Our Manual of Style is lengthy, comprehensive and really sucks to read. Compare to something really readable, like Fowler's or Strunk & White. Or even Chicago. Have you ever picked up these books and thought "this is really good, I can use this stuff"? I'd hope you had.
But, rather than being a guideline for thoughtful application by editors seeking guidance in writing effective encyclopedia entries, it's become a sequence of programming instructions for bots.
So here's an attempt to make the intro readable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&diff...
Our MOS should be something that editors should *want* to read.
Anyone want to help recast the rest of the megabytes of MOS as thoughtful guidance in English, rather than programming instructions for bots?
- d.
On 5/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Our Manual of Style is lengthy, comprehensive and really sucks to read. Compare to something really readable, like Fowler's or Strunk & White. Or even Chicago. Have you ever picked up these books and thought "this is really good, I can use this stuff"? I'd hope you had.
But, rather than being a guideline for thoughtful application by editors seeking guidance in writing effective encyclopedia entries, it's become a sequence of programming instructions for bots.
So here's an attempt to make the intro readable:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style&diff...
Our MOS should be something that editors should *want* to read.
Anyone want to help recast the rest of the megabytes of MOS as thoughtful guidance in English, rather than programming instructions for bots?
I must say that I disagree slightly with your premise: the MOS is intended to be used as a reference when writing articles, so that if you are unsure about something you can easily look it up. To take a completely random example from it, about celestial bodies (this is a long quote, now):
"Celestial bodies
Names of other planets and stars are proper nouns and begin with a capital letter: "The planet Mars can be seen tonight in the constellation Gemini, near the star Pollux." In cases where the name has multiple words, it is treated like other proper nouns where each leading letter is capitalized: "Alpha Centauri" and not "Alpha centauri".
The words sun, earth, and moon are proper nouns when the sentence uses them in an astronomical context, but not elsewhere: so "The Sun is a main sequence star, with a spectral class of G2"; but "It was a lovely day and the sun was warm". Note that these terms are proper nouns only when they refer to specific celestial bodies (our Sun, Earth and Moon): so "The Moon orbits the Earth", but "Pluto's moon Charon"."
This makes for incredibly boring reading, but if you are writing an article on an astronomical topic, this is very helpful. Especially if you are, like me, not a native English speaker, and are sometimes unsure about the language. This was just a random example by the way, there are plenty of other sections with similarly helpful little hints.
I don't want to the MOS to be readable, I want it to be useful.
--Oskar
On 21/05/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I don't want to the MOS to be readable, I want it to be useful.
The point is that it needs readability to be useful.
In practice at present it's primary use is for editors of questionable social skill to use it as a stick for hitting other editors they are having an argument with, and is edited as a game of [[Nomic]].
- d.
On 5/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The point is that it needs readability to be useful.
In practice at present it's primary use is for editors of questionable social skill to use it as a stick for hitting other editors they are having an argument with, and is edited as a game of [[Nomic]].
I would strongly disagree with that. While there is certainly some argument going on about different points of the policy (as there are about any policy), I'm convinced that the vast, vast majority of people uses the MOS as simply a reference (I certainly do), and don't edit it once. I think it is completely wrong to say that "it's primary use is for editors of questionable social skill to use it as a stick for hitting other editors they are having an argument with". I think that this is one of those times when it is hard to see beyond the tiny minority of people who do nothing but argue and argue all day. They make the most noise, but they represent only a fraction of the wikipedia user-base.
On 21/05/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
The point is that it needs readability to be useful. In practice at present it's primary use is for editors of questionable social skill to use it as a stick for hitting other editors they are having an argument with, and is edited as a game of [[Nomic]].
I would strongly disagree with that. While there is certainly some
[...]
for hitting other editors they are having an argument with". I think that this is one of those times when it is hard to see beyond the tiny minority of people who do nothing but argue and argue all day. They make the most noise, but they represent only a fraction of the wikipedia user-base.
Hmm, fair enough. But I was particularly annoyed by practical problems, e.g. the section on disambig pages, which really was written as instructions suitable for coding a bot and had demonstrably led to editors reducing the usefulness and followability of disambig pages to enforce the guidelines as hard rules.
So phrasing and readability are in fact important.
- d.
On 5/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Hmm, fair enough. But I was particularly annoyed by practical problems, e.g. the section on disambig pages, which really was written as instructions suitable for coding a bot and had demonstrably led to editors reducing the usefulness and followability of disambig pages to enforce the guidelines as hard rules.
Yeah, I see what you mean. [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)]] is kind of a mess. That page could do with a rewriting (and loosening up), but I would still argue that the main MoS page and most of the other subpages are pretty damn decent. I mean, their huge and unreadable if you are trying to memorize them, but if you are looking for a specific style point, they're very useful.
Also, I would like to point out that the MoS is one of the wikipedia policies that actually work very well (a cynic would say "one of the few", but that's not me!) I mean, wikipedia is very consistent with its style without hurting the articles themselves. I mean, with infoboxes, succesionboxes, references, intros and everything else. These things are done well throughout the encyclopedia and make us look very polished indeed. Sometimes they lead to craziness (especially the boxes), but mostly it works out fairly nice
--Oskar
On 21/05/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
Yeah, I see what you mean. [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style (disambiguation pages)]] is kind of a mess. That page could do with a rewriting (and loosening up), but I would still argue that the main MoS page and most of the other subpages are pretty damn decent. I mean, their huge and unreadable if you are trying to memorize them, but if you are looking for a specific style point, they're very useful. Also, I would like to point out that the MoS is one of the wikipedia policies that actually work very well (a cynic would say "one of the few", but that's not me!) I mean, wikipedia is very consistent with its style without hurting the articles themselves. I mean, with infoboxes, succesionboxes, references, intros and everything else. These things are done well throughout the encyclopedia and make us look very polished indeed. Sometimes they lead to craziness (especially the boxes), but mostly it works out fairly nice
I shall take care not to break things, then :-)
- d.
On 5/21/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I shall take care not to break things, then :-)
This is what I'm saying :)
--Oskar
On 21/05/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
I must say that I disagree slightly with your premise: the MOS is intended to be used as a reference when writing articles, so that if you are unsure about something you can easily look it up.
Thinking further: that's a question of its organisation, rather than of the writing on a sentence by sentence level, which is what's concerning me.
- d.
Hell, I've never even read the MoS. Has anyone? You either write well and reference your stuff, or you don't. It's not that hard. Oh, if someone points out that I'm doing something "wrong", I'll fix it, but if I actually bothered to read the MoS I'd never write anything or get anything done. The urge to conformity is all very nice, but sometime you just have to do your own damn thing. IAR etc.
Moreschi
_________________________________________________________________ Play your part in making history - Email Britain! http://www.emailbritain.co.uk/
On 5/21/07, Christiano Moreschi moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
Hell, I've never even read the MoS. Has anyone? You either write well and reference your stuff, or you don't. It's not that hard. Oh, if someone points out that I'm doing something "wrong", I'll fix it, but if I actually bothered to read the MoS I'd never write anything or get anything done. The urge to conformity is all very nice, but sometime you just have to do your own damn thing. IAR etc.
Moreschi
Play your part in making history - Email Britain! http://www.emailbritain.co.uk/
Or you write well enough, include the substance, and let other editors take care of your style--it's a group effort, after all. I want to adopt all of the folks who stalk me to edit my contributions and take them to work and school with me for all my writing needs. Alas, they all seem to have lives outside of correcting my turgid prose on Wikipedia.
KP
Or you write well enough, include the substance, and let other editors take care of your style--it's a group effort, after all. I want to adopt all of the folks who stalk me to edit my contributions and take them to work and school with me for all my writing needs. Alas, they all seem to have lives outside of correcting my turgid prose on Wikipedia.
Amen to that. Every prolific editor should have a stable of copyeditors and critiquers. I couldn't do well without them.
-Jeff
On 5/21/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Or you write well enough, include the substance, and let other editors take care of your style--it's a group effort, after all. I want to adopt all of the folks who stalk me to edit my contributions and take them to work and school with me for all my writing needs. Alas, they all seem to have lives outside of correcting my turgid prose on Wikipedia.
Yeah, this is what I do mostly (not stalk you, I mean copyediting). I don't refer to the MoS much (you get the hang of the "wikipedia style" pretty quickly), but when I do wonder about something it is a very handy reference. As I've said, I really like it and don't think there is an urgent need (or any need at all, really) to overhaul it.
--Oskar
On 5/21/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/21/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
Or you write well enough, include the substance, and let other editors
take
care of your style--it's a group effort, after all. I want to adopt all
of
the folks who stalk me to edit my contributions and take them to work
and
school with me for all my writing needs. Alas, they all seem to have
lives
outside of correcting my turgid prose on Wikipedia.
Yeah, this is what I do mostly (not stalk you, I mean copyediting). I don't refer to the MoS much (you get the hang of the "wikipedia style" pretty quickly), but when I do wonder about something it is a very handy reference. As I've said, I really like it and don't think there is an urgent need (or any need at all, really) to overhaul it.
--Oskar
I couldn't do a wiki date to save my life, so I simply use my edit summaries to request that someone format the date for me--I did try to look dates up in MoS once, even got some great help, but decided it was too much work, especially when total strangers who watch recent changes are willing to jump in and format my dates.
As all the folks doing my copyediting seem to have a handle on style issues, as nobody ever insults my style *after* my posse has made it beautiful.
KP
On 5/21/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
I couldn't do a wiki date to save my life, so I simply use my edit summaries to request that someone format the date for me--I did try to look dates up in MoS once, even got some great help, but decided it was too much work, especially when total strangers who watch recent changes are willing to jump in and format my dates.
As all the folks doing my copyediting seem to have a handle on style issues, as nobody ever insults my style *after* my posse has made it beautiful.
If you're curious, dates are actually dead easy, you can pretty much enter them in any format you want as long as you link them. The date format will then be configured by MediaWiki and the user preferences. Example:
[[December 24]] [[2006]] [[24 December]], [[2006]] [[2006]], [[December 24]]
These will all render the same way, depending on your preferences. Of all the strange MediaWiki formatting things, this one is actually pretty simple :)
--Oskar
On 5/21/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
These will all render the same way, depending on your preferences. Of all the strange MediaWiki formatting things, this one is actually pretty simple :)
I prefer entering dates as [[2006-12-24]] in natural sort order, and to drive the point home to editors that come after me that date display is a preference and you don't need to edit date links for style. If it helps a newbie editor 'get' that dates work that way, all to the good.
-Matt
On 5/22/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/21/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
These will all render the same way, depending on your preferences. Of all the strange MediaWiki formatting things, this one is actually pretty simple :)
I prefer entering dates as [[2006-12-24]] in natural sort order, and to drive the point home to editors that come after me that date display is a preference and you don't need to edit date links for style. If it helps a newbie editor 'get' that dates work that way, all to the good.
Perhaps you should consider the vast continent of Wikipedia readers who don't have accounts (or date preferences), and not the small village of actual editors with accounts and date preferences set.
The MOS is a result of collaboration and consensus, and having to go round tidying up after people who are trying to make some self-centred point against consensus is work that I'd prefer not to have to do.
-- Peter in Canberra
On 5/21/07, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps you should consider the vast continent of Wikipedia readers who don't have accounts (or date preferences), and not the small village of actual editors with accounts and date preferences set.
Actually, I incorrectly believed that MediaWiki by default chose American format and would in fact convert these even for anonymous readers. I just checked, and it turns out I was wrong. I apologize; since these do not display normally for non logged-in users, I won't do that in future.
The MOS is a result of collaboration and consensus, and having to go round tidying up after people who are trying to make some self-centred point against consensus is work that I'd prefer not to have to do.
Actually, I don't think the MOS says that any supported date format is incorrect - at least, it did not when I last read that section. Thus, entering dates in any supported format is not 'against consensus'. The entire point of user date preferences and the way they were implemented was exactly because no consensus on these things could be reached.
-Matt
On 5/22/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/21/07, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
The MOS is a result of collaboration and consensus, and having to go
round
tidying up after people who are trying to make some self-centred point against consensus is work that I'd prefer not to have to do.
Actually, I don't think the MOS says that any supported date format is incorrect - at least, it did not when I last read that section. Thus, entering dates in any supported format is not 'against consensus'. The entire point of user date preferences and the way they were implemented was exactly because no consensus on these things could be reached.
So if I add a sentence to the [[George W Bush]] article describing today's events and I begin "On [[23 May]] [[2007]]..." then that's not incorrect? After all, International Dating is a supported format.
So if I add a sentence to the [[George W Bush]] article describing today's events and I begin "On [[23 May]] [[2007]]..." then that's not incorrect? After all, International Dating is a supported format.
-- Peter in Canberra
It seems strange to endorse the use of ~~~~ when signing discussions, but not standardize on that format's use elsewhere....
Angela
On 5/21/07, Oskar Sigvardsson oskarsigvardsson@gmail.com wrote:
On 5/21/07, K P kpbotany@gmail.com wrote:
I couldn't do a wiki date to save my life, so I simply use my edit
summaries
to request that someone format the date for me--I did try to look dates
up
in MoS once, even got some great help, but decided it was too much work, especially when total strangers who watch recent changes are willing to
jump
in and format my dates.
As all the folks doing my copyediting seem to have a handle on style
issues,
as nobody ever insults my style *after* my posse has made it beautiful.
If you're curious, dates are actually dead easy, you can pretty much enter them in any format you want as long as you link them. The date format will then be configured by MediaWiki and the user preferences. Example:
[[December 24]] [[2006]] [[24 December]], [[2006]] [[2006]], [[December 24]]
These will all render the same way, depending on your preferences. Of all the strange MediaWiki formatting things, this one is actually pretty simple :)
--Oskar
The problem I have with dates is entering them in my references. I seldom use a date in an article's text, other than a year, because I do mostly natural history articles, and some few biographies with other editors who do the detail work (such as dates). But I would like to know once and for all how to enter a date in a reference so it shows up correctly, since you're offering--this is inside the tag. If it requires more than one comment, though, skip it.
KP
On 5/22/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
But, rather than being a guideline for thoughtful application by editors seeking guidance in writing effective encyclopedia entries, it's become a sequence of programming instructions for bots.
The bigger problem is the MoS's uncertainty over its own authority. IMHO, it's a rulebook. To others it's a guide, to be ignored...whenever. I feel that the encyclopaedia benefits when we have cast-iron layout rules that every article must follow, with rare and notable exceptions. To others, the MoS is a restriction on freedom of expression, to be watered down so that even vastly different approaches to layout are apparently all supported.
Steve