User talk:Tony1/Monthly updates of styleguide and policy changes

Please post notifications (with diffs) of substantive changes to styleguides and policy pages on the talk page. Updates will be posted at the talk pages of MOS, (main page), FAC and FAR shortly after the start of each calendar month. Copy-editing and relatively trivial changes are generally not suitable for the update summary.

March 2008: anything missed?

Nothing, I hope.

But the first change reported for February (numbers spelled as words) seems to have been reverted somewhere in the meantime, so I guess it could be removed.--Kotniski (talk) 17:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

April 2008

Post a brief description of the change and the diff here please.

• MOS main page: Substantive re-construction of long-standing decade-related advice at WP:MOSNUM, plus additional rationale and explanation. Short version: Use "1960s" not " '60s" to refer to the time span, and only use " '60s" to refer to the cultural era/phenomenon when directly relevant to the sentence it is used in. Diff (ignore first change, page-down). — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:26, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages) Clarified wording regarding piping in order to add italics or quotation marks. Diff • Talk page discussion. Kingdon (talk) 03:40, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

General remark

Great idea! I think these pages ought to be moved out of user space into Wikipedia: space, and publicized widely.--Kotniski (talk) 16:59, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I think (?) the idea is that Tony works on them in his userspace, and they are published either monthly or quarterly in the Dispatch. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:06, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

I see that, but since it's such a potentially useful idea, and we want to encourage people to leave notifications here, not just leave all the work to Tony, I think the page would gain in perceived status if it were a WP: page.--Kotniski (talk) 17:15, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

Let's see how it works out for a few months, then think of moving it to WP space, don't you think? Better to smooth out the process first. Tony (talk) 04:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

OK. Another thing that would be very useful - I don't know if it could be done in parallel with this - would be a place to notify the community of policy-type discussions which are ongoing, to give everyone a chance to have some input before decisions are reached. I know there are pages which claim to serve this purpose, but I don't know how widely watched they are. Ideally pages like this need to be so well-known that "everyone" has them on their watchlist. (I guess the village pumps, for example, are not very widely watched, since discussions actually take place there, and hence they generate lots of traffic which people probably don't want on their watchlists.)--Kotniski (talk) 18:10, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

That's what Village pump policy is; it wouldn't make a lot of sense to create another page to do the same thing just because some people don't watch that page. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Well no, VPP is a place where discussions happen, therefore it gets a lot of edits and (I'm guessing) many people are discouraged from keeping it on their watchlist due to the high traffic. What I'm suggesting is a page where discussions are merely announced, or advertised, so hopefully there would only be one watchlist entry per discussion instead of dozens.--Kotniski (talk) 18:41, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd say both were true, and maybe a seperate place is a good idea; why not bring it up on the Village Pump? SamBC(talk) 18:49, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

• In principle, it's a good idea. But the problem is that someone will have to make a call as to whether an issue is important enough to flag here. Otherwise, it would be swamped. I agree that the VP is not performing this function: why? Because people don't watchlist it to avoid being swampted by notices! Me included. And notices are soon outmoded there anyway. Tony (talk) 01:52, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion

Is it worth putting each month's summary in a subpage and transcluding them? Then they could be transcluded elsewhere as well, including in newsletters etc. SamBC(talk) 18:25, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Good idea. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 18:39, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Does that mean they wouldn't be readable in a unitary list as now? How would this be done? Tony (talk) 01:53, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

You'd create a subpage for each month, like User:Tony1/Monthly updates of styleguide and policy changes/April 2008, which would contain either the raw list, or the list with a level-2 heading (==April 2008==). You would then make the main page (User:Tony1/Monthly updates of styleguide and policy changes) transclude them, which I think would be written as {{/April 2008}}, possibly with section headings between them, and you'd get a list just like the current one. If the section headings were in the subpages, then the [edit] links would even work to edit the relevant bit. The beauty is that the pages could be transcluded elsewhere as well, individually. A bit of template magic, you could even make it optional at transclusion-time whether to include a heading. Anyone wanting to one-time copy it could use subst:. SamBC(talk) 09:25, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good, Sam. But let's allow it to mature a little (it's only a few days old). It may be good to transfer the whole thing to Wiki-space and organise the transclusion at the same time. Perhaps after a few months? I'm keen to see if we can garner some reportage from out there, and otherwise to identify the pages that are most likely to require our coverage in any event. Tony (talk) 11:38, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Tony, Sam's suggestion would be helpful even now, I think. For example, WP:FAC is a page full of transcluded FACs; that's how it works. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, Sam and Sandy, let's do it. And should my user name be removed at this stage or later? I don't mind, as long as I don't have to fight people to establish and maintain the kind of procedure and product you now see. Tony (talk) 17:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

No, please keep your name; I'm terrified that if you don't write these pages, they will be overcome by the same, horrid verbosity and unintelligible prose that dominates the MoS talk pages. Do you need one of us to set up the transclusions or are you going to do it? In fact ... now I'm having second thoughts ... if these are split up to transcluded pages, will it be too much for you to watch, and will it create an additional burden on you? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking that moving to the project namespace was the best thing to be done in order to make this page more official, but Sandy has raised a valid point. The move could be effected any time, and right now this page needs to mature and establish itself under close monitoring. Yes, I now think it should stay here. Waltham, The Duke of 17:09, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Whew :-) Of critical importance is that we have one succinct, well written, coherent page that summarizes the utter chaos and mess that reigns at WT:MOS. Whatever it takes to keep this page readable is what we should do. I'm afraid if it goes to the project namespace, it will become as chaotic and unintelligible as MoS talk, because the same editors will gum up the writing. I just want a place to be able to keep up with important MoS changes ... after all, this polygamy is time-consuming :-) SandyGeorgia (Talk) 17:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, yeah, that's what your husband said last night. >;-) Seriously, I agree with Sandy & Tony that a) this is useful, and b) having it in userspace is not a problem, so long as we trust Tony to do a good job, which I for one do. — SMcCandlish [talk] [cont] ‹(-¿-)› 07:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, if it hasn't been done by then, I'll set up the subpages and transclusions on my lunch hour; I'm on UTC+1 right now. SamBC(talk) 09:25, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

So you've all decided to keep it in the namespace for a while, and arrange for its transclusion forthwith? Sounds OK to me, but I'm unsure what will result in technical terms. Relying on your judgement. Tony (talk) 11:17, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've done the transclusion; my template-fu isn't too great, and I can already see how it could have been done better; I'll fix a couple of things, but ideally the title code would be in a seperate template somewhere (maybe one already exists, I don't know). Anyway, it works. SamBC(talk) 12:08, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, Sam! Now if I only understood what it meant, technodummy that I am. Looks the same to me. Tony (talk) 13:28, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

That's kinda the point; that page looks the same, but the individual summaries can be transcluded elsewhere, like in despatches or on the village pump, or whatever. I'll later put better instructions for adding a new month somewhere, probably using a subst-able template. SamBC(talk) 13:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

April 2008 back-issues

Comments, feedback, omissions, mistakes. Please let me know here.

I tweaked a word in WP:WIAFPo and changed it in your subpage as well - would have posted here first, but it was incredibly trivial. Maralia (talk) 16:29, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

This edit to WP:MOSNUM was made after some discussion. The use of exponents with non-SI unit symbols is now permitted. (The use of sq km or cu cm is still not allowed.) Caerwine Caer’s whines 22:05, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

May 2008 notifications

Please add below. Tony (talk) 16:03, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

Tony, I do have one minor comment, which is that in SI-speak, kgs does not mean kilogram-second (that would be kg·s or kg s). Thunderbird2 (talk) 10:29, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

I realise that's not really a comment on your report, but on the page itself. I can fix it easily, but I'm not sure if that solves anything. What's really needed is a mechanism to keep MOS in synch with MOSNUM ... Thunderbird2 (talk) 10:31, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Indeed. I housecleaned both about four or five months ago, and it needs doing again. Perhaps changes that are unstable might be omitted from a housecleaning, though, and raised at either talk. Yes, any changes since last month should go into the May update. Thanks. Tony (talk) 10:44, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

May 2008 feedback, corrections

Please list here. Tony (talk) 06:49, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

June 2008 notifications

Please notify here. Tony (talk) 02:44, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

Shortcut

The page's title is too long, creating accessibility problems; people have to look for links or create one somewhere to get here. Not good if you want editors to post messages here. Considering that the page will probably remain here for some time, I suggest creating a shortcut. WP:UPDATE is caught taken, but WP:UPDATES is not, and it would seem more suitable anyway; a hatnote in each of the two pages will promptly resolve the confusion of the occasional mistake. Waltham, The Duke of 05:27, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't know how to do this; can you do it? Tony (talk) 13:20, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I have created two shortcuts, so that both the updates and the talk page can be easily accessed; as you can see, I have added the boxes in the respective pages. I have also added hatnotes so that there will be no confusion between UPDATE and UPDATES. The former page (Update Watch) seems dormant, so the repercussions of the similarity will be minimal anyway, but it's good to have our bases covered. Waltham, The Duke of 23:46, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I'd personally suggest MOSUPDATE in preference, rather than either of the former, as that's much more specific but also short, which are both desired. --Izno (talk) 04:45, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

• Thanks to His Grace. MOSUPDATE is inappropriate because it involves much more than MOS. Tony (talk) 06:03, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Signpost links

"There were major changes to the guidelines on scientific notation, engineering notation, and uncertainty; binary prefixes; and units of measurement."

Binary prefixes should link to: WP:MOSNUM#Quantities_of_bytes_and_bits and "units of measurements" should link to WP:MOSNUM#Units of measurement. Headbomb {ταλκ – WP Physics: PotW} 15:15, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

July updates

• Wikipedia:Article development
• Wikipedia:Embedded list
• Wikipedia:Explain jargon
• Wikipedia:How to copy-edit
• Wikipedia:Lead section
  • "If the topic of an article has no commonly accepted name, and the title is simply descriptive—like Electrical characteristics of dynamic loudspeakers, Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans, or List of schools in Marlborough, New Zealand—the title does not need to appear verbatim in the main text; if it does happen to appear, it is not in boldface." (This was changed from: "it need not be in boldface".)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)
  • "Some individuals, such as k.d. lang, do not want their personal names capitalized. In such cases, Wikipedia articles may use lower case variants of personal names if they have regular and established use in reliable third-party sources. If multiple styles have regular and established use in reliable sources, use the orthography preferred by the individual."
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)
  • [Tony, that seems to be your work, do you have a summary?]
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lists of works)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)
  • "Items of middling length should be italicized or quoted as appropriate"
  • Several changes to bolding guidance
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles)
• Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context
  • [similar to Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)]
• Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid
• Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions
• Wikipedia:The perfect article
• Wikipedia:When to use tables
• Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects
• Wikipedia:Writing better articles

Done with CAT:GEN; most of the links above had no significant changes in July. If I have time I'll take pages like WP:Layout. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:43, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not going to have time this month to do more than the CAT:GEN pages I just did. Still on wikibreak. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 13:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Thank goodness for these updates. Just as I disagree with the changes to WP:MSH, I disagree with the changes to Bolding, and will now have to go find that discussion on the talk page and challenge it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:06, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

I've removed that change to boldface. Honestly, what is going on across MoS needs to be urgently addressed. Editors with very limited article building experience and content review experience are constantly fiddling with these pages, rendering MoS a wreck. The MoS WikiProject needs to be a focus of attention, and someone needs to get MoS under control. Changes to long-standing guideline pages based on one or two editors' input, with little discussion, should stop. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 16:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

And I restored them as the guidance in question was in fact based on long-standing practice. I initially made a related change back in mid-May (which apart from the inadvertent poor grammar) represented current practice based on advice on WP:REDIRECT, {{R with possibilities}}, and Category:Redirects with possibilities. There was an obvious disconnect between the text formatting guide and these other pages. While I'd accept (albeit reluctantly) removing this guidance across the board based on strong consensus -- I don't see any basis to deny that the practice is well-established. older ≠ wiser 19:40, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

That discussion is over there (where it belongs); the point here is that widespread MoS reform is needed, since these backwater discussions result in changes to long-standing guidelines, and others aren't even aware of them until Tony publishes the updates. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 19:42, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

One way of going might be to reduce to a much smaller total number of MoS pages, so that a reasonable number of people would be watching all of them (and there would be less likelihood of duplication or inconsistency). The MoS does serve a vital purpose, unlike most Wikipedia policy-waffle, but I'm sure the project would still benefit if we could reduce its total volume and level of fragmentation a bit.--Kotniski (talk) 20:13, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

We need to invigorate and use the MoS WikiProject, we need a centralized disucssion place, and keeping MoS pages from duplicating other MoS pages is a constant chore (this week I've been working to get LAYOUT to not duplicate CITE). SandyGeorgia (Talk) 21:26, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

←I responded to BKonrad on the text formatting talk page. Kotniski, that's always a good idea, and things do get discarded...pick a sentence you'd like to axe. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 23:05, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, rationalisation is urgently needed. Thanks Dan, hugely, for your input. I'll insert it now. Tony (talk) 07:22, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

My pleasure. Helps me keep up. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 15:32, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Manual of Style (main page)

Might I suggest renaming these headings to "Manual of Style (main guideline)"? The current wording makes it sound like there's an MoS for Main Page editing.--Father Goose (talk) 04:14, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

I see what you mean. Hmmm. I'd prefer just "(main)" to "(main guideline)". Tony (talk) 07:18, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

In fact the whole setup with WP:Manual of style serving as a kind of summary of various MoS(....) pages is a bit confusing. Maybe the page itself could be renamed to "Manual of style (general)" or "Manual of style (summary)" or "Manual of style (main points)" or something like that.--Kotniski (talk) 07:53, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

"(main)" would be fine. Separately, I don't have a problem with the main MoS being called just "Wikipedia:Manual of style".--Father Goose (talk) 08:52, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

August 2008 updates

August 2008 CAT:GEN

Dan et al.: I've pasted this great work into the new page here. Can we work on that page now? Thanks. Tony (talk) 06:04, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Article development
  • One addition: "Factiva - Provides multiple language interfaces and multilingual content covering nearly 9,000 sources." (See http://factiva.com/factiva. Price for individuals is $69 per year. Is this a useful and cost-effective service?) - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:03, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
• WP:Avoid neologisms
• WP:Avoid peacock terms
  • Added excellent, important, outstanding, world-famous. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive)
• WP:Avoid weasel words
  • There are discussions on proposed changes for September. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 20:42, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Embedded list
• Wikipedia:Explain jargon
• Wikipedia:How to copy-edit
  • AGF-ish material and a reminder not to copyedit talk pages were removed. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive)
• Wikipedia:Lead section
  • "Content of the lead" section added, listing the order of some elements. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style
  • Addition to the Animals section [quote]:
    • In articles that cover two or more taxonomic groups, a consistent style of capitalisation should be used for species names. This could involve:
    • using scientific names throughout - often appropriate for articles of a specialist nature.
    • using title case for common names of species throughout (per WP:BIRDS) and lower case for non-specific names such as eagle or bilberry, which may work well for articles with a broad coverage of natural history.
    • using lower case for common names, which may work well for non-specialist articles that happen to refer to various different taxonomic groups.
  • We're now recommending {{sic}}, which looks like [sic].
  • There's a change to the recommendation on using ' " which I might disagree with; I'm asking around.
  • Use / when representing mathematical division, except in the context of elementary arithmetic. (I think everyone did already.)
  • New section, Punctuation after formulas: "A sentence that ends with a formula must have a period after the formula. If the conventional punctuation rules would require a question mark, comma, semicolon, or other punctuation at that place, the formula must be followed by that punctuation."
  • Full date formatting is now deprecated.
  • Some tweaking of seasonal terminology.
  • No more imperial units (in UK-related articles or otherwise).
  • Added subsection: Ampersand.
  • Dispute tag added regarding preference of name and pronoun for transgendered persons.
  • New subsection: "Scrolling lists, for example of references, should never be used".
  • "Do not leave blank lines between items in a bulleted or numbered list unless there is a reason to do so, since this causes the Wiki software to interpret each list item as an individual list." - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:08, 27 August 2008 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (capital letters)
• WP:Manual of Style (dates and numbers)
  • Dates: "A comma comes between day and year". "Dates are not linked unless there is a particular reason to do so." Only use Template:birth date and age and Template:death date and age if both dates are in the Gregorian calendar. "The 1700s is 1700–1799".
  • New section, Fractions, beginning: "The template {{frac}} is available for representing common fractions."
  • Units [quote]: In the main body text, the first instances of units of measurements should be spelled out at least once, and perhaps several times for less familiar units before unit symbols are employed. For instance, one should write “…the typical batch is 250 kilograms…” before one later writes “…and then 15 kg of emulsifier is added.” For less common units of measure, editors should not employ unit symbols without first showing the unit symbol parenthetically after the first use of the full unit name. [Note: there's a little more in the last sentence that I don't quote; I'm following the AP Stylebook convention here of not using an ellipsis; the fact that the period is outside the quotes means that I'm not making any representation whether there was a period there or not.] "For reasons of legibility, the preferred symbol for the unprefixed liter is upper-case L." - Dan Dank55 (send/receive)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (links)
  • "Generally, where it is likely that a reader may wish to read about another topic, the reader should not have to hunt for a link elsewhere in the page" removed. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 03:28, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (spelling)
  • Details added, but no significant change to guidance. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (text formatting)
  • Computer games are no longer in the list of titles commonly italicized. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive)
  • Added: "A proper name is usually not italicized when it is used, but it may be italicized when the name itself is being referred to (see Words as words)." - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 02:31, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Manual of Style (titles)
• WP:Manual of Style (trademarks)
  • "Distinguish clearly between the trademark and the company name when, as with Dell, it is customary to do so. Company names should normally be given in the most common form in English; only specify International Business Machines Corporation to state that that is the legal name, otherwise call it IBM, as our sources do." - Dan Dank55 (send/receive)
• Wikipedia:Only make links that are relevant to the context
  • Don't link dates without "a good reason to do so". - Dan Dank55 (send/receive)
• Wikipedia:Profanity
• Wikipedia:Self-references to avoid
• Wikipedia:Technical terms and definitions
• Wikipedia:The perfect article
• Wikipedia:When to use tables
• Wikipedia:Wikimedia sister projects
  • There's a proposal to split off the examples to a separate page. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 21:01, 26 August 2008 (UTC)
• Wikipedia:Words to avoid
  • New section: Controversy
  • Statistical meanings of "significantly" and "associated"
  • A little tweaking on the words theory, extremist, terrorist and freedom fighter.
  • I removed what was supposed to be a quote from NPOV that wasn't at NPOV; I also removed an EL in the text. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive)
• Wikipedia:Writing better articles

Other

• Wikipedia:Disambiguation and abbreviations no longer a guideline

Can you all track down this change at WP:PR? [1] Are you covering WP:ACCESSIBILITY? We've been working on it. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 04:11, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

I asked about WP:ACCESS at WT:MOS. I don't keep up with WP:PR; does anyone know if it's true that they're not taking requests now for articles that failed WP:FAC or WP:GAN in the last two weeks? I'll do the updates tomorrow morning for the 5 pages I added to CAT:GEN this evening. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 03:26, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

There's a recent change at WP:ACCESSIBILITY that will ripple through to WP:LEAD and WP:LAYOUT; I'm going to be traveling, so one of you may want to stay on top of it. The recent changes at PR are because they're getting overwhelmed, no one is helping out, and Ruhrfisch (talk · contribs) is carrying the load alone over there. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:13, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Ouch! I hope that's mostly a matter of the regulars taking trips in August. I'll keep asking for help with working WP:ACCESSIBILITY into CAT:GEN; I know little about image and table issues, and I need help with comparing that page with the pages in the Image cat. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 03:22, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

I don't know this "Cat" shorthand; only that accessibility is an important guideline. I'm not aware of it being out of sync with anything. SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:47, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Per WP:PG, which is policy, the only policies and guidelines on Wikipedia are in Category:Wikipedia policies and guidelines or one of its subcats. Category:Accessibility is not one of those subcats, and that's the only category WP:ACCESSIBILITY is in. But I have no objection to making it a guideline. - Dan Dank55 (send/receive) 15:38, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

• Yes, I'll get onto finishing it. Tony (talk) 04:45, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Dispatch

Hope you all are on track for Wikipedia:FCDW/September 8, 2008 Dispatch? SandyGeorgia (Talk) 03:58, 3 September 2008 (UTC)