Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Titles of works/Archive 1

TV

Recent TV series stuff moved to: Wikipedia talk:Naming conventions (television).

Games

What about the titles of video and computer games? I'm seeing both italic and non-italic forms used (in the same article no less), and a standard would be nice. DopefishJustin 00:28, Apr 17, 2004 (UTC)

Italics, surely. --Paul A 02:56, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

I've been italicizing them for awhile, so I just added games. I couldn't come up with any good examples, but I suppose individual scenarios should be in "quotes". It seems intuitive, but it will take a long time to permeate, I imagine. I usually put whatever style rule I am following in the edit summary, figuring that's a good way for people following that topic, popular music, for instance, to hear about "album titles in italics, song titles in "quotes"" Ortolan88

What about the titles of trademarked tabletop games and board games (Cluedo, Dungeons & Dragons, Monopoly, HeroQuest, etc., but not chess, checkers, go) — I assume they're italicized, too? --Muchness 15:38, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

I haven't found anything in Wikipedia that says to italicize games, so I checked the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition. The only thing I could find was paragraph 8.162, which concerns trademarks. Monopoly and Scrabble are examples that are not italicizied.Scwlong (talk) 01:32, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Books

Books includes novels and novellas, correct? Hyacinth 16:55, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Sure, including any subtitles for non-fiction works. Ortolan88

Foreign languages

Shouldn't this page also include a guide (or at least an example) for the titles of works with titles in foreign languages other than English? Like Camus' The Stranger (L'Etranger)? leandros 22:23, 25 Jul 2004 (UTC)

In practice, if you refer to the French version only, it is italicized for two reasons, title and foreign language. If you give the English title and the French, both should be italicized, as in "Albert Camus wrote L'Etranger (The Stranger)." Ortolan88 05:05, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think that translations/transliterations should always go before the original foreign title, if it uses another alphabet. I believe this is consistant with current WP policy on articles named after foreign words. Thus in your first example, the Battleship Potemkin article would be incorrectly titled, and the Cyrillic should follow the translation. -- Sean Kelly 18:36, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here is my attempt at a guide for titles in foreign languages. Some of this is condensed this from a previous discussion at: Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style archive (foreign languages).

NAMING ARTICLES

• Books, movies and other media that were translated or renamed for their English publication or distribution should be created using the name they are best known by English speakers. Camus' novel would be found at The Stranger and not by its orignal title L'Étranger.

• There can also be a redirect from the literal translation or other names it is known by. For example: Ladri di biciclette, the 1948 Italian film could be listed as The Bicycle Thief, the name of the film in the US, and also by the more accurate translation Bicycle Thieves which was used in the UK.

• A work commonly known by its foreign language title should be created using that name or transliteration.

Examples: Clair de Lune, Mein Kampf and Rashomon

• The beginning of the article should have the name in the foreign language using the native spelling as published. Examples:

"L'Étranger (Known in English as The Stranger, also translated as The Outsider) is the 1942 French novel..."

"Ladri di biciclette (Literal translation: Bicycle Thieves, but known by the name The Bicycle Thief in the US) is a 1948 Italian neorealist film about a man who..."

USING FOREIGN LANGUAGE TITLES IN ARTICLES

• If a foreign language title is mentioned within the text of an article, both the original foreign language title of publication, and the English title by which it is commonly known should be included. If the English version is not an accurate translation, an accurate translation should also be included. In some languages a transliteration of the foreign title is also useful. This is recommended for works of literature, theatre, cinema and most other arts. This might not be necessary for some works of music (For example: Symphony #3 in D minor)

• The article's author can decide if the original foreign language title goes first or the English name does. Once decided, the author should be consistent. The second name should be in parenthesis. The English name can be linked to the English language article about the work. It might be useful sometimes to link the foreign language version to the foreign language article.

Examples:

"In 1942 Camus's novel L'Étranger (The Stranger) was published..."

"Hirosi Teshigahara is well known for the film Woman in the Dunes (砂の女 - Suna no onna)..."

• Once a title is introduced in a foreign spelling, its translation or transliteration can be used instead of the native spelling whenever it makes the article easier to read (such as The Stranger example above). This should be done in a consistent manner throughout the article.

• Lists of works should have the original language first whenever possible.

"De Sica wrote and directed together with scenarist Cesare Zavattini: Sciuscià (Shoeshine - 1946), Ladri di Biciclette (The Bicycle Thief, 1948) and Miracolo a Milano (Miracle in Milan, 1950)..."

This example is from the academy awards for best foreign film:

"1964

• Ieri, oggi, domani (Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow) (Italy) - Compagna Cinematografica Champion, Les Films Concordia - Carlo Ponti producer - Vittorio De Sica director
• Kvarteret korpen (Raven's End) (Sweden) - Europa Film - producer - Bo Widerberg director
• סאלח שבתי - Sallah Shabbati (Israel) - Sallah Company, Sallah Ltd. - Menahem Golan producer - Ephraim Kishon director
• Les parapluies de Cherbourg (The Umbrellas of Cherbourg ) (France) - Beta Film GmbH, Madeleine Films, Parc Film - Mag Bodard, Philippe Dussart producers - Jacques Demy director
• 砂の女 - Suna no onna (Woman in the Dunes) (Japan) - Teshigahara Productions, Toho - Kiichi Ichikawa, Tadashi Oono producers - Hiroshi Teshigahara director "

--Samuel Wantman 10:38, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

revised --Samuel Wantman 00:56, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Response

I agree in general.

I disagree however with the idea that both the original foreign title and an English translation should always appear in articles. That should be up to the editors. It would be extraordinarily pedantic, for example, to always indicate in casual mentions that The Three Musketeers translates Les Trois mousquetaires, or that Crime and Punishment translates Prestuplenie i nakazanie, or that The Golden Ass translates the a nickname title Asinus Aureus given to the book but in fact the original title of the work is Metamorphoses. One might as well also insist that every mention of a Biblical book must also contain its Hebrew or Greek name. No-one follows such a procedure outside of Wikipedia. For most works, it would be enough that a full discussion of the title appears once only in Wikipedia. Elsewhere, when a foreign work is known mostly in English under one familiar title (whether the original name or a translation or by something else) that familiar title is the one which should normally appear alone). Where a work is often known by more than one title in English texts, then there is more reason to provide both titles more often.

Nor should editors always use a translation of a title instead of the original foreign name, just because a translation has been introduced. Les Misérables can be translated The Wretches, and it might be useful to so indicate, but no-one uses such a translation of the title in discussing that work. Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur retains that title universally in discussion, though an article should mention that it means The Death of Arthur. Molière's Le Malade imaginaire can be translated as The Hypocondriac, but it is the French title that normally appears, even on English translations of the play. In English people say The Odyssey, not About Odysseus and speak of Ovid's Metamorphoses, not of Ovid's Transformations. On the other hand, it is customary to refer to Ovid's The Art of Love and to Herodotus' Persian Wars rather than to the original Latin and Greek titles of those works. In all this, custom should rule, and where custom is mixed then individual decisions by editors should be made.

Editors writing in particular areas mostly know artistic works are normally referred to in English and should follow normal custom, using forms most likely to be found in discussions outside Wikipedia. If in doubt, just follow one's sources.

Also, I suggest: "Lists of works should have the original language first unless custom or particular other reason suggests otherwise". There are reasons. For example, Dostoyevsky's works are almost all mostly known in English by English translations of their titles, while Molière's works are mostly known by their original French titles. This seems to me good reason to list Dostoevsky's works entirely by English title in a bibliography while listing Molière's by their original French titles. But Jules Verne's French scientific romances could be listed by their English titles. But I see nothing wrong either with them being listed by French title instead, as is currently the case.

Jallan 03:09, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I don't see what purpose this serves, given that we already have style for foreign languages in general. This just seems to add more complication. Maurreen 05:11, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Typefaces

Should the names of typefaces be italicised? It seems that there is no consensus on that, since the current articles dealing with fonts and typefaces mix italics with non-italics even within the same article. See, for example, Garamond. — David Remahl 03:26, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I don't remember ever seeing the names of typefaces italicized in the type books I've read. — Flamurai 03:51, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree with no italics. Maurreen 05:19, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Comics

Should the titles of comic books be italicized? Jason One 00:20, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Also, what about newspaper comic strips like Dilbert and Calvin and Hobbes, or Web comics like Penny Arcade? There doesn't seem to be any set standard for these. In those examples, Dilbert is either put in double quotes or italicized, Calvin and Hobbes is italicized, and Penny Arcade is written without any stylization. Jason One 00:16, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would vote no. Maurreen 00:40, 23 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Could you clarify? Are you saying "no" all three of those things (comic books, newspaper comic strips, and Web comics)? Jason One 01:07, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I would be against all three. But I rarely use italics. Maurreen 16:01, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

We all seem to have a lot of minor differences in this area. Perhaps our time would best be served if we made a very clear recommendation in the Manual that it exactly doesn't matter how you choose to format, as long as it is consistant throughout the entire article. -- Sean Kelly 01:06, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

• A series like The Sandman or Dilbert should be italicized the same as a magazine would be (e.g. Time). However the individual stories within the comic book or series should be within quotes (e.g. "Calliope" from Sandman). —Mike 23:13, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Song titles

Could someone explain why song titles are treated differently from most other similar titles? I've always thought that song titles should be italicized, and have formatted articles I've written accordingly. The quotation marks look wrong to me, and make pages with lots of song titles look scrappy. But this is just my opinion and possibly misguiding knowledge about style. I don't see why they should be treated differently from titles of books, or why there should be a distinction between popular song titles and the titles of orchestral works, for example. A quick flick through som emusic mags seems to back me up on this - all titles are generally italicized when quoted within a body of text. Graham 05:56, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I believe song titles usually go in quotes instead of italics because songs are fairly short. Similarly, an article title would go in quotes and a book title would usually be in italics. Maurreen 16:01, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

This is an unconvincing distinction (though I know it's one that's been made by many style referees over the years). Uniformity and precision would seem to outweigh arbitrary judgments about the size of a work.

Still, I say this as someone who thinks quotation marks are preferable to italics in all of these cases. In this arena, I'm an adherent of the AP stylebook -- or "The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual," as it were. Semolina Pilchard 23:05, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Song titles are not really treated differently from other titles. According to modern conventions for works written after the introduction of moveable type, the title of a book or journal or magazine is rendered in italics but the title of a smaller work within a book or journal or magazine is placed within quotation marks. Accordingly the titles of short stories and poems and articles are rendered between quotation marks. The same rules are applied to recordings. The title of an album or individual disc recording or tape recording or CD is put into italics, but individual songs from the media are placed within quotation marks. Conventions are different and more inconsistant for medieval works and earlier works and there is more tendency to put anything that stands on its own into italics, regardless of its size.

From The Oxford Guide to Style:

Use roman in quotation marks for single songs, arias, individual movements and pieces within a suite, and tracks on albums and CDs. This includes 'popular' names (i.e. those not furnished by the composer) ... This results in the combination of, for example, Inspector Morse's 'The Dead of Jericho' (italic for series, roman in quotation marks for episode); 'Born to Run', from Born to Run (roman in quotation marks for song, italic for album).

From The Chicago Manual of Style (8.202):

Titles of operas, oratorios, tone poems, and other long musical compositions are italicized. Titles of songs are set in roman and enclosed in quotation marks, capitalized in the same way as poems (see 8.191–92).

(8.205):

Recordings. The name of an album is italicized, that of the performer or ensemble set in roman. Individual items in the album—songs, movements, and the like—are treated as illustrated in the paragraphs above.

This is, they are set within quotation marks but not italicized.
Jallan 03:37, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The Chicago Manual of Style is our reference for the US style. When one is writing in UK style, not just the spelling, but the punctuation and other features should match the UK style DGG 03:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Classical music titles

Classical music titles follow their own set of conventions. It's convenient – but not correct – to just say "italicize them all!" The general convention is as follows:

(Original version removed. See below for more refined version.)

The logic behind this is simple. Since the name of a form is more of a description of the work than a title, it could be stated in different ways (for example: Concerto No. 5 for Piano and Orchestra, Piano Concerto No. 5, Fifth Piano Concerto). The given name of a piece functions as a single unit, and cannot be separated or rewritten. That is why it's italicized (or placed in quotes).

I really feel that Wikipedia should embrace the standard in the classical music world instead of taking the lazy "italicize everything" approach used by most newspapers.

— Flamurai 01:49, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

At least in the USA, most newspapers italicize very little. Maurreen 05:19, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, I wonder whether this list can be made a little more concise. Maurreen 05:26, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It can definitely be made more concise. I purposely made it lengthy to give extra examples and explanation. I'll work on a more refined version and post an update. — Flamurai 07:19, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Here's a more refined version. — Flamurai 08:50, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Classical music titles

Generic titles, such as the names of forms, are set in roman type. This includes titles of Latin liturgical works.

True titles — titles given by the composer — are italicized. When true titles are mixed with generic titles, as is often the case in overtures and suites, only the true title is italicized. The generic portion of the title remains in roman type. It is the author's discretion whether to use the original version or the English translation of the true title. Typically, the better known form should be used.

Often, works are known by a nickname or common title. In this case, the nickname is specified after the formal title in parentheses and quotation marks. When the nickname is used in prose, it is enclosed in quotes.

Song titles are enclosed in quotes. True titles of song cycles are italicized. Foreign language song titles remain in roman type.

Generic movement titles (such as tempo markings) are capitalized and in roman type. True movement titles are enclosed in quotation marks. When referred to by number in prose, the word movement is lowercase, and arabic numbers (or their English equivalents) are used.

The abbreviation op. (opus) is set with a lowercase o, as it is a common noun. K. (Köchel), BWV (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis), and D. (Deutsch) are capitalized, as they abbreviate proper nouns. All remain in roman type.

Key signatures are specified with a single capital letter A–G — followed by a hyphen and "flat" or "sharp" if appropriate — for the root of the key always followed by either "major" or "minor" with a lowercase m. They are set in roman type.

The formal title of a work from the classical repertoire includes its genre or performing force, key, and index number. For modern works, the key and/or index number may not exist, but the genre or performing force should always be specified. On Wikipedia, formal titles are used the first time a work is mentioned on its own page. Informal titles may be used everywhere else, but they must follow the style rules.

Usage examples

Formal title: Symphony No. 9 in E minor, op. 95 ("From the New World")
Prose usage: Allegro con fuoco from Dvořák's Ninth Symphony

Formal title: Trio No. 6 for piano, violin, and violoncello in B-flat major, op. 97 ("Archduke")
Acceptable alternative: Piano Trio No. 6 in B-flat major, op. 97 ("Archduke")
Prose usage: Beethoven's "Archduke" Trio, first movement

Formal title: Also sprach Zarathustra, tone poem for orchestra, op. 30
Prose usage: "Of Science and Learning" from Also sprach Zarathustra

Formal title: Symphonic Dances for orchestra from West Side Story
Prose usage: "Meeting Scene" from Symphonic Dances from West Side Story

Formal title: Dichterliebe, song cycle for voice and piano, op. 48
Prose usage: "Wenn ich in deine Augen seh'" from Dichterliebe

Formal title: Requiem for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, K. 626
Prose usage: Kyrie from Mozart's Requiem

Example lead sentence

Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op. 125 ("Choral"), is the final symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven.

— Flamurai 08:50, 10 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Response

Sorry, I appreciate what you're doing, but I still think it's a little complicated and more than what most people want to know. Maybe it would be good to give a summary of no more than three paragraphs in the main page, and then link to different page with all this information. Maurreen 05:38, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

That's fine. I think there should be a music manual of style, anyway. I realize it's specialized information, but just because it's complicated isn't an excuse to leave it incorrect. — flamuraiº 06:00, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)

Italicize names of spacecraft?

As I was reading the (excellent) Cassini-Huygens article, I was about to italicize Cassini and Huygens as names of spacecraft, but a quick search (for example, Voyager 1, Mariner 3 showed no signs of italics. I couldn't find any clarification in the Wikipedia's Manual of Style. I checked Chicago (15th ed.), which said that spacecraft should be italicized while space programs should not. They gave the examples Apollo 11 but Project Apollo. As I understand it,Voyager 1 and Mariner 3 should be italicized then, right? With Cassini-Huygens of course one would have to determine whether one was referring to the project or to the spacecraft, but I think most of the references in the article would have to be italicized. I'd appreciate any feedback on this, and possibly a line added to the Manual of Style for future clarification, especially if we decide not to follow Chicago's style. For the record, I do think we should italicize all spacecraft. — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 23:08, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I should think spacecraft would be treated just like (naval) ships. Aren't the latter typically italicized? — Jeff Q 00:50, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Yes, they are. And we also italicize fictional starships like "USS Enterprise" and "USS Defiant". I just hesitated because it seemed so many articles here didn't have the italics. Well, I am going to start italicizing, and unless anyone objects, I would like to add the word spacecraft and an example or two to the Manual of Style as well. — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 06:13, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Both your italicizing and your MoS update sound reasonable to me, as this appears not to contradict existing policy and is more in line with current policy than the frequent practice of non-italicizing. (I would try to be brief, though, on the MoS change, and not make a special case of spaceships, but rather include it as policy for italicizing craft of all kinds, adding a spacecraft example. Many people object, understandably, to too much specificity and detail in the MoS. I know from personal, intensely painful experience. ☺) I think this is one of those many formatting irregularities that various groups are going through Wikipedia and tweaking. (My personal favorites are adding final serial commas and italicizing movie, book, and album titles.) — Jeff Q 07:24, 6 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Thank you, Jeff. I have done as you suggested. — Knowledge Seeker দ (talk) 10:49, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Visual art title style policy conflict

Following a question on the Village Pump, I've noticed that there's a bit of a gap/conflict regarding our title style for works of visual art. The main page of the Manual of Style indicates that titles of "works of visual art" should be in italics.

On the other hand, this page tells us that the names of statues should appear in quotation marks. There is no guidance here regarding other types of visual art (the specific Pump question dealt with paintings, for example).

My preferred style is to go with the guidance on the main page and put 'em all in italics, but I would be content if we could just settle on a single uniform policy.--TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:29, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Ever notice how things are always in the last place you look? This question was posed about a week ago on Wikipedia_talk:Manual_of_Style#Paintings.3F; discussion should take place there if anyone has anything to add. Sorry for any confusion. --TenOfAllTrades(talk) 03:35, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Short films

I would go with italics for individual short film titles that have been released as is, although this depends a lot on context. For titles that are part of a greater whole, e.g. segments in compilation movies, anthologies, what not, I'd use quotation marks. Also for commercial short films? Most if not all short films are in italics on wikipedia. How wrong am I? I havent found anything on this from an outside source other than the "films in italics", no mention of shotness or lack of. Then again, what is a "short" film? Any thoughts? --Ajshm 21:56, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Roleplaying game systems?

So we should italicize book titles, movie titles and various other titles, but not roleplaying game system titles, such as Hero System, Rolemaster, GURPs, Powers & Perils or Hârnmaster? I think this is an oversight; the titles of RPG rules systems (but not the names of worlds, such as Hârn or Tekumel - an important distinction) deserve italicization just as much as book or movie titles do. Peter Knutsen 15:20, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Do we have a style now? If not, my preference would be to use quotation marks. But I don't feel strongly, especially if your view is supported by an authoritative reference. Maurreen 16:43, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

Coming in a little late to this party, but I have a few thoughts. The System of a game is different than the book itself- the d20 system being foremost amongst examples. I think any roleplaying book should be italicized, but Dungeons & Dragons is more than just books. The long & the short of what I'm saying is, I guess, that Dungeons & Dragons isn't neccisarily the same as Dungeons & Dragons. I don't know of any citation guides for games, though. An interesting point. --mordicai. 20:28, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Double-Quotes

The section dealing in song titles and subtitles is wrong.

Double-quotes are supposed to be reserved ONLY for direct quotes. Titles should be in single-quotes.

Example: The first Star Trek episode aired, 'Where No Man has Gone Before', was not the first episode filmed.

There is no generally accepted, single approach (no categorical "supposed to be" or "should"); different style guides and house-styles use different approaches. Whichever Wikipedia decides it wants to use is what editors should use. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:30, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Strongly disagree.

There are two generally accepted approaches, the UK and the US. In UK style, the single quote is used first, and in US style the opposite. These are the most immediately obvious distinctions between the styles. We seem to have agreed to use UK style for articles about UK people or things , and the US for US. see Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English DGG 03:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

That section now says that it applies only to spelling and grammar, not to punctuation.

See also the end of WP:PUNC:

If a word or phrase appears in an article in single quotes, such as 'abcd', Wikipedia's search facility will find that word or phrase only if the search string is also within single quotes. This difficulty does not arise for double quotes, and this is one of the reasons the latter are recommended.

For this reason, I often change single quotes to doubles except in the cases of nested quotations and (arguably) direct quotations using single quotes (though MOS:QUOTE appears to support changing these where possible).—Dah31 (talk) 19:52, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Capitalisation

I can't find anywhere that explains the use of capitalisation in titles (exclusion of articles & prepositions, etc.). I'd thought that it must be here, but it isn't. Can someone point me in the right direction? Thanks. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 23:14, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

I think it may be regional. Rich Farmbrough 15:19, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

I understood, though, that the Chicago manual, hart's Rules, and other manuals agreed on it (with minor differences; I've seen one variation that prepositions over four words be capitalised, for example). It's not so much the general question, though, as the Wikipedia policy in which I'm interested. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:14, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

To be specific, the question is whether a song title originally debuted on a vinyl album as "Pick Up Sticks" and reissued on a CD as "Pick Up Sticks" should be "Pick up Sticks" (decapitalized 'u') or "Pick Up Sticks" (as it appeared on the album & its reissue). ¦ Reisio 19:11, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

I found this site which I think has a very logical way of putting it: http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/CapitalizationStandardEnglish According to them, you would use "Pick Up Sticks", whether it is technically correct or not, because it was issued twice with that capitalization, suggesting that is the artist's intended choice.

What is the method for changing the capitalisation of a Wikipedia article title?Agamus 19:15, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Use the “move” tab at the top of the article page. Note that article titles are not the subject of this section of the Manual of Style. For titles of articles, see Wikipedia:Naming conventions. For instructions on moving and renaming articles, see Help:Moving a page. --Rob Kennedy 06:10, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

Italic in templates

With regard to videogames, are italics mandatory in templates that are linked into articles? (e.g. - Template:Zelda series) It seems to me that the purpose of the italics is to draw attention to a title for something (a game, a movie, etc) within a large paragraph, whereas in a template (a list of sorts) it seems to me it ought to permissable to leave out the italics. Thoughts? --Locke Cole 16:06, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. A title's a title, regardless of where it is, so it should be italicized. Regardless, I have been, thus far, the only person I know to have disputed this, even ten days after the issue was brought up (see Template:Megaman, Template:Zelda series); maybe a third opinion might be of help? --Shadow Hog 19:32, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd rather get the people who have been actively involved in the templates to chime in. For example, on Template:Contra series Larsinio also feels italics aren't appropriate. [1]. A different template than the one we've been debating, but the same general issue. And I didn't mention this above, but my main reason for not wanting to use italics is that they're more difficult to read (especially when everything is italicized as they are in these infoboxes). I didn't want you to think I was just being stubborn. :P

BTW, here are some other templates where any decision would be applicable:

• Template:Donkey Kong series
• Template:Mario series
• Template:Mortal Kombat series
• Template:Final Fight series
• Template:FinalFantasy series
• Template:Street Fighter series
• Template:Pac-man series
• Template:Gradius series
• Template:1942 series
• Template:Galaxian Series
• Template:Super Smash Bros. series
• Template:Quake series
• Template:Mario Kart series
• Template:Galaxian Series
• Template:Metal Slug Series

It's not an exhaustive list, these are just templates I've edited (or come across). —Locke Cole ^{(talk) (e-mail)} 20:24, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

I can read italicized text just fine. "Harder to read" sounds way too subjective to be a great argument. The third opinion, though, certainly helps your case. I still don't like the outcome, but it would seem I'm outnumbered - for now. --Shadow Hog 21:20, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

Go look at some of the history on those other templates, I believe Hibana has also added italics in the past citing MoS. As for the harder-to-see argument, I dunno, maybe I need new glasses (or a bigger display). :P I'll try to bring some of these people into the discussion. —Locke Cole ^{(talk) (e-mail)} 06:20, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I agreed with Shaodw Hog. Longform titles should use italics, and they don't negatively affect readability. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:09, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

What about Template:FinalFantasy series where short names and long names are mixed? —Locke Cole ^{(talk) (e-mail)} 06:16, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I'd say use italics even on the shortened versions of the names. By "longform titles" I mean "titles of long-form works" (which includes games), not "the long versions of titles". - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:25, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Alright, just wanted to make sure. Now, besides being compliant with the MoS, why should we use italics? —Locke Cole ^{(talk) (e-mail)} 06:38, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Because when you refer to longform works, you italicize or underline. It's a style rule not just on Wikipedia but in English, and we should do it for the same reason that we capitalize the first letter of the names. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 06:42, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

I concur with A Man in Bl♟ck. ~ Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 09:47, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

See, I remember italicizing (or rather, in some way highlighting) titles in reports, articles, etc. when I was in school, but I don't recall doing it in lists. —Locke Cole ^{(talk) (e-mail)} 13:24, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, in formal writing, you should use italics/underlining, and Wikipedia is formal writing. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 00:15, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Italics are normally used to differentiate between tiles and normal text in a block paragraph. These templates Are just all lists of titles, so there nothing that is needed ot diferentiate from normal text, hence no italics. And italics is harder to read, theres a reason why navigation bars for websties arent done for italics :O Even if its only 1% harder to read, i don thtink its worth it, because the goal is to provide quick access to information with these templates. --19:02, 27 November 2005 (UTC)

Italics are normally used to differentiate between tiles and normal text in a block paragraph.

Or are they? In all honesty, I don't recall anyone's ever gone into the how and why the introduction of italics for titles came into effect (although if you can provide such a source, I'll be more than interested to read it up). Frankly, it's just one of those things you do one way or another, whether you're trying to emphasize it or not - proper grammar dictates so. Hence, italics should be in templates as well. It's not a matter of emphasis, it's a matter of grammar.

Likewise, I think that italics are one of those things where readability never really was a factor. I mean, you can still make the letters out and everything, without much trouble whatsoever (in fact, you'd likely have more trouble thinking over whether things are italicized or not than you would just reading the text, if marginally more), so that argument really doesn't float with me.

Other than that, wow, this argument's moving off to the right. Might want to give it a nice kick back to the left soon. Case in point: this response is three paragraphs, but appears to be one giant paragraph on my 1024x768 (God I wish I could go higher!) screen. Ew. --Shadow Hog 02:03, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

[Convo kicked left] Now wait just a second. Italics is a matter of grammar? I've never heard of that. Italics are only used for emphasis (and in this particular case, emphasis of titles). —Locke Cole ^{(talk) (e-mail)} 02:15, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Well, style, grammar... bad word choice. Although, I'd argue the two are often related. Regardless, emphasis is only one usage of italics; titles would be another. In fact, Wikipedia has an entire article on italics, with a list of the uses, and while emphasis is the first one, there are plenty others...

But even if it were just emphasis, why the heck should it matter if there's nothing else for it to stand out from? It still should be italicized; proper style. --Shadow Hog 04:18, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Im still confused. Whats the point of emphasizing a title when they are all titles? is someone going to get confused that they arent titles? I dont understand why everyone feels compelled to use italics in *navigational templates* --Larsinio 14:49, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm more confused as to why we need to remove them. They're really not hurting anything. --Shadow Hog 16:38, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

They're harder to read all grouped together. —Locke Cole ^{(talk) (e-mail)} 16:46, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

That is more of a browser issue. Adjust your browser or computer's font settings to resolve this. Dread Lord CyberSkull ✎☠ 13:54, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

It's the default font setting for Firefox (which, incidentally, it looks just as bad in Internet Explorer). I could change it, yes, but 99% of people out there who are oblivious to the setting will continue to experience the difficult-to-read issue (well, of those who share it anyways). Locke Cole 13:58, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

In the templates that locke and I created, we never put italics in in the first place. I would say that we should just make italics optional to end the debate, but I feel that italics should *not* be used with scenarios as described above. --Larsinio 17:04, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I like italics in templates and I don't see why we should remove them. If we keep them, Wikipedia will be more consistent, since italics will be used anywhere for titles. Mushroom 17:31, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

Im still confused. Whats the point of emphasizing a title when they are all titles?

Because navbox templates aren't always just lists of games. Take a look at {{Metal Gear series}}, which has a number of non-game entries, some of which even have the same name as games. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 22:34, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

What if they are all lists of games? ANd the point of a good matrix style template is to allow easy figuring out of what everything is referring to? If i have 5 titles in a template, and they all refer to a different thing (a soundtrack, a game, a name of a cereal brand, etc) italics wont help differentiate; cues from the template would. --Larsinio 22:38, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

That navbox is actually a perfect example. In the characters section, it uses italics to differentiate between lists of characters in particular games, and an article about the titular robot tank. Seems like as good a reason as any to be consistent in use of italics. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:02, 28 November 2005 (UTC)

I'm curious...since all the links are already underlined, and it has been previously stated that one should underline/italicize them, what's the reasoning for making them italic when they're already underlined? It looks to me like someone wants some extra emphasis, but seems emphasis was supposedly not the real reason for using italics? It's all rather confusing to me. — Striker 19:31, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

I would like to put my two cents in. I feel that for consistently, everything that MoS states that is to be in italics, should be in italics everywhere is appears on Wikipedia. So not just in regular text, but also in lists, tables, templates and anywhere else it appears. The same with short works. Every time they appear should be in double quotes. This is especially important when album titles and song titles appear together. Lets keep things simple and place the works in italics or double quotes every time and prevent another needless revert war over style. Cheers -- Ianblair23 (talk) 23:17, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Speeches

How about speeches? Such as Cicero's Pro Milone or "Pro Caelio" speeches. I'm leaning towards the double quotation marks as speeches tend to be relatively short in length. – Quoth 03:55, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

Capitalisation of Titles

What type of capitalisation is in use in Wikipedia for titles of movies and the like? This rule?

"Always capitalize the first and last word in a title. Capitalize all the other words except for a, an, the, and conjunctions and prepositions of four letters or fewer." (83.118.38.37 08:24, 28 January 2006 (UTC))

Americans capitalize the last word of a title, but speakers of the Queen's English do not capitalise it. The Oxford Manual of Style suggests capitalising "the first word and all nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs, but generally not articles, conjunctions and short prepositions." Some experts endorse leaving all prepositions uncapitalised. A software function written in the computer language, PHP, that capitalises a title or capitalizes a title can be found at the technical articles section of the Avalon Internet website.68.127.136.26 21:58, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no rule that I can find. I suppose I would use the same rules in the style manual that was used to format the citations. If the citations were formatted with citation templates, then there is no rule, because the citation templates are based on the whim of the last editor to change each of them.

I often use APA style. It has two rules, described on page 95, section 3.13.

Capitalize major words in titles of books and articles within the body of the paper. Conjunctions, articles, and short prepositions are not considered major words; however, capitalize all words of four letters or more. Capitalize all verps (including linking verbs), nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns....

Exception: In titles of books and articles in reference lists, capitalize only the first word, the first word after a colon or dash, and proper nouns. [emphasis added]

--Gerry Ashton (talk) 20:16, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Addition of ship class

Looking through MoS-T, I see that ship names are italicized, but there is nothing mentioned about a ship's class. In practice, it appears that a substantial fraction of ship articles have the class name italicized (example HMS Foo, a Bar-class rowboat). There are many examples in naval articles: [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]. Unless group consensus disagrees, I will add the following to MoS-T:

Italics

• Ship class

Examples

• USS Toledo (CA-133) was a Baltimore class cruiser, HMAS Australia (1911) was an Indefatigable class battlecruiser. Only the class name is italicized, not the ship type. This link will require a pipe character (a "|"), as italics tags will not work within a link
  
  • [[USS Toledo (CA-133)|USS ''Toledo'' (CA-133)]] was a [[Baltimore class cruiser|''Baltimore'' class cruiser]], [[HMAS Australia (1911)|HMAS ''Australia'' (1911)]] was an [[Indefatigable class battlecruiser|''Indefatigable'' class battlecruiser]]

Thoughts? Opinions? --Kralizec! | talk 22:46, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

That follows when the class is named after a specific ship but not when the class has a name that comes from the linking theme of the ship names eg Tribal class destroyer has no ships called HMS Tribal or the C class cruisers which is an overgrouping of many ships of the form HMS C..... GraemeLeggett 15:15, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

The use of "all about" in titles

I'd like to know if it's against the rules or just plain unnecessary to put in "all about" in titles regarding any particular subject in Wikipedia, unless it is a title of a work, book, etc. For example, for a general article on volcanoes = "all about volcanoes", or just "volcano", or whatever. I cannot find anything related to this title naming convention, so I'd like to hear any opinions or thoughts, please. NorthernFire 23:17, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Don't do it. It doesn't make things easier to find. And it's clearly not true. Rich Farmbrough, 15:10 10 September 2006 (GMT).

Festival names

Hi guys,

a very quick question :) Should festival names be written in Italics? This seems to be missing from the list. --Gennaro Prota 18:06, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Singles in quotation marks

I've added singles to the list of titles that should be placed in quotation marks. It was recently discussed at WikiProject Albums. I think it's perfectly reasonable and became a standard anyway. Jogers (talk) 22:35, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

There should also be a standard recommending if the quotation marks should be bolded when the title is first mentioned in the article. Personally I don't think so, since the quotationmarks are not part of the title. This should also be clarified on the Guide to layout. --Bensin 11:56, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

That’s covered at Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotation marks:

Similarly, when the title of an article requires quotation marks in the text (for example, the titles of songs, poems, etc.), the quotation marks should not be bolded in the summary, as they are not part of the title.

--Rob Kennedy 18:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

You are correct. Thanks for clarifying! --Bensin 20:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Websites and podcasts

I didn't see mention of websites in the article, although I've noticed that names of websites (Slashdot, Craigslist) are not italicized. Is that the consensus?

Also, should the title of a podcast series or (web) radio show be italicized? It seems analagous to a television series to me. Schi 19:46, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Certain websites are italicized, webcomis for instance, like Penny Arcade, because they're like other comics which are in italics as well. But I'm not sure if it applies to all websites, or whether any form of consensus already exists on this topic or not. Shinobu 11:30, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Tracklistings

I see that songs and singles have to be enclosed in quotation marks.

Does this apply to tracklistings as well? So should it read:

1. "Highland Lullaby"
2. "Sailing Up The Clyde"
3. "Auld Lang Syne"

Or can we do without the quotes in this situation and should it read:

1. Highland Lullaby
2. Sailing Up The Clyde
3. Auld Lang Syne

Shinobu 11:27, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:WikiProject_Albums#Track_listing, it does apply to track listings. They should always be in quotes.

Italics and exotic scripts

What do we do in cases where this MoS advises the use of italics, but the script of the title doesn't have italics (kanji for instance). Yes we can give them an artificial slant, but that's not really the best solution.

In most cases we would do away with this by translating or romanizing the title and put that in italics and put the original unitalicised between parentheses, but if that solution is not possible for some reason, what would we do? Shinobu 11:43, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

If one writes a word in a Japanese script, one should write it as the Japanese do. If they do not use a slanted character, neither should we. And I ask Shinobu what cases he has in mind which can not be dealt with by the solution he suggests? DGG 03:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

When not to use italics.

One frequent erroneous use is that biological names other than genus, species, and subspecies are not italicized. This refers to the higher categories: one writes Arthropoda, not Arthropoda It also applies to the authors of a species name:one writes Homo sapiens Linneaus, not Homo sapiens Linneaus I intend to add these example to the first section on the page, unless people prefer a separate non-italics subcategory.DGG 03:03, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Nesting of two things that are each meant to be italicized

When i read the ToC, looking for a discussion of this topic i read the following original section heading, and thru the looming headache i began to anticipate as i tried to imagine what it could mean, a voice said "Could that be just what you're looking for?"
--Jerzy•t 19:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Overlap of two things meant to be italicized

The third published book in The Chronicles of Narnia series is, without any formatting, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Because it is a book title, it should be The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Because "Dawn Treader" is the name of a ship, it gets double italics, or, in other words, is turned back to Roman text, thus reading: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. This last version, however, collides with the rest of the text of the sentence, making it impossible to distinguish the title of the book. For example:

C. S. Lewis' The Voyage of the Dawn Treader features returning characters Edmund, Lucy and Caspian, and introduces the Pevensies' cousin Eustace.

The current question on Talk:The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is whether to italicize Dawn Treader or not. The MOS technically says it should be in Roman, because of the double italics, but what do practical grammarians have to say on it?
--Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 18:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

I’d be content to italicize the whole thing. That is, for the purposes of styling the title of the book, ignore the fact that Dawn Treader is the name of a ship. The way it is right now, it looks weird, and I fear it will distract readers. I would definitely remove the second-paragraph note from the article’s introduction; readers don’t need to be hit over head with this stuff so early in the article. I assume — and hope — that readers come to learn about the book, not about how to style its title.
--Rob Kennedy 02:52, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Ah, true. We were thinking of moving the note to the bottom of the article, any thoughts on that too?
--Fbv65edel / ☑t / ☛c || 03:21, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

Link, please, to support "The MOS technically says it should be in Roman, because of the double italics...". A Google search within WP gives only this page and Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 43#Captions ("I was mainly pointing out that there isn't a problem with double-italics or somesuch. I don't know what the 'right' answer is, but I agree with..."). Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles), where it should certainly be at least lk'd from, shows no sign of it.
--Jerzy•t 19:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Italics-mandatory items within an italicized sentence

I have in mind specifically a common situation: a ToP Dab consists of indented, italic, text; if the lk is a title that should normally be (partly or wholly) in italics, e.g. Madonna (Madonna album) (no ToP Dab that i know of) or what brought me here from editing THX, and furnishes my examples below. I can see three approaches:

1. "It's already in italics, leave it that way." (The consensus arrived at, i think, in the special case above):

   This is about the sound-system standard promulgated by George Lucas's company; for his similarly named film, see THX 1138.
   

2. "Italics are for contrast; roman gives a contrast from italics just as italics normally give a contrast from roman.":

   This is about the sound-system standard promulgated by George Lucas's company; for his similarly named film, see THX 1138.
   

3. "Italics are for emphasis; emphasis within an emphatic sentence is achieved by strong emphasis.":

   This is about the sound-system standard promulgated by George Lucas's company; for his similarly named film, see THX 1138.
   

IMO:

#1 is better than #2 for the rare Dawn Treader case, but otherwise a poor choice.

#2 works pretty well in most common cases of applicability, and rings a faint bell as something i may have seen in used in scholarly works that used italicized sentences. (A brief on-line exploration suggests that Turabian is silent on this. Does someone know an important book title like Criticism of Moby Dick or The Authors of the Iliad?) But it's confusing when the inner italics fall at the start or end of the outer ones, if there is further regular text on that side -- for an extreme case, consider a hypothetical non-fic article on one hand and book on the other, on the collision of two ships:

The article "Stockholm vs. Andrea Doria" is short.

The book Stockholm vs. Andrea Doria is long.

(...unless you argue that the abbreviation of the foreign word "versus" requires italics. In that case, are your eyes good enough to recognize an italicized period? [wink])

#3 strikes me as geek logic (perhaps even without my exploitation of HTML terminology to explicate it), but i suspect it does a good job, and hey, despite excesses, we geeks can get things right. The only breakdown i can think of would be if someone came up with a real case calling for another level of nesting.

A separate question (that could lessen the applicability of whatever we arrive at) is whether the use of italics for ToP Dabs is the best option. What about putting a box, whose background only mildly contrasts with the white article page (perhaps precisely that of ToC and Cats boxes in articles), around the ToP-Dab text, instead of using italics?
--Jerzy•t 19:45, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

Italics in article title parentheses.

Should parenthetical disambiguators in titles be italicized, if appropriate? Currently none of the examples address this case. This is because it is rare, as parenthetical disambiguators almost always get piped away (and if they aren't, then it isn't likely that the editor will be observing MoS:T either). However, there is one notable case where they aren't: Disambiguation pages, and disambiguation hatnotes. In other words, should we have:

• The Force (Star Wars)
• The Seamstress (A Tale of Two Cities)
• Invasion (Magic: The Gathering)

Or:

• The Force (Star Wars)
• The Seamstress (A Tale of Two Cities)
• Invasion (Magic: The Gathering)

Personally, for the sake of sanity, I'd be against italicizing them. First, since these parenthetical notes are for Wikipedia-only anyway that are made up by editors, it can be argued that we can say that our versions are italics-free. Hey, they exist only to circumvent technical restrictions, so they're ours to play with. Number 2, this enables us to avoid a lot of weird edge cases. Hatnotes are typically italicized anyway, for instance, and would thus require a reversion to Roman type inside the parens, like at A Tale of Two Cities. That's possible there, but it's impossible on pages using {{this}}, {{otheruses3}}, {{otheruses4}} with three arguments... it would generally break any template that wants to just see the name of the page with no formatting. What about when the parenthetical note is only part of a long title, so it's not really the title at all (like with "Buffyverse" or "Harry Potter")? It's not clear, and could lead to some very silly debates.

Lastly, do we gain enough from such a practice? It certainly fulfills a certain dot-your-i's and cross-your-t's consistency, but I'm not sure it's worth the extra bit of mental effort, at least not with so much of Wikipedia requiring so much work. It strikes me as an issue that can perhaps be revisited in 2016, but for now, confirming the implicit style already used (no italics) would seem easier.

Normally I would not even bring this up (As it is a quite minor issue), but this issue came up with another editor, so I'd be curious to see what others think. SnowFire 07:46, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Don't italicize parentheses on dab pages. I have seen several dab pages where the parentheses are not italicized, and I have been asked by another editor (on my own talk page, and at Meaning) not to italicize them. Bry9000 (talk) 22:40, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Title numbering

Is there any possibility to have the numbering which appears in the TOC also on the title and subtitle lines?

I.e. TOC:

1. Test
1.1 SubTest
2. Result

And "body of the page:"

1. Test
this is the test text....
1.2 SubTest
.....
2. Result

This is the way I need to have it. I need pretty printouts out of Wiki. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.196.220.140 (talk • contribs)

Turn on the “Auto-number headings” setting in Special:Preferences (on the “Misc” tab). You need to have an account in order to have settings. See Wikipedia:Why create an account? --Rob Kennedy 21:49, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Italics in Wrestling pay-per-views

This has been going on and I need other peoples opinions on this. Should professional wrestling PPV's be in italics? I mean they are events and are like plays. The wrestlers dress up in their ring gear, and they know what is going to happen that night when they get in the ring and perform. They are handed a more or less detailed "scenario" and go out and improvise a match. The finishes are pre-determined. It's just really athletic theatre. It is also like a TV series, but its only held one month a year, but it is held every year. It just falls right on the line. So for example should the PPV be written like Unforgiven 2006 or Unforgiven 2006? --  Mikedk9109  (talk)  05:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Film vs TV

Most newspapers and books seem to follow the style of TV shows being in italics while film titles are italicized AND put in bold. Makes it very handy to recognize without following a link (if no other info is available in the article). RoyBatty42 02:27, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Most of them do that? I can’t say I’ve seen a single one. Ever. The only time I see bold used in body text is in gossip and society columns, where names of celebrities and party attendees are put in bold. --Rob Kennedy 02:39, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Italicise all named vehicles?

Hi I'm editing the Thunderbirds article and was wondering whether the names of the Thunderbird craft qualify for italicisation. Thunderbird 3 is a spaceship and so should be italicised according to the above discussion, while Thunderbird 4 is a submarine/ship so I guess that qualifies too. But the other craft are big aeroplanes rather than spaceships and TB5 is a space station so should they be italicised? Also, should named cars, such as FAB1 be written in italics? Would people be in favour of expanding the rule of italicising named ships to include all named vehicles? As it stands it's a bit of a grey area at the moment. Thanks. Bobfos 17:26, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

Is "Thunderbird 3" the vessel's actual name, or just a nickname/callsign? I was under the impression that italics applied only to official names given to commissioned vessels (and therefore any derived class, given the convention of naming a class after the first vessel). Air Force One, for example, does not appear to get capitalized, being only a callsign. Personally, I definitely wouldn't italicize FAB1, and would hesitate to italicize the others, as they don't appear to be ship names in the traditional sense. --Fru1tbat 21:07, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

I guess they are callsigns really so I guess they stay as they are. Thanks for your help.

Bobfos 01:34, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

Subtitles

I'm surprised that there's no section concerning this. I think it's pretty obvious that the general norm is to use colons for subtitles (as opposed to dashes), but I've been confused on what the policy is for titles with more than one subtitle. Generally, I think it should go colon for the first subtitle, and a dash for the second. One extreme case had three subtitles, and that really threw me for a loop, so I went back to a colon for the third subtitle. Its full title is:

Simple 2000 Series Vol. 74: Onna no Ko Senyō − The Ouji-sama to Romance: Ripple no Tamago [7]

Would you say that's the correct way to format all of the subtitles there? Also, I think it needs to be mentioned in the MOS that subtitles should never be formatted in non-standard ways. Japanese titles are really bad about adding tildes and such. For example:

Wind: A Breath of Heart is written as Wind -a breath of heart- or Wind ~a breath of heart~ in Japanese.

In short, we need guidelines for subtitles. Unless they already exist, but I couldn't find any.--SeizureDog 17:50, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

I came here because of the tilde thing as well. The dashes and titldes look really ugly and I don't think their use is accepted in English. I think we should use colons in most cases, although perhaps in a cornercase a comma or dash is more useful. Also, when I recently searched the web for a book called Erik, subtitle of het klein insectenboek most resulting pages list it as Erik of het klein insectenboek without separating interpunction, so maybe in some cases that is an option too. Anyway, do you think tildes are such a widespread problem that we need a section on it? If so, care to brainstorm about it? Shinobu (talk) 10:53, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Multi-episode serials on television

Hi. We're having some discussion at the Doctor Who WikiProject about the use of italics and quotation marks for Doctor Who stories. I know that the general standard for titles of television episodes is to put them in quotation marks. The problem is this: the original Doctor Who series (1963–1989) was made up of multi-episode serials. For the first several years of the programme, each episode had an individual name: so, you would speak of "World's End", episode one of The Dalek Invasion of Earth. Beginning with The Savages, the individual episodes were no longer given names, but were identified as "The Savages, Episode 1" and so forth. The new series of Doctor Who (2005–) abandoned the serial format altogether; although there are some two-part stories, each episode has its own name.

Before the debut of the new series, the standard used by the Doctor Who WikiProject was to put episode titles in quotation marks ("World's End"), but serials in italics (The Dalek Invasion of Earth). When the new series began, a decision was made to use italics for its episodes as well, because it was thought that it would be disconcerting to refer to Spearhead from Space and "Rose" in close proximity. (After some reflection, I think this was a mistake.) This decision was later extended to the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood (see here).

I think that we're going to start shifting the 21st-century episode titles to the standard format (quotation marks), but before we do it would be good to have a definitive ruling about the serials. Are we right to assume that as a longer-form work (most serials were 4 or 6 episodes long), it's better to use italics for the titles of serials like The Talons of Weng-Chiang or The Caves of Androzani? —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 22:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

I feel that serials are like music albums or books, in that they are complete items that should be italicized. This, regardless of their being a subset of a larger series. Book and film series sometimes have titles, and those, just like the individual book titles, are italicized, right?--Chris Griswold (☎☓) 10:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Was any consensus ever reached on this? I was about to bulk fix Gridlock (Doctor Who) but thought I would check here first - lucky I did. I think that italicising TV series names (like Doctor Who and Torchwood), italicising Serial titles (like Spearhead from Space) and quoting "Episode titles" (like "Rose" and "Gridlock") is the best combination. Keeps consistency with other TV show articles and episode articles - and people like me, who aren't interested in the older series (sorry purists!), aren't confused as to why the episodes are italicised where all other episodes are in quotes. -- Chuq (talk) 12:38, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Just an addendum - yes I have read the Doctor Who wikiproject talk pages - nothing definite either way. I also think carrying this format on to the Torchwood episodes is doubly "a mistake"! -- Chuq (talk) 13:01, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

It has now been agreed to use the standard formatting convention for episode titles - see Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Doctor Who#Italics vs. quotation_marks. -- Chuq (talk) 06:41, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Possessive title

When talking about a title possessively ("At its release, Jazz Jackrabbit's vibrant graphics and speedy gameplay..."), what are the italicization rules? Does the whole word (Jazz Jackrabbit's) or just the title (Jazz Jackrabbit's) get italicized? Note that the subject here is the game itself, not the character. Thanks, –Dvandersluis 21:21, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

It should be just the title that is italicized, not the 's. This is a pretty standard style guideline, in the Chicago Manual of Style, for example. —pfahlstrom 07:01, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Take care, though. The naive way of italicizing it will include the apostrophe, too. To keep the apostrophe in roman type, you would write ''Jazz Jackrabbit''<nowiki>'s</nowiki> to get this: Jazz Jackrabbit's. On my computer, that causes the final letter to butt into the apostrophe. That doesn’t happen in Dvandersluis’s second example, which uses the naive way. You can avoid the issue by using curly apostrophes. --Rob Kennedy 07:46, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your distinction is. From my experience, uneven apostrophes in the wikitext will output the extra ones (as per my original example). In any case, it appears that I've done it correctly, with the title italicized but the apostrophe-s not – I was pretty sure that was right, but wanted to double check. Thanks! —Daniel Vandersluis^(talk) 15:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Special characters/typography in titles of works of art (books, etc.)

A dispute has come up over this recently on Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (trademarks). Specifically, people are discussing the title of ×××HOLiC, but this could be expanded to many other titles such as Louise Plummer's book My Name Is Sus5an Smith, the 5 Is Silent[8]. My opinion is that the creator of an artistic work may write the title of their work in some artistic way that is essential to the integrity of the work as a whole, rather than just being a question of advertising or brand management, and Wikipedia should accommodate such cases. What do other people here think? —pfahlstrom 21:26, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

I suppose we're not the only people facing this. amazon, and all other websites on which people may search for book titles, have the same problem. Where it's simply a "misspelling" of easily typed characters (as in the "Sus5an" example) our title surely has to be accurate (and we have to add redirects for the proper spelling). Where the characters are not easily typed (as in ×××HOLiC -- I don't know where to get those little xs) I would substitute normal characters, I think. In any case, we offer hearty thanks to the publishers and authors for increasing the need for redirects in Wikipedia. Andrew Dalby 13:10, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I guess it boils down to one's definition of accurate. To me, even if the funky ×s are found not to be the official spelling (there is some doubt) and the real spelling is xxxHOLiC (there's more evidence for that), calling it XXXHolic instead to align with Wikipedia's style guide would be favoring style over accuracy. —pfahlstrom 06:58, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe that we should keep titles as however the creator/author/whatnot wrote them as. If they wrote it funny, who are we to change the creation they made? Kyaa the Catlord 13:01, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Users like ptk✰fgs are saying that the formal written English style of an encyclopedia does not allow for accurately representing creative orthography. I do not agree with ptk✰fgs's assertion. —pfahlstrom 16:55, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Formal? Wikipedia? :P Sinbad's dead, ya know. We should establish a guideline to novel/song/story titles in this guideline which states "Unless technically limited, always use the intended title of the author regardless of spelling, orthography, or special characters. The use of redirects to help users find the page is encouraged." Wikipedia is not paper, afterall. Kyaa the Catlord 01:07, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you. However, not enough people are currently paying attention to this talk page to bring about any sort of consensus, and I personally am not familiar enough with the arcane workings of the Wikipedia community to press the issue any further myself. —pfahlstrom 21:37, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia italicized?

When referring to Wikipedia in articles, should it be italicized? It's a website, and websites are not listed in the types of things to be italicized. -- Stbalbach 01:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks like you answered your own question. Names of Web sites don’t get italicized. --Rob Kennedy 08:16, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, this question has come up before, but it needs to be addressed on the project page. Web site titles ought to be italicized because they are stand-alone works like everything else on the italicized list. --Chris Griswold (☎☓) 03:35, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Fairy tales - italics, quotation marks, or nothing?

I have seen all three used in various articles over the past week or so, and nothing is listed here - I should think italics would apply, as most fairy tales are fairly long, but am I missing an already-established policy somewhere? PaladinWhite 06:24, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

I don’t see anything about fairy tales in my Chicago and AP style manuals. I’d put fairy tales in the same category as short stories. Some short stories are pretty long, too. The distinction has more to do with content than with length. --Rob Kennedy 17:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Titles of book series - italics, quotation marks, or nothing?

I'm back again! I may have missed it in my perusal, but I didn't see anything in the guidelines about how to treat the title of a book series. For instance, my current problem, Reckless, a novel in the It Girl series, the "It Girl" series, or just the It Girl series? PaladinWhite 01:00, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Over three weeks now, and no one has an opinion, substantiated or not, to offer? PaladinWhite 18:44, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

It’s not an issue that presents itself often, so I’m not surprised that there isn’t much discussion. Is there anything would make it inappropriate to apply the discussion at #Multi-episode serials on television here as well? --Rob Kennedy 19:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

During the course of my research and editing, I find that if any mention is made of it, the titles of book series are to be wrapped in quotation marks. The few exceptions I've read about say to use nothing at all, but the series used as examples are always non-fiction. So, in other words, "It Girl" is just fine, as is The Northon Anthology of World Masterpieces. --Doctordido (talk) 18:48, 15 April 2008 (UTC) Doctor Dido

My experience as a reader is that the names of book series generally are neither italicized nor put in quotation marks; they're just capitalized (which in many cases makes no real difference, as a good many series are named after people -- personal names are capitalized anyway). E.g., the Hardy Boys series, the Hercule Poirot novels (not a series, but I think the same principle applies). --Tkynerd (talk) 03:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Sixteenth Amendment

When the Sixteenth Amendment is referenced in articles, should it be italicized? I would consider it the title of a document, which generally is italicized but I haven't seen this in our articles. Thoughts? Morphh ^(talk) 22:36, 05 May 2007 (UTC)

You haven’t seen that style in Wikipedia, and you haven’t seen it anywhere else, either. The Sixteenth Amendment is not a document by itself. It’s an amendment to a document, and we don’t italicize the name of the whole document, anyway. Capitalization is sufficient for both of them. --Rob Kennedy 02:35, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

At Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles), constitutional and legal documents are clearly listed in the "Neither" section. -- Chuq (talk) 06:45, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks - I must have missed that. Morphh ^(talk) 12:58, 06 May 2007 (UTC)

Fictional characters

What about fictional characters? The rule for "Works of visual art" would work for characters in film and on television, but not for a character in a book. --Bensin 01:12, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Um, what about fictional characters? My guess is that you’re suggesting we should italicize their names, like we do the names of the works they appear in. If I’m right, can you provide examples of major publications where such a style is used? If I’m wrong, please don’t make us guess any more — come out and say what you’re proposing. --Rob Kennedy 18:28, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

It was neither my intention to be unclear nor to suggest anything. My question is: Should a fictional character's name be in italics, in quotation marks or neither? --Bensin 13:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know that names of characters recieve any special formatting, whether they're real or ficticious... This project page deals with the treatment of titles, e.g. of works, of ships, not of character names. PaladinWhite 15:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

True. I'll write them without italics and without quotation marks then. Thanks! --Bensin 08:49, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Use quote or italics?

Titles of scientific reports and studies; for example, Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base? Thank you. —User:Christopher Mann McKay^{user talk} 05:36, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I think that falls under the category of “articles, essays, and papers,” don’t you? --Rob Kennedy 06:03, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Roller coasters

I'm trying to start a large scale clean up on articles relating to roller coasters and was just wondering whether the names of roller coasters need italicising? It seems like they should do, but I'm unsure and could do with some more opinions. Seaserpent85 00:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree. I would argue yes, because they're a train of sorts, and they're usually one-of-a-kind. It's been several months since you posted this comment, and no one has disagreed; I say let's italicize them. Bry9000 (talk) 22:35, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Special treatment of titles

Would this Wikipage benefit from a section on general rules, like Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks)? By way of example, the page House of Leaves is about the novel House of Leaves. By the internal logic of the book, its more appropriate title is House of Leaves. Should it get a "first mention" with the color formatting, or should no attention be paid to it? In my book, titles should be alotted considerable more leeway than trademarks (thus saying yes, it should get blued in the first mention), but that is just my opinion as an editor. Either way, I think the topic of titles deserves some rules on text formatting, special characters, camelcase, &c., & I'm curious what other editors have to say on the subject. --mordicai. 19:57, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

While having taken a substantial side in the aforementioned discussion, my opinion is and remains that there is no reason to treat authors any differently from trademark holders. The internal logic of the book is overwhelmingly outweighed by the traditional logic of typography (ironic for a postmodern work, I know). My interpretation of the MOS and the NC as a whole is that in the case of non-standard typography, if a reasonable alternative rendering is possible then use that form. As an example, ideally iPod would not be so rendered. If we revert to the normal rules of typography, that would be Ipod, or with the internal capital, IPod. Both forms look awkward, and not necessarily recognizable as what it is intended to be, hence our article at iPod. To take the case at hand, House of Leaves - on the cover of the book, it appears as HOUSE OF LEAVES. We cannot include the small caps and the blue in the article title. The best alternative rendering is "House of Leaves". Would anyone be in any doubt as to which book the article is about? I wouldn't think so. 81.104.175.145 02:03, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Nice straw man! Ford MF 02:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I think taking the argument to the extreme of trying to match fonts is a big of an exaggeration, but it, as well as your comment on "iPod" make the good sense of saying that editors can follow guidelines intelligently, rather than being straight-jacketed by them, which gives wiggle room that makes policy change difficult, as many editors see no reason to do so when slack is already available. I do agree that your interpretation of the MOS is correct, which is why I am out to change it. I suppose the kernel of my argument is that titles of works of art (or authors) deserve greater leeway than brands. On the lower end, this includes things "e.e. cummings" & other capitalization oddities, & on the higher end it includes colors & symbols. --mordicai. 12:08, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

In my time here (which goes back further than my IP contribs would reveal), lots of people in various contexts have put to me the argument that "MOS is a guideline, it says not to be bound to it slavishly, so it doesn't apply here", which is IMO the wrong way to look at it, and in effect abusing the "wiggle room". If anything, the MOS applies everywhere and in all cases, and strictly. The "wiggle room" is in the notion that in some circumstances we should ignore all rules (i.e. exercise common sense), but this is not the same as defying all rules. A good example, since it is not specifically named anywhere: the rules on setting names still apply to eComStation, but the alternative renderings would be clumsy or unrecognizable. The rules suggest titles that are mostly unusable, so we ignore them. {{wrongtitle}} facilitates the exception in edge cases, but it is not a licence for users to pick their own title, saying that the MOS is not binding, and that we should be bound to that fact (seeing the irony there?). That sums up my argument. PS - I assume you mean E. E. Cummings, who himself insisted on capital "E. E."? ;-)

Which brings us to the core of your argument, which is that we should make a distinction between one class of article titles and another, e.g. trademarks and other titles. Why? 81.104.175.145 16:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, scratch out that E.E. Cummings example! Learn something new everyday. Anyhow, I had to run out before getting a chance to elaborate what I meant, so I'll do so here while replying to you. First, I very much agree that a lot of editors throw ignore all rules when what they really mean is "I want to get my way." That isn't what I mean; instead I mean more the opposite: that when reasonable editors feel free to come to a consensus & make special cases, oftentimes policy can be left behind that might need updating. Which is why I moved the discussion over here from House of Leaves.

I think that Wikipedia has, by dint of its technology, certain advantages in layout over a print encyclopedia. Wikilinks, for example, & an ease of display that would cost substantially more in print (pictures, etc). Why not use that to encode additional information? If we can say House of Leaves, why not? I think it adds to the article, rather than subtracts from it. Further, art is interwoven with medium (not to sound pretentious). The textual "tricks" of House of Leaves are part of the novel, an intricate part. Trademarks, on the other hand, could be argued as being pandering to advertising, & inherently POV. I don't know, I wouldn't have any problem with trademarks being colour/caps/symbology in the first mention either, but I'm not really interested in trademarks, so. An argument for another time. I suppose the crux of my argument is that it seems to me that titles hold valuable information, & to deny the use of that information seems like bad policy, especially when there isn't a detriment to the article. --mordicai. 22:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Cummings is a dicey example. He used both lower and upper case for most of his life (not "insisting" on upper case at all), but is generally acknowledged to have had a preference for the upper case. Sez so right there in the article. Ford MF 02:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Why not? Because it looks like a hyperlink, and thus it lies to the readers. Because the “If we can, we should” argument is a very slippery slope. Since I haven’t read the book, I’ll have to accept your assessment that the colorization and strike-outs are intricate to the book. But that doesn’t mean they should be illustrated within the body text of the article. It’s showing off the technology of the Web instead of talking about the book. To show what the book does, include a picture of a page of the book; don’t try to reproduce the page’s styles in the article itself. --Rob Kennedy 09:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with you about it looking like a hyperlink. They're both blue, sure, but qualitatively different. Chameleons and iguanas are both green reptiles, but I'm pretty sure most folks can tell one from the other. I also think it's a bit much to ascribe malevolent intent to colored text (it "lies"?). I agree with you that "if we can, we should" is a bogus argument. But "if we can, we should at least talk about it" is not. A lot of these font rules, good and bad, are in place because of (among other reasons) the need for easy, inexpensive physical reproduction in print journalism, which Wikipedia is NOT. There are other reasons as well, such as not wanting to become co-opted by a marketing strategy that tries to imbue an object/person/company with a certain distinctness. I think a more commonsense approach would work here. iPod was mentioned before, which is a good example of something where funky capitalization is justified by a kind of logic (resemblance to internet conventions), and it does not detract from newspapers or Wikipedia to represent it as such. Ford MF 02:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

And yeah, the blue is kind of integral to the book, not just a title-page affectation. Ford MF 02:47, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Which doesn't go any distance towards suggesting why we should consider the blue colouring to be part of the title. 81.104.175.145 03:28, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, in the book the textual tricks are a pretty major portion of the novel...pages with only one word on it, annotations that take up more than one page, typesetting that runs along the edges of the page concentrically, &c. If you picked it up & flipped through it, even, the typesetting would jump out at you. Scanning a page, regardless of this discussion, is probably a good idea anyhow; I think it would be illustrative to those who weren't familiar with the more pomo layout (man, there aren't a lot of ways to talk about postmodernism without sounding really pretentious).

I'm not sliding down the "If we can, we should" slope; I agree that open ended arguments such as the inclusionist "this article isn't hurting anyone, why delete it?" are inherently flawed. It isn't the end of the world...you can talk about these things without utilizing them, of course. & like I said, I think there is a world of difference between applying the books style's to the article & making the first appearance of the title (which, I would argue, is itself part of the work of art) conform to the artistic conventions of the work. --mordicai. 15:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

I can’t see special colorization of words as being anything other than distracting to readers. Especially when the color is blue — it looks like a hyperlink, but it isn’t. The House of Leaves article is particularly annoying because all over the place it refers to various formatting by using the formatting. So where it talks about struck-out passages, it strikes out the words in the article. If we want to show the readers that some of the words in the book are blue or otherwise specially formatted, then let’s scan a page of the book and include it as an image. We don’t have to hit the readers over the head with the point throughout the article, not even on first reference — the picture of the book cover is sufficient. --Rob Kennedy 18:35, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, Rob, I'm certainly not advocating that it appear in blue every time it appears in the article: that is certainly confusing, as you've said, & definitely not encyclopedic. As to your statement that a picture of the book cover is sufficient, I here disagree. Book covers are an element of graphic design, by & large. If I saw a book title where one of the words was in another colour I would assume it was just there to catch the eye, or at most for emphasis. In cases like House of Leaves, the actual title has the word in blue-- not just the cover design. --mordicai. 22:11, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

According to ... ? 81.104.175.145 01:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

The actual title is House of Leaves. Titles are words, not colors. The author and publisher have chosen to follow a graphical device throughout the book, but that doesn’t change what the title is. --Rob Kennedy 09:48, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

That is a pretty narrow view of what comprises a text, especially given the pomo context of the book. It seems to me that things like capitalization & formatting are sometimes used in artistic works for a greater purpose than just to lay out word through symbols. You can strip layers of meaning away from that if you choose to, but I think such a reductionist outlook fails to encompass certain cases, like this one here. The colors, the typesetting...these things have been used in fiction as diverse as Clarissa & The Neverending Story. Yes, the author & publisher chose to use that device throughout the book, & doesn't that tell you something about its validity to be considered? --mordicai. 15:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

You're arguing specifics. We don't do specifics, because of IAR. Bring it out to the general. 81.104.175.145 17:23, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Alright, how is this for general: I contend that all titles of artistic endevours are themselves part of that artistic endevour, & should be treated as such. Furthermore, when representing that title, the best route to do so is the most accurate route, including any apparent oddities & special typesetting. After the first mention of the title, the most print-friendly version should be used in the article (that is, without any special symbols, colours, or formatting, though perhaps with capitalization) so as to make the article as utilitarian as possible. As Wikipedia is not paper, we can grow beyond some of the citiation limitations of style guides developed for newsprint. Titles are deserving of special recognition, as art is: as a subjective subject, the best external approach is a objective approach. Whether or not this bleeds over to other topics, such as trademarks, is immaterial for this discussion. We CAN be accurate; what do we gain by choosing not to be? --mordicai. 17:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I contend that all titles of artistic endevours are themselves part of that artistic endevour, & should be treated as such. OK. Why? Also, what is the distinction between an "artistic endeavour" and those names that might come under the purview of WP:MOSTM as things stand? 81.104.175.145 22:22, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, that gets down to the point I brought up below in the subsection, which is that maybe WP:MOSTM being the closest thing to a guideline on this subject isn't the best way for it to be handled, insofar as (titles) & (trademarks) both have their own sub-heading in the MOS. & as I mentioned, I don't think comparing this situation to TM really advances the topic of titles, which is under advisement. If pressed I would probably say I think the TM policies should be changed, & that it is my opinion that they are there as artifacts from paper (more specifically, newspaper) style guides. That doesn't change the thrust of my arguments one way or another; comparison need not be forced in this case. --mordicai. 01:08, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Right, but you haven't answered the question. Why should we consider that "all titles of artistic endeavours are themselves part of that artistic endeavour"? 81.104.175.145 01:33, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines on special cases?

The one thing that I am noticing is that in this discussion we are being left to our own devices. The closest thing there is to a MOS on this issue is the Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks). It seems to me that this page needs information like the MOS:TM, even if only to cut & paste it or link to it. Any thoughts on that? --mordicai. 15:20, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

New pair of eyes

Okay, it seems to me that some people are inflating mordicai's argument to make it more easily defeatable? To my eyes, mordicai is just asking if there should be some reason to include typographical funkeries on first mention? Not that every instance of the title--in this one case--should be in blue.

Upon checking for Wiki-precedent, I'm not sure I entirely agree with mordicai that the titles should be uncritically rendered on first mention, but I do think there's very good reason (and precedent) to do so in the lead at the very least. Which, now that I'm looking, actually already seems supported by the current guidelines (trademarks seems to kind of cover it...). Using typographical tricks for repeated mention is inappropriate for general usage (despite exceptions such as E*TRADE), because otherwise articles risk looking like corporate press releases, but it is perfectly okay for inclusion in the lead (if maybe not as uncritical first mention), e.g. Prince and his symbol, or Guess?, &c., &c. It's Thirtysomething in the body of the article or if you're making reference to it elsewhere, but it's clearly and explicitly mentioned in the lead that the title of the show is thirtysomething. I see no reason why House of Leaves should be any different, and I'm kinda surprised the lead doesn't read that way already.

As with thirtysomething, I do think artistic titles maybe fall into a nether-region between commercial marketing of such brands as Yahoo! (the funky, false-alarm punctuation of which continues to be used in all Wiki references to things like Yahoo! Mail, not just in the lead), and in individual preference for personal names, which Wikipedia almost universally respects (cf. bell hooks and k.d. lang).

I guess maybe I don't think there necessarily needs to be an artistic titles amendment because it's already covered in Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks): "it is acceptable to use decorative characters the first time the [title] appears, but thereafter, an alternative that follows the standard rules of punctuation should be used". Replace "title" with "trademark" and I think we're already there. I don't know why it's even an issue on the House of Leaves article.

One might say that the bluing doesn't reflect "general usage" of the title, but that's because newspapers generally don't print colored characters, period. Then again, there are sources that might not print superscript characters in titles, but to render the Alfred Bester novel Golem¹⁰⁰ as Golem100 is plainly wrong. The bluing of "House" in House of Leaves is kind of a major part of the work, and maybe transcends the current "general usage", so perhaps there's a sub-amendment to be made there? That's all I would imagine is necessary, if that much even (because, like I said, the MOS already clearly supports the first-mention thing. Ford MF 03:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I just found this and I was going to say a lot of things, but it seems that there should be no problem with mentioning it in the lead. It wouldn't work as the uncritical first mention, though, because it's a completely meaningless characteristic without further explanation (perhaps too much detail for the lead, in fact). Plus, screen readers will fail to pick up the distinction; see Wikipedia:Accessibility#Color.

There used to be a {{no unicode character}} template in place, but that seems to be going overboard. –Unint 17:31, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, there's no such thing as "precedent" on Wikipedia. 81.104.175.145 04:45, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Mentioning that most Wikipedia policy is more of a guideline than a law is hardly helpful to the discussion. Wikipedia is about consensus, & precedent is an excellent indicator of that. --mordicai. 20:21, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

The book is an artistic work using certain techniques, which are beyond the scope of orthography and typography, and into design. The Wikipedia article about it is not the artistic work. The name is just the name. While E.E. Cummings' work and "iPod" may be on the debatable edge of what constitutes a name, this is beyond that.

And if you need any more evidence, although I have a good computer display and good colour vision, I tried to click on the word "House" to figure out what mordicai was first referring to in the first paragraph of this discussion, and I had to reread it two or three times before I realized that the question here was the blue colour treatment. I think colour falls into that fringe that you acknowledge for capitalization. There are policies made for unique characters & that ilk; I (personally) think there should be concessions for colour but more importantly I would like to continue the dialogue on the idea's merits. To which I say: welcome! --mordicai. 21:52, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Let's write about literary works in this encyclopedia, not become them. —Michael Z. 2007-08-16 20:34 Z

I whole heartedly agree with your sentiment, Mzajac, & would not advocate including non-standard colours or what have you in the body. The sentiment expressed by a few users regarding the blue colour looking like a hyperlink (which some analysts of the book think is the whole point, though that is neither here nor there) is really more a specific complain than general, & really, I am more interested in a title-&-colour policy (policy not as straight jacket, but as guideline) over all.

Art Exhibitions

I have added these to italicised titles.Tyrenius 06:30, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Works of visual art except sculptures

At the moment, works of visual art should be italicised, except sculptures because the latter are classed as "shorter works". It doesn't make sense to say a sculpture is a shorter work than a painting and I propose that titles of sculptures should also be italicised. It looks odd to switch between the two modes in an article on artist who does both. This solves an added confusion, as "sculpture" is the word earlier in the guideline, whereas "statue" is the word used later. In contemporary practice there are works that would be called sculptures, which are not statues. Tyrenius 13:18, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

In the absence of objection I have changed the guideline per above so titles of sculptures, as with paintings, are italicised not put in double quotes. Tyrenius 12:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Non-European characters

I want to bring to the attention that italicizing non-European characters often make them less legible. Italicizing Latin characters makes them resemble handwritten characters, while slanting Chinese characters do not serve the same purpose. --Voidvector 03:25, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

This is already covered in Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Foreign_terms.

Also keep in mind that in most cases, transliteration should be used instead of foreign characters, because it is more accessible on English-language Wikipedia, while conveying the same information. —Michael Z. 2007-08-13 18:54 Z

Named trains and locomotives

I propose to change "Named passenger trains" to "Named trains and locomotives" in the list of uses of italics. This would tie in with names of ships etc. This has generally been applied to most articles (eg Mallard), but I would like confirmation before tidying up other articles. Removing "passenger" would allow for named freight locos like Evening Star. I don't know if there are any named freight trains, but if there are (or were), these should be italicised as well. – Tivedshambo (talk) 07:22, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

As there are no objections I've made this change. – Tivedshambo (talk) 06:34, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Software titles

What possible rationale for not using italics on compute software titles is there? And especially when computer game software titles are italicized? It seems totally random, at odds with real world formatting practices, and just plane ridiculous. DreamGuy 15:42, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

Punctuation examples need revising

The examples given under the heading "Punctuation" in the article need revising as they don't address what you see most in Wiki articles. The Huckleberry Finn example doesn't work because you can't actually see the difference between the roman and italicised commas, or rather the difference is so small as to be trivial. A much better example is provided by titles requiring quotation marks, such as in the many articles mentioning TV episodes. For instance in the Boston Legal article under the heading "Meta references", there were many examples of this kind of thing:

• In "Gone," Denny, after shooting a homeless man in the face…

which would be fine if "Gone" was dialogue. However as a title it should be:

• In "Gone", Denny, after shooting a homeless man in the face…

I have changed the article to this style, and I suggest this example replace or supplement the Huckleberry Finn one. Rexparry sydney 07:03, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Question about quotation marks for articles about songs/singles

At the beginning of an article, should the quotation marks around a song title be in bold ("Song Title"), or just the song title itself, with the quotation marks not in bold ("Song Title"). I've been putting the quotation marks in bold, but I've seen it done the other way as well. Eco84 | Talk 03:33, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Fragrance

Should a name of a fragrance (e.g. Paris Hilton, Believe, Can Can) be italicized? // Jhn* 18:43, 20 October 2007 (UTC)
Or in quotation marks??? ;/ -- Jhn* 22:54, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm wondering...

How often should you use italics for titles? On every occurance?

Which is correct:

MechQuest, commonly abbreviated as "MQ," is the third online RPG franchise created by Artix Entertainment, and was released in Gamma Testing on October 1, 2007. It is a massive online single-player RPG, much like the previous two games released by the company, namely, AdventureQuest and DragonFable. However, MechQuest has abandoned the fantasy world of its precursors and places a firm foothold in the world of Sci-fi.

or

MechQuest, commonly abbreviated as "MQ," is the third online RPG franchise created by Artix Entertainment, and was released in Gamma Testing on October 1, 2007. It is a massive online single-player RPG, much like the previous two games released by the company, namely, AdventureQuest and DragonFable. However, MechQuest has abandoned the fantasy world of its precursors and places a firm foothold in the world of Sci-fi.

--Gawaxay (talk • contribs • count) 22:20, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Blogs

Are italics used for blog titles? Jarfingle (talk) 03:39, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

WP:SUBTITLES

FYI, I'm proposing a change to this guideline, regarding the style for long titles and subtitles of works at WP:SUBTITLES. See also WP:Village_pump_(policy)/Archive 16#WP:SUBTITLES. I would appreciate any comments that you might have. superluser_tc 2007 December 20, 09:52 (UTC)

Media Franchise

What is the rule regarding a franchise of media? The folks at Wikiproject Star Trek seem to have decided to not itallicise the name "Star Trek" when referring to the franchise, and only itallicise the series within it.

I'm asking specifically about the series Degrassi. This was one of the issues picked up on in the GA review for Degrassi: The Next Generation, where the word "Degrassi" was not itallicised, but the series in the franchise were. I understand that "Star Trek" for the franchise is not itallicised so as to not clash with the original Star Trek series, but then they also suggest using the Star Trek: The Original Series title for that series anyway. -- Matthew Edwards | talk | Contribs 02:26, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to formalise the relationship between MOS and its sub-pages

Dear fellow editors—The idea is to centralise debate and consensus-gathering when there are inconsistencies between the pages.

The most straightforward way is to have MOS-central prevail, and to involve expertise from sub-pages on the talk page there, rather than the fragmentary discourse—more usually the absence of discourse and the continuing inconsistency—that characterises WP's style guideline resources now. If consensus has it that MOS-central should bend to the wording of a sub-page, so be it. But until that occurs in each case that might occasionally arise, there needs to be certainty for WPians, especially in the Featured Article process, where nominators and reviewers are sometimes confused by a left- and right-hand that say different things.

Of course, no one owns MOS-central, and we're all just as important to its running as other editors. I ask for your support and feedback HERE. Tony (talk) 12:21, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Query about when italics are necessary

Sub-section I/A/α'/1/One

Recently, a question has come up as to whether italics are necessary when the title of a work is used as the disambiguating term in the title of an article. See here and here.

A convention has developed on disambiguation pages, that the title of a work should be italicized, which means that when the article title is ambiguous and includes a disambiguating phrase in parenthese, the link for that title is piped. The guideline as presented at WP:MOSDAB is

Use piping to format or quote a portion of an article whose name consists of both a title and a clarifier, or a genus or species and a clarifier; for instance Harvey (film), USS Adder (SS-3), "School" (song), or Saturnalia (dinosaur).

So far so good. But the recent disagreement involves article titles that are not themselves italicized, but which use the title of a work as the disambiguating term in parentheses. A few examples:

• On the disambiguation page Hush, is it appropriate to present the link to the Buffy episode named "Hush" as
  • [[Hush (Buffy episode)|"Hush" (''Buffy'' episode)]] producing
  • "Hush" (Buffy episode)?
• On the disambiguation page 0, is it appropriate to present the link to the Star Trek character named "0" as
  • [[0 (Star Trek)|0 (''Star Trek'')]], a character in the ''Star Trek'' universe producing
  • 0 (Star Trek), a character in the Star Trek universe
• On Burdock (disambiguation), is it appropriate to present the link to the Dragon Ball character named Burdock as
  • [[Burdock (Dragon Ball)|Burdock (''Dragon Ball'')]], a character in the ''Dragon Ball'' media producing
  • Burdock (Dragon Ball), a character in the Dragon Ball media?

My opinion is the disambiguating term should not be italicized in these cases. Setting aside for the moment the point that with the possible exception of Dragon Ball, the terms are not even proper titles of the relevant works (i.e., the proper title is Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the character "0" played no role in the original Star Trek series, but appeared in other works in the Star Trek universe). But even if the term in parentheses happened to use the title of a work, it would not be need to be italicized since it is not being used as the title in that context. It is merely being used as a disambiguating term. older ≠ wiser 03:20, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

My opinion is that the disambiguating term absolutely should be italicized in these cases. Whether it is a complete, technically correct title or not, and whether it is a disambiguating term or not, it is still functioning as a title and should be treated as such. It's my understanding that the terms would be italicized in the article titles if the MediaWiki software permitted it. The purpose of italics for titles is to make the reader's task simpler; your example with "Hush" would look like this:

"Hush" (Buffy episode)

which leads me to initially wonder what a buffy episode is, and what the word buffy means, before realizing that "Buffy" is supposed to be a title. --Tkynerd (talk) 04:14, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I definitely agree with Tkynerd. Why don't the dab guidelines mention this? Think it should be integrated. Thoughts? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 06:36, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Instead of viewing the word as "merely" being used as a disambiguating term, I view the word as being a title being used as a disambiguating term. If Star Trek weren't the title of a TV show and film series, then it wouldn't be a very good disambiguating phrase for 0 -- instead, it should be 0 (space opera character). So I'm for italicizing titles whether they appear in the base name or in the disambiguating phrase. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:44, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

However, in running text we do not italicize either Star Trek (when it does not refer to the original series) or Buffy. Why should we do so in parenthetical disambiguation?

To Tkynerd, even assuming that "Buffy" were a proper title and not just a shorthand, if a reader came across "Hush" (Buffy episode) and honestly could not parse that, I don't see that italicization would actually help. If a person knows what an "episode" is, there is little left to guess. If they don't know that, then italicization is not going to help. older ≠ wiser 12:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Dragon Ball is italicized in the running text in Burdock (Dragon Ball). Buffy is italicized in running text when it refers to the show as opposed to the character. Star Trek is also italicized when it refers to the TV show in running text. When it refers to a title in parenthetical disambiguation, why shouldn't we also do so? Since Star Trek universe appears to avoid the italicization in reference to the setting, perhaps the 0 (Star Trek) link should too, but otherwise I think the italics are right. -- JHunterJ (talk) 12:31, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

(replying to JHunterJ after ec)I noted Dragon Ball as being somewhat distinct from the others. I'm not sure I agree about Buffy or Star Trek. Of the two, Buffy is more fuzzy. The title of the series in which "Hush" is an episode is properly titled Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Under the guidance on this MOS page, Buffy should be italicized when used as an abbreviation for the series. However, "Buffy" also refers to the franchise, and it is less clear that the common or convenient name of the franchise needs to be italicized (although it seems to have become conventional to do so). Regarding use as a disambiguating phrase, it seems to confuse levels of precision -- there are a lot things in the Buffy franchise, many consisting of serialized episodes, so it is not entirely clear to me that the disambiguating phrase (Buffy episode) necessarily refers to the television series or that italicization helps understand that the "Buffy" in this case refers to the TV series.

As for Star Trek, that is the title of the original series. A quick glance through the Trek-related articles here shows that when the term is used to refer to the franchise, or in a general sense, it is not italicized. The character 0 (Star Trek) does not appear in the original series, so I don't see why the phrase should be italicized in the parenthetical phrase. older ≠ wiser 14:22, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Bkonrad, you miss the point. The point is not whether or not a reader can figure out what is meant; the point is that the reader should not have to spend any time figuring that out -- it should be made as evident as possible to ease the reader's task. That's the goal of good writing. --Tkynerd (talk) 14:15, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

And you seem to have missed my point -- that the italicization does not actually help the reader. older ≠ wiser 14:24, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

I agree that italicizing may not help the reader here. However, as a matter of style guidance, I still feel that title should be formatted correctly wherever they appear. (And an episode is of a TV series, not of a franchise.) -- JHunterJ (talk) 15:33, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, it might also be an episode in any number of other serialized features in the franchise. I'm still not convinced that italicization is necessarily "correct" style when used as part of a parenthetical disambiguation, especially when the title of the work being referenced does not quite correspond with the article being disambiguated. older ≠ wiser 15:41, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

In English, titles are italicized, period. That's always correct style. It applies equally to a portion of a title. The distinction you seem to be trying to make is that, to quote MOSDAB, Harvey (film) should be piped as Harvey (film), but Hush (Buffy episode) should not be rendered as Hush (Buffy episode) just because in this case, it's part of the clarifier that's a title (or part of a title) rather than the main part of the article title. I don't think that distinction is meaningful. --Tkynerd (talk) 15:52, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, italicization of titles in English is merely a stylistic convention and there's nothing intrinsic about the convention in the English language to warrant an end-of-discussion "period. For those who recall the pre-word processing era, the convention was that titles of works were underlined. But that is not really germane here. Yes, you captured the distinction I see more or less accurately. I disagree that the distinction is not meaningful, but I've been wrong about stylistic matters before, so that doesn't really mean much. I completely agree that titles of works should be italicized. I'm not sure I agree that titles or fragments thereof used to modify other entities are functioning as titles. older ≠ wiser 16:06, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

To clarify, titles used to modify other entities are functioning as titles. Compare: Andrew Wiggins, Ender's Game's protagonist, was blah blah blah. vs. Andrew Wiggins, Ender's Game's protagonist, was blah blah blah. Title used as modifier; should be italicized. Fragments of titles are also italicized, such as "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension! (also more simply referred to as Buckaroo Banzai)" (from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension). -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

In some cases yes. I'm not sure I see the need for such excessive formatting on disambiguation pages, especially when the supposed title is in one case not even the work in which the subject appears and in the other case is somewhat ambiguous.older ≠ wiser 01:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

"Correct" formatting of titles is not "excessive" formatting. I cede the "Star Trek universe" point, since I am not familiar with how fictional milieus should be formatted and its article opts not to italicize; Buffy is clearly a title, howerver, and Dragon Ball is italicized in its article. -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm still not entirely convinced it is actually "correct", strictly speaking. However, it is a matter of stylistic convention, which is arbitrary, so if there is consensus that the WP style should do it this way, then it is correct for WP. older ≠ wiser 01:32, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

No, you missed my point. The additional information provided by the italicization does, in fact, make it that little bit clearer to the reader that this is a title, thus reducing the amount of brainpower the reader has to expend parsing the text. If that's not helping the reader, I don't know what is. What you wrote is not "this doesn't help the reader," but "I think readers can figure this out without the italics" -- not the same thing at all. --Tkynerd (talk) 15:46, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't agree. The italicization supplies no additional information if the supposed title is itself ambiguous or if the reader is unfamiliar with the title. older ≠ wiser 16:10, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Even if you don't agree, can you explain what the disadvantage to having the italics is, since you have reverted two other editors on this point? Does formatting the title hinder the utility somehow? -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

The main disadvantage it that it introduces completely unnecessary (and unhelpful) complexity to the disambiguation pages. older ≠ wiser 01:00, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

How do italics add complexity for the reader? -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking more of the complexity of editing the pages, but IMO, the italics is extraneous information (a difference with minimal signification) that simply contributes to cognitive overload for pages that are intended to help readers find the article they were looking for as quickly as possible. older ≠ wiser 01:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! You made my point (or, at least, gave me a great example). When a reader is unfamiliar with a title, the italicization supplies extremely important information to that reader: It says, "This is a title." A reader who's unfamiliar with a particular title will be even more at sea without the italicization; with it, she at least has an idea what's going on. --Tkynerd (talk) 01:46, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

The informational value provided by the italics is minimal. It is mostly typographical eye candy, which, in the context of a disambiguation page, provides very little assistance to readers. You attempt to shift focus to a trivial bit of formatting, when the bulk of the information you see being provided by the italics is more readily understood with the brief descriptive phrase following the term. The way I see it, such unnecessary and mostly unhelpful formatting only introduces unnecessary complexity to a disambiguation page and is somewhat WP:CREEPy. older ≠ wiser 01:16, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

My attempt to shift focus to a trivial bit of formatting? You are the one who brought up this issue in the first place, and the issue is, in fact, that bit of formatting. So how am I attempting to "shift focus"? Your bare assertions that the italicization is not useful contradict centuries of consensus on English usage formed by writers better than you or I. --Tkynerd (talk) 12:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Well yes, you are attempting to justify the change in practice by focusing on the supposed benefits to the reader of an inconsequential bit of formatting. Italicization of titles is an arbitrary convention, that is, in fact, only a relatively recent phenomena. And the applicability of such formatting in parenthetical disambiguation terms is quite likely unique to Wikipedia. Why should we accept your bald assertions that the italics are helpful? older ≠ wiser 16:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not, as you asserted, attempting to shift focus at all. Again, you are the one who brought up this bit of formatting in the first place; I haven't shifted focus away from it at all. Why should we accept bald assertions that the italics are not helpful from someone who doesn't even know that phenomena is a plural form? --Tkynerd (talk) 18:29, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh, well of course I see, ad hominem criticism is an acceptable form of argument in you book. If that's the best you can do, then there's little point in listening to anything else you might say. older ≠ wiser 18:49, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

That's not really an ad hominem argument. It also was not meant as a dig. I am simply questioning your qualifications to make pronouncements of any kind in this area, as you are doing. --Tkynerd (talk) 00:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

That you see such petty nit-picking as being in any way meritorious makes the quality of your own judgemnt a dubious proposition. I mean seriously, you are proposing that my arguments unworthy of consideration merely because I was a little careless while typing a reply in an informal forum, . That certainly seems to be ad hominem. older ≠ wiser 00:44, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't think you know what ad hominem means, but anyway, I'd have to say you set that particular tone by accusing me of shifting the focus of the discussion when I did nothing of the kind. --Tkynerd (talk) 00:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

On the contrary. You are suggesting to that my arguments be disregarded because I was careless in typing a reply here (or as you suggest that I don't know that phenomena is a plural form). That is ad hominem. Your critique of my argument completely sidesteps the substance and points to a supposed defect in my character. It is not only ad hominem, but petty to boot. older ≠ wiser 02:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Questioning someone's qualifications to give an opinion about something is not ad hominem. An ad hominem argument brings in characteristics of the person that are not germane to the discussion. That's not what I did. What I did was neither ad hominem nor petty. --Tkynerd (talk) 12:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Precisely, you contradict yourself. Dismissing a person's argument on the basis of a petty (and yes it was petty) and commonplace error that is not in any way germane to the argument is indeed ad hominem. older ≠ wiser 13:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Sub-section II/B/β'/2/Two

The parenthetized dismabiguator should not appear in text, so the reader should never see it. For such purposes as dab pages, it is simple enough to say, "Hush (Buffy episode) from Buffy", if you are seriously worried about confusion. Linking should be easy and second nature; formating characters defeat this. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 21:50, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Formatting a piped link is easy for me. --clpo13_(talk) 21:57, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. If one editor would rather not muss with the formatting, no problem. There are other editors willing to clean it up. What we have here, however, is one editor reverting the clean up attempts by others. -- JHunterJ (talk) 22:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes,I reverted exactly twice and we are now discussing. Please don't imply that I am on some sort of renegade campaign. I may not agree here, but I will abide with whatever the outcome is. older ≠ wiser 01:01, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

You should have only reverted once before discussing. I implied no campaign, just pointed out (accurately) that you have reverted two other editors on this point. I'm still assuming good faith, and I also pointed out your experience with dabs -- I'm still a fan of yours, even if I think you're wrong here. :-). -- JHunterJ (talk) 11:15, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

No offense taken. I have great respect for your work and opinions. I reverted twice because I had never seen that sort of formatting before and it just seemed completely wrong for a disambiguation page. Also you didn't just say I "reverted two other editors on this point" (past tense, finite construct), but rather "reverting the clean up attempts by others" (present participle, implying it was ongoing, and without any obvious limiting factors). older ≠ wiser 01:30, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

(de-indent) I strongly oppose italicising the content of disambiguation parentheses in article titles, either in its entirety or partially. I believe that such formatting, while it is unlikely to help the readers to any extent, will place an additional burden upon the shoulders of editors, making the cost of its application simply unjustifiable.

First of all, I agree with the first half of Mr Anderson's message: parenthetical disambiguation is not meant to be seen, with the exception of a narrow range of circumstances. Such parentheses are not used in the definitions of the lead sentences of articles, they are not used in any other references to the subjects, and are hidden in the overwhelming majority of links, both in prose and in templates. They are a technical element which allows subjects with identical or similar titles occupy different pages, and their role is purely navigational (the Manual of Style—not counting the Naming conventions—has never really applied on them, because they are not text). Because of this function, such parentheses almost exclusively appear in article titles, disambiguation pages (where the integrity of the links of main entries should not be compromised), and "See also" sections (although not always there). They rarely ever appear in prose, and in half the occasions when they do this is usually bad style that needs to be corrected.

Furthermore, in the rare cases where parenthetical disambiguation terms do appear in running text, then italicising the contents of parentheses decreases the ease with which readers distinguish them from their surrounding text (especially in fast reading), and can create the false, even though usually temporary, impression that they belong to the prose rather than to the link. That, in my opinion, is an unacceptable distraction; these parentheses must be clearly seen for what they are: a technical element of links.

Finally, the practical concerns. Approving such a change in linking practices would indeed lead to greater complexity, as a whole new array of article titles previously in entirely roman type would now have to be pipe-linked. This would lead to more inconsistencies and increased maintenance requirements, not least because of the exact long-standing practice that Bkonrad proposes we should formalise. I also note that some types of disambiguation terms, as has been noted already, could be ambiguous as to their italicisation, leading to an inevitable need for more debate, more hard-to-shape conventions, and more guidelines to be written for what ought to be a very simple thing: how to create links, the very mortar that keeps Wikipedia together. These practical aspects of the matter at hand are, perhaps, the least important parameter in this discussion, which is why I have placed them last in my argument, but it is an element that ought to be seriously taken into consideration nonetheless. Although not amongst the immediate virtues or disadvantages of the proposed change, the fresh complexity that italicisation would bring should it be approved is certainly worthy of special examination.

I believe that my arguments, many of which have already been stated above, are valid enough on their own, and that their cumulative value is, if not sufficiently great to persuade one that italicisation is more trouble than it is worth (its projected benefits being too slim and questionable to make such a change profitable), at least demonstrate that the matter at hand has all the potential to develop into a highly controversial issue, which is unlikely to gain consensus on a long-term basis, even if it is approved by the majority of the honourable participants in this small discussion group. With regards, Waltham, The Duke of 00:42, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

You appear to have missed the fact that WP:MOSDAB specifically recommends that the parenthetical disambiguating terms be retained on disambiguation pages, because in many cases they supply all the information a reader needs to locate the correct term. The situation we are discussing here is, thus, one of the "narrow range of circumstances" in which these terms should be seen. Disambiguation pages are not articles and do not normally contain running text.

This is not a change in linking practices. English usage has long dictated that titles should be italicized. This is because it does, in fact, help readers: it makes clear the function of the title in a sentence (that it's actually a title). Wikipedia has been following this convention, including on disambiguation pages, including the parenthetical disambiguating terms, for a good while. So this is not a change. --Tkynerd (talk) 00:54, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

After edit conflict, but echoing Tkynerd's point: Of course, no one is demanding that all dab editors implement the proper formatting; there is a Disambiguation Project with editors who volunteer to go in after the fact and clean up the disambiguation pages. This complexity is not fresh at all -- many titles appear in disambiguation pages already, in the base name part of the title, which require pipelinks to format correctly per WP:MOSDAB#Piping. It has so far proved to be no great burden at all. -- JHunterJ (talk) 00:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

(edit conflict) - Well said, couldn't have put it better myself Tkynerd. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 00:59, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I have missed nothing of the sort. I shall quote my own message: Because of this function, such parentheses almost exclusively appear in article titles, disambiguation pages (where the integrity of the links of main entries should not be compromised), and "See also" sections (although not always there). (Emphasis mine, i.e. added in this edit.)

Continuing, and assuming that your focus is on disambiguation pages, I should like to insist that this is a change in linking practices, for the very simple reason that so far the contents of these parentheses have not been italicised, and you propose that they should be. In this context, English usage is irrelevant; when one thing is done and then another thing is done instead, this is called change (in modern English at least :-)). And, although you say that it has been practice "for a good while" to italicise the parenthetical disambiguating terms (to which I shall henceforth refer to as PDTs for brevity), I have not seen a single such example so far, and I routinely see and edit a lot of disambiguation pages, and have done so for a long time.

You also say that italicising titles makes clear the function of a title in a sentence. However, PDTs are not sentences, and that is the whole point: they are one-, two-, or three-word (rarely longer) components of article titles, and are of purely technical nature; their only purpose is to disambiguate, and we shouldn't be making them over-complex. Disambiguation pages more often than not give a sentence to each entry to explain the link; even if a person is not immediately familiar with a subject, the sentence will probably clear up the situation. Furthermore, by italicising the link we should be removing a visual aid to readers: knowing that PDTs are always roman, one can more easily visually separate the article's proper title from the PDT (especially if the proper title is italicised), which can make a link more readable. Having both parts of the link potentially italicised, such an aid is removed and it is more difficult for readers to spot either part of the link with one quick glance. Waltham, The Duke of 02:08, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

In support of a point Waltham makes, I've been working a fair amount with disambiguation pages for the past few years, and until I came across Burdock (disambiguation) recently, I had never before seen that sort of formatting applied to the PDT (per Waltham's coining). Of course, even with extensive experience in disambiguation, my lack of familiarity with it doesn't prove that it was not used previously. But I submit that it is a reasonable indicator that the practice is at least uncommon. I also largely agree with Waltham's reasoning as presented here. I might note (continuing a point raised by Tkynerd and others above) that italicizing titles of works in English is not a universal style convention. While reading the paper this morning, I noticed that the NYT does not italicize any titles. Instead they are presented in quotation marks. The point being, that how something is presented in various contexts is, to a large degree, a matter of arbitrary convention. The house style guide says to do it one way and not another. The presentation of links on disambiguation pages is a rather specialized topic, perhaps unique to Wikipedia, and certainly without much in the way of of precedents in other media on which to base our guidance. older ≠ wiser 12:36, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

The reason it appears (still) that you missed the point about disambiguation pages in your original comment is that you spent a considerable portion of that comment talking about how the parenthesized disambiguating terms are not supposed to be seen. They are, of course, supposed to be seen on disambiguation pages, which are the only subject of this discussion. So why go on and on about how they're not supposed to be seen in most contexts, of which this is not one? It's not germane to this discussion.

I can't believe you would trivialize this discussion (further; I didn't think that was possible!) by latching onto the word sentence in my comment. The italicization of a title does, of course, perform the same function in any English text of any length and form.

If we haven't been italicizing the title portions of disambiguation terms previously, then I stand corrected: This is a necessary change in linking practices to conform to proper English usage and to aid our readers, which is what we're here for. --Tkynerd (talk) 12:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I strongly oppose this useless complication: it is contrary to WP:NAME. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:10, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:NAME doesn't cover this. It only covers how articles are named, not how those names are presented on other pages. The only vaguely relevant thing I could find, by researching on from that page, is WP:MOSTITLE, which makes clear that titles are supposed to be italicized. It's my understanding that italics cannot be used in the titles of articles because of limitations in the MediaWiki software. --Tkynerd (talk) 18:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see; if you are proposing to mask Hush (Buffy episode), the actual name of the article, with "Hush (Buffy episode)", that does indeed avoid interfering with linking being "easy and second nature". However, that interferes with one of the most useful existing rules here: links on dab pages should not be masked, so that someone doing disambiguation can see what the title of the article actually is. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:39, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

What does "masked" mean? Piped? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:45, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes. It depends on whether you are focusing on the text or the link. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:47, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I see. So do you oppose dab links like Hush (Buffy episode) to be changed to "Hush" (Buffy episode)? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 18:53, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[[Hush (Buffy episode)|"Hush" (''Buffy'' episode)]] defeats one of the chief purposes of having this convention: easy dabbing. Yes, I oppose it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:57, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't make sense, to me. Why replace italics with quotation marks? Are you adhering to Bkonrad's logic? Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:08, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm not replacing anything with quotation marks. My only use of quotation marks was to distinguish my own exact text of a mask from my own prose. We should title the article Hush (Buffy episode) because of the reasons WP:NAME requires us to; and we should link to it as Hush (Buffy episode) because it's on a dab page. This is as simple as I can make it. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 19:19, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

Oh. WP:NAME doesn't quite specify how pages should be listed in dabs. In any event, I still prefer the other layout. Looks nicer, and more complete. Lord Sesshomaru (talk • edits) 19:27, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

WP:NAME, again, covers article naming; it does not cover how article names should be portrayed when they are linked to in running text. The sensible thing to do is to follow the normal rules of English usage, which require italicization of titles. --Tkynerd (talk) 00:01, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

You keep repeating that as if it were true. The matter of italicization of titles is purely a matter of convention. NYT does not italicize titles. Even the CMOS does not suggest that titles should always be italicized -- the circumstances in which italics apply is a matter for the house style guide. And in so far as the presentation of titles within parenthetical disambiguation terms is likely unique to Wikipedia, I don't see that we are under any obligation to slavishly follow simplistic interpretations of "the normal rules of English usage". older ≠ wiser 00:51, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

Yes, and the convention on Wikipedia, a convention documented in this manual of style, is to italicize certain titles and quote others. There may be no need to slavishly follow them on disambiguation pages, but there is even less need to revert edits that follow them. -- JHunterJ (talk) 01:00, 27 March 2008 (UTC)

The NYT, to use your example, uses a different method of indicating titles. (UIVMM, they put titles in quotation marks.) Significantly, they do not do what you are proposing for your own convenience, which is to not distinguish titles from other text at all. As for your argument that there's no need to follow the rules of English usage because Wikipedia is "special": Literate writing follows rules, and Wikipedia strives for good, literate writing. This is for the convenience of readers, not writers. The text should be oriented toward readers and their needs. I haven't yet seen any good arguments for deviating from WP:MOSTITLE for this one case. --Tkynerd (talk) 00:12, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

(reply to Tkynerd after ec) Simplistic adherence to one-size-fits-all rules, that are not and never were one-size-fits-all is just plain ignorant. My argument is not that we do not need to follow the rules of English usage, but rather that established English usage has only little applicability to disambiguation pages, as these are unique to Wikipedia. In almost every case, the actual title is presented in running text following the term. It is redundant and unnecessarily distracting to apply italics to the parenthetical term as well. There is simply no need to do so. older ≠ wiser 02:26, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

IOW, you're indeed arguing that we do not need to follow the rules of English usage on disambiguation pages; you just don't care to admit that. I'm still waiting to hear why we should not do so. It's worth noting that WP:MOSDAB points out that including the PDTs frequently obviates the need for further explanation of the term; "Hush" (Buffy episode) doesn't need any further explanatory text. To echo your question: Why should anyone accept your bare assertion that the italics are "redundant and unnecessary"? --Tkynerd (talk) 12:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

No, I'm suggesting that there are not any clear-cut rules of English that are applicable in this case. Re-read the preceding section for explanations of why we shouldn't. older ≠ wiser 13:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Sub-section III/C/γ'/3/Three

(de-indent; posted with two days' delay) Bkonrad's point (after my previous message) serves to show that italicising titles is not a universal convention in English, even though it is a popular one. We have our own Manual of Style, which applies to the various categories of articles and other pages. However, it does not extend to titles of articles any more than the Naming conventions stipulate.

Tkynerd, I might have spend a great part of my initial message tackling the issue of disambiguated links in text, but at least that got this area out of the way. It wasn't as obvious as you might think that disambiguation pages are the sole object of this discussion, and I'd like to believe that my comment has resulted in the conversation being a little more focused. And it's not like I did not mentioned disambiguation pages at all, so I could say that my initial message was the prelude of my second message. (I did not expect to have to analyse the way I build my arguments here, but I am not surprised by anything here.)

Which brings up another thing: you haven't commented on my second message yet (I am glad that you see this proposal for what it is—a proposed change—but that wasn't really the point). I believe that being able to immediately tell apart the two elements of a disambiguated title (the proper title and the PDT) is a very useful thing to readers, and at least as useful as being able to recognise a title as belonging to a work of fiction (which readers will often recognise at once anyway), as it is the PDT that tells them what the specific article is about (or, alternatively, which of the links in the list is the one they are looking for). The proper title part is the real-world title of the subject; the PDT is an addition made by Wikipedia editors, and it ought to stand out as such.

Just look at this from the perspective of the reader. The overwhelming majority of disambiguation page views occurs either when readers are redirected to the page from the search box or when they click on a relevant hatnote; relatively fewer readers find them through links (most of them in need of redirecting, or from "See also" sections in articles or other disambiguation pages). It is fair to assume that most people ending up in a disambiguation page are actually looking for something specific, and will therefore actively look for the link that will take them there—much fewer readers will not know where they want to go. To use one example popular in this page: one types "Hush", looking for the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode of that name, and ends up in the Hush disambiguation page. There, all the titles will be "Hush" or something similar. Therefore, where is the reader expected to look for the "Buffy" reference? In the PDTs! The reader will quickly skim over all the parentheses for a "Buffy" reference. But if in some cases the proper title is italicised, in others the PDT is, and in others both elements are, then the eye cannot go from parenthesis to parenthesis that quickly and easily, can it? (I am speaking generally here; the Hush page isn't necessarily like this.) Using italics in the PDTs confuse the distinction of the two elements in full disambiguated links, which is now quite clear. (For the record, some readers will not look at the parentheses but at the accompanying sentences; there, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer reference is already full and italicised.)

Ah, and yes, I do enjoy trivialising all discussions temporarily, in order to have a little fun, and I have found that I am very talented in it. :-D However, I mostly did it in order to provide myself with a stepping stone for my next argument; I wasn't really considering your use of sentence as a reason to disregard your arguments. (I have plenty of other reasons. :-p) I hope that you do not mind.

PS: I was displeased to see that the "Hush" disambiguation page has already been edited so that the "Buffy" in the PDT would be italicised; given that no decision has been taken on the matter yet, such actions should be avoided, at least for now. Of course, this edit may have happened well before the commencement of this discussion, but this piece of advice should be interpreted as one of general nature anyway. Waltham, The Duke of 02:17, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm well aware of how disambiguation pages are used.

Bkonrad's point (after my previous message) serves to show that italicising titles is not a universal convention in English, even though it is a popular one. We have our own Manual of Style, which applies to the various categories of articles and other pages. However, it does not extend to titles of articles any more than the Naming conventions stipulate. Wrong-headed on both counts. While italicization is not universal, using some kind of formatting to distinguish titles from other text is. And our MoS covers this on the page whose talk page we're currently discussing the issue on. It clearly states how Wikipedia treats titles. That only leaves room for arguments as to why this MoS page should not apply to disambiguation pages.

The reader will quickly skim over all the parentheses for a "Buffy" reference. But if in some cases the proper title is italicised, in others the PDT is, and in others both elements are, then the eye cannot go from parenthesis to parenthesis that quickly and easily, can it? (I am speaking generally here; the Hush page isn't necessarily like this.) Using italics in the PDTs confuse the distinction of the two elements in full disambiguated links, which is now quite clear. What? Where are you getting these ideas? I had no trouble, just a moment ago, using Hush to figure out what articles it disambiguates. And every entry on the page is correctly formatted right now. I don't believe for one second that any reader will be given any trouble by the correct formatting of the text on a disambiguation page according to WP:MOSTITLE. --Tkynerd (talk) 12:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Speculative and highly subjective reasoning. Your bare assertions have no more substance than other's. older ≠ wiser 13:20, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

I said I was speaking in general terms, Tkynerd; surely you couldn't expect yourself not to find a link in such a short disambiguation page? The bigger pages are the ones we should be paying attention to. The ones without accompanying explanatory sentences are also problematic in that the reader must rely on the parentheses exclusively. All I am saying is that the benefit you claim that the readers gain when titles are italicised even in PDTs (clarifiers) is at least counter-balanced by the loss of the clear distinction which currently exists between the first part of the full link (the true, proper title) and the second one (the technical term, the disambiguation parenthesis which appears nowhere else).

Your message's first sentence shows that I was accurate in my description of the function of disambiguation pages. Yet you seem not to be taking it into account when making your arguments. We must be trying to make reading easier in the course of navigation, therefore we must have an idea of how exactly readers are expected to use disambiguation pages. These are not proper pages; they are mere stations in the readers' journey to the articles they seek, which we all want to be as short as possible. Your suggestion is only really beneficial for those editors who are not seeking anything in particular, and this is, again, debatable (not to mention that there is no pressing time concern in these cases).

As far as italicisation for the sake of consistency is concerned, the Titles section of the Manual of Style does not really apply on disambiguation pages, because these are not articles. The guideline most pertinent to disambiguation pages is Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages); that is the guideline that allows the accompanying sentences to have italicised terms, and if you will look at the #Individual entries section, it clearly says the following:

The link should not be emphasized with bolding or italics, although titles (such as for books and movies) may need to be italicized, in conformance with Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles). If the article's title contains both a title and a clarifier, use a piped link to quote or italicize only the title (see below).

(Underlining mine; the "see below" only shows how piping is done, so is irrelevant to this discussion.)

You have twice stressed that we are discussing disambuguation pages and here is a relevant guideline on the matter. The guideline has existed since mid-February 2006, a mere two months after italicisation in general was introduced into the page, and does not appear to have been contested since. One cannot know to what extent italicising titles of works of fiction was or was not in the spirit of this guideline—which is why I have just invited the participants of the discussion establishing it to comment here—but until clarified, this is the guideline. Therefore, you are proposing a change of guideline and that requires much greater consensus than anything this discussion could achieve. Furthermore, your describing the italicisation of "Buffy" in Hush as "correct formatting" is most distasteful, and I should advise you to be more careful about the wording you use. This could be interpreted as provocative, and right now is inaccurate as well.

Finally, you still haven't addressed some of the concerns of my previous messages: the complexity introduced into the system by pipe-linking a whole new class of links, something undesirable, and, more importantly, the need to devise guidelines in order to deal with the lack of clarity often inherent in such clarifiers as to whether a title is a that of a work of fiction (normally italicised) or of a fictional universe (normally roman). Even worse, could implementing italicisation in such contexts lead to also introducing quotation marks inside the clarifiers in some cases? This prospect has just occurred to me, and it could complicate things even further. Waltham, The Duke of

At Waltham's invitation, I add my two cents: I prefer the informational and aesthetic value of italicizing titles in every instance, including within PDTs. Like every other MOS style guideline, an editor should never feel forced to format this way (matching up your apostrophes, quotes and parentheses can certainly be tedious), but neither should they revert others who choose to add this extra value. — Catherine\^talk 23:07, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

You shall pay for this, Ms Munro—you were supposed to agree with me. :-D Waltham, The Duke of 23:49, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Ah well, I'm prepared to concede that this disagreement rates as arguing about the color of the bikeshed in terms of importance to the overall project. Personally, I don't think I can ever bring myself to italicize terms within the parenthetical disambiguation term -- that still just seems completely wrong -- but I will refrain from undoing such italics when I come across it. older ≠ wiser 01:55, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Also at Waltham's invitation: I would italicise or use quotations correctly, regardless of whether they are in parentheses, so [[… (Buffy episode)]]

This raises a very good point, because I hadn't noticed this before and probably wasn't italicising them (without realising it). Like Catherine says, editors should not feel bound by the manual, but no-one should make changes specifically against it.

To clarify, the statement "if the article's title contains both a title and a clarifier, use a piped link to quote or italicize only the title" isn't intended to imply TV series names etc. shouldn't be italicised when they are in clarifiers. This was a situation that was unforeseen when the statement was written. It is intended to specify that, for example, Ratatouille (film) is to be avoided in favour of Ratatouille (film). Neonumbers (talk) 09:42, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, obviously, the point here is not to have all editors follow the MoS to the letter but whether we want to see such a change happen in Wikipedia, and thus have the MoS suggest it to those editors who do follow it to the letter. Personally, when a decision is taken regarding the Manual, I do not intentionally go against it in articles; if I have participated in the discussion, like in this case, I shall have to accept it, live with it—if not, I shall make my opinion known in the talk page.

No, the discussion here is not about the character of the Manual of Style (this is discussed in the main talk page). It is about whether we want titles in parenthetical clarifiers italicised or not. And I do believe that, legitimate as it may seem in terms of style, it will make both the links and their editing less clear than before. A decision going the opposite way will not cause me to smash any furniture in anger, or to let my hair grow long so that I can then pull them in despair, but I do not feel that it is a step in the right direction. Waltham, The Duke of 18:23, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

Although, as I continue to believe, this proposal's acceptance will have several drawbacks, I have come to agree that it makes links look better. Although it probably doesn't matter any more, since the proposal seems to have been supported by most participants in this conversation, I could now say that I am neutral instead of opposed. I have even gone so far as to incorporate this format in my editing of Ghost in the machine (disambiguation), a page which curiously combines most formatting combinations. Waltham, The Duke of 02:20, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Sub-section IV/D/δ'/4/Four

As to the "PS" disappointment note, The Duke of Waltham, note that it was so formatted the first time I cleaned it up, and that formatting was subsequently lost in the meantime. -- JHunterJ (talk) 10:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

You can call me Waltham, or Duke. And yes, I acknowledged this possibility in my postscript, although it is certainly better to know the full truth.

In the meanwhile, this discussion seems to have stalled... Waltham, The Duke of 04:38, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

Bkonrad, who started this discussion, wisely agreed not to revert edits that format material in parenthetical disambiguation terms according to the MoS. (I tried to word that as neutrally as I could. :)) Assuming everyone follows the same sensible course of action, there's no need for further discussion on the topic, in my view. If you are looking for a consensus that material in PDTs should not be formatted according to the MoS, you are unlikely to find it -- again, in my view. The discussion died for a reason. --Tkynerd (talk) 03:09, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I am quite perceptive in this sense, Tkynerd; I know perfectly well that I shall find no consensus supporting my view. But is there a consensus of any kind? Surely some action should be taken to address the vagueness of the style guidelines, the very thing which has generated this discussion in the first place? Or will have all this been futile? Waltham, The Duke of 05:33, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

The style guidelines aren't vague. They tell us unambiguously how to handle titles. The vagueness has been introduced by people, including you, who have the strange idea that PDTs should not be formatted according to the MoS. The rest of us tend to get frustrated because we don't see any reason to muddy the issue that way. If we simply follow the existing style guidelines regarding titles, there is no issue and no need for discussion. --Tkynerd (talk) 15:27, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

Nobody has inserted vagueness deliberately, Tkynerd. Actually, the letter of the guideline is perfectly clear: "If the article's title contains both a title and a clarifier, use a piped link to quote or italicize only the title". The spirit of this guideline was to allow for the italicisation of the titles without pointlessly italicising the PDTs (as we have discovered thanks to the input of two of the participants in the original discussion), and not to ban the italicising of titles in clarifiers, but this is not evident enough in the present form of the guideline. Which is what I referred to as vagueness—vagueness in the spirit of the guideline. If you think of it, I believe you will agree that I am right, because if you disagree that means that you believe the guideline either explicitly prohibited the italicising of elements in clarifiers/PDTs or explicitly allowed it.

Now, if you are referring to other guidelines (I believe you are referring to titles in this case), these may influence the spirit of the guideline, but the letter is clear: for disambiguation pages, disambiguation pages is the first port of call, and other guidelines are involved if the aforementioned page allows it. As a matter of fact, this whole discussion could as well be in the wrong bloody page; no change whatsoever will be made to the titles guideline. Waltham, The Duke of 18:21, 12 April 2008 (UTC)

I didn't say or imply that vagueness had been introduced deliberately, The Duke of Waltham. My point was simply that raising this issue, in itself, muddied the waters. If the "spirit" of the guideline is what you describe, then there is no reason not to make it part of the letter of the guideline -- there is absolutely no reason why it couldn't be spelled out explicitly. Your suggestion that WP:MOSDAB is some kind of gatekeeper or filter through which any guideline from anywhere else must pass before being applied is new to me, and doesn't make sense. Your suggestion that this page is the wrong place for discussion of this issue is well taken. --Tkynerd (talk) 03:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Raising the issue has only muddied the waters because there is an aspect of links that was not mentioned in an otherwise clear-cut guideline. It is a necessary evil of the transitional process between two different consensuses. Now that it has been proven that such a modification is in the spirit of the original guideline and has a certain degree of support here, it follows that it should proceed. In any case, what I say about the applicability of the MoS naturally only concerns disambiguation pages, and nothing else. I hope you have not expanded the scope of my comment too much; guidelines and policies apply everywhere equally (with a few special exceptions). However, the Manual of Style mostly concerns articles; disambiguation pages, like redirects, lists, and categories, are a different type of page, and different rules apply there. It is not an article, and it does not contain prose; it is a subset of its own, and it requires specialised guidelines. Saying the opposite is like claiming that the Rules of the Road apply on trains—all that train-drivers need to know is that they have priority over cars. There is minimal intersection here. Waltham, The Duke of 04:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

The fact that this "aspect of links" wasn't mentioned in the guideline is itself a fairly clear sign that it was not considered worth mentioning -- i.e., that it did not rate a separate mention because it did not require separate treatment. It was probably obvious to those who worked on the titles guideline that this treatment of titles would be appropriate everywhere, and it was probably obvious to those who worked on WP:MOSDAB that a PDT in an article title should be treated the same way as the rest of the article title. As for these two guidelines, I don't think the overlap is nearly as "minimal" as you think it is, but again, that's my view. --Tkynerd (talk) 14:37, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not believe that it is for you or me to decide what was obvious to the people writing the guideline and what was not. This is exactly why I asked them about it. And, if you will see the replies, it was an unforseen aspect of links. They had not thought about it. It was not obvious in the least. Quite the contrary.

And I do believe that overlap is minimal. Think of it: there are specialised naming conventions, specialised layout guidelines, restrictions on linking and formatting, an almost universal absence of images, a complete absence of references and quotations, and a minimal usage of templates and categories. From what I see, the only overlap is a small part of basic Manual of Style. And no, links are not included.

Disambiguation pages are quite strictly regulated. And they can be, simply because there is so little to regulate. A good disambiguation page is spartan, Tkynerd—strictly utilitarian. Waltham, The Duke of 06:14, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm not trying to read anybody's mind, as you imply, The Duke of Waltham. I'm simply drawing reasonable conclusions from what is there, The Duke of Waltham. We can, The Duke of Waltham, agree to disagree about the overlap. But the fact that disambiguation pages should be "strictly utilitarian" doesn't mean they should be as unformatted as possible, which seems to be what you want, The Duke of Waltham. It obviously implies that they should be useful, and proper formatting makes them more so, The Duke of Waltham.

(Do you see how constantly using someone's name the way you do comes across as condescending? It sucks; stop doing it.) --Tkynerd (talk) 23:49, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I am not saying that the pages should be unformatted; I am only saying that, although the formatting guidelines of Manual of Style (titles) apply on proper text in disambiguation pages, they do not apply on links, because there are specific guidelines on links in disamb. pages, which naturally take precedence as more specialised. I do not disagree that the pages should be useful, and I do not wish them to be as unformatted as possible. I think I was quite clear on this, but I might be mistaken.

(Point taken; you could just mention it. I hadn't realised that it could be seen negatively, and I didn't mind you doing it a couple of times—I cared more about the use of The, which looked strange in this context.) Waltham, The Duke of 00:09, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

(reset indent) Before it was recently edited based on this discussion, WP:PIPING said nothing about the specific point you raised, which is itself good reason to infer that no special treatment of PDTs was thought necessary -- otherwise, it would have been spelled out. At best (from your point of view), the guideline was neutral. Either way, it did not support your stance on this issue; if a deviation from the otherwise applicable MoS guideline was intended, it would, or at least should, have been spelled out.

(I probably shouldn't have let the irritation build up to the point where imitating it, and overdoing it, was the best way to make my point. But it was. Anyway, thanks.) --Tkynerd (talk) 03:20, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I have long admitted that my view-point was not in line with how the people writing the guideline saw this matter. The specific point of italicised elements in PDTs was completely over-looked, however, so the guideline could be said to be neutral in spirit. What I say is that, unfortunately (for us trying to understand what each other says), this was not reflected in the letter of the guideline; its prior phrasing made it sound clear that PDTs were to be roman at all events. It is with this attitude that I saw your preference as a change while I saw mine as retaining the status quo.

Have we finally reached a meeting point between our views of this issue? This discussion has started tiring me, and I believe for good reason.

By the way, since—as I see now—the change to the guideline has been made (it looks pretty good, actually), a note should be left at User talk:Tony1/Monthly updates of styleguide and policy changes. It is the new, centralised venue where changes made to the Manual of Style are lodged. Waltham, The Duke of 03:47, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say yes. Would you be good enough to leave a note on that page about the change, or should the person who made the change do it? (That wasn't me.) I'm glad to hear you are comfortable with the new version of the guideline. --Tkynerd (talk) 17:59, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

You have some nerve... I am not cleaning up after a change I did not support, even if I have come to accept it now—it is a matter of principle. (sigh) I'll notify Kingdon, the editor responsible for the change; one should assume responsibility for one's own edits. Waltham, The Duke of 19:03, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not "nerve"; it was just a question. Kingdon, like me, probably didn't even know about that procedure. There's no need to get your knickers in a big twist. Geez. --Tkynerd (talk) 23:49, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It is not a matter of procedure; it is a matter of asking me to register a change I have extensively argued against. It was most insensitive of you, and could be seen under a far worse light by someone less willing than I am to attribute it to a lapse of politeness. Waltham, The Duke of 00:12, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Hypersensitive much? It was a simple question and deserved a simple answer, not more drama. --Tkynerd (talk) 12:20, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

I am not hyper-sensitive, but there are some things I will not accept. In any case, I have made my point. Let us forget about this now and get on with our lives; this debate has lasted long enough. I am officially removing this page from my watchlist. Waltham, The Duke of 23:50, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Awards

Should awards by italicized or put in quotation marks? It looks funny when you have:

Council of Fashion Designers of America Accessory Designer of the Year Award

Academy Award Best Supporting Actor

Samples:

Council of Fashion Designers of America Accessory Designer of the Year Award

Council of Fashion Designers of America "Accessory Designer of the Year Award"

Council of Fashion Designers of America: Accessory Designer of the Year Award

Something is needed to break it up.

~ WikiDon (talk) 10:33, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't believe prizes should be in italics (having checked out some usages in the wider world). The problem lies in the original terminology being so long-winded. How about a colon:

Academy Award: Best Supporting Actor

Council of Fashion Designers of America: Accessory Designer of the Year Award

Or else

Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor

Council of Fashion Designers of America's Accessory Designer of the Year Award

Ty 15:04, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Fountains

I propose to add fountains to the list of artworks with italicised titles per Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Visual_arts#Italics_for_fountains.3F. Ty 15:05, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I'd still like to see someone give an example of a book or journal article that renders fountain names in italics. Each element of the MOS should have some precedent in the off-wiki world. Zagalejo^^^ 19:31, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Games other than computer and video games

There is inconsistency in titles of games that are not computer games nor video games. Some are italicised and some not. Currently the MOS says italics for "computer and video games"; neither italics nor quotation marks for "traditional games", eg, hopscotch. We have backgammon, chess, English draughts, Go, Scrabble etc. But then we have Monopoly, Risk, Trivial Pursuit etc. It seems to me that none of them should be italicised. I see no indication at Italic type#Usage that they should be italicised. If I'm right, "Traditional games" at Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style_(titles)#Neither would be better as "Games other than computer and video games". Nurg (talk) 02:44, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

Titles of double singles

For the titles of double singles (shouldn't these be called doubles? :-) ), what do you think looks better? This:

"First Title / Second Title"

Or this:

"First Title" / "Second Title"

Comments? Shinobu (talk) 15:06, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, I think they should be separated. -DePiep (talk) 11:44, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Title of speech

Should the title of a speech be treated likewise (say, as a booktitle), so included in the list? -DePiep (talk) 11:45, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Italicizing film titles

I'd assume this includes TV-movies, as representative titles are ital at Television film, and since the vast majority of sources in and out of Wikipedia italicizes, for example, Brian's Song, The Day After, The Trial of the Incredible Hulk, etc. Since the project page only gives Films on the list of what to ital, there seems to be some contention over the point. Could we get a consensus? -- 207.237.223.118 (talk) 01:30, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Newspaper Column

What about newspaper columns? A weekly column, is that more like a book, or an "article", or ?

> Best O Fortuna (talk) 10:52, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Counter words

Suppose there is a multi-part work, divided into volumes, where the only way to differentiate between volumes is by the volume number. Should the title then include the counter word "volume" and the number (for example, "Work, Volume 1") or not ("Work, volume 1")? I do not believe counter words are part of titles, but I see it often italicized as if it were in the set of articles I work on. —tan³ tx 02:43, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Short films redux

No one seems to have responded to User:Ajshm's 15 June 2005 statement above, under "Short films", nor have I seen any relevant discussion in WP:MOS's talk pages at least back to July 2007 (Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 90), so I'll chime in here. It's been my impression that we treat short films exactly as we treat all other short works (songs, short poems, chapters, short stories, and TV episodes), putting double quotation marks around them. This would seem to be supported by many WP:MOS pages (versions as of about 22:20 UTC):

• WP:MOS#Italics: "Titles": "Italics are used for the titles of works of literature and art, such as books, paintings, and musical albums. The titles of articles, chapters, songs, and other short works are not italicized, but are enclosed in double quotation marks."
• MOS:TITLE#Quotation marks: "Italics are generally used for titles of longer works. Titles of shorter works (particularly those that exist as a smaller part of a larger work) … should be enclosed in double quotation marks"
• MOS:TEXT#Italic face: "Main uses": "Italics are generally used for titles of longer works. Enclose titles of shorter works in double quotation marks, such as the following: articles, essays or papers; chapters of a longer work; episodes of a television series; short poems; short stories; songs and singles"

But I noticed that not one of these pages ever actually said anything about "short films", or "shorts", even though it is common (although not universal) publishing practice to treat these just like other short-work titles. This project page (MOS:TITLE), in fact, only mentioned "films" under "Italics", although it includes "Do's and Don'ts of Dating" (a short film) under "Examples" for quoted titles.

I'm not usually so foolish as to make a significant change to an MOS page without advance discussion and consensus-building, but this seems to me to be a simple oversight. I am therefore making the changes to the three MOS pages above (including this one) to explicitly distinguish between "feature-length films" and "short films". I'm sure I'll hear about it if the community disagrees. ☺ ~ Jeff Q (talk) 22:42, 4 April 2009 (UTC)