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User:Wavelength/About Wikipedia/Manual of Style/Register

< User:Wavelength‎ | About Wikipedia‎ | Manual of Style

Unfortunately, the second deletion discussion occurred during my increased preoccupation by several things outside Wikipedia, and I did not examine the text of the Register as thoroughly as I should have. While I am grateful to Darkfrog24 for (his or her) help in adding discussion links to the Register, I am disappointed that questionable material has possibly been added (perhaps in good faith). The more that I examine the Register, the more that I find that the possibly bad content is entangled with the good content. The situation is similar, in some aspects, to the one described at Matthew 13 24–30. I wish that I had acted more effectively to save the Register in its original namespace, perhaps by removing some good material along with possibly bad material. Perhaps I will undertake the task of removing the questionable material at some time in the future. I do not endorse the present version.
—Wavelength (talk) 23:21, 7 February 2016 (UTC) and 23:32, 7 February 2016 (UTC) and 01:24, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

This page is a work in progress, a working draft of a supplement to the Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Its purpose is to record decisions made in discussions at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style. For more details, please see the January 2010 discussion archived at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style/Archive 113#Recording consensus.

This document is meant as a reference of consensus decisions on the Wikipedia Manual of Style and, when available, the reasoning behind each consensus. It is not itself a collection of guidelines, rules, or laws. Just the fact that a consensus has been recorded on this page does not mean that that consensus is a permanent and unchangeable part of Wikipedia. This register is meant only to give editors better understanding of the current state of things, which is useful both to those considering proposing changes and to those seeking to better implement the MoS as it exists.


Article titles, headings, and sections edit

Article titles edit

Section organization edit

Section headings edit

National varieties of English edit

(subsections re-ordered)

Opportunities for commonality edit

Consistency within articles edit

Strong national ties to a topic edit

Retaining the existing variety edit

Capital letters edit

Do not use capitals for emphasis edit

(new subsection)

Capitalization of "The" edit

Titles of works edit

(new subsection)

Titles of people edit

Religions, deities, philosophies, doctrines edit

Calendar items edit

Animals, plants, and other organisms edit

Celestial bodies edit

Compass points edit

Thread retitled from "Directions and regions".

Institutions edit

Ligatures edit

(new section)

Abbreviations edit

Write out both the full version and the abbreviation at first occurrence edit

(new subsection)

Plural and possessive forms edit

(new subsection)

Full stops and spaces edit

(new subsection)

US and U.S. edit

(new subsection)

Circa edit

(new subsection)

Do not use unwarranted abbreviations edit

(new subsection)

Do not invent abbreviations or acronyms edit

(new subsection)

HTML elements edit

(new subsection)

Ampersand edit

Bold edit

Italics edit

Emphasis edit

(new subsection)

Titles edit

(new subsection)

Words as words edit

(new subsection)

Foreign words edit

(new subsection)

Scientific names edit

(new subsection)

Quotations in italics edit

(new subjection)

Italics within quotations edit

(new subsection)

Effect on nearby punctuation edit

(new subsection)

Italicized links edit

(new subsection)

Controlling line breaks edit

Thread retitled from "Non-breaking spaces".

Technical information edit

(subsection removed)

Use edit

(subsection removed)

Quotations edit

Original wording edit

Thread retitled from "Minimal change".

Point of view edit

(new subsection)

Typographic conformity edit

Thread retitled from "Allowable typographical changes".

Quotations within quotations edit

Attribution edit

Linking edit

Block quotations edit

Foreign-language quotations edit

Punctuation edit

Apostrophes edit

Quotation marks edit

Reasons to prefer straight quotation marks and apostrophes edit

Thread retitled from "Curly or straight".

Currently there is no consensus regarding which quotation glyphs to use. Originally the rule was introduced on 10 April 2003 in [1] without any discussion on the Talk page (see [1]). The rule stated “For uniformity and to avoid complications use straight quotation marks and apostrophes”. The debate regarding the appropriateness of this rule started in [18], [19] with the conclusion that the MoS have to be changed, yet all such changes have been reverted. Since then, the issue has been revisited many times.

The reasons currently provided for using straight quotation marks are as follows:

They are easier to type in reliably, and to edit. Mostly true, excepting that users would have to turn off the “smart quotes” function when pasting text from word processors.

Mixed use interferes with some searches, such as those using the browser’s search facility (a search for Alzheimer's disease could fail to find Alzheimer’s disease and vice versa). Apostrophes figure in this part of the debate, though it is argued that they are not relevant to the discussion of quotation glyphs. Modern browsers (such as Google Chrome) are capable of understanding that ' and ’ probably mean the same thing, so they will find both the “Alzheimer's” and “Alzheimer’s” regardless of how it is typed. I has also been argued that most people already know that the safe way of searching for “Alzheimer’s disease” is to type “Alzheimer disease”. The lack of complaints regarding other special characters such as those in “Rao–Cramér inequality”, which are even harder to search for in an older browser, has also been noted.

Furthermore, wiki markup tags (such as <ref name="xxx"/>) will not work if curly quotation marks are used. Tags are a part of computer language. They are meant for the computer, not for the people. It is an error to use curly quotation marks to delimit strings in wiki markup, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or most other computer languages.

The arguments in favor of recommending the curly quotation glyphs are as follows:

They are typographically correct. Meaning that it is the standard of English language to use glyphs “” to denote quotations. This rule can be found in most serious manuals of styles, both for paper and electronic documents. Most Wikipedia Manuals of Styles in other languages explicitly forbid the use of straight quotation marks. See for example German, French, Russian, Italian versions.

Reasons to prefer double quotation marks to single quotation marks edit

Thread retitled from "Single or double".

The Wikipedia MoS prefers double quotation marks to single ones because they are more discernible visually, and there is no risk of mistaking a quotation mark for an apostrophe. This rule may have been put in place as part of a split-the-difference attempt to balance British and American English punctuation practices, in which the early MoS favored British style punctuation for periods and commas with quotation marks in exchange for preferring double quotes. This deal was made under the mistaken belief that British always requires single quotation marks.

Names and titles edit

(new sub-subsection)

Punctuation inside or outside edit

This is a partial list of major MoS discussions, as of June 2015, about quotation marks and closing punctuation (does not include passing mentions):

Brackets and parentheses edit

Sentences and brackets edit

Brackets and linking edit

Ellipses edit

Commas edit

Serial commas edit

Colons edit

Semicolons edit

Semicolon before "however" edit

Hyphens edit

Dashes edit

Punctuating a sentence (em or en dashes) edit

En dashes: other uses edit

Other dashes edit

Slashes edit

And/or edit

Number signs edit

Terminal punctuation edit

(subsection removed)

Punctuation and inline citations edit

Citations are always placed after punctuation when they occur together. This occurs regardless of whether the citation pertains to the entire preceding paragraph, or only the preceding sentence or clause. In placing inline citations and footnote marks after periods and commas, Wikipedia follows the overwhelming majority of reputable publications. Only one publication, Nature magazine, was found to place citations before punctuation. In addition, most of the Wikipedians involved in the discussion, even the ones supporting an allow-both policy, voiced preferences for the consistency and look of post-punctuation citations.

This issue most recently came under discussion in February 2010, when one editor found a discrepancy between WP:MoS and WP:FN. WP:MoS allowed only post-punctuation citations while WP:FN allowed both post- and pre-punctuation citations. After much discussion, WP:FN was altered to allow only post-punctuation citations.

Spaces between said punctuation and the inline citations were deemed neither sightly nor necessary, by consensus on WP:MoS.

Spacing edit

Spaces following terminal punctuation edit

Consecutive punctuation marks edit

Punctuation and footnotes edit

Punctuation after formulae edit

Dates and time edit

Time of day edit

Days edit

Choice of format edit

Months and seasons edit

(separated into "Months" and "Seasons"; see below)

Months edit

(new subsection)

Seasons edit

(new subsection)

Years and longer periods edit

Current edit

Numbers edit

Currencies edit

Units of measurement edit

Common mathematical symbols edit

Grammar and usage edit

Thread retitled from "Grammar".

Possessives edit

Singular nouns edit

(new sub-subsection)

Plural nouns edit

(new sub-subsection)

Official names edit

(new sub-subsection)

Pronouns edit

(new sub-subsection)

First-person pronouns edit

Second-person pronouns edit

Plurals edit

Verb tense edit

(new subsection)

Vocabulary edit

Contractions edit

Gender-neutral language edit

As of January 2010, there is no consensus either for or against the use of the singular "they" in Wikipedia. Arguments for its acceptability include its long history in English, the fact that it is common in informal speech and writing and grammatical rules that permit a plural pronoun with words such as "everyone" that do not refer to a specific subject. Arguments against its use include its informality and the grammatical impropriety of using a plural pronoun for a singular subject. Please see the articles on WP: Gender-neutral language and the singular they for more information.

The most recent discussion of the singular "they" can be found here.

Contested vocabulary edit

Instructional and presumptuous language edit

Subset terms edit

Identity edit

Use of "Arab" and "Arabic" edit

(new sub-section)

Gender identity edit

(new sub-section)

The practice of using the most recent publicly preferred pronoun and/or first name of any individual whose gender might be questioned, such as trans men and trans women, has been challenged and revisited more than once. There are many levels of opinion on this issue. Some believe in using the most recent preferred pronoun to refer to the subject throughout his or her life (current policy). Some believe in using the pronoun corresponding to the subject's gender of rearing when writing about periods before the subject's gender transition and then the preferred pronoun only when writing about periods after the subject's gender transition. Some believe that only the pronoun corresponding to the gender of rearing should be used. Still others believe that the context, such as whether the person is more notable as a man or a woman, should decide the matter. Below is a partial list of discussions of this issue as it pertains to the Wikipedia Manual of Style. Be advised that conversations from a few years ago may use now-outdated terminology.

The MoS's instructions regarding transgender individuals who are mentioned in passing in other articles (as opposed to in articles of which they are the principal subject) date to a single RfC in late 2015. The RfC was inspired by a conflict in the article space: whether to name "Bruce Jenner" or "Caitlyn Jenner" on a list of Olympic athletes. Not all of the RfC's results were clear, but the majority of participants agreed that context should play the largest role in determining whether to use one name or both and which one. The idea of requiring that the previous name be used alone in all cases was specifically rejected.

Below is a partial list of discussions pertaining to other parts of MOS:IDENTITY.

Foreign terms edit

Technical language edit

Geographical items edit

Images edit

Avoid entering textual information as images edit

Captions edit

(previously a section)

Formatting of captions edit

(previously a subsection of "Captions")

Bulleted and numbered lists edit

Links edit

Wikilinks edit

External links edit

(previously a subsection of "Links")

Miscellaneous edit

Keep markup simple edit

Formatting issues edit

Color coding edit

Scrolling lists and collapsible content edit

Invisible comments edit

Pronunciation edit

See also edit

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