wikipedia has long trended towards the proliferation of infoboxes as well as bloat of navigational templates, the number of usable sidebars has plummeted. It's not necessarily the size or number of links included that matters, but the tightness of their relation. Template:History of Western art music, for example, works (mostly) well as it covers a well-defined series of chronologically related articles (though it still has some clashes e.g. in Postmodern music). --Paul_012 (talk) 21:11, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

One problem with them that I don't see mentioned here is the problem they cause in the mobile app. If the article does not have a top image and, like {{History of the United States}}, the sidebar does have one, then the mobile app, not the mobile web, shows the sidebar image. Currently the Prehistory of the United States has the great seal of the United States as the top image. Odd but not as bad as last week when Pre-Columbian era was showing it. It's not a major problem as the use of the app is still low compared to other views. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Huliva 16:29, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

• Another point: in a stretch of 250 edits here [1], TheEpicGhosty adds navboxes to hundreds of articles in a day; at a glance approximately none of them are necessary. At Rudolf Rocker and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a third navbox is added in addition to an infobox. Without some guidance, I can't justify a mass-revert, and I don't have the time nor energy to assess the need on each individual page. So navbox cruft accumulates. power~enwiki (π, ν) 05:01, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

@Power~enwiki:It's like cancer, right? Nothing but propaganda in the case you mentioned. WP:NOT: "Wikipedia is not a directory of everything in the universe". Well maybe not... yet. Ponor (talk) 06:23, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Samples

• The best-managed, most-active WikiProject does NOT use them, Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Military history#Navigation templates SandyGeorgia (Talk) 14:03, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  I am going to assert that campaignboxes, most often at the top of the article below the infobox, are indeed sidebars in effect if not name or underlying implementation. --Izno (talk) 15:03, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  I echo Izno's sentiments as it pertains to Template:Civil conflict sidebar and Template:Campaignbox. They are both designed to compliment infoboxes. Therefore, should be exempt from this conversation. Mitchumch (talk) 06:03, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

  I agree that {{campaignbox}} (and Template:Civil conflict sidebar if it functions similarly) needs an exemption, or people will use this as yet another reason to nominate campaignbox templates for deletion at WP:TFD (see above). Mojoworker (talk) 16:48, 24 August 2020 (UTC)

• THREE sidebars in the lead, Anti-Catholicism [2] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:52, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• Three sidebars in place of lead image: Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses [3] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:56, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• Used in infoboxes, Hurricane Dorian SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:33, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• Used as lead image to further POV, Controversies in autism [4] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:33, 18 August 2020 (UTC)

  That one even has red links. Davidships (talk) 20:21, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

• Used twice, in different display mode, in one article, autism rights movement [5] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:35, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• Used in place of a lead image, Attention [6] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:40, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• Clutter city, Thought [7] SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:42, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• Duplication, Template:Suicide navbox, Template:Suicide sidebar. Ditto Template:Discrimination, Template:Discrimination sidebar SandyGeorgia (Talk) 13:52, 18 August 2020 (UTC)
• George H. W. Bush#Marriage and college years (and presumably all articles about former US presidents) use sidebars for navigation. I don't think any are in the leads, however. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:12, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
• Would Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_October_30#Template:Composer_sidebar count as what is being discussed here? Previously closed: Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2020_October_5#Template:Gounod_operas. Example: Alcina - basically used in place of infobox. (​ feel free to remove if not). ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:30, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 15:53, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

• Contra dance, where the first thing readers encounter is links to sub-articles] which are routinely linked or handled with hatnotes, creating unnecessary clutter at the top of the article. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:35, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Survey

• Oppose. I don't object to them in principle, although their use in some of the examples is cluttering—and in the case of Controversies in autism just wrong—but I think these issues should be managed at the articles rather than by a blanket ban. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 11:23, 19 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support They should not absolutely be banned but the MOS should say they should be lower than an infobox and/or lead picture, and should generally not be high on pages with several useful images. Johnbod (talk) 12:45, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support as a preference rather than an absolute ban. MOS should say that in general navboxes should be footers rather than sidebars. —David Eppstein (talk) 16:34, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support no need to jam the lead with navigational aids when we have infoboxes in place. Part of a series...type templates should only be included if there is no infobox or lead image in place and only one is needed.--Moxy 🍁 16:58, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support because of everything mentioned by Jorge Stolfi and especially this: "Wikilinks are the best way for readers to navigate between aticles." Things need to be put in context, not in endless lists. Ponor (talk) 17:04, 23 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support, they are often used to further POV (see some samples in section below), all navboxes should be horizontal at bottom of article, they should never be in the lead, and rarely in the first section. For the same reason, I also support a complete ban of these dreadful things. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:28, 24 August 2020 (UTC) Updated, SandyGeorgia (Talk) 12:57, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support. In short, I agree with Johnbod, with David Eppstein, and with the nom and Jorge Stolfi simultaneously; their suggestions should be merged in final revision language. I can't concur with SandyGeorgia; the solution for PoV-pushing navboxes is to fix the PoV in them, or if the inclusion of one at all in a particular article is a PoV issue, RfC it on the talk page. That has nothing to do with this proposal, which is about navboxes clouding up the lead section, a concern that is completely agnostic as to the content-appropriateness of any implied labeling being done by the content of the navbox.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  21:46, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose ban, but support guidance: a complete ban is irrational. Thousands of sidebars exist for a reason. A better approach is to challenge each sidebar on a case-by-case basis or small groups of sidebars that share similar features or issues at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion. New guidelines surrounding their existence seems more reasonable. Mitchumch (talk) 22:00, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
• support as guidance Navigation in the lead can be an exception justified where warranted. —¿philoserf? (talk) 22:55, 24 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose ban...but support guidance on not having them above the lead image or infobox. One issue I have with navboxes is redundancy, meaning when we have this box in the lead and then essentially the same thing (with a few differences) at the bottom. We don't need both. If the second one actually adds anything, maybe keep it. I prefer that the navbox not be in a section. Unless what it's doing is better covered by a box at the bottom, I prefer that the navbox be in the lead beneath an image or infobox...if either of those are there in the lead. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:48, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

For wider input, I alerted WP:Village pump (policy) to this discussion. I see that Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style has already been alerted. Flyer22 Frozen (talk) 03:59, 25 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose ban, support as guidance per above. · · · Peter Southwood ^(talk): 11:01, 25 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose ban but support guidance per Mitchumch. A blanket ban is over the top; some articles have no infoboxes or pictures, so that's not an issue, and having one underneath is fine anyway. POV issues can be handled by editing the article, the template, or at TfD. Crossroads ^-talk- 04:51, 26 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support I am struggling to find a reason why a navbox would ever make sense in the main body of text, especially if they do not show up on mobile devices. --Enos733 (talk) 16:48, 28 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support as guidance preferably not in the lead, and if so, below the lead image and/or infobox, per above. Lev!vich 06:00, 30 August 2020 (UTC)
• Support as guidance I would suggest to ban adding sidebars to at least articles with an existing infobox. There are certain short-sized articles with three/four or even more sidebars along with an infobox, needless to explain the layout disaster it causes. --Zayeem ^(talk) 19:19, 5 October 2020 (UTC)
• Support In almost all cases, articles should use a lead image if one is available. (t · c) buidhe 01:03, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Mitchumch. Gog the Mild (talk) 20:14, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose I likewise fully agree with the points Mitchumch has raised.--Catlemur (talk) 11:28, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support as guidance (second choice: support ban). Almost always, this sort of content is better presented in a navbox at the bottom of the article. I can think of a few potential exceptions -- it possibly could be useful in series on the history of a country where different chronological portions of history have different names (e.g. history during a certain time period is in an article under the title of a former colony). This can be helpful for the reader to understand whether they made it to the right article (though the same might be achieved using a hatnote?). But the vast majority of the time, these are cluttery and unhelpful, and like others have noted above, it's awful when articles fall into the scope of more than one side-navbox and 2+ are used. Calliopejen1 (talk) 18:44, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose - Fix the mobile version, don't limit the primary version. I agree that images are better, but many times subjects do not lend themselves to an image. Beyond My Ken (talk) 20:40, 6 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose If an article has no image, then a navbox is a perfect thing to put there. Many articles cannot or do not have relevant images, and I think having a navbox should be allowed. Plus, this is unnecessary creep. If it looks bad, change it. If its not a problem, keep it. No need for formal guidance. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 02:59, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per CaptainEek. If it aids the reader in finding related topics to the article that they're looking up, then I would argue that there's a clear benefit to its inclusion in articles. Whether a navbox is appropriate for an article or not is really something that would be better handled on a case-by-case basis, rather than a blanket ban on them. OhKayeSierra (talk) 06:17, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Sure they can be used poorly, but the same can be said about just abut every other element here. I could find lists of examples of articles with poor images, infoboxs, see alsos etc. However they do have a place and in some cases are a better alternative than infoboxes or a lead image. Just get rid of the poor ones on a case-by-case basis, there is no need to provide overreaching guidance one way or the other. AIRcorn (talk) 16:56, 7 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose ban as it's simply not useful for a large number of articles especially those on technical subjects. Phonetics for example has a navigation box that guides readers to other, more specialized topics so that they don't need to scroll to the bottom to find them. An image would be largely useless for readers; a navigational aid to further content is far more useful there than a picture of someone talking. — Wug·a·po·des​ 02:08, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I'm neutral on guidance. While (for example) Power~enwiki's suggestions below are reasonable, I'm not really sure how widespread a problem this is or why sidebars are somehow the problem. It seems like the issue is "don't clutter the upper right corner of the page with a bunch of floating content", and that's a problem with images, infoboxes, and sidebars, not just sidebars. — Wug·a·po·des​ 04:50, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support as guidance there are a lot of very bad navboxes, but enough good ones that a full-on ban isn't justified. Discouraging them when an infobox/photo is present is worthwhile; discouraging (or prohibiting) having 3 navboxes at the top of articles would also be good. Some limit on the number of links in a navbox would also be good, but that's probably out-of-scope for this RFC. power~enwiki (π, ν) 03:15, 8 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support ban. We know from various reader research studies that 1) the top of a page gets much more attention than the rest of the article, 2) in articles with a TOC and an infobox, readers tend to look first at those two elements first (as found in eyetracking experiments), and they are also strongly drawn to images. So we can assume that in articles where there is a sidebar navbox on top instead (frequently containing a prominent image as well), it will also be one of the very first things that enters the reader's mind after opening the page. In other words, this off-topic information crowds out the more relevant information that is directly about the topic that the reader came for, and is thus detrimental to the reading experience. The bottom of the article is a much more suitable place to provide suggestions about related articles, after the reader had a chance to focus on the present article and decide whether they got enough information out of it. Regards, HaeB (talk) 16:04, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
• Weak oppose a ban, after some flip-flopping. I would like to see sidebars used sparingly and only on topics that meet a "super-defining" criterion: the sidebar topic should be the unique primary subject area under which the article scope falls. For instance, on Anti-Catholicism this would be "Persecutions of the Catholic Church". Plenty of SandyGeorgia's list are good examples of cases which cause issues, but I believe these could be argued against on a case-by-case basis, as it would cause too much collateral damage to see all sidebars removed. Phonetics is a good exception. There are dryer, more concept-based subject areas where sidebars can be useful, such as Social democracy/{{social democracy sidebar}}. These are not well-suited to images or infoboxes, and I believe it's good to have something visual on the right-hand side.
  I share HaeB's concerns that we are sometimes leaving readers with impressions of marginal facets of a topic, but I believe the solution is to make sidebars more defining and more sparingly used, not to deprecate them fully. I also support only using sidebars on articles without infoboxes or lead images, and only then if there is reason to beyond "this page is linked in the sidebar" (but this is often current practice). One thing that we could improve at is to much more substantially limit the number of articles linked in a sidebar (we're better, but not perfect, with doing this for navboxes at the bottom). As this comment might be hard to categorise in terms of the ideas posed above, I'll tell the closer that I am weakly in support of guidance to avoid sidebars where possible. — Bilorv (talk) 02:34, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
  • I also support only using sidebars...if there is reason to beyond "this page is linked in the sidebar" (but this is often current practice). I strongly agree with this, and it's one of my pet peeves. The practice of requiring two-way navigation with sidebars is probably why we have the issues you and others raise. Browsers have a back button. — Wug·a·po·des​ 20:58, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose both on articles I edit, and articles I read, I've found quite useful sidebars. I think the harms from a blanket ban are likely to be outweighed by the benefits to readers of having the sidebars. --Tom (LT) (talk) 02:41, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Wugapodes. There are a lot of templates that mobile users can't see, so therefore the justification that users can't see such sidebars I believe is not a valid justification. Perhaps we should also get rid of {{tmbox}} while we're at it. Sidebars are also useful as navigational aids, perhaps more useful than navboxes given sidebars will more easily be noticed. Sidebars are also useful for articles without an infobox/lead image. P,TO 19104 (talk) (contribs) 22:30, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. These are useful for navigation, banning them would probably make some articles worse, and add unnecessary instruction creep. If they get too cluttered, just remove some of them. Danski454 (talk) 22:33, 17 November 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Echoing the above sentiments that this thing is better off looked at page-by-page. A blanket ban and the prosposal smells like WP:IDONTLIKEIT, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it can't be useful.No need to kill of everything in one go. Swordman97 ^{talk to me} 09:42, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

To the contrary, the proposal contains a well-argued rationale listing several specific arguments, as do many of the support !votes. It's rather !votes like Swordman97's own "echoing" of "sentiments" which fail to engage with such arguments and carry a strong smell of WP:ILIKEIT. Per WP:CRFC, less weight should be given to such comments when closing this RfC. Regard, HaeB (talk) 10:55, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:CREEP. Each case should be judged on its merits rather than by a one-size-fits-all edict. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:04, 23 November 2020 (UTC)
• Support - The endless proliferation of navboxes are a plague on Wikipedia. They should be relegated to the end of articles. Kaldari (talk) 03:16, 24 November 2020 (UTC)
• I neither support a ban nor oppose one. They should generally be less favored on articles where other things would be taking up the space in the lead, but we should not inhibit ourselves from simply placing... below the other thing. --Izno (talk) 18:24, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

Close

I saw this discussion at WP:ANRFC and I assess that there is a consensus to discourage the use of sidebars, especially when other elements, such as images or infoboxes are present in the lead. The question then is what text should be added to the guideline, which wasn't discussed much. The current sidebar section says:

Sidebars are a collection of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles. Sidebars are sometimes placed in the lead, especially when no infobox is present. If an infobox is present, the navigation sidebar may be moved to either the top or bottom of any other section in the article.

From my reading something like the following seems to be desired.

Sidebars are a collection of links used in multiple related articles to facilitate navigation between those articles. Sidebars may be placed in the lead, but its utility should be considered before doing so. If an infobox or image is present in the lead, a sidebar should not be placed there, instead it can be placed at the top or bottom of any other section in the article or omitted entirely. In general, horizontal footer navboxes are preferred to sidebars.

If there aren't any major complaints about this proposed wording, I plan to formally close the discussion and implement the change to MOS:LEAD and WP:SIDEBAR. --Trialpears (talk) 14:35, 5 November 2020 (UTC)

SG has just listed this at T:CENT. Given the prevalence of these things I think it's worth a period of centralised discussion advertisement before closure, to see if any more comments spring in. Btw, if these end up at TfD there's nothing stopping people from just opposing each outright, though some formal summary of the discussion here of what people felt is/is not a valid reason to have them would help closers assigning more/less weight for deletion. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:46, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Trialpears, this looks mostly good. The one tweak I'd make is to change If an infobox or image is present in the lead, a sidebar should not be placed there to If an infobox or image is present in the lead, a sidebar should generally not be placed there. I can think of exceptions where having both might make sense (for instance, at contra dance, the sidebar is extremely short and fits perfectly well alongside the video), and we don't want to hamstring ourselves for those situations. Agreed with Procrastinating Reader that we should wait a bit before closing now that this is at CENT. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:26, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Disagree, contra dance is precisely the kind of clutter this RFC seeks to avoid. The first thing readers encounter is a navigational template ?! And to terms that should simply be linked in the article. Where does that logic end? How much clutter do we need in leads that is only replacing wikilinks and navigational templates at the bottom of articles? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:33, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Also disagree. A sidebar with only two items isn't worth having anyway. The two links could and should be worked into the (far too short) lead. Johnbod (talk) 17:39, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

Ok with the User:ProcrastinatingReader version, or further discussion. Johnbod (talk) 17:39, 6 November 2020 (UTC)

If sidebars are needed, they should always go to the bottom, as horizontal footer navboxes, so readers would know where to find them. But the fact that they are shown only to desktop users proves them at most half-necessary. So if a sidebar is about, say, Electromagnetism, the lede should point to Electromagnetism where whatever is in the sidebar should be listed, wikilinked and put in context. The recommendation proposed by Trialpears is too weak. Ponor (talk) 17:32, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Nothing should be inferred from the layout of the mobile version because there was no discussion of it, and no consensus for it. The MOS does not apply to the mobile version. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 18:36, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

@Hawkeye7: All I am saying is: were it important, it would be shown everywhere. That's line #2 of Jorge Stolfi's initial post. But let's say all this is irrelevant: sidebars are growing bigger and bigger, pushing on-topic material out of their way (yes, talking of you, Electromagnetism), and should not be in the lead. Ponor (talk) 19:10, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't see consensus for Sidebars may be placed in the lead. Even many of the "oppose" !votes don't seem to endorse the MOS providing such an explicit permission. Regards, HaeB (talk) 19:20, 10 November 2020 (UTC)

Hi, I just saw this and was planning on closing it but I see that Trialpears has begun work on a closing statement. I think this has been up at CENT long enough that a closure is not inappropriate, especially considering this was opened in mid-August, over three months ago. Trialpears, let me know if you still plan on closing this discussion. Please note that the discussion has shifted somewhat from the time that you posted your proposed closure statement, so it's worth taking into account any changes that might be appropriate in the closing statement. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 09:22, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

L235, I do not plan on closing it anymore because I do not feel a nac would be appropriate anymore. Feel free to close! --Trialpears (talk) 09:27, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Abbreviations as alternative names: is mentioning them obligatory or optional?

Sometimes, an abbreviation may be commonly used to refer to the subject of an article. Should the lead then absolutely always mention that abbreviation, or should this sometimes be left to editor discretion?

For example, National Library of Medicine mentions in the first sentence NLM, whereas British Library does not similarly list the abbreviation BL (though it is in common use).

I guess the relevant bit of the guidelines is at MOS:LEADALT: When this title is a name, significant alternative names for the topic should be mentioned in the article. The answer apparently is yes, but only if the title is a name. But I'm not sure I understand what exactly is meant by "name" here. Robert is a name, is so is NATO; is Positron emission tomography a name? Economy of China?

Are there any situations where it may not be necessary or desirable to include a commonly used abbreviation? – Uanfala (talk) 20:43, 12 December 2020 (UTC)

As for the question in the section title above, I would answer that if an article is using an abbreviation, it needs to be explained/spelled out. That much should be obvious. And once you have that, it often makes sense to do this already in the lead, especially if the abbreviation also serves as a plausible search term for the article. So in that sense you could say it's mandatory-ish. If the article does not use the abbreviation, however, I would say mentioning it is far from obligatory. (And then there are cases where it makes more sense to only introduce/explain an abbreviation in a particular article section because it is specific to whatever is discussed there). So if I must choose between answering the question with either "yes" or "no" I'm going with "no". CapnZapp (talk) 15:19, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Redundancy

I propose a non-substantive change regarding redundancy. The "First sentence" section makes a brief mention cautioning against redundancy but without really explaining, although the mention is accompanied by a discouragingly lengthy note. The "Avoid these common mistakes" section again briefly cautions against redundancy, using the 2011 Mississippi river floods example, but again without really explaining. I would propose moving a small amount of material out of the note and into the text, so that readers more easily get a more fulsome explanation. I would also propose increasing the prominence of the caution against redundancy by perhaps making Redundancy its own sub-section within the "Format of the first sentence" section, in light of how frequently this guidance is not followed. Thoughts? If folks don't like the idea, I of course won't do it. Alternatively, I could WP:BOLDLY make the proposed change, and editors could revert if they don't like it. CUA 27 (talk) 21:39, 10 December 2020 (UTC)

I'm assuming you went boldly ahead, and that the matter is resolved now. CapnZapp (talk) 15:24, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

BOLDSYN (again...)

 Note: I did briefly check the archives, most recently Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Lead section/Archive 20#BOLDSYN. My takeaway was that the section has been continuously worked on, so it is entirely possible unrelated fixes has resulted in the current situation unintentionally. This also suggests to me that older discussions aren't really relevant so I stopped digging.

First question: what does BOLDSYN stand for? (Most times the shortcut abbreviation is obvious, but I'm struggling here. "Bold Synthesis" is my only guess, but that just makes me more puzzled :-)

Second: does BOLDSYN refer to Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article)[13] are placed in bold: only, or does BOLDSYN also refer to the subsequent rule? (If I knew what BOLDSYN meant perhaps I didn't have to ask)

Anyway, my third and main question revolves around the next line, whether it's appropriate to call it BOLDSYN or not: Common abbreviations (in parentheses) are considered significant alternative names in this sense: The current phrasing seems to have dropped the ball on the fact(?) that abbreviations aren't exempt from the general rule, that they "should usually also redirect to the article", right? Currently it's perfectly possible to read the rules to allow bolding of abbreviations merely because they're "significant alternative names". Obviously "should" does not mean "must", but I still want to ask if the intended meaning isn't that abbreviations are not exempt from the general rule. In other words:

Q. Are the BOLDSYN guidelines for bolding abbreviations looser than for bolding non-abbreviated terms?

Case in point: Should "MSF" be bolded in the lead first sentence of Mundane science fiction? Wikipedia does not consider Mundane Science Fiction to be the primary target for "MSF" and thus MSF does not redirect to the article. Thanks muchly, CapnZapp (talk) 11:56, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

As to your first question, my guess is "Bold Synonyms". Although "synonyms" would be a nonintuitive shortcut for "alternative titles".CUA 27 (talk) 13:49, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your guess! I'd say the tension is mounting :) CapnZapp (talk) 15:11, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

MOS:BOLDSYN is an attempt at codifying long-standing common practice. According to common practice, all signficant alternative titles are placed in bold. NLM may be a dab page but "NLM" in United States National Library of Medicine is boldfaced anyway. Tassie may be a dab page but "Tassie" in Tasmania is boldfaced anyway. Telly may be a dab page but "telly" in Television is boldfaced anyway. MOS:BOLDSYN actually says "significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article) are placed in bold" (my emphasis). The fact that MSF does not redirect to Mundane science fiction does not mean that MSF should be set in lightface – there simply is no redirecting-related requirement. (By the way, there is another style guide called WP:R#PLA (principle of least astonishment) according to which we must bold the redirected term associated with an inbound redirect (see, e.g., Methodological behaviorism)—WP:R#PLA (perhaps counter-intuitively to some editors) employs a different rationale from that of MOS:BOLDSYN.) --Omnipaedista (talk) 16:44, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

First off, no, this page isn't an attempt to codify long-standing common practice. This would mean "long-standing common practice" is some sort of nebulous invisible "wisdom" that you can neither question nor change. If you wish our guidelines to change, you need to... change the guideline, allowing editors to respond. At this point I should add that I am not trying to change common practice. Instead, as I read our guideline your edit should not be justified by "per MOS:BOLDSYN" because According to common practice, all signficant alternative titles are placed in bold. is not what the guideline is currently saying. The paranthesis qualifies this by "which should usually also redirect to the article". So clearly not ALL significant alternative titles are placed in bold! (If you had summarized that edit by something like "like it better this way" I probably wouldn't have opposed it. Your edit doesn't oppose the guideline, but neither is it mandated by it, which is what "per MOS:BOLDSYN" is saying) I hope you see the fine distinction. Regards, CapnZapp (talk) 18:28, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

And oh - I should repeat this once more: I am not trying to change common practice. Meaning, if you really believe your edit was made in accordance with common practice, Omnipaedista, I invite you to tweak the wording of our guideline so it mandates (rather than merely allows) the change. If nobody objects (and I most likely won't myself) your edit will stand. Of course, if all you really meant was that you like the bolded MSF better, but aren't claiming it's the main/only way to do it, just say so, and that's another way the matter will have been amicably resolved. Cheers CapnZapp (talk) 18:32, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

Well, if you ask me, the current wording (significant alternative titles [...] are placed in bold) has quite a mandatory tone. --Omnipaedista (talk) 18:43, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I never implied that the style guide is set in stone. I just tried to describe my impression of how Wikipedia's style guides usually come to be. It is a fact that style conventions vary from outlet to outlet. The whole purpose of having community-derived recommendations is to avoid edit-warring over style. The least controversial conventions are the ones eventually adopted following the relevant discussions. In any case, Wikipedia's consensus building is fair, open and transparent. If enough people gather here and decide to change the style guide, they'll just do it. --Omnipaedista (talk) 18:51, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

• You are looking at this the wrong way around. Bolding names is unrelated to whether those articles are the primary topic for those names, it has to do with whether they are names for the article topic. Otherwise there'd be no bolding at all on articles with a name for which they are not the primary topic. (Poor Turkey (bird) doesn't even hit a disambiguation page!) In your example, MSF should be bolded, as an apparently common alternative abbreviation. CMD (talk) 08:54, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Well... thanks for your reply, but viewing this as me misinterpreting the instructions isn't as constructive as asking yourself why an editor (such as myself) misinterprets the instructions in the first place. Assuming your assertion (Bolding names is unrelated to whether those articles are the primary topic for those names represents community consensus then the current phrasing makes a poor job of explaining this. Instead it pretty strongly implies that the terms bolded are the article's title (if appropriate) and incoming redirects/alternative titles. I find the status of abbreviations to be unclear: are these to be treated as alternative article titles or as alternative redirects? CapnZapp (talk) 12:39, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Like article names, redirects are subject to WP:PRIMARYTOPIC considerations. This is true whether they are abbreviations or not, and as I mentioned above applies even to the primary article name. If there were no other meanings to MSF, it would presumably directly redirect to Mundane science fiction. As it is you do reach Mundane science fiction through a redirect, just via the disambiguation page. (Other times you might reach a page from an alternative name via a hatnote.) I can't answer why an editor might misinterpret the instructions, but the part that seems to be the focus here is just a parenthetical. The main text reads Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles are placed in bold. Common abbreviations are considered significant alternative names in this sense. Does that help? CMD (talk) 13:29, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

That said, let us answer the core question: Are the BOLDSYN guidelines for bolding abbreviations looser than for bolding non-abbreviated terms? Yes or no.

Once we agree on the answer, it will easy to tweak the phrasing used to make this clear to the casual reader :) CapnZapp (talk) 12:39, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Not sure why you focus on abbreviated terms. As I said above, "Tassie may be a dab page but 'Tassie' in Tasmania is boldfaced anyway. Telly may be a dab page but 'telly' in Television is boldfaced anyway." 'Tassie' and 'telly' are plain synonyms, not abbreviations. This has nothing to do with abbreviated terms as such. --Omnipaedista (talk) 11:50, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Thank you for your question. My answer is... because it feels strongly implied! Have a look at the relevant part of the guideline:

Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles (which should usually also redirect to the article) are placed in bold:

Mumbai, also known as Bombay, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. (Mumbai)

Common abbreviations (in parentheses) are considered significant alternative names in this sense:

The International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP), also known as the Petrucci Music Library after publisher Ottaviano Petrucci, is a ... (International Music Score Library Project)

Now consider my initial questions: does BOLDSYN cover both the Mumbai example and the IMSLP example? What does even BOLDSYN mean? Why not have a third example where the abbreviation isn't coincidentally a redirect? The "in this sense" in the second paragraph clearly ties both "rules" together, thereby conflating the permissible reasons to bold.

I submit that if our consensus is that bolding because "significant alternate title" and bolding because redirect are two wholly separate points of consideration we can improve the phrasing of the guideline, uncoupling the two. For one thing, have a separate shortcut for each. If there was, for example, a MOS:BOLDALTER and a MOS:BOLDREDIR you can then write edit summaries saying "MSF should be in bold per MOS:BOLDALTER" without that leading to a section easily interpreted as saying bolded alternate titles should usually also redirect to the article.

I hope I have explained myself sufficiently this time. Regards CapnZapp (talk) 11:09, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

But we do have two separate shortcuts for each case as I wrote above. MOS:BOLDSYN is for bolding synonyms because they are significant alternate titles and WP:R#PLA is for bolding synonyms because they are inbound redirects. --Omnipaedista (talk) 17:26, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

You must realize that you're only answering a tiny aspect of my question! Why in that case aren't BOLDSYN (which there still is no explanation for) referring to this R#PLA in order for the guideline to clear and concise? And what of the other central aspect of my query: if the two paragraphs are both related to BOLDSYN or not? BOLDSYN is a part of a section called "Format of the first sentence". If not all aspects of this topic is covered here I expect referrals to the main help article. You can't just assume an unnamed policy is covering every aspect not specifically mentioned! I fear I'm not getting through here - are you or are you not seeing my point? I am making a huge GF effort to see your point here, but I just can't see it from your POV. Could we at least agree if you aren't able to justify the current phrasing then please agree something needs to be done here. CapnZapp (talk) 13:39, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

The current policy is Only the first occurrence of the title and significant alternative titles are placed in bold. Common abbreviations are considered significant alternative names in this sense; that is literally what BOLDSYN (a rule for bolding synonyms) stands for. I sincerely fail to see what needs to be further explained here. Do you have a specific suggestion for improvement to make? --Omnipaedista (talk) 14:19, 9 January 2021 (UTC)

It stands for "please BOLDface the SYNonyms". I also fail to see the reason for further explanation, but if others are confused as well, can you explain the locus of confusion? Mathglot (talk) 23:57, 29 January 2021 (UTC)

inline "Not covered by the body of article"

There is a discussion over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates#inline "Not covered by the body of article" which might interest readers of this talk page. Cheers, CapnZapp (talk) 22:23, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

Name translation in first sentence

There is a discussion at Talk:Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez/Archive 8#Translation of name into Spanish regarding translating her name into Spanish in the first sentence of the article. The input of others would be appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 16:50, 12 March 2021 (UTC)

Expand CITELEAD to section intro summary

I'd like to consider expanding MOS:CITELEAD to cover introductory paragraphs of top level sections that have multiple subsections, so that citations could be considered optional in that intro text, exactly as they are for the lead of an article, which summarizes its body.

In articles of sufficient complexity where top level (H2) sections have several detailed subsections, I like to include a paragraph or two before the first subsection, explaining and summarizing the content of the subsections. In every respect, this intro is fully equivalent to a LEAD, if the topic identified by the H2 section header were considered its own article, and the subsections the body.

One example (still under development, so not ideal) is the introduction of section #Aftermath at Liberation of France. I didn't add any citations to these two intro paragraphs, because they are strictly a summary of the following subsections, which are, or should be, properly footnoted. (As I mentioned, this example is not an ideal; in particular, the first subsection is entirely unsourced, as it was copied from an article where it was unsourced, but let's imagine for the purpose of this discussion that it is properly sourced.) I don't really feel like adding citations to this two-paragraph intro, since they already exist (er, supposed to exist) in the "body" of that section, and I think we shouldn't need to in general, for the exact same reasons covered by MOS:CITELEAD, which however doesn't currently cover this case.

What if we added this sentence to the end of MOS:CITELEAD so it did? How about:

For articles having long sections with introductory text at the top summarizing appropriately sourced lower level subsections in the same way that a lead summarizes and introduces the body of an article, the same recommendation applies; that is, the presence of citations in the introductory text is neither required nor prohibited.

Or maybe, add it to MOS:SECTIONS instead, and just link to it from here. Thoughts? Mathglot (talk) 00:25, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

@Mathglot, I wonder if the question we need to start with is more fundamental: If "fact X" appears five times in the same article, then how many (and which ones?) of those five instances require an inline citation? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:21, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing:, perhaps, but that does seem like a broader question, which doesn't have a firm basis as an extension of some existing policy or guideline. Whereas, if you see a brief introductory paragraph at the top of a section that has several subsections, as the "lead" for that section, there's a natural kind of generalization or extension of a long-term, community-based view of what a "lead" is, at least when it's the lead of the whole article. Considering extending WP:LEAD guidelines to just the "lead" of a long section, doesn't seem to me as great a leap, as your proposal. Perhaps split the proposals, and do the easy one first? After all, there's no guarantee that that would garner support. But I do see your point, and it's a further, natural extension, I think. I'm not sure how I'd come down on that issue.

In the meantime, I don't know whether to interpret the lack of response here as lack of objection, or not. Perhaps I'll try a bold edit and add the sentence above with a link back here, to see if that stimulates more discussion. Thanks for your comment! Mathglot (talk) 02:37, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

The reason I think that we should consider the more fundamental case is that if X needs to be supported by an inline citation only once per article, no matter how many times X appears in the article, then it is already the case that you could repeat X in a mini/section lead even without a special rule saying that it's okay to repeat X (which is cited elsewhere on the page) in the first paragraph of a section without copying the citation, too. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:04, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I understand that this is well-intentioned and seemingly unproblematic at first; however, I don't think we should expand the occasions when editors are permitted to write unsourced text. I see such cases as easily leading to wikilawyering and as offering opportunities for people to insert POV or original-research ideas or interpretations. This is all the more possible in cases where the article lacks watchers. Such introductory paragraphs can still be done, but they should be sourced and verifiable not just in the sense that a source exists somewhere, but right after the supported text. Crossroads ^-talk- 02:51, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I would also oppose this, sorry. SarahSV ^(talk) 03:00, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

I am wondering what provoked this need for guideline to approve writing unsourced intros. You seem to be able to write an unsourced summary of unsourced body content and nobody has complained, nor do you think it wrong to summarise the unsourced body text (thus doubling the instances of unsourced facts). I know you admit the example is not great, but shouldn't you have several great examples if you want to change a major guideline? Let's assume the body text is sourced... One problem I see is that someone decides to delete the body text that you took and summarised, because it repeats your new summary text, and we are left with unsourced text that has no sourced equivalent later. People are more familiar with the body repeating the lead, and so that would be less likely to occur for the standard situation. -- Colin°^Talk 09:58, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Indeed, the most common use case I think would defeat this change to the guideline is a WP:SIZESPLIT. --Izno (talk) 20:25, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

Okay, there are numerous good analyses of why this isn't going to fly, so let's put it to rest. Thank you for all the feedback! Mathglot (talk) 09:39, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

Linking to sections from the lead

Looking at the current revision of 2021 Atlanta spa shootings, there's a link over "a number of commentators" to the reactions section of the article. I come across links like this every so often, from a phrase in a lead section to a section of the same article. My sense is that this is disallowed, but I can't find anything directly stating such. Is it (or should it be) allowed, and if not should we add language stating so? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:02, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

It should not be disallowed. It should IMO not necessarily be used very often, however. The goal is to get people to the information they want, not to have "a style" for its own sake.

On a related point, I think we should probably be re-thinking our notion of Wikipedia:Overlinking. I don't know if you read articles at all (who can really read, when the edit button is right there?!), or if you read on a mobile device, but apparently a pretty typical pattern is that you find a page (from Google), read the first bit, and it either says what you wanted to know (so you leave), or what you want is a page linked in the lead or a section lower on the page, so you skip to that, find your factoid, and leave.

If you think about trying to help those readers, it's better to have a link in the lead (don't make them go to the table of contents and guess which section heading is the thing they want), and it's better to repeat links (once per section, because if you put it in the first section, and they skipped to the third section, they didn't see the link). WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:24, 20 March 2021 (UTC)

The rule about not having information in the lead only

That is, this rule: Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article.

Problem is, this is not then covered (expanded, commented, detailed) in the body of the article!

Someone must have edited out the actual rule, because now it's only stated in the lead. (The Citation section mentions it, but does not define it). CapnZapp (talk) 22:06, 31 January 2021 (UTC)

I did this: [8] That tag isn't meant for policy and guideline pages anyway (we don't "verify" this material). I don't know if there was previous material on this. Crossroads ^-talk- 18:53, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

You are both hopefully aware that no policy or guideline is expected to follow the rules for writing encyclopedia articles? WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:22, 17 March 2021 (UTC)

If it is unreferenced in the lead, and is not referenced in the body of the article, just delete it. In the case where a reference is provided in the lead, add or move it to the body. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:51, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Improving and clarifying bolding

This refers to a somewhat decent portion of this guideline - primarily between sections [[MOS:LEAD#Format of the first sentence|]] and [[MOS:LEAD#Proper names and titles|]]. A discussion is ongoing on Talk:2021 storming of the United States Capitol which suggests that these portions of this guideline are either too broad (in that they could be construed to apply in too many situations), or that criteria that commonly encourage bolding/not bolding should be better defined. I think the simplest way to improve this would be to expand further on this sentence in the Redundancy section: The title of the article need not appear verbatim in the lead if the article title is descriptive. Specifically, I suggest changing "need not" to "usually does/should not" and including information regarding precedent for inclusion (i.e. descriptive proper nouns or colloquial/common names do, whereas descriptions of events that are editorially decided don't) with some examples being added of descriptive titles that shouldn't be forced, and of descriptive titles that should. It appears from my looking to attempt to find precedent for the aforementioned discussion that a loose general rule is that recent events (especially those still ongoing, but also those which have ended) for which there is no "colloquial" name are generally not bolded - examples being 1, 2, 3, 4, and more. There's probably a better way to word this "unwritten rule" if it is to be added into this guideline, and if I'm off-base with what I've identified as a general distinction I'm happy for something else to be identified - but I feel it should be more guidance than there is now. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 21:18, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

The relevant guideline is MOS:BOLDTITLE: If an article's title is a formal or widely accepted name for the subject, display it in bold as early as possible in the first sentence. It is therefore mandatory, although Wikipedia:Superfluous bolding explained (which does no such thing) stating that this practice is not mandatory and should followed only where it lends natural structure to the sentence since the latter is only an essay. Departures from the guideline it may only occur if you have to contort the first sentence just to make it fit the article title. I don't see that occurring here. Unfortunately, there is no rationale provided for the guideline that would enable us to interpret it. Maybe one of the old hands knows the reason for it. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 22:46, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I agree that is relevant when there is a "formal or widely accepted name" for the subject, and I offer that implies that when there isn't such a name (or such name isn't the article title) that it can be presented/bolded, but it's not mandatory. This is what the following sections are attempting to clarify - when the title isn't a "formal or widely accepted name" or is merely a description used for editorial purposes (as articles need a concise title), when should it still be in the first sentence and bolded versus when not. It's led to situations where people use MOS:BOLDTITLE to say it's mandatory, but others argue that MOS:AVOIDBOLD overrules that, and there's no "middle ground" between simply bolding if "formal or widely accepted" and not bolding in any other case because no guidance is present on how to apply it. This isn't to mention that MOS:REDUNDANCY and AVOIDBOLD both provide instances where the "mandatory"-ness of BOLDTITLE is overridden in the interests of avoiding redundancy and avoiding unnatural sentences... which means that maybe BOLDTITLE needs rewording to clarify that it's not mandatory, just heavily preferred when it is possible to do so naturally. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 23:27, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Deletion discussion of med lead

Okay, given folks here are (presumably) interested in lead sections, why not amble over to Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style/Medicine-related_articles#MEDLEAD and chime in to whether there needs to be a separate guide on medical leads Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:02, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

Change example in First Sentence section

See discussion at Talk:Shadow_the_Hedgehog#MOS:FIRST. I'd consider just boldly making a change, but this example has been there for awhile, so best to double-check if there's any comments from the wider community. This wouldn't be a change to the guideline at all, just to the example given.

• If the article is about a fictional character or place, say so.<ref>For example: {{block indent|'''Homer Simpson''' is a fictional character in ''The Simpsons''.}}</ref>

The issue is that "fictional character" is redundant. A wikt:character is already understood as a literary device and thus not real; barring the rare scenarios where there's a risk of confusion (Stephen Colbert (character) or Grigori Rasputin (Hellboy) perhaps, both of which use different phrasings anyway), there's not really any need for the word "fictional". On the other hand, "fictional" is a good clarifier for something that could plausibly be read as real ("fictional hedgehog", "fictional soldier").

• If the article is about a fictional character or place, say so.<ref>For example: {{block indent|'''Donkey Kong''' is a fictional ape in the ''Donkey Kong'' and ''Mario'' video game series.}}</ref>

This wouldn't have any impact on wider Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Writing about fiction concerns - just this specific one case of wordcruft. Pick some other example of a "fictional (foo)", not "character". SnowFire (talk) 15:24, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

I would replace "say so" with something along the lines of "make that clear/evident". "Say so" is informal and imprecise. Axem Titanium (talk) 15:40, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

No objection to "make that clear" here. SnowFire (talk) 15:51, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

Support Axem's idea. enjoyer -- talk 02:08, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

I'm all for this. JOEBRO64 13:04, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

• Support. "Fictional character" is a long-standing problem. Popcornfud (talk) 14:37, 15 June 2021 (UTC)

I went ahead and made the change. SnowFire (talk) 04:57, 16 June 2021 (UTC)

Cannot edit lead section

Section "Editing the lead section" of this article does not appear to be correct. I visited my preferences and discovered that the "Add an [edit] link for the lead section of a page" option was already checked, yet I don't see any way to edit just the lead of an article. My test article is Hydrodynamic quantum analogs. David Spector (talk) 13:41, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Footnotes in the boldface?

Is there a MoS line on whether to include footnotes within the bold section of the first sentence? The Gangulphus article opens with "Saint Gangulphus^[1] of Burgundy is venerated as..." (the footnote offering other spellings of his name), which feels similar to MOS:TITLEABSENTBOLD, but I can't see that it's covered here. --Lord Belbury (talk) 15:56, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

That seems preferable to the alternative of cluttering the first sentence by listing out all name variants in the first sentence of text. CUA 27 (talk) 19:41, 11 July 2021 (UTC)

Definitely. Would seem better to put the footnote after "of Burgundy", or after the next mention of "Gangulphus" in the text, to me, I was just wondering if the style guide had a take on it. --Lord Belbury (talk) 08:14, 12 July 2021 (UTC)

Articles stating with 'In physics', for example

I am trying to follow the standard of:

If an article's title is a formal or widely accepted name for the subject, display it in bold as early as possible in the first sentence

I am editing mathematical articles such as S-Matrix and placing the article title before the referenced article where possible; isn’t this what I should be doing? UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 07:29, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

UHT seems to take the view that the name of the article ought to be the first word of the first sentence, and that any prepositional phrase must be placed after it. See changes like this at Root for an example, there are many more such changes. I see this as an extreme reading of 'as early in the sentence as possible' and believe it makes for some awkward constructions. Girth Summit _(blether) 07:37, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Any prepositional phrase should be placed after if possible. Not must. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 07:40, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Also, placing the title first makes it easier for others to expand on it in such ways as, for example, to elaborate on the root of the word.

Please see:

Mathematics (from Greek: μάθημα, máthēma, 'knowledge, study, learning') UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:04, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

For example we don’t start that article as:

In language, mathematics is… UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:09, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

There isn't a need to on that case - mathematics isn't a branch of linguistics. Certainly not all first sentences need any kind of prepositional phrase, and I have no problem with someone judiciously removing them when they aren't necessary. What I object to is someone coming along and moving them en masse, so that we end up with lots of little parenthetical prepositional phrases getting in between the subject and the verb. Girth Summit _(blether) 08:18, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Then those prepositional phrases should probably be moved further down in the article, eventually, with the help of the wiki community, and expansions on more solid definitions of the article topic can be more easily developed. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:21, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Let's give others some time to review what you have been doing, and comment on whether they feel it was an improvement. I do not, but maybe others will. Girth Summit _(blether) 08:26, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Expanding on the root of the word is much easier if you open with the word as opposed to having it mid sentence; for example giving the Greek form of the word. This is an improvement. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:29, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

For example having the root of the word available, such as Set (/sɛt/; Egyptological: Sutekh - swtẖ ~ stẖ[a] or Greek: Seth /sɛθ/) helps people understand the word and the article. It also helps things like Google find priority topics more easily. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 08:35, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

@UniversalHumanTransendence: I agree with Girth Summit that many of your edits (maybe all) on articles' initial sentences weren't improvements. I prefer to start with a context (e.g. "In physics,"), then name the articles' subject (e.g. "an S-matrix"), and then give its definition ("... relates the ..."). this way, the flow of thought needn't go from the subject back to its context, and then forward again to the subject's details. To my experience, most mathematics articles start following this scheme, indicating that a majority of editors like it, too. More generally, typesetting the subject in boldface wasn't necessary if it always should appear at the very beginning of the lead. And if you edit sentences, you should try to keep them grammatically correct; the subject of a sentence usually requires an article (or something similar) before it. BTW: it is not a purpose of Wikipedia to help Google. - Jochen Burghardt (talk) 15:09, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

So you’re saying context should precede the article title if possible? Does this mean the article Ra should start with:

A diety, Ra 

And link to diety? UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 15:59, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

No - that's not a context, that's part of the definition that the rest of the sentence would deal with. You might choose to write 'In Egyptian mythology, Ra...', that would be a choice you make depending on whether or not you feel the subject requires context for the reader to understand it. Girth Summit _(blether) 16:19, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Exactly. I do not believe in Egyptian mythology, is required to give context just as in mathematics is not required to give context when on the Set (mathematics) page. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 16:50, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

I do not believe 'in Egyptian mythology' is required before Ra; just as 'in mathematics' is not required before Set. If those were place in front, it would distract you from the article and redirect you elsewhere before you have even begun to read the definition. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 16:54, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Jochen Burghardt and Girth Summit that the formula "In <field>, a <term> is ..." is a good way to start an article. It immediately tells the reader the context, so we have "In agriculture, a field is...", "In mathematics, a field is...". The in phrase is context for the rest of the sentence and indeed the rest of the article.

This formulation is widely used and stable on Wikipedia, and so far, no one has come to support your position. So I suggest you stop beating a dead horse. There's no reason in making extended arguments; you've made your point and haven't succeeded in convincing others. --Macrakis (talk) 17:36, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

Well then we should add In Egyptian Mythology, to the beginning of the article Ra. UniversalHumanTransendence (talk) 19:19, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

If there were multiple common(!) subjects named Ra, with unrelated meanings, then I would probably agree with you. The example from @Macrakis of the many common(!) meanings of field is a good one. One wouldn't wish for someone to begin reading "a field is a set on which addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are defined" and wonder whether the page will later describe a place where farmers grow food, or the place where a sporting event takes place, or a way to indicate various subjects of academic study.

However, in the case of Ra, it isn't necessary or helpful to pre-specify that this is the page about Egyptian mythology, because there aren't multiple common(!) subjects under the same name. Either you're looking for the article about this Ra, or you're looking for an uncommon subject. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:59, 6 August 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 August 2021

"Change Ahmadiyya Muslim Community to Ahmadiyya Community". Ahmadiyya Community is not a Muslim community they are non-Muslims. 2400:ADC5:181:6C00:314B:A01B:CFEA:DB2B (talk) 19:23, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

 Not done: Place this request on the talk page of the article you want to have the change in. You have accidentally posted it to the MOS talk page RudolfRed (talk) 19:46, 28 August 2021 (UTC)

Bolding alternate titles

Question about MOS:BOLDSYN; is this a valid bolding? If we cannot bold the article's title in the first sentence of the lead, should we be bolding alternate titles that are not the article's actual title? In the case of a single bolding, that bolding should represent the article's primary title only; at least, that's always been my understanding. Let me know if this isn't necessarily correct, or if it is. Thanks. -- /Alex/₂₁ 12:13, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

This situation actually isn't addressed in BOLDSYN, there's been at least one other article that comes to my mind ,where I've added this type of bolding, and there may be other cases out there. Whether the answer is yes or no it may be useful to address it. Thanks, TheDoctorWho Public (talk) 14:57, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Redirects would typically be bolded in the lead per MOS:BOLDREDIRECT. This case with Flux in not a redirect, but is linked from a disambiguation page. I could swear there used to be some guidance about bolding terms from dabs as well, but maybe it was removed at some point.—Bagumba (talk) 05:49, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

With the above said it may be useful to note in this specific situation that Doctor Who: Flux, the full alternate title, IS a redirect to the article, with just Flux being an abbreviated version of the alternate. TheDoctorWho (talk) 05:55, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

The guidance I was thinking of for bolding terms from disambiguation entires turns out tohave been specifically regarding nicknames in bios per MOS:NICKBOLD: Common nicknames, aliases, and variants are usually given in boldface in the lead, especially if they redirect to the article, or are found on a disambiguation page or hatnote and link from those other names to the article. One would think the spirit would apply to prominent alternative titles for non-bios, or that bios and non-bios should be consistent.—Bagumba (talk) 09:31, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Per both MOS:BOLDSYN and MOS:BOLDREDIRECT that is valid, however it should use the full name Doctor Who: Flux and not a short name in its first use. Gonnym (talk) 07:00, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

The "Doctor Who" prefix would be redundant in an article concerning "Doctor Who". -- /Alex/₂₁ 13:14, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

I would like to bring attention back to my response on the discussion started about this on the articles talk page where I said that it may not be redundant in its first use. TheDoctorWho (talk) 15:42, 15 October 2021 (UTC)

Foreign language translation

Regarding MOS:LEADLANG, at what point is the subject of the article so closely associated with a non-English language, that a foreign translation should be included in the first sentence? Your input at Talk:Steinbach, Manitoba#Translation in lead is appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 10:46, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Lede length

Given the function of the lede as a short summary and the requirement that it be no longer than four paragraphs, I would argue that an article only 1-4 paragraphs long does not need a lede. Can that be made explicit in this guideline? Praemonitus (talk) 15:13, 12 November 2021 (UTC)

To flip that around: surely an article of 1-4 paras will generally be all lede? i.e., would lack other sections, and certainly start with a header. I think that's already implied by WP:SUMMARYSTYLE. Whether an explicit discussion of that on this subpage isn't entirely clear to be either way. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 22:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the proposal. Articles of 1-4 paragraphs don’t need to add the clutter of section headings. CUA 27 (talk) 19:04, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I would certainly oppose the removal of section headings merely on the basis of having a below-threshold number of paragraphs. It is entirely possible to have an article with a one-paragraph lead section and two one-paragraph body sections. On the other hand, if the proposal is merely that short articles with 1-4 paragraphs and no sections should not be forced to become sectionized merely for the sake of having sections, I agree. —David Eppstein (talk) 19:10, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't think our present text implies anything about sections, and I'm not sure what it'd be helpful to add here -- which by definition is about text prior to any section heading -- about the presence or absence of them. I think that summary style already implies that there should be some sort of proportionate relationship between the lead and the body, but it's not especially rigorous or specific about that. Certainly I've seen many articles that don't do well in that respect, with for example two-sentence leads in many-thousand-word articles, but until they come up at GAR I doubt there'll be any sudden crisis to address that. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 20:27, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

An article with 1-4 paragraphs and multiple section headers in the body is most likely in conflict with MOS:OVERSECTION. In that case, I just find the headers to be unhelpful bloat. Perhaps that can be referenced? Praemonitus (talk) 02:18, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

First sentence example correction

MOS:FIRST states, "Be wary of cluttering the first sentence with a long parenthesis containing alternative spellings, pronunciations, etc.,". The example for Date(s) and/or location(s) inclusion in the first sentence had, "The Spanish–American War (April 21 – August 13, 1898, Spanish: Guerra hispano-estadounidense or Guerra hispano-americana; Filipino: Digmaang Espanyol-Amerikano) was an armed conflict between Spain and the United States." In my opinion, this parenthesis is precisely what the cluttering guideline seeks to prevent, therefore I changed it to "The Spanish–American War[9] (April 21 – August 13, 1898) was an armed conflict between Spain and the United States", with the alternative foreign spellings in the footnote. User:Gitz6666 then reverted with the explanation, "IMHO the text was meant to illustrate an exception to MOS:FIRST as "Date(s) and/or location(s) should be included in the first sentence if they help the reader to quickly determine if they're at the "right" article". I don't dispute that, I made the edit to avoid having cluttering in the first sentence by placing the alternative spellings in a footnote. Granted, the article from which the example is taken (the Spanish–American War, source rightfully added by Gitz6666 later on), contains the clutter, but I think instead of reverting my edit, the clutter in the source article should be fixed as well. I don't believe it is necessary to show the whole text of alternative spellings as consecutive text and to me it looks like it makes the essential information more difficult to read. --Thinker78 (talk) 01:20, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello @Thinker78: I think there are two separate issues here.

1) Substantive issue. Do we need the following exception to MOS:FIRST? Date(s) and/or location(s) should be included in the first sentence if they help the reader to quickly determine if they're at the "right" article. The exception was added by @Facts707: here and was later streamlined by @CUA 27: here. Facts707 also cited Spanish–American War as an example to illustrate the exception. This might be a good example for a reasonable exception, but I don’t have strong views on this: if we don’t like it, we can either remove the exception to MOS:FIRST or find a better example.

2) Editorial issue. If we don’t want to remove the exception and we don’t come up with a better example, then IMHO we shouldn’t rephrase the text so as to avoid the cluttering and make it compatible with the rule MOS:FIRST. The text is meant to be an exception to MOST:FIRST and is there to exemplify the point. While I don’t have any clear preference regarding the substantive issue, I reverted your edit because I thought that there should be consistency between the MOS guidelines and the examples we provide to illustrate them. We shouldn't mention Spanish–American War as a model to follow and then misquote its lead section. We should rather change that section, unless there are good reasons to keep it, such as helping the reader to quickly determine if they're at the right article or should rather be at Spanish American wars of independence (which is the rationale for the exception to MOS:FIRST). Gitz (talk) (contribs) 13:50, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know about the exception issue, which I think should be discussed separately. I made an edit simply out of concern about the cluttering. As I mentioned in my original comment, I concede that the example should have reflected the original article it points to and I failed to also modify this latter so it would follow the long parenthesis guideline as well. Given that you reverted me, now my hands are tied regarding that (the 1RR), but I don't think the cluttering should remain, because in my opinion it disrupts the flow of the sentence and makes it difficult to read unnecessarily.--Thinker78 (talk) 18:35, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't want to tie your hands :-) My point is purely editorial and not substantive. I can think three alternative ways of moving forward. 1) You can find a better example than Spanish-American War to illustrate the exception. 2) You can try to modify the lead section of Spanish-American War and remove the cluttering. Once your revision gets to be accepted there, as far as I'm concern you can proceed with you edit here; 3) We can wait for other users to add their views to ours. It might well be that my editorial point (the example should reflect the text of the article) is not that deeply felt by others. In that case, I wouldn't object further. Gitz (talk) (contribs) 21:12, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Fair enough. I will wait at least a week to see if there is further input from other editors in this thread before moving ahead with probably option 2.--Thinker78 (talk) 14:13, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

"Lede"

Why isn't the word "lede" a part of the first sentence? It is a common name. Perhaps we can add something along the liens of "The lead section (also known as the lead or lede or introduction). Wretchskull (talk) 08:17, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Partly I think because it's largely an AmEng (not that that always stops anyone!), and partly that it more often means "opening sentence" or "opening paragraph" rather than "opening section". (Granting that on some of out articles those aren't especially different!) In fact at the end of the lede (paragraph), it says, "It is not a news-style lead or "lede" paragraph." So it might further confuse matters to introduce "lede" as a concept earlier, then to use it in a different sense shortly afterwards. 109.255.211.6 (talk) 08:29, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

I think one can talk about a lead/lede sentence, a lead/lede paragraph, and a lead/lede section. I don't think that's the issue. It's really just a spelling thing, and probably reflects where you live and/or how old you are and/or if you have a history of dealing with publishers (who traditionally use "lede"). I personally write "lede" (due to decades of dealing with publishers). I think it could be dealt with here by saying simply "lead (also written as lede)". It's not a semantic difference, just alternative spelling. Kerry (talk) 09:09, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

I have been "corrected" on using "lede" to refer to the lead section, citing MOS:NOTLEDE to tell me that Wikipedia's lead section is not a "journalistic lede". My exposure to the word is largely limited to Wikipedia so I use "lede" as a spelling variant to specify the lead section rather than the element or a leash, but apparently using the word signals to some people that someone is a clickbait journalist or a DYK hook writer. 9³ (talk) 00:52, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

MOS:LEADLANG

Regarding MOS:LEADLANG, your input at Talk:British Columbia#Additional languages in the lead again? would be appreciated. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:28, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

News in the lead

Wikipedia:Recentism Is is correct to include recent informations in the lead? Such informations need to be removed or corrected when the situation changes. If the lead remains unedited, it will misinform.Xx236 (talk) 08:38, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

RfC at Talk:British Columbia

Your input is welcome at Talk:British Columbia#Request for comment on first sentence of lead. Magnolia677 (talk) 11:19, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

Presentation of dualled place names in infoboxes and ledes

How should dualled place names generally be presented in an articles lede and infobox, when the dual name is not the common name?

A: As at Uluru - Both individual names and dual name in the lede as WP:ALTNAMES, with the title as the leading name. Both individual names in infobox.

B: As at Disentis - Both individual names and dual name in lede as WP:ALTNAMES, with the title as the leading name. Dual name in infobox.

C: As at Bradshaw Sound - Only the dual name in lede, dual name in infobox.

The RFC is held at this central location as it affects articles about places in Australia, France, New Zealand, and Switzerland, but it is not intended to alter the MOS. The context of the RFC is ongoing debate about the ideal format, which this RFC is intended to resolve in a consistent manner. 03:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC) Clarified 02:02, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia:Australian Wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia talk:France-related topics notice board, Wikipedia:New Zealand Wikipedians' notice board, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Switzerland. BilledMammal (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia:Neutral point of view/Noticeboard, Wikipedia:Village pump (policy) Spekkios (talk) 07:32, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• A. C omits important information, as it doesn't explain to the reader what the dual name is, and it may confuse readers not familiar with dual names by failing to give an explanation why the name used in the lede and infobox is different from the title. Further, it gives WP:UNDUE prominence to the official name at the expense of the common name.

A is also preferable over B, again due to WP:UNDUE prominence issues, though these are significantly reduced. The issues around clarity are similarly reduced, though they do remain due to the fact that some readers skip straight to the infobox for a summary. BilledMammal (talk) 03:03, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• A plus more Article titles are predominantly determined by WP:COMMONNAME as determined in English language source, which may be different from the official name. It is most natural/logical (IMO) for the article title to take precedence in the lead (since this is justified by the sources and would be IAW WP:WEIGHT). Also IAW WP:WEIGHT any other names should also be given in the lead. Ideally, the reasons/relationship of the other names should be made clear in the lead or the first section thereafter at the very least (and only if it requires too much explanation that would be beyond the scope of the lead. The article title will generally be how the subject is referred to in the article - except if the change is historic and it might be referred to by its earlier name in historic context or to explain the occurrence of different names. Only the article title is the only name that needs to appear in the infobox. Both names might appear in the infobox but perhaps only if there is no clear common name. Option C is definitely out per BilledMammal. The infobox is a supplement to and not a replacement for the lead. Cinderella157 (talk) 09:00, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
• C - First of all, I find it in poor taste that you waited until the ongoing discussion was clearly going against your preferred approach to open this RfC, and such a move leaves a lot to be desired in my view. In terms of the topic at hand, as mentioned in the aforementioned discussion an approach such as your proposed A has a lot of repetitive and redundant information. It would be akin to the example of having Waimakariri River (Māori: Waimakariri) at the start of an article. C is a much more concise and clear option than repeating each component of the dual name multiple times, and reflects the particular nuances of the given place name. We should treat readers with a modicum of respect in assuming that a backslash isn't going to confuse them, especially given that many articles currently have primary names in their lede that aren't the article name, including the WP:COMMONNAME examples of Bono and Bill Clinton, and the recently topical Hunga Tonga before the nominator changed that topic's name after I previously pointed out the discrepancy. Having an official name in the infobox also has precedent as per the general guidelines for geographic names, and so I'm not sure what the issue with that portion of this is at all.
  In terms of the comment about WP:WEIGHT, the information would all be provided in the lede anyway - for example, The Cam River (Māori: Ruataniwha), officially Cam River / Ruataniwha) and Cam River / Ruataniwha fundamentally provide the same information - the latter just does so in a much clearer and more concise manner. Further, the use of dual names over either component name aligns much better with other aspects of WP:NPOV than the other proposals, especially instances of WP:BALANCE and WP:IMPARTIAL. Turnagra (talk) 09:43, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Having looked at the below points being made, while I still agree that C is the best approach in a NZ context I appreciate that it may not work everywhere and it's best left for individual WikiProjects to come to their own consensus on, so I'm changing my vote to no global standard. Turnagra (talk) 18:08, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Per WP:SLASH: Generally, avoid joining two words with a slash, also called a forward slash, stroke or solidus ( / ), because it suggests that the words are related without specifying how. Replace with clearer wording. There are particular conventions for bios that are different to those for geographic names so analogies to bios are probably not the best argument to make. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) makes a number of statements, including: The lead: The title can be followed in the first line by a list of alternative names in parentheses. Option A is consistent with the advice. If the matter is in regard to the slash, it should clearly be avoided. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:59, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Further, The lead: The title can be followed in the first line by a list of alternative names in parentheses. Waimakariri River (Māori: Waimakariri) is not an alternative name; it's the exact same name repeated twice. The infobox example in the guidelines refers to a country, which I'm pretty sure is the intended target for a "formal" name (eg "United States" in the title --> "United States of America" in the infobox). --Spekkios (talk) 11:14, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:SLASH provides exemptions for when a slash is used in a phrase outside of Wikipedia and when a different construction would be inaccurate - this is the case here, as the dual names in question have widespread use in the slash format within New Zealand (which is relevant per WP:LANGVAR). There are also specific conventions for the use of dual names in New Zealand-related articles. Turnagra (talk) 17:32, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

Please explain how WP:SLASH supports the argument being made. I'm just not seeing it. Cinderella157 (talk) 15:07, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

Apologies, I was getting confused between WP:SLASH and WP:TITLESLASH since I'm used to having this discussion in the context of page titles. Turnagra (talk) 18:08, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• A. This option provides the clearest and correct information. C is confusing and misleading. --Enos733 (talk) 16:50, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

  Can you elaborate on how you think C is misleading? Turnagra (talk) 17:32, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

  Sure. C is confusing because I do not know whether the "Kaikiekie / Bradshaw Sound" contains a slash. Option A provides some quick information about the origin of the names and the relationship between the names. --Enos733 (talk) 17:42, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

  I can understand how it would be confusing, but I don't know how that makes it misleading? Turnagra (talk) 18:09, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

• None of the above. We should not standardize this. This is not a one-size-fits-all situation. What if you're writing about a place with a large number of names? Zimbabwe has 16 official languages. People in India speak more than 400 languages. Mount Everest got its English name precisely because the British researchers couldn't find a single, dominant name among the local residents. Editors should use their best judgment, based on their understanding of all the relevant reliable sources, to decide which and how many names should be included in different places. Editors should not be trying to cram all the complexities of reality into a single "approved" format.
  See also the advice in Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names)#Multiple local names, which addresses the options. WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:50, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

  I'm not sure that's an issue: the RfC question is a little unclear, but I think it refers to having the other part of the dual name in the lead sentence, not all other names. --Spekkios (talk) 23:01, 21 January 2022 (UTC)

  Apologies, I see where the confusion comes from. "All" encompasses only the dual name and the components of the dual name - if appropriate, I will clarify in the RFC? BilledMammal (talk) 01:00, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  I would advise it myself - currently it can be read to suggest that the proposal is for all names to be presented in the lead, not just the two names that make up a dual name. --Spekkios (talk) 01:21, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  Done; If you believe that it can be tweaked further, please feel free to do so. Pinging WhatamIdoing, as I believe their reply is the only one affected. BilledMammal (talk) 02:02, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• No standard. We give wide latitude to individual WikiProjects to decide the format of articles - for example, some WikiProjects discourage infoboxes, and that should be respected. Since WikiProject New Zealand has already debated this at length (and the debate is ongoing), let us reach our own concensus, and I would not try to determine standards for WikiProjects and cultures I have no knowledge of.-gadfium 22:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
• A: This is the format which is the most consistent with Wikipedia articles that don't have a dual name. It follows the general guidelines which avoids issues of inconsistency across the project due to WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. I read the proposal to mean all names in the official dual name, not all names used across all languages, so I don't see an issue with the number of names used in the lead sentence. I'm fairly sure the poster means both and not all, as in both names in the dual name, not all names used in all languages. If there do happen to be too many names, the general guidelines covers that anyway (ie: move all alternative names to an entomology section to avoid clutter). "A" avoids giving undue weight to the WP:OFFICIALNAME, and instead maintains the focus on the WP:COMMONNAME, which is the article title and the name used throughout Wikipedia. --Spekkios (talk) 23:13, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
• D: None of the above, and especially not C, which would read as forbidding the mention of a common name. I have only a weak preference for B over A, but I strongly prefer any outcome that allows more information to be included as and where necessary. Dual named places are (most) commonly referred to by only one of the two names at a time, so it would be weird not to allude to this in the lead sentence. — HTGS (talk) 03:16, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
• No global standard. Remit back to WP:NCNZ for NZ-specific discussion, because dual names have different usage and societal context in NZ than Australia or Switzerland. — hike395 (talk) 09:56, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  Could you explain why you believe these differences mean that Wikipedia needs to use different formats for, say, Bradshaw Sound and Uluru, as it is not clear to me from your response? BilledMammal (talk) 10:17, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  Naming disagreements come up frequently in WP, often reflecting inflamed local political issues. Gdańsk is the canonical example which led to years of edit wars. I don't feel confident that a one-size-fits-all rule developed in here will be globally WP:NPOV and prevent editing wars. I think it's far better for editors who understand the cultural context for each country to reach consensus. — hike395 (talk) 11:18, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

  I see that as the benefit of a global solution as it allows those disagreements to be resolved without reflecting political issues, as to reflect them would be a violation of NPOV. In any case, it is still not clear to me why you believe that a global solution cannot be NPOV - while B and C do have some NPOV issues due to providing disproportionate weight to the official name, I am not seeing any such issues with A. BilledMammal (talk) 11:27, 22 January 2022 (UTC)

• No global standard. Naming conventions are often evolving in national and regional contexts, with New Zealand only one example. These changes should inform Wikipedians' prioritization of names / equalization of different names on a region-by-region basis.--Carwil (talk) 17:40, 22 January 2022 (UTC)
• No global standard. Let NZ and AUS and wherever else decide what makes sense in their local context (which might be a national decision or article-by-article). Certainly in Australia (and I write Australian content), there can be many alternative names (I'd be grateful if the alternatives was limited to just two). For example for places, there is an official English name and there might be a common English name then there can be one or more Indigenous names for the same place in the different Indigenous languages, and, as Indigenous languages are oral not written, there can be disagreements about how to spell an Indigenous name using our alphabet (due on different pronunciations in different dialects). And some Indigenous names are official alternative names, some are not official alternative names, etc. Look at Ankamuti as an illustration of the problem; it has a whole section devoted to listing alternative names (and if you look at the other articles listed in the navbox, you will see this is a common situation). The other thing to bear in mind is that the name in an infobox might be reused by other tools so you have to be careful what you put in the name field (e.g. some probably expect only one name, not a list). Some infoboxes have other fields for alternative names, e.g. native_name, alt_name, etc. So I really don't think the MOS should try to dictate how alternatives are handled in infoboxes. Kerry (talk) 09:32, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment I don't know if the RfC question is a good expression of the underlying issue. It is obvious that there is more background to this and some commenters have come here aware of this. Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) already gives good advice on how to deal with alternative names - both in the lead and in the infobox. To me, it appears that the issue might be in the slash construction that is used in the example for option C. The slash is definitely not a good option because it is confusing. WP:SLASH clearly covers this - at least for the lead. One can't expect editors to provide informed comment if the issues aren't clearly articulated and they are not aware of the full background. Cinderella157 (talk) 10:39, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
• Do not standardise – (edit conflict) There is no one size fits all approach here and I don't see why this is an issue. Let editors decide what is most appropriate for each article based on existing naming conventions for different fields/WikiProjects. 5225_C (talk • contributions) 03:12, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• Comment - Use the english name as the article title & list the english name first, in the intro. GoodDay (talk) 03:16, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

  I have two questions. Firstly, how does this help for Disentis and similar - which of the German "Disentis" and Romansh "Mustér" would you designate as the primary name? Secondly, which of Uluru and Ayers Rock is the English name? Both (but especially Uluru) are used in English-language sources by people that only know English, because it is a place name in Australian English. It would be deeply strange for the article to use the British name by default (which I assume is what you're actually suggesting) when it is by far the less common in Australia. --Xurizuri (talk) 19:22, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

• No global standard for the reasons given by other editors. While it would be nice to have a neutral global solution, there will always be exceptions or situations where the global situation doesn't suit. The Derry/Londonderry result is a classic example of where a bespoke compromise has been reached by consensus. I think unilaterally introducing a global solution and overriding whatever local approaches exist at the moment is likely to cause more arguments and problems then it solves. Cheers, Chocmilk03 (talk) 03:22, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• No global standard - Different situations require different solutions. These can be discussed on an article by article level by the involved editors. Fieari (talk) 07:27, 24 January 2022 (UTC)
• No standard - and this is not a MOS issue. The MOS must never be used to determine content issues, and given the complexity and contentiousness of dual place names in many contexts (as noted in several comments above), it is entirely inappropriate to suggest that the MOS should have any bearing on the matter. AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:11, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

  Good point. — hike395 (talk) 17:32, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

• No standard. I'm guessing there are really good reasons each of those articles are different. At the very least, I have context for Uluru (I'm australian). It would be deeply absurd to present "Ayers Rock" as any more prominently than it currently is. No one calls it Ayers Rock, except for the same group that say things like "we don't need to say sorry for anything". Basically - it's contentious. It's really really contentious. That's why some of these places have double-barrelled names - because there are limited options for representing that complexity in official gazettes, but luckily WP doesn't have the same restrictions. Unless we, for an inexplicable reason, set them on ourselves. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xurizuri (talk • contribs) 19:01, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

Is the article subject, the phrase "No quarter"; or is the article subject, "No quarter"

"No quarter"— Is the article subject, the phrase "No quarter"; or is the article subject, "No quarter". Should the lead start:

1. A victor gives no quarter when the victor shows no clemency...
2. The phrase no quarter was generally ...

The ordering of the openings reflects the change from the older lead (1.), to the more recent (2.); not which is the 'better' lead.

Please see Talk:No quarter#MOS:REFERS and comment there on which you think more closely follows MOS:REFERS. — PBS (talk) 16:49, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Population of places (cities, towns, villages, hamlets, etc.)

Can we mention somewhere that we should state the (approximate) current population of the place in the first sentence? And leave the details to the infobox? E.g. Lexington, Kentucky "Lexington is the second-largest city in Kentucky [with about 320,000 residents] and the county seat of Fayette County." I think readers should get to know the rough size of the place without digging down into the second paragraph or the infobox. Facts707 (talk) 11:00, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

I think that would definitely add to the first sentence clutter problem. C.f. MOS:LEADCLUTTER. Praemonitus (talk) 15:37, 18 March 2022 (UTC)

Facts707 — I think this idea is raised in the wrong place, as this article re the lead is for generally specific advice, so I would oppose the proposal here. You might try raising it at WP:CITIES, as that's a more specific forum. CUA 27 (talk) 00:22, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

CUA 27 Thanks, will do. Facts707 (talk) 12:03, 22 March 2022 (UTC)

Unquantified adjectives in opening sentences

Rather commonly on Wikipedia, I see opening sentences like:

• The pied currawong (Strepera graculina) is a medium-sized black passerine bird...
• Giden is a small village...
• Bellis perennis, the daisy, is a common European species...

But if you tell me a bird is "medium-sized", that is so vague that it tells me nothing. Likewise with the others. Pied currawong later tells me that these birds average 48cm in length. Giden later tells me that the population is 792. These are meaningful facts that do not need any assumptions or guesswork to interpret; an unquantified adjective conveys no information and is better simply omitted. So I suggest that guidance to avoid the use of unquantified adjectives in opening sentences would be useful, and would lead to improved articles if followed. I wonder what anyone else thinks. Lbs0909 (talk) 15:54, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

In a context that most people are familiar with, to me that seems reasonable as long as they are clarified later. Otherwise you risk the opening becoming overly bloated and technical. Praemonitus (talk) 15:59, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

I'm not quite clear about what you are saying. What is reasonable? And what is the context that most people are familiar with? I'm suggesting that unquantified adjectives be omitted as they are not informative, so where is the risk of a lead sentence becoming bloated or technical? Lbs0909 (talk) 19:12, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

This paragraph, for example, clarifies the meaning without overly cluttering the first sentence.

"Giden is a small village in Çamlıyayla district of Mersin Province, Turkey. At 37°07′N 34°42′E it a situated in Toros Mountains 18 kilometres (11 mi) to east of Çamlıyayla. The population of Giden was 792 as of 2012."

I see no need to omit it. Praemonitus (talk) 19:18, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

"small" tells me nothing. What does it tell you? Lbs0909 (talk) 20:02, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

It tells me it's on the small size for a typical village, which works for most people. Praemonitus (talk) 21:42, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

And what exactly is a "typical village"? Lbs0909 (talk) 22:51, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

Talk:Carson City, Nevada#Official name in first sentence

Your input is welcome at Talk:Carson City, Nevada#Official name in first sentence, where there is a discussion about the interpretation of this guideline. Magnolia677 (talk) 15:38, 15 April 2022 (UTC)

RfC at Talk:Donald Trump

A request for comment that may interest editors of this guideline has been opened at Talk:Donald Trump § RfC: Should the lead section have any citations?. Bob K31416 (talk) 14:22, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Lead's prominence in leading search engines (esp. Google)

Wikipedia leads are now routinely scraped by major search engines like Google to provide a summary result when conducting a search for a person or topic. This seems to present the first two sentences of the lead to the user. While some will say Wikipedia has no control over this, none of us have control over the weather either, and we still find it a good idea to take it into consideration when we plan our days. Wikipedia should consider amending the Lead policy to advise that priority be given to the most notable facts regarding a person or topic in the first two sentences of the lead, so as not to give a misleading or slanted view of the person/topic in question in search summary results. The catalyst for this is the page for Jimmy Savile, as when people Google him, only the first two sentences of the Lead are shown as a result, which are entirely positive regarding his titles and philanthropic work, and do not make mention of his infamy as a child sex predator. Dbsanfte (talk) 12:23, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't agree with this. Search engines shouldn't be shaping how Wikipedia presents information. Praemonitus (talk) 15:20, 4 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the first sentence should contain in principle the most important and notable information of the subject of the article. Although I understand Praemonitus' point, the fact is that Wikipedia articles need to have a certain standard designed to present quality information to the reader in the best manner possible for its easiest reading and comprehension. Many times I stumbled on pages that bury the most notable information late in the lede or even in the body, leaving me to wonder after reading the first sentence or the first paragraph the what or sometimes the who of the subject.--Thinker78 (talk) 16:42, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you from that perspective. If clarify is the goal, then the first sentence could often benefit from the removal of "also known as...", parenthetical text, names in other languages, and pronunciation guides. Those break up the flow and are just too distracting from the main goal of specifying the topic. Praemonitus (talk) 17:29, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree completely. Using the first sentence to list all the (rarely used) alternate names impairs the readability of the first sentence. CUA 27 (talk) 01:09, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Agree MOS:LEADCLUTTER is a big problem.Moxy- 17:45, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Agree, though the parentheticals seem to have developed into a de facto house style. If we had a broad enough consensus, would that allow us to unleash the gnomes and newbs for converting them to footnotes or separate paragraphs or separate sections? ⁓ Pelagic ( messages ) 18:14, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

We can reach tens of millions more readers if the first two sentences contain the useful info they are searching for. Rjensen (talk) 01:11, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Most articles already deliver useful information in the first sentences, so I find your claim a bit unrealistic. Praemonitus (talk) 16:06, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

• I think that it is something that ought to be considered, yes - though it doesn't imply a huge change as the first two paragraphs are already supposed to contain the most important points. A more important thing to consider is to make sure that the first paragraph, and the first and second paragraph together, read coherently and without misleading implications even if the rest is chopped off - we would want to avoid situations along the lines of eg. the first two paragraphs describing some bit of research as if it is uncontroversial, with only the third paragraph going "however, this research is highly controversial and there is reasonable evidence that it could kill you" or the like. Leads can be balanced both by prominence / structure and by the amount of text, so it's important to make it clear that in this particular context structure could completely overwhelm amount-of-text in significance. --Aquillion (talk) 17:37, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

It's not our job to bend our back to Google. If Google wants they can show longer previews of Wikipedia lead paragraphs.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 20:34, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Another way of looking at it is: what googles spits up is only a consequence of how articles lede the reader into a page. An uncluttered first sentence on any topic, wrought by the consensus of volunteers, is what the entity is exploiting to validate its existence. ~ cygnis insignis 13:31, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

No, Google's priorities are of no concern to us whatsoever. We don't worry about the first two lines of Encyclopedia Brittanica articles, either. That's the road you're on once you let them get their foot in the door. Britmax (talk) 16:14, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

De-cluttering the first sentence

Following up on the comments above by Praemonitus and Moxy about the issue of MOS:LEADCLUTTER, I would like to propose some very incremental changes on this front. To start with, I propose that the guidance be revised to discourage the use of alternative archaic names in the first sentence. Names that are disused can be mentioned elsewhere in the lead, or in a "Names" or "Etymology" section, instead of adding more clutter to the first sentence. CUA 27 (talk) 19:40, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

Got my Support ....as per this.--Moxy- 19:44, 19 February 2022 (UTC)

This has been done. CUA 27 (talk) 00:05, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

My next proposal is to discourage lengthy pronunciation guides in the first sentence. Something similar already exists in the section discussing foreign-language names ("Consider footnoting foreign-language names if they would otherwise clutter the opening sentence"); I propose we add a similar cautionary note in the section discussing pronunciation guides. CUA 27 (talk) 17:24, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

This has been done. CUA 27 (talk) 00:05, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

A related issue I often see is, on topics named for someone, a big parenthetical clause describing who it is named for. That information is lead-worthy but can often be delayed until later in the lead than the first sentence. An example: currently Fosbury Flop reads "The Fosbury Flop is a jumping style used in the track and field sport of high jump. It was popularized and perfected by American athlete Dick Fosbury, whose..." (good style), but I often see leads more like "The Fosbury Flop (named for American athlete Dick Fosbury, who popularized and perfected it) is a jumping style used in the track and field sport of high jump." (cluttered and bad because it takes much longer to get to the more important point). —David Eppstein (talk) 19:15, 21 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree this can be an issue. The issue bears some resemblance to the concern underlying MOS:REFERS, in which the first sentence sometimes places an undue emphasis on the word/title/name rather than on the subject itself. CUA 27 (talk) 00:08, 23 February 2022 (UTC)

As an additional proposal, the section on alternative names advises against including three or more alternative names in the text of the first sentence if a separate section on names or etymology exists. I propose revising this to make it not conditional. I.e., discourage listing three or more names in the text of the first sentence, without regard to whether a separate names or etymology section does or does not exist. CUA 27 (talk) 01:25, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

This has been done. reverted. CUA 27 (talk) 02:54, 2 March 2022 (UTC). CUA 27 (talk) 02:09, 7 March 2022 (UTC)

I would oppose this as there could reasonbly more than 3 names for something enough for it to be in the lead.  Spy-cicle💥  ^Talk? 03:23, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Speaking of clutter, check this one: James Dyson has 7 post-nominals that (also) show up on search engines. Are those the most crucial information about a person? Absolutely NO. Very few know what those acronyms mean, I'd say. It should suffice to have them listed in the info box. Ponor (talk) 15:35, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Ponor – I agree seven post nominals for a biography seems excessive, particularly when they are in the infobox. How common of an issue is this? Can you give some more examples? CUA 27 (talk) 19:28, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Cf. Pulkovo Observatory:

"The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory (Russian: Пулковская астрономическая обсерватория, official name The Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo, Главная (Пулковская) астрономическая обсерватория Российской академии наук; formerly Imperial Observatory at Pulkowo[1]), the principal astronomical observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences, located 19 km south of Saint Petersburg on Pulkovo Heights 75 metres (246 ft) above sea level."

Not exactly an inviting opening sentence. Praemonitus (talk) 17:43, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Especially because no verb. All that clutter makes it hard to get the grammar right. —David Eppstein (talk) 22:29, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Good points, Praemonitus and David Eppstein. One possible solution would be to revise the Lead_section#Foreign_language section to discourage foreign language equivalents for alternative names or for particularly lengthy names, while maintaining the current guidance of allowing/encouraging a single foreign language name (if it is succinct). CUA 27 (talk) 02:59, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

This has been done. CUA 27 (talk) 23:55, 9 March 2022 (UTC)

The shortcut for MOS:LEADCLUTTER is in a non-intuitive place, under Alternative names. Avoiding cluttering the lead sentence is a principle that applies more broadly than just alternative names. I'm thinking about creating a brief new section that advises editors to avoid cluttering the lead and includes the shortcut there. This section would not be a substantive change, but would instead collect the advice against clutter into one easy-to-find location. CUA 27 (talk) 00:00, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Upon further consideration, a new section didn't seem to make sense, particularly because one of the introductory paragraphs to the "First sentence" section already adequately explains this in a relatively prominent place. So I moved the MOS:LEADCLUTTER shortcut next to the text. I think that's a modest increase in emphasis, and in any case, a slightly helpful bit of tidying up. CUA 27 (talk) 00:34, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

I fixed the redirect by pointing it to an anchor string. Praemonitus (talk) 18:13, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

Another fine example is the the Ēostre opening sentence:

Ēostre (Old English: *Ēastre [ˈæːɑstre], Northumbrian dialect Ēastro, Mercian dialect and West Saxon dialect (Old English) Ēostre [ˈeːostre]; Old High German: *Ôstara; Old Saxon *Āsteron) is a West Germanic spring goddess.

Try reading that one aloud. Praemonitus (talk) 03:50, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

References

Praemonitus — I agree that's a great example of an overly cluttered first sentence. I think the current guidance, with the recent revisions over the past couple of months, sufficiently addresses this. But if you think further changes to the guidance is needed, feel free to propose additional changes. CUA 27 (talk) 15:58, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps an "overclutter" inline tag (with a document mentioning this guideline) would be convenient to suggest appropriate edits? Praemonitus (talk) 16:33, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Lead clutter

Was info on lead clutter moved or section renamed? ....2 RfC are linking WP:LEADCLUTTER but the section the shortcut leads to is not here.Moxy- 05:50, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

@Moxy: Restored. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 07:32, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Thank you!! Moxy- 13:05, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

Rfc on citations in the lead

In section #Citations (shortcut MOS:LEADCITE), in the third paragraph (starting "Because the lead will usually repeat information.."), alter the last two sentences by removing text as follows:

The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.

A vote to "Support", means, remove the text in strikeout type above from the third paragraph. (boldly replaced lengthy, original Rfc statement on behalf of OP 2ple per multiple requests; Mathglot (talk) 18:02, 7 May 2022 (UТС))

Do you think that MOS:CITELEAD should be changed to the text above, or a variation of it? 2ple (talk) 00:28, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Survey (citations in the lead)

• Oppose What for? Not verifiability, because it is already cited in the article. The statement is verifiable; that's the point. Very few readers look at the sources anyway; most don't even know what they are about. And Wikipedians must read the whole article and the sources before they can even comment. Citing every single fact in the lead will clutter it up, impact it visually, make it harder to read, make the text more awkward, and make the lead harder to use for applications that extract the lead, thereby defeating the whole purpose of having a lead. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 00:44, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  That's not what's being said. Citing every single fact in the lead will clutter it up—I definitely don't want everything in the lead to be cited; what an absolute mess that would be. I simply want controversial stuff to be cited. Impact it visually—yes, but it isn't that bad. [Makes] it harder to read—again tying back into the first point, not everything should be cited. [Makes] the text more awkward—marginally. [Makes] the lead harder to use for applications that extract the lead, thereby defeating the whole purpose of having a lead. Yes, it does make it harder for applications such as Google Knowledge Graph, but, in theory, controversial stuff won't be included in the short blurbs at the beginning of the lead. The first couple sentences are usually devoid of anything controversial, so citing in the lead will likely not affect too much. 2ple (talk) 02:38, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  As you are well aware, DYK, ITN, GAN, FAC and most projects have (quite rightly) interpreted "likely to be challenged" as meaning every non-trivial fact. So the requirement is for the article to be fully referenced. Applying this to the lead will create very dense footnoting. And in return for the drawbacks we get what? As other editors have pointed out, adding a reference will not make the statement less controversial. There are two common causes of controversy: one is that the statement is WP:UNDUE. That happens in the lead more often than the article because of the smaller space you have to work with. The other is that it is contested, and the lead does not provide space for the opposing arguments. Neither will be solved by including a source. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:48, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose, mostly per WP:CREEP and the discussion in the section above. This will do nothing to prevent controversy (controversial statements in the lead will still be controversial) and is counterproductive to a different goal that I think is more important: ensuring that leads properly summarize body content rather than introducing their own content and sources. I much prefer Hawkeye7's version. —David Eppstein (talk) 07:23, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
• BLP and LEADCITE are malformed. The requirement for citations in the lead should be removed, as the article is the citation for the lead. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:20, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  Why do you think that? 2ple (talk) 20:14, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  I'll tell you why I think that: because it is the way it has always been done, and the way it is done in the overwhelming majority of articles (although some do have fully referenced leads). Hawkeye7 (discuss) 20:48, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  Exactly. With a side order of "because that's just good writing". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 21:31, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

  That’s just an assumption and not readily findable so it looks unsupported. Even if once true, the lead can drift or have SYNTH issues. And sometimes folks are just doing edits to lead that has no matching body content, and giving no sources because this says leads do not need cites. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 07:27, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

• Oppose – partly per WP:CREEP but mostly per WP:Verifiability, whose first sentence is: "In the English Wikipedia, verifiability means other people using the encyclopedia can check that the information comes from a reliable source." Implementing the Rfc proposal would hurt verifiability in certain cases, where not only readers, but even editors used to ferreting out information would be uncertain if something in the Lead was actually sourced in the body or not, especially in the case of articles on contentious topics or BLPs. It may also go counter to WP:V regarding quotations or other material in the lead, where it says: "All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation to a reliable source that directly supports^[2] the material." WP:Verifiability is policy, and we should not introduce changes to a style guide that may induce editors to edit counter to policy. Mathglot (talk) 18:45, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
• Oppose Some ledes are fine without citations, while others are not; some footnotes are clutter while others are convenient. Trimming away the recognition of this merely for the sake of a one-size-fits-all rule is WP:CREEP, as others have argued above. XOR'easter (talk) 21:04, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
• Partial support, but mostly just bad RFC. This does nothing to address any of the issues raised above; I'm concerned that it will get snow-opposed and then used as an argument against any better-considered changes to address the problem, when it isn't really proposing a change that would address any of the current disputes. What does removing "by editorial consensus" here even mean? How else would we determine it, if it still has to be decided on a case-by-case basis? There's no way I could get behind that specific change without more clarity. I can definitely get behind removing the presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article, which as things are written currently is just empty verbiage that restates the previous two sentences - as written it means a lot less than people seem to think, if you read it carefully. Based on the way people are talking about it I feel like some people misread the first every as any, which would totally change the meaning; as written it is fine to require citations for eg. 90% of all articles (or, more to the point, every controversial BLP article) without contradicting it, since that wouldn't require them for every article. Therefore, all that it really says is that citations can be included in any article (which is trivially obvious from the previous sentence) and that articles exist where they can be left out (with the implication that articles also exist that they can't be left out; otherwise the first "every" would be an "any".) But ultimately this proposed change doesn't... solve anything. I see people above arguing stridently about whether or not we should enforce the current wording requiring citations for contested statements in BLPs, but... this would have no effect on that? Unless you reword the first paragraph to unambiguously remove the option to omit citations for contested statements in BLPs, or reword the second paragraph to remove the clear requirement to include citations for contested statements in BLPs, some people are still going to read the part of the MOS in question as contradicting itself. (That said I am also baffled by the people arguing that this is WP:CREEP. This change clearly wouldn't require citations in the lead everywhere - if anything, it makes the MOS on this looser and more vaguely-defined, that's my problem with it. It's the opposite of CREEP. I feel like many of the !votes above are based on the previous arguments and the assumption that this would somehow require citations in every lead, which it clearly would not - what it would actually mean is mostly "very little, and what little that is is confusing.") If the goal here is to address the question of "can we omit citations from contested statements in the leads of BLPs" then we need an RFC focused on that question unambiguously. --Aquillion (talk) 04:14, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
• Support - The struck out material is not necessary and can be misread to be contrary to the higher policy level WP:V. The first seems to imply an article should form local consensus to ever have cites in an article lead, and striking that out makes it a matter of whether the edit needs V. The second strikeout is just a redundancy - if it is case by case then of course there may be some or none. I would also suggest changing the paragraph start “Because the lead will usually repeat information..” into “Where the lead repeats information..”, so that existence of content and cite in body is more clearly a prerequisite and not taken as a given regardless of what lead text is proposed. The existing style guide of WP:LEADCITE wording just seems to need clarification here as it has been said to be conflicting, or misleads people into thinking LEAD can be unsupported free verse in by local RFC. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 06:51, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

Discussion (citations in the lead)

• Note: the Rfc box was previously embedded in the previous discussion section #Citation section rewrite above, and with the new section header, is now in its own section. Mathglot (talk) 03:14, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  Can someone post the proper change here in the RfC as its a wall of text above. Moxy- 03:17, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  @Moxy: I've made an attempt at doing so. After allowing some time for the OP to revert or alter my refactoring as needed, please revisit the Rfc in a day or two and weigh in if you wish. HTH, Mathglot (talk) 18:17, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

• Comment: (Summoned by bot) 2ple please specify exactly what text you propose as the new text, right under the Rfc box, and above your 00:28, 7 May comment. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 03:16, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
• @2ple: what is your brief and neutral statement? At over 2,000 bytes, the statement above (from the {{rfc}} tag to the next timestamp) is far too long for Legobot (talk · contribs) to handle, and so it is not being shown correctly at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines. The RfC may also not be publicised through WP:FRS until a shorter statement is provided. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 17:04, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  Redrose64, I have rewritten the original Rfc statement (ignoring the TPO issue in the interest of progress), which will hopefully clarify this. 2ple, please see the new Rfc statement (right under the Rfc box) above; this was my understanding of what you are requesting, in a much shorter, and hopefully much clearer version. If this does not agree with what your intent, please revert or alter to suit. Thanks, Mathglot (talk) 18:11, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, that's good. 2ple (talk) 18:50, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

  Should post a notice at all the project that try to not have sources in the lead....FA, GA, copy editors Guild Etc . Moxy- 04:30, 8 May 2022 (UTC)

• Since I feel that this completely fails to even ask the core question of the section I opened above, I'm going to open a more specific RFC asking whether we should require citations in the lead for contested statements about WP:BLPs. --Aquillion (talk) 04:31, 8 May 2022 (UTC)
• Reading through this RfC, I was not sure what the changes were meant to achieve. The replies didn't make sense either, implying there is a lot of context hanging around this topic that is lost in the RfC statement (presumably replying to the RfC statement before it was changed). Reading the section above this one to obtain that context, I do not see how the changes suggested would solve the problems raised. Removing "by editorial consensus" does not affect the policy at all, as that is how a case-by-case decision would be made anyway. Removing the final sentence also doesn't seem to change much, although there may be a slight shift in emphasis. Frankly I initially read this RfC as simply seeking to be more concise, so if it's not that, might I suggest this be closed/withdrawn to consolidate focus on the RfC below which seems more relevant to the questions at hand? CMD (talk) 07:03, 10 May 2022 (UTC)

  Done. 2ple (talk) 00:56, 11 May 2022 (UTC)

"Don't tease"

I seriously doubt anyone on English Wikipedia has ever written something like "Up to the last quarter of the 20th century the piece was considered authentic. But is it? Read in this article what famous Bach-scholars have written on the topic." The only time I've ever seen anything even marginally similar to this on English Wikipedia is when people try to avoid spoilers. For example, editors may write "The winner of the contest is revealed in this episode" instead of "In this episode, NinjaRobotPirate wins the contest". The thing is, we already have a guideline about that: Wikipedia:Spoiler. Is there any reason not to merge this into the preceding section? All we need is a single sentence, such as "don't bury the lead or tease readers with vague statements". NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 20:25, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

I think this was a bigger problem back in the day. Now, even new editors (but not paid marketing people) seem to have a good grasp of the 'house style'. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:32, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

First sentence content guidelines

While MOS:FIRST is lengthy, it actually says very little about what the first sentence should contain, especially in situations where a full description of the topic won't fit in one sentence. This is a constant source of debates, especially for WP:BLPs who are famous for many things or who have worn many hats throughout their life, so it might be useful to have a guideline that provides at least some suggestions people could point to. I don't think it should be strict - it's an area where editorial discretion is called for - but having almost no guidelines at all other than "don't cram everything into the first sentence" makes discussions difficult, especially since that one guideline makes it clear that even highly-notable things should sometimes be pushed to the second sentence (or even further.) Some thought for possible suggestions:

• The first sentence should cover the subject's primary source of notability - the one from which the notability of other aspects flows. If eg. the subject of a bio has done or been involved in other things that only really received coverage because of their primary source of notability, those things should be pushed further down the lead, even if those things have significant or overwhelming coverage, and sometimes even if those things have so much coverage that it eclipses the primary source of notability. This is because the primary source of notability provides vital context for why the later things are significant.
• The first sentence should reflect the one-sentence summary of the subject used to introduce it in other high-quality sources. Things that other sources tend not to mention in their one-sentence summary should be pushed out of the first sentence here, even if there is substantial (or overwhelming) coverage for them.
• When possible, the first sentence should not WP:ASTONISH. Someone who is even mildly familiar with the subject should be able to predict everything that they will find there; it should clearly, at a glance, convey that they are on the page they were looking for.

There are probably more, but these, to me, reflect a lot of the current practice for first sentences anyway - they just don't seem to be written down in one place. Again, I think these should just be phrased as guidelines, and of course they would just apply to the first sentence - other stuff could be pushed to the second sentence or below. --Aquillion (talk) 17:34, 26 March 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I can agree with any of these three proposals. The first seems to place undue emphasis on earlier aspects at the expense of later aspects, and seems targeted towards biographies as opposed to general guidance for all leads. The second proposal seems to suggest that wiki editors largely mimic what they find elsewhere instead of using their editorial discretion. And the third proposal seems to invert the key purpose of the first sentence — i.e., to educate the uninformed reader as to what the article is about, as opposed to a goal of not telling an informed reader anything they don't already know. CUA 27 (talk) 01:33, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

As a counter to WP:ASTONISH may I suggest Wikipedia:Principle of Some Astonishment which has several examples of bad lead sentences apparently modeled on the principles of the third bullet point above, such as "Oliver Cromwell's head is the head of Oliver Cromwell." —David Eppstein (talk) 06:09, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

"Oliver Cromwell's head is the head of Oliver Cromwell."

I'm sympathetic to the general idea of providing more guidance on how to start an article, but that's such a broad question that I'm not sure where to begin. XOR'easter (talk) 06:48, 28 March 2022 (UTC)

The thing I'd like to see in more first sentences is some basic, "orienting" information. I think this might be what @Aquillion meant with point 3. For example, I'd prefer "Subject is an experimental treatment for disease" to "Subject is a thing you've never heard of by Some Company of that targets a molecule you've never heard of and can't even guess what body part it's associated with from its name". WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:39, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Necessity of citations in the lead of BLPs, for statements that have been challenged or are likely to be challenged.

For context, this came up in this RFC; since it concerns BLP and sourcing requirements it seems worth discussing whether the policy should be clarified and if so, how. It seems like discussions there break down into three views:

• People that focus on Any statements about living persons that are challenged or likely to be challenged must have an inline citation every time they are mentioned, including within the lead from LEADCITE, and who argue that any serious challenge in good faith (ie. not simple vandalism, but it doesn't have to be a challenge many people would agree with) is sufficient, as is eg. the text ever having been the subject of a genuinely-controversial / non-WP:SNOW RFC.
• People who focus on The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article and who basically argue that it overrides the first point, ie. they interpret the requirement for citations on challenged BLP text in the lead as something that can be overridden by a local consensus.
• People who interpret challenged or likely to be challenged in an extremely minimalist way. I'm trying to characterize these in a neutral way, but I'm unsure how to characterize this argument because it seems so plainly absurd - if nothing in that article's lead qualifies as having been challenged, I am unsure what they would consider to have been challenged; it is the product of more RFCs than perhaps any lead on the site, every one of which results from a dispute over the text in which one side challenged the version we ultimately ended up with. But perhaps we should define what it means for text to have been challenged somewhere, if people have such drastically divergent views on it in a way that affects something so basic.

First, which of these interpretations should MOS:LEADCITE reflect? And second, should we tweak one or both of the parts being cited? (ie. modify the first part to be a suggestion, or modify the second part to unambiguously make it clear that citations on challenged BLP-sensitive statements are always required and cannot be decided on a case-by-case basis?) For the second suggestion, I envision something like With the exception of statements about living persons that have been challenged or which are likely to be challenged, which always require a citation every time they appear, the necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. This is a restatement of a sentence from the first paragraph, but (assuming we go that route) it seems important enough to require it if people are genuinely uncertain. --Aquillion (talk) 22:20, 16 April 2022 (UTC)

My view is in line with the first bullet point. Citations should be included in all such cases. Considering that adding cites is likely to reduce drive-by challenges as the text is more easily verifiable, I don't even see why editors want the hassle of keeping it uncited, let alone arguing at length to do so. IMO you'd in the long run waste less time just adding cites. More generally, I don't think the "case-by-case" bit should be taken as somehow overriding the BLP concern. Crossroads ^-talk- 03:52, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article. The lead is just a summary of the article, and the the inline citations can be found in the main body. This is the original text. The text in question was added in March 2015 [9] apparently without any consensus, although there may have been discussion elsewhere. WP:BLP has no rationale, so cannot justify the change. While it has been ignored, especially at FAC, it has been there a long time, and therefore implied consensus. Recommend reverting to the original text. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 06:43, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

From the second paragraph of this guideline, "The average Wikipedia visit is a few minutes long.[1] The lead is the first thing most people will read upon arriving at an article, and may be the only portion of the article that they read.[2]" In the case of biographies of living people, there is more sensitivity to the unfair effect of false, misleading, or uncertain statements and it needs to be clear that any statements that are challenged or likely to be challenged are verifiable. A citation also reduces the possibility that the lead item goes beyond the corresponding item in the body and its source, which is more critical for a biography of a living person. Bob K31416 (talk) 15:27, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

Well yes, but we expect somewhat more involvement from the editors than the readers. It is up to the article reviewers to confirm that the text is supported by the cited sources, and that the lead accurately summarizes the article. In a controversial article this may be subject to consensus. References in the lead will almost certainly be ignored by the overwhelming majority of readers, but will be extremely dense (more dense than in the article), greatly clutter the lead, making it harder to read, and for many uses (like Google) they will have to be stripped out again. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:16, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

• When we're talking about a policy section that has been largely stable for seven years, I don't think it makes a huge difference which version was first. My opinion is that we should probably require citations for statements about BLPs in the lead that have been challenged or which are likely to be challenged. Among other reasons, it reduces the risk of "lead drift" where the lead slowly drifts from the article, or where multiple parts of the body are combined via WP:SYNTH, which is a more serious problem for BLP-sensitive statements due to their more stringent sourcing requirements and the particular risk of harm present in the lead section (which is, after all, normally the most widely-seen part of an article.) Out of necessity, an article's lead is allowed to summarize the body with a degree of freedom beyond what we would normally use when summarizing a large number sources, but I definitely don't think that that can apply to WP:BLP-sensitive statements. "Reviews of this book were generally negative" as summary of the review section that just contains a lot of reviews and no source specifically summarizing all of them, while not ideal, is at least not a must-remove-on-sight problem; whereas "commentators generally describe this person as an asshole" absolutely requires a source specifically saying as much. --Aquillion (talk) 22:42, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

  Sure, but whereas "none of the people consulted could recall a single favourable thing that anyone ever said about him, and the consensus was that he had no redeeming characteristics whatsoever as a human being" [not making this one up] earns its place in the body where it is fully referenced, it is still (in most cases) a judgment call as to whether or not to include it in the lead. Adding references to the lead will not help. We will get stuff like "Reviews of this book were generally negative.[1][2][3][4][5]" Hawkeye7 (discuss) 23:16, 18 April 2022 (UTC)

  • The discussion / text in question only relates to challenged statements in the lead of BLPs. Regardless of how it is resolved or tweaked, it wouldn't affect the book example. --Aquillion (talk) 18:27, 19 April 2022 (UTC)

    In a typical BLP lead, we're more likely to see things like "Alice wrote six books" or "Alice received multiple awards". These summarizing statements may be difficult to support directly, and the demand for little blue clicky numbers after such sentences is probably limited. I suspect that this is only ever wanted for contentious material. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:48, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

For your amusement

"Mainly Known For" (xkcd #2621). DMacks (talk) 15:35, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 25 May 2022

Note #12 currently reads

Amalie Emmy Noether [ˈnøːtɐ] (23 March 1882 – 14 April 1935) was a German mathematician known for her groundbreaking contributions to abstract algebra and her contributions to theoretical physics.

Please replace this with

Amalie Emmy Noether (US: /ˈnʌtər/, UK: /ˈnɜːtə/ NUR-tər; German: [ˈnøːtɐ]; 23 March 1882 – 14 April 1935) was a German mathematician who made many important contributions to abstract algebra.

The latter is the current edition of the first sentence of the Emmy Noether article, which has FA status; it seems odd to present part of an article as ideal when that part of that article has changed significantly. 49.198.51.54 (talk) 20:44, 25 May 2022 (UTC)

Im not objecting to someone making this edit; I just think that with the rest of the note (This example not only tells the reader that the subject was a mathematician, it also indicates her field of expertise and work she did outside of it. The years of her birth and death provide time context. The reader who goes no further in this article already knows when she lived, what work she did, and why she is notable. (Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Biographieshas more on the specific format for biography articles) that wigth the rest of the note, the removal physics and adding of multiple pronunciations doesnt have a place in an MOS footnote. It is a quote from how the article was at the time that note was written, which is perfectly acceptable. Consider this an oppose from me. Happy Editing--IAmChaos 03:07, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. --Redrose64 🌹 (talk) 20:30, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

MOS:NOTLEDE

Opinions are welcome at a RfC concerning an article's lede paragraph. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:38, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

In particular, I will like MOS regulars to opine whether my interpretation of relevant policies is correct or not. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:41, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Widespread misuse of alternative name

A foreign word for a place is vert often put into the lead sentence. When this title is a name, significant alternative names for the topic should be mentioned in the article, usually in the first sentence or paragraph. MOS:ALTNAME is the justification used. This is misunderstood and hence misused. Whatever is the alternative name inserted, foreign or not, it must be significant alternative name used in English confirmed by reliable secondary sources. The significance of the alternative foreign word does not relate to the non-English speakers who do not use this encyclopedia, nor to those English speakers who do use the English version of the wikipedia article, who think the alternative name is significant enough based on their opinion based determination of its significance. I think we should have consensus on a widespread clear out of what amounts to irrelevant clutter in many article lead sentences. Roger 8 Roger (talk) 22:01, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

I WP:BOLDLY edited MOS:ALTNAME to point editors to the two following subsections, which give helpful advice on when to put alternative names in the lead sentence/paragraph versus when to discuss later in the lead or body. I did this because the sentence above that you quoted, standing alone, may be misunderstood; that sentence is more likely to be better understood when it explicitly points to the guidance in the two following subsections. CUA 27 (talk) 12:12, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

Alternative names

I suggest that the "Alternative names" section might need tweaking. It's part of the "Lead section" page, and currently includes The two following subsections describe when to mention alternative names in the first sentence or paragraph, versus when to discuss elsewhere in the lead or in the body, but then the two sections are Usage in first sentence and Separate section usage There is no subsection to cover the scenario where the lead section has more than one sentence or paragraph. Mitch Ames (talk) 01:12, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Citation section rewrite

I don't like this sentence in the Citations section—"The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus." Here's why: If something is controversial in the lead section of an article, it should be cited. The decision should not be based on consensus. I have seen too many scenarios (mostly political) in which a clearly controversial statement is not cited in the lead because A: most sources lean to one side of the argument, and, if looking at sources, one would clearly think that the amount proves truth, and B: too small of a minority is proposing for the cite.

Here is my rewritten section:

The lead must conform to verifiability, biographies of living persons, and other policies. The verifiability policy advises that material that is challenged or likely to be challenged, and direct quotations, should be supported by an inline citation. Any statements about living persons that are challenged or likely to be challenged must have an inline citation every time they are mentioned, including within the lead.

A statement can still be controversial regardless of the fact that the overwhelming majority of sources agree with it. Once an editor understands that a certain statement is potentially controversial, in the case of biographies of living persons, it requires a citation regardless of stylistic choice, and for all other articles, a balance between sourcing and readability should be found. Remember, WP:LEADCITE is not about proving whether or not a certain part of the lead is controversial based on sources, but about understanding why it can be construed as controversial. Once something has been flagged as controversial, either by consensus or by enough of a minority, it needs to be cited immediately.

Because the lead will usually repeat information that is in the body, editors should balance the desire to avoid redundant citations in the lead with the desire to aid readers in locating sources for challengeable material. Leads are usually written at a greater level of generality than the body, and information in the lead section of non-controversial subjects is less likely to be challenged and less likely to require a source; there is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads. The necessity for citations in a lead should be determined on a case-by-case basis by editorial consensus. Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none. The presence of citations in the introduction is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.

As editors are often unaware of this guideline, good faith should always be assumed when {{citation needed}} tags are erroneously added to lead sections. {{Leadcite comment}} can be added to article leads that often attract {{citation needed}} tags.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2ple (talk • contribs) 23:35, 2 May 2022 (UTC)

WP:Verifiability requires that everything more complicated than WP:SKYISBLUE requires a citation. ie every paragraph in the body. Here is my proposed rewrite:

The lead must conform to verifiability, biographies of living persons, and other policies. The verifiability policy advises that material should be supported by an inline citation in the body of the article. As editors are often unaware of this guideline, good faith should always be assumed when {{citation needed}} tags are erroneously added to lead sections. {{Leadcite comment}} can be added to article leads that often attract {{citation needed}} tags.

Hawkeye7 (discuss) 05:12, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

What I'm trying to do is avoid situations like the one at Donald Trump. As I said before:

I have seen too many scenarios (mostly political) in which a clearly controversial statement is not cited in the lead because A: most sources lean to one side of the argument, and, if looking at sources, one would clearly think that the amount proves truth, and B: too small of a minority is proposing for the cite. Then people try to shut down MOS:LEADCITE because it is cited extensively in the article.

This is the motivation behind this paragraph:

A statement can still be controversial regardless of the fact that the overwhelming majority of sources agree with it. Once an editor understands that a certain statement is potentially controversial, in the case of biographies of living persons, it requires a citation regardless of stylistic choice, and for all other articles, a balance between sourcing and readability should be found. Remember, WP:LEADCITE is not about proving whether or not a certain part of the lead is controversial based on sources, but about understanding why it can be construed as controversial. Once something has been flagged as controversial, either by consensus or by enough of a minority, it needs to be cited immediately.

---

I like this statement because it stops situations like the Donald Trump one, by leaving less to argue about. It's not about whether or not you think a statement is controversial, it's whether enough people (not necessarily a majority) think it is. There shouldn't be an argument in this situation. 2ple (talk) 18:35, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

Adding citations to the lead will not alter whether or not it is controversial. The citations required can be found in the body of the article, and do not need to clutter the lead. Hawkeye7 (discuss) 19:50, 3 May 2022 (UTC)

This is exactly the argument of the Donald Trump talk page. Yes, but no. With a page as long as that, with over 800 sources, it's not that easy to just scroll down and find stuff. Sentences like this:

Scholars and historians rank Trump as one of the worst presidents in American history.

—deserve a citation. There's a link, but a citation is still necessary. It's inherently contentious. And Trump is a living person, so he deserves a citation even more. MOS:LEADCITE specifically says that "Complex, current, or controversial subjects may require many citations; others, few or none." In the case of a BLP, especially a long one, citations for sentences like this should be readily at hand. 2ple (talk) 15:06, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Then do a search. No lead should have citations. End of. If someone complains point them to the part of the article that covers it.--User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 22:58, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Your statement directly contradicts WP:LEADCITE, which states:

A) Any statements about living persons that are challenged or likely to be challenged must have an inline citation every time they are mentioned, including within the lead.

B) There is not, however, an exception to citation requirements specific to leads.

C) The presence of citations in the introduction [lead] is neither required in every article nor prohibited in any article.

"No lead should have citations. End of."—Wut? The whole reason I brought this up is because of multiple disputes about citations in a lead. Yes, if something is controversial enough, then it should be cited. Simple. 2ple (talk) 00:14, 5 May 2022 (UTC)

See Rfc about this question below. Mathglot (talk) 03:25, 7 May 2022 (UTC)

Confusing shortcuts

Why do MOS:AVOIDBOLD and MOS:BOLDAVOID link to different sections? That's very easy to get mixed up. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 02:50, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

@Tartan357 Yes, I also confused them, thanks for raising this particular issue. I think MOS:BOLDAVOID should be used as an alternative name for MOS:AVOIDBOLD, since it really is about avoiding bold and not avoiding links in the bold text. Let me know your thoughts. PhotographyEdits (talk) 14:39, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

I've boldly made the change. ― Tartan357 ^Talk 08:52, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

@Tartan357 Thanks! PhotographyEdits (talk) 11:27, 29 June 2022 (UTC)