Is it just me, or is the capitalisation of section headings becoming more and more common? I seem to recall that previously it was relatively rare to find an article using that format, sufficiently so that I would take the time to fix it. But now I see so many that I don't bother.
Here's one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Davies
Steve
On 9/5/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Is it just me, or is the capitalisation of section headings becoming more and more common? I seem to recall that previously it was relatively rare to find an article using that format, sufficiently so that I would take the time to fix it. But now I see so many that I don't bother.
Here's one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Davies
Steve
That's bad? I thought it was preferred...
On 9/5/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
That's bad? I thought it was preferred...
Ah. No, it's bad. From the WP:MOS:
Wording
In headings and subheadings:
* only the first letter of the first word, and the first letter of proper nouns are capitalized; all other letters are in lower case (for example, "Rules and regulations", not "Rules and Regulations");
Steve
On 05/09/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
That's bad? I thought it was preferred...
Ah. No, it's bad. From the WP:MOS:
Wording
In headings and subheadings:
* only the first letter of the first word, and the first letter ofproper nouns are capitalized; all other letters are in lower case (for example, "Rules and regulations", not "Rules and Regulations");
Does the Manual Of Style need updating to reflect current practice? Wikipedia generally puts out the idea that it is not static.
Peter
On 9/5/07, Peter Ansell ansell.peter@gmail.com wrote:
Does the Manual Of Style need updating to reflect current practice? Wikipedia generally puts out the idea that it is not static.
Uh, I think we're a long way short of consensus that we want to capitalise section headings. The Manual of Style is by definition prescriptive. Making big changes to it should be a last resort approached with caution.
Steve
On 05/09/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/07, Peter Ansell ansell.peter@gmail.com wrote:
Does the Manual Of Style need updating to reflect current practice? Wikipedia generally puts out the idea that it is not static.
Uh, I think we're a long way short of consensus that we want to capitalise section headings. The Manual of Style is by definition prescriptive. Making big changes to it should be a last resort approached with caution.
Steve
When was there consensus to ensure every article uses the non-capitalised section headings style?
Certainly I seem to remember both being allowed - the theory being to stick with whatever style the article was begun with - like the US English vs. English approach.
Zoney
Zoney wrote:
On 05/09/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/07, Peter Ansell ansell.peter@gmail.com wrote:
Does the Manual Of Style need updating to reflect current practice? Wikipedia generally puts out the idea that it is not static.
Uh, I think we're a long way short of consensus that we want to capitalise section headings. The Manual of Style is by definition prescriptive. Making big changes to it should be a last resort approached with caution.
Steve
When was there consensus to ensure every article uses the non-capitalised section headings style?
Certainly I seem to remember both being allowed - the theory being to stick with whatever style the article was begun with - like the US English vs. English approach.
This was pretty well established as far back as 2002, at least as far as article titles are concerned. A Manual of Style is often a matter of choosing conventions from equally valid alternatives. To the extent that linkages will consider capitalised and non-capitalised as distinct it is important to choose a workable convention. By and large I think there are fewer ambiguities with a sentence style heading. A headline style can still have ambiguities in how we treat longer supportive words in a title. The other point is that according to the "Chicago Manual of Style" headline style headings are unique to English and Latin. Other languages all use sentence style, and we have many editors for whom English is not a native language.
No-one should be criticised or punished for using the wrong heading style. Editors should just quietly change these headings without fuss when they are encountered. Some will try to change things back, but there's no need to use that as a basis for confrontation. Let them when they insist. In all likelihood if a large number of editors support the sentence style it will prevail anyways.
Ec
On 9/5/07, Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
When was there consensus to ensure every article uses the non-capitalised section headings style?
Since a long, long time ago.
Certainly I seem to remember both being allowed - the theory being to stick with whatever style the article was begun with - like the US English vs. English approach.
AFAIK, this has never been in the style guidelines.
-Matt
On 9/6/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/07, Zoney zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
When was there consensus to ensure every article uses the
non-capitalised
section headings style?
Since a long, long time ago.
Certainly I seem to remember both being allowed - the theory being to
stick
with whatever style the article was begun with - like the US English vs. English approach.
AFAIK, this has never been in the style guidelines.
One thing I've found even more perplexing than the prevalence of Headings Like This is the prevalence of level-three headings where level-2 headings ought to be; I keep running into them far more often than I feel I should; [[Vanilla Ice]] is one such article. I have a feeling this is because people find level-2 headings are too big (the same reason in the early days of HTML a lot of people used <h3> instead of <h1>), but I really don't have any actual idea why this is happening.
Johnleemk
John Lee wrote:
One thing I've found even more perplexing than the prevalence of Headings Like This is the prevalence of level-three headings where level-2 headings ought to be; I keep running into them far more often than I feel I should; [[Vanilla Ice]] is one such article. I have a feeling this is because people find level-2 headings are too big (the same reason in the early days of HTML a lot of people used <h3> instead of <h1>), but I really don't have any actual idea why this is happening.
The most straightforward explanation is that most editors have never even heard of the MoS, let alone read it, and just choose styles randomly, a la myspace. Many don't even try to mimic the style already found in an article, they just start typing away. Fortunately, they rarely if ever fight to keep the stylistic randomness, so fixing is an easy way for gnomes to rack up edits. :-)
Stan
There are a few editors who go about enforcing this point of the MoS anyhow - I tend to capitalise against it, and they come along and fix it in every article I write like clockwork.
As far as I know, nobody goes around editing actively against it, so things settle that way.
WilyD
On 9/5/07, Stan Shebs stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
John Lee wrote:
One thing I've found even more perplexing than the prevalence of
Headings
Like This is the prevalence of level-three headings where level-2
headings
ought to be; I keep running into them far more often than I feel I
should;
[[Vanilla Ice]] is one such article. I have a feeling this is because
people
find level-2 headings are too big (the same reason in the early days of
HTML
a lot of people used <h3> instead of <h1>), but I really don't have any actual idea why this is happening.
The most straightforward explanation is that most editors have never even heard of the MoS, let alone read it, and just choose styles randomly, a la myspace. Many don't even try to mimic the style already found in an article, they just start typing away. Fortunately, they rarely if ever fight to keep the stylistic randomness, so fixing is an easy way for gnomes to rack up edits. :-)
Stan
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On 9/5/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
That's bad? I thought it was preferred...
Ah. No, it's bad. From the WP:MOS:
Wording
In headings and subheadings:
* only the first letter of the first word, and the first letter ofproper nouns are capitalized; all other letters are in lower case (for example, "Rules and regulations", not "Rules and Regulations");
Steve
Ah, ok, someone had fixed it before I went to look, and I neglected to check the history.
Nevermind my comment. You were correct. Carry on.
Steve Bennett schrieb:
Is it just me, or is the capitalisation of section headings becoming more and more common?
Here's one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Davies
Well, someone fixed it. On the other hand, when I see this article, the first thing that pops in my mind is things like notability, unreferenced, wp:not#plot and the like. Section headings would only have come somewhere down the road.
Peter Ansell schrieb:
On 05/09/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
That's bad? I thought it was preferred...
Ah. No, it's bad. From the WP:MOS:
Does the Manual Of Style need updating to reflect current practice? Wikipedia generally puts out the idea that it is not static.
Peter: In this case, the manual of style should be used to point other users there so they learn about the standard styles. It's not a collection of essays that chronicle the taste of the masses, or so I hope.
Adrian